(Written 9/07) Okay, you've waited long enough. I give you: "The Tale of the Feast that Involved Many Sheep Heads"
One evening I got back to my host family's house later than usual. On a typical day and with lots of luck I'm home by 6:00 or 6:30, usually just in time for dinner. On this particular evening I had stayed an hour and a half after our technical training to work on some extra assignments with our language instructor. So I finished the tutoring session, and after spending 11 hours at school, I'm finally home. As soon as I get inside and take my shoes off, my host mom tell's me that she has been waiting for me, and hopes I can help her carry some heavy bags. She says we're going to her oldest daughter's house to drop the bags off, and that it will take half an hour. I weigh the possible options, and because I'm trying to take the Peace Corps encouragement to integrate to heart, I figure it's no big deal to help my host mom out for half an hour. Integration comes first, dinner and homework can wait.
On the walk over my host mom explains that the bags are full of clothing for her daughter's husband's sister's neighbor (you follow?) whose house burned down two weeks ago. Now this woman has no home, so her neighbors are helping her get back on her feet. My host mom asks me if I think it's sad, and I agree, it is very sad their house burned down. It's very nice of my host mom to help. (These are the very deep, heartfelt things I'm able to say in Russian...). This is all happening as we're weaving through unlit and unpaved streets at 8:30pm. Every once in awhile we yell at the stray dogs that try to follow us, and every once in awhile my host mom calls the groups of teenagers hanging out on the streets hooligans.
After half an hour we arrive at my host mom's daughter's house. We take our shoes off on the porch, chat with the men in the backyard who are sitting around a bonfire, and go inside. As we step inside I quickly realize that we are not there just to drop the bags of clothing off. A low table in the living room is set for 12 and covered with various salads, bread, sweets, dried fruit, candy, and dishes. It has seemed, dear reader, that we had come not to drop clothing off, but to attend a feast. My host mom's oldest daughter, you see, is practicing Ramadan, meaning that do not consume anything during the day throughout the entire month of Ramadan, and must do all their eating and drinking after dark. I'm ushered into the living room, introduced to the guests there, and told to sit at the table.
Gradually everyone else joins the table, and my oldest host sister brings two giant dishes full of a noodles to the table. The dish is called beshbarmak and is considered the national dish of Kazakhstan. My host sister made all of the noodles by hand, and her family slaughtered the sheep that supplied to mutton for the dish. This is of course very overwhelming, but I figure I can handle some tasty noodles and a little bit of meat.
Next thing I know her husband and uncle have come in from what I thought was a simple bonfire each carrying a large dish of roasted mutton and a sheep head. The heads are passed to the head of the table (the place of honor) to the 87-year-old neighbor woman who picks up a paring knife and in no time at all begins carving the meat off the heads. The ears and tongues go first, and are passed down the table. I luckily avoided those delicacies, but ended up with quite a bit of face meat on my plate. My host sister's husband (who is generally amused by me and thinks vegetarianism is a hilarious notion) has sat down next to me and fills my plate with a few sheep ribs, more face meat, and some suspicious-looking sausage.
I'm not gonna lie, the dish was tasty. The handmade noodles were delicious and even the ribs and face meat weren't bad. There was no silverware at the table so everything was eaten by hand (it turns out Beshbarmak means "five fingers" and is named for the way it is eaten). Food was passed around and people ate until they could eat no more.
The table was cleared, the dishes were washed, and a large samovar and tea cups were brought out. Everyone lounged (literally) around the table and tea was passed around and sweets were brought out. Stories are told, people recall previous celebrations with other family members, and my host mom's youngest brother regales us with a tale about last New Year's when he consumed an entire samovar's worth of tea in one sitting.
I am now a big fan of Ramadan, and nightly Ramadan feasts, and Kazakh family gatherings. And I gained major street cred by eating that face meat.
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