orders said. But like everyone else I work with, we consider them a liability, a constant worry hanging over your head that you’ll get stopped and searched. And the fact is that without a weapon it’s a lot easier to talk your way out of a tight spot. You just look more innocent.
Anyway, what I end up doing has nothing to do with banging down doors and firefights. The CIA doesn’t try to turn me into some
femme Nikita
. Instead, I join a deep-cover team that travels the globe, trying to stay out of trouble rather than get into it. I know all of this goes against the myth of CIA ninjas roamingfrom hot spot to tinderbox, assassinating people and rendering justice. As it almost always is, the truth is a lot blander. The CIA’s rock-cut ethic is never to leave a fingerprint behind, let alone pull the trigger on a gun. The moment a gun comes out, the mission is compromised.
SEVEN
Before coming to Tajikistan, please visit your dentist, optometrist, and any health care professionals you see regularly. Bring a spare set of glasses. Contact lens wearers should bring a supply of cleaner and soaking solution, which may not be available locally throughout the year. New arrivals should bring an ample supply of all prescription medications, since pouch deliveries take several weeks .
Some Russian and Turkish crackers and cookies can be found, but you take the risk of them being stale. If you do not want to bake your own, we advise that you include these in your consumables. A variety of jams can be found. There is no peanut butter. Canned goods such as tuna fish are sometimes available and sometimes not. Bring your own favorite condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, etc.) and pickles, baked beans, and other canned goods as well as marinades, barbecue and spaghetti sauces and so on, and your favorite salad dressing, in your household shipment or order them as a consumables shipment. Some of these items can be found on a hit-and-miss basis, and you can try the Russian versions of salad dressings and sauces, if you like, but these are sometimes expensive and whether you like the flavor is a personal choice. Frozen vegetables sometimes disappear from the store freezers for several months in the winter .
In general, you can get along without bringing the above named items with you, but your quality of life will probably suffer and you will spend a lot of time going from store to store to try and find which one has the items you need in stock. There is nothing you can do about the quality and selection of meat, cheeses and fresh produce you can find here, but if you send yourself the usual spices and other products that you like to use, you will probably save yourself some frustration at the least .
Very limited veterinarian care is available. The usual process is for surgeries etc to be carried out on your kitchen table with rudimentary equipment .
— www.ediplomat.com/np/post_reports/pr_tj.htm
Dushanbe, Tajikistan:
BOB
I t takes an abscessed tooth for me to find out there isn’t a dental X-ray machine in the entire city of Dushanbe.
“You see, come,” the nurse at Dushanbe’s main hospital says. She motions me to follow her. We walk through dark waiting rooms, corridors, and wards. People stand and lie everywhere, two to a bed, some on filthy blankets on the floor, others squatting against the walls. They’re eerily silent, as if they know the hospital is a place to die rather than be healed. There’s spalling from shrapnel on the wall, blistered paint from a fire. I’d heard about an attack on the hospital last month, and it’s only now that I believe it.
The nurse stops at a small room in front of a hulking X-ray machine. She flips on a switch, but nothing happens. “See. Broke,” she says. She flips the switch up and down in rapid motion. Still nothing.
I point at my tooth, telling her in Tajik again that it really, really hurts. She shrugs and takes me to a waiting room, where I sit on a hard wooden bench
Anyway, what I end up doing has nothing to do with banging down doors and firefights. The CIA doesn’t try to turn me into some
femme Nikita
. Instead, I join a deep-cover team that travels the globe, trying to stay out of trouble rather than get into it. I know all of this goes against the myth of CIA ninjas roamingfrom hot spot to tinderbox, assassinating people and rendering justice. As it almost always is, the truth is a lot blander. The CIA’s rock-cut ethic is never to leave a fingerprint behind, let alone pull the trigger on a gun. The moment a gun comes out, the mission is compromised.
SEVEN
Before coming to Tajikistan, please visit your dentist, optometrist, and any health care professionals you see regularly. Bring a spare set of glasses. Contact lens wearers should bring a supply of cleaner and soaking solution, which may not be available locally throughout the year. New arrivals should bring an ample supply of all prescription medications, since pouch deliveries take several weeks .
Some Russian and Turkish crackers and cookies can be found, but you take the risk of them being stale. If you do not want to bake your own, we advise that you include these in your consumables. A variety of jams can be found. There is no peanut butter. Canned goods such as tuna fish are sometimes available and sometimes not. Bring your own favorite condiments (ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, etc.) and pickles, baked beans, and other canned goods as well as marinades, barbecue and spaghetti sauces and so on, and your favorite salad dressing, in your household shipment or order them as a consumables shipment. Some of these items can be found on a hit-and-miss basis, and you can try the Russian versions of salad dressings and sauces, if you like, but these are sometimes expensive and whether you like the flavor is a personal choice. Frozen vegetables sometimes disappear from the store freezers for several months in the winter .
In general, you can get along without bringing the above named items with you, but your quality of life will probably suffer and you will spend a lot of time going from store to store to try and find which one has the items you need in stock. There is nothing you can do about the quality and selection of meat, cheeses and fresh produce you can find here, but if you send yourself the usual spices and other products that you like to use, you will probably save yourself some frustration at the least .
Very limited veterinarian care is available. The usual process is for surgeries etc to be carried out on your kitchen table with rudimentary equipment .
— www.ediplomat.com/np/post_reports/pr_tj.htm
Dushanbe, Tajikistan:
BOB
I t takes an abscessed tooth for me to find out there isn’t a dental X-ray machine in the entire city of Dushanbe.
“You see, come,” the nurse at Dushanbe’s main hospital says. She motions me to follow her. We walk through dark waiting rooms, corridors, and wards. People stand and lie everywhere, two to a bed, some on filthy blankets on the floor, others squatting against the walls. They’re eerily silent, as if they know the hospital is a place to die rather than be healed. There’s spalling from shrapnel on the wall, blistered paint from a fire. I’d heard about an attack on the hospital last month, and it’s only now that I believe it.
The nurse stops at a small room in front of a hulking X-ray machine. She flips on a switch, but nothing happens. “See. Broke,” she says. She flips the switch up and down in rapid motion. Still nothing.
I point at my tooth, telling her in Tajik again that it really, really hurts. She shrugs and takes me to a waiting room, where I sit on a hard wooden bench
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