Kerosene Cucumbers and Other Folk Remedies

Last night both David and I slept fitfully.  I with visions – not of sugarplums – but of them

hauling David off to a Kazakh hospital and trying to do Lord knows what to him.  Aida

swooped into his room this morning and started shouting orders: “You must eat pickles (dill – of course)!  You must drink pickle juice!  Tea with raspberry and blackberry!  No sugar!  My mother is making something that you will put up your nose!  Tonight you will have vodka with red peppers, then sweat under the covers.”  David just sat there looking pitiful. 

 

When Aida walked out of the room I quickly ate the pickles, because David doesn’t like them even under the best of circumstances.  (Maybe after a few shots of vodka.)  Then I ate a piece of gum lest Aida smell the pickles on my breath!  David said it all reminded him of an episode of Andy Griffith where Aunt Bee makes these gosh-awful pickles, and Andy nicknames them “kerosene cucumbers”.  He and Barney swap them with store-bought pickles so they can eat them, and she is so thrilled that they like “her” pickles that she makes a double batch.  In the end they have to knuckle down and eat the “kerosene cucumbers”.  I was doubled over laughing.

 

I went to the baby house alone today (with Aida and Saida, of course).  We took the girls to the main square (ploschad) where we strolled around.  We wandered behind the main administration building, where there was a nice shady park.  Suddenly a policeman or security guard (hard to tell - just some guy in a big hat!) jumped out and started yelling at Aida that “this territory is only for the mayor and simple people are not allowed to walk there!”  Aida jumped all over him, asking him “Where does it say that?  Show me the paper where it says that!  I walk here all the time!  You’re a fool!  That’s impossible!  That’s ridiculous!”  I just stood there, expecting them to haul her off at any moment.  The guard went in to get another guy, and then the three of them stood there arguing.  Finally Aida motioned to me and we went off walking in the “mayor’s territory” anyway.  I kept asking her if it was okay, and she said, “Of course!  I told them from now on I was going to walk here two times a day!”  She told me that they accused her of being a “Tatar Girl” (known for their tempers) and she said to me with a chuckle, “In fact, my grandmother was a Tatar!” 

 

Tomorrow the Spanish family has court.  It will be their last day in the baby house.  It has been difficult to communicate with them, but I have really grown fond of them.  We have their address so we can exchange Christmas cards.

 

Last night on the way home from the store, Aida was driving me back to the apartment. 

A very drunk man staggered in front of the car.  I don’t think Aida hit him, but he

bumped into the front bumper and down he went.  Aida was frantic!!  He didn’t get up for the longest time, and she jumped out, yelling at him.  He finally got up, but was way beyond inebriated.  They started screaming at each other, and I was scared he was going to hurt her.  She told me to go inside, though.  A minute later she came back inside, and watched through the window until he went away.  

 

Like I said … never a dull moment.

 

This afternoon Aida, Saida, Melanie and I went back to the Aqua Park (as it is so warm today) and we sat and had tea in the restaurant.  (Jenice, she told me about the funny thing that happened to you there!)  Saida thinks I’m very funny trying to pronounce Russian words.  It is so warm, that the city made an announcement that they won't turn on the central heating until there are 3 days below zero (celcius).  I don't care, just as long as they keep the hot water coming!

 

David is still “ailing” this evening, but the Ibuprofen enabled me to drag his carcass off the bed long enough to get some pictures up for me.  Have to keep our coordinator happy, you know!!  I am very hopeful that tomorrow he will be his old self again.  I did buy a small bottle of vodka at the store for him (medicinal purposes, of course).

 

Lisa, Christian, Quentin and Colin ... we love you and miss you like crazy.  Keep on being good kids for Grandmama!

 

“Tatar” for now!!  Liz 

 

In the Grip of the Grippe

Bad news ... today no pictures because the picture expert is in bed with the Taldy virus that has been going around.  David never gets sick, so I knew that when he started looking very pale and decided to go to bed, he was definitely sick.  I pulled out the SpongeBob thermometer that we brought (for Melanie) and yup ... fever city.  Aida and I went out to buy him some lemons for tea (which they swear help this kind of thing), some 7-Up, and some chicken bouillon.  She took me to a "chemist" where we bought some kind of capsules for influenza.  No telling what's in them, but they were made in Germany, so we figured they couldn't hurt!  Tonight we pull out the big guns ... 800 mg. Ibuprofen that I had from when I was sick before we left.  That should put him into la-la land pretty quick.

This morning when we picked up Melanie we brought her back to the apartment.  Aida helped us sort through our gifts to tell us what would be appropriate for whom.  My friend Jill is a Mary Kay representative in the states, and was quite generous with some donations of samples.  Apparently Mary Kay is like gold here; Aida was excited to see it all, and said that the ladies we gave it to would be very happy!  Meanwhile, Melanie puttered around the apartment, playing very well by herself.  Maybe when we bring her here for good, she'll feel right at home.

Before we went to the baby house, we dropped off a pile of laundry at a "laundry salon" right across the street from our apartment.  The total bill: $2.00.  Man, I wish I could bring that babushka home with me.  We received the clothes back wet, so now we have clothes hanging all around the apartment, but do they ever smell good!   David and I also walked to the grocery store, and boy did I feel like a Martian who had just landed on earth, with all the stares we got.  We are living in a very residential area, and we're quite a spectacle, I'm sure.  Right now I'm listening to the women outside beating their rugs.  There are these metal bars in the shape of a triangle in the courtyard that they hang them on, specifically for this purpose.  Children are still outside playing, even though it's dark. 

Our afternoon visit was a trip to the park, with the rusty ferris wheel.  That was when I noticed David just wilting away, and I knew things didn't look good.  We had planned on having Christie and Corey over for dinner, but we took a rain check.  I'm sure they understand. 

That's about all the news from here; I hope tomorrow we'll have good news about David, and that this grippe doesn't last too long.  (What worries me is that I'm next!  <gulp!>)

A Visit with Lenin

Happy Columbus Day!  Funny, but they didn’t have a festival in the main square to celebrate the day for us.  Harumph.  Today was another pleasant day in the hamlet of TaldyKorgan.  After our breakfast of boiled eggs, kasha(oatmeal) with apples, and yogurt, we picked up Melanie at the BH.  We had an appointment to meet with the lady from the Ministry of Education, just to see how things were going.  David and I waited across the street from her building, near the war monument, while Aida went inside to fetch the official.  Shortly, she came out and met us in the park, and we had an informal discussion right there.  How many times have we visited?  How are things?  I can see you are well attached to her.  I wish you well.  Aida commented how I had studied Russian and Russian literature in college; don’t know if that got us any bonus points.  I did rave about how much I had enjoyed the Ilias Dzhansugurov museum. 

 

Aida’s daughter Saida was with us again, and she pushed Melanie around in the stroller for a while in the park.   We brought Melanie back to the BH, and came home for a long rest.  I am suffering a little from Delhi Belly, as we affectionately call it in my family, so I’m a little under the weather.  David ventured out to the grocery store again … I think he is on a first name basis with the ladies there now.

 

This afternoon we took Melanie to the Lenin Park.  It is way out on the outskirts of town; guess that sums up how they all feel about old Vladimir Ilyich these days.  The park itself was pretty run-down, even though it’s called “Heroes Park"  The enormous statue of Lenin used to be in the main square, before perestroika, but now he’s been relegated to virtual obscurity in a weedy, litter-strewn park.  And yet, Aida was telling us, they consider him a genius, in that he was able to change so much for the Russian people who were suffering so much under the czars.  It wasn’t his fault, after all, that the people who came after him ran the country into the ground.  A matter of good planning, poor implementation.

 

We stopped by and bought Melanie a new pair of boots (tufli) to wear if it ever gets cold here!  All we brought was tennis shoes.

 

Back at the BH, we watched some older children play a Kazakh version of “ring around the rosy” (and David joined in too!)  I was trying really hard to get a photo of Melanie and Oxana, the little girl going to Spain, but it was a wasted effort.  Neither one would sit still for more than a nanosecond.

 

Tonight we’re hunkered down close to home.  Maybe we’ll watch another Western.  No more girly movies, shucks.  As they say in Catalonia, “Adeo!”  (I’m learning so much from our friends Joan and Lourdes!!  And it’s pronounced ‘zho-an’)

Bars Do Not a Prison Make

Hidey Ho from Kazakhstan.  We are now well protected from nocturnal projectiles.  Yesterday afternoon they installed metal bars over the windows of our apartment.  We were seranaded by the sound of a jack hammer and welding torch during our afternoon "rest time".  If there is a fire here, we're toast.  There's no getting past these babies, either in or out!

 

For yesterday afternoon's visit we drove out to the bustling TaldyKorgan airport to see the airplanes.  It was closed.  And there was only one airplane.  Okay, off in the distance there were two camouflaged military jets.  But only one commercial jetliner, parked way off to the side.  We let Melanie run around a bit, until a gruff looking man walked up and basically kicked us out.  I guess we were parked in the white zone and would be towed if we didn't move our vehicle.  We were the ONLY vehicle at the whole place.  Oh well, when in Rome ...

 

It was another beautiful day here today.  They keep saying the nice weather will end any day now; I’m half expecting to wake up tomorrow to a layer of snow.  Strange since we were peeling off the layers today with a high of 18 C.  (Translation: pretty warm.)  You’ve never seen such a blue sky … or such a bright sun.  I think David half fell asleep on a park bench this morning as Aida and I paraded around with Melanie and Aida’s daughter Saida.  David had to sit and watch all our crap while we got to do the fun stuff with the kids … ha ha.

 

After lunch today we went shopping on Arbat Street (apparently every Russian city has an Arbat Street which is a shopping mecca) and looked at some nice …er … stuff.  Can’t give too much away.  We bought some “merozhenoi” – ice cream.  We picked up Melanie at 4, and Saida (Aida’s daughter, almost 3) had to go home to change her clothes, so we ended up staying at Aida’s apartment for the afternoon.  We had some nice tea and chocolates, and the kids watched “Little Stuart” in Russian.  It was hilarious.  I think that was Melanie’s first time in an apartment; she looked somewhat bewildered.

 

Dinner tonight was again at the Hessen Pub with Corey & Christie  (I’ve been spelling their names wrong all along, but they have forgiven me!).  Hessen really has the best food in town.  Last night we tried a restaurant called “Alim” supposedly known for its Lagman.  We discovered, too late, that it’s part restaurant and part disco, and we were sitting right underneath the speakers.  We asked the waitress to turn it down, but some little boy kept coming up and turning it back up.  Several teenaged girls were on the dance floor shaking their stuff to a song whose refrain was “I Like Girls … I Like Girls … HOOWEE!  I Like Girls!” … so I told the waitress we would be having our tea outside.  (Aida later told me that I had told her in my sketchy Russian that we wanted to sit “open” instead of “outside”.  No wonder she looked at me so funny!)  Aida came to pick us up and check our bill to make sure that it wasn’t “exaggerated” for the foreigners.  She is taking very good care of us!!

 

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment from TaldyKorgan! 

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

No bumps in the night last night.  We stayed up too late watching “The Magnificent Seven” and then “The Making of the Magnificent Seven”.  It was a little cheesy, but a classic.   Our next feature:  “The Quick and the Dead”.  Do you see a “western” theme going on here?  That’s okay, we already watched the chick movie that I brought, “In Love and War”.  (I snuck it in by telling him it was a war movie … snicker, snicker!)

 

Yesterday afternoon we took Melanie to the main square, where there are two huge fountains, each representing the “Seven Rivers” of this area.  Melanie walked and walked (or should I say ran) and we saw four wedding parties arrive to have their pictures made in front of the fountains.  The brides were beautiful and the grooms shell-shocked.  I guess things are the same around the world in that regard.  (David’s job, he said, at our wedding was to smile and say, “Isn’t she lovely?”  That’s it.)

 

On the way back to the baby house we bought some more “shashlik” (shishkebab) from our favorite street vendor.  We brought it home, and made some noodles and had a nice quiet dinner.  Then we went to the movies, and to bed.

 

We did our usual visit this morning, and we’ve started joining Cory & Christy at the park with their son, just to stroll around and be outside.  The weather continues to be just perfect … I can’t believe they ever have bad weather here.  Aida says it’s because we’re here, ha ha.  When we brought Melanie back to the baby house, the kiddies were already sitting at their tables waiting for lunch.  Melanie was scrambling to get down and we couldn’t get her coat off fast enough!  I think I know what the highlight of their day is!

 

This afternoon we’re planning on shopping for more gifts (this time for the folks back home, so I won’t go into any details) and tonight we’re going to eat Lagman (traditional Kazakh spicy noodles) with Cory & Christy. 

 

We’re still holding up okay.  I’m trying not to count the days; that would be too depressing.  Leave it to say that we’re under the 2 week mark until court.  Aida hinted that we may bring Melanie to the apartment on Wednesday … so life will change slightly then!  She continues to amaze us with her perky personality and curiosity about the big wide world out there.  She is definitely two … she loves to run away and turn around to check if we’re going to chase her.  I’ve noticed that when she gets sleepy she starts to sing to herself and suck on her tongue. 

 

That’s all for now …

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Wow, where do we begin?  We have had an exciting couple of days, and no time to write about it!  Let’s see … yesterday we had two nice visits, one in the morning, which consisted of a short trip to a water park, (closed for the winter of course but nice to see anyway) then back for the usual laps around the baby house with Melanie’s groupa.  At lunch time we came home where I slept off a migraine headache.  David got adventurous and went shopping for a few groceries by himself.  At 3 Aida picked us up and we went shopping for some gifts: chocolates and tea for the secretaries of the court.  It was very interesting: we went first to a wholesale grocery office, where we made our selections and were given a receipt.  Then we set out to find the warehouse to pick up our order.  Aida wasn’t sure where the warehouse was, and we made a few wrong turns on some dirt roads before we found it.  You would never have known it was there, it was quite camouflaged in a neighborhood of houses.

 

In the afternoon, we stayed inside the baby house and played with the children.  They were in rare form!  One little boy has really attached himself to David; he cries whenever it’s time for us to leave.  The Spanish couple was there, too, and one of the caregivers commented how nice it was to have TWO families there, that she could relax while we took care of the children!

 

After our visit we went to the Hessen Pub for the big “presentation” of the new beer that the German brewmaster had been preparing for two weeks.  It was quite an occasion … there was a small combo playing jazz music, and Herr Brewmaster made a speech.  He was speaking German, with a lady next to him translating into Russian, and Aida was then translating it for us into English.  We again had a delicious dinner, and sampled the beer (the first round was on the house!)  We were with our new friends Cory and Christy, the other American family.  There was also a group of American Peace Corps volunteers, and we had a nice time chatting with them and hearing about their lives here.  They all seemed a bit jaded by their experiences, not quite the idealist, optimistic “save the world” type people I would have expected.  Oh well, it was nice to visit with them anyway.

 

We got home very late, and just wanted to fall into bed, so the weblog didn’t get updated, sorry!  We were snoozing away at 5 a.m., when suddenly an enormous CRASH!  BUMP! woke us up.  We lay there for a minute, wondering if we had dreamed it and saying “What the heck was THAT?”  David got up to investigate, and found that someone had hurled an enormous rock (about the size of a brick) through the front window of our apartment!  The kitchen window was completely smashed in (and it is a double-paned window) and the rock had gone all the way through the kitchen and into the hall.  I was, needless to say, scared out of my wits, and said, “Call Aida!!  Call Aida!”  Poor Aida was over in a flash, and we cleaned up the mess, covered the window with cardboard and duct tape (don’t leave home without it!)  She reassured us that it was probably just a drunk with nothing better to do, and that we weren’t being targeted for being Americans!  I wondered if we should call the police, but she said they would probably just blow it off.  Yep, we’re not in the US any more!  Aida went home, and I was able to get back to sleep for a while, but I think David was in defense mode, and didn’t sleep.

 

For our visit this morning we took Melanie and Cory & Christy’s baby boy, Sam, to the park.  It was nice to just stroll around and chat.  Apparently today is a national holiday, “Health Day” and there was a festival of sorts going on in the town square.  All the girls were dressed up in their national costumes, and there was a demonstration of martial arts.  Very interesting!

 

Now we are home for lunch and a man is fixing the window.  Fast service, eh?  In the states, they would probably say, “We’ll be there on Monday, between 12 and 4 .. we may or may not show up” … So, that is all for now; don’t know if we’ll update again tonight, unless something else monumental happens.  Let’s see, flat tire … rock through the window.  Who knows what will happen next?

Potties and Culture

This morning when we arrived at the baby house, the children were having a snack of yogurt.  Some are more adept with the spoon than others!  Some had more on their faces than in their stomachs.  After they were finished, they were herded into the bathroom for potty time!  They all sat on these tiny little tin pots (each one had their name on it) while the caregiver sang to them, I guess some Kazakh potty song.  Some of them scooted around the room, while sitting on the pots.  It was sooo cute I just couldn't stand it.  The caregivers probably thought I was an Americanski Nutski for taking a picture of the children going to the bathroom, but it was too precious to miss.  I decided it was better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission, so I fired away.

It was very chilly today, so we stayed inside.  David brought the laptop and we all watched "Finding Nemo" in the playroom.  Some of the babies were interested, but I think the caregivers were more enthusiastic about it than they were.  The Spanish family's 6 year old son especially liked it.  I think he's probably seen it in Spanish before.  Because we didn't have our daily walk outside, and it was warm in the room, several of the babies nodded off on the floor.  One little girl fell asleep while swinging on a little baby swing.  We can't have them sleeping at the wrong time! so the ladies were saying "dzhr! dzhr!" to get them to wake up.  Well, we all know how happy a sleepy baby is when woken up.  As soon as the lunch tray arrived, though, they woke up pretty quickly.  We all wanted to stay and watch them eat, but the caregivers shooed us away.  We're too much of a distraction, I guess!

During our lunch break, Aida took us to a small museum devoted to the memory of Ilia Zhansugurov ... a man who dedicated his life to the preservation of Kazakh culture and who believed in the education of Kazakh children.  He was a prolific writer, composer and poet.  He was unfortunately executed during the Stalinist purges, but his legacy lives on in TaldyKorgan. 

Aida seems to be feeling better today, although she still wore her mask.  In the afternoon, after the museum, we brought the laptop again, to finish Nemo, and also brought a Baby Einstein DVD for the children to watch.  No plot, no story, just music and colorful pictures.  The kids were all pretty active this afternoon ... they must have had good naps.  David and I spent a good part of the afternoon tickling and tossing and rassling.  One little boy, Nury, reminds me of Dick Butkus a little .. he's such a tough boy, and is going to be a good linebacker for some team someday.  Either that or a sumo wrestler.  He's got a hot temper too ... loves to throw himself on the floor and yowl.

The caregivers had them dancing at one point ... and doing a conga line at another.  The first kid would fall to the floor, and all the others would pile on right behind.  It was hysterical. 

We called our new American friends, Christy & Cory, to meet us for dinner, and we had some really good "Lagman", which is a Kazakh noodle, meat & vegetable dish.  It was delicious!  Aida came to pick us up when we were done, also to make sure that the bill wasn't "exaggerated" for the foreigners.  We walked through the main square of TaldyKorgan, which is lit up like a Christmas tree.  All the buildings are lit up with various shades of green or blue.

Now we are up past our bedtime ... tomorrow night there is going to be a "presentation" at the Hessen Pub ... a German man is going to reveal his newest brew.  I am trembling with anticipation ...  Until tomorrow!!