Bodily Functions

I usually walk the dogs early in the morning. It's still pretty chilly outside, around 40 degrees or so. And if the wind is blowing, it always feels much colder. Inevitably, this causes my nose to run. I usually carry a kleenex for such situations, but if I find myself without one, I just keep sniffling and trudging through the hectic streets of Baku. Apparently, that's not what everyone else does because I've seen way too many people blowing snot rockets around here. I asked Kyle about this disgusting phenomenon - the men dressed smartly in dark wool coats, with page boy-type hats, scarves, dress shoes and slacks, hurriedly walking to work and when their nasal cavities fill up, forcefully letting it all out - and he had no idea what I was talking about.

Maybe it was just me. Maybe I kept being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe I was being overly critical of these people. Maybe that's city living. Because where I'm from, you only do a snotter in certain situations, like running outside, while doing manual labor or in otherwise dire situations. So, I chalked up my observations to naivety until I was recently skimming through this book, "Dirty Russian" - one of those silly reads that tells you how to say curse words and order vodka in Russian - when I noticed a short paragraph on the "farmer's blow" and how it is prevalent throughout Russia and the former USSR. I had been validated!

And while I'm on the topic of gross bodily functions (are there any other type?), I should tell you that "Baku Belly" is a very real thing. It strikes without warning and no one is immune. It's tough to decipher exactly how one repeatedly gets this stomach ailment, but the best guesses are from fruits and vegetables washed in tap water or just the general lack of sanitary conditions in restaurants. It really does no good to declare things like, "I'll never eat there again!" because it's just as likely to happen at the nicest place in town as it is from the street vendor.

So, there you have it.