kicking the habit

Today after the second performance of “Oliver Twist,” I saw Zhopar Aizhan (a 60-something English teacher, we talk in English) walking out of the English room with a fistful of leaves. “What are you doing!” I said, “Are you eating Svetlana’s plants?” She giggled. “I worry about you, you know.” She giggled more. Seriously, she eats plants. Aloes, specifically. She thinks it cures a sore throat, so when she had a cold, she stripped the schools’ aloes and walked around with a pocketful of little green tentacles. During our Womens’ Day banquet, she pulled one out and began to gnaw on it. Our director looked on with goggle eyes. “We can’t leave her alone in the room with the plants anymore,” Svetlana told her, deadpan. Later that day, I came around a corner and saw my director nibbling on a little aloe chunk and making a face. “Shh!” she said, and pulled me aside where I couldn’t be seen. “I don’t know how she does it! This is awful,” she said, chewing.