New Year's Day

15:45 01 January 2009

Happy New Year once again to everyone, even though I am sure this is reaching you significantly after the New Year festivities have past. Our New Year festivities were really fun. I talked somewhat about the preparations in the last entry, but we had an incredibly delicious variety of food. I ate goose for the first time and found it incredibly delicious, my host mom marinated it in a garlic sauce and it was so good. It was funny because as the sole man present, I was expected to carve the goose even though I think I was by far the most inept at it and it ended with a frustrating lesson in anatomy with my ripping the wings off by brute force. In addition to the delicious (though poorly carved) goose, we have a variety of salads, smoked cheese, cookies, good candy, and most exciting to me, lots of fresh fruit that was brought from Bishkek (my fruit right now is limited to some apples, imported Chinese oranges, and dried apricots). I also made chili but while I thought all the food was delicious, my host family seemed to try the chili, say it was tasty, and then not eat any more at all. Oh well, I think it might have been to much seasoning or spices for them. It just meant there is more for me in the subsequent post-New Year leftovers. That is one thing I really liked about New Year festivities, it is traditionally celebrated just with family. This means the stress of inviting and serving guests doesn’t exist like it did for Kourman Eid; it also means that there is a lot more left over food for us. Yum.

In addition to spending New Year’s Eve with my family, I also went to a friend’s house the next day. One of the two JICA Volunteers in my village was hosting some fellow JICA volunteers from Bishkek so the four JICA volunteers, another PCV from a different village, and me got together to cook this traditional Japanese New Year’s food, a type of tasty somewhat gummy rice cake. It was neat because the two volunteers from Bishkek were Russian speakers so the best language between me as an American and them as a Japanese was Russian which was really interesting. They were super friendly and I am hoping to meet up with them in Bishkek next time I go there.