Original American Culture

Well as they say, time heals all wounds. My legs eventually recovered from the incredible journey and life goes on. The tajik tummy stayed around awhile longer, but that too passed in time. This week, we had a nice surprise when a group of Native American performers came by the Embassy on Friday. The group had been touring the country as part of a Public Affairs program (the kind of thing I should be doing later in my career) and I guess they had some extra time. They did a really neat show demonstrating their skill with a whip – things like cutting a newspaper in half, or breaking pasta that someone was holding in their mouth. I don’t think my description is really doing it justice, but it was amazing.

Then they announced that they’d be putting on a show in front of the opera house that evening. So I arranged for Stephanie to meet me there to watch the display. It was a mix of traditional Native American dance, storytelling, and some games where the kids were allowed to play. Aside from being a great performance, it was so nice to see some true American culture on display here. I just thought it was amazing to see Native Americans dancing in traditional garb in front of the opera house in the capital of Tajikistan. It’s something I've rarely gotten to see in the U.S., so it was extra special seeing it here, so far from home.

It was also neat to see the locals’ reaction. At first there was a lot of pointing and some snickering, especially among the younger folks (it attracted quite a crowd) until they saw the performance start. I haven't noticed that local audiences to be particularly endowed with long attention spans, but this event had their full attention for the entire time. Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead, so I had to get some pictures from a friend to show you. I wish I could have gotten hold of a video.

It was a really successful program and people are still talking about it in town. After the performance, Stephanie and I went to the Steakhouse restaurant behind the opera house for some sushi. Talk about multi-cultural experiences!

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. We had a lot of household things to do - a trip to the bazaar, a haircut, etc... Although, on Saturday we experimented with a new form of exercise. Rather than sitting down to watch a movie, we took some DVDs to the gym and watched a movie while on the treadmill. It's pretty hard to walk for 2 hours straight, but we did it and felt much better than if we had just laid around. Not bad, eh?