Home Away from Home

I live in a fantastic home, belonging to Jamilya and Ikram Kavrakovi. It is spacious, high-ceilinged, well-furnished, and light. It was two different sections, forming a square around a courtyard with a garden full of gol-e hierey (morning glories), a wash basin, and an elevated platform with a lot of cushions on it and a low table where we eat called a tapchan or kot. The first section is the bedroom section of the house: you enter into a wide family room, then go through a hallway with bedrooms on either side, then enter a kind of living room, and my room is off to the side. The other section that forms the other half of the house has a toilet in one room (with a little nail latch and a cracked door, so you feel nice and close to nature), a kitchen connected to a bathroom (with a bathtub and washer/dryer), and then some other family room/bedrooms. Off to the side of this whole unit is a garden that runs along side the length of it, with fruit trees.
Ikram was born in this home, his parents moved here when his dad got a job teaching at the local university. At first his parents lived in a two storey apartment building, but then they bought land and built this house on it. Jamilya has lived there ever since her arranged marriage to him – which is almost 28 years now! She said it didn’t start out with love, but – she loves him now!
The daughters that live at home are Farangiz (21 yrs old) and Dilorom (almost 20, and Dilya for short). Turns out I am right in between their two ages. Farangiz is studying InYaz, English and languages. Dilya is doing economics. When I arrived here the dad told me that this home is my home, and I am like his daughter.
The first night I got here we ate dinner on the porch, it was so heavenly – stuffed peppers, and fresh fruit and vegetables, and broken nan across the table. The moon was out and beautiful, and kids were laughing out on the street. It’s a happy little neighborhood.

We live just off of Rudaki. It is the main street in the city, lined with a lot of trees, with a walk way in between the two-way streets. You see a lot of women (young and old alike) in long, shapeless, flowery, embroidered dresses. Also in our neighborhood is the Pedagogicheskii Institute (The Pedagogical Institute, a college) where there are always a lot of students milling around, boys in slacks and button-up shirts, and girls in mostly national style dresses and skirts, I think.

I have a blog!

Okay, here is my first attempt at a blog.  Because I've neglected it for a month already, it's going to be a lot of info at once.  Basically I've just taken journal entries throughout the course of my stay in Dushanbe, Tajikistan and lumped them under topics.  So the chronology might not make a lot of sense, but hopefully you enjoy seeing what I've been up to out here.