The Wonderful Doner

Aug 11, 2007

I don’t know if any of you have ever gotten sick from food poison but I tell you what it’s not a very pleasant thing. Before Thursday I had only gotten it once. It was when I was a freshman in college and I remember calling my mom crying thinking I was going to die or wanting to die one or the other or both. I think it is probably the worst feeling I’d ever felt. That was until getting food poison in the AZ a few days ago.

I was down in Sumgayait I’d just left the internet cafÈ I had that high we all get after hearing about things back home, I really didn’t have a care on my mind. I saw a few friends at a Corner doner shop and decided to stop and enjoy one of my favorite treats with them the wonderful doner.

The doner is a sandwich from turkey. It is made by shaving chunks of meat off a massive conglomerate of meat with an equally sizeable sword. Then the meat is stuffed into a fantastic piece of bread that was cut like a pita but bigger and much better. Then they throw in some fresh cucumbers and tomatoes with a little sauce and mayo, and all this for only 40 cents it’s really quite amazing.

Well, still excited about reading new emails and seeing some friends I stop to grab a doner with them. All is good in my world. That is until I see him scraping the sides of this mayo jar to get the last of the mayo out of this jar that had been sitting in the sun all day with the normal flies buzzing about. Before I go any farther I should note that it is well know that we will all get sick from the food here it’s never been a question of if but more of when. So we all know that we should be precautious and not put ourselves in situations, which increase this already apparent risk. So I get this doner and in my head know that I should pay for it, walk away, and drop it in the next trash I see… but I did mention there were these friends of mine. Well, one of them I kind of find a fair bit attractive so I don’t make the smart and logical choice I choose to sit and hang out. I know what many of you are thinking and yes I am aware that this isn’t the first time I’ve made a dumb decision because of a girl.

Well things went well we all sat and talked for a few hours and then decided we’d better get home and all was still well in my life I was now even more excited than I’d been after leaving the internet cafÈ. I got home studied my language a bit and went to sleep. Then about 3:30 in the morning I woke up to the worst stomach pain of my life and ran to the bathroom.

Without getting too graphic (this is the second time I’ve written this the first was much funnier but after reading it I felt it was a little too nasty) for the next day I had was relived of everything inside of me from both ends simultaneously. I was actually eating bananas because they tasted the same when they came back up and that was much more pleasant than the alternative. It got so bad that my host mother who didn’t have a clue what was wrong with me got out the yellow card. The yellow card is the card that PC gives to host families and on it are instructions on who to call if I were not to wake up one morning, or was hurt and unconscious and was not able to call for medical help myself. Needless to say I was a hurting unit. But as bad as something like that is in the states just for a moment try to imagine what that is like in an unfamiliar place in 110 – 115 degree heat with different bathroom and toilet situations! If you need help I could forward you the unedited version of this in an email, but I’m sure you’ll never look at me the same.

However I’m glad that I can now announce that I am alive and well with all systems working properly, and on the bright side I can think about how some people pay a lot of money to purge their systems and I got mine done for 40 cents, a great tasting doner, and good conversation with a beautiful woman! What more can a guy ask for? Things are great in the AZ!!