Something Retarded

This is my first post, but it takes place beginning about 1 month ago. At Dushanbe International School, there is a little canteen (food shop) located just inside the entryway. It is full of things bad for the kids like chocolate and ice cream and stupid toasted sandwiches that are nothing but half a circle of bread with fake cheese in them. Just like in Korea, toasted sandwiches are called "toast". If you see "toast" on a menu, it won't be bread with butter and jam on the side. It will be a toasted sandwich with anybody's guess inside of it.

The one thing the canteen has that I need because I am yelling at stupid Tajik boys all day to shut up and to stop trying to alternately kill each other and then caress each other (sometimes these are hard to distinguish from each other), are bottles of spring water at about 30 cents apiece. Unfortunately, the woman always forgets to put them in the refrigerator so I always buy two or more warm bottles a day. She gives me a look of 'I'm so stupid to have forgotten again', and I just accept the tepid water and go. Finally, after more than 5 weeks of seemingly forgetting to chill the water, I finally, in my halting Tajik, asked her why she doesn't do as I ask. She told me (with the help of a child) that it was for my health, that cold water is bad for me. I looked at the ignorant child who shrugged and said, "She's right.", and then I told them they were both nuts, which they are. I told the director that I want cold water and he agreed to explain to the ignorant, hill-dwelling, toothless hag that cold water is my perogative. It's a Tajik thing.