I
n Tajikistan, kitchen workers, known as “lunch ladies” (and
“lunch men”) play an even more important role than they do in
the United States. In addition to preparing and serving food,
Tajik lunchroom staff have the added responsibility of designing
the menus. It’s their job to ensure growing girls and boys get the
proper nutrients they need. And in a country where more than 20
percent of children under the age of 5 are stunted from poor diets,
this is a serious matter. At Tajikistan’s Kindergarten #5, for exam-
ple, four colorfully kerchiefed women are one of the few things that
stand between 300 students and malnutrition.
THIRTY YEARS AGO IN A SCHOOL FAR, FAR AWAY
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, the Exxon Valdez tanker
ran aground, and Madonna’s hit song “Like a Prayer” was on top
of the charts. It was also the year that Kindergarten #5 was built in
Khorog, Tajikistan.
Back then, the building was an impressive structure—a colos-
sal monument to education sitting at the heart of the tiny moun-
tain town. A former teacher, Mrs. Zarnigor, remembers it like
it was yesterday.
“It was the best kindergarten in town,” she said. “Everyone wanted
to get a job at this kindergarten 30 years ago. But year after year, the
kindergarten lost its impressiveness.”
The last three decades have not been kind to the structure. With
more than 300 children aged 2 to 5 coming and going each year,
the school experienced a lot of wear and tear, quickly falling into
disrepair. Time and weather worked their way into the walls and
stretched the cracks in the floorboards into gapping fissures. Small
feet wore deep grooves into the doorframes, and the halls began
to smell musty as wooden supports rotted away.
Before
During that time, no repairs were made, except those that could
be done quickly and easily by teachers or parents. As things fell
apart, teachers would simply move furniture around to hide the
damage or strategically hang posters to cover the decay.
By 2014, the building was a hazard—a danger to students and
teachers alike. Someone needed to intervene. Luckily for the
children, someone did.
When Mahbuba Qurbonalieva, director of Central Asia
Institute Tajikistan, heard how desperate parents and teachers
were to have Kindergarten #5 renovated, she jumped at the
chance to help.
“When I first visited Kindergarten #5, I noticed a terrible smell
from the toilets. The smell was so terrible that it was difficult
to breathe,” she said. “And on the way to my office, I was thinking
about those children who had to stay there all day and breathe
that bad smell. The building was in such bad condition, and
it was one of the biggest kindergartens in the region. I knew the
repairs would be expensive.”
Over the next few years, with the help of donors from around
the world, Central Asia Institute Tajikistan would repair the school’s
exterior, overhaul classrooms, replace broken windows, fix the
sewer system, renovate bathrooms, and install a boundary fence.
Today, the school is hardly recognizable after all the improve-
ments. But challenges still stand in the way of Kindergarten #5
becoming the all-around safe, healthy learning environment where
young students can grow and thrive. The most pressing challenge
is the renovation of the kitchen, which Central Asia Institute
Tajikistan will tackle this year with the help of generous donors.
A TOXIC KITCHEN
“When I enter the kitchen, I get ill,” said Zolfiya, principal of
Kindergarten #5.
Walking into the kitchen, the first thing you notice through the
dim lighting is the smell of mold. Even the pungent odor of cooking
oils and spices can’t mask it. The moisture from the river, just a
few meters away, has seeped into the kitchen walls. They crumble
at the slightest touch. Cracked floor tiles pose a danger as people
come and go. The ventilation system is nonexistent, just ramshackle
air ducts hanging limply from the ceiling. Some of the cracked
windows are permanently sealed shut. Others are permanently
wedged open, their frames no longer sitting flush with the walls.
The room is oppressively hot in the summer and chillingly cold in
the winter. Half of the ovens and burners don’t work. The pots and
pans are the same ones they used in 1989, the bottoms worn down
and paper-thin from 30 years of use.
When one of the lunch ladies, Sabohat, was asked why she
continues to work in such an unpleasant environment when she
could look for work elsewhere, she replied: “Because these are my
children! I never had children of my own. I must care for them
like they are my own.”
After
FALL 2019
JOURNEY OF HOPE | 19