Thanksgiving, Azerbaijan style

Happy belated Thanksgiving from Azerbaijan. Its sort of a weird phenomena to celebrate Thanksgiving outside of the US. This is a purely national holiday and, though some Azeris are familiar with this US holiday it is largely unheard of. We were minimally accommodated by Peace Corps, having language class in the morning and no afternoon classes, but maximally accommodated by one of the trainees' host family. They let 20 Americans take over their large kitchen and dining room for the evening.

Having been assimilating the Azeri culture for so long, we were almost aggressive in asserting our American-ness and preparing a feast. We had all the necessary elements-a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, wine, a control freak, massive cleanup. It was wonderful, like a little slice of America.

However, procuring these items was very Azerbaijan. The mashed potatoes for 20 people were all mashed by hand, with a fork. And in order not to be thought of as alcoholics, we purchased our bottles of wine across 5 stores in 2 different cities. But the best example of this was the turkey Matt brought. From day 1 of thanksgiving planning, Matt said he would be providing the turkey. And 25 manat later, Matt had purchased a good looking, fully alive turkey which he named Adolf in order to prevent any bonding issues.

On Sunday, I received a call from Matt stating that he was rushing home to kill the turkey. It was sick and his family told him he would need to kill it that day. Obviously I rushed over to Matts to ensure I could see this. Arriving at his house, Matt, Emily, and I saw a 'failure to thrive' turkey. It was lying in his box, looking up with eyes that said 'lets get this over with'.

The turkey was brought onto the lawn and, after Matt was shown how to restrain the bird, which was already still as a corpse, he was handed a knife and the international 'cut off his head' sign was made. Matt took a deep breath and started at it. The family was roaring with laughter and Emily and I couldn't help but laugh, whether out of nerves or absurdity. Matt is sawing away with a completely dull blade, akin to the knife my host mom uses to tear bread and spread butter, lamenting the complete inefficiency of it. After about 5 minutes the deed was done and after another 2 hours Matt's heart resumed its normal beat.