My Birthday or, “I don’t understand why its so funny that your house could have burnt down.”

With regard to the other Kaz 20 OCAP’s, I am in the unique position of being one of the first to celebrate my birthday while at site. To everyone who called, wrote, SMSed from Kazakhstan, the US, and points beyond to wish me a happy birthday, I thank you. It really means a lot to me. Although my Kazakhstan birthday celebration was great, it almost didn’t happen.

The morning of my birthday, I woke up to a loud bang. I ran out of my room to find the печка on fire. For those who do not know, a печка (pronounced “petch-ka”) is a coal burning stove that is used to heat many homes in small towns and rural areas. I think it is an interesting device: coal is placed in the bottom, and the heat spreads through pipes to heat the home.

However, nobody told me what to do if the печка was on fire. I panicked because as the only one home at the time I’d have a lot to account for if my host family’s house was burned to the ground. So, I did the one thing that made sense to me if I saw a massive fire burning in a house: I put it out. I ran to the kitchen, snatched a pot of hot water and a thermos of chai and dumped them on the печка. Smoke and steam billowed out of the печка and I ran to open the windows, only to remember that my host brother and I placed plastic sealant on the windows the week before to help insulate the house from the coming winter. I settled for opening the front door while calling my host mom and frantically explaining in broken Russian that her печка was broken. She then called a friend, who came over and after inspecting the печка, proclaimed everything “Normalla!” and told me to go to work. (Although I still think that a semi-large fire inside of a house is not “Normalla!”)

The happy ending to this story is that everything was ok except the house reeked of smoke for a day. Later, I learned that every once in awhile, gas builds up in the печка, and it can be discharged with a small explosion that blows open all of the vents on the side of the печка . The system of heat going up through the pipes is reversed by the vents, which blows the flames back out through the печка. To make the flames subside, I should have simply closed the vents.

Everyone thought it was a very funny thing because it happens fairly often. My director thought it was hilarious, and laughed about it for about half an hour. My host mother tells everyone who she introduces me to about the story. It’s become quite the joke in Karabulak, and it is kind of funny…and better than the alternative.

Due to my poor language skills and newness to the community, my host family helped me with my birthday. Usually in Kazakhstan, the person who is celebrating the birthday cooks all of the food for their guests. I can cook (but not well enough for a lot of people), and my host mom and sister helped. Or, more like I helped them, because they knew what was going on. I cut a lot of vegetables and dumped a lot of oil and mayonnaise on things. I don’t know the names of everything we cooked except there was a lot of it, and it tasted very good.

Later, my host family’s extended family and friends came over. There were lots of toasts that I couldn’t understand (I know there were toasts to the health of my family, the Green Eyed Lady, my friends, and perhaps my future children, but I’m still not sure about this), but it was very nice.

And, the cake was the best that I’ve had in Kazakhstan so far.