Climbing to the top

Dushanbe is in a valley, so there are hills and mountains surrounding the city on all four sides. The hills look fairly close, so I wanted to climb up one and have a beautiful view of the city and surrounding mountains.

It turned out to be a half-bad, half-good idea. I bought a really cheap phone on Wednesday because I wanted to be able to get in contact with the other Americans here and not be left out. I was super excited to have the phone, thinking it would be my link to other people, so I texted every American I know here if they wanted to come with me. But no one responded! Actually, Samyra responded, but she was busy. Boo!! So I was really pissed off, and thinking how antisocial these other Americans are when I left to climb the hill. I mean, what better things do these people have to do in Tajikistan? We are at the ends of the earth, there cannot be much to do!! Anyway, I was super pissed when I left my apartment. I also wanted to go with other people so I wouldn't be harassed by more men.

One of my American friends had climbed up to the top of the hill before, so he told me where to go. I had to walk through the village, which was interesting to see. The whole city of Dushanbe has water flowing through it in these little canals, and people use it to water the grass, wash the footpaths, etc. The pathway up followed the little canals, and the pathway was between houses so I was walking through little alleys.


It was around 6pm, but it was still pretty hot. The high today was 44 degrees Celsius, which is 111 degrees Fahrenheit! Wow, I'm actually surprised by that number, because I just found out the Fahrenheit conversion now by using an online calculator. Anyway, it was hot and I was sweaty. Everywhere were children playing, and adults doing housework and walking around. People stared at me a lot which is nothing new, and I always get a few hello's and ni-hao's. I also had to walk through a swarm of bees (literally!), which didn't make me happy either, but luckily I didn't get stung.

I almost reached the top, and I was getting more and more irritated by everything. I was hot and sweaty, people kept staring at me, the bees were scary, and the Americans here suck. In my bad mood, I kept walking and passed a group of children playing soccer. The kids started shouting at me, and I just ignored them. They kept talking, so I said nay Tajiki, which means "no Tajiki," the closest approximation I can think of to say "I don't speak Tajiki." Then they started throwing stones at me! They were all screaming at me and throwing stones. I was so upset! And this little boy who must have been about eight or nine years old did this "suck my dick" type sign language to me, which was not nice. I kept walking, but my pride was definitely hurt.

I reached the top after passing these children. At least the view was beautiful, I thought, but I was still pissed. I walked around a little and admired the view, and then I noticed I could walk further up, so I kept walking. I actually had to wait a little while for this cow to get out of the way, but once the cow moved the coast was clear.


I walked further up, and suddenly there was another group of children, this time all boys. They started following me and shouting and throwing more things, and at this point I couldn't take it anymore. First I tried to get away, but then when they were all around me I stopped, put a crazy look on my face, and let out this huge, angry yell. I yelled and yelled for so long, I was so angry! I was on top of this hill in Tajikistan, yelling at all of Dushanbe below me and surrounded by all these little boys, screaming my lungs out.

That seemed to work, because then the boys were very nice to me. They kept following me, but then they picked flowers for me and tried out some English. Haha. They tagged me and showed me how to get to the top. One of them was pretty good at learning English, I let him see my Tajik-Russian-English phrasebook and we tried communicating with phrases in the book. This other boy kept hanging on me, putting his arm around me and giving me flowers. He told me he would beat up the other kids for me if they got in my way, haha. They asked me how old I was, and then when I asked them how old they were, the smart English-learning kid told me he was 15. I laughed, because he must have been about 11 or 12. When I told him so, he changed his mind and told me he was 17. Haha. Here is a picture of all the boys, I especially like how one of them is trying to show off his guns.

I was sort of annoyed that they kept being all crazy around me, but at least they were nice to me, and it was as nice change from having stones thrown at me. They also really liked my sunglasses. The boy with the striped shirt is the one who kept picking me flowers, he wanted to take a picture with my sunglasses, haha. Do I look less than enthused? :)

I think they invited me to their homes to eat, but I was worried about the language barrier with their parents, and they were sort of weird, so I left after a little while. The view from the top was pretty gorgeous though.

On Monday I go to Pamir to do interviews there. I am actually really lucky to go there, because it is a tourist destination for hiking, and my boss and his family are from there so they can show me around. I'm going to do seven interviews in seven days, it's going to be crazy! I am excited though. We are driving for 12 hours to Khorog which is in Pamir, and waking up at 4am to go so it won't be that hot while we are driving.