Tuesday, September 17, 2013

“Did you put an egg on it?”



Last Saturday evening, I went hiking with a group of people. At the end of the last hill, only a couple hundred feet from the end of the trail, I fell on my ankle and sprained it—oops! When I got to the end, I told everyone I was fine, no big deal. After we got back, my friend gave me an ace bandage to wrap that sucker up and I went home.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, my ankle really hurt and was super swollen. I didn’t want to deal with it yet, so I went back to sleep. I slept until 10, which I think is a perfectly reasonable wake-up time on the weekend, but my host family disagrees. My host mother came up to check on me right after I woke up.

“Amina!” she said (they’ve renamed me). “What did you do?” I answered, “Yesterday evening I went hiking with some friends and I fell.”

So my host mother says, “Did you put an egg on it?”

I misunderstood that. That doesn’t make sense. I ask for clarification. “An egg?”

“Yes, an egg!”

“You mean an egg?”

“An egg! An egg! Did you put an egg on it?”

“…no?”

“I’ll be back.”

So my host mother disappears for a few minutes, and I’m sitting on my bed wondering what could be a homonym with “egg” in Tajik Persian.

My host mother comes back with a big fluffy piece of cotton with a cracked egg smeared across it and says, “Give me your foot.”

I stick out my foot, and she wraps my ankle with the egg-y fluff. Then she puts a plastic bag over my foot, and rewraps it in the bandage. She orders, “Rest, study, rest all day.” I’m sitting there on my bed. “Rest!” she orders. I stare at her, unsure of what I’m doing that is not considered resting. “Rest! Sleep!” I lay down and look at her quizzically. “Sleep!” she commands. I close my eyes. “Good,” she says. “I have to go, but I will be back later.” “Ok,” I say.

“Rest!”

A little while after my host mother left, one of my host sisters came in. “What happened?” she asked.

“I went hiking and fell.”

“Did you put an egg on it?”

“Yeah, I did this morning,” I answered.

Later that day, another host sister comes in and sees my foot. “Oh no!” she exclaims. “What did you do?”

I give my same answer, and she asks, “Did you put an egg on it?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said, a little confused. Apparently this is something everyone has done before.

I slept the day away, and didn’t move except to occasionally hobble to the bathroom. That evening, my host mother came back to my room with a bucket of hot water. At this point, I’ve had a raw egg strapped to my foot for at least eight hours. She tells me to unwrap my ankle and put my foot in the hot water until the egg fluff all floats away. I do what she says, and after a few minutes pull my foot out. She tsk tsks and says, “It’s still swollen. You have to go to the doctor.”

“The doctor?” I whine. “Let’s see how it is tomorrow morning.”

My host mother says, “If it was going to get better, it would have gotten better with the egg.” Then she says, “We’ll ask my grandson for a cup of [mystery word].”

“For a cup of what?”

“[Mystery word].”

“What’s that?”

“[Mystery word].” I’m not getting it. She starts to mime. “Psssh, pssh! Piss! Piss!”

“Piss!” I’m shocked. She can’t be suggesting that. “No, I can’t. I can’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. It’s good for your foot.”

“No. No. I can’t.”

“It doesn’t matter! It’s just water! It’s nothing!”

“Then put water on my foot!”

We could not see eye to eye on this matter. I rolled with it when it came to the egg, but I could not wrap my foot in pee. Nope. No way. But, I agree to go to the doctor the next morning. So we go, and the doctor takes a look, shows me the right way to wrap it, says do this, don’t do that, gives me ibuprofen, and sends me on my way.

I’ve already missed half my classes, but I go to school anyway (though mostly to use the internet, if I’m being honest). After class, I show everyone my purple, blobby foot. One of the administrators, a Tajik man, comes out of the office and asks me how I’m doing. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll be back to normal in two weeks.”

“You know what you should do,” he says, “is get an egg...”

I start to laugh. He insists, “I’m serious! Listen!”

I explain, “No, no, I know. My host mother put an egg on it yesterday.”

“Ah, good! So you know. Very good. Next, you should—are there any small children in your house?”

I can see where this is going, and I don’t like it. “Yes,” I say.

“People have been doing this for a long time. There’s use in it. You need to ask for a cup of pee and…”

I cut him off with my laughter.

“There’s nothing bad about it! If it weren’t useful, people wouldn’t do it.”

“My host mother said the same thing last night. I can’t. I really can’t.”

“Fine,” he says. “But consider it!”

Until my sprain has completely healed, I’ll be limping around Dushanbe. It already feels a little better, though, and it’s slightly less swollen. Maybe the magical healing power of the Tajik egg is the reason for that, or maybe not. Who knows what would have happened if I had let them soak it in the grandson’s urine!

Thursday, September 5, 2013

An introduction to a member of my host family and then some ramblings




I really enjoy talking with my host father, and not just because I find his accent easier to understand than my host mother’s. Every time I’ve had a conversation with him, he’s told me about the medicinal properties of whatever food he happens to be eating at the time. Is your blood pressure too high? Eat eight dried apricots a day. Does your stomach hurt? Eat kharbuza. (I’m not exactly sure what that is in English. It looks like honeydew, but it’s way more delicious.) Almonds are good for headaches, and so on.

Today he also told me about how much his family enjoys having guests, which is good news for me! Then somehow we ended up talking about social security in Tajikistan and America. How exactly we got to that point, I can’t remember. It wasn’t the most in depth conversation, nor the most fluid, but it was really cool to be able to talk about a subject like that in Persian. The least impressive part is that I kept forgetting the word for social security and had to ask my host father what it was multiple times. Here is a snippet of our talk translated into English:

Me: What are we talking about?
Host father: Social security.
Me: Social security. Social security. Social security. Social security. Social security.

A little odd, huh? My host father and host sister (host niece?) who was also in the room laughed at me. Speaking of which! I’m even more of a weirdo here than I am in the States, apparently. For example, I was taking a walk with the same host sister, and we ran into a group of her friends on the way back to the house. They asked who I was, where I was from, whatever. I answered them, and then something happened but I don’t know what, but they just started giggling! When my host sister and I got back, I asked her, “Are the things I do strange? Am I strange?” And she just said yes and laughed again. Sometimes I’m aware that what I’m doing or saying is out of the ordinary, sometimes not. That’s one of the “not” times. I’ve got lots to learn over the next three months!

Now that I’ve been here almost a week, I’m beginning to understand where I am. I’m pretty sure it’s Tajikistan.

I’ve been neglecting my goal to blog in Farsi too. I’m supposed to write a short essay about my experiences in Tajikistan so far, so I’ll post that when I get to it!