22 September 2010
Last night I stood in the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t help it; I sobbed, tears hitting the dirty floor. I was thankful for the constantly running water in the toilet to cover the sound of my pitiful whimpers. How did I get here? Again!? I was three for three now, three weeks in the country, and three episodes of diarrhea. This was even worse than before because I was also throwing up, my fever was over 100, and this time it was clear that it was my host family’s food that had made me sick. No one else was to blame, no foreign restaurants or mystery street food. It was the Polov from the night before. There’s just something about a fever and having the shits for 8 hours straight that saps the ‘grownup’ right out of me and turns me into a tearful little girl who needs her mama. In this regard, I was actually in luck because I had Bibi, her daughter-in-law (aka Kelim), and her daughter (visiting from Uzbekistan with her three children, 2, 12, and 16) to care for me.
I…
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