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.