Hadn't checked email in quite a while, so I headed down first thing to Internet Cafe #1. Sadly, they charged a traffic rate (i.e. per Mb of upload/download) so couldn't do much websurfing as the homepage of a modern newspaper website would cost about $1 to download. Checked email and dealt with the typical onslaught of items that arise when not closely monitoring one's web presence. (One interesting email asked me to serve as an associate editor for the journal Geophysics - which I accepted! More work for Jeffrey in to Australia.) Headed to the other internet cafe to surf a little bit more, but was thwarted by the 100 kB/s download speed, so I decided to head back to the homestay.
Ran into David, an Israeli who is spending three months in the Central Asia region. He had just come from Tajikistan and had had an interesting run in with the Tajik KGB. Being an officer in the Israeli army - and having a mother from Morocco, a father from Iraq, and being able to speak some Arabic - apparently puts central intelligence services on edge. Arrested on suspicion of being Mossad, he got to spend 24 hours in the central Dushanbe lock-up being passed up the chain of command until speaking to a KGB colonel. After a few hours interrogation at the highest level, they made him write down his story in English and then released him in the wee hours of the morning. (And I thought asking for a bribe was a good story...) In addition to a few stories David had an English travel book, which I gladly borrowed for a couple days while he headed up into the hills. I read most of the evening sipping on tea and then chatting with David and a couple of gals from Essex (England's finest!)
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