Friday, June 21, 2013

Week 3: Stories of language, host families, and food.



Here is another installment of what has been happening in my Mongolian life.  I am becoming quite good at acting things out, or maybe my host mom has just perfected her 'i understand' face as well.  It has been about 3 weeks since I first arrived here, and it seems like the time is just flying by.

1. Spiders
my host sister was picking some vegetables out in our garden, and she suddenly sprang up and started yelling in Mongolian.  My host brother ran over, and then they started describing the size of something...which i thought to be a snake, given the wideness of their hands.  The told me to hurry and come see it, so I ran over, and saw that it was in fact not a snake, but the biggest spider I have seen.  You could see the fangs on this thing- they were almost as big as its legs.  My host parents soon came over and were also astounded.  They got a rusty bucket and a rake, and got the spider in the bucket...I thought they were just going to move the spider outside of the garden, but instead we just filled the bucket with water and all watched as it drowned.  Given the size of the spider, and the intent of my family to kill it, I wondered if the spider was poisonous...but given the lack of interwebs, and me not knowing the Mongol word for poisonous, I can only assume that it was very poisonous and that is why everyone was so scared of it.  After dunking the spider under the water a couple times with the end of a rake to insure its death, everyone went back to their normal business, and my sister continued to pick vegetables, but on the other side of the garden.

2.  My time to shine
So I have written before about the cows that come in to eat the yard when the gate is left open.  I have been secretly waiting for my chance to see the cows first so I can chase them out and be apart of this family past time.  Well, I finally got my chance.  It was a herd of 8 cows and I went out with my best Mongol tone and my arms spread wide to get them out...However two of the cows ran straight into the fenced garden area trampling the veggies.  So host mother ran into the garden to chase those cows out, while I got the other 6 cows out.  Family bonding fail.  Although this story was later told the next morning at the breakfast table to my siblings, and so we all got to laugh together about how much I failed. Ha?
the garden where the cows ran.

3.  There'll be days like this... There'll be days like this, my mother said.
on my very first day in Mongolia, the country Director, Darlene, spoke to the M24 volunteers. I cannot describe how much I admire our country director- she has a great attitude and some funny stories... but if I had to choose one word to describe her, I think I would choose inspiring.  She said many a thing that stands out in my mind, but one thing in particular was that we have to celebrate the little victories. Sometimes things are just overwhelming and it is easy to get caught up in, but you have to be able to be happy at the little things you do accomplish.

Living with a host family, is frustrating...I cannot communicate, I get laughed at a lot (but I laugh with, so it's not that bad), I have to ask to go out, I cannot cook for myself... it is like being a teenager and knowing I can do things, but just am not allowed.  On top of it all, since I moved in with this family, I have had dreams about my own mom...every single night...which is a little saddening when I wake.  Dont get me wrong, I really like my host family, it just gets frustrating sometimes.

but right now (sunday night) I am celebrating the little things...I am celebrating the fact that I warmed up my own bath bucket tonight.  Thats right.  I heated two tea kettles right up and mixed it in with 4 saucepans full of cold water to make the perfect temperature bath bucket, and then I took the most refreshing tupin baths of tupin baths...it was so refreshing because I did it all by myself...or maybe it was because I havent tupin-ed since Thursday?

4.  Unfortunately
There is no better feeling that clean feet right out of the tupin..that is until you are walking through the garden with your newly clean feet and accidentally walk into a huge pile of dirt that you didnt see when you were busy admiring the landscape.  At least I heated up that bath bucket tonight all by myself!!

5.  I ate five boats.
boats are these delicious steamed dumplings, that are typically filled with, of course, meat and fat.  Need I say again, they are delicious.  To make a boat:

step 1- mix up some dough, and a meat mixture that is roughly 1 part meat to 1 part fat with some green onions thrown in for fun.

step 2-  roll out the dough into small thin patty form

step 3- put a spoonful of meat mixture onto dough

step 4- carefully watch host mother form a dumpling by pinching sides of dough together within 5 seconds time

step 5- spend 5 minutes on your one dumpling trying to replicate, while your host mom makes roughly 20
more dumplings.

step 6-  proudly show your host mom what you think to be a decent dumpling for your first time, have host mom call host sister to help translate her thoughts, 'very bad,' as if the host mom's face could not explain her feelings enough

step 7-  watch host mom again for better dough pinching technique

step 8- try again

step 9- laugh along with your host mom and sister at your boat for quality family bonding time.

step 10- watch again

step 11- carefully try to make this the best boat ever, as your host mom is now folding dumplings in such a
way to make designs, such as flowers and rings

step 12- defend the kinda decent dumpling you just made

step 13- try again (repeat as necessary) until you make a 'passable' dumpling, or until all meat is safely inside the dough patties, whichever comes first.

step 14- put boats in kettle to steam.

step 15- wait 25 minutes until the boats are fully deliciously cooked

step 16- immediately shove into mouth while making a slurping sound, and enjoy!


6. goy banhn (awesome)
So my host dad built a shower this week. If you want to talk about awesome, let me tell you...The shower is outside, and it made of random wood, and the entrance is covered by a blanket.  There is a plank of wood on the inside that you can stand on if you dont want to stand in the dirt, and there is a little channel dug that is leading away from the shower for the water to go.  On the top of the structure are two half logs that holds up this large metal barrel, that has a spigot.  During the day the sun warms up the water, and voila.  warm  shower.    I was heating up a tea kettle for a bath when my host sister came home.  I told her I was going to bathe, and she showed me the shower.  I took full advantage of this new discovery, and hopped right in.  The water wasn't the warmest, but I got to shower by the Mongolian sunset with the sounds of pigs grunting in the background.  I would say it was a fair trade.

7. Table Manners

Mongols do not mind one bit if you talk with your mouth full...From what I gather, the fuller your mouth is, the better of time it is to talk.  Also, it seems like they always wait to ask me questions at the dinner table until I have taken a large bite of food.  Just to add to the awkwardness, I wait to answer until I am done chewing.

Mongols also slurp their food.  We eat soup frequently, and yeah, I can see how slurping comes into play because it is hot-like right off the fire hot (In Mongolia, when you get a plate of food put in front of you, you eat right away...you dont wait until everyone is served because then your food gets cold.)  But they slurp with any meal.  It is almost as if your mouth is this vacuum, and the game is too see how much food your can suck up into your mouth at a time.  I consider myself a pretty fast eater, but I still take about twice as long to finish eating...I blame the chewing.

Side note: Noodles or rice are pretty much a staple at every meal. The noodles are the weirdest noodles that I have seen.  I have had some that look like dinosaur heads, but more fun were the hollow spaghetti noodles.  They were impossible to slurp because the air just went right through! Really, it was like a pasta straw.

8.  "cheeee"

So the language is tough.  Each day I learn a little more and my ear is getting more adapt to listening to Mongolian.  Probably my favorite thing so far about the language is that the Mongols have words for agreeing/disagreeing or saying yes/no...but they also have just sounds that mean the same.  a 'ch' sound said like a feminine vowel (in the front of the mouth) is agreeing, and the same sound said in the manner of a masculine vowel (more from the back of the throat) is a way of saying no or disagreeing.  It is awesome.  It sounds very snake like and intimidating even when someone is agreeing with you, but now that my ear is accustom to it, it is still intimidating but at least it makes me smile.

Also, what I am finding most difficult about the language is that the Mongolian language is similar to eating.  It is the fun game of how many consonants can I fit into my mouth at once and still talk.  No matter how long the word, it is split into two syllables and almost all vowels are omitted if they are in the middle of the words.  So you are just left with this huge amount of consonants in your mouth.

9. the merik cooks

 my host mom wanted me to make an american dinner for the family one evening...there are no ovens  really so I didnt know what to make, but then it hit me, that I should take this opportunity to show them how to use the bbq sauce properly.  Originally I thought I could cook bbq chicken, potato salad and salad.  There is not really mayo or mustard here, so potato salad was thrown out and replaced with mashed potatoes, and the only vegetable that was available in the soum, was onions...so I attempted to make onion rings without ever having made them before.  While i was making the mashed potatoes I threw in some salt and what I was told was pepper...but really it was dill.  Despite the potatoes being overly dill-y, they were delicious- as was the chicken.  My host mom thought I was nuts while making the onion rings, but overall she liked them.  Success!

10.

We have learned in our technically training sessions that in the classroom, students cheat, and normally the teachers just look the other way and dont say anything about it.  Well, I have not yet witnessed this first hand, but what I have witnessed is my host mother 'having different standards' for shagai - the ankle bone game (its awesome).  So there are these ankle bones collected over the years from eating the meat off of the bones...and each side represents a different animal...it is hard to explain, but if you are interested, you readers with the internet can google it.  Basically, you roll these ankle bones, and if two land with the same side up, it is sort of like marbles and you can knock two together and keep one...but if you miss or knock more than one, you lose you turn.  Point of the story: If the host mom misses/ knocks more than one that means she can shoot again.  If the novice merik makes a mistake...those ankle bones are scooped up faster than you can blink.

11. meat

I think i have eaten more meat...mostly mutton... in the last two weeks than I have in the past 5 years.  No need to worry about my iron levels here.

12.  Ms. Hapaa

I have taught my first class here in the Suhkbaator 6 school as part of my technical training.  It was really a lot of fun. Since it is a summer class sort of thing, it is a varying range of students with different english abilities.  It makes it a little tough to plan a lesson, but it was really neat to see some of the lower english level students catch onto the lesson.





13. Breakfast - my (former) favorite meal

Whats not to love about breakfast?  Eggs, toast, cereal, hashbrowns, maybe even occasionally pancakes...delicious. well formally delicious.  Mongols do not eat breakfast, but Peace Corps has alerted our families that us americans need to eat it.  It used to be my favorite meal...but here, it is questionable.  Usually for breakfast my host mom serves the leftovers from the night before...that just sits out in the pan.  But sometimes she makes stuff.  like eggs, with barbecue sauce...or kimbap (aka hot dog sushi)...when we were in Darkhan for orientation, the hotel even served us meriks cheeseburgers.  But for the last two days, I have had bow cereal.  yes the hard pastry bread things.  my mom throws some in a bowl and then pours cold tea over the top of them, to make a delicious mongolian cereal that I eat with a fork.  why didnt I think to pack a box of grape nuts?

Some sights from Mongolia:



my front porch and some flowers a 5 year old gave me.  Her english was good,  'Here baby, have some flowers'


my host fam has  two pigs.  



Fact: pigs actually roll in the mud.  

They pierce the noses of cows and put cans on them so that they stop nursing.

Some Peace Corps friends hanging outside of Jeffy's delgore.


some sweet fake adidas, complete with stars




Friday, June 14, 2013

On Fire and Water

Cooking a meal

I came home from school and helped my host mother cook dinner.  The stove is a fire stove...imagine a small rectangular box shape, on top there is a small round chimney, and then a hole cut out for the wok type huge steel bowl to set.  In Mongolia, there are really only two main types of food...something fried, or soup.  So my host mom threw in all the ingredients, potatoes, green onions, fat, and unidentified muckkk (meat) into the hot oil that coated the pot.  As I stirred, I thought I heard my host mom say the word for soup, as she grabbed my gifted bottle of bbq sauce.  She poured it right on in.  I just kept stirring, smiling of course, thinking, cool.  bbq soup...it will be interesting. so we poured a little water into the mix and covered it to let it simmer over the fire.  Next my mom is unwrapping this bouillon cube looking thing, and I asked what it was.  she showed me the label, which (surprisingly in english) read 'black fungus.'  So she put this cube in a teacup and poured some hot water, and covered it.  I went to stir the simmering food and needed to grab a rag to take the metal lid off to do so- it had gotten so hot from the fire.  5 minutes later, host mom shuttled me over to the table to show me that this black fungus cube had now expanded into a whole lot of mushrooms!! delicious!  we threw those in the mix for dinner as well, but to note, my host mom literally just grabbed the hot hot lid with her bare hand.  I asked her in broken mongolian/charades if it had hurt her hand to do so.  She of course said absolutely not!  I then told her I had baby hands...she only agreed.  Next we took the cooked noodles that had been sitting out from lunch, and the rice that had been sitting out since, maybe, hopefully yesterday, and put those on top of the mix in the wok.   I was instructed not to stir, and covered it back up.  from what i gather from my host mothers hissing sounds at that moment is that when i hear the food make that sound, take the 20+ lbs wok off the fire, and the food is ready...

We sat down and ate dinner, and my host sister ran fast to the store and bought some bread (all the starches!), and ice cream cones...(the ice cream here is prepackaged in cones and the top is covered with a sticker).  Surprisingly it was quite a tasty meal, and the ice cream was a nice treat.  While I was still finishing my ice cream, my friend from school, Cody came over to get me to go hang out with a couple other people from class at one of their houses.  My mother drug him in, and made him sit of course, and gave him a hefty portion of the meal.  He tried to politely refuse because he had just eaten his own huge meal with his own host family...however, that didnt fly with my host mother, so a second dinner he got...so as he was eating his second dinner with one hand, my host mom put a hot cup of tea in his other hand.   I just stood a back chuckling.

the well and rusty buckets

Part one: Getting water is a process here, not really a big process, but it does
nt just come from the sink.  Our water comes from a well that is in our yard, and luckily we have have an electric water pump, so we dont have to pull up buckets.  My room houses the plug for such water pump.  One very cold rainy afternoon, my host mother brought a space heater into my room and plugged it in for me...in the outlet by the window.  I went to charge my camera battery one day, and went to the same outlet by my window.  There was something plugged in, to which the cord went up into the window foam, and I did not know what it was for.  Since my host mom had plugged something in before to the outlet, I figured it was ok to use.  So I unplugged it, and let my camera battery charge for a little while.  Well (no pun intended), I found out what that plug was for a little later when my host mom was out trying to use the pump for the well...she politely corrected my mistake. oops.

Part two:  so we have these two buckets, a tan one and a green one, that we use to get water from the well, and they sit on the floor of the kitchen building.  We use this water to cook, make tea, washing our hands in the dry sink, filling my tupin to bathe, etc.  There is this little pot that we use to scoop water out of the buckets for these various activities.  Point being, these buckets are well used.  So used in fact that the bottom of these buckets are rusty, and you sometimes see little flecks of rust floating around at the bottom of these buckets.  Good thing Peace Corps made us get those tetanus shots.


Thursday, June 13, 2013

Mongolia!!!

week two in mongolia is now complete.  The M24 group of peace corps volunteers (PCVs) arrived safely in Mongolia, toured Ulaanbaator, tripped to Darkhan for Orientation, and are now split up in different areas for our 3 month training while living with host families.  I am in a soum outside of Suhkbaator (about 10 miles from the Russian boarder) living with a family of five. 2 adults, 3 kids- ages 21, 16 and 15, with the eldest away at university.  Now that outlines the basic things, here is the fun stuff:

1. the welcome
We arrived in Ulaanbaator at about about an hour later at night then we were meant to be.  We had to get ourselves through customs before we would meet up with our country director, Darleen.  She met us right on the other side of the customs booths, and greeted us with a welcome face.  After the chaos of baggage claim and the overall relief that came as both my bags made it also safely to Mongolia, I left the area and walked into something fantastic.  A group of current Mongolia Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) were waiting, chanting, cheering welcoming me to their home. I got to walk through there manmade tunnel high-fiving and smiling to my hearts content. I felt so welcomed and I felt apart of something huge.

2. one of the coolest things that has happened to me.
Leaving the airport, we were shuttled down a dirt road in a bus with the most fantastic of curtains to a ger camp.  It was freezing outside and pitch black, but with the help of some flashlights, we found our way to a ger to sleep in.  After settling in, I was fast asleep.  Now if that wasnt a cool enough story right there, let me tell you the amazing part.  There are no windows in gers, but there are windows on the roof to vent the ger.  The sunlight came in through the roof of the ger about 5am, to which i awoke.  Being a tourist ger, complete with western bathroom, I got up to use the facilities and walked in to see one of the most amazing sights I have seen out the window (the bathroom had normal(to your standard) windows).  . We had no clue what was even around us when we arrived in the darkness, but we were surrounded by mountains and the most blue of blue skies.  There were hawks soaring about and horses grazing in the field behind...and in that moment that my eyes discovered my whereabouts, I knew I was in the right place.

3. toilets
squatty potties forever.  It is a little surprising that they dont smell that much.

4. mutton
whats this? oh. mutton. more mutton?  sure why not?  mutton. ya mutton. with a side of mutton.

5. more mutton.
yes, even more mutton.

6. Bow
a bow is like this bread pastry thing, kind of like maybe like a plain doughnut, but not really...but just these little cut up pieces of pastry.  Mongols leave these sitting out for weeks, and they just get hard over time.  Usually it takes quite the effort to break it apart and just leave the pieces soaking in your tea/coffee/hot milk until it cools enough for you to drink.  I tried this once, and after about ten minutes the bow was still hard as a rock.  I threw one to Bartok (the dog) the other day, and he couldn't eat it either.

6. initial host family awkwardness.
I am writing this after I have been here a few days, and me and my family are meshing more and more.  I can only speak random words, and cannot really communicate, but we are pushing through.  My host father is great, acts stuff out, and speaks in simple words...my host mother on the other hand is very rigid, acts nothing out and speaks in only sentences.  I have perfected my 'i understand' face though and just try to repeat what she says to me.

I gave my family some Kansas City bbq sauce, since it was local to my home state.  They tried it, but quite did not like it...but they keep using it with EVERYTHING.  In the soup, on these rice sushi roll things...pickle dipping sauce...EVERYTHING.  I keep telling them it is a sauce for meat, but it seems to be lost in translation.

my host brother, plays the guitar.  he and this guitar are inseprable.  it is kind of sweet.  He also put the como derby dames sticker I gave him on it.  It was touching.  I went with him on a photo adventure in suhkbaator.  we brought the guitar, of course, to photo with it.  we also brought a harmonica. we did not play these instruments, they were only for props.

my sister is pretty cool.  she has (just) a few english words in her pocket...like 'sheep,' 'horse,' 'name,' 'how are you'... and the ever suprising, 'present perfect.'  I was trying to tell her in broken Mongolian that Bartok  was asleep...which at my level, translated to 'Bartok sleep.'  Then she told me to use the present perfect.

7. cows.
cows and livestock roam the soum freely.  It is cool.  Ocassionally, when my family leaves the gate open to our yard and we turn our backs for a couple moments, some cows come in and start eating the yard.  It will never cease to make me smile when someone runs out with open arms to chase them out screaming in Mongolian.

8. the tupin
I have this wash basin, it is called a tupin.  it is for washing both me and my clothes.  I used to hate doing laundry...but clearly i didnt know how easy I had it before.  It takes some serious strength!!! My host mother has such technique.  lets just say the cloths she wrung out dried the same day...the clothes I wrung out took a couple days to dry.

9. Hapaa (Narah)
Narah is now my name at home. Apparently April was too hard for them to say, so they gave me a new one.  Naraa means 'sun' in Mongolian...so cool, whatever, I'm flexible.  The funny part of the story is that there is another PCV, Cody, that lives a block away from me, and we walk to school together.  My family can never remember his name, so they just call him April.  They dont seem to struggle saying it.

these are just a few cool things so far.  My soum has no internet access in it, so it is a bit of a half day trip to get somewhere that has it, so I will try to post when I can, but I might just try to keep a running blog post and post blogs when I can.
In the mean time, pc training has begun, and learning Mongolian is definitely hard.  There is a complete new alphabet with only! 22 vowel sounds and switched up consonants.  For example, an 'h' is an 'n' and a 'p' is an 'r' amoungst many others.  Reading is super tough. It is like being in kindergarden as an adult- so it is a little more frustrating, with no letter people and a time limit.   It seems like everyone has a different pronunciation for each word, but it is all definitely a cool process.   The school that i go to is about a 15 minute walk from my house, and it is so lovely to walk down the sandy dirt roads speckled with random dogs and livestock.  Children flock around us 'meriks' to say hi and whatever other english phrase they might know along the way, and it is fun to share the few mongolian phrases that i have in my pocket with them.

Oh.  Also.  I have an address and a phone number if anyone wants to write letters or text/call.  It doesnt cost me anything to receive texts or calls... and you can text for free through google voice.  For the phone number, you have to enter the (+) when dialing, and for the address you have to put both the english and mongolian version.

Phone number: +97694412694

Address for the next three months:

 (name)
Энх Тайвны Корпус
Тов шуудан
Шуудангийн хайрцаг 1036
Улаанбаатар 13
Монгол Улс 15160
Mongolia (via China)

(name), PCV
US Peace Corps
Central Post Office
Post Office Box 1036
Ulaanbaatar 13
Mongolia 15160 (via China)