I Should Have Known or It's All Part of the Experience

As soon as the first bite of qo'rtab (sauteed onions and bread pieces in yogurt) hit my stomach, I knew the outcome would be bad. Something just didn't feel right.

I went to class and, after four hours, I had pretty bad indigestion. But that could just be from sitting in Uzbek class for four hours, couldn't it?

I went home and my stomach was in an uproar. When my host-mother asked me what I'd eaten, I ran to the bathroom to throw-up, but nothing happened. Instead, I went to bed and tossed and turned for two hours; the pain was horrible. Of course, my evil mind kept sending me pictures of qo'rtab - the chunkiness of the yorgurt, the sour taste, the soggy pieces of bread. Every thought brought another wave of nausea.

Finally, the sickness hit. I ran back and forth between my bedroom and the bathroom. My thoughtless host-father decided to take a shower in the midst of this, so I had to resort to the 'other' toilet. The squat toilet. Needless to say, it was horrible. Needless to say, I'll never eat at that cafe again and I will NEVER again eat qo'rtab (unless I'm starving and it's the only thing available).

I feel a little better today, but very tired and weak. My host-mother made me drink hot water that had been mixed with a bitter root - I don't know what it was, but it was so disgusting that it actually made me throw-up the first time I drank it. Maybe that was the point? My host-sister, a doctor, gave me a natural medicine that would 'replace the good bacterias' and provided me extremely sweet black tea, which I was required to drink an entire pot of.

I slept through most of my class this morning, but, as my friend Jarrett said, "I'm growing a strong stomach." However, we'll see how true this is after my next visit to a local restaurant.