Hope you weren’t holding your breath to learn whether Owen and I made it back to Dushanbe safely. Answer: yes. And the solo trip with baby was actually not as bad as I had feared. Not that I want to do it again any time soon if I can help it, but still.
Our (or at least my) adjustment to the 9 hour time difference was actually not all that painful either. I think once you are surviving on about 5 hours’ sleep maximum on any given night, and even those afforded to you at the most random times, not necessarily all in a row, maybe the time zone thing doesn’t really matter that much.
I’d been gone about 3 months in all, and one of the most remarkable things that had developed in my absence: bugs. There seemed to be a small band of mosquitoes hiding out in the guest bedroom where we now have Owen’s crib set up. Luckily they only seemed to be bothering me, and they seem to have died out quickly, although it did give me pause for a short while.
A problem that we’d had before in the kitchen — moths flying out of cupboards whenever they were opened — had gotten a lot worse. So I spent one morning shortly after I arrived cleaning out the grains that were harboring worms and the ziploc bags whose folds seem to serve as excellent sites for moths to set up a little cobwebby home.
I hesitate to report, but Anya had no trouble mentioning repeatedly that one day recently Surayo had had to remove a worm from a cookie on her plate. Wait, that sounds even worse than what I mean: she had to throw out the whole thing, of course, not just remove the worm. In any case, I know, yuck. But I guess a hazard of living in Tajikistan? (And being not the best housekeeper in the world. I guess maybe the cookies and other bug infested things were older than I thought.)
Yes, gross, but not as bad as the next, somehow.
Mosquitoes weren’t the only extra friends in the study/nursery. We spent one recent Sunday shaking out, carefully vacuuming, spreading out in the still-warm Dushanbe daytime sun a small collection of rugs we had bought over the last 12 months or so. Since we didn’t have enough floor space (because so much of it is already occupied by State-Department-issue rugs), we’d ended up folding and piling them in one corner of the room.
We immediately chucked the worst of the bunch — a small circular rug purchased by Dan in Murghab. Which mysteriously was meant to be made of yak fur, billed as resistant to bugs. Guess not.
Luckily one of the rugs (the one I like best) was actually made of cotton, so the moths/worms hadn’t bothered with it. (We still vacuumed carefully, don’t worry.) And the other one that was wool was either purchased recently enough or placed far enough away, or something, that it wasn’t too badly affected. But the circular yak-fur rug was a hairy Swiss cheese of worms and moths and vacant cocoons. Kind of made my skin crawl.
(Anyone who has spent a night or more in our guest room in the past few months — I think that is only LH and me and Owen — please forgive us! At least you weren’t sleeping atop or really anywhere near those rugs….?)
Imagine my disappointment yesterday upon examining a little woolen Pamiri camel toy that I was given for Owen, for which luckily he is still just too young. Yup: cocoons and the telltale brown, sand-like eggs of these critters. Yuck. Apparently one should be very careful with any woolen items he or she buys in Gorno-Badakhshan. While also avoiding bedbugs.
Last, but not the least painful of the recent Dushanbe bug encounters, was the case of giardiasis I quickly acquired after re-entry. Ugh. Let me give you a piece of advice: try at all costs to avoid serious food poisoning while nursing a baby. I actually already knew this to be the right course of action, after having suffered a bad bout of it in Vladivostok while still nursing Anya. Apparently severe loss of fluids led to me passed out on the floor of the bathroom in the middle of the night and a big mess for Dan to clean up.
Alas, even my heightened awareness of this danger on return to Tajikistan — where food poisoning is basically unavoidable — did not help me escape. (I thought maybe I’d been here long enough to be used to the local flora, but I think the 3 months in the US did me in.)
This time around, I started on the ORS soon after I got sick, managed it with the BRAT diet, and have actually still not taken the meds to treat it — my symptoms are gone, and I just don’t want to interrupt nursing for three whole days as recommended to take the medicine. Guess I’ll consult with a doctor once I’m back in the States and reevaluate whether I should go through with the medication.
What a great birthday greeting that made from the local Iranian hospital lab, though: “Good morning, Khonum Walker, and Happy 40th! It’s official — you’ve got giardia!”
