Before I say anything else, I want to send out a big thank you. See, in response to last week’s letter about the work I had finally found, many of you responded congratulating me, and wishing me luck. I just didn’t expect that kind of support, and it brought a tear to my eye. Again, thank you all.
Now! Enough about the past! We’ve had two festivals this week!
First, our American holiday, Thanksgiving. While getting a turkey proved beyond us this year, getting a chicken, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes were not. In one of the volunteer’s apartments, the six of us Naryn City volunteers plus one ELF (English Language Fellow) working in country celebrated the holiday as proudly as any group of young Americans living as far from America as possible could hope to.
When I explained the holiday to my Kyrgyz friends and family, they all told me “we have the same holiday! It’s the day after yours!” While the reasons are different, the celebration is largely the same.
See, about a little over month ago we celebrated the first of two annual festivals called Ait (or Eid, in other Muslim traditions.) It featured huge amounts of food at the end of a long fast, and jumping from house to house eating and talking. This time around, there was no preceding fast, but the unique element was bonus generosity. I was told by many that the hallmark of this second Ait was the giving of extra food to the poor, and putting on concerts explicitly for the benefit of those who would not otherwise be able to afford them.
Now, unlike our Christian and American secular holidays that stay the same, or see only marginal date change year to year, the Ait cycle moves twelve days every year. That means seeing Ait and Thanksgiving fall so closely together is just a little treat for this, my first year in country, and won’t be seen again for a generation.
Otherwise, up here, in my little Kyrgyz town, butted against the Celestial Mountains, winter is all around us. The Kyrgyz traditional Kalpak has mostly been swapped out for tall and round fur hats that rest precariously on the heads of men, leaving plenty of room for warm air to lay trapped underneath. Women are all bundled up in head scarves.
The roads, both paved and dirt are packed heavily with snow, and the memory of plowed streets seems as though it will remain as such. As a small public bus stopped to take me to work one morning, I watched it slide to a stop, the tires stationary for its final 10 feet of forward motion. When the cars aren’t coming down the hill behind my house, scoring up the snow with the chains on their tires, the local boys riding down on the same sleds they use to haul water.
Its cold here, folks. On Thanksgiving it was ten degrees. I pile on the layers, and am making do. But as the locals remind me, this is hardly the beginning.
Originally Written November 29th, 2009
