Successful Day in Gharm, Tajikistan

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***The information provided in this travel blog are the views, ideas, and opinions of the author and not the U.S. State Department nor the English Language Fellow Program.***

Last Saturday I organized a speech competition for the English Access Microscholarship students in Gharm, Tajikistan. I thought I would still be teaching in Gharm at the time, but, as it turned out I could no longer live in Gharm and returned to Dushanbe. I did, however, return for the speech competition to show the director of English Access what a speech competition is and give ideas on how to run it. The students and teachers were excited to have native English speakers as judges. It was me and one of my American friends who works for an NGO in Gharm who were the judges. Gharm is an isolated place where foreigners who work for NGOs come in and out. Even the people in Tajikistan don't know much about Gharm. People are surprised when I tell them how motivated the English Access students in Gharm are and how well they communicate in English. I did my best to keep the director on schedule and we only started an hour late (amazing!) and I made sure to time things so that they didn't drag out this three hour long competition into 12 hours. I kind of felt like I was a project manager on The Apprentice because I was directing everything. The only difference was that everyone was eager to cooperate, there was no backstabbing, and no one was fired at the end. I felt like it was one of the most successful days of my working life because the students and teachers were so appreciative and I feel like this program is truly giving these kids a hope for a better future. It was a great day for all! :-)

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Photos

Grounds when I arrived
Fifteen minutes before the competition was to begin this is what the grounds looked like where the speech competition would be held.

Hanging Around
I saw the students milling about so I put them to work getting things set up.

Team Work
I put the boys to work setting up and it was done in no time.

Wearer of Many Hats
I wore many hats that day: setter up of the grounds, representative from the U.S. Embassy, judge, director of the speech competition, not to mention wearer of the cool USA headband.

Addressing the Students
Here I'm telling the students the order in which they will give speeches and how they will be judged.

Soviet Style
This is an overzealous teacher setting up the judges table for the competition. It was only a speech competition and students were being judged on speeches, not on how well they decorated the judges' table or their art work.

Let Me Handle This
I like this picture. This was me and one of the teachers negotiating who was running the project. haha He was insisting on the students displaying their art project which had nothing to do with the speech competition. We were already an hour behind schedule because his students were working on this random project to show me. I appreciated the work, but didn't want to be there for 3 days listening to people speaking about random things.

Finally Beginning
After only an hour delay we finally got started (which is REALLY good in this country!) This is the first student of the competition and the one who ended up being the overall winner.

USA All the Way!
This is one of the contestants. The students weren't expected to wear all this regalia but their old Soviet style teacher insisted they have it. Again, it was a speech competition, but ALL their effort was appreciated!

Huge Day!
This is one of only 6 female students out of 27 in the program. ALL the girls did excellent! It took a lot of guts for them to stand in front of about 40 people and speak. The best part is that these girls aren't from Gharm, they live in the surrounding villages. This was a HUGELY successful day for them!

Overall Winners
These three were the overall winners of the competition. They and their group were also competing against the other group of students who did all the artwork. The group that didn't do the additional project were MUCH better speakers overall and ended up winning. The group who lost must now make Kurtob (a traditional Tajik dish) for the the winners! YUM!

Uniting!
After these students had already given their speeches, their teacher insisted they speak about the ocean floor. I'm not sure why they chose the ocean floor, but they weren't being judged by then so I just put down my pen, sat back, and took pictures!

Good Efforts
The students looked so proud and they certainly put a lot of work into this project, although, it seems funny that the handwriting on all their posters was the same. hmmmmmmm

GREAT day for Gharm
All the students in the program participated and put effort into their speeches. Gharm is such an isolated place and, for being their first annual speech competition, they did a great job. They were happy to have to native English speakers as judges and received us warmly as their guests.