Ist der Ruf erst ruiniert.... (Once your reputation is ruined...)

This week has been another week of getting adjusted, struggling with Russian and trying to shake off various 18-year-old Uzbek stalker boys (some of my students) that follow me around Uni. I also taught two classes, which I actually quite liked. My students are still young, so love to play games and other activities involving drawing, guessing and singing, which makes it fun for me too. What I particularly love is how they pay attention to absolutely everything I say and are just happy that I am there to teach. I had to do a class on “family” so thought I would challenge the sometimes a little too traditional Uzbek ways of thinking and gave them the following image to discuss

 I started off the lesson with exploring what it meant to have or to be in a family, and got answers such as “love”, “affection”, “trust”. The exercise was to match descriptions of the modern family with the images and discuss in groups how these forms are different from the traditional family. They seemed relaxed until someone dared to ask what ‘homosexuell’ or ‘schwul’ meant, and they all looked at me in shock as I explained that two men or two women could actually be in a relationship. They just stared at me with the biggest eyes as if I had just told them I wasn’t from Austria but from Mars. Apart from the fact that homosexuality is illegal in Uzbekistan, I think that some of the students came from rural areas, so that homosexuality was genuinely and absolutely unheard of. When I reminded them of their answers to my question what it meant to have a family, they were like “but that’s not a family” – “Why not? There’s love, affection, trust in a relationship between men too” – “but…the relationship doesn’t have a future”. I guess an Uzbek family HAS to be productive….This lesson was a bit provocative, alright, but I explained to them that since all of them want to move to Germany, they should at least be aware that Western family structures are slightly different..

Getting a schedule for teaching also, once again, proved what I have written about in my first blog, namely: be persistent. Standing up for yourself and trying over and over again to achieve what you want is something you have to be able to do, otherwise people are either using you or you are just making it incredibly hard for yourself. I think I managed quite well, as I now have a proper schedule with the classes that I liked, and hopefully the professors that I am working with are as collaborative as anticipated. When I speak about people using you, I am referring to a situation from the other day when one of the professors asked me if I would stop by his office to help him. I had no idea what he wanted and naively thought he would just want to have a little chat about Vienna (where he had spent a few months). When I came to his office, he asked me to sit down and have a look at his resume and application for going abroad again. Having written resumes in English, I know how hard it can be to write a resume in your second language, so thought maybe he needs help with phrasing his ideas and putting his thoughts into words. Well, no. As we got to the “social competencies” section, he asked me, what shall I write here? I told him I didn’t know him and that he’s the only one who can answer these questions, but he just grinned cheekily and asked “well what would you write?” This conversation took place with almost every section, even those where he was asked what the intention of his stay abroad was. I got slightly annoyed and just told him, you have to think for yourself, I am not going to do all your work for you. He was very obviously not pleased with my help..

This week also involved getting together with Matthias (a German lecturer at my university who has been living here for a little over a year) and discussing projects that we could organize for the students. Last year they had a theatre group that was a great success, so I agreed to help him organize and motivate the students, as well as do the warm-ups with them, as I don’t really have any experience with acting and theatre in general. Matthias did however introduce me as the “dance specialist” for this year’s theatre group, meaning that I would have to come up with a little choreography for the play. Surely that’s going to be interesting, but considering how many dancing courses I have done over the past years I think it shouldn’t be a problem.

I also convinced Matthias to help me with my own project, namely a little Viennese Waltz & Quadrille course. It’s been a while that I have danced a quadrille, but I looked up the steps on the internet and I think I am confident enough to at least gather a small group of students to teach them the basics of Waltz and maybe the first two tours of the Quadrille. I’m excited and hope that I will be able to share and spread the joy of this aspect of Viennese culture :)

I suppose most of you have wondered by now what this blog’s title is referring to. Well.. I mentioned in my last blog that I “made experiences with Tashkent’s nightlife and the effects of Russian vodka (and Georgian wine)”. The night was a bit excessive alright, but what it was in the end was dancing and drinking in one of Tashkent’s student bars (and spending about half an hour looking for my jacket). On Monday morning Ulrike came to her office and her Uzbek co-worker asked “Now Ulli how has your weekend been?” followed by a cheeky and very obviously knowing smile. Apparently some of her co-worker’s friends were at that club too and told Ulli’s co-worker about it, who then recognized us as “those two German girls at the VM club”. What was even more creepy though was that, as Ulli got into a cab to go home, she was asked by the taxi driver “weren’t you and the other German girl at Al Quasr (an Arabic place) smoking shisha” …really, how RANDOM is that? I always thought that Vienna was a village, but apparently everyone seems to know about the “two German girls” in Tashkent….

We’ll see what the next weeks bring,  a little travelling is definitely planned…:)

A few more fun quotations that I would like to remember:

- Ulli, Nodi and I are currently obsessed with a little Soviet TV figure named Cheburashka (cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sICgWJ46_4E). We went for dinner together with Maik, a guy who worked for the Goethe Institut, and were discussing what we were going to order. Cheburashka has a very cute way of saying “ja ne snaju” Я не знаю (meaning I don’t know), so when Ulli was asked what she wanted, she said “Я не знаю” the Cheburashka way, so that our topic of conversation very quickly moved away from food. Maik, however, said “Cheburashka? Mh, I don’t think I have eaten that yet”….poor Cheburashka :)

- Our dear friend Nodi has a talent for getting some things about the German language wonderfully wrong. I can’t remember what we were talking about, but he started a story with the following line: “Ja also einmal da war ich auch in so einem Kellner”….he meant: Keller.

Much love xxx

Unexpected Stardom

Hello everyone,

Tuesday was my first day of actually doing something at Uni. I finally got introduced to the dean, who is a confused and very very busy, but nice old man. He welcomed me at the University and gave me an extensive tour of the building, which is visibly over 120 years old and close to collapsing. Apparently the entire department was supposed to move, but as my previous blog has shown, things happen here very last-minute and in a – by my standards – very unorganized manner, so who knows if we may end up moving during the term. If we don’t move, it will be interesting to teach in these facilities, as some of the rooms don’t even have a blackboard, not to mention cassette or CD/DVD players. Also, the only computer (and internet) in the entire building is in the dean’s office. 

The dean introduced me to everyone and most of the teachers who immediately invited me to lunch and were extremely hospitable, friendly and interested. They also bombarded me with questions and comments and inquiries if I could speak to all of their students. I was asked if I would do a little Q & A session with the students from the first year (who I will be mainly teaching) the next morning. I ended up standing in front of 120 cute little and wide-eyed 18-year-olds who bombarded me with questions about myself, Austria, if I liked Tashkent and schaschlik and if I was married. Some of these questions I got asked up to 4 times, so I guess that 90% of what I said wasn’t understood though I genuinely tried to speak as slowly and clearly as possible. Well, that session was quite something, but nothing compared to what happened afterwards. As soon as the professor who had organized this session said that they were free to go, about 50 of the students stormed in my direction pushing and pulling me in all possible directions while all I could hear was Kristina can I take a picture with you Please can you give me private lessons Kristina will you come visit me in Bukhara it’s my home place I can show you around Kristina Kristina Kristina thank you so much for your presentation Kristina can we invite you to lunch Kristina will you go for a walk with us…. etc….Who would have thought I’d ever be such a star! One of the students even said “Du bist ein Stern Kristina”. After receiving a few presents (an apple, chocolate and a little souvenir) and promising them I would try to do all of these things with them, I was free. While I love how motivated they are to learn German, their enthusiasm was a bit too much for me, and I hope that it will wane over time. Another thing that I found striking was that almost everyone who I asked why they learned German said that they wanted to study in Germany and, if possible, stay there. Leaving Uzbekistan seems to be a dream for a lot of the people living here. I don’t think it would ever strike my mind to move to a country where I’ve never been before, particularly if its culturally so distant.. but I guess circumstances here are different.

This week has been full of watching lessons, making new experiences and attempting to make the best of my poor Russian skills. I now started taking lessons again with Ulli and a lovely quite stereotypically Russian woman as our teacher.. So far, I am quite proud to say that I managed to tell the guy at the Internet Café that the microphone wasn’t working, that we were able to order a shisha with melon-flavored tobacco in a restaurant, as well as that I was courageous enough to take a cab on my own although I still struggle with Russian numbers. “Taking a cab” in Central Asia is something quite different, as all you do is wave with your arms and wait until a car stops. Yup, I get into strangers’ cars – but that’s what everyone does here and the easiest and not too expensive way to move around. After a bit of bargaining you can get to most places for about 1€. Sometimes they will talk to you, but like I have mentioned before – English skills are very poor around here, so conversations never go beyond “where are you from”, or, as it happened to Ulli and me yesterday, “Austrian and German girls beautiful”.

Generally, money is quite an issue around here, as the Uzbek som is worth pretty much nothing. About 2900 som is a euro.. imagine the amounts of money you have to carry around with you when the biggest banknote is 1000 som. It’s happened to me a couple of times that I grabbed some money before leaving the house only to find out that what I had one me was worth less than 10€, but thankfully there was always someone around to help me out. Ulli has also helped me exchange money in the first place (which you have to do at the black market as you get up to 30% less value at official exchange places). Neither of us could believe that such a massive stack of money was worth ‘only’ 400$. Owning such a stack makes you sometimes wish that currency didn’t matter…

 This first week has been great, as I was introduced to lovely people, made my first experiences with Tashkent’s nightlife and the effects of Russian vodka (and Georgian wine), tasted great Uzbek (but sometimes very meaty) food and explored some more of Tashkent. 

I’m ending this blog with a song that Ulli and I are currently addicted to – she heard it in the club on Friday night, remembered some of the lyrics (я думаю means “I think”) and found it on youtube the next morning…we’ve been dancing to it through our apartment ever since!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkkRYhuZ9rI

Mann von Uni geht zu OVIR mit Papiere... or: квартира газ!!!

Dear all,

 

this blog is my poor attempt of putting my impressions and experiences of living in Uzbekistan into words, as well as serves the purpose to give my friends, family and all interested the possibility to join me in my Uzbek adventures.  I hope that this blog will spark your interest in Uzbek (expat) life. I haven’t really decided in which language to write this blog, but since I will primarily interact with German (or Russian and Uzbek…) speakers here, I believe my English will most likely deteriorate to some degree.. I guess depending on my mood and the topic of my post I will choose the language.

I arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan safe and sound after a fairly quiet flight with a layover in Istanbul. My future roommate Ulrike (she’s an intern at the Goethe Institut) had agreed to pick me up from the airport and took me to our lovely but slightly trashy granny-style apartment. The apartment’s “granniness” is not so much present in flowery wallpapers but rather in the furniture as well as all sorts of china and useless object standing and hanging around. Drawers are filled with trash covered in dust that the owners haven’t touched for years. I had to remove some of that stuff in my room, I was pretty sure it would have given me nightmares…

Arriving in Tashkent isn’t easy, as the authorities try to make your first day as horrible as possible. Luckily Ulrike and one of the German lecturers from my University stood by my side to help me survive this day of hell. First you need all sorts of letters and confirmations and contracts from your workplace which they should have prepared but which they hadn’t even though they knew for months that you are coming. So, you sit around and wait. Then, you have to communicate to your landlord with your hand and feet that he (and his wife!...WHY) have to accompany you to the registration office (OVIR) for no obvious reason. Then you have to find the OVIR (we got lost). At the OVIR, you have to wait for the man from the International Office (who does neither speak German nor English and who was late) to bring the documents and THEN you have to explain to the impatient landlord why you have to wait for the university guy with the documents. This situation obviously inspired this blog’s title, as communicating with absolute basics is the only possible way (better than nothing I guess…). Being at the registration office involves signing a document you don’t understand, paying 100$ and people dragging your poor, sleepwalking self from one room to the other in a building that looks close to being knocked down every second (okay, it wasn’t THAT bad..but still, pretty bad).

This obviously sounds like a terrible first day, but I had a very warm welcome and a great first meal of the Uzbek national meal plov which made up for the rest. It’s difficult to put everything I have seen and hear into words, particularly because people tell you a lot about Uzbek life and people’s mentality. I don’t really know yet what to do with this information because I have just arrived and absolutely everything to me is new. I think I will share these things along the way as I make my own experiences related to them rather than passing on information without knowing if it is true.

So far Tashkent seems like an interesting city on the threshold between orient and soviet ways of living which is reflected in the way people dress, food, how streets are organized as well as in which language they speak. While I find Tashkent fascinating so far, it does seem that the city’s infrastructure makes it a little difficult to achieve things. There is a metro (which I haven’t tried yet cause I don’t really have a passport at the moment due to registration procedures) but a lot of my colleagues take (inofficial) taxis to their workplaces every day because the city isn’t really built for pedestrians and because the metro stops still seem ages away from the places you are trying to get to. Streets are enormously long and roads are wide, which makes it hard for me to gain a sense of orientation because all the streets look (more or less) the same and because Tashkent has a reputation of being a centreless city (which is kind of true despite Karimov’s attempts to change that). 

The difficulty of achieving what you want is not only found in the way the city is organized but also in the way people are – communication is hard, particularly if you don’t speak the language. I am writing this on day 4 of my stay here and I guess I am lucky that I am fairly easygoing, though I find it quite annoying that I still don’t know what, where and whom I am going to teach cause I still haven’t met the dean of the German department. We were supposed to be introduced this morning, but he wasn’t in his office and didn’t show up even after a couple of hours of waiting around. I guess a good advice to take would be: Be persistent. This proved to be helpful in the case of our grumpy landlord. First, he didn’t have a second set of keys for me and only agreed to get one after we had asked for it like 5 times. Then, my room was initially locked and even though he knew that I was coming for over a month, he said that he couldn’t open it up just yet because it was still filled with (even more) trash. We were persistent, so at least he got his wife to throw out the trash so that I could have a bed to sleep in. When we got home from a little sightseeing tour in Tashkent on Saturday, our apartment smelled of gas. We called him immediately but he didn’t show up for over 2 hours, and then said that the technician would check the stove the next morning 9am. The technician rang at our door about an hour later the same day, said that everything was fine, and left. It still smelled of gas. Another technician came the next day, also said it was okay, and it still smelled of gas. We were about to call our landlord again, but he showed up unannounced and was able to fix our gas problem after two technicians had a look at it. Well, our apartment smells okay now.. because we were persistent!

Surviving here without a word of Russian is pretty much impossible, so far I think I am at least able to take a cab on my own as well as do some shopping, but communicating with the technicians was an absolute nightmare. Ulrike and I looked up random words in Russian like “stove”, “smell”, “gas”, “to turn off”, but they would just keep on talking normal speed so that we didn’t have any other choice but to call somebody who would translate their “wordsalads” for us. I guess not being able to communicate is the kind of experience my coordinator from back home wants me to make so that I can understand what I feels like to live in a country without speaking the language at all (“Hello what’s your name” doesn’t count). It really isn’t pretty but, if you have a roommate to share your misery with, sometimes pretty funny :)

 I am very curious to explore the university and the city a little bit more. So far, everyone I have met (mostly Germans) has been very welcoming and helpful and I can’t wait to see more of this place :)

At this point I would like to note a couple of conversations that kept me in stitches. Not sure if this is funny for people who weren’t part of the conversation, but I guess this is just for me to make sure I don't forget it:

1) We live near a park named after Bobur. I asked Nodi, an Uzbek guy learning German, who Bobur was, and his answer was: “I think he was a scientologist and a king”…he meant scientist.

2) A Swiss guy named Mario does boxing and told us that he was boxing with one of Nodi’s colleagues (I think). Nodi asked: Hast du die auch schon geschleckt? … he meant “geschlagen”.

3) Apparently Russians/Uzbeks have the perception that Germans have a very bad style when it comes to clothes. A woman asked another woman at the Goethe Institut “Is there a reason why you are dressing so carelessly or have you lived in Germany for a little while?” (something like that, I can’t remember the exact quotation)…very charming indeed!