Magical Landscapes
I looked across at Brenda with questioning eyes. “Does she mean us?” I wondered.
A girl with beautifully chiselled Afghani features leaned over the rough stone wall toward us. “Please, please. Come and join us. Eat.”
She beseeched us to sit beneath the shade of the fruit and nut trees with all the people from her housing block. The dusty ground was covered with huge, intricately patterned rugs with cushions on which women and children were sitting cross-legged amid a vast spread of food.
“Please, you must eat. You are our guest and we are honoured.”
We clambered over the wall and settled ourselves, still half-disbelieving, amid smiling faces. My rumbling stomach was what had taken us down a few alleys and into this street in search of a restaurant. Huge bowls of plov (a rice dish with shredded vegetables and meat) arrived along with naan flatbread, fresh hot tea, sambusa and manti (meat and onion pasties and dumplings), soup, cakes, watermelon, bowls of Russian sweets… It didn’t stop.
After 10 days in Tajikistan, being welcomed by strangers with open arms and offered tea, bread and more in their homes, or to have people approach to just shake hands and wish me an enjoyable time in their country, wasn’t a total surprise.
