THE DOCTOR returned to the room with the main delicacy of the meal sheep's lungs stuffed with milk that had been salted and spiced. They sat in front of us like two baby bagpipes. A short intestinal chord dangled from the middle and lead to a shrunken shrivelled stomach.
Creamy in cheese, but the taste was of rancid milk. The strangeness diminished gradually but left a coating on the roof of the mouth and tongue.
We were in Gorno Badachsan in central Asia, travelling with the Red Cross through a bleak and barren world where temperatures fill to minus 60 degrees in winter and food is a very precious thing. Heart, lungs, tongue every piece of the animal is used to make something that might stave off the winter cold.
The doctor is the gynaecologist at the local hospital where there are 100 beds but only 31 patients. They prefer to recover at home because the hospital wards are freezing and there is no food.
Under the Soviet Union, Gorno Badachsan was an autonomous province that received sufficient supplies of coal and food before winter set in. But since 1991, when Tajikistan reluctantly became independent and the capital, Dushanbe, again became master of Gorno Badachsan, there has been little assistance.
"Living in such conditions, yes, you would have to regret the break up of the Soviet system because it gave us support, transport, coal, money, professionalism," Dr Khadija says. "Now my profession has been completely undermined." She was paid in September for work she did in July. She supplements her income by selling yak meat and yogurt.
With independence came civil war. At the end of 1992, fighting between opposition forces and the neo communist government erupted and up to 50,000 people died.
Opposition to the pro Moscow government came under the general umbrella of the Islamic Revivalist Movement which wants to see closer ties with neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Under Moscow's 70 year reign mosques, the Muslim veil, polygamy and the Haj were all forbidden. Iran is now helping to fund the building of mosques which are again appearing around the towns and cities.
Most Tajiks welcome the freedom to practise openly their religion, but dropping shots of vodka remains an intrinsic part of Tajik culture. Most women have little intention of again covering their faces Zuazizova Nozur has been a Communist Party member for the past 25 years. Islam is her religion but communism her politics.
"We really respect our religion but only the Soviet Union can help us," she says. "I respect my Muslim clothes, but I will not cover my eyes.
According to western diplomats, Russia paid 70 per cent of Tajikitan's national budget in 1993. There are about 17,000 Russian troops in Tajikistan, many of them on border patrol, protecting the edges of the former empire from Islamic fundamentalism.
On the border with Pakistan, in a town called Eskasheim, people are hungry. The Aga Khan regularly supplies the area with food and aid. His name is painted in white on the mountain sides.
During the civil war, 200,000 people were displaced, some 75,000 fleeing to Afghanistan. Diplomatic sources say this is where the fundamentalist movement might begin, spreading from there back into Tajikistan.
There have been some attempts at repatriation but most of the refugees refuse to trust either the UNHCR or the local governments. There are 80 different ethnic groups in Tajikistan and during the civil war many non Tajiks were picked out, victimised and murdered. Thousands of others simply vanished.
Sunatollo Djumbobeyev is 40 and eats, sleeps, washes and cooks with his wife and five children in a small school dormitory. His house was taken over, ransacked, occupied and abandoned. He does not want to see it again.
"We have nothing in our homes because everything was stolen. We are being sent back because it is better to tell everybody that things in Tajikistan are okay and everybody is going home. But that's not the truth," he said. "Hardship, hunger and fear are the truth," he added.