Monday, October 10, 2011

Magical Mystery Tour

October 9, 2011

 

I have a social event planner in the form of a village English teacher.  At least once a month, she has some outlandish idea that she pitches to me. This month's craziness: a fishing trip. 

 

Why is that crazy, you ask?  Well, Missouri may be "where the rivers run" but I've relocated myself to the steppe of a "-stan." This isn't exactly Oceans of Fun. But sure. Lauren always told me "Anything's possible if you only believe," so let's go fishing.

 

The date was set and today we were to actualize our plan. My friend and three middle-aged men picked me up and we high-tailed it into the steppe… away from the mountains and the most promising water sources.  We sailed past villages and fields in a soviet-style Volvo, until we came to what looked like a small cornfield. 

 

Sure enough, if you weave through the stalks, you'll find a little lake/pond: a tiny menagerie tucked behind a forgotten village. I was impressed. But it got better.

 

The fish weren't biting in this oasis, so the men told me: "Anne, let's go. We'll find a better place."  Past some cattails we ventured back into open steppe.  The only thing I saw, besides "flat" was a telephone line accompanying a supposed road in the distance. I had to stop and laugh at my situation. Here we were, fishing poles in hand, walking into the arid plains in search of a "better place." 

 

The men wove around a bit, stopped, and lowered their lines into what looked like a ditch several meters from where I stood musing. (My thoughts: "Are you kidding boys?  Where's the water?") We got closer and I ate my words.  That was no little ditch.  Sure, it may have only been six feet wide, but it was eight feet deep and a stream jetted across the muddy bed.  What do you know… they found water after all.

 

We fished for several hours. Some of our fishing holes were obvious.  Others, I'm certain, were manifestations from a divine being. A questionable inflatable boat appeared like magic from one of the men's rice-sacks, and of course, the day was complete with home-made soup (made right there in the field), salads and sweets, and Kazakh tea-time as the sun and moon completed their changing of the guards.

 

Then the headlights of the car sliced through the darkness as we wove past sleeping villages and windswept fields before parking at my gate.  The men shuffled through the trunk and produced a plastic sack with two of my fish inside- still wiggling a little. "Anne, you know how to clean a fish, right?"  Ummm… no, sorry.  Don't think we covered that in 7th grade Home-Ec. I told them to keep it… that I live alone and it'd really be better if they shared Nemo & Company with their own families.  They would hear nothing of it and stuffed the bag into my hands. 

 

It would be easy to think that this day was an invention of my imagination. A lovely dream, perhaps.  But then I hear a rustling noise and I am reminded of how very real it was by the seizuring sack of scales sitting on my kitchen table.

 

It seems as though today is the day I'll teach myself how to cook a fish.

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