12th September

12^th September

“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct” Dune

I finished A call to Arms by Hemingway in 2 days, and while I liked it a lot, the similarities with The Winter of our Discontent were striking to me; similar main character (a quiet American male, fighting in a foreign war against Germans), similar subject matter (war, drinking wine) and a similar outcome (sad ending). I am now re-reading Dune by Frank Herbert, which is pretty much the only serious Science Fiction series I have ever read – Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf don’t count! I first read Dune when I was much younger, and I didn’t appreciate how well written it is! I will enjoy reading all the book (4 I think) that are in the series, even if I remember most of the subject matter.

Back from the wedding, and quite a trip it was! Due to the peculiarities of Kazakh bus travel, I spent 23 hours in total sitting down, within a 48hour period. If only I could read in cars, it would be alright, but alas, it just makes me travelsick.

Right, so, the wedding! I am not sure how an Islamic wedding ceremony is actually conducted, as the major event here is the party. We started with a big party at home at 2pm, many guests, and lots of beshbarmak (I think you remember my thoughts on that food). Then at 6pm, everyone piled into cars and drove to a restaurant (one of many) in Almaty that caters for wedding parties (similar to those in Japan), where there must have been 300 people, mostly extended family – I think my sister had 6 friends there, and the groom, only 2! We then proceeded to eat (beshbarmak again), dance and give toasts until 1am. The Kazakhs and their toasts, they go on forever! If I could understand what was being said it might help, but they really do drag.

Now, as my first host dad is very rich (apparently he is something to do with the government, but I still think he is a gangster!) there were a number of guest singers, who sang 1 or 2 songs and left. At least 2 of these I recognised from the TV here, so they must have been rather famous. It was all pop, of which I am not a fan, but was still pretty cool to have ‘celebrity’ singers there. Ill try and find out their names from my students, and look for Youtube videos for you.

I gave a toast that I butchered rather horribly. Speaking in front of so many people made me rather nervous, and I should have just read it, not tried to say it from my head. Oh well, still had fun! Which is more than can be said for the bus ride home, which took 13hours, 2 hours of which were spent stopped in a city halfway home, and another 30minutes the bus was checked by the ‘narco police’. Kazakhstan is a major route of heroin from Afghanistan - there are only Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan between us (both countries I plan on visiting!)- into Russia, and then Europe. Ganja also grows wild here, so there is a large, probably American funded ‘war on drugs’ here, and at least with the domestic population, it seems to be working. There is very little drug use (although a lot of alcoholism) especially seeing as ganja is free here! But with the large and rather fluid borders and large country, smuggling is a popular occupation.