Experience Fulbright

I’ll be honest, this was a hard week for us. My project is beginning the final phase and my son’s school is approaching final exam week. It’s hot here in Tashkent and feels like summer in Minnesota. My point is, we both feel ready to wrap things up and head home, but we still have a little over six weeks to go. Thankfully, we have made some good friends here, both Uzbek and American, and that makes such a difference.

This experience of living as a foreigner in a country that is very different from my own has given me a different understanding of what immigrants go through.

I left my home 3 months ago with my son, not out of fear or desperation, but out of a sense of adventure and curiosity. We brought 4 suitcases full of our most essential items. I have a generous grant, access to cash via an ATM machine, and the support of the US Embassy. AND WE ARE STRUGGLING to adjust.

Everyday things like going to the grocery store or getting allergy medicine at the pharmacy are a challenge. Seemingly simple tasks are sometimes confusing. I had to ask my Uzbek friend, Tullo, to help me pay my cell phone bill because I couldn’t read the online site and couldn’t communicate with anyone in the store. our shower curtain rod fell down and i had to call my landlord’s son for help because i couldn’t figure out how to get it back up.

The food is different and generally doesn’t agree with us so we are in a continual battle to find friendly food options that don’t upset our digestive systems. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to find TESCO brand peanut butter at a local specialty store. My husband brought us two jars of Skippy peanut butter when he visited in February and its almost gone so finding more was a huge psychological boost for us.

The climate is also much different than Minnesota. At first this was really pleasant because winter is mild and short here. I enjoyed the early spring and beautiful flowers but now it is HOT. It feels like mid-July in Minnesota but it is only May and its going to get a lot hotter. We will struggle to cope with the heat.

The early spring and lots of flowers has also meant a whole new set of allergens for my son. He’s been struggling for about a month with allergies and the typical medicine we brought with from the States hasn’t been effective. We have access to a local International Clinic and have the funds to pay for medical but it has still caused me stress. We were able to get some different medicine and thankfully that has helped. I can only imagine the anxiety and helplessness that refugee parents must face when their children are in need of medical attention, trying to navigate an unfamiliar system with few resources available to them.

And I know that I will go home. When my son complains that he misses things about home, I can reassure him that we will soon be going back home. Refugees families do not have that luxury. If we were living here in Uzbekistan with little to no hope of returning home, I don’t know how we would be coping.

So, I guess the point of this week’s post is to say that the support of friends, especially locals who know the culture and can navigate the system here, has been essential for us. If you have the opportunity to befriend a visiting foreigner or recent immigrant or help a refugee family, please do. It could make all the difference in the world to them.

Here are some photos of the people who have made all the difference to me.