Svadbar time! (again)

14:30 18 October 2009

This weekend was a lot of fun! I found out that my extended host family (two sisters, brother in law, nieces, and a few cousins) would be in town for a wedding and I was more than pleased to meet with them, I definitely miss having that family element in my life sometimes and it was wonderful to see some of the people I am closest too for a while. Also, the way that I am treated within the family is very much as a sibling… I mentioned last week at the wedding how I felt very much part of the community, well the last two days I have felt very much part of the family. In particular, my host sister Aijan and her cousin Aidai, both of which speak English pretty well are a real riot and fun to hang out with, they are both two years younger than me, but they are really funny girls and I love to hang out with them.

While I just came to visit the family the day of the wedding, being family it was insisted that I also attend the wedding so after I went home and put on a suit, I headed over to the wedding (at the same café that I was at a week ago). The funniest part of the wedding was that the program was EXACTLY the same as a week ago. The menu, the salads, the music, the decorations, and even the games were the same ones that I had seen last week. This was funny because the MC played a joke on the couple where he gave them each a half of a cabbage and told them something was hidden in the folds of it. Fifteen minutes later and without luck, the groom and bride were informed that they just ripped up a cabbage for nothing, as the whole game was a practical joke. Being able to call this despite my host sister’s objections “No! He says that there is a prize inside the cabbage!” was funny. Overall it was just eerie having the same wedding with different people.

All things considered though, this wedding was even more fun than the one last week because of the company I kept. Rather than a few students around whom I felt an obligation to keep my professional demeanor, I was able to kick back and relax knowing I was in the careful and considerate hands of my extended family. While I didn’t drink to excess, it seems like most of the rest of my family did and a good time was had by all.

It was a great time and this morning I went back to play with my nieces and say goodbye to everyone before they headed back to Bishkek. Not terribly surprisingly all of the family woke up with horrible headaches (apparently after I went home they went back and continued drinking). It was funny to sit around and recount the night before, a scene that didn’t seem out of place to me, just it was funnier to be doing it with 40-60 year old Kyrgyz adults rather than my college buddies.

Oh, in other news, I got my internet working! I’m updating from home! Woo! Also, I have google talk, an instant message program based on gmail, and I will be on a fair amount since it is cheap for me (I pay by the megabyte and it used very few MBs). So chat with me sometime!