13/10/2019 0 Comments The wrong familyWe had only just crossed the Tajik border when we met Zara. She was Uzbek, on the way to Tajikistan to visit family. What had just happened to her was Acacia’s worst nightmare - she had dropped her phone in the long-drop toilet and was watching a young guy trying to fish it out from the muck metres below with a long pole.
We got chatting and she insisted that we come and stay with them, on a small detour from the main road. Unfortunately we arrived much later than expected and realised we had not made a good plan at all to find them. After a few minutes of milling about, surrounded by a bunch of well-meaning but overbearing locals, we cycled out of the village and started to set up camp on the edge of a field. Within minutes, someone popped up to fetch his cow and take it home. He insisted that we come and stay with him, to the point that we couldn’t refuse despite wanting to. So, we followed him back into the village. And what a good decision it was. Muchammadier and his family welcomed us into their home and overwhelmed us with their hospitality. Besides Muchammadier, who luckily for us spoke good German, his wife and her sisters lived on the property, as well as his sons and their wives and a whole gaggle of little grandchildren. We absolutely fell in love with this little girl who was fascinated by us. We spent a lovely day with this family, eating delicious plov, talking, misunderstanding each other, hiking into the hills, drinking chai and eating fresh walnuts, before regrettably taking our leave despite the many offers to stay. We were waved off by the whole family, and cycled off thinking what a wonderful first day this had been in Tajikistan, albeit with the wrong family.
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