The Worst Day

November 19, 2007


Yesterday was my worst day here.

My stomach was boiling but I went into Ashgabat anyway because I had so many things to do. Then I got to the office to find the Internet was down…on the one day I had to use it.

That was incredibly irritating.

Then my stomach was boiling more than ever and I was visiting the toilet constantly.

I had told my host family I’d cook for them in the evening though, so I didn’t want to let them down. I found myself wandering around the bazaar with a massive headache, a fever, a boiling stomach and a colon that was screaming for a toilet.

Then I felt myself become delirious. It was all I could do to keep from curling up into a ball right there on the dirty ground of the Teke Bazaar in Ashgabat.

So I made a few purchases without really being sure of what I was buying and got into the first taxi that would take me home. I paid way too much and the driver was complaining about something but I wasn’t listening. I just wanted to die.

I arrived home, took my temperature and swallowed some Ibuprofin, but it didn’t help. I started cutting up onions and felt myself getting hotter and hotter until one of the family members saw me and put her hand on my forehead.

That was the end of my cooking experience in Turkmenistan.

But I will say this…when Gyzulgul (the family gilneje) saw that I was so sick she was genuinely concerned and she took care of me. She brought me bananas (that I refused to eat) and made some weird grass and spearament concoction that she rubbed all over my back. Then she brought me tea with blackberries (although it sent me right to the toilet).

It’s good to have someone there for you when you’re away from home.