Monday, March 22, 2010

наурыз - part 1 - the yurt



Today we went to the "new" downtown to see what the festivities for наурыз would be. (Astana has two downtowns--the old one, which was the center before it became the capital, and the new one, which is where the government buildings and the fantastical architecture are.)

At a faculty meeting, we had been told to go to Beyterek and ask. I kept saying, "Is it by Beyterek?" and was told, "No, not by! Just go there and ask, you will find it!" Well, now I'm curious about the Turkish word for "by" because the festival was definitely by Beyterek. (Beyterek is the huge, funny-looking tower with the golden sphere at top, Astana's answer to Paris' Eiffel Tower.)

Yurts, traditional Kazakh tents, were set up all around the tower, and there were plenty of people miling about. It being cold, most everyone was dressed in black, which made it difficult to find my brother when we got separated.

I wondered if we could go inside a yurt, we saw a man with a child walk into one, so, after they'd left, we entered. The yurts are large and round, and the doors are low. The inside of this one was mostly empty, a woman said something, I answered in Russian that we don't speak Russian, and then she led us out of that yurt into another. A man at the door said, "No entry," but the woman ushered us in, introduced us to someone, and before I knew it, we were sitting on pillows in front of table arranged for a feast, watching a woman and man in traditional Kazakh costume sing and dance.

This yurt was crowded, with several tables lined with food. Around the edges sat people, talking, eating, and watching. The floor was decorated with colourful carpets, and no one bothered to take off their shoes. The walls were lined with colourful carpets and tapestries. Behind us sat a young man and woman. The woman was clothed in all white, with a tall hat; she looked like a bride but I don't know enough about Kazakh traditions to know if she was just dressed up for the occasion or dressed to get married.

They talked to us a little and offered us food. We each got a bowl of what tasted like sour milk. I did my best to drink it. I tasted the meat, which I think they said was horse, and I had some fruit.

The girl in white was asked to stand up. She came to the middle of the yurt, took off her shawl, and posed so my brother could take a picture.

A few people made speeches and then people started milling out. Sophia was bored so we said "Rakhmet" (Kazakh for "thank you") and left.

(Click here for Part 2)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring!

Nauriz (наурыз) is the Kazakh word for March, but it also means the special holiday that falls on 21st March, which is the first day of spring. It is one of their huge celebrations, and the schools' spring break falls during it.

Yesterday was the first day of spring, and I thought it was quite humorous that there is a huge amount of snow on the ground. After church, Sophia and I played in the yard in front of the church for quite some time. It was covered with snow; the paths had been cleared but the lawn was untouched. Sophia raced around on the snow, making soft foot prints, and I stumbled after her. I'm heavier, and my feet plunged much further down through the snow than hers. You can run when every step your foot plunges down about 1 or 2 feet. Snow was above my knees.

Sophia slid down some snow banks and I took pictures. It feels like spring--great weather to play outside in! And after one cold winter, we're still not tired of snow.

Brief synopsis

I think what will be best is to just start from today, and play catch-up later. Otherwise I'll never get anything done. A brief synopsis of January - March:

After an OK Christmas, we had a school New Year's party at the Pyramid in Astana. It was quite a big event, pretty much a combination of Halloween, Christmas, and New Year's, with the children dressing up in different costumes (mostly the girls were dressed rather fancy, the boys were animals and soldiers).

Sophia & I flew to Germany for our winter break, where we visited my younger brother who attends university near Bremen, in northern Germany. I marveled at how COLD I felt. The weather was only slightly below freezing, but it was so wet, my toes felt cold for the first time in months.

Sophia loved Germany and seeing her uncle, of course, and we flew back to weather colder than -20 Celsius. January and February in Astana were, of course, extremely cold. It reached -40 more than once. School was only canceled once due to this. Apparently the parents complained when that happened, so it didn't happen again!

Our driver quit on one of those extremely cold mornings, which ended up being a sort of turning point for me, in how I feel about the cold. I took an extra half hour getting Sophia dressed, and when we got outside, she said, "It's not cold!" Well, I figured, if I can bundle her up so that she doesn't feel cold at -38, then I've done something right. We can handle this winter.

Of course, bundling up to that extreme isn't fun, and my fingers pretty quickly get so frozen that they feel as if they're burning, so we were very happy when March came along and the weather started to get warmer. By warm, I mean 0 to -10 Celsius. In this weather you don't need to have your gloves on before you leave the house; you don't need your thick Siberian-style hat; you don't even need long underwear. You can enjoy the snow.

Because Valerie, the other American, had quit, I now had an extra class to teach--5 hours a week of math to Valerie's former class. I also created more worksheets and tests for my grade 5 math class, and I started teaching phonics & reading to my 1st grade class, which requires a lot of work since we don't have phonics or reading books. I also spent January job-hunting. So January, February, and March were extremely busy.

I met a Kazakh woman at church who has a daughter Sophia's age, and we started hanging out in mid-January. We've gone ice skating and we now have a regular date for Saturday nights to go dancing at the Radisson hotel (where the Winter Charity Bazaar had been). A middle-aged French man teaches some basic ballroom dance steps to a large group of mostly beginners. We don't learn too much, due to the crowd, but we do learn some, and it's free, and it's fun. And our daughters have fun too.

When I was offered this job last summer, I asked one of my brothers if he would like to come stay with me in Astana, and he said, "Sure." The letter-of-invitation process took forever, and he finally arrived towards the end of February. It's been nice to have someone else around to help with the groceries and with Sophia, and he's been dragged dancing every Saturday, too.

Valerie's replacement finally arrived last week, from the Philippines. The Philippines summer vacation just started (guess it's not really a "summer" vacation), so she didn't have to leave a job in order to take this one, which is nice. She's never taught below 4th grade, and she's never taught math or science, and she's used to teaching well-behaved children who already know English, and now she's teaching 1st grade, English, math, and science to children who know very little English. Needless to say, it's a challenge!

Our spring break has just started--the weather is warmer, the snow is beautiful.... (Although, it's already started melting and that is not beautiful!) 2 1/2 months to go!