Christmas in the Doosh

Well, it turned out that my holiday celebrations were book-ended by illness, but I was well enough in between to enjoy them.

My cold was winding down by the end of last week - enough so that I was feeling sharp enough to have a rather unusual conversation with my Russian instructor. We were discussing the Christmas season in Dushanbe and talking about how last year there seemed to be more going on. I mentioned that there had been a Christmas concert at the opera last year. My teacher asked if there was a choir, which got me laughing. You see, the word for choir in Russian is xop (pronounced like 'hore' - get it?). I thought she would have come across that in her experience, but she hadn't, so I had to explain. I went on to explain how my colleagues in Russian class and I discovered that there are a few homophones between Russian and English and that if you translate "The brave, secret choir" to Russian, you get "Тайны смелые хор" (pronounced tiny, smelly hore). I know it's juvenile, but in the long, boring expanse of Russian training, we took whatever opportunities we could get.

On Christmas Eve, we had a bunch of friends over for a little Christmas party and that was nice, and then we were able to skype with our families later in the evening. We opened our presents Christmas morning and then went to a friend's house for brunch. The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxing and eating cookies and other leftovers from the party and neither of us was complaining.

Interestingly enough, now that Christmas is over, we're seeing many more Christmas decorations around town. I guess they would be more appropriately termed New Year's decorations, because locals don't celebrate Christmas, but the decorations look the same so it's sort of like an extension. I took some pictures of the window paintings down at the supermarket - particularly the one with a girl flashing the viewer in a Santa Claus outfit. Aside from the outfit, I'm not sure what connection it has to Christmas or New Years, but it draws a crowd.

Much to my dismay, my gorging on Christmas goodies has been interrupted by a devastating case of Tajik Tummy. I'm not sure what caused it, but it started last night before bed and then kept me out of bed the rest of the night. I have to say, it was one of the worst bouts I've had in over a year. I had to work from home for the morning because I couldn't be outside of a 20 foot radius of the bathroom. I had to make it in eventually because I'm currently managing two other sections in addition to mine.

Fortunately starvation worked and things tapered off by lunch time. I guess it's just a friendly reminder from the biota of Tajikistan that they can take me out whenever they want. On the bright side, I should be thankful that my digestive system was spared for the main event. Now I'm just hoping that I continue to improve so that I can get back to eating!