The Best Thanksgiving Ever!

Are my posts getting longer?? Enjoy!

Thanksgiving in Kyrgyzstan—what could be more of an adventure?? If that’s what we were looking for, we were not disappointed. From the perspective of 10:30pm, I’m so thankful for what was quite possibly one of the best days of my Peace Corps experience thus far.

The day began at 9:30am, when Matt, Michaela & Nick came over to my house to prepare food for our Thanksgiving feast-extravaganza at 6pm. We’d decided to be adventurous and try to cook for the first time in Kyrgyzstan, and prepare an American Thanksgiving meal for our host families. Kyrgyz don’t have Thanksgiving, but because our families have hosted Trainees in the past, they are familiar with the holiday, and decided to combine it with a going away “toy” (feast) for us.

We started by peeling potatoes (for mashed potatoes) and apples (for apple pie), as well as baking a pumpkin (for pumpkin pie, of course). It was quite a site to see the four of us crammed inside my family’s eating room, peeling potatoes and apples with knives. I don’t think my apa was quite confident that we knew what we were doing (and to be honest, neither were we!). But by lunchtime, our apple pie (for which Nick insisted on making a “lattice” top—what a beauty) and pumpkin pie were ready to be baked! We were limited to one small convection oven, so we started the pumpkin, and it only took a mere 3 hours to bake! Everything takes just a little bit longer in Kyrgyzstan…

We took a break for lunch, eating some fabulous food at our LCF’s house. Then we returned to our work, starting to slice bread for the stuffing and make patties for hamburgers! We opted not to do a turkey because we would have had to purchase it alive, kill it, pluck its feathers, etc. Hamburgers were much easier, and oh so damduu (tasty). Around 3pm, we had just finished the initial baking of the bread cubes for the stuffing, and were right on schedule putting the apple pie in the oven, when all of a sudden: CVET JOK!! English translation: no electricity. This happens every once in a while here, and the electricity has stayed off for anywhere from 2 minutes to 24 hours. But we couldn’t think of a worse time for the electricity to go out than right in the middle of Thanksgiving baking!

But we are Peace Corps Volunteers, meaning we are trained to be resourceful. After about an hour of wondering if the lights would come back on so we could continue as we’d planned, we decided to transition to plan B. The stuffing and the beautiful lattice-topped apple pie might have to be forgone for that night. But the potatoes had been boiled and mashed already, and we could still salvage the burgers… Matt and Michaela took the 8 pounds of meat to Matt’s house, where they fried the burgers over extreme heat (fire) by flashlight. Awesome job, guys! Around 5pm, the craziest thing happened, and wind started blowing so hard the house was shaking. The sky was grey, but there was no rain, just dust. I felt like I was right in the middle of the Wizard of Oz before Dorothy’s house blew away. It seemed unlikely that we’d be getting power back anytime soon in these conditions…

At 6pm, still, svet jok, so we started taking the food we had over to Michaela’s house by flashlight, were the toy would be held. On the second trip, we decided to take the stuffing, just in case the power came on and we could bake it at Michaela’s house. Just as we were about to leave—voila! Light! Oh, we were so excited! We put the apple pie in the convection oven at my house (because it was the only oven in the village that could hold this enormous pie), grabbed the stuffing, and hurried to Michaela’s, where we started baking it. Perfect! We were so excited that everything was working out!

We started eating around 7pm, with a demonstration for our apas of how to make a hamburger. The Kyrgyz love meat, so we think they were quite pleased with the burger idea, albeit a little confused as to why you had to put it between 2 slices of bread. After the hamburger first course, Matt and I had to leave to check on the apple pie. So we took the 10 minute walk to my house in the dark, and by this time in the rain… but it was all worth it when we arrived to behold the most beautiful apple pie we’d ever seen in our lives. This was Nick’s baby, and I was so thrilled at the perfect golden-brown lattice crust and the slightly bubbling apple juice around the edges. Yes, this was a great Thanksgiving.

Upon returning to Michaela’s, we ate more burgers, mashed potatoes (also quite a hit with the Kyrgyz people), and stuffing. I was so stuffed, and then our apas brought out the entire meal they’d prepared! We should have known, but we had no idea that was coming, and it totally caught us off guard. This time it was chicken, their own mashed potatoes, and buckwheat—normally a fantastic meal, but I couldn’t eat more than a few bites (partly also because I was trying to save at least a smidgen of room for the pies…)

And then it was finally time: the pies were cut and served. What would the verdict be? Would they be as tasty as they were gorgeous? Would our attempt to bake in Kyrgyzstan—with ingredients purchased at the local bazaar, in a language we still don’t quite understand—be successful? I took the first bite of the pumpkin pie, and it was just like heaven! Quite possibly the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had in my life! The apple was right up there as well. When I finished eating my 2 huge pieces, I really thought I might explode, and I didn’t want to move from my spot at the dinner table. I think we all felt the same way… but is there any other more appropriate way to feel after Thanksgiving dinner?

Today has been great. Cooking with my friends was so much fun, and overcoming the various obstacles of not having the proper cooking utensils and not having electricity was quite an adventure. Yes, we laughed a lot today. A more Kyrgyz American holiday, I’ve never experienced. As I look back on the day, I am completely satisfied. I’m happy to be here in Kyrgyzstan. I love it here. I love my friends in my language group; I love my village; I love my host family. Of course, I miss spending the holiday with my family back home, but I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to experience a Kyrgyz Thanksgiving—and quite a success it was.