Pamir Trip, Grace Dunbar

Eight days we have been on the road. The roads were long; the roads were bumpy, dusty and muddy. In those 8 days I believe I took two showers, lovely. I suppose that makes the “Pamir trip” experience.

We left Dushanbe at six o’clock in the morning, heading out in 3 jeeps. I can already tell we are going to be listening to the same motley of Russian dance music and old American pop songs for the duration of the trip.
I think it is for the best that the first day, if there had to be one, is the day requiring 12 hours in the car. It had rained prior to our departure and therefore all the roads were significantly muddy and the sky cloudy and gray. At that point, though, everything just seemed new. Each of us has taken a million pictures of the surrounding scenery. Even though each shot appeared different, unique, I have a feeling that when I go back through my photos I am going to ask myself why I have a hundred pictures of mountains. Nonetheless, I kept saying to myself, “But this one has a goat across the Afghan border…” and so on. We were all quite relieved when we reached Qalai’ Khumb, the first town (or would village be more appropriate?). We had a half hour before dinner and all walked into the center. I walked a little slower than the others. I honestly don’t know where she came from but a little girl with pig tails came strolling down the middle of the road. I was genuinely surprised to see a small child walking around alone at dusk. We walked and talked until we reached the beginning of the street. When I turned around, two girls across the street waved at me and called out, “Biyo injo!” or “Hey! Come over here!” The others had gone into a restaurant and I say why not so I walked over. They asked me why I had been walking the little girl home. “I don’t know.” I said, “Usually, four-year-olds don’t walk around alone…”

They laughed, a lot. “No! No! Kids always walk around alone here… it’s not the city… No one is going to take them.” Our laughter attracted some attention and shortly we became a sizeable group of teenage girls loitering on the corner of the street. Everyone introduced themselves but names were thrown around so fast I wasn’t even able to commit one to memory.

The next morning, I got up early and walked around the town a bit more. I have a thing for exploring places around sunrise, before a town wakes up. When I passed the same alley I heard, “Eh! Salom!” Sure enough, when I turned to my right I saw one of the girls from the previous night. I walked over and the three girls in the street put down their buckets of water and ran over to say hello. It was nice to be able to talk to them some more without the hectic confusion of the previous evening. Four girls, all between eighteen and nineteen, just chatting away. There were curious as to my purpose in the country, which in turn caused me to inquire about their studies. All of them had finished secondary school and were taking a year off before going to university; “university is really expensive” they said. One wishes to be a pediatrician, another primary care doctor and the third a journalist. They talked as if they for sure would accomplish they would go on and continue their education. Yet at the same time I felt that inside they knew the same thing I was thinking: maybe it wouldn’t ever happen.

Grace Dunbar is currently studying Tajiki in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.