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Sufism and Oral Tradition
Jan. 7th, 2005 06:54 pmIts been a busy day. After my lesson this morning I went with Malika opa to go to Komila opa's birthday party, which is basically a special version of a "gap" or ladies' gathering.
It was entertaining and exhausting and there was altogether far too much mayonnaise to be had again. I made the mistake of trying to refuse some pickled beets because it Malika opa pushing them on me. I think I got a double portion because of it. She looked at me as she was scooping spoon after spoon of it onto my plate and said "you don't have to like it, it's useful for your organism!"
My organism is very very tired of beets and mayonnaise, I don't care how useful they are.
It was very neat to hear a bunch of ladies trading stories who had all been at the conservatory together 20 years ago. There were a couple of really gregarious story tellers in the bunch, and one woman showed up who went back to Namangan after graduating and who many people hadn't seen for 20 years. Surprisingly, there wasn't any music to be had at this gathering, I think maybe there was noone to call to play for people since all the performers were there to hang out and celebrate the birthday. Plus I imagine if performing had broken out that there would have been a lot of competition and jockeying for position. Heck the jockeying for position at the table was scary and competative enough (the honor of sitting furthest from the door is reserved for the most respected guest, but these folks have all known each other for ages and so every new person who arrived was badger further and further up the hierarchy). The other odd competition was who would say the blessing/prayer whenever someone new arrived. Malika opa actually had to say quite a few of them, I think because she got stuck at the head of the table with me, the foreigner, i.e. the trump card of all honored guests. Ironically the birthday girl was also the host, so she had to sit closest to the door to jump up and do the serving - this is quite normal.
I had errands to run because I got harrangued into proctoring the TOEFL tomorrow morning, so I left after the soup course (gaps usually include a somsa course, a soup course and a main dish course). Because of this, Komila opa came into the coat room bearing a plate of norin (horse meat and homemade noodles) and made me eat a bite and complementing it before folding rest into a non and putting it in a plastic bag for me to take home.
So tomorrow at 8:30 I get to be the evil test proctor....I really don't think that cheaters here will have anything more sinister than what I've seen at UCLA, so I'm not too worried.
And finally, here's some more fieldnotes for posterity ( Read more... )
It was entertaining and exhausting and there was altogether far too much mayonnaise to be had again. I made the mistake of trying to refuse some pickled beets because it Malika opa pushing them on me. I think I got a double portion because of it. She looked at me as she was scooping spoon after spoon of it onto my plate and said "you don't have to like it, it's useful for your organism!"
My organism is very very tired of beets and mayonnaise, I don't care how useful they are.
It was very neat to hear a bunch of ladies trading stories who had all been at the conservatory together 20 years ago. There were a couple of really gregarious story tellers in the bunch, and one woman showed up who went back to Namangan after graduating and who many people hadn't seen for 20 years. Surprisingly, there wasn't any music to be had at this gathering, I think maybe there was noone to call to play for people since all the performers were there to hang out and celebrate the birthday. Plus I imagine if performing had broken out that there would have been a lot of competition and jockeying for position. Heck the jockeying for position at the table was scary and competative enough (the honor of sitting furthest from the door is reserved for the most respected guest, but these folks have all known each other for ages and so every new person who arrived was badger further and further up the hierarchy). The other odd competition was who would say the blessing/prayer whenever someone new arrived. Malika opa actually had to say quite a few of them, I think because she got stuck at the head of the table with me, the foreigner, i.e. the trump card of all honored guests. Ironically the birthday girl was also the host, so she had to sit closest to the door to jump up and do the serving - this is quite normal.
I had errands to run because I got harrangued into proctoring the TOEFL tomorrow morning, so I left after the soup course (gaps usually include a somsa course, a soup course and a main dish course). Because of this, Komila opa came into the coat room bearing a plate of norin (horse meat and homemade noodles) and made me eat a bite and complementing it before folding rest into a non and putting it in a plastic bag for me to take home.
So tomorrow at 8:30 I get to be the evil test proctor....I really don't think that cheaters here will have anything more sinister than what I've seen at UCLA, so I'm not too worried.
And finally, here's some more fieldnotes for posterity ( Read more... )
