Alice down the rabbit hole

Moving out

alicegwynne — Sun, 5 May 2013 19:18:00 GMT

After a week training just outside the city, all of my fellow volunteers and I were desperate to see the city. We had got in to a cosy routine at the Bahoristan centre, getting up for the 8 o’clock breakfasts, beginning our all day sessions at nine and spending the evening playing sports and getting to know each other. It’s so strange to think of everything that has happened since that had brought us all very close together, but that at the time I barely knew them at all.

The day after our arrival at the Bahoristan we met the fifteen Tajik and Afghan volunteers counterparts. They had organised a party for us which escalated quite quickly and inexplicably in to a girls against boys dance off. After some truly terrible attempts at dancing I decided to fall back on the only dance I know and the Macarena seemed to go down well with my multi-cultural audience who all seemed to be running out of ideas.

After the dancing was over we were excitedly chatting with our new friends and repeated exclamations could be heard around the crowd: ‘You haven’t seen the city at all! It’s going to be Navrus soon, it will be beautiful!’. I began to talk with a pretty young girl who had sat quietly watching the festivities with her equally pretty friend and, though clearly enjoying the party, had politely refused any efforts to make them dance. ‘What a wonderful dance! You will have to teach me another time. We are not allowed to dance if boys are dancing as well.’ Ah okay. ‘No problem, the Macarena is a classic!’ I said with a smile which was quickly reciprocated. I learnt that the girl’s name was Sayeeda, that she was born and educated in Iran but now lived in Herat in Northern Afghanistan and that she was here to improve her English. ‘It is my greatest wish to be able to speak English and inshallah I will improve by the end of my time here’. I felt like a lazy little Englander talking to my new friends that day. Some were learning their third or fourth language and some days I think I have yet to master English fully let alone learning another one.

By the end of the week, despite the comfortable pattern we had fallen in to, we were ready to see the city and to meet the families we would be spending the next three months with. Over the week I had become better acquainted with my afghan friend of the previous night and on the night before we were to move in with our host families I was told that I would be living with Sayeeda. All of the volunteers that day were taken in Marshrutkas (minibuses used as public transport in Khujand) to the centre of the town, our fascination with our new surroundings refusing to wear off despite our nerves. We waited at our meeting place for our families to collect us and watched nervously as one by one our friends departed for their new homes. When my turn came a young woman who looked barely older than me was introduced to me as Nargis my host for my three months. I piled in to the car with Sayeeda, reluctantly waving my friends goodbye and shook the hand of Nargis’ husband Jamshet who was driving the car.

The car rumbled of down the dirt road swerving to avoid the many potholes and cracks which litter the streets of Khujand (in Khujand they say the sober drivers swerve wildly across the streets and the drunks drive in a straight line). ‘No seatbelt’ Jamshet said with a grin as I frantically searched my seat. Great.

That night Sayeeda and I had a home cooked Tajik meal of meatball and noodle soup and went back to our room to learn the Macarena.

Anonymity

alicegwynne — Sun, 5 May 2013 19:14:00 GMT

Anonymity is something I have already come to appreciate in my few days in Tajikistan. Our group arrived on a cloudy March 15^th at the YHA in St Pancras for one last training session before our flight to Moscow the next day. From Moscow we would transfer to our direct flight to Khujand in the far north of Tajikistan, our host city for the full three months of our stay. If the other volunteers’ journeys were anything like mine, their worried parents put them on the early morning train to London where they took their seats with hundreds of commuters who may never even make eye contact let alone speak to one another. Once the train pulls in to the capital even a girl carrying her body weight on her back is swallowed by the crowd and barring a few annoyed glances directed at my monstrous backpack, I sailed my way through the London traffic in perfect obscurity.

Many hours later we arrived in the Domodevo Airport in Moscow and after much misdirection and confused mumbling in Russian, we strolled to our departure gate. I was surprised to see such a crowded lounge for a regional flight to a small city but even with the protection of numbers, every head turned and every amused eye followed us silently asking if we were sure about our flight plans. As we sat down a very polite woman with a young child walked up to us and asked in unpractised English why we were going to Khujand. Satisfied with her answer she turned and spread the news amongst the curious onlookers. Ripples of understanding past through our captive audience as mutterings of ‘Da? Ingliski?’ were raised above our own bemused giggling.

And it didn’t stop there. When we arrived in Khujand at 2 AM we attempted entry in to the country but were asked three times in a 50 metre stretch to show our passport, one time by someone who seemed to be the guy lifting our luggage on to the scanner. A crowd waited outside, craning their necks to get a look as a man in a militaristic uniform practised his English with the first English speakers he had seen in months. When we eventually reached our training centre, a sanatorium next to the ‘Seaside’ (Tajikistan’s largest body of water), we were not so much tired from our travels as from the gauntlet of the airport.

Since then we have been asked countless times if we can step in to the photographs of complete strangers and stared at by the crowds. We are asked why we are here, if we like Khujand and asked for our phone numbers by passers-by. One volunteer was even given a baby to hold which made us feel like bizarre Royals. Well maybe not royalty but certainly celebrities. It is an unusual feeling, quite amusing at times and annoying at others. I was one of the most exciting things for me to think that Tajikistan is a place that tourists rarely ever visit and this is just one of symptoms. There are so few tourists here that when 12 young British people turn up at the same time we cause quite a stir. Perhaps when we separate and begin our work, or when our freshness fades, we will fade in to anonymity again.

Fundraising

alicegwynne — Sun, 5 May 2013 18:53:00 GMT

‘So what is it you’re actually going to be doing out in Tajikistan?’

‘Umm……’

Ah, the one, simple question I had failed to answer and when I realise my mistake I’m standing in front of ten polite and interested members of the Maesteg Lions Club who could make or break me.

In December 2012 I managed to secure a place on the VSO’s ICS (International Citizenship Service) scheme and I was told from the off that I would have to fundraise £1500 to prove my commitment and confirm my place. The scheme allows 18-25 year olds the chance to volunteer in some of the world’s poorest countries for three months working on a fantastic range of sustainable development projects from HIV/AIDS in Zambia to Global Warming in India. I’ve wanted to something like this since I can remember so I didn’t hesitate to hit ‘apply’ button. The only thing that shook my faith was the dread of fundraising.

Now it’s not the giving I had a problem with, I’d just like to make that clear. I had never done any fundraising before and my target seemed intimidatingly large for the amount of time I had. I had no idea where to begin but the full briefing we had been given during our assessment day gave me a vague idea of where I wanted to go.

I started with telling all my family and friends that my Christmas gifts that year would be donations and I followed that quickly with a bake sale in my mother’s school (I was bailed out by my mother and grandmother when my burnt biscuits were declared unfit for consumption). After this was a blur. I trained 3 times a week for the half marathon I was running and launched a fairly annoying facebook campaign plugging for donations. I also organised a charity curry night at the local Indian Restaurant. I set up a meeting and presentation with the Women’s Institute who paid me for my troubles and individually offered me some sponsorship. Two other meeting were scheduled very soon after that with the Rotary and the Lions.

In the assessment our trainer said that in the long run, fundraising helps to increase a volunteer’s passion and commitment to the project as through learning about the issues and explaining them to other people, they really start to understand their importance. This is completely true. To be able to talk for 20 minutes on a subject you need to do your research and the more I did, the more worthwhile the project seemed to me. However, standing awkwardly next to my head projector in the local golf club in front of ten people, stumped over the most basic of questions, I could not have felt less prepared. The truth is I was still a bit confused over that question myself. My placement was business and economics based and one thing I can’t do is maths. The issues of gender equality and education were closer to my heart but I was still not sure what I would be asked to do or whether I would be able to deliver. At the time I gave the only answer I could and that was ‘Whatever I can.’

The Lions were incredibly generous and donated the amazing sum of £400 which meant that I had reached my target way ahead of schedule. The events and talks which I had organised still went ahead and the incredible generosity of everyone meant that I eventually achieved the total sum of £2470.60. It was a lot less of a challenge than I thought it would be and I think that’s because the people around me made it so easy.

Thank you to everyone who helped me and gave so generously. Lots of love to you all. Now here’s the rest of my adventures

Understanding a Culture through Food

alicegwynne — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:24:51 GMT

The rain had relieved the dusty streets and the evening hummed with silence. I stepped where my host went before me, trusting her instincts were honed to the powerless Tajik nights. ‘A little further’. An enviable confidence. Lost in a sightless world of vague shapes and potholes, I followed closely.
A whisper of a tune reached us on the air and grew louder with each step. We followed to a large wooden door, carved with three frozen tigers intertwined. Our knock was answered by a small woman who appeared magically from a smaller door concealed amongst the carving, flooding the street with light.
A flurry of Tajik was met by a bemused stare but I was whisked in regardless to join the proceedings. ‘She says you are late!’ my host yelled after me. I had no time to ask how she knew I was coming.
In the centre of the courtyard men and women danced around a cauldron of caramel Sumalak. My tiger-lady steered me though the crowds and I gathered that I should stir for luck and happiness in the New Year. ‘It take a long time to prepare and only stay short time’. The woman who addressed me grinned warily, not sure what to make of a stray foreigner. Her gold front teeth flashed in the flames when she spoke and her forehead was covered in beads of sweat from hours of guarding the Sumalak. ‘We must make for 16 hours and what else to do but dance!’
Heads turned, though eyes flicked away when met with my own. Like Chinese whispers, my age, marital status and nationality, though not my name, were circulated around the crowd.
Moving self-consciously towards a table, I sat hiding my face in the gloom. Fellow diners quickly gathered my lack of Russian and resumed their conversation until it was interrupted by a plate piled high with Osh - rice, vegetables and meat. Ten, perhaps twenty spoonfuls later, I had outpaced most Tajiks and my appetite was attracting attention. I looked up and met the stares with one piece of Russian I knew, ‘Mnye nravitsa Osh!’ The surprise sent giggles around the table and I knew I was no longer a stranger.
Soon I was coerced on to the dance floor with my new friends and taught dances to the amusement of the crowd. But then came my turn. ‘They want you to teach them a dance from your country’ my host translated.
We left through the Tiger-carved door in the early hours with more Sumalak than we could eat tucked in containers under our arms. The sound of the Macarena faded behind me and the hum of the night began again.