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.
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.
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| learning how to waltz |
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| the suhkbaator countryside |
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| our language and culture facilitators |
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