Friday, July 26, 2013

!!!!!!!!!!!

My time in training is almost up...there are really only two weeks left until we travel back to Darkhan to swear in as Peace Corps Mongolia Volunteers.  It seems like I just got here last week. Here are some fun tales from the fast passing time.

1. Hangover soup

Food in Mongolia is actually quite delicious.  One dish however that I do not enjoy though is this flour soup, it is basically hot milk tea with meat cooked in, and then with flour dough mixed in.  It is a horribly thick consistancy, and I just don't like it.  It is a popular Mongol dish however, and since everyone loves it, they think I am crazy for not liking it.  They try to sway my distaste by always telling me it is the immediate cure for hangovers.

2. Family

I am starting to like this host family thing more and more. Around town, I might just be 'the american,' but to my family I am 'their american.'  It's endearing.

My youngest sister and I have been getting to know each other more now that I can communicate a little, and she is fun to be around...even though she usually beats me in every game that we have ever played together.   I finally got to meet my other sister, Uuriintuya, who is 21 and lives in Ulaanbaator.  She was naturally super nice, and we bonded over my inability to fold a hosher.   We all went to a ger camp together to celebrate Bolloraa's birthday, and I got to sit around and take part in all the sibling giggling and jokes, that I have rarely experienced before.  It was a lot of fun.

The weird part of the story is that eventually Uurii had to go back to UB, and my host mom, sister and I took her to the train station.  We of course stopped to take some fun pictures first before going to the train station.  We all walked inside and Uurii bought her ticket, and we headed for the train.  Overall, it wasn't really a weird event, but for me, it was, because normally it is usually me getting dropped off at the airport or train station...not so much the other way around.  And as we all said our goodbyes, and watched her get a seat on the train, I realized that when I leave Xoroolool, I am going to miss my host family.



3. Still life with a lamb carcass

I came home or lunch one day to walk into the kitchen building to find a dead skinned lamb laying on the table.  It's head of course was in a bucket on the floor.  My mother directed me to sit in a chair between the wall and the table.  I sat, eye level with the carcass, and my mother then shoved a bowl of innards on a chair, and put it in front of me so that I was quite boxed into the situation.  The smell was a little overwhelming.  She then gave me a bowl of greyish soup, and told me to eat.  It was the water that the innards had cooked in.  Yum?

Later that evening, I watched my host mom as she blow torched the head and ass of the lamb to burn the hair off of it for dinner.

4. A hiking companion

As the token American, I am a little overly protected when my parents are actually around (to note, if they are not home, I can pretty much do whatever I want).  I used to be walked to school, and my younger siblings usualy have to escort me somewhere if my host mom knows I am going somewhere.  I get check up texts/phone calls if I am gone too long and sometimes get walked to the outhouse if it is after dark.  It's funny, because parents here literally send 2 year olds to go pick things up from the store by themselves.

Well one afternoon, we were relaxing at a ger camp in the countryside, and my siblings were wrapped up in a game, so I decided to go for a hike up a mountain, in the woods.  I told my mom, and she was cool with it, but she made a 16 year old complete stranger escort me.  The girl who came with did not want to hike, and we barely got up the hill before she wanted to turn around and go back to the camp.

5. Bartok.

It has been two months since I met Bartok, and we have formed quite a bond...She sometimes walks me to the store or a friends house, she makes sure i stay away from dog fights, I pet her all the time (Mongolians dont pet dogs) and I secretly feed her meat from my plates at mealtime.  Bartok and me are basically best friends.  Well,  I found out Bartok's name isnt actually Bartok.  It's Balto.
In my defense, when I first learned her name, they said she was named for a cartoon character (Bartok the bat from anastasia...we are on the russian boarder it sounded logical)... I wrote it down and asked, and they told me it was correct...and for two months no one corrected me.

6. Innards

One afternoon, I came home for lunch and to quite a wonderful surprise found out that there was hosher for lunch! My host ma and pa were both home and sitting at the table enjoying hosher themselves, and so I sat down at my plate and took a huge bite of hosher.  As I was chewing, I noticed that it didn't taste like the normal delicious hosher that I was accompanied to.  I finished chewing and then looked at my new open hosher to find out that it did not look like meat on the inside of my pita pocket of (usual) deliciousness...It looked like...intestines...my face dropped as I looked up from my plate.  My gaze met the eyes of my host fathers who had a huge smile on his face, as he said, 'this isn't hosher meat...it's the innards!!'  He laughed at my misfortune, and I turned my eyes to my host mom, feeling so terrified and betrayed to find her laughing as well.  Fool me once, Mongol family...fool me once.

learning how to waltz

the suhkbaator countryside

our language and culture facilitators

Friday, July 19, 2013

Naadam!

We were warned not to eat the hosher after 2pm...not to drink too much airag...to watch out for the drunk people...and the drunk horses.  Those horses were everywhere, their tramples quieted by the loudness of the crowd. Mongols roamed the stadium grounds in their fanciest dells, and the air smelled of delicious, delicious hosher.  It was Naadam.
delicious hosher

Cody and Adam got fancy dells to wear.

the hosher tents

My sister and I

Raisin tea and hosher

My host mother's hosher ger

1.  The opening Ceremonies

My family took me to the Sukhbaator Naadam, to which the stadium was not too far outside of our little soum area.  We got there for the opening ceremonies, and got to watch the parade of fancy dell wearing people, and watch the spectacle of balloon dancing, contortionists, horse head fiddling and traditional singing.  It was awesome.  One of the little girl contortionists, who was preforming her routine with three others on a neon green platform, started bleeding from her elbow near the beginning of the routine. There was blood everywhere over the neon green cloth, and I honestly cant even imagine how much it had to hurt to finish.


2. Hosher

My host mother had her own hosher cooking ger, number 42 in the rows and rows of hosher gers, to which we visited after the opening ceremonies.  A hosher is basically a dough pocket filled with meat, fat, and potatoes, and then fried in oil.  When ordering a hosher at Naadam, you simply stick your head in the door of the ger and yell out a number, and you are brought delicious, delicious hosher.  I followed my sister straight into the ger and got to hang out on the inside.  We sat on a blanket and ate some fried deliciousness, and drank some raisin tea.   As orders were shouted in, and hosher was being cook.





3. Gambling

From what I have understood, there are no casinos in Mongolia,  but at Naadam, there was a row of gambling opportunities.  People sat low near the ground with wheel of fortune and price is right type wheels and small wooden boxes with dice in them.  You could either spin a wheel and hope it lands on a face of currency, or place a bet on what number the shaken dice box would reveal.  It was quite the spectacle. My host sister took a gamble.  She lost.


4. Kites

I have been wanting a kite since I got here, since it is so windy here with wide open fields.  i have looked in the market with no luck, and at Naadam, I saw my first kite being flown in Mongolia.  I, of course, quite happily bought one. After Naadam was over, my host mom saw it hanging up in my room after a good evening of kite flying.  She said kite flying was for little kids. Oh well.

5.  Neigh.

There are countless good horse stories that came out of Naadam, but here are a couple.
I found out my sister is pretty afraid of horses.  Given my lacking sense of 'danger' and my general attribute to not pay attention, I was a prime suspect to get run into by the horses that were at Naadam.  My sister yanked my arm many a time to pull me away from a horse's path (that, in my defense, were quite a ways away from colliding with me), and would always yell, 'DANGER!'  Even if she saw a horse standing in the distance, we would take a long path around the horse, because, 'DANGER!'  This one time, we ran into some of my sisters friends, who were sitting atop their horses, and she kept her distance while talking to them.  She then told me to go pet the horse...and when I went to go pet the horse, she yanked my arm back, and yelled 'DANGER!'  I think she set me up.
This is the youngest horse racer that I saw.  I think he was 4 years old.

The long distance horse races are 24 km long.  There are riders of many ages, even kids that looked about 4 years old.  It was pretty cool to see the horses race in at the finish.  After each race a cloud of dust lingered from being kicked up by all the horses.  My host dad, sister, and I were in close proximity to a horse that just finished a race, and after exchanging a few words with the guy atop the horse, my dad petted it, and instructed my sister and I to do the same.  My sister was very hesitant, but she did, and I did also, only to realize that the horse was soaking wet.  It never really occurred to me before that horses sweat, but after racing 24 km, it is reasonable that they do.  My host dad then instructed me to rub my horse sweaty hand on my face.  I reluctantly did so, and then, since our hands were all still sweaty, I followed my dads example, and rubbed the rest of the sweat off on my calves.  I was only left to imagine that in the Mongolian culture, this probably symbolized in some way that we were gaining the strength of the horse by wearing its sweat, but I was told later that it is good luck.

6.  Tug of War

While walking around the inside fo the stadium between wrestling matches, my host sister and I got pulled in for a match of tug of war...random people vs the police. My backpack was snatched off me and drinks taken from my hand as I got pushed towards this tug of war rope.  As much as we pulled, of course, the police won.  We soon left the area, and later when leaving the stadium, a random lady who i had never seen before grabbed us and drug us to the front of the stadium, where we met another random lady.  After a brief san oh, she handed us each 5000 tugriks, and we went on our way.  My host sister relieved my confused mind as she said the money was for playing tug of war.  Major win.


7.  Archery

The archery portion of Naadam wasn't like I expected it to be.  Contestants did not shoot at targets, but rather shot at rocks lined out on the ground.  Judges stood right next to the rocks as arrows were shot at them, to see if the area landed in a certain area.  Come to find out later, the arrows had no points on the ends, but rather soft tips..for safety.

8.  the wrestling matches.

A wrestlers uniform consists of a red speedo, most likely with stars on the butt, and a half jacket thing that covers the back and forearms, and ties in the fron for stability.  They wear such skimpy outfits to ensure that women do not wrestle, but the men kind of look like they are dressed like wonder woman. For mongolian wrestling, the first one on the ground is the loser.    To start all wrestlers come out, with their arms spread and stomp around in slow motion.  After someone wins, they also do the same thing.  I think this was my favorite part of the whole spectacle.

The final wrestling match at Naadam was quite the funny happening.  The match consisted of 4 men, maybe the best two from different age groups?  One group started hard core wrestling right away, and the other two men, just stood and watched, wrestling little bits occasionally until they were the only two left out there.  The crowd laughed.  Then the weather turned a little sour and it started to rain as the wind drastically picked up.  As the match was still going on ( Mongolian wrestling matches can sometimes take quite a while) one of the judges tent on the field up and blew over, tramping all the judges inside.  The crowd laughed more as the judges eventually crawled out.  The people in the other two judging tents were quick to run and brace their tent poles after.  As if this wasnt enough distractions for the main event at Naadam, a stray dog decided to leisurely walk through the middle of the field during the match.  A policeman leisurely followed to try to catch the dog.   About three fourths of the way down the field, the police, to my surprise (Mongolians dont really touch dogs), reached down and grabbed the dog, and the dog snarled and bit him right on the field!  The policemen then carried the dog off of the field and out of the stadium as the other policemen laughed and jeered him.  About the time the dog was escorted, another gust of wind came and knocked down another judges tent. haha.  The wrestling continued and then in a fast surprising move, the underdog wrestler won the match.

9.  The End

Naadam ended with our hasha dog, Bartok, getting all the leftover hosher trash.  She was so incredibly happy.



Coming up Next Post:

A giddis (animal innards lunch)

and the stories around me meeting my second sister from Ulaanbaator!!


Thursday, July 11, 2013

One Month in.


Hey everybody!  I have been enjoying Mongol life so much that I have not had so much time to write down my funny reality tales.  In recent news, I have gotten a stomach bug that I have had for about a week now, which has not been fun at all.  This set back was made better however by celebrating Naadam, the holiday celebrating the 3 manly sports here in Mongolia, wrestling, archery, and long distance horse racing.  I will write a whole separate post about those festivities later. :)  But for now, here are a couple short stories and some photos.

1.  Awkward family photos.

My family loves to take photos, and they love to make me pose.  They also get really into jumping photos, and using props in photos.  We went to the river a while ago and visited this lady's house and garden in the same trip.  On the bank of the river, we took countless jumping photos, and random photos of my family posing, and them making me pose in different ways.  Then, later when checking out the garden, I had to pose in it with a watering can, rake, and randomly posing like i was working in the garden.

So this photo posing and prop using is actually a hilarious trend.  It happens all the time.  My favorite this far, was when i was making potato pancakes for my mom, and she runs in the sleeping house real fast, and comes back with a chefs outfit.  complete with apron and hat.  My host mom made me put it on, and wear it while i cooked.  After the food was made, I also ate in it, again, complete with hat :)

All of my 9 classmates came over to my house also to make a traditional Mongolian food with my Mongolian Mom.  The first thing my mom did to greet us all was to bring out the chefs outfit for me to wear in front of everybody.  It was awesome. 

2. A kitten's tale

so there are a lot of visitors in Mongolian culture, sometimes announced, but from what I have seen, mostly unannounced.  One day, we had a visitor with three small children.  I was told to go rest, so I was in my room, and I hear these kids running around...eventually they quiet, and I assume they are gone.  Soon after, there is this incessant meowing coming from another room.  I exited my room to investigate to find the tinest of kittens had wandered into our house.  I tried to get it out, but it ran further into the house and hid beneath a cabinet.  Luckily, I had a half piece of Arolth (dried cheese curd) in my pocket, and I broke off tiny pieces to coax it out of the house.  Once on the porch, the kitten and I bonded, and I kept feeding it the arolth. We played with leaves, and strings and dirt, and were having a great time...until the children came back.  The 5 year old started smacking the cat around even though she wanted to play with it, and the cat took refuge in my lap.  I was then called for tea, and had to leave the kitten to fend for itself.  About a half minute later, I saw that six year old carrying the cat by one of its back legs...and even later its tail.  I felt pretty awful for the cat and later the family left and took the cat with them.  One can only guess what happened to it.

I am pretty sure I witnessed a Mongolian tornado

A cute little house I saw in my soum

fun with prepositions.

mini nets
I highly doubt my feet will ever be clean again.

This is a preview of Naadam.



Monday, July 1, 2013

the good ol' bark and spit

1. three part scary story

part one: the outhouse is aptly named because it is outside, and even though it stays light outside here until 10 pm, if you have to go to the bathroom after that, you have to go outside...in the dark.  better take a flashlight.

part two: Of the numerous amount of shots that I have gotten here in Mongolia, two of them have been rabies shots (and I will be getting a third rabies shot in a week).  There are quite a lot of dogs running aroung the streets, and some of them are vicious. During our orientation, it was drilled in our heads that these dogs do and will bite...and if you get bit, you have to get even more rabies shots directly in the wound.  Bartok, the dog, has a gang that she runs around with, and there are always a ton of dogs in and around my hasha (yard), and there are tons of dog fights that just happen because of it.

Part three: Around midnight one evening, I went out to use the outhouse, and walked out into a dog pack in my yard.  it was terrifying.  I shined my flashlight directly on them as I made my way to the outhouse, taking the long way there.  I took safety in the enclosed outhouse, and as I did, a huge dogfight broke out.  I could hear all the snarls and biting that was going on, and I tried to wait until it died down a little to leave, but I didn't want to stay in the outhouse forever.   When I did start my journey back to the house, I used the same flashlight strategy, but the out of no where, this random dog started running straight towards me, mouth open.  I quickly changed my flashlight placement, and made big 'threatening' stomps, and luckily the dog went towards the gate... I focused my attention to the rest of the pack, and made it safely back indoors.  Terr.i.fy.ing.
In more recent news, Bartok is now preggos, so the dogs hang around the house less.


2. the basics

peace corps gave all of us a 'guided activity sheet' of things to do with our host families, so that when we live by ourselves, we can survive.  Activities like 'hand wash clothes,' 'make a fire with wood and dung,' 'kill an animal for food,' you know, the basics.  I have been slowly checking off my list, and this morning, I accomplished the clean the carpets and floor to a home.  For this, in some confusing charades, my host mother told me to get the broom, and then she puffed up her cheeks and slowly acted out spitting out water by blowing the air out of her mouth.  I was, of course, bewildered, and did not know what she meant.  She then led me to get some well water, and then put some in her mouth, and made me put some in mine.  Then, onto the carpets in my room, she spit that water right out of her mouth to spray on the carpet.  Me, with water in my mouth, could not hold in my laughter, and had to run to the nearest open window to choke and get the water out of my mouth.  Then, upon further instruction, put some more water in my mouth to try again.  My host mom once again demonstrated, and with a similar conclusion I laughed.  The next time, I gave it all my effort, and failed to spray water out of my mouth, but rather it just cascades directly onto the floor in a puddle.  I tried one more time before trying to tell my host mother that I am incapable of purposely letting liquids exit my mouth in such a manner, I was then told to get the tupin with water, and from there, we dipped the broom and swept the rug with a wet broom.
look how clean that rug is!