Two Stops Past Siberia
- Projects
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- A History of Inner Asia, Svat Soucek
- Beyond the Sky and the Earth, Jamie Zeppa
- Chasing the Sea, Tom Bissell
- Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Christopher I. Beckwith
- Erica Marat, The Tulip Revolution: One Year After
- High Adventure in Tibet, David V. Plymire
- Setting the East Ablaze, Peter Hopkirk
- Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron
- The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, Chingiz Aitmatov
- The Great Arab Conquests, Hugh Kennedy
- The Lost Heart of Asia, Colin Thubron
- This is Not Civilization, Robert Rosenberg
- Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
- Informations
Posts Tagged holidays
Thanksgiving and the Festival of Ait (Eid)
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
Who Wants Ribs?
Who Wants Ribs?
The significance of eating the eye was first explained to me with this question, “Who would want the ribs? There are lots of ribs. There are only two eyes.” But I’ll get to that later.
So, here in Ivanovka, we have been spending the last week or so preparing for “Culture Day.” This is a Peace Corps tradition where trainees put on a show of different elements of Kyrgyz culture for the viewing pleasure of each other and our homestay families.
I couldn’t be luckier than to come to Kyrgyzstan. Remember how I said that I site placement day the atmosphere was like a fair, missing only jugglers and tents? Well, today was the complete Renaissance show! We constructed a yurt on premises; musical instruments abounded, and best of all, folks were all dressed up in traditional Kyrgyz dress. Women wore long embroidered robes, men robes and tall white hats called Kolpacks. Our families decked us all out to the nines, and some villages even rented more extravagant fairy-tail costumes from Bishkek.
Students of each training village spent the weeks before this event rehearsing performances. Some presented cultural minorities of Kyrgyzstan, one cluster performing a Turkish wedding. Others did ethnically Kyrgyz events. As the singing sensation “The Алты Балa” (Alti Bala,) the five guys in my village and I hammed up Жарамазан (Jaramazan,) a carol about men on horseback coming down from the mountains to bring blessings on the houses they visit.
Not only did the event have these cultural performances, there was also food, in this case plouf, a fried rice kind of dish, prepared in two giant cauldrons over an open fire. We ate in picnic like settings, with traditional felt blankets spread out on the grass. Afterwards we had a talent show and the whole gala wrapped up with games: tug-of-war, red-rover, and a local game where you throw the anklebone of a sheep at a line of other anklebones.
Now, on the way home, the families from my village decided the party simply hadn’t gone on long enough. So we pulled over to a green spot on the side of the road, spread out our blankets, brewed some more tea, and opened up our leftovers. Our addition to the feast had been Besh Barmak, or 5 Thumbs, a dish of lamb and noodles traditionally eaten with your hands.
While much of the meat had already been consumed, my wily family had saved the best for last. Along with the remaining noodles, we tore the meat from the sheep’s head and went to town. I can hardly describe my happiness, when, sitting in my Kolpack and robe, on the side of the highway, watching a rainstorm coming in quickly from the mountains, my host father passed me the eye!
Not ten minutes later the rain came, like the 2 AM lights at a bar. We were all having a great time, and plenty happy someone else took the initiative to call it quits for us, otherwise we might still be out there.
I’ll spend the next week or so folks visiting my permanent site in Naryn City. These past months have been the calm before the storm, and I’m about to get a taste for what the real party will be like. Wish me luck!
Love,
Carl
Originally Written May 16th, 2009
Clustr Map
Kyrgy Carl, Making Waves!
