Culture Shock and Thanksgiving

Well this last week was my first ever Thanksgiving without the family. Oddly enough, I had three to celebrate counting our joint thanksgiving in Baku with the embassy.
It was an interesting holiday, as I cooked for all my new friends the first unassisted thanksgiving meal. I ended up preparing the food in the dark for the last 35 min or so when the power went out. We had a lovely dinner by candlelight, and we all sat at the table. No, we didn't say what we were thankful for; as it was pretty obvious we were all just grateful to be able to celebrate at all. I made way too much food, but everyone was glad of it nonetheless.
Our second Thanksgiving dinner was provided for us by a local organization called Ganja Agro-Business Association. They were very kind by making us hot dogs, cold cuts, and turkey done kabab style. It was cute, and very funny. We ate outside in the cold November air, as the business didn't have space for so many people to eat inside. It was kind of them none the less to try to welcome us with some of out own traditions.
I did experience a bit of culture shock this weekend though, and I think it was due to the start of the holiday season and not being around my family. Yesterday, my host father had a client (he is the local veterinarian) with a Doberman puppy. He was asked to dock the ears so that they would point straight up. I thought it might be interesting to see a little of how it was done... however, I hadn't bargained on them doing the surgery without any anesthesia for the dog. I will never forget the sound of that poor dog crying. I wish I were able to speak enough language to ask them why they didn't put the dog to sleep to perform the procedure. The best I could muster was "why puppy isn't sleeping?" to which I was told, "too much sleep is bad." I am now a firm believer in cosmetic procedures for dogs as being cruelty to animals. Part of this gut reaction I'm having comes from the differences in the way animals are viewed here. In America, it is all too common to hear people equating their pets to the status of a child. Here, animals are viewed as food, and more often than not, too dirty to touch or have inside. They just don't think about animals the same way that we do. That is a difference I just have to recognize. I don't have to like it, or accept it, but recognizing the difference is key to understanding the culture.
My second culture shock came last night when I went to a performance of the local orchestra. My younger host sister "Nushu" (Sabina) plays the violin, and her teacher had a performance that she got free tickets to... so I was invited and accepted happily. I was not aware of the cultural differences in audience etiquette here. Everyone was talking during the performance, unwrapping bags of food, and making a lot of noise. I couldn't believe it! This is behavior that in America would get someone kicked out of a performance, and here these people are performing through babies crying, children fighting, elderly women with hacking coughs, women talking on their cell phones, and conversations going on everywhere. I felt so frustrated I just wanted to stand up and say "stop being rude! They are performing and I can't hear!" However, something told me that would quickly earn me the reputation of "crazy foreign girl" and chose to just sit quietly and try to enjoy the last of the performance.
December is almost here, and the weather is really getting cold in Ganja. Yesterday we had our first "scheduled" power and gas outage. We of course were not told ahead of time, but once it happened citywide we found out it would last about 7 hours. Needless to say it was very cold yesterday. Things are going all right, and I still find it hard to believe I've almost been here 6 months. Time seems to go so fast sometimes, and others so very very slow. I hope you all had a great thanksgiving as well, and I will do my best to let you know what is going on come Christmas.