Home Remedies

I really like my apartment.  It's small enough that I use what I have and don't feel like there's too much to take care of.  The ceilings are high enough it doesn't feel cramped.  There are enough aesthetic details that I don't feel like I'm living in a jail cell.  There's even a balcony, although it's pretty shabby and the weather hasn't been warm enough to use it much.  My favorite thing in the apartment?  My window sill, which is plenty wide enough for me to sit on and bask in the much-missed sunlight, protected from the cold air, and peer out into the courtyard if my mind wanders.  I'M SO WARM!!

I would still like to talk about shopping in Ukraine at some point, but before that I'd like to talk about home remedies here.  Since we're talking about favorites, maybe my favorite thing about my job is that it requires extensive cultural dialogue with locals.  This is especially true for the conversation clubs, where we can literally talk about anything for an hour.  But even in my lessons, where we usually are asked to focus on grammar, there are opportunities to talk about culture.  Last week one of my lessons asked us to talk about traditional home remedies.  There were so many that my students could think of!  And, while some greatly resembled American home-remedy-logic (such as hot tea for a sore throat), some were totally different from anything I'd ever heard of (such as putting a dead bee on your tooth).  Here are some of the ones I remember:

For flu and cold:

• vodka with pepper
• cabbage leaf with honey on chest
• potato compress
• cabbage leaf on head
• breathe potato steam
• hot vodka with honey and lime
• hot beer
• hot wine
• smell burnt garlic
• hot (dry) mustard on feet
• hot egg or salt on nose

Other:

• put just hand on the ground for a hangover
• dead, fried bee or salo (traditional meat dish) on tooth for a toothache
• hot bottles or jars on back for a backache