Jana Jil! (Ashlee)

I have no idea how to spell it, but its "Jana Jil" ("New Year" in Kazakh)! Last night was the Health Department's New Year's party and, of course, Scott and I were in attendance. Mongolians, and Kazakhs for that matter, take their partying VERY seriously and insist upon making sure that everyone invited is in attendance and participating. If you're not, expect a lot of guilt trips the next day at work (like poor Scott; his work party was scheduled during the hectic mess of coming home from UB, so we missed it and he won't soon forget it!).

It started innocently enough, all the early birds (those that actually showed up around the indicated 6:00, rather than 45 minutes later...) were milling about, talking and shaking hands, catching up on work gossip. Scott and I were scoping out the huge spread and wondering how to get a seat next to one of the very few other English speakers.

Don't be confused by the Christmas-y decorations (even the ones that say "Merry Christmas!"), we were assured that they are Jana Jil decorations.

Most of the night consisted of alternating between sitting and eating the snacks artfully laid out for us (potato salad, various pickled vegetables - "salad", candies, fruit - dried and fresh!, and, of course, mayonnaise, just your basic Kazakh fare) and lots and lots of Kazakh dancing. If you have never been exposed to the fine art of Kazakh dancing, you are in for a treat because we have photos. It might start out all simple, like Mongolian circle dancing (i.e. everyone stands in a circle and the more drunk people gyrate in the center of the circle whilst trying to encourage their less drunk friends to do the same), but they have awesome dances where they wave their arms about, popping different poses and sway their necks in a very Middle Eastern-inspired way. Klara, one of my exuberant co-workers and English students, tried to give me a few lessons, but I mostly resorted to the "Jr. High Sway".

 

 

Now while this was all well and good, and Scott and I got in a few good photo-ops, we were ready to turn in after a few hours, but my counterparts were NOT having it! "You aren't leaving! You must eat the meat plate! Wait for the meat plate! You must dance first! We will play a game!" And while we didn't understand the game, and became wall flowers during most of the dancing, I did get to visit Santa (who gave me some Carrot-Raspberry-Apple juice and Russian sweets) and we did, of course, enjoy the meat plate. So ends another successful cultural experience!

 

Happy 2010 to all our fabulous readers - I hope your parties are as exciting as ours :)