Forty Kilograms of Flour

29 December 2009

I think I should get to say that again. FORTY Kilograms of flour! Do you know how much bread that makes? Don’t worry. I’m gonna tell you. Forty kilos of flour makes a freakin’ ton of bread. My host uncle got married. The way that it works here is that the groom’s parents, or in this case, siblings, go to the bride’s family and give earrings and ask for her to marry him and all that jazz. At the girl’s parent’s house, they have a big party. Then, they take the girl to the boy’s house where all of his family has big party. Yesterday all of this happened. I got to help with the preparations for the family bringing the new bride home. We went to my host aunt’s house at about fiveish and there were a bunch of women making borsok (the little fried bread things). I helped my host sisters fill cups with varenya (like jam/jelly), sugar, sugar cubes, sary mai (this oil/butter stuff that we all agreed that we hate haha), and then we put it out on the tables with the mounds of borsok, and meat jello, and salads. It was really great helping my host sisters. We’ve gotten a lot closer lately and we sorta bonded (especially with the sary mai stuff. All of my host sisters hate it, so I don’t feel bad saying that I hate it, too haha) I found out that my oldest two host sisters want to quit school after 9th form and go to the early university thing, but if the oldest goes, the second oldest can’t. I think it is totally unfair, but that’s the way it goes, I guess. I also talked a lot with Aidana, my second oldest sister. Her best friend just left to live with her Grandmother in Russia, so she’s kinda depressed. She’s in the eighth form and almost all of the other girls in her class (all 5 of them) are planning on quitting school after ninth form and if Nurzada (the oldest sister) quits then she won’t be able too. She’s got a lot on her mind right now. And she actually talked to me about it, which was cool. She got kinda frustrated because she is in the Russian class and her best friend is Russian, so she hardly ever speaks Kyrgyz and it is really hard for us to talk. But we made it work. Anyways, I guess that is enough of the family news. Back to the wedding stuff- We found out at 5:30ish that they wouldn’t arrive with the kalyn (that’s the Kyrgyz word for new wife/sister-in-law/daughter-in-law) until midnight! But, we had a lot of stuff to do, so it worked out okay. At first the edjes (older women- it is pronounced A-J) wanted me to sit and not really help with anything, but I couldn’t just sit and watch them all work and not help. At least not if it is cooking stuff, which I do not get to do often enough here. We made enough borsok to cover the floor of a medium sized room. And I am not exaggerating. We literally laid out a table cloth on the floor and covered it with borsok. Then we made rolls, which involves taking lumps of dough, rolling it out and then twisting it into pretty shapes. I’ve helped my Apa make this bread before so I knew how to do it which I think surprised the edjes. The whole concept of the edjes being there was fascinating to me. Imagine sending your child to your neighbor’s house and saying that your son or nephew or whoever is getting married and you need help to prepare for it. And having her come over, and bring her oven to help! And then imagine doing that to three or four neighbors and having them all come. Even in very small towns in America I feel that might be stretching the bounds of the typical neighbor relationship. Here it wasn’t even a big deal. I mean the forty kilos of flour worth of bread was a big deal haha, but you wouldn’t even think twice about asking for help like that. It is one of the things that I really like about Kyrgyzstan, and then sometimes it is a bit frustrating because there is absolutely no such thing as privacy. Last night I felt like I belong here. I got to make bread and talk to edjes, and it turns out I teach ALL of their children. And while my Kyrgyz is not that great, we were actually able to have a conversation. We talked about how marriages are different in America because it is all about the bride and groom, whereas in Kyrgyzstan, it is all about the family. As we were talking, I realized how much my entire village came together about me being here. One lady, who isn’t from our village asked me how much money I make, which is a typical get-to-know-you question here, and before I could explain, another lady jumped in and told her not to ask me questions like that because in America we don’t talk about salary. That incident taught me several things in the space of about thirty seconds- one- my Kyrgyz was good enough to understand what both women said, which was AWESOME – two- I’ve gotten used to being asked questions like that and it didn’t bother me in the least –three- my entire village must have discussed volunteer stuff before I got here, how else would a woman who I had just met know to say that it might make me uncomfortable to talk about salary? There is definitely something to be said about being wanted. Haha Being the only one of something in my village is hard to describe. One of the edjes and I talked and it turns out that her son tells her pretty much everything that I do at school. It is like being on exhibit at a zoo. Everything I do is remarkable, even when it is the same exact thing that everyone else is doing. It can wear on your nerves, believe me. I have long since realized that I will never be fully integrated. I could live here for 20 years and no matter what I do, I will never be Kyrgyz. I am totally okay with that, because I won’t be here for twenty years. It does, however, get frustrating when I do try to integrate a little bit further. For example, I get flustered by always being made to sit near the head of the table, which is the honorable spot. For one, all the really old ladies sit there, and I have less in common with them and find them harder to understand, also, I just don’t think I deserve it. I understood it better when I was new here, and I guess that is the key point. I don’t think I’m new anymore, and everyone else does. I just don’t think I should sit higher up at the table than my host mom or my counterpart. I am the youngest member on our teaching staff but sit above older teachers at the teachers’ parties, and at family parties I have to sit up higher too. Yesterday as we were preparing for the party I realized what an anomaly I am here, and not because I’m an American, either. There were a ton of women and girls there yesterday. I am twenty one, the next oldest was twenty six or seven, and the next youngest was 16. I’m right in the middle. Most women my age here are either married or studying at university or working in a bigger city. There are not a lot of single women my age in our village, and it makes it a bit harder to fit in. After most of the prep work was done, I alternated between the kids and adults. The women got to talking really fast and it was hard to understand so I went and played with the kids. Arsen, who is something like my host second cousin, is almost two and really attached to his granny who was at the new bride’s house, so I ended up holding him for a long while and rocking him to sleep. It was very therapeutic for me. I really really miss Camden, and holding babies here makes it a bit easier. I have two host cousins, Arsen, who is almost two, and Ademae, who is almost one. So I get to play with babies often enough. Yesterday there were also three three-year olds, which was quite interesting. Take three toddlers, all of whom are rarely disciplined because they don’t really start telling them “no” until they are like four or five, add obscene amounts of candy and sugar, and lock them in a room for a few hours. Needless to say, there was a fair amount of waterworks, but for the most part they were really cute. I have a host cousin, Zarina who is a bit younger that Azeez, my host brother, and the child hasn’t a shy bone in her entire body. She’s really cute and outgoing. She will play with me, and I think it has helped Azeez warm up to me, too. Kyrgyzstan has scared the bejeezus out of me because I realized yesterday that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have a big family. I KNOW! ME!?! The sworn-never-having-children-girl!!! It was so cool to watch the interaction of the kids last night. There were – 1 9th, 8th, and 6th grade girls- one 7th grade boy, two 3rd grade girls, one 2nd grade girl, three three year olds, and an almost-two year old. It was quite noisy, but they all had a ton of fun. The 7th grade boy was a total sweetheart. How many 7th grade boys do you know that would actually play with three year olds for hours, and share the babysitter role with the older girls as the took turns helping the adults? It was cool.

I just realized I’m on the third page and haven’t mentioned all the traditions of the wedding, or the fact that I finally came home with Nurzada at one am last night because my contacts were unbearably dry, and the rest of the family didn’t get home til 2:30 or the fact that the party continues today for the entire village, or all the new years parties for the students at school. I’m rambling today. For your sake, I think I will call it quits here and write another blog later.

Miss you
Love from Kyrgyzstan,
Jess