Road Show

As I mentioned, on Thursday and Friday, I made the first two stops of a country-wide tour for Earth Day. Like last year, I prepared a presentation to teach students about the history of environmentalism, current problems, and potential solutions. It went very well last year, which is why I'm expanding the program this year. I also added information about a number of embassy programs that are improving sustainability in Tajikistan, both at the embassy and in the country at large.

On Thursday, I went to the town of Qurgon Teppa, about an hour and a half outside of Dushanbe.

My first stop was at a small elementary school and it's still my favorite stop so far. I presented to a class of English-language students and they were extremely engaged and asked lots of questions. They talked about wanting to do a trash clean-up in their town and then gave me several of their own presentations. One was a skit about a talking tree.

Another was a song about water.

And the third was a speech about important things that we can do for the environment.

I was thoroughly impressed.

After a delicious lunch of plov and lagman, I went to the American Corner (AC), where I had one of the larger crowds so far - over 40 students. The AC coordinator said it was the most people they've ever had at one time. The group was also very attentive, but didn't ask as many questions. I wasn't surprised since it was an older group of students and the older they get, the less willing they are to ask question - same as in the United States.

I later found out that one of the reasons we had so many students was because the local university couldn't get permission from the ministry of education for me to speak. This is an ongoing problem for the embassy because every year, the Public Diplomacy section has to get permission from the government of Tajikistan to speak at the universities. As usual, the government is taking its sweet time.

On Friday I made a longer trip to the southern city of Kulob, about three and a half hours from Dushanbe. There, I started with the American Corner.

Afterward, during lunch, we got word that the local Ministry of Education officials gave permission specifically for me to give my presentation (not to be mistaken for the broader blanket permission that we are still waiting for).

When we got to Kulob University, there was one more unexpected hurdle. I had to meet with the head of the faculty for foreign studies. He asked what my presentation was about and then told me it would be better if I were talking about education. I didn't really know what to say to that, but I explained that I had a whole powerpoint presentation ready and when he learned there would be pictures, he was appeased.

Since the arrangements were so last minute, I wasn't expecting many students, but we easily had over 60 students. These was the oldest group I had spoken to, so they asked the least questions, but still seemed generally interested.

One of the nicest things about all this traveling is getting to see the country in spring. Even though the weather was sort of rainy, there were some very dramatic landscapes.

In particular, I was interested in seeing the Nurek reservoir. This body feeds the country's largest dam, which produces 80-90% of the electricity. This year it's been making headlines because of record-low water levels (due to low precipitation or mismanagement, depending on who you ask).

I could see that the reports were not exaggerated. There was a lot of land exposed that I had never seen before, and in one place there were only mud flats where there used to be a lake.

Hopefully the rainy season will last a bit longer this year. The situation seems to be getting a little better as the electricity rationing has stopped - at least in Dushanbe - for the time being.

The rainy weather cleared away for the weekend and Stephanie and I took full advantage of the beautiful weather. On Saturday, after my haircut, we walked down to an outdoor restaurant we like for lunch. Then we spent the afternoon in the park behind the opera house just reading and relaxing. We even stopped at one of the restaurants there for tea and ice cream.

In the evening, we went to see the first Arabic Opera, Avecinna. Avecinna is the westernized name of Ibn Sino, the famous philosopher and doctor, who lived in Bukhara during the Samanid dynasty. I haven't been able to find much about the story online, but the opera was translated into Tajiki for the Dushanbe performance.

It was an impressive show and I don't mean just impressive for Dushanbe. There were elaborate sets and costumes and the singers and orchestra were excellent. We really enjoyed the show.

Fortunately, they don't seem concerned about the use of cameras during performances so in addition the pictures, I was able to get a couple of short videos. They're a little over-bright, but I think they convey the idea well enough.

We followed the opera with dinner at the Ukrainian restaurant (always a favorite) and then finally went home.

Today we spent a bit more time on mundane things around the house. Yard work, cooking, etc... Although we did experiment with Stephanie's candle making kit, with mixed success. We're still learning.

The other thing I got done was to complete my montage of Buzkashi video from a month ago. I hope you enjoy...

Next week has more travel in store for me, so I'm sure stories will follow.