Nauryz!!

March 23, 2008

After seven months and Kazakhstan and four months at site, I was in serious need of a vacation, and “Spring Break” arrived just in the nick of time. On Monday, I am headed to Almaty to meet with the rest of the Kaz 19’s for five days of meetings and hopefully, bonding. This weekend though, several of us came to Shymkent, the second largest in Kazakhstan for the annual festival of Nauryz. Nauryz is the traditional Kazak New Year and is the biggest holiday of the year, especially in the Shymkent, where Kazak culture is dominant. We decided to take the bus from Kyzylorda because it was only seven hours vs. nine hours on the train, but now I can see why people like to take the train. The bus was comfortable and definitely faster, but we probably would have been much quieter on the train. We ended up sitting right next a young family with a baby that would scream every few minutes. That would not have been a problem except for the parents’ inability or unwillingness to shut the kid up. One of the female volunteers who has become rather disillusioned with the Kazak male said that this was because Kazak families spoil their sons rotten. Anyway, we eventually got there at around 8 P.M. and headed to the café to meet up with the rest of the volunteers and figure out where we would be staying for the weekend. After a few hours at a small café, reconnecting with fellow volunteers that we had not seen in the last several months, we headed back to the apartments to get over the super long bus ride.

The next day we went to Aksu, a small village next to Shimkent, where Eric, a fellow Chamalgan trainee, is living and working, and unlike many other Kazak sites, Aksu is predominantly Uzbek. The Kazakhstan/Uzbekistan border is only 50 miles away, so at first I thought that the Uzbek majority might be due to recent immigration, but it turns out that in fact the Uzbeks have been there for generations, and the only reason that they are living in Kazakhstan is due to the way that the Russian’s drew the borders! Even though it is a village, Aksu is nicer than most Kazak cities I have seen. It is certainly more beautiful than Kyzylorda! Most of the streets were paved, there was green grass, and it was amazingly clean. Eric took us to his college and introduced us to a few of his best students. The students were very friendly and clearly liked “Mr. Eric, so it was obvious that Eric was doing a good job. After the visit to the college we went to meet Eric’s family. Eric lives with an Uzbek family, and their house reflected their background. They live in a huge compound that the grandfather had built room by room with his own hands. Furthermore, unlike the typical Russian or Kazak house that is usually square, Eric’s Uzbek house is u-shaped. After a late lunch, we headed back to the city and then headed out for a night on the town.

The next morning was Nauryz, the traditional Kazak New Year, and as Shimkent is the largest predominantly Kazak city, it was ground zero for the festivities. At 11:00 we went to the hippodrome, which was five times the size of the hippodrome in Kyzylorda and settled in for an exciting day of traditional Kazak activities! First, we sat down for a light lunch of pilaf, shashleak, and Shimkent beer. Then we settled in to watch Kyz Kou, Kokpar, and some good old-fashioned horseracing. Kyz Kou is a game where a pair of riders, one man and one woman, chase each other on horseback. The first time they race, the man chases the woman trying to kiss her before they get to the end of the track. They then turn around and the woman chases the man while trying to hit him with a whip. It was pretty neat looking, and the female volunteers were particularly entertained. Kok Par is a lot like polo, but instead of using a ball and mallets they drag a goat carcass around by its hair. Don’t worry, they cut the head and legs off and sew it up before hand to make a kind of a goat suitcase, so it is not that gross. After such a large dose of Kazak culture, many of us were looking for something a bit for familiar and as fate would have it, Shimkent provided that too in the form of the Mega Center. The Mega Center is just like an American Mall, complete with ice rink, food court, grocery store, expensive clothing boutiques, and even an apple store. Needless to say, it was a rather trippy experience, but very enjoyable nonetheless. It was also nice to know that whenever I get homesick, I can just take the bus down to Shimkent for a weekend of retail therapy and I will soon be put to rights.

The last day in Shimkent was rather low key. We just packed up and got ready to leave for Almaty. Some of us went back to the Mega Center to do some shopping or in my case play video games, and then finally at 8:00 PM it was time to go to the bus station and catch our bus for the 12-hour ride to Almaty. I will not go into details but let me just say that between other bad movies, infrequent rest stops and other volunteers getting car sick, it was not that much fun, but at least we had memories of Nauryz to sustain us.