My kids love hot tubs, as do I, for that matter. Whenever we get to stay somewhere that has a pool, that’s a big deal. But if the pool also has a hot tub, and they allow kids in it, well, that’s an even bigger deal.
If we’re in Central Asia and find a place like this, then one more thing has to line up for it to truly be the jackpot. It needs to be a pool that allows for a mixed swimming time, where families and both genders can be in the pool area together. Many of the pools in our region reserve the majority of their time for men exclusively, with some less convenient hours set aside for ladies-only swimming times. But some, especially at nicer hotels, also have one window per week where families can swim together.
The hotel that features in this story was just such a place. So, on the weekend our family was staying there, we excitedly made our way down to the pool area together. We knew that it would probably still be overwhelmingly men, so my wife was wearing her modest Central Asia swimming outfit, basically an Islamic burkini without the head covering. Unfortunately, this pool was the kind of place where the staff were very insistent on women buying and wearing swim caps to cover their hair. This, even though men with very hairy, carpet-like torsos and backs were paddling around shirtless in the pool without being made to wear anything for their copious amounts of hair (see map below for reference). Alas, all we could do was acknowledge this hairy inconsistency to one another, buy the swim caps, and try to make the best of it.
My wife went off to swim in a part of the pool with fewer men, and my kids and I had fun swimming and horsing around for a while in the pool. But it didn’t take long for the offspring to start asking if we could make our way over to the hot tub. I agreed (it’s almost never too early to hit the hot tub), and we dripped and waddled over toward the inground jacuzzi.
There, sitting in the hot tub, was a hairy giant of a Central Asian man, large stomach protruding out of the water and arms spread out as he reclined like a sultan of old in his royal hamam. He eyed us, expressionless, as the four of us scooted into the hot tub across from him. I couldn’t tell if he was from our people group or from one of the other main ethnicities of the region, and he didn’t engage, so I did my best to politely ignore him and to keep my kids over on our side. I was, after all, no stranger to odd hot tub companions, such as that one seminarian who slid into a hot tub next to my wife and me during a date night, strangely determined to share with us why he was really more of a Thomist rather than a Van Tillian presuppositionalist.
Anyway, our corner of Central Asia has changed drastically in recent decades, such that fancy modern things like hotels and hot tubs paint a deceptive picture over cities that, until recently, were literal war zones. A scruffy middle-aged man, just like the one sitting across from us in the hot tub, might be someone who was once a guerrilla fighter, a military interrogator for a dictator, a prisoner, an exile, or even someone wanted for participating in war crimes. You really never know.
My kids did a good job trying not to make things awkward, but they did shoot the occasional glance at our furry fellow bather, who continued to observe us with his dark eyes and a hard-to-read expression on his face.
Suddenly, he leaned forward, holding up a finger in the universal gesture meaning, “one minute.” He then stood up and lumbered out of the hot tub, the water level of the hot tub decreasing by a truly impressive amount. He walked over toward the showers and quickly returned, hands overflowing with shampoo.
As he eased back into the hot tub (raising the water again by a good six inches), he dumped all of the shampoo he’d collected into a side compartment that fed into the bubbling water. Before long, we were surrounded by small mountains of soap suds as our large friend smiled and chuckled mischievously. My kids also cackled, loving the fact that the hot tub had just been transformed into a giant bubble bath, and following the man’s example of picking up handfuls of the suds and blowing them at each other.
But the best part was when this large, imposing Central Asian man grabbed a bunch of suds, put them on his face to make a big white bubbly beard, and called out to the kiddos,
“Look, Babba Noel!”
Babba Noel is, of course, our local name for Santa Claus. My kids were downright belly laughing now, as was ‘Santa.’
I am sure that it was against the rules to put the shampoo into the hot tub like that. But the young pool staff seemed intent on looking the other way. Perhaps they knew better than to confront this burly sasquatch of a man with their little rules. Or, perhaps they knew he really was some kind of general for a former regime, and decided it was best to let him have a little bit of fun with his bubbles.
Whatever the case, for my kids and me, we will always know him as the hairy hot tub Santa Claus, proof that even under the most intimidating of exteriors, there might simply be a man who likes to make kids laugh and play with bubbles.
If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? We need to raise 28k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. You can help us with this here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.
Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. Our kids’ TCK school is also in need of a math and a science teacher for middle school and high school. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Photo from Unsplash.com
Entrusted to the Dirt 