Tooting Her Horn

Museum of Musical Instruments

We visited the Museum of Musical Instruments a while back... and I'm just now blogging about it. Oops.

One of the first things we saw was this rock with petroglyphs (I think it's a recreation of the real petroglyphs found in Kazakhstan).
I love the Kazakh family in traditional costumes with various instruments.
Chris with some of the instruments...

These stone markers were placed around burial mounds and are found all over Kazakhstan.
For the high price of $4.00 we had a private concert. This woman played four different Kazakh instruments for us. I was able to get pictures of her while she held/played three of the instruments, which you can see below:

Here's that instrument being played (the video is dark so this is for listening, not viewing, purposes):

I'm pretty sure this is the song she played to protect Addie from the evil eye and bad spirits (again, this is for listening, not viewing, purposes):

After our private concert we finished our tour of the museum. Here's a quick look at the type of instruments we saw displayed:


This lovely instrument is made from an animal bladder.

Chris and Addie by the huge drum.
(In case you wondered how long it has taken me to get to this post, take another look at Addie. She was about four months old here...!!!)

More instruments...


The instruments in the two pictures below have some really cool woodcarving. If memory serves... the instrument that looks like a bow and arrow is a harp--Pretty cool.

There were a few woman working at the museum and they were all enthralled with Addie. We were told we needed to get a pin for Addie (with the evil eye bead on it) to protect her, and on our way out one of the ladies spit on her. And I mean she really spit on Addie (we promptly used our antibacterial stuff on her forehead and my hand). While she meant well, it was certainly gross.

The Evil Eye

After we moved to Almaty we noticed that people avoid looking at others and making eye contact. It took a little bit of time but we eventually realized that people avoided looking at us, and specifically Addie, not because they were cold and uncaring, but out of respect. Why would you purposefully not look at a child out of respect?? It all goes back to the Evil Eye.

And not this Evil Eye.



Many cultures have a belief in the evil eye and each is unique to country, culture, and people, but there are some shared or commonly held ideas regarding the evil eye. I can't say that I completely understand it, but I'll try and share what I do know.

The evil eye is a belief that if you look at something or someone--especially a baby--and admire it, compliment it, or covet it, it will be lost or harmed in some way. Most instances where the evil eye is "cast" are accidental, but wealth, health, good fortune, and happiness are believed to be lost nonetheless.

What's a girl to do with all this bad mojo going on??

In our area many people carry an amulet or wear beads with the blue eye on it. This design is often called a nazar. (If you follow the link it will show a picture.) These talismans are believed to protect the holder from the evil eye and we've seen little children wearing little bracelets or pins with the bead on them.

People will also "spit" after giving compliments, attention, or adoration. The spitting is usually just a "ptw, ptw" noise and gesture, but some people do get a little over zealous. Luckily, we haven't run into that type often.

Turning the Heat On

This is the control knob for our oven. In case it isn't very clear, the options for the heating elements in the oven are: 1-top & bottom, 2-bottom only, and 3-top only. Mastering the use of this oven is a work in progress. I continue to learn, experiment, and otherwise "walk" in the dark.

I would like to give an example of why working with such limited settings makes for a frustrating baking experience... Anytime you need to use the oven for more than 10-15 minutes you have to do something like this:

1-Put food in the oven
2-Turn on the oven
3-Set a timer for 10-20 minutes (it's your dinner on the line, you decide how daring you want to be)
4-When the timer goes off, check the food
5-Turn the oven off
6-Set a timer for 5-10 minutes
7-When the timer goes off, check the food (the residual heat in the oven continues the cookin' process)
8-Turn the oven on (both elements? just top? just bottom?)
9-Set a timer for 5-15 minutes (again, it's your dinner on the line, the longer the timer, the greater your chance for a charred delight)
10-When the timer goes off, check the food....

This process can go on and on: turning the oven on, then off, then on again. The more I cook/bake the same things the more experienced I get at using this awkwardly designed appliance. For instance, we have made brownies quite a few times and I have learned a few things:

• Preheat the oven (I know you probably already do this in the States, but I assure you, it is not always the way to go... especially when your oven has three settings)
• Don't preheat the oven too long (if you would like to define "too" in minutes, I'd appreciate it, it would probably help the next time I bake brownies)
• When you first put the brownies in the oven, only bake them for about 15 minutes-there should be a small peak in the middle, then turn the oven off
• Let the brownies sit in the hot oven until the peak is considerably bigger
• Unless the oven is too hot, then you will want to take the brownies out for a few minutes
• When you turn the oven back on only use both heating elements if the top isn't too dark
• Powdered sugar hides a scorched top

On Her Birthday

Chris wanted Addie to have a lot of candles on her cake, so we "wrote" the number 1. We walked in with the cake all lit up and then turned off the lights and this little girl wasn't really sure what was going on!

I happened to snap this picture which shows Chris' finger in movement. He was pointing at Addie and then the cake, while he told her the cake was for her:I think she caught on!
Waiting for that first piece to be brought...
I think this is what glee looks like:
Even though she smushed the cake through her fingers she managed to eat pretty much all of her piece. As you can see above, she did a great job of getting it everywhere--we're talking thighs, ears, hair...
What does one do after their first birthday cake? Max and relax, of course!
Just when she started to feel a little impatient and antsy...
We gave her a birthday bath, with bubbles afterward. What more could a one-year-old ask for?

Is She Really Walking?

This was shot just yesterday. Take a look for yourself:

(Finally, a video with good lighting!)

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is a small, mountainous country to the south of Kazakhstan. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz peoples are very similar. In fact, they were first really distinguished from one another during the Soviet times for political reasons. Perhaps the only significant historical difference is that, rather than being nomads of the steppe, the Kyrgyz are mountain nomads.

The road between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan has been repaved since Chris traveled it as a youth, but it is still a rather frightening drive. Why, you ask? Because of these Central Asian drivers! They like to make three lanes out of two, while driving roughly 60 mph, around curves and other road obstacles.

Once you get past the high-speed driving at oncoming vehicles, the three-hour drive to the capital, Bishkek, is really quite beautiful. Unfortunately, I had a lot of difficulty capturing that beauty in pictures.

We passed a number of little villages and saw a few different styles for small mosques as we drove. This is one:
On the side of the road we also saw lots of vendors. These vendors sold homemade kvas, kumis, and other Central Asian specialty drinks.

Pictured below is the "end" of the Almaty Tien Shan mountain range as we headed further West to Bishkek. Behind the clouds in the distance are more, snow-topped, mountains. These mountains are rather small in comparison to the mountains we saw as we first left the bus station in Almaty (which I was unable to photograph).
Addie "talking" on dad's cell phone in the back seat of our taxi. She "talks" on our cell phones, house phone, and imaginary phones a lot--which is funny because we really don't use our phones much at all.
This little girl's dream come true--two phones.
Once we arrived in Bishkek and got everything settled in our rented apartment (often, the economical route in Central Asia is to rent an apartment for a few days rather than stay in a hotel), we took a walk through one of the main parks and then checked out a museum.

Chris posing on the steps of the national history museum in front of the main square in Bishkek.
You were probably so distracted by checking out that handsome man that you didn't notice the beautiful mountains in the background, so here's a slightly closer look:
There are fountains on the side and in front of the museum in the main square, and it was a lot of fun to watch them being used for play! It's probably not very hygienic, but it is a pretty practical use of that water on a hot day (and it was certainly hot!).
After our cultural exposure we headed to TsUM for some shopping. Although Chris was the only one to make a purchase (he found the dvd section, 90% of which were less than $5 and none more than $7), I enjoyed browsing the low low prices for souvenirs. We stopped for dinner on our way back to our apartment and had one of the slowest meals of my life. Restaurant service in Bishkek left something to be desired for, that first night our entrees took over two hours to get to us. It was past Addie's bedtime when the salad came around, so we had quite the dining experience. The food was good, but not that good.

As we walked home we passed through main square and found quite the celebration with a mass of people gathering around the dancing fountain, as well as various military divisions standing at attention on the main street of the square. We weren't sure what was going on and couldn't think of a holiday they might have been celebrating, so Chris asked a woman standing near us. Apparently the party at the fountains (complete with music, popcorn, cotton candy, balloon, and toy vendors) is a held each evening 9-11 p.m. The military was present for a flag raising ceremony--the main flag pole on the square had some repairs done and the flag was being returned to it's place of honor.
We were a little unclear on why the flag-raising ceremony was being done after 9 p.m., but decided to miss the climactic moment of the raising of the flag, and headed home. We passed by the pole the next two days and never saw a flag on it, so I'm not sure what happened...
On Friday we went to the Osh Bazaar in Bishkek for souvenir shopping. Because the cultures are so similar, nearly all "Kazakh" souvenirs are imported from Kyrgyzstan, then tripled in price.

Before ending their mission in Central Asia, we were able to talk with the Vincents and learn that the worst day of Elder Vincent's mission had been spent at this bazaar going back and forth between booths as the group of women he was with attempted to find material at a competitive price. He literally spent the whole day going back and forth with this group. While Chris and Addie may have some similar feelings about their experience at the bazaar, our trip was just three hours. Chris was a champ and huge help as he kept Addie amused and used his Russian skills (language and experience) to do some bartering for me.

Later that afternoon we were able to make it back to... TsUM! Chris found another dvd and searched through the music sections again while I continued to browse the souvenirs. The TsUM building is six stories high, so we rode up a lot of escalators. This picture is very blurry, but captures one of Addie's frequent stroller positions, which I like to call "maxin' and relaxin'"
We again stopped for dinner on our way home, and although I didn't think it was possible, had even slower service than the night before. It took over two and a half hours to get a pizza. Addie fell asleep in her stroller on our walk home.

The next day Chris finished some last-minute study and then went to the U.S. embassy and took the Foreign Service Officer Test for the State Department. While Chris was off stretching his brain, Addie and I went to... (drumroll please)... TsUM! Needless to say, we had at least an extra suitcase worth of souvenirs by the time our stay in Bishkek ended.

Addie and I took an indirect path back to our apartment, stopping by this statue of the Soviet Woman:
I took this picture to try and show how huge this tree trunk was. It was nearly as wide as three strollers!


We saw a lot of roses in Bishkek, there were two huge plots of just roses in this area. My mom loves roses, so whenever I see them I think of her.
The museum with child-less fountains.I took Addie out at the next park we passed and let her walk around.



On our way back to Almaty we had a long wait after going through customs. People manage to go through customs a little more quickly than cars, so we sat waiting and watching for our taxi to come through.A donkey and its passengers wanted to come to Kazakhstan too.