Gadling

On day three we found we were being moved to a new site for another family close by to the one we had been working with the first two days. This new home was being built from the ground up, but we were coming in with a significant portion of the framing done. The home would belong to a doctor, his wife and 16 year-old son along with the parents of either the doctor or the wife. It became a little unclear and confusing at times how much extended family resided in anyone household in Tajikistan. The part about Habitat Global Village builds I enjoy most is the interaction with the families on the worksite, but the doctor was often at the office, the wife seldom around and the son actually helped out quite a bit when school was out. That day we would be making and mixing mud. Sort of.

All of the women in our group got pretty excited when we heard we would be making mud and mixing mud. We were certain this was the part of the build were we would detox our achy limbs by accidentally getting mud on our arms and legs during the process, but to our surprise and slight disappointment we were not granted the rights to play in the mud. Instead we would fetch water in buckets once more to pour over the dirt and straw that would later get tossed in. Once the straw became part of the equation I don’t really think anyone was dying to jump in. I imagined developing a nasty looking rash from the foreign materials and what my customs form might look like on the way back into the U.S.

U.S. Customs Form: Have you spent any time on farms, pastures, agricultural lands or with any foreign livestock?

My Response: Of course not. I just rolled and tossed around in Grade-A Tajikistan hay.

So my volunteer vacation continued being more of a construction boot-camp than a spa excursion with detoxing-mud treatments. I was cool with that. My body was starting to adjust to the physical labor and I could barely feel pain anymore. Second to creating mud we had to shovel dirt into buckets and fill in the hole that would later become the front porch. Neither task was exactly easier than other in the blazing dry heat. Throughout the day we took many water breaks which gave us time to joke with our onsite volunteers/translators (Khushvakhtullo and Khurshed) and probe them for useful Tajik or Russian phrases. Beyond the language the entire group was eager to learn more about the families. And little by little we learned more and more. Aside from our small cultural lessons and unfaltering efforts day three on the worksite was slightly uneventful in regards to anything shocking. Once we filled the porch and the mud and straw had been mixed our day was done. Tomorrow all that mud would go up right onto the roof!

On the days leading up to my departure both friends and family raised their eyebrows and shook their heads as I casually talked about my coming vacation. Vacation in their eyes is not taken in unpronounceable places bordering Afghanistan like Tajikistan and most certainly does not involve any kind of strenuous labor. While many applauded my efforts, several just wished I’d picked a different destination. In my eyes aid is aid and it makes no difference in which part of the globe one decides to lend a helping hand. I thought about all these things as sweat trickled off my brow rolling its way down and around my chin.

For the first day the team had been broken up into three groups. There were those who shoveled dirt into buckets, those who carried dirt to the pit, and those who worked in the pit shoveling and smoothing the dirt. I was part of the bucket line. The temperature was easily 100 degrees. The Tajik construction masters and workers watched in slight disbelief as our team of nine foreigners; seven women and two men baked with our tools in the heat. We were hard workers and wanted to do great things for the homeowner on his worksite. All of our building would be done in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan, but this particular community or village was called Konstitutsiya as I was told by one of our helpful translators Khushvakhtullo. The homeowner’s name was Rahmon which meant merciful or kind and the adorable child he often carried was his grandson Ishmael. The women were rarely ever around.

Everyone on the site was pleasant and though carrying buckets of dirt took a toll on my scrawny little arms this was the type of cultural exchange I’d been looking for. This was my second Global Village build with Habitat for Humanity International, but after five years it was long overdue. I’d learned from the first the importance of giving something or anything back to the communities in my far off excursions felt highly rewarding. Interacting in ways beyond that of the average tourist I became apart of larger cultural exchange. Along with each pass of my two buckets 3/4 filled with dirt to our Tajik construction supervisor, Saiali, I passed a smile and a little hope, I’m sure. In Tajikistan the average house cost $4,864 USD. The average income I was told was around $20-$30 USD a month. Part of me couldn’t imagine. As I lifted another bucket I tried to picture what living in the country year round must be like? It was difficult.

Our knowledge of the Tajik language increased far faster on site than it would have just walking Rudaki. Most of us tried using terms like rahmat (thank you) and iltimos (please) as we exchanged tools or buckets. I challenged things a bit by asking for words and phrases like superstar and piece of cake. Jokingly I told our new friends the work was easy or khelyi sabud, but it wasn’t all that easy as everyone continued working their butts off and by the end of the day our huge dirt mound was practically nothing. We’d successfully moved most of the dirt needed to fill the foundation of the room from the mound to the room. We titled the room the pit considering it was nothing more than an empty space prior to our being there. Our volunteers, Allie and Diego in the pit were by far some of the dirtiest and like vacuums, sucked up the most dirt. At the end of day one the entire team could feel their efforts in their bones and see them in bruises that had only began to develop.

It was a good day and we were told the next would be harder. This is just the beginning of my volunteer vacation in Tajikistan.