It about 4am here now and I thought I’d take advantage of the early morning bonus jet lag hours to write up a journal entry.
After a total of 36 hours on the road, actually in the air (2 over night flights with a 10 hour layover in Istanbul), I arrived early morning Thursday in Tajikistan. The flights were uneventful for the most part, which is usually a good thing. There is that great benefit of the airport hotel in Istanbul that rents rooms during the hour so I took advantage of that to get a shower and a few hours of sleep in a real bed. I thought about heading into the city a few times since it is one of my favorite cities in the world, but needed the sleep more and felt better about my decision as it turned into a rainy afternoon.
So far it’s been quite the adventure because my luggage didn’t arrive with me. Believe it or not, I hadn’t packed an extra change of clothes in my carry on and because of the new laws about liquids I didn’t pack any toiletries either. But, before I left Tajikistan in December I packed up all sorts of things that I knew I would need here again and left that with a friend. I had packed a couple of dress shirts, jeans, and some toiletries there so I’m pretty much set for now. The only real necessity I’m missing is my contact solution. I tried using bottled water to store my contacts in last night, we’ll see how that works in the morning.
This trip I’m in a new apartment for the time I’m in Dushanbe. At Indiana University we have a family from Tajikistan that has been working there teaching Tajiki and developing language materials. We’ve become good friends and they offered me the use of their apartment while I’m here this time. It is only about a 20 minute walk from my old apartment, close to the bazaar I shopped in last time I was here and I have friends who live on the same block so I knew the area a little before I moved.
The apartment is the style that I love so much. It is an older building, probably built in the 1930s, it has 10ft ceilings and very spacious rooms. I think the kitchen is my favorite room because it is bright and has an antique Russian buffet. The apartment is much better than my other one, especially the bathroom. There is much more space, it is brighter plus I have running water and….. a water heater. I am very fortunate to have such a great place to stay.
I spent Thursday a bit dazed, but in my lucid hours I went out to the market to pick up some more supplies like shampoo, socks and t-shirts to tide me over until my luggage arrives [ if it arrives ] I also spent time running other errands… my cell phone is back up and running, registering with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Along the way I bumped into some old friends which was great. It was nice to fast forward a bit into spring. I was worried I’d miss the lilacs this year since they aren’t out yet in Indy and we already have 80-90º temperatures in Tajikistan. But, they are in full bloom and the iris are out, some of the red bud are still around and I saw some dogwoods too so I caught some of my favorites.
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