![\"Sofra](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/foodII01.jpg\")
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In part I<\/strong><\/a>, Robyn\ttalked about Tajikistan and its dance, about her Tajik dance teacher Makhingul Nazarshoeva<\/span>, and about the challenge and rewards of travel in Tajikistan.\u00a0 In part II, Robyn takes us\tto the Pamir mountains of Badakhshan.<\/em><\/p>\n Time seems to have a different meaning in Badakhshan \u2013 the rural, eastern portion of Tajikistan \u2013 than it does here in the States.\u00a0Vehicles break down, roads become impassable, everything takes longer than you plan for.\u00a0 So, punctuality and advance arrangements are not always necessary, or even possible.\u00a0 There are usually no phones in the villages of the river\tvalleys, so you just go, and make arrangements as best you can, expect the unexpected, and always be flexible.<\/p>\n Soon Sharlyn<\/span> and I were on our way with Dawlatnazar<\/span> \u2013\tdriver, dancer, and musician \u2013 and Samandar<\/span> \u2013 our guide and friend \u2013 to the valley of the Bartang River, looking for local musicians and dancers who would\tperform for us.\u00a0 Our first stop was at the village of Shujand, where Musarwal, a musician known all over Tajikistan, was uphill working on his fields.\u00a0Eventually he was located and brought down to the road where we waited to make arrangements for a performance the next day.\u00a0 He had known of our arrival in Badakhshan and our wish for a music and dance session with him, as we had given him a\tlift for a few miles on our way to Khorog when we first arrived in Badakhshan.\u00a0 We made our arrangements, and then continued on up the valley for another couple of hours, arriving around dusk at the village of Siponj and the house of Jonboz,<\/span>\tanother well-known musician and an acquaintance of Samandar\u2019s. \u00a0<\/p>\n Jonboz had\tno idea that we were coming, but upon our arrival seated us in the guest room of his house, and entertained us with music and stories until a hastily-prepared supper could be brought to us.<\/p>\n Central Asian hospitality is legendary:\u00a0 though poor in material goods, these warm-hearted mountain people will offer their last piece of bread or bite of chicken to a guest.\u00a0 We had to remember not to eat everything served; our host\u2019s\tfamily could well have put everything they had on the sofra<\/i> (dining\tcloth), and if we consumed it all, they might have little for themselves.<\/p>\n Jonboz is renowned for his piety and the deep spirituality of his music.\u00a0 In addition to playing all the musical instruments of Badakhshan, Jonboz also creates small, beautifully hand-bound books of traditional poetry and excerpts\tfrom the Koran, folk remedies, and amulets of Koranic verses.<\/p>\n The sparse population of Badakhshan can be roughly divided into two main ethnic-religious groups: the Kirghiz, who are Turkic tribal nomads (found in Kirghizstan and China, as well as in Tajikistan) who practice Sunni Islam,\tand the Ismailis, who form the majority in the province, and speak languages of the Iranian family.\u00a0 Religious practice among the Ismailis of Badakhshan is a fascinating combination of Ismaili \u201cSevener\u201d Shia\u2019 Islam, Zoroastrianism,\tand pre-Zoroastrian paganism.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The faithful meet in one another\u2019s homes, not\tin a mosque.\u00a0 The construction of their homes displays elements from all of these different belief systems; in fact, the same element is often explained concurrently in terms of both Islam and pre-Islamic symbolism.\u00a0 <\/p>\n A young man named Shirinnazar<\/span> (\u201cSweet Looks\u201d) came to the center of the floor,\tand began to dance Rapo <\/i>(see Part Musarwal presented us with another massive outlay of food, including home-brewed\tliquor.\u00a0 Afterwards, Musarwal lead us to a grassy spot by the river, where\tthe musicians laid down a carpet and sat down to begin tuning their instruments.\u00a0 Across\tthe river a row of ladies collected and sat, watching us watching them, and\tenjoying the music.\u00a0 <\/p>\n After a performance of daf soz<\/i> (songs with frame drum accompaniment),\tthe musicians played maddoh<\/i>, followed by raqs-i aspak<\/i> (\u201chorse dance\u201d), in which a man dances wearing a costume which makes it look like he\tis riding a horse.\u00a0 Soon we were all dancing rapo<\/i>, inviting the ladies\tacross the river to dance with us, but, laughing, they declined.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Khorog is a town of around 25,000 people; small, yet it is the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, and by far the largest town in the\tarea; most of the rest of the population of Badakhshan live in small villages\tof at most of few hundred people.\u00a0 In Khorog, there is a university, a theater, a bazaar, and goods from China and Russia available for purchase in the marketplace.\u00a0 <\/p>\n From the center of \u00a0Khorog, you can see Afghanistan; in fact, the major portion\tof the drive from Dushanbe to Khorog runs along the river separating Tajikistan\tfrom Afghanistan.\u00a0 There are places along the road up from Dushanbe where you\tcould toss a stone across the river from the Tajik side and hit a goat in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n The river, however, is deep and fast, and we never saw a single boat of any\tsort. The governments of both nations have collaborated on the opening of three\tbridges across the river, at Darvaz, Ishkoshim, and Khorog.\u00a0At the bridge near Khorog, once a week on Saturdays the Afghans are allowed\tto come across the bridge into an enclosed bazaar, to buy or to barter their\tcheap goods from India for the Tajiks\u2019 cheap goods from China.\u00a0 Families whose\tvarious branches were severed once the Soviets took over Central Asia also try to find their now-distant cousins from among the Afghan visitors.<\/p>\n![\"Cheed](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/ceilingII02.jpg\")
Though every Ismaili Pamirian home is a little different, they all represent variations on a theme, incorporating the following elements:<\/p>\n\n
![\"JonBoz,](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/musicII03.jpg\")
The next morning we had breakfast in the interior of the house, as musicians\tand a dancer began to gather.\u00a0 Soon everyone was assembled, but Jonboz took\ttime to re-tune carefully the various instruments.\u00a0 \u201cThe instruments are crying\u201d,\the told us.\u00a0 \u201cThey have no masters to play them\u201d.\u00a0Finally the instruments were tuned, and the men began to play maddoh<\/i>, the traditional Badakhshani musical sequence of mystical poems, played in a\tvariety of rhythms.\u00a0 The men took turns as lead singer, giving each a chance to lead and then to rest.\u00a0 It went on for a very long time; later, we were\ttold that for special occasions when maddoh<\/i> is played, the music and\tsinging can go on all night.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tI<\/a> of\tthis article for some information about the dance \u201cRapo<\/i>\u201d).\u00a0 He was smiling\tas he whirled slowly and smoothly, arms and hands carefully placed. \u00a0He did\tthe dance similar to the way my own teacher, Makhingul\tNazarshoeva<\/span><\/strong>, did it \u2013 evidently, there is little difference\tbetween the way men and women dance the Rapo<\/i>.\u00a0 When it was all over,\twe thanked them all and headed off to Shujand for lunch and another performance\tby Musarwal<\/span>.<\/p>\n![\"Lunch\"](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/lunchII06.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Men](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/menplayII07.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Horse](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/horsemanII08.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Pagan](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/rockII10.jpg\")
On the way back to Khorog, we stopped at a sacred site devoted to Mushgela Gosha, the \u201cRemover of Difficulties\u201d.\u00a0 The interplay between the Islamic and the pagan in this shrine is fascinating:\u00a0phallic-shaped stones at the entrance (pagan); Koranic verses (Islamic), and a photo of the Agha Khan (Islamic) hanging near the Hassan and Hossein (Islamic) \u2013 or Sun and Moon (pagan) \u2013 pillars ; inside the shrine, a stack of nearly perfectly-round black meteorites, washed smooth by the pounding flow of the river (pagan).\u00a0 We left a small amount of money for the caretaker, and continued our journey back to Khorog.\u00a0 I was reminded of Christian churches I had seen in Central America, where Mayan and Christian iconography and practices are completely intermixed.<\/p>\n![\"Khorog\"](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/mtnvillageII04.jpg\")
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![\"Bazaar\"](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/mtnII09.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Dancing](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art48\/graphics48\/Robyn\/homedanceII05.jpg\")
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