People in Azerbaijan pride themselves in being very hospitable. This is true. 9 times out of 10 when I ask for the price of one piece of fruit in the bazar (here most food stuffs are sold by the kilo), I get that piece of fruit (or whatever it may be) for free. I get invited to people's houses almost every day, even people that I just meet on the street or in a store. It is so common to be invited over to someone's house that here in PC they have coined a verb for it: 'to go guesting' or 'to guest'. I remember when I first got to Azerbaijan I would always be confused whenever I heard the current PCV's talk about how much they go guesting, or about that one time they were guesting and something crazy happened.... It didn't take me too long to get used to the phrase and now its part of my everyday vocabulary here. I go guesting A LOT.
So yesterday was my host mom's birthday, and the family celebrated by having a dinner party (Azerbaijani style of course). I'm not going to mention how old my host mom is because that doesn't seem classy to me, but I WILL say that I couldn't believe how old she was when she said it. I would've guessed she was at least ten years younger than her actual age. She looks goooood! So anywho I pretty much went guesting at my own host family's house last night. Here's how it went down:
I was in my room (I live in the downstairs part of the house) and my host mom tells me to come upstairs because the guests have arrived. I put on some decent looking clothing (pj's probably would not be looked upon very well) and go upstairs and meet the three other couples who are already sitting around the table. I introduce myself, we start talking, etc etc. (Oh btw the dining table is set up in the living room and the tv is on for some background noise. Also: everyone is talking in Azerbaijani. Except for a few words here and there in Russian.) The table is full of food. There were at least 5 different types of salads, including my fav the çoban salatı (which is just cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, and sometimes onions). There's tons of bread, and a selection of homemade drinks. And then the real food starts coming out. My host mom made yarpaq dolması, levengi chicken, goyun & mal eti kebab, and just when I thought I was going to have to change out my jeans and into some spandex, she brings out the plov. I ate so much food last night I may have actually grown out of all my clothes here, just in that one sitting. So anywho everyone at the table was chatting up a storm, cracking jokes, just all around havin' a good ol' time, and every 5 minutes or so my host dad would lift his glass and make a toast in honor of his wife. It was so sweet!
Fast forward an hour or so of more eating, talking and drinking: its çay time. The men stayed at the table continuing to eat/talk/drink while the rest of us cleared our plates and made our way to the kitchen to start the tea. Here at the other dining table was a wonderful spread of fruits and deserts. I can never turn down sweets and tea, so of course I continued to NUSH on all the çay fixins. I had about four handfuls of walnuts, like 3 mandarins, some nar, two of those powdered sugar covered pastry rolls filled with hazlenuts, and a slice of delicious cake. And of course like five cups of tea. I was in food heaven. I sat next to my host mom, eating and observing everyone's conversations, of which I only understood about 50% (but I did make sure to at least chuckle when people laughed to make it seem like I knew what the H they were talking about...it's the polite thing to do!). Then my host brother who is in town on holiday from university pulled out his laptop and logged on to Facebook, so naturally we started looking at people's pictures online. Nothing like stuffing your face while simultaneously facebook-stalking distant family members...fun! (that's not sarcasm by the way)
Basically what I'm saying with this long-winded mostly unclear description of last night's 'guesting' is that it's not much different from hanging out with people in the states. Food, Drinks, Conversation, Jokes, Gossip, and Cake = every family get together I have ever been to. The only real differences are the languages spoken and the kinds of foods being eaten. Bottom line: Guesting is awesome.
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