Goin' on a Picnic

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…