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Someone’s in the Kitchen with Maresha
My host mom wanted me to make the food she had seen me make for myself in the past. I thought that was great so I showed her how I put curry powder in the water when I make rice. She also wanted me to make the pasta sauce I made once and I thought, ‘wow, she’s making a lot of food.’ I made it then discovered she thought it was for the rice. I explained that it’s for pasta and said we could keep the sauce for the next day and eat it with pasta, but she asked if we could just put it on the rice. I told her it wouldn’t taste good, but she did it anyway. And served it to my host brothers and their cousin and herself. I just had plain rice. So, of course, no one finished their plate of food because it tasted weird, just like I told her it would. It made me grumpy because it was a waste and she refused to listen to me. The next day I made pasta for the remaining sauce and she asked me to make enough pasta for the uncle and aunt who were over.
Some time later, I made toad in the hole for myself. It has become my go to dish here because it’s so simple and quick to make and safe to eat. One day, my brother watched me make it as I made some for the two of us. He liked it and one day made it for himself while I was gone. Another time, my host mom watched me make it too, so at least she’s willing to learn. If she’s in the mood. Sometimes she’d rather stick to traditional Turkmen fare. Change and variety are scary concepts for most Turkmen. (Actually they’re scary for many Americans too.) But my dream is to one day have a cooking club here where once a week I teach a handful of interested women a new recipe and healthy cooking habits.
Kuzya, R.I.P.
My family had a dog named Kuzya that used to follow me to work sometimes, peeing on everything to mark his territory along the way. He was a total cutey. Don’t ask what breed he was, because I don’t know. He was small and black and brown. He ran a little gimpy and when I asked my host brother why, he explained that it was from being hit by a car. Still, Kuzya was a good little outdoor dog, sleeping by the door as a kind of guard, barking at strange people and again, following me a few blocks on the way to work. Turkmen do not keep pets the way Americans do. You never see pets inside a home, nor do you see people walking their dogs on a leash or playing fetch with them. Dogs are typically kept as guard dogs and fed just enough to keep them a little hungry. They are allowed to roam the streets, as are cats. (That’s why we get rabies shots and training about what to do if attacked/bitten by a dog.) At any rate, last week Kuzya died at the hands of a street-sweeping woman who poisoned him along with three other dogs on my block. Lindsay’s host grandmother’s dog was also poisoned. Lindsay had heard that [CENSORED BY PEACE CORPS] on killing many dogs and cats in Ashgabat by poisoning them (and then feeding them to the animals in the zoo), so she suspects that’s what happened here in Balkanabat. The thing is, these are not feral animals or rabid animals that are being targeted. Lindsay’s grandma’s dog, for example, never left her yard. It is indiscriminate killing and, of course, inhumane. [CENSORED BY PEACE CORPS] I had just written a piece for the PCV T-stan paper about focusing on positive things and suggested making a list of good things about life here. I gave part of my list as an example and one of the items was being followed by Kuzya to work. Scratch that one off.