This spring I was delighted to discover that like my family back home, my Kyrgyz family here takes part in an annual family picnic—with a twist. In a remote village of 800, just about everyone is related somehow, so the entire village goes down to the river on the same Sunday in April. But this is no simple picnic table potluck.
Families packed up cars, trucks, and many a donkey-cart with 20-gallon cast iron kazans; two-foot tall samovars to heat water for tea; bags of bread, borsok, potato and beet salads; china dishes and tea cups; wool-stuffed sitting mats; tablecloths; and of course a sheep…or two. Every family group set up camp along the river, which, running with the fresh muddy snowmelt from the mountains, churned like a chocolate milkshake. Some older cousins dug out a hole for our kazan, lit a fire beneath it, then slaughtered and put the sheep in its entirety into the giant pot to boil for the next 6 hours.
In the meantime, the family sat, conversed, and drank tea. I met a number of older family members I hadn't been introduced to before, then attempted to use the time to lose myself in a good book in the shade of a tree, but my younger students found me and wouldn’t leave off peppering me with questions. So we went off to explore, clambering up foothills and over the ravines that ran down them.
We finally ate the sheep at 2 o’clock, which was first served in large hunks, then finely diced up and mixed with noodles, which we ate with our fingers, i.e. besh barmak (“5 finger” food).
Afterwards everyone was ready for a nap, so we packed up quickly—or as quickly as possible when you have a set of 20 dishes and a 20-gallon cast iron pot to clean—and loaded into the cars. All in all, what my stomach missed from an American picnic—think salads, brownies, grilled chicken, etc.—was more than made up for by the fellowship of family. All 800 members of it…
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Other End of Giving
Have you ever wondered what happens to the Christmas shoeboxes you pack, gift-wrap, and donate every holiday season?
I found out this past February when a shipment of such boxes arrived in my village from an organization called Samaritan’s Purse. For a small fee (the equivalent of 20 cents per box), a mom could pick up a shoebox for each of her children from the post office. (I’m still not sure why there was a small surcharge, but that amount was not a barrier for any families as far as I could tell.) My host mom came home that afternoon with 4 boxes. An unpacking frenzy ensued.
After the initial excitement, my oldest host sister Daria carefully laid out and catalogued the contents of all the packages on the living room floor on behalf of the family as a collective: 4 toothbrushes and toothpastes, two bars of soap, two knitted hats and scarves, two knitted hand-puppets, one doll, 2 British Pounds, one box of pencils, 5 small notepads, one matchbox car, one wind-up toy, a pair of socks, and a number of other trinkets my memory—and the kids—have lost with time.
For the rest of the week I had students coming up to me asking to translate fairytale story books, explain pocket-size Parcheesi sets, and otherwise identify simple but utterly unfamiliar toys (to them). I had one student write all her answers on a magic magnet sheet (that erased the answer when you lifted the top sheet) for the rest of the semester so I could check them before she copied them into her notebook.
Months later, the toothpaste tubes have been exhausted and the McDonald’s caliber toys have been all but forgotten, but Ainuru still carries around the doll as if it were her own child and a number of new pencils are still in the cabinet awaiting the start of the new school year. So on behalf of a very thankful family and a village, thanks to all who took the time to fill a shoebox this year. It was a pleasure to witness the joy on the other end of giving.
I found out this past February when a shipment of such boxes arrived in my village from an organization called Samaritan’s Purse. For a small fee (the equivalent of 20 cents per box), a mom could pick up a shoebox for each of her children from the post office. (I’m still not sure why there was a small surcharge, but that amount was not a barrier for any families as far as I could tell.) My host mom came home that afternoon with 4 boxes. An unpacking frenzy ensued.
After the initial excitement, my oldest host sister Daria carefully laid out and catalogued the contents of all the packages on the living room floor on behalf of the family as a collective: 4 toothbrushes and toothpastes, two bars of soap, two knitted hats and scarves, two knitted hand-puppets, one doll, 2 British Pounds, one box of pencils, 5 small notepads, one matchbox car, one wind-up toy, a pair of socks, and a number of other trinkets my memory—and the kids—have lost with time.
For the rest of the week I had students coming up to me asking to translate fairytale story books, explain pocket-size Parcheesi sets, and otherwise identify simple but utterly unfamiliar toys (to them). I had one student write all her answers on a magic magnet sheet (that erased the answer when you lifted the top sheet) for the rest of the semester so I could check them before she copied them into her notebook.
Months later, the toothpaste tubes have been exhausted and the McDonald’s caliber toys have been all but forgotten, but Ainuru still carries around the doll as if it were her own child and a number of new pencils are still in the cabinet awaiting the start of the new school year. So on behalf of a very thankful family and a village, thanks to all who took the time to fill a shoebox this year. It was a pleasure to witness the joy on the other end of giving.
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