Heidi and the Hot Springs

We pulled to a quick stop and the three men in the jeep began digging in their personal bags. “Where are we?” I asked curiously about the small, but bustling down we’d arrived at early in the afternoon.

“Obigarm – you must try – very nice”
“Ahh, you love the hot springs, don’t you?” I laughed, as we stopped for the second time on our journey home from Afghanistan at one of these natural mountain hot springs (obi =water and garm=hot).

Imatbek shone his full golden-toothed smile back at me as he proclaimed: “They are good for your health. Come!” and hopped down from the vehicle.

Just like bath crystals, eh?

I was a little hesitant after the encounter with such a location the day before with Holly outside of Ishkashim. I was originally enthusiastic about sitting outside in the crisp mountain air with the bubbling hot water straight from the source, but unfortunately it wasn’t “woman’s hour” when we arrived. Relegated to the indoor version, they had shoved us in a small, dark room with a grimy whirlpool in the corner. Instead, we opted to take pictures of the water spurting out of the interestingly shaped calcium crusted mound of land.

As close as we were getting to these hot springs

I thought about the current offer and decided “what the heck, once in a Tajik lifetime.” Traveling, volunteering at a children’s clinic in rural India, and playing sports my whole life – I’ve already faced my fair share of random skin infections along the way, this couldn’t be that bad. I jumped down from the jeep. I was in.

The nasty skin infection I battled last year in Kolkata, which was only better than the previous one since this time it wasn't "discretely" located on my face.

This time there wasn’t a sputter in sight outside and we all walked towards a large building. The air smelled of sulfur and the white tiles dripped with condensation. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, as I was pointed to door on the right at the end of the hall.

I opened the door a wall of dense steamy hot air hit me in the face. When my glasses defogged I realized I had become the center of attention. I imagined it wasn’t too often that foreign women venture into this place. There were woman of all ages, sizes, and shapes steaming themselves on the benches around the perimeter of the room – with all their clothes hanging on rods in the middle. As I scanned the audience of sagging breasts, hips never squeezed into blue jeans, and tummies that had spent their entire lives under moo-moos I waited for someone to make a move. I had no idea what I was suppose to do in here… Undress? Sit? Where was the water?

A few girls sauntered through the door in the corner with wet bras and serious granny panties on and I breathed a sigh of relief that nakedness wasn’t a necessary component of this cultural activity. I disrobed and walked in their direction – assuming this would be where all the hype was located.

I turned the corner and there was a small pool with milky blue water steaming in the corner. A few women sat with water up to their necks chatting quietly. I moved closer to the awaited spring-filled pool and dipped my foot in: iiiiEEEE – the water was BOILING HOT! Natural alright – like from the center of the molten earth!

I wasn’t sure how they were calmly “relaxing” in this inferno. My lungs were gasping for air and my brain was giving my feet the instinctual “remove self immediately from hot surface” command. I recalled my youth growing up on Lake Huron and could intellectually rationalize that your body needs time to adjust to the water temperature, though this was usually to the first frigid swims around May 2-4 weekend, and not to hot water I knew was capable of causing scolding burns. I continued forward up to my calves.

As I inspected the increasing redness on my legs I noticed the long, black unshaven hairs of my fellow swimmer waving to and fro in the water beside me. This was about as natural as things could get. My attention was jerked away as the woman on my right started pointing making Tajik remarks at me. She had noticed the oddly placed ring on my stomach. I had forgotten that I even had it, but realized how strange my bellybutton piercing must have seemed to her. I motioned to one of her earrings, saying “same, same.” I smiled. She laughed. Funny foreigner.

Shortly after two younger girls literally jumped in the 4-foot pool beside me, scolding hot water splashed in my face, and I figured I needed to stop being a chicken about this whole thing. I sunk down to my neck – a submersion level I felt was sufficiently deep enough to later say “I have been in the hot springs” – and promptly left. This was one activity I decided is better left for the locals – or at least until the winter.

An Afghan Adventure

After a flurry of form-filling, picture-taking, and finally, visa-obtaining – the plans were secured. Holly and I would be taking a weeklong expedition to the most northern region of Afghanistan – the Wakhan Corridor – situated between Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan. The second annual Pamir Cultural Festival would lure us into a valley isolated and remote, even by Central Asian standards. We rested assured that it was “the safest place in Afghanistan – too far for even the Talib to go!”

Nearing 5am Sunday morning, Holly and I emerged from our apartment, with trekking packs filled with sleeping bags, mats, a tent, modest clothing, photography and video equipment, and 19 Liters of clean drinking water in hand. We headed for the road and the Land Cruiser promptly pulled up, with Tiger at the wheel. As we waited for another passenger, his irritated hands paced around the perimeter of the steering wheel, he revved the engine, and his shirt bore the orange and black markings of an animal ready to pounce. Once our bags were all stowed, he let loose on the roads heading towards the mountainous eastern Autonomous Oblast of Gorno-Badakhshan (GBAO), Tajikistan.

Ten minutes later a hissing noise would soon turn into the dreaded flop-flop-flop of a flat back tire. With Tiger on the job, it was quickly changed and we continued on our 14-28 hour journey (depending on an assortment of road, car, and external conditions) towards the border of Afghanistan – without another spare tire in hand. Around 3pm we would regret not turning back earlier, when we rounded a bend 5km from the nearest town (which also didn’t have a spare tube), and heard the hissing noise once again.

"that's 0ne tricky tire, i tell ya"

How many Tajiks does it take to change a tire? (2 hrs later)

When finally reached the border, Monday at noon, we were like two little school-girls on the first day of class in September. Giggling, with our heads plastered to the windows and passports with official entry visas in hand – we were unable to contain our excitement to venture into this much-talked-about, but seldom traversed land. As we pulled our scarves over our hair and our jeep up to the border guard’s post, we were also nervous. Would they turn us back? Delay our entry without reason? Put an end to our adventure right here and now?

Ready to break into the Middle-Eastern version of YMCA?

As it turned out, our bag of dried apricots were more interesting than anything in our baggage. After one curious guard poked his head in our window, pointed, grunted, and was given a few fruits the others also made their way to our (rationed) snacks. We chatted in broken Tajik/Dari/Farsi/and English, made friends, and broke the first rule of international travel: Don’t take photos at/of military, police, check-points, border-crossings, etc. Photos snapped, we were off and running – or driving rather… Afghanistan awaits!

With the snowcapped Hindu Kush Range rising to the south and the Tajik Pamirs lining the border with the Panj River down the valley, our next 24 hours would be a breathtaking ride to a festival in the center of nowhere. The landscape was perplexing, as it turned from desert to rock to river to grassland, and back again. We crossed over 2 dozen rivers and glacier-melts, drove next to 2-humped camels and hairy yaks, and witnessed the slow lives of young herdsmen unfold in the infrequent fertile patches of the Wakhan.

A group of little ones hanging out in the fields

200km down a road we often carved ourselves, we made our final turn and decent into a wide-open grassy field with two large striped tents marking the site of the 2008 Pamir Festival. This was the end of the road – continuing on to either the Chinese border, the regionally renowned Little Pamir, or the Broghil Pass to Pakistan would necessitate travel by animal and foot. We would pitch our tent here and save trekking for another trip, as the Pamiri people inhabiting the surrounding nations had come to us!

***** Five Star Views Available *****

With horses chomping at the bit, rearing, and warming up for the coming events in the background – it was with great disappointment that we would proceed to sit through 2 hours of welcome speeches and introductions. It was, however, a good opportunity to suss out the crowd and the other “tourists.” As it turned out, only about a dozen foreigners made the journey – the rest also coming 3 days, but from the direction of Kabul. Many of us had close affiliations with AKF/AKDN – the event’s key supporter – though one man had truly arranged his vacation time in France to coincide with the festival and another was back-packing and free-lancing in the region.

A ball would soon be tossed into a fiery of horses and a polo match would commence the afternoon’s numerous activities. Football (soccer) and volleyball were a bit more unruly than North-American standards, but entertained the 150-200 local Afghan and Wakhi spectators who had gathered around the perimeters of the fields – of whom, all were men.

Spirits were kept lively during sporting intermissions with traditional music and dancing. After gazing in awe at the way in which the dancer’s feet kept beat with the pounding tabla drums while their arms and hands moved gracefully above their heads with the strum and twang of the local string instruments, someone grabbed my arm. "Dance, dance… dance!!" the familiar Afghani AKF staff member pleaded with me. With little interest in becoming even more of a spectacle than my colourful Tajik dress had already made me (I didn’t get the memo that Afghans stick to earth tones) and clearly noticing that the ratio of men to women was sitting at 40:1 – I tried persistently to avoid the situation. Defeated, I finally stood and tied my hijab (head covering) a bit tighter. Soon, Holly was dragged off the volleyball court and onto the dance area too. We used the hoola-like Pamiri dance moves we’d learned a few weeks earlier at a wedding in Dushanbe, laughed infectiously at our lack of coordination, and smiled at the cameras and video cameras which popped out of nowhere to capture the display. It wasn’t until after the (very long) song was completed that another foreign woman residing in Kabul informed us on the sidelines that women simply do not dance with men in Afghanistan. Mostly, however, it was only us who seemed to mind that we had been terribly taboo. After all, they had captured the next best home video and as one organizer chuckled: “no problem at all… you’ll be remembered in this valley for along time now!” Great. Just great.

Buzkashi Battle

My embarrassment soon faded, as I grabbed my cameras in time for the main event: BUZKASHI! Similar to polo, the traditional game is played on horseback – but the “ball” is a headless animal that must be picked up and dropped in a goal area. The anti was upped for the festivities and instead of a typical goat, the players fought tooth and nail to capture the carcass of a small calf. Dust was flying, animals snorting, and players grunting. Even a baby cow’s body is fairly heavy and quite awkward, particularly when another player is attempting to snatch one of its legs and tug it too his own horse. With brilliant mid-day sun and a quick sport shutter speed on my camera, I was ready and waiting for the perfect pictures of this oddly addictive cultural sport. It was during a particularly rare piece of footage – with the horses' nostrils flaring, the carcass in clear view, and the player looking directly into the camera – that I looked up to find the game was moving at a dangerously fast pace into the camera. At that point I let out a gasp, my camera jittered towards the ground and then sky, and I joined the crowd in dashing for cover from the 6 horses that came barreling threw the sidelines. Later on, I would plead with a rider to let me up on his mount. Though well fed and of good stature, it was immediately clear that these stallions had a streak in them distinctly different from the Arabians I’d had my hand with back in Canada. After a short canter, I pulled back the reins and decided I’d save riding for another day.

[(c) H.Shrumm]

After more traditional music (and less dancing) we ate local dishes of rice and meat, as no fruits or vegetables are available or grow deep in the valley. The moon was filling out nicely and we chatted by candlelight with locals and other expatriates about life in Afghanistan. The heat of the day had cooled down and I bundled up in sweater and wool socks, happy to have my down-filled sleeping bag back in the tent.
The morning sun brought with it more speeches and a few less eventful activities. We socialized, ate, packed up, and by 2pm were in a Land Cruiser convoy heading back through the valley. We’d reach Ishkashim by nightfall and gather around the satellite television to eat raisin-zeera rice, mutton stew, and watermelon, while mourning the recent death of 4 IRC humanitarian aid workers outside of Kabul and the implications of the impending Russian-Georgian crisis. Our vacation was soon to be over, as we prepared to head back to our respective realities far from the green pastures and rugged mountain landscapes of the Wakhan Valley.

The Sweetest Words

You know that feeling – it only happens sometimes – when someone says something that just catches you off guard and melts your heart a little bit?

Today is August 5th and it has been exactly one month since Holly and I moved in with our oh-ee-la (Tajik family). When Zeez introduced us to his mother and negotiated our original arrangement to stay together in one bedroom of their apartment, we all understood that the first month was a type of probation period. If we didn’t like it here – or more concerning – if his family didn’t like us staying in their house, after a month we’d be free to/have to leave.

Upon returning home from work today, I was greeted by Zeez rocking his 3-month old son, Imran, in the communal courtyard. We sat and chatted about the day, the baby’s health, his father’s gardening and finally, the awaited status of our residence in Mirco-District 91. I tiptoed around the topic, praying to God we wouldn’t have to move out tomorrow, but also wondering to no end how long she might actually agree to keep us.

You see, I love our oheela.

The family is headed by a 60-70 year old couple – Holla and Amak. Their 25-year-old unmarried son, Borodar, also lives in our apartment but is quiet as a mouse (except when he is pumping Rihanna or Britney Spears from his serious stereo setup). Zeez’s oldest son, Ibro, is 4 years old and spends most of his time at our house because he’s “too bad” for his mother to take care of him, the 2-year-old Farah and the newborn. Holla, Amak, Holly, and I try to keep the little bugger entertained and out of trouble. The latter is near impossible, as he has a fancy for not looking where he walks and eating everything he sees – including the telephone cord. However, we have found a variety of ways to entertain him, such as waving a laser pointer around on the floor and throwing a rolled up sock for him to go fetch. Yes, just like a dog (and most of the time, just as cute!).

Don't be fooled, Ibro is pretending to be good here with Holly.

The rest of the family is not too far away – making for an extended family consistently totaling 12. Holla’s daughter, Lulu, and her husband and 2 teenagers live in the same building as us and love to come practice their English here. Zeez lives across the courtyard with his wife and 3 children. Two of Holla’s other daughters live about 10 minutes away and her 6th child is divorced and working in Moscow with her son. I still couldn’t tell you all of their names.Farah had the flower, until big brother Ibro stole it.

In only four short weeks I have come to know, respect, and adore each individual member for their respective qualities and roles in our household. Zeez and Lulu are both trained physicians, but Zeez now works at a large international NGO and Lulu is a housewife. Holla has her PhD in bio-chemistry and worked full-time while raising 6 children, while Amak is a professional horticulturalist. During the evenings and on weekends we sit and chat about life and our experiences. Lulu spent a year with her family in California, Holla likes to discuss her marriage, and Zeez provides a national’s perspective on the international community’s work in Tajikistan. I feel like I have gained insight into the minds of a few Tajiks and been able to participate in the most sensitive discussions about family, culture, wealth, gender, and responsibilities.

One of the most (literally) satisfying elements of living with a Tajik family, though, is that we regularly eat together. Tonight we made meat-filled dumpling pastries, but we often have traditional rice, carrot, and meat osh (or palov), soups, salads, and meat pie. Of course this also means that at one point there was an entire goat’s tongue in our fridge, I’ve been served up slices of pure fat, and that avoiding fresh (sooouuuur) cheese is a daily occurrence.3 generations give the macaroni a try: Holla, Lulu, and Fatima

This month there have been two birthday dinners where the whole family gathered on the living room floor and dove into the communal platters of osh, salad, and naan (bread). Far more exciting to the family, however, was the night Holly and I decided to make “Canadian Food.” After being pretty scared by the hanging slabs of fresh bloody meat at the market, we decided to go for a classic spaghetti and pasta dinner. Macaroni is common here, but never before had they tasted an entire can of red sauce and spices over sautéed vegetables. All went over well, even after we discovered that our massive salad cucumber was in fact a zucchini. It was “good for being without meat.”

Com'on down... you might be the next winner of this
Collectors Edition Pasta Spice, Expired 2006.

In the beginning, I definitely had my hesitations about sharing a room and living in the home of a family of strangers. At the end of the day, though, there is nothing better than walking into the familiar tree-filled courtyard, being spotted by a neighbour who quickly shouts “Hay-lo” out the window, and then walking inside to Holla shoving piping hot naan into my hands. This was just an introduction to my family, but the adventures here never stop.

And that’s why today, when Zeez told me that his mother had asked him how to say – and then been practicing all day – 8 simple English words, I got that warm fuzzy feeling of reciprocated appreciation and love.

“I want you to remain in our house.”

28 Days Later

It has been exactly four weeks since I arrived in Tajikistan and it seems like the only thing I haven’t done… is write! I have scribbled down notes and recorded voice bits for the later transcription of such up-coming entries as:
“Our Tajik Family: home is where the heart is”;
“Holly and the Giant Peach (Bowl)”;
“What a Nice Set of Watermelons”;
“A Poster of You (with a picture of me taped over your face!)”;
“It’s Not All Sunshine and Mountainsides”;
“Power, Privilege, and the Moo-moo”;
“The Knock-Out Wedding”, and
“I speak Tajik.”

There is no shortage of interesting material to work with and I desperately hope to share many of these hilarious, meaningful, and eye-opening events here – as I find/make time to write. While my daily routine consists of waking up at 6:45am, catching the work-mini-bus at 7:30am, beginning Tajik classes at 8am, eating lunch, and heading to work from 1-6pm – the evenings and weekends still seem to bring unimaginable and exciting surprises.

Erin and I play over-sized chess in Obigarm

We’ve been to a Pamiri wedding, a swanky Jubilee reception, the children’s hospital, the man-made lake, 2 discos, and out to “the field.” We’ve shown local men that women can play soccer, entertained visitors from Kabul, Khorog, and Kazakhstan, jammed with the Tajikistan Idol, and enjoyed a few traditional birthday dinners with “our family.” You’d think things couldn’t get more random than this – but this weekend we are going paragliding, hiking to a small glacier, and finishing it all off by dinner with Tajikistan’s AKDN Ambassador.

I remember a similar feeling when I was in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in October 2007. It was during the large Bengali-Hindu celebrations of Durga Puja that I was on two television news programs, lit my first fireworks, addressed a large public audience, was mistaken for an actress and had my jeep swarmed on all sides, and became an official judge of various community’s traditional festival decorations. At the time I blamed the insanity of the events to be simply “India at its finest,” but now I question if it’s just the reality of being a curious foreigner in a new and unknown country.

Of course life is not always so exciting – but it is the regularity of certain events that also make things mentally manageable. I shower every morning (even when the water is brown) and wash the dirt off my feet before bed. On Sundays I do my laundry by hand (even when the water is brown) and in four weeks I have halved the time this takes from 3 hours to 1.5. I put it out on the communal line to dry while I read, write, nap, clean, or play with the kids. On Monday, Friday, and Sunday nights we play soccer. I buy juice, eggs, and yogurt at the small shop a few doors down and dried apricots, pistachios, white-coated peanuts, peaches, green apples, cucumbers, and watermelon at the large market. I take the Number 8, 22, or 17 mini-bus, while I change money, buy pasta & sauce and chocolate at the 24-hour International Grocery.

How d'ya like them apples?

Even the less adventurous evenings and weekends have been fulfilling. I finally had time to finish reading a book I’ve been working on, re-write my Tajik notes, and talk to different family members about the day’s on-goings or life in Tajikistan/Canada. At times unpleasant “only-in-Tajikistan” type things happen that could seriously upset the uptight traveler. Generally when these things happen, I burst into the bedroom, dramatically tell Holly about it, and then say: “Grab the camera – this is a good one.” We proceed to the location (often the bathroom or kitchen) and make a spoof commercial for our series “Life in the ‘Dush’.”

We’ve also spent late nights with maps planning local adventures – hiking the Hindu Kush, traversing the black desert of Turkmenistan, skiing for Christmas in Kazakhstan, and even entertaining a large Middle-Eastern regional tour at the conclusion of our placements. This is still in the very early stages of formation, but the evening was strangely ridiculous as Holly and I looked at routes on the map, exclaiming “well, that country is a war-zone, they have a dictator, Americans aren’t allowed in there, the ferry strands foreigners on that shore, mmm, there’s another war-zone, women can’t travel legally alone there, and if we go to any of these countries than we can’t go to Israel…” Let’s just say the geo-politics of the region makes for some interesting trip-planning over here.

Getting a good view from the fish cultivation pond

Overall – and most importantly – I am happy. I have quickly become accustomed to most of “new” things, enjoy my work and the organization which I represent, have overcome some basic health concerns in my first few weeks, have a blossoming social life, and see clearly how this placement fits into my life and future career. Not bad!

The only thing we need now… is our visa extensions!!!