GAZ IS GAZ

We hadn’t been in Istanbul for 4 months before Tigger came into our life. He was a tiny street cat, rescued by our Ahmet, our youngish driver, and we couldn’t turn him down. But within a couple of weeks he began having diarrhea and we figured we’d better get him to the Vet as soon as possible..

I asked Ahmet, who had somewhat of a working knowledge of English, to get me an appointment for Tigger with a veterinarian. Vets in the US always had me bring in a stool sample on the first visit so I prepared one to give to the Turkish vet, carefully putting the sample on a piece of aluminum foil and wrapping it up tightly. The vet did not speak English so Ahmet had to translate for me. I don’t know what he told the vet, but when the vet opened up the foil and saw and smelled the very odiferous and ugly stool sample, he made a terrible face, closed it up quickly and then threw it in the trash. So much for that! Without even a preliminary exam, the vet told Ahmet to get the cat some baby vitamins and to return in two weeks.

We did, but at the end of two weeks Tigger was no better, so I had Ahmet make a follow-up appointment. I felt I needed to make sure Ahmet understood what I wanted him to tell the vet about Tigger’s problem.



Tigger had a lot of intestinal gas and I searched my English-Turkish dictionary for any Turkish word I thought might be descriptive. I looked up flatulence, breaking wind, even down to “fart” and “poot” – all kinds of words but in Turkish there was nothing that seemed to describe what I needed Ahmet to tell the vet. Poor Ahmet. I said, “Ahmet Bey, I am going to tell you something very important that the vet needs to know about Tigger. But I am sorry that this might be embarrassing to you.” Ahmet was very “proper” around us and I just wasn’t sure how this was going to go over. I said to him, “Ahmet, please tell the doctor that Tigger makes very bad noises when he goes to the bathroom, and it sounds like this…” and at that point I made a big “raspberry” sound with my lips.

Ahmet’s eyes got like saucers. His face went totally red. He drew himself up and very solemnly and with much embarrassment said, “Mrs. Title, we call that gaz.”

I burst out laughing, because the only thing I knew about Turkish gaz was that each week we bought a bottle of TUPGAZ, which was propane and we hooked it up under the stove so we would have fire to cook with. It never occurred to me that “gaz” itself was a word; I only knew it at TUPGAZ.

Ahmet did not laugh.



But I managed to thank him for listening and I then I reassured him I was not laughing at him but it was really a joke on myself that I found funny. I just didn’t know the right Turkish word. At the doctor’s office Ahmet did not make that noise in front of the vet, and I did not hear him say the word “gaz” either. I figured that it was like most everything else in Turkish-English communication; he may have understood and he may not have. The vet ordered more baby vitamins.

Luckily, within two weeks it became necessary for me to put Tigger in a “cat hotel” for 10 days while my daughter and a friend who was allergic to cats came to visit us. The lady who ran the cat hotel fed him raw cows liver and cow lung. Tigger came home a healthy cat with normal BMs. We had sent some cans of Whiska’s to the cat hotel with Tigger, but the lady told Ahmet to tell us that it was too rich for Turkish cats and we needed to feed him liver and lung. I’ll be forever grateful to that Turkish lady.

However, I drew the line at buying raw liver and lung, but I did concoct a quiche of sorts. I used ground chicken, ground beef, vegetables, bread, milk, eggs and baby vitamins, all put through a food processor and poured into a baking dish. It smelled good as it baked, and Tigger ate it twice a day for the two years we were in Istanbul.

Tigger recovered, but I’m not sure Ahmet ever did. We certainly didn’t ever talk about it again. I imagine he has told the story many times and it is as funny from his perspective as it still is from ours.

Oh, Ahmet. What a dear you were!