Oh, Those Cows

Week 4

This morning I woke up. No one was in the kitchen. No one was in the living room. I sat down quietly. I ate my raspberry Poptarts Eric gave me, sent from his mom. I drank my Nescafe with powdered cream and sugar. It was overcast. It reminded me of donut days with Grandma and Grandpa.
In burst Sevinj, alert and alarmingly apologetic. My Azeri is not as quick as she. I want to tell her not make my breakfast, that I was fine alone for a day. But I do not have these language or persuasion skills. And so she whips out the bread and butter and sour yogurt. Within three minutes she has thrown four eggs in the pot to boil, and they are not finished when she hands the scorching things to me. Soft-boiled eggs dribble down my throat. It is time to go, but she insists I have a cup of chai, so she repeats the house mantra: “Chai ichirsen?” “Do you want tea?” Of course I do, I cannot refuse this woman. I blow on the drink, unusual as it is here.
I step to the curb outside, and realize the time: 9:03. Shoulda been at school for review by 9. But here it stands: a cow chomping away on my mother’s flowers. I watch for a bit, wondering why two gentlemen are watching me watching the cow and are not being very neighborly.
I go back inside where Sevinj is resting on the couch. “Sevinj!” I whisper. “Gel! Gel!” (Come! Come!) “Inek var!” (There is a cow!) “Ne?!” (What?!) “Inek var! Terevezda!” (There is a cow! In the vegetables!) And there she goes, throwing rocks at this cow, the same way Azeris throw rocks at cats and dogs to shoe them away. “Sag ol, Sag ol, Sasha, get.” (Goodbye, thank you (yes, Goodbye and Thank you are one in the same), Sasha, go.)
Off to mekteb (school) to encounter only the tens of children who await my departure every day. “Hello Sasha! Hello Sasha! What is your name?!” I placidly remind myself that soon I will be teaching these children English.