dushanbe weekend part the second

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(cont'd)

I woke up around 10:15, much later than I'd meant but I guess I was tired. Also the phone didn't work, so my normal alarm clock was out of commission, i.e., I couldn't ask for or receive a wake-up call. Oh well. I sprang out of bed, bolted down some breakfast in the lobby restaurant, and called OM from the front desk. The car came 15 minutes later and I was off to the office. It's a short drive, less than ten minutes in light traffic and just over ten with morning traffic, as I found out today. But I'm getting ahead of myself there. Arrived just after 11 and OM, MK, and MJ were already hard at work. On a Saturday. We relocated to the conference room, which has more space to spread out than PE's small room here. Their main office is, of course, in Khorog.

Then we got to work. With a brief break for a very hearty Tajik lunch of rice, shashlik (shish kebab), and tomato-onion-cucumber salad, we worked until 7:30 PM. Then we went to dinner. The waitress brought menus in Cyrillic, which of course might as well be elvish runes to me. Then she brought an English menu but it was at least ten pages long. As I was poring over it MK, the most senior of the three women (OM and MJ are even with each other, I think) just started ordering stuff and I eventually gave up and just said, You do it, I'll eat whatever. So we had salads and soups and steak and cheese and honey and bread and vodka. 

And entertainment. The dining room was on the second floor of the restaurant building, large with a few small tables around two sides, two sets of long tables from front to back in the middle, and a stage in the corner opposite the stairs. Relatively early in the night, a guy got up and played a couple of smoov tunes over a drum machine. Then he went away. Then a six-piece band got up, sax guy included, and proceeded to play Pamiri, Afghan, and Uzbek songs. I think because of the sax, tinkly keyboards, and drum machine, it reminded me (awesomely) of "Free Willy." HOLD ME. LIKE THE RIVER JORDAN...

The band finished after 15 or 20 minutes and then it was time for the dancing. We had a woman Uzbek dancer, and three women doing some other kind of dance, and then the show-stopper. The three ladies had gone off stage and the opening bars of a Puerto Rican, Ricky Martin-style pop song started up. I said, out loud, This isn't Tajik. And then he sprang to the stage. The dancer, in white pants, an insane ruffled Mexican-ish shirt, a red bandana and a little black hat. And he absolutely killed it, the guy was clearly a well-trained ballet dancer. Our whole table was laughing out loud, it was so unexpected. Yes video, I will put it up when I get home.

He was followed by a belly dancer. Then, I kid you not, the band came back out and did another set, this time of Persian club bangers. The table in front of us was a mix of locals, expats, and Afghans and one of the guys was a very enthusiastic dancer. Forgot to mention that several of the people from that table and from another table along the wall got up and danced during many of the acts. Anyway, during the club banger set the guy was going around his table and pulling people out of their chairs to go dance. Then he came over to our table, shook his head and waved his hands dismissively at the women, and held his hands out directly to me. I said, Not a chance. He was persistent but I was bashful and refused. Mistake, I would have liked to dance to that music. It was fun. Opportunity lost. So it goes.

Then the three ladies came out again. Then the belly dancer. Then Spanish dancer and Uzbek lady, in different costumes, doing a more Central Asian dance. Then the three ladies came out in belly dancer outfits, holding candles, and one of them had a CANDELABRA ON HER HEAD. Then the band came back out. It was exhausting. We left. I went home, called C, caught up after a week of not talking at all, and passed out. 

End of Saturday.