field work.

today was a long day, 7 interviews completed. we started at 8:30, took a city cab to the outskirts of the city where a local doctor, Shohira, hooked me up with a participant. Shohira helped me run a seminar in 2008, at the time she had two adorable daughters--maybe 6 and 8--who made me bead bracelets before i left. the clinic is part of the 'epidemics center" and is located on the first floor of what looks like a residential building. from there, a MA lead me to this woman' apartment for an interview. we sat in her living room, carpeted with no furniture, except for a small TV stand in one corner and a coffee table in front of a seating mat in the other. there was green tea that we drank out of 'piala', a traditional drinking bowl, sugar biscuits, local flatbread, and honey that the woman's brother in law makes in the mountain and that is 'ecologically clean", meaning organic. the honey was deliciously sweet on the chewy adn dense flatbread, which is like ciabatta but with less holes. the woman is a gynecologist who talked about the delivery of her son, with mild shoulder dystocia, her work in moscow and in afghanistan. she talked about having to live under shari'a law, working in a war-zone with shelling all around, working in terrible health-depraved culturally conservative conditions, where women delivered on the floor of a dirty hut without sanitation. then, back to the city cab and back to the office, where more women are waiting. this driver was amazingly skilled, weaving through crazy traffic, speeding, while shelling pistachios out of the window while talking on the phone to the beat of arabic 'super hits'. at some point you had to let go of the possibility of dying and just trust in the manual transmission and the faith that the 5 dudes behind that this guy just cut off are going to break just in time.
the women are already waiting. they are supplied by Nilu, who is a woman i interviewed earlier and who is now my pimp, supplying me with woman. after 3 interviews, Nilu, who helps to translate when questions get difficult, invites me to Kulyab, her hometown in the south of teh country. umm..maybe next time, considering Nilu just left her hometown because she did not want to be forced to wear a burqa.
after this we go to lunch. this is actually the first time i get a chance to have a lunch during work day, so Jonbek insists i 'meet' Tajik pizza. We walk to the pedagogical university, between the office and my apartment where in the back, out of a small courtyard kitchen, tehre is a traditional cafe. when jonbek said pizza, he really meant shakharob, which is a traditional vegetarian, and only vegetarian dish there is. it consists of layer of thin plain yogurt, layered with crusty flaky bread, layered with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and liberally sprinkled with chopped dill adn served in a giant wooden bowl. despite my dislike for chopped dill it is actually pretty tasty. now, full of shakharob, we go back for more interviews.
the women i interview are different. i have interviewed doctors, teachers, language professors, economists, and many others with barely a high school diploma. they share their stories, their stories of migration, of giving birth, of sleeping with their husbands. i listened to a 20 minute story about terrible severe preeclampsia went undiagnosed. i listened to stories of abusive husbands and the courage to leave them, even though one may likely never marry again. i listened to stories of homelessness in moscow, and lack of money, any money, and needing to support one's kids. there are stories of not wanting to let go, 25 years after the soviet union fell apart, still having nostalgia for the tajikistan of one's childhood. there are also stories of stupidity, or what i, probably incorrectly and arrogantly, think is stupidity. like wanting to have a child with your husband, who abandoned you and your children, without having any means to support this or any other child, just because you want to have a child. today, i listened to a very colorful woman (both in personality and in her bright orange hair and coral lipstick) who intermittently launched into a monologue about her husband, the artist, and his artistic creativity, which i awkwardly had to interrupt to ask silly questions like "so tell me about your second abortion?"
it's late and i'm celebrating a long day with a beer. i have so much transcription to do....