Tag: Uzbekistan

Exhaustion…

February 10, 2019

Today marks two full weeks of being in Uzbekistan and one week in our own apartment. Now that the newness of everything is starting to wear off a kind of mental exhaustion has set in. My first week of trainings for the school psychologists and Ministry of Education officials went extremely well. All of the material I presented was well received and after the first day they asked me to include more hands-on exercises. I led trainings from 9am-1pm each day and then spent the evenings reworking material and finding more exercises for the next week. I think my poor translator is on the verge of a breakdown over how many documents I have sent him this week to translate with only a day turn around time. Luckily, the deputy minister has agreed to hire a second translator to help. The bad part is that good translators are hard to find here.

Aside from working very long days, I’m also listening to everything I say being translated to Uzbek and then their replies getting translated back to English for me.

On top of the work aspect, I’m also building a mental map of Tashkent, trying to figure out how to navigate an unfamiliar city that is laid out in circles rather than on a grid system. I really appreciate the grid system.

Map of Tashkent

Even simple things like going to the grocery store, requires what seems like an enormous amount of mental energy. For example, my son and i were in the market and saw Lay’s potato chips. Yeah! A bag of nice familiar chips sounds really comforting, but what are these flavors? Shashlik flavor? That’s Uzbek for shish-kebob. I’m gonna have to take a hard pass on that one. We settled on onion (without the sour cream), based on the picture on the bag.

Don’t even ask me about cooking here. I’ve mostly failed at that so far. I tried to make a simple alfredo sauce for pasta but sadly bought keifer instead of milk at the store because, you know, I can’t read Russian. I don’t even know what keifer is and why anyone would want to buy it but it is NOT good for alfredo sauce.

On a bright note, I did manage to bake passable chocolate chunk cookies yesterday. Chocolate chips don’t exist here so we bought a milk chocolate bard and chopped it up. I have yet to find brown sugar her so i had to use all white sugar. The butter here has a little different flavor and the only vanilla I saw at the store was little packets of powdered vanilla. That definitely tasted different than my liquid Mexican vanilla at home. Oh, and I have nothing accurate with which to measure ingredients. I’m a pretty experienced baker so i could eyeball most ingredients. I used a coffee cup and odd sized soup spoon to guestimate everything. The cookies actually turned out to be quite good, even though they were thing and a bit crispy rather than cake like.

Still, I’m calling this a success. My husband visits in a week and he will be bringing me a set of measuring cups and spoons from my mom so I will certainly do better with the next batch.

These first two weeks has given me a whole new appreciation for what immigrants go through in adjusting to a new home and unfamiliar culture. And I’m very privileged. Right now is a great time to be an American in Uzbekistan. I have been welcomed with open arms. Uzbeks are excited to test out their English with me and even strangers are eager to help me figure out things like how to put the produce codes into the scale and print the price sticker out. I also have a generous grant and a working ATM card that allows me to access funds from my bank in the United States and I have staff at the US Embassy who have given me their personal cell phone numbers and told me to call anytime if I need something. I have a fantastic support system here and I’m still exhausted, every, single, day.

I know this will get better and in a month or so I hope to be more energetic and independent. I’m sure I will feel right at home just about the time I head back home.

Oh and I apologize for any typos in this blog post. I’m just too tired to care enough to proofread tonight.

Until next time…
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Chorsu Bazaar

February 4, 2019

We got moved into our apartment. It’s a really great space in a nice neighborhood. There is market on the corner to get the essential groceries and a large department store a block away. One thing to note about living in Uzbekistan, addresses are a bit vague. You can’t really just give someone your address and expect them to find your place. You have say things like, “Do you know where the Upensky Cathedral is? From there go along Oybek street towards the di Gavi restaurant. Turn right just before the restaurant and go two blocks. My place is across the street from the little Pepsi Market. Text me when you get here and I’ll come out a meet you on the street.”

Seriously, we got food delivered the other night because I hadn’t really gotten groceries for making dinner. Luckily my friend Jordan, who speaks Russian, was over and talked to the delivery person. He called three times to ask for directions. It took two hours from when we placed the order and it was luke-warm when it arrived. It was still good food and better than trying to cook but quite the ordeal.

Since we needed a few things for the apartment, like a trash can, we decided to go to the famous Chorsu Bazaar, which is nearby and known for having everything imaginable. According to the US Embassy guide to Tashkent, Chorsu is one of the oldest and largest bazaars in the world. After seeing it for myself I can believe it.

Jordan came along and acted as our tour guide/translator. This place was enormous and had everything from fruits and vegetables, to fresh baked breads, to pig feet and other unknown animal parts I wish I hadn’t seen, to souvenirs, rugs, silks and all other fabrics imaginable. Oh, and did I mention the fresh bread? There was an entire building at the bazaar dedicated to bread.

  • Fanciest bread bowls I’ve ever seen
  • Bread, fresh and hot from the oven

We bought some produce, nothing exotic, just bananas, apples, and kiwis. We also found out that avocados don’t exist here. So no guacamole for us until the end of June. Actually, Mexican food doesn’t exist here at all. I’m attempting to locate the ingredients to make flour or corn tortillas from scratch but even that is proving to be a challenge. Baking powder is a foreign concept and no one here has ever heard of cream of tartar. Maybe my Chemistry professor friends can tell me how to get around the lack of an appropriate acid for my base. (Baking soda is readily available in every market.) But I digress…

Produce section. Lots of pomegranates here. Bananas and kiwi are imported so they are expensive compared to the other fruit.

We wondered the market for about 2 hours, sampling foods and looking at all kinds of never before seen things. It’s a little like Costco on steroids and in a foreign language, using Monopoly money. (more on the money here in an upcoming post) We even managed to wonder into the meat market area which was unlike anything I’ve seen before. Luckily there were no live animals in here but there was a vendor outside selling roosters in cages. I didn’t ask what they were meant for…

Meat market at Chorsu. I did NOT purchase any meat…

We found most of the household items on my list, including some type of mattress padding for the beds. Beds here in Uzbekistan are rock hard. On the bright side, they sell handmade, absolutely beautiful, traditional Uzbek mattress called a Kurpacha. They aren’t actually mattress in the same sense as in the US but more like a futon mattress. Still they are amazingly beautiful and cost about $12 for a single sized one. I bought two to lay side by side to fit a double bed.

In addition to the kurpacha, my son was able to buy the one item that he had his heart set on as a soveniur from this former Soviet controled republic, an Ushanka. He found it in the more touristy section of the bazaar. It isn’t really an Uzbek item, but we have seen men wearing them around Tashkent on colder days.

Image result for ushanka

We also had some chai (which is the Russian word for tea) and ate some Somsa, which are a little like a puff pastry filled with either potato, pumpkin, or mystery meat. We had potato and it was absolutely delicious. Sorry, I was so excited to eat that I didn’t think to stop and take a photo before I devoured the whole thing. I promise to go back when I have more self control and take some photos.

All in all it was a pretty fantastic day. We will definitely be going back to Chorsu as well as other bazaars in Uzbekistan.

A Good Beginning

February 3, 2019

It’s been a busy few days for us here in Tashkent. As I mentioned in my previous blog post about Launch Day, the Ministry of Public Education (MPE) held a big meeting with the press to announce my project. It got a lot of media coverage. The press person a the US Embassy collected the online stories and emailed them to me, which was nice. Professional journalism is still a new field here so the stories our of varying quality. I don’t think any of them spelled my name correctly. Here’s links to some of the stories:

Laurie Wolfe’s Bullying project coverage:

https://kun.uz/ru/news/2019/01/31/mno-ispolzuyet-opyt-ssha-dlya-borby-s-bullingom-v-shkolax

https://podrobno.uz/cat/obchestvo/uzbekistan-budet-ispolz/

http://xtv.uz/Xtv/IndexBatafsil/71?ID1=1503

http://www.uza.uz/oz/society/maktablarda-z-ravonlikka-arshi-loyi-a-ishga-tushdi-30-01-2019

The day after the press conference was my first real full day of work. I arrived at the ministry building at 9am and was shown around. They have set up a room for myself and the other two people assigned to my project by MPE. I have a full time translator working with me and a wonderful woman who is handling all the logistics and admin type work. We have our own space with two desks set up, one for me and one for the other two to share. The woman in charge at the building, which is a facility used for teacher training and curriculum development, was so warm and welcoming. She was genuinely excited that we choose her facility to use as the home-base for this project. She had water, juice, tea and sweets set out for us on the desk when we arrived and even had someone bring in a plant to liven up the room. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had them take it out of her own office. 

Warm welcome at our office.

We spent the morning sketching out all the dates and times for the trainings we will be doing of school psychologists and then teachers. February and March are going to be incredibly busy and then in April teachers will be implementing the program in their classes. We will be supporting the teachers in their work and will have a bit lighter load then.

After lunch we headed out to tour the four public schools in Tashkent where we will be implementing the Positive Psych and Stress Management curriculum. It was extremely helpful to see the buildings and meet the Principal, Assistant Principal, and School Psychologist in each school, nearly all of whom are women. They also gave our team a warm welcome. Each school served us tea and put out some kind of cake, nuts, fruits, or other treats.

Welcome I received at each Tashkent school.

I noticed that the treats were placed strategically close to me, rather than in the center of the table. If I didn’t try something it was pushed closer to me and when I showed that I liked something I was handed more by one of the women sitting near me. It really was very sweet of them. at the last school they had these little apple filled treats. At the end of the meeting I asked if I could take one back to the hotel for my son because they were so good and I wanted him to try one. The principal was so please that I liked then she had someone get a small bag and they dumped the entire plate into it. Then they took the other tray of little cakes and dumped that in the bag and threw a handful of chocolates on top.

Apple pastry, sugared almonds, and raw cashews.

This was a great first day and I am excited for more long, but enjoyable days in the coming months.

Checklists

December 23, 2018

We are only one month from departure. I just finished final exams and submitted grades so I am done with my teaching obligations for the year and can now focus entirely on preparing for my work in Uzbekistan.

My family’s visas and passports are on the way from the Uzbek Embassy in Washington, DC. I was able to complete the application via mail instead of having to make a trip out to DC in person. I was happy to save the time and money but it also makes me nervous to put our passports in the mail. I’ll feel much better when I have them back in my possession.

In the meantime, I’m starting to think about all the prep I still have to do before we leave. After the Christmas holiday I’m going to do a practice run with packing to see if we need to each bring two large suitcases, or if we can manage with just one large suitcase each, plus our carry on of course.

Fulbright has provided a helpful guide for scholars, including a pre-departure checklist.

As you can see, I’m not doing to badly on this checklist. I have started researching housing options, which you can read about in my previous blog post if you haven’t already. See https://experiencefulbright.org/2018/12/17/apartment-hunting-by-proxy/

I still need to check with our health insurance provider about international coverage and sign up for additional emergency medical coverage for Dillon. Fulbright provides it for scholars but not their dependents.

There is specific money in my grant to cover educational materials for my host institution. I could buy things now and have them shipped so they are there when I arrive. However, previous scholars suggested that I wait until I’m in country and have a better idea of what materials would actually be helpful. That seems like a good idea and since my husband isn’t coming with right away, I can communicate with him about what I want and he can purchase the items and arranged to ship them to me or bring with him.

The other big item on my mind is making sure I have all the required documentation and essential items with me. Again, Fulbright provides a checklist for all scholars. There may be some variations depending on your country but this is a good guide to use.

My goal between now and my next post it to gather up everything from the list above that I think I will need and to also make my own complete packing list that includes clothing and personal items.

The Waiting Game…

August 5, 2018

Let’s talk a little bit about the Fulbright timeline. It’s a very long process from beginning to end. If you recall from my previous posts, I first looked into the Fulbright program during the 2015-2016 academic year. I wasn’t ready to apply by August 1, 2016 but did get my application submitted in the next round. With my application submitted by the August 2017 deadline, I couldn’t do anything other than wait to hear back from the Fulbright committee.

According to the Fulbright website, the first round of application reviews are done by peers in your discipline who make a recommendation to the Regional Fulbright Committee sometime in Sept-Oct. The Regional committee then meets in DC sometime in Oct-Nov. to decide which applications will be forwarded along to the host countries. Applicants don’t hear anything about the status of their application until this process is completed in November or December.  That means I have 4-5 months to wait.

So….while we wait, why don’t I circle back to that email I sent to the previous Fulbright scholars in Bhutan. As I said, I felt uneasy about reaching out to them via email. For some reason, as small part of me was worried that emailing them for information would make me appear less competent.  I am so glad I didn’t listen to that voice. Reaching out to the Fulbright scholars who had been in Bhutan was tremendously helpful. I reached out to the scholar who was in Bhutan at that time (Spring 2017) and to another person who had been there a few years earlier. Both were Psychology professors and both replied to my email that same day with offers to set up a time to chat via phone.

I spoke with both of those scholars, one of whom was still in Bhutan when he called me. Both were incredibly friendly and more than willing to talk with me about their Fulbright experience. (more on this later) In fact, they gave me such helpful information that I substantially revised my project proposal after speaking with them. (Remember that I spoke with them in March-April and didn’t submit my completed application until July, 2017.) If you are considering applying for a Fulbright grant, you should definitely reach out to former Fulbright scholars. Their insight could be invaluable.

Alright, where were we before I took that diversion? Oh right, waiting…

I tried to put it out of my mind but as November came closer I found myself checking my email more frequently than usual and by usual I mean about 10 times a day.  According to the official Fulbright website, applicants will be notified in November-December as to whether or not they passed the first round of review. Well, November came and went and I hadn’t heard anything. I was truly starting to worry that I hadn’t made the first cut.

Want to see the Fulbright timeline for yourself? Check it out here.

From the beginning of this process I played my cards close to the vest. Outside of my husband and the people who wrote the letters of recommendation for me, I didn’t tell anyone that I had applied for a Fulbright grant. This isn’t so much because I was afraid I’d “jinx” it but more because I didn’t want to have to go back to all those people and tell them I did NOT get selected, if that ended up being the case.

Finally, on December 11, 2017, when I was just wrapping up final exam week of the fall semester, I received the email I had been waiting for.  The email simply said that the first round of application reviews had been completed and then referred to an attached letter. If only this had been a paper letter. I would have torn into it and thrown the envelope on the floor while frantically trying to unfold the letter. As it was, this was an email so it was a little less dramatic. I just clicked on the attachment and opened the .pdf file. Here’s a screenshot of that file:

letter.jpg

So I made it past round one! Yeah! Now I started to cautiously tell a few people here and there about my application. I made it past the peer review process in DC and now my application was being sent to Bhutan along with all the other finalists. I had no idea how many of us there were, but I did know that there was only 1 spot in Bhutan for a Fulbright scholar.  Each time I told someone about my application I would add the caveat that Fulbright grants were highly competitive and that there was only one spot in Bhutan but still, I was optimistic about my chances. And I was back in the waiting game…

January…February… No word…March.. Still no word. According to the Fulbright timeline the in-country review process happens from Nov-April, which is a really big window when you are the one obsessively checking you email for news.

Finally, on April 12, four months after my first email, I received the message I had been waiting for, with the results of the final in-country review process. Unfortunately, this attached letter did NOT have the news I had been hoping for.  This was a rejection letter:

rejection.jpg

I know what you are thinking, “But Laurie, I thought you received a Fulbright grant! I’m confused. What happened? Why are you writing this blog and why did you say you are going to Uzbekistan.”

Those are all great questions… that I will answer in my next blog post so stay tuned!

The Journey Begins

July 22, 2018

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

Hello and thanks for joining me! I’m excited to share my Fulbright journey with you.

For those who don’t know me, I’m a Psychology Professor and yoga teacher from Minnesota. I love teaching and I also love to travel. It is my good fortune to be able to combine both of these loves through the Fulbright Scholar program.

I suppose that you would like to know where exactly it is that I am heading. Good question. I don’t have the exact details of my placement yet, but I know that I will be somewhere in Uzbekistan.

I know what you are thinking…

map-Uzbekistan.jpg

Ok, so now that you know where Uzbekistan is, more or less, let’s back up and talk about how I came be to a Fulbright scholar in the first place.

Want to learn more about the Fulbright program? Click here.

I’ve been aware of the Fulbright program for many years but it wasn’t until 2 years ago that I seriously considered applying to the program.  You see, I love teaching. Because I love teaching, much more than doing research, I took a job at a community college early in my career. At a community college, you really do get to focus on the teaching and learning process. While research is valued, there isn’t the same kind of pressure on the faculty to conduct research as you’d find at a University. I’ve been very happy teaching and being a leader on faculty development but I never really considered that I could become a Fulbright scholar, because, well, honestly, I’m not a well known scholar in my field. I figured that I wasn’t Fulbright material, since I was an expert in the teaching and learning process, rather than an expert researcher.

Then I attended a national conference for community college faculty. One of the sessions was about the Fulbright scholar program. I listened to the speaker explain that the Fulbright program had both research and teaching grants. He also said that they were specifically looking to recruit more community college faculty. At that time the percentage of community college faculty applying for grants was around 11% of all applicants.  It was around this same time that I found out one of my colleagues had received a Fulbright grant to do research in Hungary. Maybe I did have a shot at this after all. So I decided that I ought to take a closer look.

I spent months pouring over the catalog of awards, reading about different countries and their requirements. At first, I was overwhelmed by how many options there were and how long the application process was.

Check out the Fulbright Scholar Awards Catalog and see for yourself.

I started to fill in some basic information about myself in the online application while continuing to research the different country awards. The August 1, 2016 deadline came and went without me making much progress. But I hadn’t abandoned the idea. I just needed more time to let it all sink in. All during the Fall semester I kept returning to the Fulbright website to look over the awards and consider where I’d most want to go and what I would do there. I let the ideas just roll around in my head while I was focused on other work. By the winter break I had mentally committed myself to the application process and decided that I would apply to teach and do faculty development work at the Royal University of Bhutan. That’s right. I applied to Bhutan, not Uzbekistan, but we will get to all that later.  For now, I was committed to applying to Bhutan and I was going to do everything I could to submit a competitive grant. In my next blog post I will walk you through my process of preparing my grant application.