quarantined

Every semester, like clockwork, I get sick. Just a cold. It’s pretty miserable, but it goes away, and I’m none the worse for wear. Every time I travel, I get sick. Same sort of cold. It’s even more miserable then, because having to carry a roll of toilet paper with you so you can blow your nose continually while sightseeing is just annoying.

This semester? This travel episode? No different. I expected it.

What I didn’t expect is how absurdly serious everybody is about sickness here.

Sunday night, my throat was a little sore. When I woke up Monday morning, ate breakfast, and went to class, and it was still sore, I knew what was coming. That Cold. ‘Sfine. I just don’t want to get everybody else sick.

I informed my RD (Resident Director). He told me to stay home on Tuesday. My host mom told me to dress more warmly and drink tea with lemon. My host dad told me to breathe onion-air and drink hot milk with honey. I took the advice of the first two and put the latter on hold for if things got really desperate.

So I skipped a day of class, with the full blessing of everyone involved. This is the first time I’ve ever had the person basically-in-charge-of-my-life tell me that I should stay home from school… because of a cold. And then I skipped Wednesday’s excursion (to the Baltika beer-factory), because I was busy working through my second roll of toilet paper. Also, my host dad said, “Beer is very bad for you when you’re sick. Also, women don’t drink beer.” (That’s a pretty faithful translation.)

By the end of Wednesday, I was feeling rather claustrophobic. Antsy. I was officially Not Allowed in the living rooms of the house, lest I infect things. Only my room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. But Nastya and Lina (Natasha and Andrei’s daughter, Nastya’s mom) would even leave the kitchen if I went in there. It’s okay, I get that they don’t want to breathe my germs… but it’s still a little weird. Especially since I almost definitely caught this little bug from Nastya, who was home with the exact same symptoms last week.

My RD texted to ask if I was better and would be back the next day. I was feeling a lot better by then, although my throat was still sore, and goodness I wanted to get out of the house. What struck me most was what he said next: “If you need another day, by all means take it. But anything beyond that and we should consider taking you to a doctor.”

Is that normal? For a 3-day-old cold? I definitely didn’t have a fever, and I wasn’t really even that phlegmy. I had even managed to put my socks on by myself, no problem, and wash the family dishes. When I go to the health center at school with a cold worse than this, the nurses just laugh at me. If I were to even suggest to the dean’s office that I should be excused from class for a day so as to recover, they would definitely just laugh at me. I guess I should take it, but it’s strange.