Our School and Neighborhood

Goodbye Seattle

Hello Dushanbe

We arrived in Tajikistan during lovely June weather. We were shepherded to our host families, shown our school, the American Council Center, taken on a quick tour of downtown Dushanbe and Park of the Flag and the next morning, still jet-lagged after an entire day in the air, given a placement test.

Tolstoy Kuche

American Councils -  86 Tolstoy Kuche

Dushanbe map
                      The residential neighborhoods in Dushanbe are gathered around the narrow alleyways (kuches) that branch out from the 2 major arterials, Rudaki Boulevard going north-south, and Ismoili Somoni.  Our American Councils Center, where we worked our teachers mercilessly 5 hours a day,  is in the "Golden Triangle," a desirable area formed to the NW of where these major streets intersect. Our host families were mostly in this area, too, so that we could walk to school.

Inside American Councils

The peculiar thing about these kuches is you never know how long they will be, twisting and turning so much the end is only visible if it's a cul-de-sac.  The other peculiar thing is they can go both north-south and east-west. And another thing, there are no street signs, although sometimes you'll find a small marker on the side of a building indicating the name of the kuche. If you are far sighted, you're in luck  Our chauffeurs got lost more than once delivering us to our host families and they were natives.  I wasn't devastated when, after being walked to school for a few days, I became utterly lost.

I thought, thank goodness I know Russian, because the local language was too far away from Farsi dialect of Persian we were studying to make myself understood. Russian is the lingua franca still, as the Soviets were there from the mid twenties to the early nineties of the last century.
Turns out the locals didn't know where 86 Tolstoy was either, as I tried all possible directions they pointed me in and finally saw one of "our own" and made my way back.  Here are the photos I made of 6 block path from host family to school. three twists and three turns.

Start here

 

the last turn

My first Host Home