The Old Man and His Bear

No sooner did I post my last blog update, than a friend called to tell me that the old man and his bear were down by the statue of Ismoili Somoni. I first saw the man with the bear in Washington. It was part of the briefing folder for Dushanbe. Many of my A-100 classmates were intrigued. Since arriving, I had heard of a couple of sightings but alas, had not seen it for myself.

Sensing a golden photo op, I threw on my shoes and start to run downtown with my camera. Of course, the duty phone chose that moment to ring, so I had to walk, panting, and take care of a small issue before resuming my dash.

I'll be honest, it was impressive. But also a little sad to see the bear with a muzzle on. The old man said he raised her from a cub, so I guess it's the only life she's ever known and wouldn't be able to survive in the wild anyway. So I paid the guy 10 somoni to take some pictures, figuring that if this is his livelihood, I should try to make sure he has enough money to feed the bear.

She does seem rather tame, but I kept glancing at those enormous claws...

The bear's name is Maria and she is 20 years old and does tricks. The old man even invited me to pose with Maria. I hesitated, but figure, when am I going to have the chance to do this again?

No, I didn't actually put my weight on her. And Maria didn't seem to mind. Another mission fulfilled for my time in Dushanbe.

Now another week is already blowing by - literally. Today high winds kicked up a small dust storm. Many of the locals think this is from the volcano in island, despite reassurances to the contrary. The volcano is my biggest headache now as we are getting closer to our R&R and there is no sign of it letting up. I'm looking into alternate travel plans just in case. We may be able to get as far as Croatia by air and then take a train to Venice. We would lose a half day in Venice, but that's not much in the scheme of things. Fingers crossed big time!

I'm a Diplomat

Well, the reason that my posts are coming a little less frequently is NOT because there is less going on. I don't think I've ever been so busy. Aside from just having a lot going on with my job, I'm also acting Facilities Manager for a month while the actual FM is on R&R for a month. He actually won't be back until the day after we leave for our R&R. Add to that the fact that I'm also duty officer for a week, and I've really got my hands full. On the bright side, I figure it will make our vacation that much more appreciable. (If we get to go on our trip, that is. Stephanie and I are nervously eyeing the situation with the volcano-induced airport closures in Northern Italy).

This has actually been a big week at work. On Wednesday we held the grand opening for the embassy gym. I've been working on this project since before I even got to post. I remember first having a conversation with the Ambassador about it when I was still in training in Virginia. It's taken us 8 months to get the equipment here and renovate the space we needed to set up the equipment.

The work definitely paid off. The gym looks great and people are excited about it. That's one of the things I love about this job - getting things done and seeing the results of my work. I've also been working with our Green Team to help plan events for Earth Day, as well as continuing my

speaking tour of Tajikistan.

On Friday, I spoke at the American Corner in the town of Kurgon Teppa. Not too much different in terms of scenery, but of course I took a few pictures on the road.

There was also this car with a really interesting rear windshield.

Our driver said that was very popular during the Soviet Union - which says a lot about how old the car must be. I had lunch with our driver at a little shashlik place and then went to an education fair at the local university before heading over to give my presentation. I was warned that this group might not have sufficient English skills so I took it a little slower at first.

It turned out that quite a few of the kids in the audience understood perfectly well and were very interested in the topic (Earth Day). Here again, like in Kulob, they are now planning to do a trash pick-up to honor the occasion. Again, it's great to get out of the office here and there and also to do some actual spreading of American values. In other words, I'm getting to do exactly what I wanted to do when I signed up to be a diplomat.

On Friday, Stephanie went out with some of her girl friends, and I stayed in with a friend for movie night, being both exhausted and the duty officer. For the record, the new Sherlock Holmes movie is great.

Saturday was a beautiful day so Stephanie and decided to spend some time in the courtyard reading and admiring the first rose bloom of Spring.

Hopefully the other plants will follow. Unfortunately, that plan didn't work as I got my first real duty officer call involving an American citizen. The last time I was duty officer I got no calls at all.

Obviously I can't say anything about the specific case, but it's sure been an interesting weekend. Fortunately, a friend had us over for dinner Saturday night. We had Chinese take-out on the tapchan (a large wooden platform with a low table in the center, surrounded by cushions) in the beautiful spring evening air. The few glasses of wine with dinner really helped to take the edge off the week.

The weather today hasn't been so nice, so we're just taking it easy at home. As long as the volcano doesn't ruin everything, there's only one more full week of work between us and Italy!

It's Getting Hot In Here!

I finished the week with a pleasant change of pace. I travelled with a colleague in the Public Diplomacy department to give a speech about Earth Day to a group of university students in the town of Kulob - about a three hour drive from Dushanbe.

We left town early and it was a very pleasant drive.

Springtime is really spectacular in Tajikistan, having arrived in August, we've never seen it in bloom. I was able to get a few good pictures, including shots of the Nurek reservoir.

Kulob itself doesn't seem all that distinguished from anything else we've seen, but I didn't really have time to explore. We did see this neat monument downtown:

After a nice lunch at the university cafeteria (one room in an outbuilding), we set up the projector and I gave my little presentation. These types of talks can be hit or miss because many students just come to hear someone speaking English, which is fine, but don't really comprehend what is going on.

I was fortunate to have a very attentive audience that asked some really good questions. They also seemed excited about the possibility of doing something to improve the environmental conditions in Tajikistan and were already planning to organize a trash clean-up for Earth Day by the time I was done. All in all, it was a big success. I'm scheduled to give the same presentation at some other venues over the next two weeks. All part of the big Greening Diplomacy Initiative that's underway in the State Department.

The ride back to Dushanbe was equally pleasant, with hills covered in purple flowers and even a herd of goats.

It was really nice to get out of the office and not worry about running the embassy for a day.

On Saturday, Stephanie and I headed out to the Green Bazaar to buy some flower pots. While there, we also found something that we think is rhubarb. We also got hit with a preview of summer. We went to the bazaar around 10:30 and by 11 it was already blazing hot. I think it was only in the 80s, so I can't wait for summer when it's over 100!

We came home and had lunch and then went out to try to start our garden. The soil here is pretty tough so I'm not terribly optimistic. We'll also be in Italy soon so we're hoping our cleaning lady will be willing to come by to water everything. I thought about waiting until we get back, but I think it will be too hot by then. We'll see what happens. At least the bulbs I moved to pots during the winter are thriving. They look like they might bloom any day - I'll post pictures when they do.

Today (Sunday) was much more pleasant, so Stephanie and I set up speakers in the porch windows and set up our lawn chairs and a table in the shade and spent most of the day outside snacking and reading and listening to music. The forecast was for rain all day (90% chance) but the sky was an amazing clear blue. There have been big puffy clouds on the horizon all day, so maybe the rain will come later. For now, the weekend is winding down and another busy week is on the horizon.

Another one bites the dust...

OK, before we get around to what bit the dust, I wanted to put a couple of pictures up from my birthday party and Easter.

The work week was tough but flew by and we found ourselves partying at a friend's house on Friday night. It was a great party and we had a lot of laughs. It was just the thing to unwind.

On Saturday we went over to one of my local coworker's house to learn how to dye Easter eggs in the local style. Of course no visit to a local house is complete without a feast so we got to help make all sorts of bread and sambusas.

Since the weather was good, our hosts fired up the tandoori oven in the back of their apartment building.

It starts by building a huge fire in the oven until the inside cement turns white.

Then our friend's mother slapped the dough onto the inner wall where it stuck until it finished cooking.

It's pretty cool to watch and delicious to eat.

After the feast, we went to the kitchen and made some of the coolest Easter eggs I've ever seen. We used leaves and cloth applied to the eggs to make patterns

and then colored them with purple dye and yellow onion skins respectively.

I think the results speak for themselves. It was a great day.

For Easter itself, I surprised Stephanie with an Easter basket full of treats that my parents helped me get on my trip to the U.S. She was most pleased. Then we had a relaxing day at home, made Easter ham and had some friends over for dinner.

It's hard to believe that we're halfway through yet another week. And it's been even more trying since the thing that bit the dust was our new car! There seems to be some electrical problem that keeps draining the battery and local mechanics seem flummoxed. We're hopeful that someone can figure it out, but have started looking for another car.

Fortunately, the guy who sold it to us is being great about it and is helping us out quite a bit. If we have to switch cars, at least we won't be taking a loss on this one, but we really like the car and hope it can be fixed. At least the next weekend is approaching and we're only three weeks away from R&R!

Birthday Surprise

It was a good thing the week after our vacation was only three days long. Work is as busy as I've ever seen it. So in three quick days Saturday came around and it was my birthday. And what a birthday it was. Stephanie really went all out. Starting with breakfast, she made me crepes stuffed with bacon and cheese and topped with strawberry jam. Then there was a special crepe with chocolate and peanut butter. Delicious!

The weather was yucky so we spent the rest of the day lounging, watching movies, and just relaxing until it was time to go to dinner. For dinner we went to The Steak House. That's what it's called. I had my favorite appetizer of pickled herring, onions, and potatoes. The steak was actually really good - and not just by Tajikistan standards. We had cheesecake for dessert and I was quite satisfied.

When we got home, I almost died of a heart attack because when I opened the front door, about 20 people shouted "SURPRISE!". I was completely caught off guard and almost fell backwards through the front door. Stephanie had been very sneaky and laid false clues to get me to think that she was planning something for Sunday - even down to telling me to eat dessert at the restaurant because we would have cake the next day.

Meanwhile, she had enlisted the help of some of our friends to set up the house after we left for dinner and get everyone situated. Everyone parked away from the house and put their shoes and coats upstairs. I had no clue. It was a great surprise and a perfect birthday. Apparently I frustrated Stephanie because I scarfed down dinner so fast. And the restaurant didn't cooperate either - she encouraged me to pick the place because it's known for slow service, but when we were there, everything came out promptly.

As it turns out, the timing was perfect and no one had to wait too long. Since my surprise party was actually Saturday and not Sunday, we had Sunday free. It was a beautiful day so we took the new car out for a spin outside the city to take in the spring views, which in the mountains weren't so spring-like, but still beautiful.
We went as far as we could until we encountered an avalanche blocking the road. So we headed back into town and went up to Victory Park for a Sunday stroll among the green hills at lower altitudes.

The new car is great. Very comfortable, and very zippy, and a far cry from where we were a month ago.

Now I'm a few days in to an incredibly busy week, but on the bright side, our R&R trip to Italy is only a month away!