GUEST TRAVELER: Armenia
So, my friend Karen is serving in the Peace Corps in a village in Armenia. Here is her account of finding a dead chicken in her garden and what happened afterward. Read it and weep (because you're laughing so hard!):
What do you do with a dead chicken?
It was a great day to be cleaning bean poles & getting my garden ready with Gayane, my favorite 6th grader & my host-mom, Anahit. I looked down and there it was. “Hey, this chicken is dead,” I thought and said in Armenian. Later I would learn that the looks of horror that followed were not about the chicken so much as the words for dead person and dead chicken are different. They hear the words, “hey, this person is dead chicken.” Anahit came trotting over, looked down & did something to double my already horrified expression. “Where are you going,” I demanded. I already knew what she was doing. She was touching all over it with her bare hands. “To the river,” she rationally replied. “Put it DOWN, it might be sick,” I pleaded while Gayane looked on with confusion. The months of media mind intrusion had taken its toll-Avian Flu…Dead Chicken…Sick Birds…Unwashed Hands…Undercooked Eggs.
Anahit paused long enough to give me the ‘really Karen, I know you can eat more if you’d just stop being so stubborn’ look. The pause was long enough for me to catch her off guard and take a few swings at the chicken with the beanpole I was still holding. I finally got her to drop it & back off as her look shifted to the even more familiar, ‘fine, if you’re not going to eat more I’ll just pick up the pieces of my broken heart and leave.’
Victory!!! I won! Okay, so now what do I do with this dead chicken. The scene had been secured so I ran upstairs to my medical kit-rubber gloves, surgical scrub & two heavy-duty HAZMAT style plastic bags. I put on the gloves and went to the garden. After handing Anahit the soap with one hand, I pulled my shirt over my mouth with the other. I was too focused to find as much humor in the situation as Gayane & Anahit. I put the chicken in the bags and tied them up. The entire time I scanned my memory for the pictures in the UNICEF posters. Step One: Stay away from dead chickens. Okay, too late for that one. Skip to Step Five: Wash hands. “Now we’ll wash our hands,” I declared. The giggles intensified as I brought down a pail of water from my filter.
Thankfully, the garden party broke up after that because I was dying to get the information to someone who’s first reaction wouldn’t be to quickly deposit the body with the rest of the trash. Dear God, where in mere moments other chickens, cows & crows would be feasting on it creating the most horrendous outbreak of Avian Flu yet.
The calling process began. I would try a few times to get an outside line then call a village number just to make sure the phone was working. NO one home at the mayors. No outside line. NO one home at the doctors. No outside line. After three hours of rotary dialing I finally got a hold of Steve, another volunteer & my regional ‘warden’.
“Hey Steve, what would you do with the dead chicken in my yard?”
“I killed it.”
“I know it’s dead, now what do I do?”
“Eat it!”
“I’m not going to eat it. I’m not even going to touch it again-you’re sick.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling you to find out what I should do with this dead chicken I’ve got outside double wrapped in some plastic bags.”
“You’ve got a dead chicken?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Whooooh.”
“Ya, so what do I do with it?”
“Is there any blood?”
“No, it’s a scary randomly killed chicken.”
We decided this was a more than appropriate time to tap the vast pool of wisdom that is our Peace Corps National Security Officer.
“I’ll call you back,” Steve promised.
“Good luck,” I wished for all our sakes.
Hours passed. I washed some socks and hung them outside with a suspicious eye on the bags. I felt such a strong duty to properly examine the situation, but saddened by the thoughts of what a negative outcome would bring. Would I really be supporting the people in my village by bringing attention to a potentially sick bird? I’ve read that Avian Flu had been around for 100 years and I know how media hot-topics can skew reality. I read a quote from a man in Turkey saying he would rather give up his wife than all his chickens-his family’s only means of income. I imagined a near future filled with World Health Organization volunteers dressed in full Hazmat gear stuffing my neighbor’s chickens in bags to be incinerated. Gayane would look on as her father would wonder how he would feed his family. Gayane’s grandma, the woman who has brought me fresh eggs every day since I moved out, would probably be in tears.
The phone rang.
“Hey…what should I do?”
“Huh, huh, huh…”
“What did they say?”
“Huh, huh…maybe you could take the chicken to a special doctor in Sisian.”
“I’m not taking the f-ing chicken on the bus!”
“Huh, huh, huh.”
“No way dude, I’m not going to touch it again and there is no way in hell I’m going to take the dead, potentially hazardous chicken on a one-hour over-packed bus ride to Sisian.” (For anyone who hasn’t experienced a VIP 3rd world bus ride, well, just know it’s a prime location for the spreading of illnesses.)
“Steve, just call the doctor in Sisian and tell them to come here.”
“Okay…until then, guard the evidence.”
Since I was feeling good about a successful phone connection, I tried the doctor and mayor again. Nothing. A little later, still nothing. If I hadn’t felt such an obligation to guard the body mixed with a strong desire to not drink tea or eat cake, I might have walked down the street. Oh well, it can wait until tomorrow. Good night dead chicken.
I got up at 7 the next morning to meet with the two members of my running club. I wondered who had eggs for breakfast. After our run, the phone gods were feeling generous and I got the doctor on the line. Unfortunately, I still didn’t have the noun for dead animal.
“What do you have?!?!?”
“A dead chicken.”
“What??”
“Uh, a chicken that is not living…?”
“Oh, call the mayor and he will call the animal doctor.”
I get the mayor’s wife on the line.
“Who is dead Karen?”
“A chicken.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In my garden I have found a chicken, but it doesn’t live…what shall we do?”
“Leave it there and we’ll call the doctor.”
As I got ready for work there was a knock on my gate. The grandma from next door had come to claim the body.
“Where is our chicken?”
“I have it, it will stay here until the doctor comes.”
“No, give it to me-I’ll take it.”
“No, the doctor must see it.”
“Fine Karen, give it to me.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll give it to the doctor.”
I look at her bare hands and quiver my last shake of fear as I point to the bags. She giggles, takes the bags and shakes her head. It’s out of my hands now.
I go to school and whispers of bird flu float through the halls.
“What will we do,” the students ask. I still don’t have any answers to give. Back at home the phone is ringing off the hook accompanied by knocking at the gate. “Where is the chicken,” they all ask. It’s with my neighbor. No, I don’t know if it is sick. Yes, I know I am a crazy American. By late afternoon the local vet gives the results of the autopsy. “The chicken at mouse poison,” everyone stops by or calls to say. The mayor’s wife calls.
“Karen, did you call Peace Corps because everyone from the Embassy, WHO & everywhere else is in a panic.”
Feeling a little embarrassed I proclaim, “No, are you kidding, I can’t call Yerevan. I called Steve…he must have called.”
“Fine, just call Steve and tell him to call Peace Corps and tell them all to calm down-the chicken at mouse poison.”
“Thank you, I’ll tell him.”
Three hours later….
“They said it ate mouse poison.”
“Oh ya.”
“Ya and the vet said it was okay to eat the chicken as long as the family properly boiled it.”
For the next week I was on damage control and had to go to the store to buy my eggs. I heard some great ‘Karen and the dead chicken’ stories. Some were true, some undeniably false, but all laughable. So what do you do with a dead chicken? Next time I’m going to take the body for a walk down the street to the mayor’s house. I’ll leave it out of the bags for all to see, but I’ll be wearing my gloves with my shirt over my face. That way we can all laugh together at the crazy American.
posted by Leslie @ 10:39 AM
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