This has been such a great place to work with families. The need here is great! The time is too limited to do everything that needs to be done.
Yesterday I consulted with a family whose children are experiencing delays in education. After the consultation it would have been great to do further testing, but there just isn't enough time.
There were also several consultations with Korean families who are educating their children in English. The challenge is to provide enough resources so that they can adequately help their kids to succeed. There is just not enough time for me to sit down with them and write a whole program that will be helpful.
Then there are the lovely consultations wherein the children are doing very well and the parents just want to know if they are on the right track. It is like a vacation to sit with them and affirm what they are already doing.
The families are extremely grateful to have us here. They have us over for meals and bring meals to us and express verbally their thanks. It's humbling to see how great the need is.
Now about the country -- the mountains are snow covered and absolutely beautiful!
The water comes out of the tap a beige to light brown color sometimes and is not potable. I haven't forgotten to use the purified water for brushing my teeth yet, but I often get to the point of putting toothpaste on the toothbrush before I remember to go get some clean water.
Electricity is not reliable. Every night at 10:30 it goes off and it comes on every morning at 5am. This is especially problematic if the lights go off because the electricity goes off and we forget to flip the switch. It is quite and awakening to have the light glare in your face at 5 am. During the day, the electricity can be turned off without notice. An example, right in the middle of setting up for the workshops ( I had 4 that day that were each 1.25 - 1.5 hours), the electricity went off and stayed off until after the first three workshops were over. So much for media presentations:)
Today is the only day that we will get out to see the city and, guess what... it's raining. I think we will still go. I brought and umbrella. Places that we want to visit include a salon that is run by a woman who trains and employs marginalized women who might otherwise be forced into prostitution or worse. It is such a great thing to see how many here are working to help these girls. The men on our team are staying at Caravan of Hope, another place that trains marginalized girls and women in skills that will enable them to support themselves. They make satchels in one section, roast coffee beans in another, and make peanut butter in yet another. Today we will also visit Morning Star Cafe which was started for the same reason. All week they have been bringing us our lunches and the food is fabulous. So we will go to the cafe in person today for our brunch and thank the ladies.
When we finish with our brunch we are planning to go to the open air bazaar. It is one of the primary employers in Dushanbe. So it should be interesting to see. Then we will drive to see the mountains up close. They are only about an hour away and rise to about 23,000 ft elevation (we will only go up to about 5-6,000 ft). Evidently they have some of the highest peaks in the world.
