What Do A Pirate and A Kangaroo Have To Do With Fried Chicken and Shwarma? You Tell Me.

November is a wonderful month to be working at the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe. The combination of local and U.S. holidays means that the first week in November was the only 5 day work week for the entire month! Of course, November has also brought rain to Dushanbe. It's a little late coming this year, but it's definitely arrived.

I particularly appreciated the new, wetter weather patterns on my way to work on Thursday. A little more than a mile from the embassy, at one of the traffic lights, my cab driver turned around and said he had decided to go a different way.

Now, this wasn't a regular cab, it was one of the numbered cabs that are supposed to follow set routes. When talking him into completing his route didn't work, I demanded half my money back (a whole somoni) before getting out of the car. Not that 25 cents means a lot to me, but it was a symbolic victory. So I took my 1 somoni, crossed the street and stood in the rain to wait for another taxi or Marshrutka. Other than that, I sailed through Friday and gladly welcomed the start of a 3-day weekend. Today was Constitution Day in Tajikistan.

On Saturday I made one of my periodic trips to the big bazaar. It's not unusual for vendors to offer samples of their goods, but I usually decline for health safety reasons. This time, however, I threw caution to the wind. I was hungry. I tried dried fruits, nuts, honey, pork sausage, horse sausage, and fresh, homemade bacon, among other things.

This market trip also turned up some other gems. One guy was selling locally grown oranges (I had no idea they even grew oranges here), and I was also able to pick up a large quantity of tofu from some of the Korean ladies. It's always nice to have something different.

On Sunday, Stephanie and I went up to the botanical garden to read since the weather is so beautiful. It seems that the garden has become the new hot spot for weddings because the area in front of the gate was packed with gaudily decorated cars. Inside, you could hardly turn around without bumping into a bride and her video-camera-toting entourage. One of the big wedding traditions here is to have someone follow you around and video tape everything, not necessarily the bride and groom. The film the wedding party's car driving through town, people standing in line to get into the park, other people taking pictures of the new couple, everything. To each their own I guess.

The only trouble with all the wedding madness was that it was hard to find a quiet place to sit. Many of the nice wooden pavilions were magnets for the wedding crowds, and sometimes we felt as if we were being followed (I think sometimes we were being followed). Eventually, we found a not-so-nice bench under an out-of-the-way tree and got some peace and quiet.

Sunday afternoon, we decided to treat ourselves and had a masseuse come by the house and give us back, neck, and head massages. I think she was a little tough for Stephanie, but it suited me fine.

We thought we'd cap the day off by going out to dinner at a Georgian restaurant and then take in the city at night. Things didn't work exactly as we'd planned. When we got to the restaurant we discovered that 3 out of every 4 items on the menu were not available, most of them the items that we wanted to try. Exasperated, we got our Hatchipuri (Georgian cheesy bread) to go and went on our way.

From there, I decided to pick up some fried chicken to go along with dinner, and that turned out to be an adventure in it's own right. Mayhem would best describe the situation in the fried chicken restaurant. Eventually I got to the counter and was able to order what I thought would be a simple request - two pieces of fried chicken. While I was waiting, I had time to ponder the significance of a pirate in a fried chicken restaurant. No idea why it was there.

Well, after about 15 minutes my order still hadn't come up and the girl who took it was suffering a barrage of requests from various parties. Eventually I got back to the counter and told her that I just wanted my money back. She apologized and came back with my order right away. I was so amazed by the apology that I forgot all about being annoyed. I took my food and wished her luck. It's always nice when manners pop up around here.

Fully stocked with dinner, Stephanie and I made our way along the main street. I had planned to take pictures of the city at night, but most of the things I wanted to photograph weren't lit up. It seemed Dushanbe was determined that our night out would not be what we had hoped. Nonetheless, I got some photos of the colorful lights and fountains at Rudaki park.

These "Light Trees" are very popular around here in spite of, or perhaps because of, their tackiness.

The presidential palace was one of the few landmarks actually well lit. Go figure.

I also got some nice night views of the downtown area with all of its light-decorated buildings.

And I would have been remiss not to capture the Shwarma Kangaroo next to one of the night clubs. No idea what a kangaroo has to do with shwarma either.

We got home, had our dinner and a nice relaxing evening.

Today I meant to go running in the morning but realized that I left my iPod in the gym at the embassy. Hoping to retrieve it, we went to the embassy, but the iPod was gone. Fortunately, I made a couple of phone calls and it turned out that someone was honest enough to turn it in and I'll be able to get it tomorrow. Again, people can always surprise you.

One other neat thing is that I got a shout-out in an article on America.gov, a website that talks about things the U.S. government is doing in regards to foreign policy. This one is about improving sustainability. There are some neat things that various agencies at the embassy are doing in Tajikistan. Some of the projects I'm doing at the embassy are showcased toward the end of the article. You can read it here.

And so, the long weekend is coming to a close. But we'll honor our nation's veterans (and Stephanie's birthday) on Thursday.