Bazaar – 1 iPhone – 0

The bazaar.  It’s one of the things I love the most here in Dushanbe.  It’s the most “non-city” thing I can find here in the city, and being in the bazaar makes me feel like I’m able to catch a glimpse of the every day lives of people here… since there are only a few supermarkets and department stores, all of which are basically only frequented by wealthy Tajiks or Westerners.

There are so many stalls, so many sections, soooooo many people and things at this place… so of course, being the nerdy geographer that I am, I want to map it.  This morning I put on my most modest (boob-and-butt-hiding) Tajik outfit, stuffed my iPhone in my backpack and stepped out of my house with a spring in my step. (This is my project for a class, btw.)

Once I got to the bazaar I snuck into a store, bought a Fanta, and then inconspicuously turned on the GPS tracker application that I have on my iPhone.  My method was simple: just walk the entire bazaar, then download the map when at home.

Yeah, too bad it didn’t work.

I entered the first gate and began walking, but within the first minute or so I started to wonder, “How am I going to systematically walk every inch of this thing?”  I thought about only walking the perimiter first, then weaving in and out of each little alleyway, but many of them dead end, or worse, split off into more alleyways… kind of like a tree trunk splits into more and more branches.  Anyway, I did the best I could… I walked nearly 2 miles within a one block(ish) area.

The walking around itself was really interesting. Most of the Tajiks would stare at me strangely when they saw me walking around the same corner multiple times because I had forgotten an alleyway or just simple got turned around.  This was the second time I had been to the bazaar, but I was much more aware of what was going on becasue I was by myself.  There was all the usual bazaar staples: trinkets, housewares, clothing, all sorts of fruits and veggies, live animals… and I even saw some really pretty aquarium fish!

After finally finishing the last turn in the bazaar, I was pretty happy with myself and found a corner to check my map on the iPhone.  To my horror, it looked like this:

iPhone's interpretation of a chaotic bazaar

After moping for a few minutes  I finally shuffled my feet to the bus stop and made my way back home.   I’m still not quite sure how I’m going to map the bazaar without a GPS. The map was only the preliminary part of my research.  I’ve still gotta go in there and count all the stalls, then talk with the bazaar-goers and shop keepers.  Oh, and did I mention my paper has to be written in Persian.  AhhhHHH! This project is easily turning into a Master’s thesis.

Oh, well. This is Tajikistan.  I’m not sure why I thought everything would go the way I planned it.  =)  Guess I’ll just have to suck it up and keep moving along.  But for now, I’m mad at my iPhone.

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