Ba Ram You

22:30 13 October 2008

Other than the desire to use the internet and visit friends, the main reason I went into Karakol this past weekend was to attend the Animal Bazaar there. At the bazaar all types of the usual Kyrgyz livestock are bought and traded- horses, fat tailed sheep, cows, fowl, and even a few pigs can be found at the enormous Mal Bazaar in Karakol. But lest I ruin the interesting description, let me move backwards a bit.

Friday I cooked for the second time at site. Unfortunately, my host mother was in Bishkek for a wedding, but I invited some of a local friend, a JICA volunteer, and another PCV to dine with me. My host sister and two of her friends also came over which made the more the merrier. I prepared potato latkes and waldorf salad- an odd combination I admit but everything seemed to come out well and they seemed to enjoy the food. The salad in particular was good, as much for its variation from Kyrgyz salad as its own merits.

I following day I went into Karakol early afternoon after saying goodbye to my host sister Veneera as she returned to Kumptor, the enormous gold mine that accounts for 15% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP. She works there as a cook fifteen days on and then fifteen days off- I am going to miss having her around since she is about my age and was fun to hang out with and talk to- I even taught her the basics of Frisbee which she seemed to enjoy. Regardless, after saying goodbye I headed into the city with my friend JICA friend Saori who also wanted to do some things unavailable in our village. After using the internet, I got together with some PC friends and we had a dry wine and pasta night. It was really exciting to have legitimate dry wine. While there is no shortage of wine in this country, most all of it is so sweet it makes Manischewitz taste like Hawkeye’s martinis (sorry for the M*A*S*H* reference, I couldn’t think of a cornier joke to make). Unavailable elsewhere, there is one store in Karakol that carries two or three not cough-syrupy wines (along with a wonderful assortment of other Western or Western style foodstuffs that many volunteers like to look at, pick up, and consider buying before they realize how incredibly expensive they are). We picked up a few bottles to split between us, and in the meanwhile played a really fun version of charades while we waited for the electricity to come back on so we could cook- and yes, charades is more challenging by candlelight.

The next morning we all woke early for the much anticipated animal bazaar. While it was radically different from what I expected, it surely didn’t disappoint. I suppose I was expecting stalls with people perusing the various animals and each vendor hawking the quality of their wares. Rather, as I suppose is the Kyrgyz way, there was far much less organization, the only seeming organization was that the types of animals were more or less separated from each other, there was horse, sheep, cow, etc. areas. The way it worked though, despite the massive crowd that was well over a thousand, was that anyone could calmly work his way through the mess of animals, people, and the inevitable mess, find an animal one was interested in, and then begin negotiation with the owner. Consider the sheer volume of both humans and animals, I was amazed at the relative quiet of the whole ordeal- it was amazingly calm and peaceful. This to me was the most interesting part of the bazaar- the heated debates over prices were subdued to a quiet mutter and even the animals, despite their typical boisterousness, where incredibly quiet. Maybe it was a somber realization on their part that they were likely dinner soon, but whatever the reason, the chaos was much more visual than aural.

Later that day I returned and helped my mother tend our animals, I am significantly better with the minor tasks now and get laughed at a great deal less. Things seem well.