Two Stops Past Siberia

He looked at me with those quiet, serious eyes, “have you ever drank a cloud?”

“No, I haven’t.” I said, “have you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have some?” I asked.

Then he stood up, and walked to the other side of the table. He didn’t take his eyes off of me. As he leaned over and reached behind the couch we sit on at meal time, he slowly said, “yes.”

Now, I’ve heard about this. A previous volunteer told me the story. People shoot the clouds, and catch their falling bodies in jars. Then they drink them as medicine. I was told by one woman that it is like beer, just not alcoholic. Some Kyrgyz people say they’ve heard the story, but don’t believe it. Others insist that their grandfather did it, still others that men these days continue the practice, but only the ones who live in the mountains. Still, as these kinds of stories generally go, no one has seen it done, but everyone has seen the jars full of cloud, or at least knows someone who has.

So my curiosity was piqued when my father, the electrical engineer, whose family all lives internationally, whose wife is a doctor, and two siblings are chess grandmasters, the man who asks me complicated questions about investing in currencies, told me he had a cloud in a jar behind the sofa.

What he pulled out was a large glass jar, the opening covered in cheesecloth. The bottom two inches were comprised of a thick, three layered gelatin, white, brown, white. The gelatin didn’t touch the sides or bottom, but floated in what appeared to be water.

“This is a cloud?” I asked.

“Yes.” And then he went for his dictionary. “Mushroom, rain. Rain mushroom.”

That didn’t help. I repeated the words in Kyrgyz, and he just nodded somberly. He picked up the jar and made to pour. I didn’t really understand. I figured this cloud, or “rain mushroom” probably needed to stay sealed under its cheesecloth.

But he poured some of the water right through the cloth. The jelly kept its shape, just moving around along the edges of the jar until he set it down again, and it took its rightful place back at the bottom.

“Drink” he said.

“This is cloud?” I asked.

“No, its juice.”

I looked around the room. The kids had left, and its was just me, him, his wife and his mother. Grandma was busy shaking cow milk in an old motor oil jug to ferment, and mom was kneading dough. My dad had even stopped paying attention to me.

It was like I was in the twilight zone. I had just been told that this cloud jelly was a rain mushroom, and that I should drink the juice. But then no one seemed to care that I had a glass of this rain mushroom jelly cloud juice right in front of me.

So I drank it. Despite being clear, it tasted like a super thin, vaguely carbonated orange juice.

Now I felt like I had passed through some kind of ritual, and could ask questions.

“So, you shot the cloud, and collected it in this jar.”

“No, I didn’t shoot it. But it was shot. Nurlan gave it to me.”

“Where did he get it?”

“I don’t know. But he has it.” Then he got out the dictionary again. He pointed to a word, “constipation. Drink, and then, no.” Back to the dictionary, “intestines. Good for intestines. And stomach.”

Then he got up and left the room, and came back with another identical, but empty jar. He poured some boiling water into it, rinsed it out, and then filled it up about 3 quarters of the way. Then he poured some tea in. “Big spoon,” he said. Then began to add sugar.

“How many?” his mother asked.

“Five or six,” he replied. “First, boiling water. Then tea. Then, it must be sweet. Now, in two hours, when it is small, we will get more cloud from Nurlan.” He presented all this with the utmost seriousness. “Right now, in Germany, there is a,” back to the dictionary, “medical investigation going on. One million dollars research. Do you have this in America?”

“No, we don’t,” I answered honestly.

“I will teach you how to make it, and then we will start a business. This will be prepared later. Come, now let us say omeen.”

So we said omeen, and then left the table.

Originally Written October 6th, 2009