Sun and busses

The first few days of October has passed, but on the streets of Dushanbe the sun keeps shining. Coming to think of it, I've only experienced two or three cloudy days during my stay here. For the most part, it's sunny and cloud free.

It seems as if the Tajiks aren't too fond of the sun, you often see people holding up books or whatever they have handy to cover themselves from the sun. I asked my teacher about this seemingly peculiar manner and she explained that the beauty ideal here is to be pale, only peasants are tanned.

Personally, I like the cloudy days better. The people are less agitated and the busses don't reek of BO. Busses here are of two kinds, well, three really if you want to count the mashrutkas. There are trolley busses and ordinary busses. The trolley busses are a little bit cheaper than the ordinary ones (10 dirams). Other than the fact they they run on electricity, there's no difference, really.

You get on the bus either at the middle or at the back where there are guys who you either pay or show a bus card (if you've got one). They cost 15 Somoni and last for a month, on both busses and trolleys.

For the most part, the busses are crowded. So when you ride on them you can't hardly do anything useful, like reading. I see now why no one of the students have backpacks -- they're a hassle on the bus, since they take up the space of a whole person. So you have to take it off and hold it.

If someone old gets on the bus (especially women), everyone offer their seats to them...so even if you get a seat for yourself there's really no point in sitting down as you know that a crippled, fat, toothless Russian lady is getting on on the next stop anyway.

The mashrutkas are a sorry excuse for public tranportation; think of them as minibusses running around the city on fixed routes, but that you can stop them at any time and get on, if there is space. Well, even if there isn't any space, people still get on so they are always overcrowded with people standing up, bent over. I took a mashrutka once, I don't want to do it again.