19 April: Day of setbacks

I have 3 posts written on my notebook (small laptop) but I saved them in the wrong format and now cannot upload them from my flashdrive. Grrrr. So you'll have to wait another day to hear about the last few days in Chkalovsk. The other news is that I'm in Official Document Purgatory. Somehow the letter from the Ministry of Education in Dushanbe did not reach the requisite officials in Khujand, so I am not allowed to visit any schools until that matter is cleared up. My counterpart is beside herself. She has a carefully planned, fully packed agenda and she is PEEVED that somebody dropped the ball. Add this to the visa and registration hoops we've had to jump through, and you have a full-on crash course in navigating post-Soviet bureaucracies. Some things work brilliantly; others, not so. Guess it's the same all around.

Hope everyone is well. I'll try to upload a few pictures--this process has been giving us a problem though. Look for a more comprehensive post soon.


Here's one of the posts from that day:

Quick update: paperwork problems! Nina and I sat in on 3 lessons today: 11th form History, taught in Tajik; 3rd form English (with singing, story translations, etc.) and 8th form English (covering the 6 heroes of Tajikistan...very enlightening). We were about to embark on the second part of our day when Nina contacted the regional head of education in Khujand and found out that the Ministry in Dushanbe had not sent to the necessary letter to the regional office. This means I am not officially permitted to visit any schools in the area. Nina operates by the letter of the law, so our plans are shut down for now, and she is fuming. She has made over a dozen calls to various agencies in Dushanbe, and now...we wait.