Housing and Other Oddities in Gratitude

Just about 2 years ago I quit my job, packed up my things and changed countries.  It’s been an amazing adventure.  In the intervening time I have created and sometimes simply experienced some interesting housing situations.  As I have had to navigate voter registration, tax filing, and renewal of my driver’s license it is not lost on me just how transient I’ve become.  One day, about a year ago, I got a call from a social worker from my health insurance company.  When I signed up for coverage they had asked me to complete a survey.  Ever mindful that my professional life often requires data from such surveys, I dutifully complied and in doing so flagged myself as homeless.

I had very mixed feelings about this phone call.  On the one hand, I was thoroughly impressed at the program which my health insurance had to help assist the homeless population in their care.  Should such services be more ubiquitous, I wonder how we could reduce the number of people who fall into that category.  I was unimpressed by the fact that a full year had passed between the time when I filled out the survey and when the social worker called.  Were I to be more traditionally homeless, I wonder whether the phone number at enrollment would be reliable a year later.  A year on the streets, seems to me, is a much longer measure of time.  I did inform my social worker and then quickly ended the call to ensure that her time was spent with other individuals whose transient housing situations were driven more by circumstance than personal choice and non-traditional career paths.

This experience has demonstrated how easy it would be to fall off the grid, or perhaps alternatively, how difficult it is to keep from falling through the cracks of society.  Even answering the simple question of, “what is your address?” becomes complicated.  I’ve never been without a roof over my head, but my legal address, mailing address, permanent address, where I’m registered to vote, and home address have at times all been separate addresses based on the definition required by each system.  I commend the driver’s license bureaucracy for acknowledging homelessness and providing the option of having a shelter as your address, but even this requires certification from a shelter and ignores individuals who are living in their cars or avoid shelters for health and/or safety reasons. 

This is the point at which I pause and thank my wide safety net of friends and family who regularly allow me to crash in their spare bedrooms, couches, and air mattresses on spare sections of the floor.  These people also deserve a shout out because of their utter offense at the notion that I am homeless or somehow outside of society.  I am also grateful for Airbnb.  As much as I recognize that the disruption in housing markets has caused inflated prices and potentially resulted in more transience, there is no other way in which I could imagine living 2 weeks in one location, and 6 more in another.  No way in which I could have afforded to chase the opportunities that I have had. 

I am grateful because I am fortunate. Because of this new perspective on my own fortunes I hope I am also more cognizant of the fortunes of others.

A Chinese Construction Site - and other oddities

So we’ve covered the 60% of the trip with good roads, the 5km of the “tunnel of death” as another blogger dubbed it, now there is still one more mountain range to cross.  If you’re interested in seeing the actual route the road’s labeled M34 on this map.

View Larger Map

I tried to re-route the gmap directions onto that road, but google apparently doesn’t think that it’s an acceptable way to travel and won’t give directions.

(Hint: If you want to be able to manipulate the map, click on the link "View Larger Map" in blue under this picture) 

Anywho, as I was getting to the point where I was so nervous from speeding around hairpin turns at 60 km/hr (it feels faster than I’m sure it converts) that I was giggling uncontrollably and my eyes had started to water enough that  I had a tear running down my face, we were mercifully stuck behind a very large truck.  This was not unusual.  The unusual thing was that we weren’t trying to pass on a road barely wide enough for two cars with extremely limited visibility. In no time we had crossed onto a dirt road.  In fact, the road looked less like a road and more like an abandoned construction site from an old mafia movie.  As we crawled further and further up the mountain, we hit several forks in the “road” at which we weren’t certain which route was the road and which part was the construction entrance.  While I was initially skeptical of our policy of “well, we’ll just follow the big truck” since we were in a construction site after all, it seemed to work out.  We were carried through a chinese work site and camp where I’m told they are building another tunnel.  This one is supposed to be much better than the Iranian tunnel, and judging by the avalanche shelters which the Chinese built along the earlier section of the road, I tend to believe them. 

The downside of this construction (my private upside) was that the road was really quite rough.  We climbed several mountains on glorified dirt paths.  This is perhaps not fair.  They were well enough engineered that a steady stream of trucks and cars passed along it all day long without much issue.  Russian dirt roads perhaps? …

After more than an hour  of climbing, possibly even two,  my colleagues triumphantly announced that we had crested the top of the range and would begin our decent!  To celebrate we stopped at a slightly wider section of the road to take a picture or two and breathe before beginning the harrowing decent back down.  Mistake?  Maybe.  I personally think it was our saving grace:

Here is a picture of the head doctor in our group pouring water directly into the radiator.  I don’t know if you had this class is driver’s education, but we were very clearly instructed to NEVER EVER remove the radiator cap when the engine is hot.  Well, despite lots of advice and three other people pleading with him not to do it, our brave Dr. Professor gingerly removed the radiator cap.  Luckily, no one was injured (that time).  The car did spout out some angry looking black smoke when we poured water in, but the engine did not crack.  It was a success!  After much trying and 4.5 liters of water, the car was finally cool enough to start again, and down the road we went.  Ever grateful to be on a dirt road which required a more leisurely pace. 

This is from our return trip.  At the top of the mountain, before we began our decent, we were apparently not the only car with road damage.  Some of those stopped are merely taking a break, but several cars were being worked on, or smoking, or both.  All in all we had the muffler welded twice, the entire undercarriage disassembled and reassembled, the petrol pump replaced, and we were told that the thermostat for the car was completely blown.  I was told that it was much more economical to drive, but with the cost of all those repairs, food, petrol, and liquid gas, maybe a $150 plane ticket would have been worth it.

The Road from Dushanbe

First and foremost:  Thanks for reading!!  When I sign on, I can see how many people have checked the posts and there’s even a map so I can see where people are signing on from.  There have been readers from the United States, the UK, Kenya, France, Romania, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Latvia, Australia, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, and South Korea (If I’m missed anyone, sorry, perhaps your internet is being rerouted through another country).  I hope you like what you’re reading, comment often, and continue to tune in.  Thanks for checking this out, and feel free to let me know if you have questions or if there’s something I can investigate for you.

On to the post!

There have been times when I have struggled to find something to write about.  It’s not that there aren’t things that you might find interesting, it’s just that I find it difficult to be passionate about things that I see everyday or that inherently make sense to me.  Many of these things only inherently make sense because I’ve been here or somewhere comparable, but none the less it’s hard to find a topic that I can force to be compelling enough. 

This is not one of those times.  I spent the day traveling from Dushanbe to Khujand.  What was quoted as a 5-6, probably 5, hour car ride turned into a 300km, 9 hour epic journey.  There are so many things that I want to write.  The difficulty is more likely to be that I will have trouble narrowing it down.  In an effort to get all my thoughts down and convey what I think you will find most interesting I’ve decided to break this up into sections.  The result with be that I will just keep writing without posting.  I’ve actually learned a new feature on this blog-o-vel which could come in handy.  I can apparently write posts, publish them, but schedule them for some time in the future.  This benefits you because it means that I will not try to put 4 posts worth of information in a single post.  It also means that I can include more pictures like this one:

I am particularly amused by the contrast of a "Stop/Control" sign in the middle of the wild.

Perhaps the best part is that even while I’m on a plane or away from internet, or perhaps even after I’ve returned from this trip, you will continue to receive new posts.  All of this is of course only beneficial to you if you actually like what you’re reading, but since you’re here and you’re reading, I’m going to go ahead and take that leap of faith.  Big of me, eh?

Transportation:

***There once was a girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good, she was very very good.  When she was bad, she was horrid!!***

Perhaps we will begin with the very very good, and later move on to the horrid.

The roads of Tajikistan, from my experience, are much like the girl in the nursery rhyme.  For the most part they are remarkably well cared for and many are quite new.  The main road from Dushanbe to Khujand is a toll road and it seems that these fees/tariffs/taxes, as they are interchangeably referred, are actually put to good use.  This, however, can be a bit of a problem.  While the road is in good condition and relatively free of livestock, it still climbs through a 4,000 meter elevation mountain range.  The condition of the road is so good that there doesn’t seem to be any reason to slow down … until you’re already on top of a hairpin turn, with oncoming traffic, about to barrel off the side of a cliff. 

This was a wreck that had clearly been there for a long time.  This not only made me more scared, but also highlighted the point that if you do go off the side of the road, unless you make it very clear that you’re still in the car and need assistance, there’s no real guarantee that anyone’s coming to help you.

Side note:  On our return trip, we did see an accident.  A tractor trailer truck carrying liquid gas was unsuccessful in navigating one of the turns.  The truck rolled down the hill, past the next road, further down the hill and across the subsequent road to land on the shoulder/river bank.  Thank god it was a single car accident and none of the gas ignited.  I should also note that the accident was pretty recent and the police were there in force.  To their credit they were investigating almost immediately. 

I would say that Americans in general are a bit squeamish when it comes to road safety.  We like everything to be clean, without debris, at slow speeds, with no distractions.  Likewise, everyone travelling in a row, with extra wide lanes and a wide shoulder is appreciated.  This does, of course, set us up to be horrified by driving conditions in most other parts of the world.

When the trip began, I rather prided myself on my calm composed demeanor despite the high speeds and lack of attention to what was technically “on the road” and what was maybe not quite as much within its boundaries.   Afterall, I have been on roads where you travel at 60+ miles per hour despite potholes and herds of sheep.  I have even had the opportunity of being borderline kidnapped and raced up and down the Amalfi coast in Italy on roads that had similar cliffs that fell straight into the water by an old man who most probably was not sober.  This should be a piece of cake. 

However, I think this is the first time I’ve been in a situation like this and I’ve screamed.  I screamed more than once.  In my defense, the two other Tajik men in the car with us also became upset and were quite adamant that the driver should perhaps slow down and be careful or at least I assumed that's what it meant as we approached each turn they began to chant "стой!  стой! стой! стой!".  On more than once occassion we were going so fast the car slid sideways around the curve, wheels screaching.  In my experience, when the locals – the ones who are supposed to be accustomed to the way things are here – when they are also making comments like, “I’m still young.  There are so many things I want to do and see in my life, perhaps we should get there alive” then I think it is reasonable to be outwardly concerned.  And this is why perhaps nice smooth roads are not always the best situation.

** This post was written and is being published after both the outbound and return trip.  I will not make the same trip, or have anymore long drives with the same driver.**

And so it begins ... again!

Have you ever wished you could travel around the world?  Perhaps it's the people that I tend to meet and hang around with, or maybe it's an underlying human curiosity, but I've talked to so many people that have expressed a desire to be a travel writer, or just be paid to travel around the world.  It occurred to me the other day, that I'm essentially getting to do just that.  Granted, I'm not being paid to write this blog (yet - I'm open to sponsorships if you are an editor or know one that you'd like to connect me with), however I am being paid a nominal sum of money periodically to hop about the globe.  This time part of my job is also to convey a modicum of cultural understanding for the place in which I find myself.  I've thought many times that if I could be anything in the world, with no restrictions, I'd be an explorer.  Somewhere along the lines of Sir Ernest Shackleton or Dora.  In a management class I took last year (we love you Mark Haas!), the instructor used a recruitment ad attributed to Sir Shackleton in order to demonstrate leadership.  The advertisement read: 

MEN WANTED:  For hazardous journey.  Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.  Honour and recognition in case of success.

My first thought was - I would TOTALLY consider that offer if posed.  Okay, to be a little more realistic, if someone where to give me that exact offer right now, I might ask for clarification of "return doubtful" .... why is it doubtful?  Are you lacking confidence in leadership?  Are we likely to be killed by someone?  Or might we simply die from the elements?  I'll take my chances with the last one.  I'll need more information about the first two.  Alas, there seem to be a derth of such opportunities available.  Our curious human nature has mapped out so much of the world already.  Additionally, my ability to take advantage of them goes down with every added loan dollar I accept.  I do continue to promise to do my best to accept any such opportunity that is ... reasonable?  :)

So here we go again.  Filled with a sense of anticipiation and trepidation (love that word!), I set out upon an unsuspecting world.  Perhaps that's a bit over used and even over blown, but certainly an unsuspecting Central Asian nation is true enough.  Tomorrow night I will leave these states that are united for the Republic of Tajikistan. 

This region is not completely unknown to me, and perhaps even for that reason I'm a little uncertain of my decision to go.  I have fond memories and great stories from my year living in Turkmenistan.  There is a place in Turkmenistan where I think of and a warm sensation of home washes over me.  The mental image of faces from that place bring a tear to my eye.  There is a woman whom I call mom, and another who I feel closer to than I ever could imagine even feeling for a sister.  These are people I hoped I was never required to lay my life down for, mostly because I might have, had it been required.  And yet, I know that some of those memories have sweetened with age, and some are only so sweet because of the contrast of adversity in which they were set.  Do I love this place of Central Asia? or am I merely proud of my ability to overcome it?  There is one thing that I am certain of:  I truly loved the people that I met and the hope that they were able to cultivate.  I am excited for the opportunity to go back and more fully understand my relationship with a hard and unforgiving region of the world.  I am not excited to find out just how strong I was able to make my immune system or where it's weaknesses may lie.  No worries though.  I go armed with pink bismuth, ciprofloxacin, and the knowledge that while some vodka is an acceptable anticeptic for small lacerations, it will not kill what dwells within the water.

So here I go, penetrating "deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness" ... with the hope of discovering all the light that has been previously overlooked.

In the event that you would like more general information on Tajikistan, I have included a few links on the left hand side of the page for your reference.  I would also recommend looking up Tajikistan in the World Factbook, but for linkage and perception reasons I will refrain from connecting my site to theirs.  If you have specific questions please feel free to comment here or email me directly and I will try to answer those questions in upcoming posts.  I have downloaded the app required for this site and will work on getting my phone unlocked today so I can use it outside of the US.  With any stroke of luck, this blog will continue to developed throughout my trip.  In the event that all internet fails and I am not actually able to access this thing while I'm there. I will write anyway and post things periodically upon my return.  How fun.  It'll be like living through it twice!

Thank you everyone for your continued interest in my travels, or at the very least allowing your computer to log on periodically, thereby convincing me that it's not just a mental health exercise to get these thoughts out into the world.

Much love and happiness,
Rachel

 

“My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.”
― Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim