We spent a wonderful weekend in Bukhara for the annual Silk and Spice festival. We flew in on Thursday evening and got to see some of the sights at night before it got really crowded with tourists. I spent Friday training about 60 school psychologists from Bukhara and Navoi regions.
Me and Zulfiya, my translator, with the school director and a few school psychologists from the training.
Then the real fun came on Saturday when we toured the Silk and Spice festival. We saw vendors from all over Uzbekistan, as well as people from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. Most of the vendors were selling the obvious, spices and various silk fabrics, but here were also many vendors with jewelry. Not to mention all the regular aristans of Bukhara such as the masters of silk embroidery known as Suzani, knife and scissors makers, silk carpets, and furs.
In addition to all the photos I took, I thought it would be fun to put together a short video of our day at the festival. I hope you enjoy!
So my husband said that last week’s blog post sounded like it was written by Eeyore and he suggested that this week’s post be a bit more upbeat lest people think that I’m not doing well here.
In fact, things are going quite well for us. I found out where to buy popping corn at Chorsu bizarre and saw Philadelphia Cream Cheese for the first time at my local grocery store. I heard about a local bakery that supposedly has both bagels and authentic flour tortilla shells. So YEAH! I wish I had known about all these places when I first arrived. I’m going to write a future blog post about all these great places I’ve found, either on my own or through my awesome friends here.
My project is wrapping up nicely. We’ve finished the pilot project in the schools and collected the post-test data. Students are preparing to take final exams this week so we wanted to get the stress assessments done before they get into exam week.
I’m preparing to do the last of my regional psychologist trainings at the end of this week and throughout next week. After that, its just interpreting the data and writing up my report and recommendations.
So… with all that said, I spent the last few days walking around Tashkent photographing the street cats. I’m not going to call them strays, or feral cats, because many of them seem to be taken care of by some humans. They have a specific territory and generally hang out around the same front stoops or courtyard areas. When I asked my driver about all the cats he said people like having them around because they take care of the rats!
If you are part of the 1% of the online population that doesn’t love looking at cat photos, just stop reading now. For the rest of you, I present #CatsofTashkent
Cats of Tashkent
Captain Jack likes to hang out by the entrance to my building. He looks a little crazy with his different colored eyes and likes to watch me as I walk past.
Suka lives in the park near my house. She always looks like she’s about the rip your face off. This cat lives by my friend Jordan’s house. I’ve decided to name him Poirot, on account of his lovely mustache. He’s very self assured and has claimed this spot as his own. Do NOT even think about asking him to move. Mac lives near the Burger Embassy restaurant. I don’t think he needs to work very hard for his dinner so he can afford to lay around napping all day.My friend Tullo snapped this cutie. I’m going to call her Snickers, just cause I can. I know nothing else about her.Ginger lives in the courtyard of a building near a Greek restaurant. you can see that she also has a family that puts out food and water for her. She’s got it pretty good.Marianne shares the same courtyard as ginger. She’s definitely the brains of the pair. She is often prowling the courtyard while Ginger is napping.I call this beauty Ghost. I only see Ghost at night and always in passing. It took me a week just to get this grainy photo. I don’t know if ghost is male or female but I’m guessing male based on my next photos.
The “black sheep” of the litter is Shadow.
Snowflakes’s sister, Frost.
This adorable little Snowflake is one of a litter of three kittens that I think was sired by Ghost.
Snowflake and Frost, with Shadow lurking in the background.
I hope that you have enjoyed this feline tour of my neighborhood. If you want to see more photos of the Cats of Tashkent, comment on this post. Maybe I’ll venture into another area and find their cats. Every neighborhood seems to have them.
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.
Jordan, fellow Fulbrighter and best of friends here in Uzbekistan.
Zulfiya, my translator and research assistant.
Saida, the Fulbright program coordinator, at the US Embassy. My project wouldn’t be possible without her.
My landlord and his family, who have basically adopted me.
Friends. Tullo and Dave are the bookends in this photo. Tullo is my go to Uzbek friend and Dave is another Fulbright scholar who knows the struggles of working here.
The Fulbright program was started in 1946 by Senator William J. Fulbright as a means to promote the exchange of ideas across cultures and to share American ideals, innovations, and expertise with other countries and in turn, bring expertise and ideas to the US from those countries.
Each year, Congress determines the budget for the Fulbright program. Currently the Congress is considering a 54% cut to the funding for Fulbright. I’ve reached out to my Members of Congress to ask that they vote to fully fund the Fulbright program but I’m also writing this public letter to ask that ALL Members of Congress vote to continue funding Fulbright.
I have now been a Fulbright scholar in Uzbekistan for 3 months working on a bullying prevent program. I’ve developed a comprehensive stress management and positive psychology program and have trained teachers and psychologists in our four pilot schools in Tashkent. They’ve been using these techniques for one month now and so far the feedback from the schools is positive. Teachers generally report that the students are responding well to the exercises and there seems to be fewer behavior problems. I won’t have any concrete data for a few more weeks but it looks promising.
In addition to training these teachers, I spent two weeks training Ministry of Public Education officials, including those people in charge of all psychological services in the schools and curriculum directors.
MPE Staff
MPE Officials
MPE Staff
Tashkent teachers
While the teachers have been using the exercises in their classrooms, I’ve been travelling around the regions of Uzbekistan training the school psychologists from each region. So far I have visited 5 of the 13 regions and trained over 500 psychologists and I have 5 more trainings scheduled in May so that number will more than double.
Andijan
Chust
Margilan
Urgench
Nukus
I’ve also been given a number of other opportunities to work with people, not directly related to my Fulbright project. Back in March I gave the keynote address at the first annual Empowering Girls Summit.
The Prosecutor’s college invited me to meet with their faculty to discuss the intersection of psychology and the law. The following week I was invited to meet with graduate students in Psychology at the Pedagogical University.
Prosecutor’s College
Pedagogical University
In addition to these opportunities through my host institution, the Ministry of Public Education, I’ve had a lot of fun helping out the US Embassy. First, I helped staff the Education USA booth at the local college fair where met with students interested in studying in the US.
I led an English conversation club at the National Library in which I did a Q&A about the American educational system. Then I gave a presentation at the US Embassy on the Big 5 Personality traits, also for English language students.
Education Fair
Chai Chat at US Embassy
But wait, there’s more! My son and I spent the past week travelling around Uzbekistan with a team from the Harlem Globetrotters as part of the #sportsdiplomacy program.They presented their T.E.A.M. Up anti-bullying program to students and teachers, while I trained the school psychologists. It was a joint program put together by the US Embassy and the Uzbek Ministry of Public Education. I played a small role as a consultant during the planning process and was lucky to be invited to travel with them to talk with the psychologists. It was an incredible experience and we reached over 2500 students, teachers, and coaches.
You also need to keep in mind that 18 months ago, very few westerners had visited Uzbekistan and none of them were ever allowed inside Uzbek schools. I’m the first westerner that the Ministry of Pubic Education has allowed to work within their K-12 schools. What we are doing here is groundbreaking and will impact an entire generation of Uzbek students. It’s all been made possible by the Fulbright program, through funding provided by Congress.
If you are an American, and believe in what I’m doing, and what all the other Fulbright scholars are doing around the world, please ask your Member of Congress to support full funding for the Fulbright program.
Last week we took my training on the road. We took the 90 minute flight from Tashkent to Nukus on Sunday. It was a short but turbulent flight so we were happy to be back on the ground. We were met at the airport by the Deputy Minister of Education in the Karakalpakstan region and escorted to our hotel, which as it turns out, was right in front of the Nukus airport. The ministry took amazing care of us and even took us on a tour of Moynaq, an area where the Aral Sea used to be. After nearly three hours on bumpy, dusty roads, we arrived at the site of one of the worst human created environmental disasters. If you want to learn more what happened to the Aral Sea check out https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/aral_sea.php
Ship Graveyard outside Moynaq.
With Ministry officials at the Aral Sea
I spent the next day training about 50 school psychologists from the Karakalpakstan region. They were a fabulous group to work with. They were so engaged and attentive. I really enjoyed sharing my knowledge with them. I think they enjoyed it too because I had to stay at least a 30 minutes after finishing the training just to take photos with the attendees.
Group photo with Psychologists in Nukus.
After the training we stopped into the world famous Savitsky Museum to see some Russian art along with some Uzbek artifacts. Then we piled into the car and headed for the town of Urgench in the Khorezm region.
We toured the ancient silk road city of Khiva before doing another training for another 50 school psychologists. Khiva is one of the most interesting sites we have seen so far. The old city is approximately 2000 years old and is still inhabited. The city is protected by a 10m high wall that was made from clay and straw. It is a truly remarkable place.
Outside Itchan Kala (Old Khiva)
Group photo with Psychologists in Urgench, near Khiva.
If you have been following along with this blog, you know that I’ve approached this entire Fulbright experience with an attitude of openness and agreeableness. From the beginning, my mantra has been, “Sure! Why not?” and that has so far served me well.
I finished the last of the teacher trainings at the end of March. In all I trained 75 teachers from four schools here in Tashkent, over the course of a month, in stress management and positive psychology techniques. The teachers were from a variety of subjects across grades 7-11. The teachers were then to start using these techniques with their students at the beginning of April. I’m optimistic in nature but I recognize that not all the teachers really embraced the activities I taught them. Realistically, I think about 20 of them really “got it” and were excited to introduce this material to their students. Perhaps anther 30 or seemed interested and may gradually include some of the activities that they are the most comfortable with, and finally about 20 or so probably didn’t really want to be there in the first place and won’t use anything I taught them in their classrooms. Still, I’m hoping that enough of them will see the value in what they learned and will pass it along to their students. We will be be doing check-ins with the schools in mid-April to see how things are going for the teachers so we will know more soon.
Myself (2nd row center) with the teachers & psychologists from all four schools.
With the teacher training completed, I’ve had some open time in my schedule to engage in other activities that have come my way. I was asked my the Ministry of Public Education to participate in the first annual Empowering Girls summit held in Samarkand. I gave opening remarks along with other dignitaries and then later in the afternoon gave an hour long talk entitled, “I’m Just a Girl: Finding Your Voice in a Male Dominated World.” The girls responded really well to be talk and were surprisingly participatory. I don’t have any video of the talk but below are a few photos and my presentation slides for those interested in seeing my outline and visuals.
Group photo with some of the summit attendees.
Girls attending the summit
Opening Remarks
I was also asked, repeatedly, for about a month, to agree to talk at the prosecutor’s college about the link between bullying and criminal behaviors. This was one opportunity that I was more reluctant to accept because I felt like talking at the law college was a bit outside of my comfort zone. I am not in any way an expert in the law or criminal behavior but I finally agreed to spend two hours with the lawyers having a discussion. I’m so glad that I did because they were the most engaged, thoughtful, and professional group that I have met with so far. We had a wonderful discussion.
Since then I have received invitations to talk to the Psychology faculty at the National University and the students in the School Psychology program at the Pedagogical University. I was also invited to work with the Ministry of Public Education and the US Embassy to plan an exciting upcoming event, which I can’t post about yet but watch for more info in a May blog post.
Speaking of the US Embassy, they have several programs with which I was also able to be involved the past two weeks. I spent one morning volunteering at the Education USA booth at the semi-annual international education fair here in Tashkent. I got to meet many high school and college students who are interested in furthering their education at am American university.
Myself and Djamila, from Education USA, speaking to fair attendees.
They also run an English conversation club for English Language Learners. I lead an information discussion on differences between the the educational systems in the US and Uzbekistan at the National Library and then gave a more formal, but interactive presentation on Personality Traits, using Marvel characters to illustrate each trait. The mainly teenage audience seemed to enjoy that and I have to give my own teenager credit for helping me with those examples. He has most of the Marvel movies memorized and knew just which examples to pull out for each trait.
Finally, I’m working on bringing my bullying prevention work to the regions of Uzbekistan. I am in the process of preparing to train psychologists in the more remote areas of Nukus and Khiva, as well as planning to trips to Bukhara, and the Fergana Valley. Of course, I’ll post details of those trips once I’m back from each of them.
So, I guess the moral of this post, is that when you are open to opportunities and willing to take a leap of faith and say “yes” to things that may at first seem uninteresting or just challenging, you may find yourself having some great experiences.
Since this past week was my son’s spring break from school, we decided to take a little vacation in Dubai. Originally I had hoped to spend his spring break in Nepal but with the troubles between India and Pakistan, flying over Pakistan into Dehli for a connection to Kathmandu was going to be too much of a hassle. I asked some of my Uzbek friends where they’d go if they wanted some R & R and all of them recommended Dubai.
I’m going to be honest here. The thought of going anywhere in the Middle East was a bit unsettling to me at first, but it an easy direct flight to/from and my contact at the US Embassy in Tashkent used to live in Dubai and she assured me that it is very safe with wonderful beaches and shopping.
So, we took a leap of faith and headed to Dubai and I’m so glad we did. We stayed at a beautiful hotel with a private beach in Ras Al Khaimah, which is about an hour drive from the Dubai airport. It wasn’t a bad drive and we got to see camels grazing along the side of the road. Sorry, we were driving too fast for any good photos of the camels but here’s a few shots of what the landscape looked like in general.
We mainly just relaxed on the beach sipping “mocktails” and reading our books. With a beach as beautiful as the photos above can you can us for staying put?
view from our room
our spot for the week
virgin mai tais
Our room was about halfway up the tower building in the center.
We did take one afternoon to visit the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. We didn’t pay to go inside of it as it is fairly expensive and I hate heights so that was an easy decision. There is a large fountain in front that has a music/light show every 30 minutes starting at 6pm so we made a point to catch that despite the huge crowd.
Burj Khalifa
It is right next to the Dubai Mall so we also did a little shopping for things we can’t get in Tashkent, like books in English. My son is an avid reader and has already blown throw all the books we brought from the US and four that we bought in when we were in India. We also enjoyed a snack from Cinnabon, which is apparently in every mall in the world.
We also discovered a Waitrose (British grocery store brand) in the mall and took advantage of the opportunity to buy some things we can’t get in Uzbekistan, like flour tortillas, brown sugar, liquid vanilla extract, taco seasoning packets, A & W Root beer, and more peanut butter. My son’s birthday is coming up in April and I always make him a carrot cake. Carrots are plentiful in Uzbekistan but I bought everything else I will need for his cake, including cream cheese and powdered sugar for the frosting.
We not only enjoyed the beach, but also appreciated having a taste of home. There are no American chain restaurants in Tashkent except the brand new KFC which we haven’t visited. In the UAE there are many American chain. We found a Chili’s and a Kripsy Kreme in the mall near our hotel. We even enjoyed eating at McDonald’s in the Dubai airport while we waited to board our flight back to Tashkent.
I don’t need to read Arabic to recognize this
All in all it was a wonderful spring break trip which allowed us to relax and enjoy a few “American” things before heading back to Tashkent for 3 more months.
I’ve spent the past week training the teachers in our four pilot schools in Tashkent. Everyday this week we’ve done 2 hour long trainings with the teachers. It struck me during these sessions that teachers are really no different than students in regard to their classroom behavior. Each of these trainings had about 30 teachers present. I’d guess about half of them really wanted to be there, a quarter were interested but not committed to doing the exercises, and the final quarter didn’t want to be there at all but were told by their principal to attend.
Even though I asked everyone to silence their phones and put them away at the beginning of the session, I still had numerous “students” who continued to use their phones. One woman was playing Candy Crush, while another woman was watching a YouTube video about arthritis treatments! I repeatedly had to ask these teachers to put their phones away or to stop having side conversations. I was surprised by this behavior because I gave specific instructions to each school administrator NOT to force any teachers to participate as that would be counterproductive. Clearly, that message didn’t get through as strongly as it needed to.
I have one more day long training with all of the teachers together during their Spring break. I’m going to have to reinforce this message and take stronger measures, like asking participants to leave the training, if this behavior continues. I would never tolerate such lack of attention in my courses in the States, and I know from my Uzbek team members, that most Uzbek teachers wouldn’t accept this behavior from their students either. We will see how it goes.
I’m also preparing to give a number of talks for various venues and events coming up. I’ll be giving a talk on bullying and criminal behavior at the prosecutor’s college, doing a talk on Stress Management at the National Library through the US Embassy’s English outreach program, and giving the Keynote address at a summit on Empowering Girls.
Speaking of female empowerment, we had a nice taste of home this week thanks to the US Embassy in Tashkent. They hosted a showing of the new Captain Marvel movie in English at a local theater. Not only was it a really great movie, it was nice to see a new movie in English surrounded by pretty much every American currently living in Tashkent.
Beyond that I am working to set up a travel schedule for me to visit key regions of Uzbekistan outside of Tashkent in order to train school psychologists around the country in Positive Psychology and Stress Management techniques. I have a feeling the next two months are going to be extremely busy.
My project is going well. I started teacher trainings this week in each of the schools. It was both fun and challenging to meet with these larger groups of teachers. I was interviewed by the local news station again and have another press interview scheduled for next week. This is the part of my project I enjoy the least. Talking to the press is important because the ministry wants the public to know that steps are being taken to improve the psychological well being of students and to reduce bullying. Still, I find it stressful to be interviewed and respond via an interpreter. I also had a bit of a set back today when I dropped my laptop. I now have the “black screen of death”. I’ve sent a flurry of emails back and forth with the IT people back at my college in Minnesota but it isn’t looking good for the laptop. I have most of the important files backed up on a flash drive so if I need new computer its not the end of the world. The biggest issue is how to get it.
This week was a short week due to the International Women’s Day holiday on Friday. We decided to spend the long weekend visiting the ancient Uzbek city of Samarqand. My landlord lives there with his family and invited us to visit them. Samarkand is one of those places that should be on your “must see” list. It is remarkably beautiful and so full of history. It was hard to squeeze everything into just two days but my landlord is an amazing host and new all the best spots to take us. Here are some of the highlights:
Registan, which may be the most iconic place in all of Central Asia.
View from a minaret.
Inside the Registan Mosque with my husband. Our tour guide took a panoramic so you can see the ceiling above us. Clever…
We also drove through the mountains outside Samarkand to the village where Amir Timur was born.
We saw a lot more things than just these, but it’s taken me a long time to sort through my 253 photos and write just this much. I’ll try to make another post about the rest of our tour of Samarkand, but for now just let me say that if you ever get the chance to see Samarkand for yourself, you have to go. It’s definitely worth the effort involved in getting there.
I have wanted to visit India for a very long time, but never seriously looked into planning a trip there. This past week I was lucky to be invited to present my work at the annual Central and Southeast Asia Fulbright conference, being held in India. So only 5 days after my husband arrived in Tashkent, we boarded a plane to India.
The conference was a great opportunity for me to meet other scholars in the region and for us all to share our work. I attended some very interesting sessions, including a talk from a biologist who specializes in conservation. He is currently in Nepal studying the tiger population. I’m still hoping to obtain a regional travel grant to visit Nepal. If that does work out, I plan to visit him in the nature preserve and get an up close look at the work he is doing. I was also able to spend some time with the other two Fulbright Scholars in Uzbekistan.
Renat, Physics Prof placed in Tashkent, Gerald, Student Scholar placed in Samarkand, Saida, the Public Affairs Specialist in charge of Fulbright in Uzbekistan, and me.
I was able to also share my work here in Uzbekistan, even though I’m only a month into my project. My presentation was well received and I got many questions from other scholars about positive psychology. One of the diplomats from the US Embassy in India even asked me if I would share my slides with her.
This was one of the best organized conferences that I have ever attended. Everything went exactly to schedule. We even had every meal together so that we could network and just chat, including morning and afternoon tea time. We got to try some authentic Indian foods, including a meal served entirely on a banana tree leaf. I found it really interesting to try all these new dishes but also struggled to find food bland enough for my Minnesota palette. Luckily the breakfast buffet had waffles, french toast, and even bacon. Three things that do not exist in Uzbekistan. We also treated ourselves to one dinner at the fancy Italian restaurant in our hotel in Delhi.
We didn’t have much time for sightseeing in Kochi, where the conference was being held but we did get out on a riverboat cruise and also spent one afternoon seeing the historical sites in Fort Kochi. The thing that stood out the most to me in Kochi was the amount of trash that could be seen in heaps along the roads and even floating in the river. They experienced a major flood this past fall which devastated the town. They have rebuild a lot of it but I can’t help wondering if the trash is related to the flooding or if they lack regular sanitation practices there.
After the conference ended we flew to Delhi for two nights. We took a day trip over to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and other historic sites. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Agra itself looked similar to Delhi but on a much smaller scale, however, the historic site were spectacular. We saw the Taj Mahal from the outside only, since it was a Friday and was closed to tourists. That is the day Muslims use the Taj’s mosque for prayer.
Taj Mahal from the back.
We also visited the “Baby Taj”, which is older and much smaller than the actual Taj Mahal. It was just as impressive, in my opinion.
Finally, we spent a long time exploring Agra Fort.
In the garden of Agra Fort there is a man with seed for the chipmunks. If you give him a few rupees he’ll put seed in your hand and then call over a chipmunk to eat it from you. For some reason I was the only person in my family who wanted to hold a chipmunk…
For those of you who don’t follow international news that closely, while we were in India the conflict between them and Pakistan escalated to the brink of war. I’m not going to go into the details of the recent conflict but you can read about it in this news article:
We were far from the Northern border with Pakistan so we didn’t feel that we were in any danger, however, our flight back to Tashkent normally goes directly over Pakistan. On Wednesday Pakistan closed their airspace and flights were cancelled. Since then all passenger flights have been rerouted so as to avoid Pakistani airspace. We were scheduled to return to Uzbekistan on a 2pm flight arriving in Tashkent at 5:30pm. After several flight delays we finally left Delhi airport around 8:30pm. We were rerouted to go South toward Mumbai and then flew West over the Arabian Sea to somewhere near Dubai. Then we headed north and flew over Iran and finally back to Tashkent. We landed in Tashkent about 3:30am. What should have been a 3 hour and 20 minute flights turned into just over 6 hours, preceded by about 7 hours of sitting in the airport. Needless to say we are exhausted, but happy to be back home here in Tashkent.
Experience Fulbright 