Weddings, Baby Showers, and Anniversaries

December 9, 2007

I apologize to everyone for the lack of recent entries recently, but to be honest, I did not have much to write about for the last couple of days. I just got finished with an extremely long and frustrating week, but I do have to admit that it was salvaged by the weekend, which has been awesome due to the glut of celebrations I have attended in the last two days.

Last week not only did I have my normal nine to five grind to take care of, but I also had the exciting opportunity to attend not one, but two seminars. The first seminar was a “Republic” seminar, which somehow made it more important, but at the time, I just found it incredibly boring, useless and frustrating. First off, only on Wednesday morning did my counterpart let me know that we would be participating in this important seminar on Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, we were going to pretty much give the same talk that we gave last month, but still it was little late notice. We got our stuff ready, rehearsed our material, and on Thursday afternoon got ready to make our presentation, and then we waited…for three hours. The presentation that was supposed to start at three did not actually begin until six because the visiting dignitaries were so late. This was annoying, but I thought, no big deal, we just had some extra rehearsal time. The first group of people came in, but we discovered that instead of fifteen minutes to give our talk, we only had five. This meant that rather give them an enlightening talk about the use of games and songs in the classroom, all we did was sing the Twelve Days of Christmas. Forty-five minutes later, the second group finally came in, and their time was cut so short that we actually only got through five days of Christmas. I have to admit I was a little pissed. I would not have minded to sitting around for four hours if I had been able to make the presentation, but to have wasted so much time was incredibly frustrating. I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted to contribute something, but that night my only job was to stand there while the director pointed at me like I was a new puppy or toy, and told everyone, “look, we have our own Peace Corps volunteer.” Then, two days later we got to do it all over again at a seminar for the English Teachers Association of Kyzylorda. Fortunately, I actually was able to give the full talk that time, but it was still three hours, and there were quite a few moments where I wanted to hit my head against the wall.

Still, as I said, the weekend has totally saved it. After not attending many parties the first few months, the weekend was filled with them. On Saturday night I went to the wedding party of one of my students. At nineteen, she is a little young to be married in my opinion, but she and her new husband seemed happy enough, so I was able to remove my America-tinged lenses for the most part, and see how for Kazaks this was the right time and a fun occasion. We had a great meal, I made a short toast in Kazak, and there was even some dancing. Then on Sunday there were two special occasions. The first was the one-year anniversary of my host sister’s wedding, and the second was the Baby Shower/Circumcision called a Besik, of a five month old cousin. Everyone gave that family so much stuff I do not how there are ever going to have room for it in the apartment much less use it all, but again it was a fun time with lots of family in attendance, though I did not actually see the guest of honor, Islam, the entire day. Although, given what they were doing to him, I am probably glad I did not.

All in all I have to say that the Kazaks know how to throw a party. I think I might prefer the American style wedding reception better, if just because there is slightly more dancing, but I might change my mind over the next two years. I am still just amazed at how friendly and welcoming everyone is, and how important all of these family celebrations are. At the wedding there were probably thirty people there that were part of the “immediate family” and were no prepared to do just about anything to help that new couple, and at the baby shower there were at least ten new host uncles and aunts. For someone whose whole family usually only got together three times a year, this has been quite an experience, and one I know I will remember for a long time.