I’m slumped across the backseat of a shared marshrutka, tumbling down a bumpy mountain road. Outside I watch the setting sun cast an orange glow behind the highest mountain peaks. The group stops briefly to take a photo. I’ve spent the past two days in Panjakent, Tajikistan, a small city which straddles the Uzbek border. Last night, myself and eight friends gathered at ‘ancient Panjakent,’ a series of hills overlooking downtown. Carrying a speaker and bags of apricots, cucumbers, and bread, we ate and laughed and danced. The sun melted into an orange haze and stars appeared, serenaded by Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. As in many cities the star visibility is poor in Dushanbe, but outside Panjakent the sky glimmers with constellations. The music stopped and I relished the silence, surrounded by so many friends and so many stars.
My host family has begun eating dinners outside. The cool breeze at dusk provides respite from hot, cloudless Dushanbe days. We gather around a makeshift courtyard table, each night entertaining an expected guest. He descends the rooftop and peaks his head over its edge. My young host sister points excitedly as my host mother echoes his inquiring meows. She insists he isn’t a house cat, but a guest, a part of the neighborhood fabric. Yet each night he returns to our courtyard, sipping water and chasing food scraps. He’s as familiar as Friday osh and after-dinner tarbuz. Each night for dinner I also descend from my room, peaking my head into the courtyard. Salaam aleikum, I say to my host siblings. My host father beckons them to return the gesture: say hello to our guest.
Sometimes you have to eat things that you know will make you sick. A friend gave me this advice. We all dread the ‘Tajik tummy,’ but not enough to forgo mountain water and fresh-picked fruit. On Eid I ate a fried fish, and then another because the first was so good. I spent the next day full of regret (but empty of all else). A different friend offered to bring me medicine and water, and we walked to a nearby mosque. We sat outside, the night silent and still, to talk. Over several hours we broached American rock music, sufi poetry, and the merits of academic gap years, and I felt remarkably better the next morning. Yesterday I ate another fried fish.
It’s 2 am and I’m listening to Fell in Love at 22, off Starflyer’s 1998 album, The Fashion Focus. I turned 22 the day I meant to arrive in Tajikistan, before Canadian wildfires and smoky fog conspired to rebook my flight. I sometimes worry about where I am in life. I call my friends at home from their big-city apartments. They pass grueling days for impossibly longer nights. I don’t feel grown; I’m 22 and I live in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
But I’m in love. I love dodgy American expats and backseat taxi lessons on Persian dialects and mountain villages untouched by Russian vocabulary. I love crab chips and fresh fruit trees and stale cake with sweet cream. I love anki decks and inside jokes and deep conversations. And I love the stars. I love that I’ll be here until I’m 23.
Dan E. Davidson Fellowship Recipient
American Councils Study Abroad Alumni Scholarship Recipient
Eurasian Regional Language Program (ERLP)
Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Summer 2023