Tajik Tales

Here are some other funny observations I’ve noticed about Tajikistan:

Riding a marshuka (micro bus)

The city is filled with them and at 0.35 dirams (less than 10 cents USD) per ride; it’s the best way to travel around town. You flag them down like a taxi except you wave your hand around your waist level and to get off, you say “injor dored” which means stop here in Tajik. These micro buses are exactly like the “siew ba” or flying coffins in HK except they will pick up/drop off anywhere (no designated stops needed). Just have to know which number to take as they have specific routes they follow.

I flagged the wrong marshutka down one day and by the time I realized it, I was too embarrassed to get off and too cheap to pay another 0.25 dirams(price increased from last year) haha. I forgot to mention that they squeeze people in like sardines in these van-like buses. The problem is here these buses have low roofs so people end up having to bend over in whatever position possible to fit into the bus. I even saw a man put his head through the sun roof!

I know by now which micro bus to take with less people riding in it. However, you can’t really tell if it’s packed with people or not until you flag one down. By the time it stops and you realize it’s already jammed with bent over backwards men and women and you prefer to take another but you can’t cuz they stopped specifically for you! So again not wanting to look stupid, you hop right into the last foot of space and hang on. Luckily, crime isn’t an issue in Khujand so I don’t worry too much about pickpocketers.

In the dark

A bathroom with four walls is useless in the dark. I noticed a long tapered candle in our office bathroom and wondered if it was to take away the smell afterwards. Well it’s more for lighting the room up when there’s a power outage. The problem is there’s no holder so how are you supposed to hold a candle and unbutton your pants at the same time?!? I finally figured to leave it in a cup and lean it against the wall. It was quite a romantic atmosphere…hehe

Now I have experienced it all…the hot water pipe in my house was being replaced so after Tai Kwan Do one night, I had to take a shower at my friend’s place that lived in the same building. By coincidence his bathroom light has also burnt out so he bought a new light bulb to replace it. By the time I got there, he found out that the new bulb didn’t work! So once again we lit several candles and I showered in the dark. I kept worrying that something would light on fire from those candles!

Mystery at home

For some odd reason, the tap water in the kitchen turns a slightly browny-cloudy mixture after its boiled. I understand that the water here is not clean but I really can’t drink brown water (not even Gatorade can fix this!). However, the water from the bathroom tap doesn’t turn color after you boil it… What does this all mean? It’s probably from two different pipes and for my own peace and comfort, I will continue to take water from the bathroom.

Answering the phone

When you speak barely two sentences of Russian or Tajik, answering the phone can be quite a humorous affair when you get someone calling a wrong number which I find happens very frequently in Tajikistan. On many occasions, I would receive a call on my mobile and now my landline (which prompted me to write this) from a local. Of course I haven’t figured out how to tell them ‘they have called the wrong number’ so usually I just get hung up on. This time, I got a call on my landline and I thought it was my landlord calling. I recognized that she asked me “how are you” in Tajik so I responded in Russian but she kept talking and then hung up. I guess it wasn’t my landlord…

Paying for your landline at home is also amusing. You literally have to go to the telephone company to pay your debts which is approx. $1 USD/month for the phone line + whatever outgoing calls you make. They also have an automated phone message that calls the landline telling the customer how much they owe. Of course if the customer is a non-Russian speaker like me, then that would be a challenge. By the time I realized what this was about, the only word I heard was ‘dirams’ which is not going to help =)