Gulrukhsor - Khujand Women's Center

On Friday, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the only crisis center for women in the Khujand area. It was started in 1996 by a group of business women and provides mainly a hotline service for women suffering from domestic violence plus also a womens' shelter. The office/shelter was located in an apartment complex. The office isn't big with the womens' shelter (6 beds) connected to it. What was so fantastic about the center was the peaceful, homey and secure atmosphere created for guests at the center. Workers walked around in slippers and it is a perfect place for women to go to. I have never been to any womens' centers back home but I am sure this is the exact environment it should have. They have social workers, lawyers, psychologists and doctors available through the hotline. Their main goal is to help women of domestic violence deal with the psychological trauma, understand their rights as women and to look at ways to prevent or minimize domestic violence in the family.

It must be understood that this type of service is very unusual for a place like Tajikistan and here are the reasons why:

• Rumored statistic say over 90% of women experience domestic violence but according to the brochure from this crisis center, it is over 50% who suffer from domestic violence
• This is a very male dominanted society where women are expected to be subservient so control and power belong naturally to the males in all decision areas (money, family etc.)
• It is also a very family/clan based society which usually means family problems are left to be solved by the family and not outsiders

I was quite shocked to hear that the center currently serves more than 1500 clients per year. It shows that despite the obstacles stacked in front of them, the center has gained respect from the community to continue their work in the city.

Just to really hit home the problem of domestic violence facing Tajikistan...listen to this...it is absolutely absurd and disgusts the heck out of me. I have heard that Tajik men need to show their 'manliness' to one another by boasting about how they beat their wives. Majority of men feel they need to make it known to their wives who is in control by refraining from any caring or loving gestures towards their wives. Instead many of them show their affections and romantic side to their girlfriends. Yes most married men here have girlfriends. Nope this is not a joke...

Winter (off)… Summer (on)!

They aren’t kidding when they say Tajikistan has two seasons: winter and summer. Once April came, the weather drastically improved to what they call spring (in Vancouver we call it the heat of summer!). It was like someone turned off the ‘winter’ switch and flipped on the ‘summer’ switch. There is greenness everywhere with fruit trees blossoming and agriculture in full swing. I got my first taste of fresh soft butter lettuce and spinach this week since not eating it for half a year (thanks to Beate, MEDA’s Project Field Manager who planted new sorts of vegetables not seen in Khujand in her garden). Boy was I enthused =) I’m proud to also announce that along with the warm weather so is power and water regularly provided now.

Talking about fruits & vegetables, Tajiks eat according to whatever is in season. It is starkly different from N. America where all types of fruits & veggies are found all throughout the year (thanks to globalization). The main reason is the difficulty of importing goods through the winter periods thus although we can find oranges here in the winter, they cost 12 som/kg ($3-4USD). Hence prices also fluctuate tremendously. Through MEDA’s ‘Farms to Market’ project, local farmers have begun to look at building greenhouses which allow them to start their growing season earlier and be able to supply vegetables like tomatoes and radishes into the market when the supply is relatively low so market prices will be higher than during harvesting periods. In a micro sense, for places like Tajikistan, understanding these basic market functions can provide valuable linkage to helping improving their livelihood.

Six weeks left with MEDA Tajikistan. Rob and I are booked on a flight to Istanbul on June 14 so it is very exciting to do some traveling but I am sure I will miss ‘certain’ parts of Tajikistan well after I leave this fascinating country.

Random Ramblings

I have mentioned it before but everything about Tajikistan is unpredictable and unexplainable. Whatever is logical and common sense can all be thrown straight out the door. One of the toughest adjustments here since December has been the randomness of power, water and gas distribution in the city. It seems to change from week to week and no one ever knows when it will normalize. In a way, since February, it was a bit more normal in a sense that we are guaranteed at least 1-2 hrs of power/water but you never know when it will be on. Take this week for example; for once we had gas so I was able to cook my dinner. However, there was no power so I was cooking by candlelight which can be interesting (can’t see my food!). Around 8pm, the gas disappears and that’s when power comes on. Tonight, I was in the middle of washing my dishes during the 1 hour of running water when the lights went off and thus the disappearance of water soon after. Luckily the power came back five minutes after and who knows how long it will stay tonight…It sure can drain you having to deal with all this. The last three weeks have been extra tough with very harsh constant cuts. Thank goodness the weather seems to be warming up and has been quite nice lately.


Kids from my apt complex (aren't they adorable?):

Tomorrow is International Women’s Day and a national holiday. Just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Men’s Day but had no day off from work. I found it pretty amusing that our male coworkers were congratulating us as if to say “Thank you for being a woman!” We also each received the same deodorant stick as a gift for being a woman. Maybe it’s cultural or them trying to get back at us for giving them each the same cologne as a gift during Men’s Day. Such a hoot! Can you imagine this happening back home?? There is such a cultural difference between the West which promotes individual thought and the East which is very much a collective society.

A time of reflection…

It is officially six months since I left ‘Home of the Maple Leaf and Hockey’ and ventured to a fascinating land of the Tajiks. I finally have a bit of a break this weekend to sit back and reflect on my time spent here so far. I’ve noted down some of my memorable and worse moments so far. How fast time flies and how vast this world is that we live in…Rae

Most Memorable

-Tajik Children; they are everywhere, when the average number of children in a household is 5, you can imagine why they are everywhere
-Watching power cuts across the city
-Witnessing a turkey killing
-Eating pork shashlik and celebrating Korean New Years
-Tajik men dancing
-Extraordinary scenery: barren mountains against blue studded sky, oasis town full of mystic and marred with dichotomy
-My favorable place for baked goods: Lazzat bakery

Not so Memorable

-Harassed by Tajik guys and being stared at constantly
-Having to avoid spit all over the streets
-Lack of food variety especially leafy green veggies
-The culture of consuming pure mutton fat, it’s pure disgusting
-Power, water and gas cuts

-Miss watching the Vancouver Canucks, Grey's, my family/friends back home and most of all...my hubby

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 =)