The collateral damage (see right): two 25 kilo bags of four, spilled; 10 kilos of a barrel of barley (for beer) eaten; 3 kilos of carrots chomped without a trace; and one shopping bag of potatoes decimated—not to mention the droppings like icing on the cake (or flour that would never be such now).
To make matters more interesting, the electricity has been on the fritz all day, the switch breaker shooting sparks, shorting the power, thawing the refrigerator so that it leaked all over the floor and cutting off the electric heater in my room (which was still just hanging in at 48 degrees F with the heater on).
So in between classes and English club this morning, I helped my brother clean donkey shit and refrigerator puddles. Why were we stuck with the mess? Well, lets just say this week has been “less than normal.”
My host mother went to Bishkek for work on Saturday, and returned only this evening, Thursday. My host father also had work away from home, so we seldom saw him, once being Tuesday, a holiday, when he came in drunk and went immediately to sleep. Additionally, my “counterpart” (co-teacher) also spent most of the week in Bishkek, for a funeral as it turns out. Monday morning she was M.I.A. for our 8 a.m. class without warning, leaving me plan-less, textbook-less, and otherwise on the spot.
Needless to say, this convolution of events made for an interesting week: bi-lingually teaching grades 3-9 by myself and running a household of six: 3-year-old twins, an 11 and 13-year-old, a 10-year-old cousin who joined us for the week (and my itinerate host father at times).
I must first point out, very thankfully, that I have two incredibly competent and helpful adolescent siblings; Daria, my 11-year-old sister, is perfectly capable of looking after the twins and does so without complaint. However, dinners were all on me.
Fortunately, I love to cook. Unfortunately, I have essentially none of the ingredients I’m used to cooking with at my disposal. In my pantry this week: potatoes, pasta, buckwheat, carrots and peppers. We are past the season for other vegetables. So the first night I made garlic cheesy bread with supplies I bought in the city; the second, fried potatoes—and peanut butter M&M cookies for dessert (huge hit); the third, fried potatoes and pasta (it is totally normal here to mix two starches), the fourth, fried potatoes and buckwheat; and tonight, apple cake. (I say if the donkey’s eat the flour for bread, well, let us eat cake.)
Believe it or not, this amounts to more diversity—and just literally more—than my family eats on a regular basis. Granted, the meals were not without small setbacks. I didn’t make enough potatoes the first night, and the second night I used my own red pepper—no realizing it was twice the usual strength as my family’s—and I couldn’t taste my overdose thanks to a two week sinus infection that has rendered my tastebuds useless. (I actually consider this mostly a blessing.) Wednesday night I left out the red pepper all together, and the (to me) tasteless product was declared “delicious.”
Crazy as it has been, the week hasn’t been without it’s high points, and it’s certainly brought me closer to my siblings. Tuesday morning, all three of my sisters (i.e. the twins as well) joined me in my daily hour of yoga. Three-year-olds doing Sun Salutations might just be the cutest thing ever, though their attention spans are rather short and they were having a blast crawling beneath our Downward Dogs after the first 15 minutes. Afterwards, we all enjoyed Shrek and then Monsters Inc. on my computer. (I’ve watched more Disney and Pixar in Kyrgyzstan on their behalf than I ever saw in the states.) Later, an impromptu dance party broke out to the accompaniment of Michael Jackson and other American pop artists I had given my host brother. An impromtu reenactment of the morning’s excitement followed.
My conclusion at day’s end: I’ve almost reached saturation point with crazy stories, but I guess I can’t complain; my day both started and ended in guffaws. And what would life be without laughter?
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