Unfortunately, this isn't some newly discovered Gogol story. No, this is just a sad story of cultural misunderstanding and an infected toe. I'll proceed. This happened last week, when, unfortunately, I didn't have any internet to immediately record it. What you're getting might be filled with some of my usual hyperbole (yet surprisingly, less than you might think).
So, remember those wonderful dorm room bathrooms I told you about? The old soviet throw-backs? Yeah, well, they're as dangerous as they sound. Somehow, while in the process of taking a shower, (read: being sprayed with scalding water from a rusty pipe) I cut my toe. This normally wouldn't be the start of any good story, but I did this while barefoot (obviously) in a filthy bathroom next to an overflowing toilet. You can see where this is going. I didn't think much of it until I took off my shoes later in the day and saw what I assumed to be my toe. Ok, so some black-plague like germ had taken up residence there. This is what hydrogen peroxide is for...does anyone know how to say hydrogen peroxide in Russian? Nyet. Does anyone have an internet connection so I can look it up? Also nyet. No worry, I'll just go to a drug store and find some! Well, if you didn't already know, Russian drug store does not equal the K Street CVS. You have to go up to a window and actually ask for what you want--so no pointing and grunting.
And so I was completely shit out of luck. My toe was slowly dying and I lacked the linguistic ability to save it. It was a sad day in Russia. Luckily for me, I was going to live with my host family soon. My thought process was that I could (try to) explain what the problem was and that they'd give me something to heal my toe. After sitting diligently for about twenty minutes and paging through my "500 Russian Verbs" and dictionary, I had a game plan. It went something like this, "Um, so, I see that I have cut my toe. Do you have something that I could put on it so it doesn't get infected?". My hosts looked at me very seriously for a moment before asking to see said toe. Only now do I know exactly what I said. Instead of cut, I said "mortally wounded". I only just found this out today when I used the same verb in class and got a similarly strange look from my professor. The reaction I got from my hosts upon seeing the toe was about as severe as if it really were mortally wounded. Luckily for me, it was late and going to the doctor was out of the question. Instead, they rummaged through the cabinet and handed me a small, glass bottle of green liquid. "What is this?", I asked. "Green." "...green?". They nodded and commanded me to douse my toe in it. Well, I can tell you that the green lived up to its name. It did successfully dye my toe a lovely shade of gangrene that took nearly a week to wash out of my skin. That was all it successfully accomplished.
Of course, as I soon discovered, my hosts had other Russian remedies up their sleeves. The next evening, Babushka slipped into my room with a strange, corn husk-like herb and a ball of twine in her hands. “Give me your foot.”, she commanded. As those of you who have lived in Russia already know, the word of Babushka is law, especially when they’re about to perform a strange ritual on you. A bit apprehensively, I slipped out of my tapochki (slipper) and held out my aggrieved toe. With a look of calm concentration, she began wrapping the herb around it while muttering to herself. “There. Now I’ve blessed your toe. It should definitely heal now.”, she said as she tied it off with twine. Never having before experienced a toe blessing, all I could really do was nod in agreement. Of course, I also made it a point to go to an internet café to look up “hydrogen peroxide”.
So in the end, I got my hydrogen peroxide and avoided amputation at a Russian hospital. When my hosts later asked how the toe was fairing, I explained that I had gone to the pharmacy and picked up some hydrogen peroxide for it. They then fixed me with a strange, “of you silly American!” look and told me that they had a bottle of it in the medicine cabinet and wondered why I hadn’t just asked them for it in the first place.
I had absolutely nothing to say.
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