Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Masha and Dasha


Masha and Dasha

Last Wednesday afternoon I was in the banya doing my laundry when I heard the click-clack sound of hooves on the cement outside. I peeked out the door to see what it was and found myself nose to nose with Dasha, our large pregnant brown cow, trailing a piece of broken rope. Opening the door had spooked her and she spun around and started to run away. Our backyard is fenced in, so there was really nowhere for her to run to, and she is too pregnant to fit through the door in the gate. I glanced over at the cow pen and then realized that the other cow had broken free as well. Both cows had gone! I imagined them cooperating in their escape, one breaking the rope and then chewing off the other’s rope to free her friend. Dasha, being so huge couldn’t make it far, but Masha, the smaller white cow, had broken through the back gate and I could see her hoof prints in the muddy bank of the canal behind the house. First Dasha, then I will deal with Masha. Being the only one home, I had no choice but to go after both of them. I didn’t want my host-family coming back only to find the oblivious American but no cows. I coaxed Dasha close enough to me to grab her rope and then pulled her back to the pen where I quickly knotted her back up, thankful she hadn’t put up a fight because she is really big. I followed Masha’s tracks over to the neighbor’s house where I found her contently munching on their hay she had found. When she saw me, she bolted around me and back in the direction of our house with me slipping on the mud after her. But as Dasha had been too big to fit out the front gate, Masha is smaller and she only stopped briefly in the yard to steal a furtive glance at me and then ran full speed out the front gate into the street. A neighbor was sweeping the street and Masha ran right up behind him and stopped about a foot away from him with out him even noticing her. Only when I yelled to him, asking if he could grab my cow for me, did he turn around and see Masha hiding behind him. It was really like she thought that I couldn’t see her behind the neighbor, the way she just suddenly stopped right there. As he reached out to grab her, she again bolted and I jumped out of the way as she ran back through the gate and into the yard. I locked the gate behind me, and I grabbed some cornhusks to try to lure her to me. She was distracted enough by the food to let me take her rope and tie her up again. Right as I was cleaning my hands, my host-sister came through the gate and I yelled to her, with a flurry of waving arms, “the cows left. But I found them. Don’t worry!” I retold the story to each family member and the neighbors have all told their versions of the story as well. Like all gossip in Turkmenistan, each account differs greatly, but they all included a lively impersonation of Annie wildly waving her arms and yelling, “that’s my cow! Can you get my cow for me please!!” And that part is definitely true.

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