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!
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