Slichus in Kazakhstan, Part III

Since it has now been a more than a month since I returned from Kazakhstan, and several weeks since I updated this story, I would like to give a disclaimer that the following story may be missing some details...
The next morning, the 13th of Nissan, after davening and a short breakfast, we headed over to the Chesed (local jewish community) center at 9 AM. There, we made a had to casher a few large pots, one which we would then use to kasher all the other utensils. This we accomplished with a blow torch. The process requires that the metal should reach a heat that if one put a piece of straw on the metal at that moment, in would singe and burn. For these utenstils (a couple of pots, some knives, and some other kitchen items), it meant passing the flame over the a spot several times for a few seconds, and covering the whole surface like this inside, outside, and on the bottom as well. After that, we had to casher the cook top. This means cleaning the actual top of the stove, covering it with tin foil, and then bringing all of the burner components (including the grate) to a very high level of heat. For most of them, we can achieve this just be running the flame on high for an space of time, however, the grates need to have the heat directly applied, and this we also did with the blowtorch. Because, however, the grates come into contact with food when they are red hot (from the gas flame), therefore to casher one must also get them red hot. This mean holding the blowtorch over a section of the burner for several minutes. Eventually I recognized that when the enamel covering began to melt away, that we had reached the desired temperatures. This took nearly a full hour to do two grates (covering 4 burners). At this point we reassembled the stove, put a large pot full of water on and boiled it. This achieved two purposes: (1) to casher the burner components (as mentioned above), (2) we would use the boiling water to casher the eating utensils (forks, knives, and spoons), which only touch food which has already been removed from the fire, and therefore require less heat to casher. During all of this time we were covering up the various surfaces in the kitchen and also koshering the metal sink with the blow torch. We even used the cashering method known as "pouring" where we pour boiling water on a surface and then pass the flame over the water; this is effective for countertops and the like. Because of the stringencies assosciated with Passover, we even had to cover to surfaces that we cashered. Between various other errands, involved with shopping and planning the seder, this day was also very busy and we went home exhausted around 6 PM.
The night of the 14th of Nissan (the night before Erev Pesach) we perform the important mitzvah of bedikas hometz, or searching for the hometz (anything leavened is called "hometz" in hebrew). This meant first cleaning our apartment, and then, according to the ChaBaD custom, hiding ten small pieces of hametz (corresponding to the ten faculties of the soul) around the house, and then looking for them by candle light. When we "find" some hometz, we sweep it into a paper bag with a feather, and after we have found all ten, we wrap the bag (with the hometz inside) and the feather around the wooden spoon. Then we put this aside until the following morning when we will burn this hometz, and sell all the rest we have in our possesion, completing the purging of all our hometz. The night was spent going over the order of the Pesach seder.
The activities involving our hometz occupied us until around 11 the next morning, and in the meantime the members of Chesed began cooking their meal. This went on with little drama, except that one of the women decided to bring her own knife to gut the fish, which unfortunately led to the tossing out of one non-kosher fish. We put up our two chickens (that we brought from Almaty, where the butcher is) to boil; this would be all our food for the next 4 days; and then left the rest of the staff there to do their own work preparing for the meal, with our supervision. Around 5 o'clock or so we headed back to the marketplace to pick up some last minute items for the seder (matzah bags, etc), and then back our flat to prepare for the seder. However, for a moment things appeared in risk because someone had parked us in at the market. Sunset was approaching, so I quickly pulled out my Book of Tehillim (psalms) and said a few chapters, and right behind us the owner of this car that had parked us in showed up and let us out. After a showering, changing, and davening mincha, we headed over to the restaurant arund 6:30 matzas, wine, chicken, and the rest of our seder plate ingrediants, in hand. [These ingredients were: hard-boiled eggs, roasted chicken necks, chrain (horseradish, one of the ladies as G-d's providence would have it, grew just enough in her garden for me and Nachman!), lettuce leaves, and charoset (apples and nuts, no wine in ChaBaD custom)] Before I left the apartment, I realized that had drunken almost no water in the previous two days, and that I felt a bit lightheaded. I chugged a liter of water and then headed off.
When we arrived at the restaurant, we checked out the scene: the children were preparing to perform a play that they had staged for the event, but Nachman had to explain to them that they could not use a CD player, because the holiday was starting and holidays are just like shabbos. The play was not very modest and so I stayed in the back trying to review a little bit before the seder, however, I could not concentrate and my head was starting to throb. A young boy from London who grew up in Almaty and Teraz (the grandson of the old Yiddishe lady, who wanted to slaughter a sheep in honor of the Pesach offering, even as we explained the difficulties in kosher slaughter, etc), came and spoke to us for a little while; he pointed out that my face as very pale. A journalist came to interview us and Nachman, did most of the talking, I said I came from Brooklyn, I think that it was they wanted to hear... After sunset we davened Maariv (evening prayers), and as I went outside to set up, the 50 or so guests began to applaud. At this point, I realized that me and then had very different expectations of what this seder would be, and this made me quite nervous. Even object I put on the seder plate was like a new character entering the stage, required more applause. The staff told us that they were having trouble pouring the grape juice for everybody and that would need to stall abit, although it was already approaching 9 o'clock, and the guests were hungry. Nachman and I tried to give an introduction to the seder, and explain that we may not eat for another hour; this elicited grumbles and my head continued to swirl. Next I made kiddush, hoping that the wine would calm me down abit, but as the seder progressed and moved in the section known as "Maggid", the "Telling" (where we read the story...) I suddenly felt very ill and ran to the bathroom. The toilets there were glorified holes in the ground (although thankfully clean) and I vomited up the entire liter of water that I drank earlier and the first (of four) glass of wine. I threw some cold water on my face, and returned to the seder, by which point many of the guests had already left. I whispered to Nachman, "Dude, I just threw up in the bathroom." "No way man!" I sat down at the table and tried to catch up, while Nachman took charge and led the dwindling crowd threw the seder. When it came time to eat the matzah, I was very pained, and it took me nearly 20 minutes to each one piece, not to mention the morror and the afikomen. For the "meal" I took one bite of my egg, and then tried to finish the rest of the seder as quickly as I can. This mean blessing the meal, singing praises, and drinking two cups of wine. At this point, maybe only 10 guests remained; three of them, the old lady, her son, and her grandson, offered words of incouragement: "Nobody here knows what a seder is supposed to be anyway", "We're sticking with you to the end". It was very inspiring, a little like shtetl Rocky. When I did managed to finish, I quickly gathered up my belongings and crawled over to Nachman to ask him to take me home. He told me he couldn't because he had to deal with the guests, and I got very mad at him and started calling him self-centered. Finally, I had him grab Vlad (our driver) for me to take me back, which he did very graciously. A chugged some water and passed out.
The next morning I felt much better, but most of the day I spent in bed, except for the obligitory holiday prayers and meal. Boruch Hashem, by the time of the second seder I was feeling much better, and I showed up at the Chesed center in considerably higher spirits. This seder went very smooth for me and Nachman and I did a lot of teaching to the smaller crowd. We sang some songs and generally had a freilich (joyful) evening. I think that the second night of seder is my favorite of the whole year (it also happens the first time I walked into a ChaBaD house). When this night was over, we went home to sleep and relax a bit after our hard work.
To be continued...