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Well hello again, hope all is well in the ever wet England, in direct contrast to the ever very hot Tajikistan. We have had one day when it was over 50 (I am told), we have had an earthquake that was 6.2 on the Richter scale that I managed to sleep right through and not a drop of rain that I can report for weeks.
Week 10 already and I have been doing some interesting things as well as feeling incredibly homesick and frustrated by my lack of ability to speak the language. Had some very low days, that you are warned about before you come, but it makes going to work difficult when you are feeling a bit low. have also had another bout of the dreaded stomach cramps and subsequent ............ But only for one day this time and it seems to have gone on its own - thank goodness.
have put on some pictures of the day I spent with the social work team in Romit, my first attempt at delivering some training entirely supported by my translator, including playing 'sharks' (Annie will remember that). Also my first chance to have a swim in the pool that is filled from the mountain stream so very cold, I didn't stay in for too long.
We have lots of volunteers who visit Duchanbe en route to elsewhere and recently there seem to have been quite a few. We also had a chinese volunteer who was here for a month. At the moment both my house mates are on holiday, Mary is in England until the 3 August and Lynne is in Singapore until the 10th, so I have the whole house to myself - at least for a while.
My placement is going well, I continue to do lots of work on structures, procedures, support for the managers. But I have been able to make contact with the Oxford Policy Management team who are in Duchanbe to look at social work training needs for the profession as a whole. I am meeting my contact for the first time tomorrow, who is Australian, so no need for an interpretor.
This coming weekend I am going to visit friends in Panjakent, which you can see in the top left hand corner of the map. It takes about 5/6 hours to get there so I am going from Thursday to Sunday in search of mountain views and clean air - it is considerably higher than Duchanbe. Will let you see the photos when I have some.
Thank you so much to everyone who leaves messages on the blog, I am always so excited when there is a new one, a bit of a lifeline when I have a down day. But only six weeks now until my lovely Ian comes to visit, I hope he will find it interesting. In the mean time love to you all, hope you enjoy the pictures, it is just a sample.
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