On this day, I had one of my famous bouts with stomach problems. In Kyrgyzstan, every Peace Corps volunteer has had some form of nasty stomach virus from contaminated food – giardia (water-borne parasite), bacterial diarrhea, pinworms, etc.
Stomach problems are so endemic in Kyrgyzstan that Peace Corps volunteers will often ask the following question: “Are you a true volunteer?” Translated, this means, “Have you shit your pants yet?” The answer from the vast majority of volunteers is a resounding “YES”!
I became a true volunteer after three weeks of living in Kyrgyzstan. I woke up during PST one morning at 2am with the worst stomach pain I have ever had – it sent me running to the outhouse at top speed in a pitch-black night. I didn’t make it…
8 October 2007
We had a big party last night (thankfully without alcohol), we ate that sheep, and I woke up feeling like total crap. And I still feel like total crap – I almost didn’t write today’s entry into my journal because I feel so bad. And what, you may ask, made me feel so bad? If you guess sheep meat and besh barmak, you win the prize! My stomach’s been gurgling all day, my head has been hurting all day, and I’ve made a ton of trips to the outhouse to spurt water out of my ass. Today I’ve eaten a grand total of one part of a roll, a Snickers bar (which I probably shouldn’t have eaten), and one piece of borsok (traditional Kyrgyz fried dough) – that was plenty.
I’ve explained besh barmak before, so I don’t have to go into detail about how foul of a meal it is. Noodles, sheep meat, and onions I can barely taste around the sheep meat and fat. I swear I’ll never eat sheep again when I go back home to the States – Muslims won’t eat pork, and I won’t eat sheep. And my family had it again tonight – it took all my power not to vomit when I smelled that stuff. I may end up calling the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) about this tomorrow if I don’t feel better – who knows, they might put me on Cipro.
Other than completely screwing up my gastrointestinal system, the party my host parents had went really well. They had a bunch of people show up, like my host father’s sister and my host mother’s mother. Once again, I was overjoyed not to see vodka on the table there – I think some of them drink vodka, but considering this is still Ramadan, they’re not drinking. Another lady showed up who seemed to be a pretty decent Islamic authority figure – I always figured that imams were male. Throughout the party she kept making references to Mohammed and Allah, but it didn’t bother me. I think my host parents want me to convert to Islam, though – they do it playfully, though, so I’m not offended at all. I did pray with them as they read from the Koran again – the Koran is always read in Arabic, and it sounds really pretty. My host father said that in Islam, I could marry Kelly and then have another three Kyrgyz wives (according to the Koran, men can have up to four wives – Mohammed had seven, but he was the Prophet, so he could do what he wanted) – he said it as everyone laughed, including myself, and I politely told him that not only is it illegal in America to have more than one wife, Kelly would kill me if I had a Kyrgyz wife. The lady imam that was there did say that Islam gets a bad rap in America, which I confirmed.
Party with my host family & friends during the holy month of Ramadan
One of the guys that was there was named Abdullah, and he works for my host father. He’s twenty-one, and speaks pretty good English. He studied English in university and apparently had passed the TEFL exam to possibly study in the United States, but he was stuck taking care of his mother now. He told me he has a girlfriend in New York City named Shannon, and that he wanted to visit her – I didn’t get the impression that Shannon was a PCV. He also mentioned the fact that one of his relatives was working at a car factory in Japan and wanted him to go to Japan. All these aspirations take lots of money, and that’s one thing he’s lacking right now. I gave him my phone number in case he wants to continue practicing his English – he told me he’s getting a cell phone next week.
The party ended about 10pm, which would have been fine if Abdullah’s Lada hadn’t broken down in my host parent’s compound. I was out there with all the men as my host father opened up the hood and started taking apart the engine. About 11pm, they decided there was nothing they could do with the car until morning, so everyone went inside and had tea. I excused myself to go to bed, and that’s when the trouble started with my stomach.
My stomach gurgled all night, and I had an extremely difficult time trying to sleep. I woke up around 6:30am, threw on my clothes for school, and had one sip of coffee and a piece of a roll before I ran out the door. At school today I felt like I was going to vomit all day. Apal Eje leaving Saaliev School to have her baby means that our schedules are about to get more demanding, and so on top of feeling shitty I find out that we’ll probably have to teach on Saturday – teaching on Saturday may not be a big deal to Kyrgyz or Russians, but it’s a big deal to Americans (most TEFL PCV’s do what they can to avoid teaching on Saturdays). Temirlan seemed pretty frustrated all day, especially finding out about the schedule changes for us. He didn’t snap at me, but he looked mad, especially when we were discussing English Club (he says I need to do at least two English Clubs a week). I did watch Temirlan lose his temper on a girl who stumbled into one of the classes we were teaching (luckily my language skills aren’t good enough yet to understand the whole conversation, but he was pissed off). Once we got back into the comfort of our English classroom, he told me he admired the fact that I could hide my emotions and feelings (especially after telling him I was about to run out on two classes to vomit) – he wasn’t able to tell how bad I felt without me telling him I felt bad. He also finally admitted that he enjoyed team-teaching with me (he’s been complaining about team-teaching for a while). I appreciate his feedback, and I take what he says seriously.
Here’s a cultural faux-pas I wasn’t taught during PST that Temirlan revealed I’ve been doing for a while. He says that teachers are not supposed to shake hands with students, even if the students have their arms outstretched. This maintains a distance between student and teacher that needs to be there for effective teaching. I was taught to shake hands with pretty much anyone. Temirlan said that was fine for university professors, but wasn’t fine for secondary schools. Temirlan also said we need to get the students conditioned to saying “good morning”, “good afternoon”, and “good evening” to us instead of just “hello” (which I hear more than I care to discuss – it’s one of the few English words Kyrgyz kids know, and they use it all the time when they see me). I’ve probably shaken hands with most of the male students there, and I never realized it was a big no-no. I told Temirlan that it’s rude in America to not shake hands with someone who stretches out their arm to shake hands – he asked me if many students in America shake hands with their teachers, and I told him that most American high school students wouldn’t shake hands with their teachers anyway.
By the way, this is Day 15 in the “I Haven’t Bathed Countdown” – I was going to take a bucket of warm water and go into the banya today to wash myself, but I was too ill to get out of bed this afternoon. I don’t really stink (with the exception of my crotch), but one thing about bathing regularly is that it gets dead skin cells off your skin. I scratched my arm today, and it looked like my skin was peeling from a sunburn – kinda gross. I mentioned that to Temirlan about my host family preparing banya while I was gone at the Teachers’ Day party, and he said he’d talk to them about it (going into his old LCF mode from PST) – I told him that really should be my responsibility to talk to my host family.
As soon as I got home from school, I went straight to bed. Altynbek and Aizat peeked in to see how I was, and I told them I was doing poorly. I skipped out on lunch today so I could catch up on my sleep. Finally, about 6pm Altynbek knocked on my door and told me to come down for dinner – I didn’t want dinner either, but I figured I should go downstairs. Once again they had more sheep parts, besh barmak, and other things to make my stomach turn. At first my host mother just thought I had a cold, but she started figuring out quick that it was all the sheep meat I ate yesterday (everyone had a joke about my weak American stomach). But, my host mother just told
Local transportation parked outside my house
me to have one cup of tea and to eat nothing else – she was trying to take care of me, and I appreciated it. She lit a twig called an “archa” here that is like incense, and it did make me feel better smelling that (unlike the damn sheep that was on the table that kept making me nauseous).
I’m going to bed now so I can try to get more sleep – we have another full plate of classes tomorrow, and my farts are grossing me out as I write this entry.
