This was an especially exciting week for me! This week the villages of Panfilov (my village) and Isik (a neighboring village) conducted site visits to help us get a better idea of what the life of a PCV is really like. I was sent to Aksukent, a small village (comprising of mostly Uzbek people) outside of Shymkent, in the south. I was sent there with a girl from Isik named Catherine and we were the lucky enough to follow the volunteer Echo around for three days. Most exciting time I’ve had in Kazakhstan since I got here. Let me explain.

To get from Almaty to Shymkent you have to take a 15 hour overnight train. Anyone who has ever studied abroad in Europe knows that this can be exciting, sketchy, awesome, and miserable all at the same time. The same holds true in Kazakhstan but personally I think that the people on the train are a lot more friendly and excited to talk to Americans. The train ride there went without a hitch and the next morning, Catherine and I were greeted by Echo at the train station and she took us to her apartment. A lot of Kazakhstan volunteers eventually move into their own places and it was a real treat to be able to go back to her place and just de-stress for a while. I love my host family, don’t get me wrong, but you have no idea how nice it is not to have to worry about not knowing the language or social faux pas. We spent an hour or two there chatting and hanging out and then it was time to go watch Echo teach at the local college (which has a different connotation then “college” in America). It was really cool to meet her students and we were asked some of the craziest questions: the most asked (and in their minds the most important) one being “are you married?” Catherine and I would always just awkwardly laugh and say no…to which all of these Kazakh or Uzbek girls would look at us as if we had just said that we like to take baths in piles of manure. To them being 22.5 years old and not married (and not looking to be married) is a completely foreign and unknown concept just like for us it is almost impossible to think that all of these girls will be married before they turn 20 years old.

That night we got to participate in the most exciting part of our trip: an Uzbek Wedding!!! Echo had called us a few days earlier asking if we wanted to go with her to a wedding and we had both responded with a hearty “YES”! I was so excited because I have felt that I haven’t gotten to participate in any really traditional practices and any kind of wedding or birthday party is the most sure fire way to fill up the culture tank. The wedding did not disappoint. It was so insane. It was held at a Kafe outside of town and when we got there there were a ton of cars parked outside and people everywhere. The music they were playing was SO LOUD. It was all traditional music set over a techno beat and accompanied by a subwoofer. They also had a singer who sang over the traditional-techno-subwoofed music–for me that was an odd sensation. The tables were laden with food. So. Much. Food. They had bread (naturally), a variety of meats–including HORSE meat, which is my new fave and is very very very tasty–deserts, drinks (lots of vodka and cognac), and everything under the sun.   We were also served soup and some kind of mashed potatoes with Kasha (like a ricey porridge) which was alright but I focused on other, more tasty things. They also had a group of dancers who would occasionally come out and dance…at first in very traditional clothes but as the night wore one they became more like belly dancers and wore a lot less clothes every time they danced. They ALSO had a group of three female singers who would take over for the male singer every so often. I’m telling you…this party was HUGE.

Weddings here have a different focus then in the States. In the States everything happens in one day and the focus is on vows and the love between the couple. Here in Kazakhstan its more about the family. The “wedding” ceremony consists of the bride and groom walking through the room and sitting down at the head table. That’s it. They are supposed to look as solemn and unhappy as possible (something that really confused Catherine and I till Echo explained. At first we thought that this was some sort of horrible arranged marriage because the bride looked like she wanted to cry the whole time) and no vows are exchanged between the couple. But once the couple is seated every single family member (usually in small groups, like all of the mothers, all of the fathers, all of the uncles etc) is supposed to give the new couple “wishes”–this is the focus of the wedding. It makes sense that in a more collective society that the family as a unit is more important then the couple as a new “individual”. After each toast the group dances and some other crazy unpredictable stuff happens and then the next group gets up to give wishes. This happens for TWO nights. In Kazakh culture (and Uzbek) there is a wedding for the wife and a wedding for the husband. Basically, each family pays for a night of celebration. We were invited back for the second night of partying but we were swamped from the first night that we had to refuse–even though we were asked constantly. We also managed to get a couple of marriage proposals ourselves out of the evening–though those mainly consisted of “I will take one of these girls if you life, which one should I take”. Not necessarily the most romantic of proposals but at least now I know that if I ever get desperate I can always come back to Kazakhstan and marry the cousin of a brother of a friend…or something like that.

The rest of the trip to Aksukent was equally awesome. One school that we visited put on a talent show for us involving all of the English students and even the head of the school was there. We were asked to introduce ourselves and the children were allowed to ask us questions (we were asked if we were married 3 times that visit) and then we were taken to lunch by the English teachers of the school. Awesome. They really want a volunteer there (Echo only does an English club there, I think) and I would love, love, love to work there. It is a Kazakh school, so I would be able to practice and use my Kazakh skills and the students are adorable. They also have an advance English class so I would be able to teach students who have natural skills at English and propel them to real opportunities to study in America. It really is my dream job.

All too quickly our time in Aksukent was over and we had to board another overnight train home. This one was pretty uneventful but in the morning I was grilled by these two old guys in my compartment. They were so nice and I thought that it was so funny because they would ask me a series of questions (in Kazakh mind you) and I would respond (again, in Kazakh. I’m really happy with my Kazakh skills right now) and then whenever someone would stick their head into our compartment these two old guys would start telling them every detail they knew about me. My story was probably told about 7 times in the span of an hour or two. There were also a couple of younger guys who I talked to (with the older guys) and they were super funny. None of them spoke English but they made me ask them a bunch of questions in Kazakh. Everyone was super happy that I didn’t speak Russian–only Kazakh. It was a fun morning and by the end of it I had one guys number and I had made a lot of Kazakh people really happy.

Yepp, just another week in Peace Corps