Most exciting birthday ever!!!

Written by Jonathan on 9/3

Or at least the most unusual. The day started with lovely gifts from my parents: a kalpak (traditional Kyrgyz hat) and a nice sweater, since it is so cold in Kochkor (according to them). I went to class and everything as normal and nothing else too exciting happened until about 5 in the evening.
As it turns out, my host “cousin” (Ata’s brother’s son) will be married tomorrow and in celebration a cow was slaughtered. The party for the cow slaughtering is actually quite simple and functional. The idea reminded me of barn raising ceremonies back in the day. The reason people were invited was to help with the job at hand. The honored guests, the grandparents and yours truly, were exempt from any labor. Grandma and Grandpa were seated and I took a position closer to the cow who had just been removed from his pen. Warning: the next paragraph will be explicit and detailed. If you do not want to read it, please skip to the next paragraph.
The cow was tied around its head and 8 men surrounded it. They started tying rope around its feet and then on a single command, the cow’s head was jerked one way and the body pushed the other and it landed on its side. Two men on each set of legs tied the cow instantly and the head was placed on a block near a pre-dug hole in the ground. Once the cow was stabilized, two men grabbed the horns and another punctured the animal’s neck with a knife and ripped half way across the throat. The cow’s cry was nothing but a puff of air through a torn trachea. The butcher finished his slice across the throat and brought the head back to allow the blood to drain more quickly into the hole. The cow’s legs kicked for several seconds in vain, until the great beast lie dead. Occasionally, nerve endings would fire and different body parts would move, but only as an inconvenience to the killers. Once dead, the cow was wedged between two rocks and the butchering began. The skin was peeled off by the men quickly but with great precision. The sternum was broken and then unwanted intestines (including the largest stomach I ever want to see) were removed. The men quickly broke into two separate groups. Half remained with the carcass to remove the meat; the other half processed the meat further after removal. The women took the fat to wash it and brought buckets of water to help keep the areas clean. After enough meat was processed to feed the current company, the women began cooking. The entire process lasted just over 1 hour. Where there once was a cow, there was a cow no longer.
After the slaughter, the men sat around and drank and just talked. My Ata and uncle (the one whose son is getting married) had a few drinks and talked about the Army. The uncle was actually stationed in Alaska from 1980-82. He is a very nice guy. Anyway, then we ate and ate and ate. I thought I would never be so full in my life when we were finally permitted to go home. My most unusually birthday ended a little after midnight, with two Tums, two Advil, and a whole lot of beef in my belly.