A 12am bomb blast September 6 in the Dusti disco club in Dushanbe injured seven; 30-40 people were in the club at the time. Phoenix is in Dushanbe, 12am on September 6, asleep in his bed, dreaming about becoming a race car driver, dreaming about becoming himself.

Last Friday, Pei and I were in Khujand…in the news…cide bomber has driven a car packed with explosives into a police office in Khujand, northern Taj…lives were taken, lives were lost…no one knows how many died, but it could have been me on my morning run, it could have been Pei and Phoenix going to the bazaar…Saturday was Pei’s birthday, and we left Khujand for Iskander Kol…

When I come home from work I know if the power was out for a few minutes because the oven clock will be blinking. I’m not quite sure how to change the clock back to the correct time, but after a few minutes I figure it out. And then, a few weeks later, I come home and it is blinking again. When the power goes out and I am home, the huge generator in our yard kicks in. It is the size of a tractor and it sounds like one too. I’m not sure why it is so big, or what it runs on, but men come and check on it from time to time. The gardener comes every so often to tend the yard, I’m sure the mechanics run in to her – the vines are now climbing all over our generator. I wonder if they argue about what is more important, access to the generator or the wild grapes.

One of my colleagues is trying to get a flight into Dushanbe. He wants to come for just two days. Dushanbe doesn’t really work that way unfortunately. Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday you can come in from Istanbul, one flight a day. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday you can fly in from Riga. And there is one flight from Frankfurt on Saturday as well. Your other options are Kabul, Tehran or Urumchi.

There’s a stadium behind the supermarket Poitaht. Everything in Dushanbe is named Poitaht, lest you forget that you’re in the capital (poitaht means capital in Tajik). But when you’re here, you can’t forget that this is the seat of power – the BMW signals at you, reminds us that the parliament is on the left, the Somoni statue looms ahead, turn right to the presidential palace beyond the ten foot fence. And don’t forget the new construction, built with the president’s generosity, ubiquity, omnipotence. Since the end of the civil war, the people here have experienced peace and growth. But I saw this wall today, the one that surrounds the sports stadium, it is crumbling before my eyes.

Our driver was happy to take us to the village of Javshanguz. It is on the map, just barely. But he wasn’t particularly happy when I told him that I wanted him to go farther. I wanted to go to Langar. I wanted to go to the moon. Javshanguz is where the road ends. Beyond this village is a mud plain that passes for a field. javshanguz is a stopping point for us. I’m not sure what it is to other people. They call it home, but somehow I think they would be more comfortable in the mountains that in these mud huts. The people are made out of the mountains.

The Ambassador wanted to cross into China a Kulma. The Tajik government won’t let third country nationals go into China, not yet, maybe next year, they need to work out a deal, sign some forms, have meetings, shake hands, agree, sign, stamp, negotiate again, argue, come up with reasons as to why it isn’t a good idea until the other side give up something sweet. The border at Kulma is only open on certain days, for certain hours, during certain months. You have to be a certain person to get through. Chinese or Tajik.

Langar can be beautiful if you have time to look. But the beauty of it hides the poverty. We went to the store to buy some water. The store is in someone’s home. There isn’t much. The bottled water her been tampered with. Nothing is clean. We are five hours form Khorog, but it feels like 10,000 years.

There’s a little cafe on the edge of a city called Murgab. The cafe is round. The windows are square. Before the president came, ‘Cafe’ was written on the side, but now it has been painted over. I try to take a picture of a man speaking with his friend. He gives me the finger. OK, the cafe is easier. I don’t know what this thing is made out of or what they sell inside, we decide to eat somewhere else.

I’m back in Dushanbe, even though my mind is in the Pamirs. When in the Pamirs, I thought I was going back in time. But now, here in Dushanbe, I see that this city is stuck in 1991, entrenched by nightmares of the civil war of 1995, trapped by ancient traditions of 1795 that defy logic. Dushanbe is what remains of Soviet city works and Land Cruiser fumes, Dushanbe is what is left over once the drug dealers have picked the bones clean, Dushanbe is built on a foundation of matchboxes. Dushanbe lurches forward only on the awkward legs of Qatar’s water park and Aga Khan’s cultural center, while just across the street an Olympic size swimming pool, built in 1971, sits empty.