Orozo Ait

On Thursday, October 11th Ramadan, or Orozo as it is called in Kyrgyz, officially ended. The following day, in this case Friday, October 12th, is called Orozo Ait. On Orozo Ait people celebrate the end of Ramadan with friends, family and lots of food. According to the Kyrgyz, on Orozo Ait you are supposed to go to seven different homes to celebrate (it’s like Thanksgiving times seven!). We were able to reach the requisite number of homes largely because Martin’s co-workers were kind enough to invite us to each of their homes for Orozo Ait. We started our “guest-ing” at noon.

We met Martin’s co-workers and walked to one woman’s mother’s house. Upon entering the dining room we started to get an idea of what we were in for that day. The table was covered with food. There were dishes of fruit (apples, pears, pomegranates, grapes), candy, salads and lots of bread. When we sat down we were served tea and salad. Knowing that we had to be at our next guesting in about an hour, we hoped we could just have some salad, bread and a little bit of the entrée and move on. Of course, that’s not what happened. As soon as we finished our salads a soup came out, followed by plov (a traditional Kyrgyz dish with rice, carrots and sheep meat). Our host played the komuz (a traditional Kyrgyz instrument—similar to the guitar, but much smaller) and we sang songs in Kyrgyz and English. Before heading off to our second guesting of the day our host insisted that every guest take a doggy bag of food—bread and plov in this case.

The next 6 guestings proceeded in similar fashion. We traveled from home to home with 4 of Martin’s co-workers. At each home we found ourselves sitting in front of a table covered with food. The main dishes varied a little bit from home to home (one of Martin’s colleagues prepared pizza for us!), but we definitely had more than our fair share of plov and tea that day. We also received a doggy bay of food from each home. It was like trick or treating, except no costumes were involved and we received more substantial treats. Our host mother was quite proud of us when she saw all of the food that we came home with that evening in our doggy bags.

At some homes the eldest man in the room recited an excerpt from the Koran before the meal was officially concluded. Once we left each house we can only imagine the work that those at the house went through to prepare for their next round of visitors.

We had a wonderful time participating in Orozo Ait. We were completely overwhelmed by the hospitality of the Kyrgyz people. They invited us into their homes, shared their traditions with us and made us feel like part of their family. We look forward to participating in Orozo Ait next year. Maybe this time we’ll do a little fasting of our own beforehand to prepare for the festivities.