My husband arrived in Tashkent this week. It’s been wonderful having him around. He’s done some cooking for us and has cleaned up after us everyday. Apparently, he missed his calling as a homemaker. He really is quite good at domestic chores. I’m so grateful that he could come for an extended visit. (He’s staying for about a month.
He also arrived just in time for the first and probably only substantial snowfall of the winter here in Tashkent. It was quite beautiful and since they have had such little snow in the past few years everyone in Tashkent that I know was excited for the snow.
Since my husband was new in town, my team at the Ministry insisted that we visit the most famous Uzbek plov restaurant. (See my previous post to learn more about plov.) My husband was a very good sport and ate his entire, heaping, plateful of plov with lamb on it even though he is mostly a vegetarian. We also learned from my translator that the legend behind plov is that Alexander the Great needed an easy meal to feed his vast army as it was marching through what is now Central Asia and plov was the answer. It is easy enough to make in huge quantities (see the photo of the giant plov vat below) and is a complete meal in one dish.
My project is moving ahead on schedule despite some delays last week with my translator. We finished the cultural adaptation portion of the project, created a roughly 125 page document containing the full curriculum for teaching positive psychology and stress management in the four pilot schools here in Tashkent. Last week the Ministry of Public Education approved the curriculum in its entirety without any further changes. So I was able to hold another week of training, this time for the school psychologists and assistant principals from the four pilot schools.
It was a bit of a struggle for me this week to have the same level of enthusiasm in the training as I did the first week. I had to essentially the repeat essentially the same training this week as we did two weeks ago and about half the people were the same. Still, it was all very well received and when we wrapped up on Thursday with our last day everyone wanted to chat and take photos with me. It’s quite odd to feel like something of a celebrity here. There are just so few Americans in Uzbekistan that we are kind of a novelty. Everyone wants a photo with “The American”.
The next phase of my project is to train the teachers in the schools so they can use these techniques in their classrooms. The teacher trainings at each of the four schools will happen through March, with the teachers beginning to use the curriculum in the classrooms starting April 1.
Experience Fulbright 