The Nutcracker

It's 6:30 in the morning and I hear a noise coming from the balcony - what is it? I wonder. I turn over in my mattress on the floor only to find that K is not on the mattress next to me.  So I follow the noise - it sounds like a hammer pounding a nail into a piece of wood.  And then I see that it's K squatting on the balcony floor with a rock in his hands - he's hitting the shell of a walnut on a wooden cutting board.  I ask him what he's doing and he, very casually, explains to me that he's getting the walnuts from the shell, as if he's done this before. 
Ever since we arrived in Tajikistan, I have been amazed at how quickly and seemingly K has adjusted to a lifestyle that is so different to the one he is use to in Canada.  He manually fills the washing machine with water and rinses the soap out in the bathtub (instead of just putting the clothes in the washer and then in the dryer once it has been rinsed automatically), sets the dastarkan, tablecloth, on the living room floor for all our meals (instead of eating on a dining table), gives old bread to the girl who comes asking for any leftover bread every morning (children begging for food is not something he has seen in Canada), sleeps on the floor with M and myself (instead of crib in his own room in Canada) and takes a bucket bath (instead of in a baththub filled with water and his bathroom toys).  Nothing seems to phase him and he doesn't question why things are different than in Canada - he's soaking it all in.  

After reaching M’s childhood home, K was all smiles when he saw his grandmother, Babulia, calling him from the window on the fourth floor of the apartment building. He grabbed my hand and we headed up the flight of stairs and found Babulia in the hallway with her hands wide open for a hug from her grandson that she has never seen. K climbed up the last flight of stairs and ran into her arms and gave her a kiss. It was as if he knew her and hadn’t seen her in a long time. K went into the apartment, sat in the entrance hallway, took off his shoes and hugged his grandfather, Dedushka Mabatsho. He then proceeded to look throughout the apartment he had never been in saying "I need to see something." He walked through the living room onto the balcony to look out the window - it seemed like this home was familiar to him.

As I watch K interact with his Tajik family with familiarity and comfort, I am truly amazed.  It really is quite something how children can adapt to a new way of life so easily without any judgement - something we adults can learn from.

The Family Home

We're currently staying at my in-laws apartment and the place M called home for 30 years.  It's a very simple 2-bedroom apartment - the small room close to the entrance is where my father-in-law, a geologist, sleeps in a tiny twin sized bed.  Walking into the room, one is overwhelmed with the wall to wall bookshelf filled with books, most of them having to do with geology, including the book about geology in Central Asia that he recently translated from Russian to Tajik and is very proud of.  His rock collection which was, until now, spread on different shelves now sit in one line along with 2 rocks K brought for him from Canada.  

M, K and I sleep in the biggest room of the house, probably half the size of K's room back in Vancouver. We sleep on separate mattress type bedding and use the same pillows from the living room at the end of the day. We set the mattresses on the floor every evening and put them away after waking up to make some space in the room to sit, use the computer, change and talk to each other.  Across from our room is the living room with the most prized possession, a flat screen TV with a satellite dish with quite a number of channels.  This TV was purchased after about 3 decades…the previous one being a small (probably 12 inches or so) black and white one.  This is where we eat all our meals on the floor and where M’s older brother and mother sleep at night. 

The balcony is located on the way to the kitchen.  It is covered with a red carpet with intricate designs and looks out onto the neighborhood and the numerous kids playing outside on their tricycles, with their soccer balls and skipping ropes.  The balcony also houses the refrigerator (about a quarter size of the one we had in Vancouver), potatoes, onions and a cup board with cooking utensils and dry ingredients.  It is now home to 3 of our very big and heavy suitcases until we find a home of our own. 

On the other side of the living room is the kitchen the size of our washroom in Canada equipped with a 40-year old stove and buckets of water collected when there is running water in the morning and evening.  The big blue bucket of water is meant for washing dishes, bathing (this water is warmed up on the stove before bathing) and brushing teeth.  The clear jars on the side are filled with drinking water that comes from the tap.  K is learning the distinction between the two sets of water, that water is scarce in this apartment and that we need to use it wisely and not waste it.  Keeping the water running while brushing our teeth back home has a whole new meaning now.  A new purchase that sits to one side of the kitchen is the clothes washer – K has already learned and participated in putting dirty clothes in the washer, rinsing them in the bath tub and then hanging them to dry on the balcony.  His love of washing clothes has not changed since moving across the world. 

One of my favorite moments was when K was watching his grandmother make a famous dish call mantoo (dumplings filled with meat, onions and shredded pumpkin) and wanted to make them too.  So his grandmother, who is in heaven right now with K being here and is spoiling him rotten, showed him how to roll the dough.  K’s love for cooking has also traveled with him and I’m looking forward to more moments like this. 

Next to the kitchen are two rooms – one with a toilet and the other with a bathtub.  A bucket filled with water is located at the entrance of both rooms – the one in the toilet room is used when the flush doesn’t work and one in the other room is used for brushing teeth and washing our hands.  The first time K used the washroom, M took him.  When he needed to go again a little while later, it was my turn to take him.  I was impressed with how normal the routine seemed to him when he said “this how we wash our hands here” and proceeded to walk me through the process of getting some water with a jug from the bucket, soaping up his hands with the oval shaped soap and pouring the water onto his hands. 

The hallway is where the shoes and jackets hang.  It also holds what M calls a relic – a 30 year old shoe horn.  I loved watching my father-in-law showing K how to use the shoe horn and how focused K was on the demonstration.

It has been really great being in the home where M spent his childhood and to see how comfortable and with ease K is adjusting to all the differences in living. 

Getting our Tajik visas

“I want to go to Tajikistan” says K as we wait in the small, stuffy, crowded room at the airport in Dushanbe with the rest of the foreigners anxiously, but patiently waiting to get their visas – permission to enter the country.  I can feel the tension in the air as I speak to Virginia, a lady from Palau in the Pacific Islands who is working in Darfur, Sudan and has come to Tajikistan to visit a friend.  She tells me the story of when she was here 2 months ago and waited for almost 5 hours to get her visa…she said she learned her lesson the hard way and decided to stay seated and quiet until her name was called by the visa officer at the other end of the hall.  “I’ve learned that the more I talk, the more questions they ask and the longer it takes to get a visa” she tells me.  I’m so intrigued by my conversation with Virginia that I have forgotten that K is with me until the room goes completely dark and I begin to look for him only to find him near the light switch – that HE has turned off.  “Don’t turn off the lights, we might not get our visa” I whisper to him as a woman from Ontario and a man from London look on and nod in agreement while chuckling to themselves.  Getting the visas is my husband, M’s, territory since this is his country – he’s been told to fill in another application form for each one of us and then come back.  There’s a photocopy machine near the visa officer but M has not been given permission to use it.  So he fills in 3 forms double sided as I try to keep K busy with various toys and food in his backpack while Virginia continues to talk to me about the media’s exaggeration of the situation in Darfur.  After what seems like hours, M gets to the front of the line and I am excited of the prospect of getting our visas and finally getting our bags and seeing our family.  But no, there’s a glitch, or so I think.  The visa officer asks for a copy of our return ticket and directs M to the photocopy machine.  A few minutes later, Virginia gets her visa and comes to tell me that it looked like our visas were being put in our passports.  I don’t hold my breath because I know that anything can happen.  “I need to pee” screams K who is standing a few feet away from me.  I take him to the washroom and he immediately scrunches up his nose and in English says, “ewww, it’s so smelly in here, I won’t touch anything” and as the cleaning lady nearby looks on, I’m glad that he didn’t say this in Russian.  Once done, we head back to the visa room and wait with my new found friends who are sharing a common experience of frustration.  One by one, their names get called and they return with smiling faces and good wishes to the rest of us who haven’t been honoured with the Tajik visa.  Finally, I see M coming down the hall towards me with a smile and I know all is well and we can go to the next line with another form to show our passports with our newly stamped visas in them. 

K is now distracted by the cleaning lady who is mopping the floor behind us and I am looking ahead to see if I can locate our luggage, all wrapped with a rainbow coloured tag for easy spotting.  It’s pretty easy to find our bags since we’re the last people in the line and all the others have claimed their bags, gone through the security scanner and met their employers, family and friends in the pre-dawn morning. After scrutinizing each of our passports and looking at our faces with a half smile, the customs officer lets us through and I begin to collect our suitcases as M goes to get some trolleys.  K is doing his part and has now spotted his Thomas the Tank Engine suitcase and grabs it from the luggage claim area and adds it to our pile.  I’m impressed that all our suitcases, 8 in total, arrived in relatively pretty good shape given the distance and the connections – Vancouver to London to Istanbul to Dushanbe.  The one thing that didn’t make it was K’s stroller.  We leave the luggage area and are stopped by another airport staff person who checks our baggage claim tickets against our suitcases and lets us through to the next station, the security machine.  M empties the first trolley and heads over to the other side while K and I wait on the other side with the second trolley.  I offload the suitcases one by one onto the machine and begin to head over to the other side to retrieve them when I am stopped by K’s insistence to put his blanket through the machine.  And now it’s finally time, about 2 hours after landing at the airport, where we are greeted by M’s brothers and go outside.  “This is Tajikistan” I say to Kimran who is holding onto his blanket, sucking his thumb and taking everything in.

Our New Adventure

The past few months have been an interesting journey to authenticity for me.  After announcing that we're moving to Tajikistan (the countdown is on...a little over 3 days left till we get on the plane), I have had all kind of reactions from extreme support and encouragement to questioning why in the world would we do such a thing.  My favourite was when someone said "isn't that nice of you to do this for your husband?" in a negative condescencing manner.  In all this time, I've come to the realization that one needs to have strong convictions and belief in the reason for making a big move like this and really stick to them in spite of what people say (and here I mean those on the negative end of the spectrum).  Each time I hear negative comments about this move, I look within my heart and remember the main reason....my son.  Kimran has been the inspiration for this move and this has, by far, been the biggest lesson he has taught me in his short life so far (I'm sure there will be many more to come).

This move is an effort to teach my son some really important lessons, but in order to do this I need to actually show him that I'm practicing what I preach.  I want Kimran to follow his heart, be comfortable with the unknown, have strong convictions and passion, learn about the world and to make changes in his life even in the midst of fear and insecurity.  In the months since making this decision, I feel like I am doing all of these things that I want to teach Kimran and the best thing is we're doing this as a family.  After reflecting on this decision, there are so many things that come to mind but the most compelling is that each one of us has good and some different reasons for going, so how can it be wrong?  For Kimran, this is a chance to get to know part of his culture, get to know the other half of his family (he's been  blessed to have spent the first 3 years of his life with my family and I see how wonderful this has been for him), be immersed in the language (he speaks Russian really well), learn how to travel, eat new foods and live in a different life - I'm so excited for all the things he's going to learn during this time.  For Manucher, this is a great time to be back with his family and friends after being away for 6 years and use his education and experience gained in Canada for the benefit of his home country.  For me, this is a great opportunity to take care of my family, teach Kimran some of the values I want to teach him in life (and have a hard time doing so in the consumer based, fast paced Canadian society), challenge myself in my work and continue working towards improving the quality of life of people I'm so connected to.  As I write this, I get more excited for what is to come for our family.
Now I know there will be challenges.  And I know that each one of us is going to have different feelings during this time.  And I also know that we might doubt ourselves and our decision sometimes.  But isn't this what life is about?  Are we suppose to stay in one place just because we're comfortable?  I don't think so.  This is the time for us to challenge ourselves and really take control of our lives.

So here's the first post of many to come on our new adventure.