10

Another weekend spent at my host cousin’s village, but this time the whole family (almost) were there together; host mother/sister/baby, host aunt/uncle/3 brothers, host uncle/wife/two kid, and grandma. It was a busy Sunday.

Speaking of which, I was woken up at 8.30am by a 5.5 strength earthquake, which went on for almost 8 seconds. It was certainly bigger than anything I felt in Japan. And was certainly exciting, only let down by the fact that I had gone to bed a 6am! An evening/night/morning spent out with my host cousin at a friend’s birthday. It was my first experience of a Kazakh birthday party, and everything that it entails, and was certainly an eye opener. It started out at a café in town, with dinner, followed by dancing, at the same café. The whole time, toasts (and therefore vodka shots) were happening with worrying regularity. After a good number of hours of dancing, with the initial group of 20 or so changing a few faces, there was fight outside. I didn’t get to experience this, as the girls, who had all stayed inside when the men rushed out, suggested I stay inside and keep them safe. So while I missed all the “fun”, I also missed out on the broken noses (at least two), ripped shirt (at least 5), and a limp (about 6 of them). I also lost a few macho points (called “Ponti” in Russian), but think I came out of it better. On a roll, I continued to loose points, when I declined to do vodka shots at 5am. My excuses of, well, anything I could think of, just barely worked.

The upshot of this was that I was able to be woken up (maybe not a positive?) by the earthquake, while my cousin slept solidly until 2pm. I then spent the rest of the day, between babysitting all the kids, up in the mountains, enjoying the wild flowers, and gate crashing a local BBQ. Quite a productive day.

I wrote a small (and rude) Haiku during the drive home about the earthquake.

Shaken awake by the gods.

Not enough sleep.

The bastards