Beach Picnic... Kyrgyz Style!

Saturday was an all-day (and I do mean all day) picnic for all employees, and it was so much fun! We were supposed to be at the office Saturday morning at 6:45 a.m. sharp. But I've been dying to talk to my Heidi girl and my sweet Walton, so I was there by 6 a.m. so that I could Skype them. I had been soooo afraid of oversleeping that I woke at 4 a.m. and finally just got up at 4:40. So it was an early start. Well, I did not know that it's apparently perfectly fine--expected even--to be about 15 minutes late. So at 7 a.m. most of my coworkers are trickling in, and many still had not arrived. At 7:35 we piled into a big bus and hit the road....for about 2 mintues until we pulled into a gas station and filled up the bus. Then we hit the road...for less than 2 minutes and stopped at a small store for everyone to pile out and get snacks. Ah, ha. Another new thing to learn about this culture is that it's more laid back about timing and schedules (at least for trips) than what I'm used to. :) With stops about every hour for snacks and leg stretching, it was a 4-hour drive to Balakchy, about an hour longer than what I'd been told, but I think people prefer to estimate according to best-case scenarios.

When we arrived at Lake Issyk-Kul near Balakchy, guess what??? The picnic area was already set up and that Kyrgyz band that played in the folk music concert in Bishkek was there and playing for us!! Mercy Corps had hired them to be there for the first part of the day to play music, and it was so great!!

This picnic area was awesome: a looooong skinny area covered with plastic (like shower curtain liners) in the middle and all around the edge was rough blankets like saddle blankets and long thin quilted cushions on top of that. We pulled off our shoes and sat on the cushioned area with food on shared platters and shared bowls in the middle. We each had plastic forks and spoons (grabbed from piles in the center area) and plastic disposable shallow bowls into which we scooped food from the center platters. At first there were tiny, tart local apples; salad of delicious tomatoes, cucumbers, buttermilk, and dill; 2 kinds of bread; and little local fish from Lake Issyk-Kul. I ate lots of the salad and some apples but had to pass on the fish. They were cooked of course but whole, and you pinched off the head and tore them open along the back, pulled out the spine and bones and then peeled the skin away from the meat. I wasn't going to try it, but one of other picnickers encouraged me to and handed me one. I only got as far as pinching the head off... I can't eat sardines either, just not a big fan of the entire fish.

Our main dish for lunch was chicken with potatoes, and it was so delicious! For dinner we had plov, a national dish of fatty meat (for flavor), rice and carrots. The plov is pictured below.

They also slaughtered a sheep at the very beginning of the festivities. Sheep head and other parts are a Kyrgyz delicacy, and the last food that was served before we went home was platters of sheep cheek, heart, stomach, ear, esophagus, etc. garnished with big wedges of raw onion. It was not the most enticing meal to me, but it is a tradition that I was glad to see, and you could tell that everyone really enjoyed it.

Everyone had been telling me how beautiful Issyk-Kul is, that it is the pearl of Central Asia, and I wondered, “Can it really be that great?” Well, it can. It was so pretty where we were, and I was told that there are even more beautiful places around Issyk-Kul. The lake was enormous! It was so big that you couldn’t see the opposite shore or the shores on either side; it looked a little like the ocean in that you couldn’t see the end of it. It even lapped with the wind, but not with big waves like the ocean. For such a cool day, the water was surprisingly warm, and it was clean and clear and pretty.

All day we entertained ourselves with football (i.e., soccer), dancing to the folk music, talking in groups, swimming (yes! even in the cold!), singing, playing games, and much drinking of vodka. (Whew, it got to be a little hard to refuse some of the toasts and well wishers pushing the vodka, so I got to the point of sipping and spitting back, sipping and spitting back into my glass. I also surreptitiously poured it out sometimes). The whole day was really great though. I was welcomed over to the group who was singing, and they asked me to sing a song. Of course I went blank. Then I sang the first verse of “Iowa” by Dar Williams, and they were silent the whole time I sang and then cheered loudly when I was done. It was great. I also danced with the group encircling the folk singers, and that was fun, too. I even joined the circle of people bopping the volleyball to each other. Most of them were as bad as I, so I felt very comfortable. Of course, I swam in Lake Issyk-Kul, since it was my first time there. I didn’t get my hair wet because I pinned it up and swam with my head above the water the whole time. That was loads of fun.

At the end of the day, we piled back on the bus, completely exhausted. It was after midnight by the time we finally pulled up to the office, and all I wanted in life was a shower and clean bed. I didn’t go to church with Nargiz the next day but instead slept until 11:30! Wow, I was tired. When I got up Sunday, I just piddled around the apartment, reading a book, watching National Geographic (one of three English channels), and doing a few floor exercises. In the evening, I walked up to work and Skyped with Heidi and Tony. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.