By Jett Thomason

My alarm clock goes off at five. It’s been about four hours since I fell asleep. I’ve woken up to go to the early-morning festivities for a neighborhood circumcision ceremony which is locally and collectively referred to as one of several Uzbek “weddings”. I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small provincial town in Uzbekistan for more than a year now. The people of my town are exceedingly friendly and known to be the most festive in the country. If there’s a wedding to go to, it will be a neighbor of mine pouring the vodka and cracking jokes for the table.

An Uzbek man can reasonably expect to be the main participant in four “weddings” in his life. There’s the bishek-toi (new baby wedding), the sunnat-toi (circumcision wedding for boys), the niqoh-toi (marriage wedding), and the final funeral celebration. All of these are pretty similar in the arrangement. Neighbors and friends and recent companions and new acquaintances and coworkers and their families all come out for the bash. Part of the wedding which is limited to men only is the morning plov ceremony that I have woken up so early for.

We can hear the horns before we can see the house. Big bellowing long trumpets announce the opening of the wedding. Guests arrive streaming onto the street. It’s been blocked off to cars and set with plastic tables and chairs. Most everyone is wearing their skullcap with the local evil-eye preventive charms sewn on. The hosts are leading people in, and everyone exchanges head-nods with their hand across their chest in the wonderful Muslim greeting. It expresses piety, modesty, honor and deference all at once.

Once a table is filled, the serving and eating begins. One man pours the tea the requisite three times, another opens the vodka, young boys run around handing out tomato and onion salads. Older boys quickly follow them with plov, the steaming rice, carrot, and meat dish that is ubiquitous in this part of the world. The word is the root for English “rice pilaf”.  Legend states that Alexander the Great’s army chef was puzzled over what to cook with such simple ingredients. Plov, it became, and apparently the soldiers took to it heartily because there’s not a celebration in Central Asia without it. The dish is slightly different every time you have it. Or so I’m told. Plov is like fine French wine, far wiser people than I can detect the subtitles of cooking it in different ways. I just enjoy it and don’t bother with the shades of distinction.

Everyone eats. The plov is packed into spoons or palms and slid into the mouth. Neighbors mutually implore each other to eat. Vodka, tea, soda, and melon are passed from hand to hand to hand and finally to mouth. The plov portion is just finishing up as the young boy of honor is brought out in his turban and robe made of velour and gold trim.

The grandfather holds up his grandchild—today a man. Speeches are made and countless people wish the young lad success, health, and a large family. One of the elders has had a bit more vodka than he should have, and expresses his hope that “what the mullah made short today, may it be much larger in the future!” Great laughs come from the men at the tables, great sighs from the ladies looking out from the doorways.

People begin to finish their meals and work their way into the adjacent park. Today’s wedding is even more noteworthy because there is going to be a ram fight. The hosting family has spent about $10,000 on the prizes for the winning rams.  For perspective this largess is spent in a country where a person pulls down an average monthly salary of $80. All local ram owners have been invited. As such, there’s quite a crowd waiting around the field when we arrive.

As we walk in, we see the rams tied up and waiting for their moment. A few are banging their head against the trunks of trees. These are the berserkers, the ones given their due space. Other rams are congenial enough to be petted. They all have nicknames. Tornado, Gypsy, Super, and several Tysons are all ready to win their masters a rug or maybe the championship prize of a camel.

The park fills up over the course of the hour. The camel is terrified, frothing at the mouth, and difficult to control. Dust piles up around its stamping legs and passersby futilely try to keep their pants clean while inspecting the beast. The musicians have turned the music more upbeat and a costumed girl dances for small notes from the bystanders.

Finally our host comes out and takes the microphone from the band. There are yet more speeches. People are beginning to get tired and are itching to see some action. The rams peacefully look on, grubbing for grass. One man speaks for ten minutes, repeatedly answering his own rhetorical questions. The sun begins to beat down and the vodka fades. I desperately wish for a ram to dash across and butt him off the field. Finally it’s over and the crowd roars relief and satisfaction as the first two rams are brought out.

Someone notices my camera and urges me forward for a better shot.  The aggressive hospitality of the crowd has pushed me right out onto the edge of the field for a front-row view. I’m an honored guest, but having about a thousand people stare at me as I stare at the rams doesn’t feel so honored.  As the rams are squared up, I feel eyes lift from the foreigner to the real sight.

The rams break free of their owners and the heads of the animals smack together.  It sounds like fencing with logs. My unease at watching the fight disappears in the rush of the moment. The rams shake, back up slowly, and run towards each other again for a mighty smack. They back up again, but they’re not walking backwards in perfectly straight lines. They are backing up slowly but surely in my direction. Smack, another shake, another move towards me. I start to look anxiously at the ditches, benches, and speakers blocking me from an easy exit.

Smack, they crash again and one of the rams bows out. The crowd gives its solid approval at the performance, the beaten ram runs back…. towards me. I snap a picture of imminent impact and scramble to get across the ditch. Dust billows up as I try to cross over the side of the field; the shamed loser is scared and looking to get past or through me. I hop up onto a ledge full of people, the ram stops short and nonchalantly strolls in the other direction. I laugh at myself along with the rest and decide that I’ll enjoy the following matches as a local would—on the sidelines.

The other rams are brought out in pairs and steadily the rugs and other prizes are passed out. It comes time to give the camel off. A monster is led onto the field. It’s huge, at least waist high on a tall man and I can’t begin to guess how much it weighs. The horns curl back under and over its ears and the gray wool shines in the sun. He’s the reigning champion. The speaker entreats someone to challenge him. Minutes pass as the speaker assures that the loser will also get a consolation prize. It’s still a while before a smaller ram is led out. The excited owner pulls it by the horn; it’s not as willing.

The animals are arranged in the middle of the field. The speaker calls for the American guest to come out and watch. I’m pushed out to the field again. The large and imposing ram is even more so from close up. Suddenly the white challenger makes a dash at the large one. Smack. Perhaps he can pull it off…they back up, the owners, a few feet away, encourage their beasts with clapping and cursing. Smack, and they bounce off each other. Both shake, back even farther up, and run at it again. Smack, the white ram’s legs buckle but he regains.

The champion doesn’t even appear winded. They hit and retreat again. The white ram backs up, backs up, backs up, and people start falling down as he backs into the crowd. The rams start to dash towards each other from sixty feet away. Simultaneously they both dive into the air. The champion has the mass and the advantage and blows down the smaller ram.

It’s over, the white one turns and runs. For added glory the black champion encourages the flight with a hit to the rear of the failed challenger. The crowd heartily approves. The cheers could be from anywhere and from anytime.

As the prize camel is brought onto the field, the owner beams and the host makes generous gestures. He’s too far on to the pitch to speak into the microphone but it’s not needed. We’ve heard the same lines a thousand times today. The proud winner stands by its owner, avowed champion again. The camel suddenly jumps and spits, the startled winning ram turns tail and runs off the field followed by its owner. The crowd enjoys this sight as much as the fight. Old men turn grinning to each other. “There’s always someone bigger!” they mutually confirm.

I pick my way through the crowd, past the spitting camel, and exit the dusty field. Another wedding, another memory, but this isn’t one I’ll soon forget.

Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps.  Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He lives in Washington, DC.

[smartads]

by Jett Thomason

I had just finished planning and running a boys camp at my lyceum. With the summer mostly wide-open, I’ve been trying to see the interesting sites that get neglected when you actually live in a historical place. My most recent touristy visit was to a minaret in the nearby town of Shiforkan. The minaret is one of the tallest in Uzbekistan and might be the most overlooked of all the tourist sites here. From the main highway, the tower is visible for about thirty seconds. Many locals are unaware of its existence, and frankly, most locals are unaware of the town of Shifokan’s existence.

I arrived in Shifokan with two other Peace Corps volunteers who had worked at my camp. We strolled up to the town square expecting to find some sort of tourist information and the usual vendors hawking needless junk. Instead the minaret attracted about as much attention as a radio antenna. And from the looks of the top, there were several of those with wires stretching suspiciously into the offices of a nearby clinic. Access to the minaret appeared to be only through a locked door… about ten feet above the ground.

Not knowing whom to ask, we went to the nearest women selling newspapers. As I phrased my questions carefully in Uzbek, a man in line took one look at us and told us he could help. After going through The Conversation “Whereyoufrom whatareyoudoinghere areyoumarried howmuchmoneydoyoumake?” he took us into a small TV shop. One man was working in front of a pile of electrical boards with what appeared to be a piece of rebar and sparklers. Our guide explained the situation.

“They are Americans! They want to go to the minaret!”

“Hmm, they need permission to climb it from the mayor,” the salesman replied.

“How do we get that?” I asked.

“Well, they won’t give you permission,” he told me.

“So…. what do we do?”

“Well, I suppose we’ll go. After all, one has to respect guests.”

And with that sweeping comment on the culture of hospitality, he grabbed a flashlight, closed the shop behind him and led us around the corner. Away from the minaret.

I ignored this. Ignoring something blatantly wrong usually works here. As we walked down the back road, the guide told us the minaret hadn’t been opened for about three years. Too many people getting vodka and bright ideas into their head at the same time. After one too many drunks came down the tower the hard way, the minaret was locked up.

“But you’re guests, we’ll be quick and it’ll be fine.”

We knocked on someone’s door, asked for a ladder and went back the minaret. A small crowd of children gathered to watch from a safe distance. The ladder went up, and so did our guide. I scrambled up after him; the ladder was about a yard shy of the door. My friends followed. As my eyes focused, I saw that each step was about half a foot under dry but slippery pigeon guano. With the flashlight, we crawled up the very cramped and dark stairs. About a dozen nests with pigeons were laid out all the way up the path. Who’d of thought I’d have to come to Central Asia to see my first baby pigeons?

A few steps were rotten and there were a few close calls. As we got closer, more light came down the stairs. Suddenly there was the roof and open platform.

I’ve been on many high buildings in America, but the several minutes it took to get to the tower top made it feel much higher. Shiforkan had just been a dull place in between other cities I wanted to be in. This view changed all that. We could see far across the flat irrigated fields. The town was small enough to see its boundaries in sharp relief. House courtyards were suddenly open into view. We could quickly see and understand the town, see all the people in the streets and houses doing their work.

I imagined how many centuries this had been used to call people to prayer. And now it was mostly a TV antenna booster. Just then the TV repairman yelled at us to hurry down. We snapped some pictures, took one more look at the amazing view, and then walked back down into the normal, unremarkable town.
Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps. Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

by Jett Thomason

One of the many advantages to living with a host family in Uzbekistan was the free and doting medical care.  Upon arrival at my work site, I discovered this the hard way.  With the cold weather and the throngs of little children extending their germ-ridden hands to greet me each day at school, I quickly took ill.  I called the Peace Corps Medical Officer from the depths of my cold.

“Cold viruses have no cure,” the doctor told me.  “The body just has to learn how to fight the new strains.”

“So there’s nothing I can do?” I ventured.

“Drink lots of liquids and tea.  Some volunteers take several months to adjust to the new situation,” came the cheerful reply.  Did I detect a note of sadistic satisfaction on the end of line?  Must have been the long distance connection.

I sat down to my fortieth cup of tea, shivering and sniffling.  The doctor had delivered tough love and no matter how many generic cold pills I popped from my medical kit, I just had to suffer through the “adjustment.”

In the meantime, my host mom had been pleading to give me her natural medicines.  She said she had been mixing and selling her medicinal teas for years.

“Jett,” Sveta looked at me with sad eyes, “Drink my special teas.  I can’t sleep because I’m so worried about you.”

Well, what volunteer could say no to host mother’s plea like that?  The hell with Peace Corps’ prohibition on local medicine, I decided.  Tea is tea; it’s not medicine.

“All right, Sveta.  I’ll drink your tea.”

I took my first dose that evening.  The taste didn’t even reach me through my stuffy nose.  I went to bed miserable and woke up feeling a thousand times better.  I took the next two servings, and within a day was feeling perfectly healthy.  My host mother just smiled knowingly as I gave her the positive results.

From that day on, I always asked Sveta for one of her teas whenever the worst laid me low.  The colds were milder and my sleeplessness disappeared with one of her blends.  As such, I felt free to ask her any time the slightest illness threatened.

As the weather began to cool again in the fall, I got my first sore throat.  First thing that morning I told Sveta.

“Jett, come to me for some medicine just before bed,” she instructed.  Obediently, I nodded yes.

That evening I went into the kitchen and asked for the tea.

“Not tea, it’s different for a sore throat,” Sveta explained.  “Wait here and I’ll be back with the treatment.”

Curious but confident, I sat down to wait.  A few minutes later Sveta came back.  She had what looked to be a pumpkin wrapped in a wool scarf under her arm.  I wasn’t too sure what to expect, but she hadn’t failed me yet.

As I watched, she opened the cabinet and pulled out a small bowl.  Then a plastic bag.  Then a strip of cheesecloth. Then came the vodka.

Oh God, I thought, her cure for a sore throat is the same as my host dad’s: lots of booze.  I stood up and began to make excuses for not taking that kind of “medicine.”

“Just a minute, Jett.  This isn’t for drinking.”  She nodded at me.  “It’s for your throat.”

I was confused but I sat down again in good faith.  She opened the vodka and poured some into the bowl.  Then she laid the cheesecloth in the bowl and soaked up as much vodka as it would hold.  With the strip saturated and breathing fumes, she folded it and placed it on my throat.

“Hold this,” she said.

Dutifully I held the strip in place.  Sveta then took the plastic bag and folded it several times.  This was placed over the vodka cloth.

“Hold this,” she said.

Again I did as I was told.

With vodka running down the outside of my throat for a change, Sveta pulled the scarf-wrapped object to her.  What could possibly be in there? I wondered.  She unfolded, unfolded, and unfolded the scarf to…nothing.  With a quick whipping action, the scarf was suddenly a thick woolen rope.  Deftly she tied it around my head binding the vodka-soaked cheesecloth to my throat.

“The scarf keeps the vodka in.  That way it works better.”  She confided her trade secret to me.

I had to admit, it was an interesting sensation.  Heavy and cumbersome, hard to breathe, just the thing for swollen glands.  I smiled and nodded, my true thoughts about the process quite concealed.

“Now go to bed, tomorrow you’ll feel much better.”  She smiled at me knowingly.

What to do but as she told me?  As I walked up to my room I reminded myself that the teas had worked before.  That Western medicine didn’t know everything.  That this couldn’t hurt, at least.

Then I saw myself reflected in the window.  I was the Woolly Lion.  I was the Goodyear Tire Christmas Wreath.  I was an astronaut.  I was wearing the world’s longest scarf wrapped around my head holding a vodka cloth to my throat.  I looked ridiculous.

I lay down in bed debating what to do.  Perhaps it would work.  Sveta seemed to know what she was doing.  But I doubted her; I tried to imagine some kind of scientific basis for this simple, yet extravagant, treatment.  I came up with nothing.  The extra padding began putting a kink my neck.  Suddenly, with a burst of free will, I ripped the thing off, took a deep breath and went to sleep.

Later that night, as the last cup of tea worked its way through my body, I awoke from tsunami dreams to a very full bladder.  I got dressed and prepared to go down to the toilet.  I stopped short as I looked into the courtyard.  The light in the kitchen was still on.  It had only been an hour since I had lain down and the family was still up.  Sveta was still up.  How to explain my missing treatment?  I sat down, trying to reconcile my sense of dignity with my bladder’s pressing needs.  I knew the truth, though.  I was going to have to put that scarf back on.

Resigned, I strapped the mass of wool around my head and went to the latrine.  Washing my hands, I dared a look in the mirror.  I was caught in a fuzzy gray cloud.  I was wearing the St. Louis arch on my head.  At no time in my life have I looked or felt more foolish.  Oh well.  My business was finished; I’d soon be in my room and out of sight.

I wobbled out to the courtyard, trying to get used to the unfamiliar weight on my skull.  I had no peripheral vision.  I reeked of vodka.

My host dad and his apprentice suddenly appeared from the side.  I nearly lost my balance craning to look at them with this burden around my skull.

“Sore throat, eh?” my host dad grunted.

Shrugging my shoulders, I nodded at them.  They nodded back.

They returned to their work in the garage.  I crept up to my room to take my medicine.

About the Author:

Jett Thomason was a TEFL volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2002- 2004 in the United States Peace Corps.  Since then, he’s worked in Afghanistan and Iraq and traveled extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. This story, “A Mother’s Medicine” originally appeared in Americans Do Their Business Abroad, a collection of Peace Corps stories.