Happy Holidays!!

Hopefully everyone will be having a fantastic holiday season this year!

Spending time with family and friends, making new friends, looking back on the events that shaped your 2013, and taking a few minutes to anticipate what new adventures 2014 will bring.

Having said all that, we have had a busy few weeks here in Tajikistan (or MadeUpiStan to some of you).

Since Dushanbe is a relatively small city (approx. 1 million), the expat crowd is quite a bit smaller.  We pretty much all seem to be like minded though because we are always looking for something cultural to attend.

We had the opportunity to attend the opera a few weekends ago and had a great time!  First opera we have ever attended and it was interesting.
The performance was La Traviata and shortly after we were seated, I made the comment (since it was our first opera and don't speak/understand Italian) that I felt like Pretty Woman.  To which Sharon stated "I think this is the opera from Pretty Woman".

 -during intermission we looked it up and it was indeed the same one that they had gone to see in the movie -

Since this is the time of year that many of us indulge in a little too much festive holiday eating, I thought I would share another recent adventure we had which falls into the excessive gastric consumption category.

A couple of weekends ago (I think the night after the opera), one of the embassy families had their annual "Chocolat" party.

Having never actually been to a Chocolat  party, we had no idea what to expect.  Turns out it was a pretty big deal in the embassy/expat crowd and there were a LOT of people who showed up.

There were 80 different chocolates in the room.

Each one was out on its own plate and had the label/package close by.  

The hosts even created hand-written cards to identify each chocolate for the guests.

Everyone needs an M&M's table in the house...

People of all ages came to view and sample the goodness.

Socializing...

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Along with straight chocolate, there were other goodies like brownies and chocolate-chip cookies.

Of course, there was cold milk, water, and a couple of different soups to cleanse the pallet.

The shoes were piling up in the entry way.

Coats too.

Some of the kids ended up under the table for a while and forgot their plates...

We walked home and this was what we looked like in the shadows :)

Hope everyone who reads this blog has a GREAT holiday season!! 

We're (hopefully) off to vacation in Bangkok & Siam Reap from now through the New Year so there may not be a posting until we return. 

I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in...

I just have to say this last week+ has been CRAZY!

On Tuesday (the 19th), I went to Sharon's school because we were going to go through some videos.  After I got to her class, I realized that I had actually left the thumb drive with the videos at home so I jumped into a taxi and headed home to get them.

When I got home (after about 10 minutes) I saw that I had missed five calls from Sharon.  Not being able to imagine what could be that important that she needed to call me 5 times, I called her back.

She told me that the school director had just pulled her into his office and informed her that our landlord called and said that the government will be demolishing our building and we had two weeks to move out!
Seriously, they were literally going to have the wrecking ball on the building in two frickin' weeks!!

So, after I stopped laughing at the ridiculousness of our new reality, we started house-hunting that same day.

We were told that the school had just made a change to the housing allowance amount.  Previously the allowance was $650 USD per month.  Now, we were getting to look for apartments up to $900 USD per month.

You would think that in Dushanbe, $900 would go a loooong way because this is such a poor country (currently one of the poorest of the former Soviet block countries).  However, after looking around, we have found that you can get pretty crappy choices without going to at least $1,500.

What really sucks is that even with the quality of our old place, (see this post and this post) we were quite happy with the place.  It had great natural light all day, the TV was in the main room so we could see it from the living room, dining area, kitchen, and even the bathroom if the door was open.

So, needless to say, we looked at a lot of places (I think about 20 total) and finally found one that we were willing to live in for the balance of the year.

Here's some photos of what we DIDN'T take:

Sharon didn't see this place so I sent her two photos.  

Here's the kitchen.

Here's the bathroom.  

When I left this place, I seriously felt dirty.

The guy showing it to me kept saying it was "best quality apartment".

He ended up showing me about 4 before I got ticked off & 

showed him a photo in his own company's flier that was the quality I expected to see.

This one was OK.  

We referred to this one as the "grandma house" since it was decorated like one.

Couches were comfy.

I did say grandma decor, correct?

The photo doesn't do this justice since the tiles 

were very purple/burgundy and not red.
And what you'll find here a lot is a separate toilet compartment from the sink & tub.

Annnnnd here's the owner...

This place at least had radiant floor heat in two rooms. 

But I couldn't even comprehend the decor :(

I was told the current tenant's could be out the next day if we wanted this one. 

Nice bathroom though.
(Note the sticker on the toilet tank)

This place was in a new building on the 11th floor.

The living room was huge - looking one way...

And looking the other way.  Seems a little sparse in furniture.

Large galley-kitchen.  It was starting to show some wear.

Biggest issue with this apartment was no sink in the bathroom.  

After using the toilet, you'd have to walk down the hall to the kitchen to wash your hands.

Like I said, good view of Dushanbe from the 11th floor.

Here's basically the same apartment on the 8th floor but they knocked through the

wall to make it a "studio" apartment.

Two things to note here:

1.) standing at the sink causes one to bump into the toilet

2.) the stickers do NOT denote new... everyone leaves all the stickers on stuff here for some reason

Basically brand new apartments and you still have wires cut and hanging out for no apparent reason.

Here's a larger apartment on the 11th floor.  It was quite a bit bigger.
I worked out a deal for them to rent both apartments for one set price (because another teacher wanted
move from her current place).  However, after the negotiations were finalized, the landlord
decided that she didn't want to pay the government taxes on the rent so it was a no-go for the places.

Another larger living room without enough furniture.

Nice ceiling...

They had a flat screen tv in the bedroom, kitchen, and living room.

Other view of the bedroom.

The bathroom in this place was huge.  It was in addition to a shower room and a
room with a toilet, sink, and washing machine.

This place started off promising.  The bathroom had been mostly refurbished (note the sticker).

Looked like fairly new carpeting.  The window there was just a view into the dining area.

Hmmm, looks a little worn on the furniture front.  Not sure what happened to the wallpaper.

Firuza didn't even come in past the entry.  

That's vinyl flooring rolled out for the entry.  Not secured down, just rolled out there.

Kitchen was definitely worn down and actually quite dirty.

Sticker on washing machine (in the kitchen)...

Sticker on the oven...

Sticker on the fridge.

Here's the dining room which was once a porch that has been closed-off.

Great courtyard out the front window.  Unfortunately, the bedroom side of the apartment was at

street level on an extremely busy road.

No, this isn't a sticker.  This is actually a design baked into the finish of the toilet.

Not sure what that cooking pot is doing on the floor...

A lot of places were quite proud of the pimp lighting they have installed.  

One gut kept switching through all the colors of lights with his remote control to impress us.

This is fairly common in the stairwells of the buildings.  They have just busted a hole in the concrete

and wired up some lights, etc. without regard to junction boxes or electrocution hazards.

This is at the least 220v running through the lines.

_____________________________________

More about the taxes: in Dushanbe, a landlord is required to pay 13% of the rental price to the government for taxes.  We found that the majority of people don't want to pay the taxes so they either have the renter pay them (which is what a lot of foreigners do).  By doing this, a $900 USD rent actually becomes $1,017 USD which is above the budget the school has and none of the places we saw were worth us paying that much out of pocket.

Alternately, the landlords will say that they will "pay" the taxes on the rental price, but you have to sign a deal that says you're only renting for $500 instead of $900.  This way, they are only on the hook for $65 in taxes and get to pocket the extra without anyone knowing.  Since the school has government officials checking their bookkeeping regularly, this type of situation is not possible (and I wouldn't want to enter into an agreement like this anyway).  

So it is actually a little difficult to find a decent place at a decent price with a decent landlord who wants to follow the laws and pay his/her taxes.

Welcome To The Jungle

Well, make that a garden.  But it has some areas that need mowing!

There is a large botanical garden in Dushanbe and as fate would have it, we actually live just a few blocks away from there. 

We have had a couple of opportunities to stroll through the gardens and take in the many splendors that the Dushanbe Botanical Gardens have to offer.  

The gardens are a prime location for weddings to take place and on our last visit, the weather was great and there were tons of couples getting married.

Here's a few photos of that last visit:

Reflecting/lily ponds greet you inside the gates. 

View looking back toward the gates. 

There's a very large hot-house in the middle. They grow and sell plants here as well. 

Some of the plants for sale. 

Large banana plants. Weirdly, banana plants grow all over the place in Dushanbe. 

Not the typical climate I'd expect them in. 

Looks like the ivy needs some trimming back. See, I SAID it was a jungle!

Odd, giant, card-files stuffed into a little-used room at the end. 

Liked the lines and angles in this shot. 

Reminds me a little of the Eiffel Tower.

Come, Mister tally man, tally me banana...

Leaves are starting to fall. Winter must be coming soon :(

Nice lamp posts...

So THIS is why our power goes out all the time, they're wasting it during the day!

Looking over the edge to the never-opened nuclear power plant & the mountains around the city. 

Big Ferris Wheel at the amusement park. Firuza tells a really funny story about barf raining down on her while locked into a ride :)

Liked the light on this little guy. 

Brides, Grooms, Photographers, and broken dreams everywhere.

Just kidding...or am I?

Sadly, as this couple strolled through the gardens being filmed & photographed, 

they didn't even talk to each other. 

When we saw them later, she wouldn't even look up & neither looked very happy. 

Arranged marriages are still a reality in this part of the world & we figure this might be one. 

Unlike this couple who looked happy & excited!  

The ones in the foreground, not the couple behind them.  

Like I said, the gardens are a popular wedding locale. 

Limos, Bimmers, Mercedes, Oh My!  Cars waiting outside to take the newlyweds on a random drive through the city while a car with a cameraman hanging out the window follows them around.