I think the best way to get to know the local Culture is to get in touch with local people. Luckily, we found this map "Almaty Friendly Map" in our hotel:
There is a lot of useful information, and it is well designed and well organised with tips and icons in it for the newly travellers to use. We found the contact number of the creators of this map. Gaukhar and Olya. We immediately booked this tour during our stay in Almaty.
Gaukhar is a very efficient girl, she immediately replies our requests and managed everything done. So we can be just ready for the pick-up services from our hotel to the family.
We were picked up in a mini-van by Gaukhar, Oli, the family's host, Mr Orazgali (Oraz), and two of his kids. On the way to the house, we started to get to know each other. It was interesting to see how they reacted in the van, kids and father were singing some local pop songs, and those two boys were very interested in us, two foreign visitors to their house. As they don't speak Russian, they used very cute and shy way to play with me. We pulled over in a place where Oraz wanted to show us the guesthouse he is building around the area.
Oraz was very excited about his work and talked about the materials and the design, all made by himself, bricks by bricks. You can sense his passion about his work so much that he can talk about it for good.
Later, there was a lot of food waiting for us:
In the kitchen, Zhanar (Oraz's wife) was still preparing Plov (Uzbek style flavoured rice) for us (Unfortunately I have no photos here to share). Before the dinner was served, we had some entertainment there, one of the kid was performing songs there for all of us, and he was really into it with the tones of voice and the gestures to match the songs. :-)
I remember so well, and I can tell that in a Kazakh family, the father is the head chief, as his boys were so noisy and running around the area of the guesthouse, one word and a glance of Oraz can just make them both silent. However, Oraz is a very generous father full of love, applauses were always following after the performance of his little boy. During the supper, he showed his sense of humour by telling us a lot of jokes and used a very humorous way to show us how important the idea of family. He told us that a woman doesn't need to have pets, she needs to have a boyfriend to kiss, to hug, to take care, then the boyfriend takes care of the pets. Also, a couple doesn't need to have pets first either, they can just have kids to take care of, then let the kids play with the dogs. From all those small details he said, I can strongly sense his concept about the family and the importance to build a family in Kazakh Culture.
In the end, Zhanar prepared small gifts for us, some traditional Kazakh cap and headscarf for us. I think we received so much, and it's uncountable with any price we can pay for this wonderful supper. Oraz wished us to have a good life and have our own family. This bless made us feel so warm and so touching. They are so sincere and so genuine to us. All the talks, all the preparation, all the ideas exchange, everything was just a lesson we can never buy in life. I thank Oraz and Zhanar a lot for hosting us, and I thank Gaukhar and Olya for organising this wonder tour, it was definitely the highlight of this trip. Promise that we will send the family some souvenirs from Taiwan, and thank them so much for considering me always like your daughter-in-law. I wish I could stay in your guesthouse next time when I'm able to go to Almaty again. We wish you also have a good life and we treasure you so much for everything you provided us.
