Posted by Theresa Knauss, Board Member
This weekend, right in the middle of Indiana, we hosted a total of about 275 people from the local community over three different times serving bauersok, cookies, candy, nuts, dried apricots, salads, fruit, meat and cheese, and the oh-so-necessary cucumber and tomato slices- all served with real Kazakh tea! It was a time of fun, food, and visiting and a great opportunity to share about Interlink's work in Kazakhstan.
A host of volunteers worked to make the atmosphere inviting and the food not only lovely to look at, but also good to eat! In fact, we had a mother and her teenage son enjoy the tea so much on Saturday evening that they asked if they could come and help in any way on Sunday! It was truly wonderful of them to get up early on Sunday morning and spend more than 5 hours cutting, serving, and cleaning!
Besides the last minute volunteers mentioned, we also had a number of others who came and joined the tables to pour tea and share from their experiences while visiting Kazakhstan; many of these also stayed to help with dishes and clean up! I found that the valuable lessons on flexibility gained while visiting Kazakhstan were clearly visible with each volunteer as they adapted to the need of the moment throughout the weekend.
For example, we were hopeful that we might get 25 people to show up for tea on Saturday evening and prepared likewise. Much to our surprise, we had closer to 75 come for a sip of Kazakh culture that first evening! Despite the scramble to get food on tables and then add more tables and put dishes and food on them, every volunteer met the challenge with a smile as they rolled up their sleeves and worked extra hard! We had to do some quick planning and re-calculating (not to mention an unexpected trip to buy more food!) to be prepared for the two teas scheduled for Sunday morning and noon, but all were so excited at the number of people and the high level of interest displayed by those who came that they did all that was necessary to be prepared.
It was really interesting to go through the room catching snippets of conversation at the various tables as folks shared about their experiences in Kazakhstan with eager listeners who seemed to ask a lot of really good questions!
I think everyone had a really good time and enjoyed the Kazakh tradition of lingering over tea while enjoying the company of those who shared the table. In fact, it was such a great success we may need to do it again sometime!!
