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

During Ramadan, folks don’t traditionally put anything in their mouths from sunrise to sunset. Kyrgyzstan, however, is a notoriously lax Muslim country, and I have seen only a small percentage of people following these strictures.

What I have luckily been able to witness more of is the Kyrgyz tradition of Jaramazan. A couple of times per week this last month, neighborhood boys have come around to our house and others singing the folk song of the same name, on the subject of down from the mountains, on horseback in the first verse, and on an ox in the second. After hearing the song, residents are suppose to give out some of their dinner, or candy, or money to the boys, much like our Halloween. However, true to their relaxed nature on these traditions, I seldom heard the song sung to completion, nor did we always answer the bell.

Now the finale celebration of Ait, or Eid, here in Kyrgyzstan is defined not by gift giving, but by boatloads of guesting.

Traditionally, one goes to an odd number of houses. The reigning champion volunteer went to thirteen in one day. I clocked in at a paltry 3, but I still slept well on a full belly of Plov, Kymyz and Dim-da-ma (my personal favorite Kyrgyz dish, effectively a thick, down home stew without the broth.)

Most of my time this year was spent on a narrow, neighboring street where a previous volunteer lived, and made such an impression that the folks have taken me in with loving arms. So much so, in fact, that I have just about completed the delicate balancing act of moving from one house to another, namely, my current house, to one of these neighbors.

See, the family that I am living with is absolutely delightful, but the traveler in me is getting restless again. “Its not that I don’t like you, quite the opposite in fact,” I told my current family. “The fact is, if I am to learn about all of Kyrgyzstan, the troubles and successes, the good jobs and the bad, if I am to truly get to know this community, I can’t just live in one place, with just one family.”

“Okay, we understand. But, will you come and visit often?” They asked.

“You had better believe it.” I said.

That means, at the beginning of October, the auspicious calendrical lunacular of my birth, yours truly, Kyrgy Carl, will be moving from my little room among this big Kyrgyz family to a littler room among an even bigger Kyrgyz family. That means no more carcasses when I come home. But rest assured, the more people I have to visit, the better my letters will become.

Originally Written September 22nd, 2009