to share it! I can type faster than I can write, so I figured I'd just
blog about it instead of writing it in my journal and then you all can
know about it, too. Today was ""TYLYY." It is sort of a farming
holiday, the best way I understand it. The community gathers and
socializes and prays for rain and good crops. And then have basically
what amounts to a water fight. I got ready with my host family this
morning; it was a beautiful morning, sunny, with a few clouds. We
gathered up dishes, salad making stuff, of course, tea and cookies and
candy, blochkie that we spent hours making yesterday, tushuks, and Apa
made us all pack a change of clothes. She also made me wear a cap. We
all know that my head is too big to pull off a cap, but she knows I
have one, so she made me wear it. My three younger sisters and I
carried stuff to a close neighbors' house where we added all of our
stuff with a few other families in the trailer that is pulled by our
tractor. The kids (and I) rode in the back of the tractor out to the
field behind our village by the pond. A bunch of other families came
and we all set up in a huge line of tushuks, picnic style. The young
women, and kalens started preparing the tables while the old women and
the men sat around and talked. My sisters made it about ten minutes
before a group of boys doused them in water. Lacking water guns or
balloons, bottles make really good splashers. My "eje" status kept the
boys at bay, that plus I was cutting up vegetables for salad near a
group of women who'd have flipped if they got wet. The tables were set
up in groups by streets in our village. I've been picnicking a bunch
with my teaching staff and my family and extended family, but this was
new to me because there were some of my neighbors I don't know that
well, and it helped me figure out which of my students live near each
other. At the far end of the row, they were manning the "kazans,"
three HUGE cauldron type pans that were cooking meat for the besh
barmak. They killed a cow and a sheep and had the meat boiling for
hours. I was super really pleased they decided to do rice besh barmak
instead of noodles because the rice is cooked separate so it doesn't
taste like animal, whereas the noodles are cooked in the broth. We
finished making the salads, and the men erected a sun shelter from the
side of our tractor and we drank tea and ate salads. I took my camera
and decided to take pictures, and my Ata asked me to take pictures of
all the groups… the meat. Haha I took one picture of the three kazans,
and then he came up and made me stand near them and hold the stirrer
thing and take a picture. I was not excited. Boiling meat isn't
exactly my favorite thing. Then, I proceeded to take pictures of the
different groups. Let me explain this process. I usually knew a few
people in every group, either from school, or extended family, so I
would talk to them, make sure it was okay to take a picture, and then
snap it. If that were all, my day would have been so much easier.
Haha. At every single group, I had to "chai eech," salat je," and "nan
oosti." Drink tea, eat salad, and taste bread. I lost count of the
different types of salad I tried, and the different types of jam, and
after about the forty-seventh cup of tea, I quit counting. I made the
rounds of most of the groups before I felt seriously ill. I was SO
uncomfortably full, so I went back to our table with my family and
neighbors and sat while other people came to visit us. Between the
conversations I had with the other groups and the people at our table,
I can basically sum up the majority of the conversations with the
people I'm not close to with five sentences (loosely translated) "You
speak Kyrgyz really well," "Are you married?" "why not?," "when are
you getting married?," "Don't you want to marry my (son, nephew,
grandson, brother) and come be our kalen?" haha I was able to have
real conversations with my family and neighbors. They are all really
excited about my going to America, and my summer plans. After a while,
they announced the meat was ready, so all the groups took buckets up
and got the broth "shorpo" and passed it around. They all know me so
well now that they don't even give me a cup. Haha Then, they brought
the meat and rice. One of my favorite moments was when Apa said to
another eje, "she's my daughter and I know how much she eats and how
much to give her." This was because the eje was telling my Apa to give
me a ton of rice, and Apa knew I wouldn't eat it. I had thus far
avoided being splashed by water by my eje status and the fact that I
told the groups of boys that followed me with mischievous grins and
bottles of water not to splash me because I was holding my camera. I
made the mistake of walking away from the ejes, and not carrying my
camera after we finished eating to stretch my legs. I got splashed by
one facetious little boy and it was all downhill from there haha. The
line had been crossed and within about five minutes I was wet. They
all got yelled at, "that's enough," "don't spash your eje," "don't be
ooyat (shameful)," to no avail. The splashing stopped long enough to
be respectful while everyone did the final "omen" (kinda like an
"amen" after the prayer) and the power of half our village praying to
god for rain was astounding because no less than two minutes after the
omen, the skies opened up and rain started pouring. Most everything
had already been packed up, and between the rain, and the kids
splashing water, and adults splashing water, we got pretty wet before
everything was packed up to go. My sisters and two cousins and I
climbed back into the back of the tractor for the ride home and got
completely waterlogged and hailed on for a few minutes. We got home
and all stood dripping for a few minutes. Apa asked my why I wasn't
changing out of my wet clothes faster, I'd get sick, and then she
laughed when I told her I couldn't because the key to my room just
happened to be at the bottom of my bag under my soaked change of
clothes that I never changed into, a bag of meat, a bag of borsok,
azeez's clothes and a ton of other stuff. After getting my key, drying
off, and changing clothes, you'll never guess what we did. That's
right. We drank MORE tea. I'm sitting in bed typing this and I'm going
to climb under the covers and get good and warm before doing anything
else.
I'll try to post pictures soon.
Miss you
Love from Kyrgyzstan,
Jess
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