It was a typical Sunday in Khujand. I slept late until 9am and wandered out for some breakfast and tea. I haven’t quite mastered the art of making instant coffee (ground coffee is non-existent) so I just don’t bother. I’ve had it in restaurants and with the right mix of crystals, sugar and water it’s not bad. A few minutes later the power clicked off. The daughter of the family I’m staying with said what I was pretty much thinking – “just another typical weekend in Tajikistan.”...
Continue Reading >>Stories tagged with Tajikistan
In the past week I have met with almost 50 clients, which is way more than I met in the previous six weeks combined. I should feel inspired and excited by that accomplishment, but I mostly feel tired and battered. That’s because all of the clients I met with were BORING! I’m not exaggerating – I didn’t have one interesting interview. At least, that’s what I thought in the days surrounding the visits….
When I meet with clients, I ask a bunch of questions about their business, family, and personal...
Continue Reading >>Having researched Tajikistan’s economy prior to arriving here, I had a difficult time reconciling the numbers. It has a literacy rate of 95% and fairly high costs of goods like a developed country yet exceptionally low per capita incomes of some $340 similar to those of the poorest in the world. How does an educated population earn so little yet pay for goods clearly beyond its reach?
It is the Soviet legacy which has left most of the population over the age of 30 with a reasonably good education. Mothers and fathers subsisted on moderate civil servant salaries at the...
Continue Reading >>I wanted to share two really beautiful events from the past week: celebrating the election and attending my first Tajik wedding.
The U.S. Election
Contrary to the excitement that most were feeling on election day, I was feeling lousy. Here we were, on the edge of something truly great, and I was not able to participate. Of all the elections in all of the world, why did I have to miss this one?
Tajikistan is 10 hours ahead of the East Coast, so it was fairly obvious that Obama...
Continue Reading >>I have to be honest, I was slightly terrified to become a Kiva Fellow, to travel halfway across the world to a place I had to look up on a map. Don’t get me wrong, I signed up for all the right reasons: I really believe in the way that Kiva operates, I wanted to delve deeper into the world of microfinance, and I thought that a three month sabbatical might help me gain some perspective.
But I also had a lot of little voices building up in the back of my head that didn’t think this was such a good idea. I felt uncertain: I don’t speak Russian...
Continue Reading >>Personally, I really enjoy preparing for a big trip to some far away place. There are so many unknowns: what will I see, who will I meet, what will I eat, and what type of terrifying illness will I suffer? But preparing for three months in Tajikistan has been a bit different.
With only a little more than two weeks until my departure, I still have a some pretty important items to secure – like a visa and some very very warm clothing. I am cramming to learn some essential Russian and Tajiki phrases so that I can actually get myself from the airport in Tashkent, Uzbekistan to...
Continue Reading >>I’ve been immersed in the mission this week – San Francisco’s Mission district. Block after colorful block surrounds Kiva’s office at 18th and Folsom where we’ve been gathered just prior to our departures throughout the world. And while you can find virtually any type of cuisine in the area – from Salvadoran to Vietnamese to Senegalese – it’s really all about the burritos. Last night’s sampling was a bulging toasty tortilla jammed with spicy al pastor courtesy of El Farolito on 24th and Mission. Taqueria Cancun is just a short 5...
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“Hello Daniel. How are you? I remember you said that you were willing to help some of my students out with their English lessons and…well, I have a nephew whom I would like you to meet.”
It was 9am on Monday morning. I was drinking Nescafe and checking email, when the MicroInvest English teacher came in to see if I was still willing to fulfill the pledge that I had made the day before to give some of the...
Continue Reading >>1. Tajiki-what?: Being an American in Tajikistan means that you are in a country that few of your compatriots have ever heard of, let alone traveled to. You are a curiosity everywhere you go and the lack of Westerners gives you the opportunity to act as kind of a mini-ambassador, answering all of questions that Tajiks have been waiting, sometimes their whole lives, to ask an American. Especially in the small towns...
Continue Reading >>My experiences here in Tajikistan over the past several weeks have run the full spectrum of human emotion. I have laughed with astonishment at the absurd amounts of food that have been forced down my throat, stuffed like a pig all in the name of “hospitality”; I have been saddened and amazed by the industry of young porters who abandon school at the age of ten, forgoing their childhoods in order to earn a couple dollars a day...
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