11:30 10 October 2009
Yesterday I had a really great experience. I was invited to and attended a wedding of the brother of one of my students. While I didn’t know him personally, it was still a lot of fun to attend a wedding, and I was the only non-Kyrgyz person out of nearly 200 (there weren’t any Russians even!). The food was great, we danced the night away, and I felt more integrated than I ever had in this country, I was really treated not as an outsider but as a member of the family. What a great experience!
As with pretty much everything in Kyrgyzstan, it started well after it was supposed to; my invitation said to come at 17:00 to the café and I stood outside for a good 90 minutes before the wedding celebration actually started. While Kyrgyzstan is nominally Muslim and certainly there is a minority of religious Muslims here, wedding traditions seem to stem more from Western/Russian influences as the bride and groom come dressed in the western traditional tux and white bridal gown. There are definitely some marked differences between Western weddings and Kyrgyz ones however.
I think the world throughout weddings are known to be times of excellent and plentiful food- certainly Kyrgyzstan is no exception to this rule and the spread started with about six or seven salads, bread, borsok (Kyrgyz national fried dough), and the obligatory alcohol. This was followed eventually by a “first” dish of a Kazahk soup with beef and noodles and then the main dish of a beef stew with a beet salad, mashed potatoes, and rice. But no Kyrgyz gathering is complete without besh barmak, the national dish which consists of pretty much just meat and noodles and is eaten with hands. While everyone eats a little of this, everyone is already stuffed at this point so people take it more lightly and the more important aspect is that everyone takes home a huge chunk of boiled meat to eat over the next couple days (this is such an established tradition that the waiters and waitresses actually supply each of the guests with plastic bags to stuff full of meat, salad, bread, etc.)
One thing I found interesting about the wedding was the way the cake was served. I don’t know what the tradition comes from, but instead of everyone getting cake, the different tables try and outbid each other to get one of two hunks of cake. Once the auction is over, the money (which at the wedding reached 2,000 som- about $50 and more than a teacher’s salary for a month) is given to the new couple in exchange for the cake- every one else goes hungry… (Not that that is possible given the rest of the food)
Given that I was with several of my students, I was careful to limit my alcohol consumption (I’ve become pretty good at resisting the huge amount of societal pressure when I want to) but that didn’t prevent me from having a lot of fun doing things other than eating. Given the mostly secular nature of most Kyrgyz, the biggest official moment was when the couple both signed the state marriage contract, something very different and much more official and divorced from the love aspect of the marriage, no kiss, no “I do’s”. But regardless, following this there was a lot of dancing, and different silly games played by everyone in attendance. One thing I have noticed about Kyrgyz gatherings and parties is that they usually have to have a program which usually includes unusual activities and games and prizes. While I haven’t been to so many weddings in the States, parts of this one seemed more like a Bar Mitzvah than a wedding but maybe I’m just ignorant.
Throughout the entire night, each of the tables should make a toast to the new bride and groom, with a few representatives from each table getting up and speaking. Despite knowing the bride or groom, but being the only foreigner there, I was asked to give a toast, something which was nerve-racking but also rewarding after I gave it and felt that I did a good job. But, as I said, it was one of the most positive experiences in this country and really made me realize that I was integrated into this communicating more than I realized I was. That’s always a good feeling.
19 October 2009
The (not so) triumphant return!
20:35 08 October 2009
The (not so) triumphant return!
So, my friends, I apologize for the long absence from this electronic forum. Actually, that isn’t true. I’ve spent the several months I haven’t been writing here spending time with Saori. Sorry guys, but I was a bit too busy falling in love to keep up with my blog. Unfortunately, Saori is gone. Certainly not from my heart, but from this glorious and increasingly cold country. Her two years finished up a few weeks ago and she is currently back in Japan. Of course, on the net, this is a negative thing for me, I miss her terribly and can’t wait until we are together again. But it does have some positive side effects, one of which being that the time I am not spending with her can be used for other pursuits- like updating my blog for the first time in three months.
I promise you now that I will do a better job of keeping up with this open electronic diary in the future, but I figured a bit of a recap of summer was in order to start things off.
Summer was fun. A lot of fun. And not only fun, it was actually a pretty productive time for me too. While I didn’t have classes, the leadership club that Saori started and that I currently run was still meeting and we had some things going on even then. The most impressive, I believe was a 300 kilometer walkathon between the cities of Balykchy and Karakol. The walkathon was staged over ten days and was staged to raise awareness of the plight of the handicapped in this country (no ADA laws exist here and ramps, good pavement, and wheelchair friendly areas are hard to find even in the capital city). The kids didn’t participate in the marathon, but we partnered with the Kyzyl Suu orphanage to have the kids prepare the welcoming event for the participants. We prepared a huge mural for the welcoming party to write their dreams about the future on (The theme of the marathon was Куда мы идём? “Where are we going?”) and so the wishes for the future were written on slips of paper resembling animal tracks and then pasted on our mural of the world. In addition to this, the kids helped organize the crowd at the finish and half walked the final 5 kilometers (we brought some disabled children along with us that were excited to participate and see how many people lead rich and fulfilling lives despite their disabilities). So that was a really positive experience for me and I believe the children got a lot of benefits from participating in it.
On the fun side of my summer, apart from my trip to Russia, I spent a lot of time at the South Shore beaches, hosted some friends from Switzerland for a week, and went on a horse trek with Saori. The horse trek was a really great time, we went up very high into the mountains behind our village and even got to a glacier and got to hike around on it for a while. It was cool to think that while we were in a completely different landscape (despite the nearly 6,000 ft. altitude, my village is relatively flat) even though we were only about 25 kilometers from where I sleep! I’ll try and put up some pictures of that in the future.
Well, I think that is enough for now, I will have to get used to writing these things again… But know that this is just the first of more frequent updates.
The (not so) triumphant return!
So, my friends, I apologize for the long absence from this electronic forum. Actually, that isn’t true. I’ve spent the several months I haven’t been writing here spending time with Saori. Sorry guys, but I was a bit too busy falling in love to keep up with my blog. Unfortunately, Saori is gone. Certainly not from my heart, but from this glorious and increasingly cold country. Her two years finished up a few weeks ago and she is currently back in Japan. Of course, on the net, this is a negative thing for me, I miss her terribly and can’t wait until we are together again. But it does have some positive side effects, one of which being that the time I am not spending with her can be used for other pursuits- like updating my blog for the first time in three months.
I promise you now that I will do a better job of keeping up with this open electronic diary in the future, but I figured a bit of a recap of summer was in order to start things off.
Summer was fun. A lot of fun. And not only fun, it was actually a pretty productive time for me too. While I didn’t have classes, the leadership club that Saori started and that I currently run was still meeting and we had some things going on even then. The most impressive, I believe was a 300 kilometer walkathon between the cities of Balykchy and Karakol. The walkathon was staged over ten days and was staged to raise awareness of the plight of the handicapped in this country (no ADA laws exist here and ramps, good pavement, and wheelchair friendly areas are hard to find even in the capital city). The kids didn’t participate in the marathon, but we partnered with the Kyzyl Suu orphanage to have the kids prepare the welcoming event for the participants. We prepared a huge mural for the welcoming party to write their dreams about the future on (The theme of the marathon was Куда мы идём? “Where are we going?”) and so the wishes for the future were written on slips of paper resembling animal tracks and then pasted on our mural of the world. In addition to this, the kids helped organize the crowd at the finish and half walked the final 5 kilometers (we brought some disabled children along with us that were excited to participate and see how many people lead rich and fulfilling lives despite their disabilities). So that was a really positive experience for me and I believe the children got a lot of benefits from participating in it.
On the fun side of my summer, apart from my trip to Russia, I spent a lot of time at the South Shore beaches, hosted some friends from Switzerland for a week, and went on a horse trek with Saori. The horse trek was a really great time, we went up very high into the mountains behind our village and even got to a glacier and got to hike around on it for a while. It was cool to think that while we were in a completely different landscape (despite the nearly 6,000 ft. altitude, my village is relatively flat) even though we were only about 25 kilometers from where I sleep! I’ll try and put up some pictures of that in the future.
Well, I think that is enough for now, I will have to get used to writing these things again… But know that this is just the first of more frequent updates.
19 July 2009
28 May 2009
Celebrating Victory Day
How the Kyrgyz celebrate the 9th of May (Victory Day in the Patriotic War-WWII)
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