A Tajik Birthday, Susannah Walden

My 22nd birthday was bound to be memorable simply by virtue of location, but it certainly surpassed all expectations. I was only in the country a week before my birthday and the day was gray and a sorry change from the balmy weather we had had since arriving, but my host family, teachers and fellow students pulled out the stops to really make it a celebration.

In Tajik gift giving tradition, my host sister made me breakfast and gave me a lovely necklace and bracelet of stones from the Pamirs. At the office, I was given a Tajik scarf and a small book on Farsi script practice by my teachers, but best of all, my director graced us with a massive, highly decorated and deathly sweet cake from the Turkish café which we doled out before settling down to the traditional Friday Iranian film (which I enjoyed despite understanding little). The first week in a new country and new language is of course exhausting so I was ready to sleep, but I had received a generous offer from some other Americans to take me out for dinner and it being my birthday, I could not possibly turn it down. I got a ride from my host cousins and made it to the restaurant that had been taken over by an assortment of American expatriates relatively dry despite the deluge. I probably knew only four people at my own birthday dinner but everyone was amazingly open and welcoming and I certainly felt like I was celebrating amongst good friends.
 

The celebration continued into the next day as I shared a Tajik birthday party with my host father whose birthday was two days after mine. Preparation started early with uncles, aunts and cousins arriving to cook montu, or dumplings filled with meat and pumpkin. We sat in a circle on the floor in the kitchen and chuckled about teaching me Tajik cooking as I struggled with instructions and was in the end relegated to a few token moments of playing sous-chef. Other than montu, there were three kinds of ‘salad’, I use inverted commas because I do not always associate the word ‘salad’ with rice, crisps, peas and heaps of mayonnaise, but I am always willing to broaden my perceptions! Two whole fish, grated carrot salad, roasted chicken, nuts, sweets, fruit, homegrown Tajik wine and vodka, as well as a bouquet of flowers from my host cousins that remind me of Laurel and Hardy also graced the table. The spread was impressive and I was touched that this family (aunts, cousins, grandmother, nephews) put it together for an American girl that was a stranger to them only a week before.

They also hooked up my host sister's computer to the TV sound system and blasted Tajik and Iranian music and some American hip-hop of which my host sister is very fond. They dressed me up in a Tajik traditional dress and we worked up a sweat dancing in the living room. We were even joined on our makeshift dance floor by Bibi (grandmother) who grinned her gold-capped grin as she swayed gracefully for her tiny, hunched stature. I in return showed them what I could remember of some traditional Scottish Ceilidh dances to "The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh," but I have to say I categorically failed at explaining the partner dances in Tajiki – ‘set to your partner’ and ‘weave in a figure-eight’ were not quite yet in my vocabulary! I also was called to give a speech in Tajiki and I tried my best to express how grateful I was to be there and that they made me feel so at home. I was glad that there was no expectation to pontificate at length, but I only hope that I conveyed my intense gratitude for their warm-hearted hospitality – a trait I have come to recognize in so many of the Tajiks I have met.

Susannah Walden is currently studying Farsi in Dushanbe, Tajikistan during the Spring 2010 semester.