Forbidden Fruit

My new life in Kyzyl runs not by the tick of the clock, but rather to the tempo of slow conversations, extended cooking projects, and the endless work of amusing small children. Eating is an end in itself, and also a much more deeply communal activity than I ever experienced it as in the US. Also, it has been challenging for me to encounter a definition of sharing that runs far deeper than what I grew up with. I committed a grievous sin this week, without knowing what I was doing. The capricious two year old boy I live with saw the shiny, cold, freshly washed organically clean apple from Moldova in my hand. I was anticipating the snap of sinking my teeth into the apple, the explosion of sugary juice, and probably smiling a little too widely in my anticipated pleasure. Suddenly two little arms began to reach for my beautiful apple, and a little mouth began to scream, and cry and wail. Knowing my duty not to spoil young children by giving in to their tantrums, I held my ground and did not give up my apple. The other adults came running and I suddenly found myself on the wrong side of a moral dilemma. “Give him the apple!” Not thoroughly convinced, I hesitated. “Give it to him!” They looked at me like I was a crazy torturer of children. I surrendered the tasty little fruit and began to scratch my head with confusion...

After asking some questions, I was able to uncover some explanation for my situation, which is that in traditional Tuvan culture you allow everything in terms of behavior from children. An adult has no right to punish a child while they are small and anything a child wants he should get. It's the adult's responsibility to trick the child out of not asking for things. Adults here aren't more important or respected than children, in fact, a child's wishes are more legitimate and important than my own. At first I was nearly jumping out of my skin, sitting at the table, watching the two year old play with bottles of medicine, heft the bread knife, take a bite out of every single piece of bread in the loaf and then leave them all over the table. Yet people here won't, can't, don't think it's right to tell a child that something is not allowed. And I can appreciate the beauty in that world view, and also the way that they put their money where their ideology is. As much as people in the US talk about sharing—here it's a practice. I learned something epic about my own selfishness thanks to that apple.

The news of the day here in Kyzyl is that two people in the city just died from Swine Flu and many more are laid up at the hospital. The schools for children have been closed for two and a half weeks already for a quarantine, and they have just extended it until November 28th. The university has remained open so far, but they might end up closing it now... The isolation of the Tuvan republic means that it took longer for the disease to get here, also that people are more aware of who has been traveling and might be a disease vector. The gossip mill loves to talk about disease and who's carrying what. Also, people's ideas about disease and what makes people sick are very different here. I can't pretend to understand the differences! I think that overall more people will get sick with the flu here because of poverty, poor nutrition, and lack of clean/warm/safe space, but I hope it will be otherwise. I think it's good they closed the schools.

All the best,
Riley