A Little Humor and the Downfalls of Illiteracy

Hello everyone!


   Here is a short post about some funny things.  When we first arrived in Tajikistan, we quickly learned the Tajik and Russian words for "snow" because it was snowing.  In Russian, "snow" sounds similar to "snack".  In Tajik, however, there is a much funnier name for snow - barf.  I know it sounds ridiculous!  One of the guys from the embassy said he loved to call people in the states and tell them that he had to clean "barf" off of his car on winter mornings.  There is a whole brand of dish soap and laundry soap that is called "barf".  It is similar to our "Tide" or "Clorox".  We laugh when we go to the store and ask for "Barf" soap.

Here is what it looks like!  :  P

   Mom had another funny experience that we still laugh about.  Because Mom doesn't speak much Russian, she buys everything by pointing.  It is ironic that sometimes Tajiks don't understand Russian, but they understand Mom when she acts things out and speaks English!  Once, she went to get milk from the store and just picked the bottle that looked pretty close to what we usually buy.  Luke poured himself a bowl of cereal and put a nice helping of milk on it.  A second later, he spit his cereal right out!  What Mom had bought was not milk.  She bought sour yogurt that was mixed with bubbly water!  It was basically soured milk.  You can only imagine how poor Luke felt.  I don't think there are many foods as disgusting as rotten dairy products.

   The bottle on the left is the gross concoction while the one on the right is regular milk.  We definitely learned from this experience.

   ~ Taylor :P