Hello
everyone!
We have now
moved into the final and best month of the year. 2011 has been quite a
rollercoaster for me – from bouncing around in Berlin to staring in awe at
Astana, via Austria, Sri Lanka, India and various parts of the United Kingdom,
it has been a wonderful, exciting and fulfilling year. One more month to pack
in as much fun and adventure as possible before moving into 2012, and that is
something we manage to achieve successfully and regularly in Kazakhstan.
We are certainly
in the Christmas spirit here. Classrooms and houses are being decorated with
tinsel and lights, as well as more random elements such as ‘Santas on a rope’.
We have spent an evening singing Christmas carols whilst eating mince pies and
drinking mulled wine. We have even been to a Christmas bazaar in the Radisson
Hotel, which contained stalls from numerous countries including Britain, all
selling products that can be wrapped up and given to a loved one at this time
of year.
Kazakh fun fact: Considering all of that,
it is interesting that Christmas ‘doesn’t happen’ in Kazakhstan. Though the
city is decked to the nines with flashing lights and fully decorated trees,
they are all New Year decorations.
Being a
secular state with a Muslim majority, the Kazakh government seems to be trying
to balance the traditions of their people against the natural extravagance of
the capital city. In my opinion, they seem to have steered the country towards
the rampant commercialism commonly associated with the modern Christmas. How
they can claim that pictures of Father Christmas actually show Grandpa Frost,
who delivers presents at New Year, is simply beyond my realms of intellect.
Still, I love this time of year, so am happy to play along.
Carl has now
flown the nest and returned home. It was wonderful to see him and spend some
quality time with him, particularly on the final night when we braved the cold
to see the illuminated Christmas – sorry, New Year – decorations in the
business district. Any more visitors are more than welcome!
As well as
being Advent, this is a very special month for Kazakhstan. Independence Day is
on December 16 – guess I have to share my birthday with something – and this
year is the 20th year of Kazakh liberation from the Soviet and CIS
state. Celebrations are sure to be grand, and the importance of the occasion is
being drummed into our children at school. We took the Year 6 classes on the
first ever Haileybury Astana School trip to two Kazakh museums on the Wednesday.
The museums, particularly the Museum of the First President, were very
interesting, and I will visit them in my own time at a later date to be able to
truly appreciate the artefacts and memorabilia inside.
On the
Saturday we participated in a football tournament, competing against various
other expatriate teams. We knew a few people from the other teams, so the
camaraderie and banter was good. We topped our group but then lost in the
semi-finals – (majority) English team loses to German team in semi-final of
football competition shocker. It was a lot of fun, though it took my legs the
best part of a week to recover.
Later that
day our flat hosted the first, hopefully annual, Decemberfest. We have created
this event due to the volume of birthdays for people from our school that occur
in this month. It’s almost in double figures, a ridiculous number. The house
was thus decorated for birthdays as well as Christmas, though the decorations
obviously lent themselves to the latter theme.
The one
random element that was introduced was my decision to make eggnog. It normally
takes between five and eight hours to create, but we didn’t have time for that,
so opted to create eggnog using a cocktail bar recipe. It actually turned out
very well, tasting like Kahlua.
Decemberfest
was a rip-roaring success at the end of what has been yet another busy,
action-packed week in Astana. As you can see, we’re ending the year in the same
fashion that it has progressed – with buckets of fun and a lot of adventure.
Love you all
Matt
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