The Toi, Aug 9 (or thereabout)

We must have done something right when we were helping out with the houses in Barskoon, because the villagers decided to throw us one of the legendary "Toi" parties. Well, that is not entirely true, there was also the fact that Nick and Val were celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary, and there was something about them paying for at least part of it. So, credits where credits are due for this wonderful experience:

• Nick and Val for having the good taste to get married exactly a year ago, and to have the even better taste to feel that they needed to celebrate it!
• Zauresh and the rest of the Barskoon Habitat committee for arranging everything for us.

A "toi" is this inherently Kyrghyz party, something that most visitors to Kyrghyzstan never gets the chance to experience. It is definitely not something that you buy at a restaurant in Bishkek, or anywhere else for that matter. It is a dinner (although to be honest not that good :-)), but it is much more than that, it is most of all a cultural experience.

For us it became a weird mixture of something entirely different and strange (like eating truly weird body parts), surprisingly familiar (kids games like pass-the-egg), and a heartfelt thanks and goodbye from our host families, the house owners, and all the other people we got to know while in Barskoon.

The place for the Toi was right where it was supposed to be: up in the mountains. In this case more or less at the foot of the famous Barskoon waterfalls. Legend has it that Yurij Gagarin himself saw observed the waterfalls as he was shooting out in space from the Soviet base in neighbouring Kazakhstan during the first mission to space, and he liked them so much that he first commented on them while talking to the command center, and later came back here. I don't know how true it is, but there is at least a big bust of him up here in space suit and all!

The perfect place would have been a jailoo of course, but since there are none within a reasonable distance of Barskoon, we had to make do with this place, which was close enough. We did have a yurt, and I don't think we missed the hundres of sheep that much :-)

Talking about sheep, they are a central part of the whole Toi. A Toi always starts with a ritual slaughter of one or more sheep, and our did too of course. Not everyone took to well to the whole thing (I seem to recall having to hold Monica up), but to me it was great. "We" said a prayer over the sheep, thanking them for letting them be slaughtered for us, and after that their throats were slit. It all looked quite painless to me, but what do I know? I'm sure that they both lived and died a better life than most of the animals in Sweden, so I'm happy enough about that. (Yeah Linnéa, that is a defence towards you! :-))

After that, the sheep were skinned, and the sheep and the rest of the food was prepared by some of the villagers, while the rest of us was free to do whatever we wanted. For some obscure reason, what followed reminded me very much of the Swedish celebration when we throw out the Christmas tree! There were a lot of games, some seemed Kyrghyz, and others were definitely more western in style.

• A running contest, which seemed to be taken seriously by the Kyrghyz, supposed to be an important tradition. Which meant that the Habitat teams took it easy and let the locals win... Have to say though that the main part was definitely the kids contest where everyone had a great time!
• Passing an apricot from cheek to cheek in a long line. I seem to recall us winning that one.
• Passing a bottle between peoples thighs in a long line. The last two felt definitely western in style, despite the bottle game being suggested by our hosts, and I was a bit surprised that no one was taking offense... I think we did it two times and each side won one each.
• Shoving an egg up one pant leg and down the other. Now, if that wasn't crossing the line, I don't know what was. The clear winner was Monica - I had no idea she was that good at working strange men's pants! :-)
• Tug-of-war, where us guys won, and the women disgraced us by loosing. :-)
• Move-the-matchbox, a game I cannot even begin to describe (but look at the pictures), with me and Monica once and for all proving we have the best hip movements in the business!
• Horse-fight, where I (as the horse) and Monica (as the knight) desperately tried to defend the Habitat colors against a nation of horse people!
• Some weird running-and-hunting game, where my competition instinct made me run so hard that I slipped and ruined my pants. :-(

Compared to this, the dinner itself was a very relaxed and quiet time, and some of us had problems getting our adrenaline levels back down to normal (I was definitely one of them!). We were just lucky I guess that someone had forbidden vodka for the dinner, otherwise things might have gotten terribly wrong.

Just kidding though - to be honest I was a little bit disappointed - I've heard so much about how Kyrghyz parties get out of hand when vodka is involved that I looked forward to experience it firsthand, but no such luck. I don't even remember why we had that rule anymore, probably a Habitat thing or something - it is a Christian organization after all.

The dinner started normally enough, with some cold snacks and sallads like most other dinners in this country (although both the sausages and the cheese seemed better than normal). We also took the opportunity to celebrate Nick and Val officially, with champagne and everything. They had been hiding out in their own yurt (and we don't want to know what happened there! :-)) for some time, but joined us for dinner again.

And then the core part of the toi started! After the ritual killing of the sheep, the whole preparation of the animal is also covered by a multitude of rituals, of which I don't understand much. But once you get to the table, there are a few things you need to know.

For one thing, the guest of honor has a few...let's say "special" duties that he needs to attend to, all having to do with the sheeps head, such as:

• Cutting off parts of the cheek and making sure that everone gets some.
• Cutting off parts of the palate (the roof of the mouth) and give it to either someone already artistic or someone who needs to improve in that area - I forget which. But since I got a piece it must mean that you should give it to someone who needs improvement! Now I just need to explain why obviously artistically Lynn got the major part...
• Cutting off the ear and giving them to the young that you want to listen to you.
• Cutting out the eyes (which is a much more delicate procedure than you think, since it involves cutting the optical nerve from behind) and giving them to someone special that you want to look out for you in the future.
• And finally splitting the skull in two, and mixing the brain with meat from the legs and pasta to make Besh-Barmak (Five-Fingers) for everyone.

We knew that we would have two sheep, and Nick would obviously be one of the honored guests (sorry Val, but in this country...), so we had a discussion about who the other one would be. I was pretty much the only one that didn't think the whoile thing was disgusting as hell, so the honour went to me, but I was disappointed to learn that only one of the heads made it to the table! I still don't know what happened to the other one, so maybe it's ghost is still roaming the hills of Barskoon?

Nick was nice enough to let me have one of "his" eyes though, so at least I got to try everything out, except the ears. The cheek and the roof of the mouth was nothing strange at all, and the eye was just like a big piece of fat. The brain however wasn't that great. I know a lot of my friends only took "fake" besh-barmak without the brain, and it was probably just as well...

During the whole dinner, we were entertained by some of the locals, singing songs, playing weird instruments and dancing for us - I'm still not sure if it had any ritualistic meaning or if it was "only" entertainment, but it was great fun!

As the dinner wound to a close, is where I am a little disappointed that the vodka was not with us, because with it, I am sure that the fun would have continued all night, but as it was everything just kinda fizzled out as we packed up everything and went back to the village.

Nonetheless, I had a great day at the Toi.
Sometimes I wish that I had joined the others to hike up to the waterfall, but instead I had a great time just hanging with Monica, and that more than made up for it!
Sometimes I missed some of the rituals that I thought would dominate the whole thing more, but that was more than made up for by the lovely family-style experience that we had.

And sometimes I did miss the vodka, but that was made up for by Nick's "secret bottle" - cheers Nick, and happy second anniversary in advance to you and Val!