Tuesday, November 26, 2013

the last banxor story.

So, to skip the broader details of a seemingly awful day, which ultimately led to a marathon of sawing and chopping wood- this tale will begin at hour three of some students working hard.  One of the accompanying English teachers that brought students to saw wood had a lesson, and was leaving my hasha to get back to school.  Of course Banxor took this time to bark and pull at his chain, per usual, when someone leaves/enters.  However, this particular time, he broke through the chain.  So if you are wondering what to do when devil dog who wants to eat your face gets loose...

step 1. start swearing as you run as fast as you can.  and by fast, i mean fastest you ever have ran.

 Luckily the teacher was close enough to the gate to get out with all her appendages, and the dog was interested enough in eating her that my students and I could get enough of a head start to the safety of my ger.

Step 2. start calling anyone you can to let them know the dog is loose while others scream from inside the ger to try to alert neighbors.

Luckily, in this situation, the neighbor girl was home next door, and even though we could never reach anyone from school, the teacher that left heard us yelling, and tried to find the dog owner at the school.

Step 3.  sit inside ger with no windows and listen to the wild dog tear up everything in the yard.

step 4.  keep waiting

step 5.  forget about that meeting that you were going to have at 6 o'clock.

step 6. more waiting

By this point in time, we were yelling across the yard to girl who lives in the next ger.  Pretty soon in the middle of the conversation, she starts screaming her head off.

step 7.  Panic

my students went to quickly exit my ger to help the girl, but luckily it was not her who got attacked by Banxor...instead it was her brother who was trying to get him tied back up.  He quickly took refuge in my ger since it was the closest, and came in grabbing his arm.  I told him to take off his jacket...only to reveal his white school shirt to be covered in blood.

Step 8.  try not to cry in front of your students, and grab your med kit.

We were stuck in my ger...not able to leave because of the devil dog outside.  So we were left to my and my students third rate medical knowledge.  His arm would not stop bleeding, and the med kit could only do so much.  Luckily my site mate is a health volunteer and gave me some quick advice over the phone...The dog also bit his ass so the poor kid could not even sit the whole time (hours) we were stuck inside.  I felt pretty awful.

Step 9. wait.

maybe like an hour or longer later, with the students joking that they were going to sleep in my ger, we all heard a large truck pull up, and after a lot of yelling and commotion, someone had apparently caught the dog.  We all started peeking out from my ger ever so carefully, only to see the fire brigade standing on top of their truck on the outside of the fence with some sort of noose over the fence holding the dog.  The police were also there, and other neighbors were standing over their fences holding flashlights to help.  Something was yelled in Mongolian, and all my students took off running, and jumped over the back fence to get away, and the neighbor kid ran to his ger... leaving me alone and confused.

step 10. stand out in the freezing cold to watch.

They had caught the dog right next to the gate, and after a few minutes, when the firefighters knew they had him secure, and were holding him up by his neck in mid air, the hasha mother and my English supervisor ran in...in a very hurried fashion.  My English supervisor came into my ger to check things out, and then quickly went to my neighbors ger.  The girl came over to grab her brother's bloodied jacket, and told me that they were going to kill the dog.

my knees were buckling because it was so cold outside, but for some reason I didn't believe they would actually kill it, and so I watched.  Since the police were there, and because i had heard tales of them shooting dogs in the winter, I figured they would shoot it.  But what i saw was not the case.  They killed it by hitting it over the head with an ax.  I will save you the gorier details.

Step 11. Cry

Given the other events of the day and standing out in the cold and witnessing this, I lost it and started to cry.  Pretty much right after this, my school director and two training managers came into the yard and into my ger.  Since my overall life goal to not cry in front of people was foiled, I was rather embarrassed when they saw me.  We all just stood awkwardly in my ger not saying much, they lit me a fire, and eventually left, probably thinking I was a nutcase.  Given the fact that there was a cat and a puppy running around my ger at the moment and it appeared as if I was crying over a dog, I will give them that.

step 12.  potty break

Unfortunately, all this took place next to the outhouse, and I really had to pee.  So I had to walk past all of that to go to the bathroom.

step 13. wonder what that noise is...

soon after i had returned to my ger from the outhouse, I heard some weird grunting noises from outside.  Soon after that I heard my phone ring...it was my English supervisor telling me not to go outside my ger because the dog really wasn't dead, and was roaming the yard again.  I am just glad that didn't happen when I walked right past it.

step 14. wait some more.

About 2 hours later my supervisor called me again to tell me that the dog was finally dead and I could exit my ger if I should so choose.  I choose to go to bed.  The next morning, I got to see just how dead the dog was, because the dog body was just left laying out by the gate in a pool of frozen blood.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

A trip to the countryside


Shortly after I learned I was coming to Mongolia, dirty Karen sent me a photo of someone riding a yak, telling me that "you need to do this."  So of course it became a priority, and the beginning of many yak conversations.  I told my awesome counterpart of my yak riding desires, and she hooked me up with a journey never to be forgotten.  So we embarked on this journey to the countryside to visit one of our student's family.  Her family herds yaks...about 200 yaks.  I will leave you to only imagine my excitement.  After buying some gifts, we waited for a russian minivan to carry us away to the countryside. 

the car ride.

If you were wondering how many people fit into this russian minivan (that you manually had to wind up to start) the magic number is 18. No seats, no problem!  just sit on the floor!


I have never been car sick before, but here in mongolia, moving vehicle rides are a different story.  In a land of no paved roads, you just drive over huge rocks, and take quick repeated sharp turns to avoid the huger ones.  River?  no problem!  just drive right through them! Luckily, I was fortunate to not toss any cookies, but others in the van were not so lucky. No stopping necessary!  just stick your head out the window, or quickly grab a plastic bag and you are set to keep travelling!


On the way out to the countryside, we took three pit stops.  The first of which were to see the famous chess stones, which are some natural rocks that stick out of the ground.  and then some other rocks that are carved like chess pieces.  My cp's were telling me that they thought people were buried on these grounds (along with a king), along with gold and such, and no major excavations had ever taken place.  Which I think is just awesome.  The cool thing about the chess stones is that I could climb on anything I wanted, and further jump off anything I wanted.  Let’s just say I took full advantage.
i like making mongolians jump off things with me


can you see the red mark?
Our second pitstop was at someones house to use the outhouse.  This outhouse could accommodate two people at once, and had two planks missing from the ground.  The person before me went in, and I others tried to get me to go at the same time telling me it was possible.  I pretended not to understand their mongolian and politely waited to squat solo. Luckily the person behind me did the same.  When exiting the outhouse, in front of a line of Mongolians waiting, I may have not see a plank of random wood that was connecting the outhouse to the fence, and I so confidently walked straight into it. The onlooking Mongolians choked back their laughs to ask if I was ok. To date it was the third worst time that I have hit my head in Mongolia.  I had a red mark on my head for a day, and it hurt for about 4 days.  

Our third pit stop was just a very random potty spot break, but we our drive had already nestled us into the beautiful mountains and just this random place that we happened to stop was mind blowing. This third pit stop is in fact, why I love living in Mongolia.

Once we reached out destination, we all climbed out of the clown car and just straight into a giant herd of yaks aka my destiny.

The countryside bathroom.

I had asked shortly after our arrival if there was an outhouse. Ha ha.  silly me. In the countryside, you just go to the bathroom ANYWHERE!  So once I mentioned the bathroom, all the ladies decided that they all had to go, so we departed for the outside all together.  We made our way through the herd of yaks and across a frozen river until we found an appropriate place to pick our flowers.  As I started to pee, a couple yaks heard the noise, and traveled my way to see what was up.  Now, in Xorollo, I had gotten pretty close to some cows while I was peeing before, but this experience now takes the lead for animal/peeing proximity.  These yaks just came right up with no shame and tries to stick their noses in my business!  I shooed them, and finished quickly.  Once I had walked about only a foot away however, the yaks had immediately come back to the spot where I was squatting, and started to lick the ground. 

Milking a yak

The family I stayed with milks roughly around 30 yaks every morning, and also every evening.  I got to help them milk two yaks.  Let's just say in the time it took me to milk those two yaks, they had already finished milking all the others.

Milking a yak is perhaps similar to milking a cow, in the sense that it is uncomfortably moist down there and that it is difficult, but it is much different in the sense that there is a lot more hair, and the thingys that you are supposed to pull are super tiny.  With a cow, you would use your whole hand, but now that I am experienced, I can tell you that with a yak, you just use your thumb and pointer finger.

Pro yak milker.
Again, when the american steps up to the yak milking plate, crowds form, laughter ensues, and pictures are taken.  So first step is again to let the baby yak suckle for just a bit, before you set up your stool and bucket to start yan
king away.  Now, with the yak, there is so much hair, that you can't see what you are supposed to be pulling under there.  I expressed my concern, and was just told to stick my hands under there until I feel ''it."  So, I did as the Mongolians do, and just gave that yak a nice belly rub until I found what I needed to find.

Compared to my cow milking experience, I was a pro at yak milking.  Yes, it took me a long time, but my milk pale actually had some milk in it.  Later, I got to drink my spoils, and it was the best yak milk I ever drank.

My destiny.

I rode a yak. Better yet, I rode two yaks. So while we were all milking yaks, the dad of the family set off with a string and the sharp tip of a yak horn and a string to ready a yak for riding.  I have learned in Mongolia to not really ask about things I don't understand, such as this yak horn...but I soon found out after seeing the blood dripping nose of a freshly pierced yak what exactly it was for.  Once I saw this of course, I may have made a face and walked in a different direction while being laughed at for my disgust.  But soon enough I was jumping on to the back of a beautiful yak with a bloody nose.  This yak was quite calm and it was a pleasant little ride. The second yak was a different story. Not saying this yak was totally crazy or anything…it was just a little more not as calm…and it was bigger and more difficult to jump onto.  I guess I was jumping to quickly, which scared the yak which scared me and resulted in me jogging away, and Mongolians laughing.  So the owner of the yak herd gave me a boost, but the yak still moved, and I ended up just lying on the yak perpendicularly while again, laughter.  I soon straightened myself out and grabbed on to some yak back hair for stability because the yak was not too happy to have me aboard.   Worth it.

Up to your elbows with...

So in a countryside with 200 yaks, you can probably guess what you have plenty of right outside your front door...dung.  So in the life of a herder, your daily chore is to go pick this shit up.  It is dried out and used for fire fuel to keep you warm and to cook your food and such.  The 2 year old toddler also takes part in this activity, and has her very own pot to carry yak pies in.  (More adorable than you could imagine)  Cultural note: in Mongolia, no gloves necessary!  Just use your bare hands.  Since usually as a foreigner my crazy thoughts get entertained, I was given a shovel when I first asked for one... but then when that proved extremely difficult, I just took the plunge and used my hands.  It wasn't terrible as long as you just didn't think about it.  Sometimes you would come across a patty that was frozen to the ground, to which you just start kicking it until it comes loose.  When repeated kicking does not work, THEN it becomes reasonable to use the shovel. 

buuz

After finishing dung collecting, I washed my hands in a bucket, and helped to make lunch...which was my favorite food, Mongolian buuz.  I started folding them the only way I knew how, as the lady next to me was folding fancy patterns.  I asked her to teach me, and she was more than happy to help me.  She showed me about 5 different ways to fold them, including one that produced some funny looking buuz.  I’ll let you decide what you think they look like…but of course took a photo, and the lady thought I was just taking a picture of the fanciness, so she folded some different patterns and made me take photos. 

Belly scratches


I wanted to pet every animal this family herded, which included yaks, sheep, goats, and a couple dogs.  There was a surprise horse in there too. We arrived after dark, and all I wanted to do was stay outside with the yaks and pet them.  Which I did for a little bit lol.  They didn’t always want for me to touch them, which mainly involved me chasing after them to feel their soft soft hair.  The goats and sheep wanted to be touched less than the yaks, and they ran faster than the yaks.  I got to pet a couple of slower goats, but the sheep were ridiculously fast.  In the morning there was a lot more yak chin scratches and goat belly rubs.  But the sheep were still impossible to touch, and I probably spent a good 45 minutes trying to chase the sheep before they went out to pasture.  I also wanted to hold a baby goat, who I realized after I was holding it, that it was more of a large adult goat.  Nevertheless I was just trying to tell it how awesome I thought it was when he threw his head back and maimed me in the face with his horns.

Mountain climbing admiring

When we first arrived in the evening, all I wanted to do besides pet the yaks was to have a night hike climb to the peaks of the beautiful surrounding mountains, but the more reasonable Mongolians wouldn’t let me go up them because of some “wolves” that were apparently already on the mountains.  So every time I went outside I always got babysat by my Mongolian students who entertained me enough to let me climb up half of a mountain after dark.  The next day, after a hardworking morning of yak milking, yak riding, sheep chasing, goat holding, dung collecting and buuz making, it was then the appropriate time to go climb the mountains around us.  We were all a little tuckered, and after making it up about a fourth of the mountain, we all just sat and admired the view and the gers nestled into the nook of the mountains next to the river and were complete content on leaving the summit for the grazing goats.

Dairy products and Mongolian vodka

So the really cool thing about visiting this family is that I got to learn about even more mongolian dairy products like the wonderful boiled milk foam and fermented yogurt cooked awesomeness stuff, yak yogurt, fermented yak milk, and a ton of others.  Also come to find out that Mongolian vodka is also made from, of course, dairy products!  First a yogurt is made, and then fermented and cooked down to distil the vodka.  Mind blown.

Photo time:


school 4 teachers and students
selfies with sarlags

the family gave this yak to me since i was clearly in love.  

this horse came out of nowhere.
the herder family.


After the family loaded us up with dairy goodies to go back home and enjoy, we loaded all 16 of us back into the clown van, along with a few bags of dung and set out on the bumpy journey home, through the frozen over rivers and alongside the  mountains.  Best trip ever.

Friday, November 8, 2013

More BX tales

My water container.

So after the confusion and utter chaos with my former water containers, I just bit the bullet and bought my own.  A beautiful 25 Liter blue container, complete with handle.  I went to the well and filled it up while being so excited to have my own container that no old lady could take away from my ger.  It is a bit of a ways back to my ger from the well, and lets just say 25 liters of water was way heavier than I had anticipated.  Nonetheless I trudged onward taking it 100 ft at a time before I had to put it down and rest.  Pretty soon, this 6th grader boy came running up to me notebook in hand.  He quickly opened it, and began asking me questions from his english lesson.  Luckily after a few pointers, he grabbed about three fourths of the handle and helped me carry it.  Since I could really only grip the handle with two fingers, and still kept having to break, this little boy just took the whole water container (which was only slightly smaller than he) and huffing puffingly carried it to my gate.  He thanked me for my help and I thanked him for his.  It was pretty great, thus I made a policy of free english tutoring for any kid who wants to fetch my water for me.

Blue water container update: Since buying this new water container, my neighbors kid broke it while he was getting water for me and now it leaks out the bottom.  Since he was doing me a favor, I really couldn't be upset about it...but it led me to my next purchase of another water container. Also blue, also 25 liters, but this time it opens from the top in stead of having a pour spout!

Mongol Names.

Mongols typically have long names. real long with deep meanings.  A lot of Mongolians have names that involve the word for the day of the week they are born on, or like my Mongolian host sister, her name includes the phrase for sunrise, since she was born...at sunrise.  One day in class when I was pondering this in great thought, I was trying to think of what i would be named if I was named for the time i was born...I was born somewhere around 9pm...and i figured I could not be called sunset, since 9pm was too late for that, but I thought nightfall could suffice, or maybe something to do with stars...and then I snapped back into reality quite harshly when I remembered my real name is April...which was conveniently the month I was born in. Womp womp.

More devil dog tales

Banxor is tied to  fence so that he doesnt eat people's faces off.  Sometimes on barking rampages,  when he is jumping wildly to try to eat you and pulling ever so roughly on that chain, I think that someday that chain is just going to snap.  He knows me now that he doesn't wildy bark at me anymore, but I think that my face still looks pretty tasty to him.  One saturday afternoon, I came out of my ger and Banxor was sitting in a different place in the yard, closer to my ger.  I stopped immediately in my tracks not knowing quite what to do  since he was loose.  I slowly started to back up towards my ger while maintaining eye contact with him just in case he decided he wanted to run.  Luckily I made it back inside my ger, and shut the door swiftly after me.  I stood gasping for breathe, not knowing what to do, since there was no way i was exiting my ger ever again.  Gers have no windows, so I was sure by now, Banxor was sniffing around the outside of my ger...just waiting for my face.  I armed myself with the best weapon I could (tongs) and opened the door just slightly enough to stick my head out and assess.  Luckily, my neighbor at the moment also came out of her ger.  She looked at me as if I was crazy, and I managed my arm out of door to point towards the dog, and say the dog is free.  She continued to look at me like I had twelve heads, and said its ok.  The conversation continued a little while before I understood that Banxor was still tied up, just to a new place...closer to my ger.  Thanks for the heads up, maybe?

Fear

Just while on the topic of Banxor 'getting loose,' one night I came back to my ger in the dark.  There are no street lights or what not here, so it gets very dark.  So when i entered my hasha, I could see nothing, and just walked towards the general direction of my ger.  When I was approaching my ger, there was a animal to the side of it making noise.  I quickly took the quietest steps towards my ger because I thought it was Banxor.  Luckily I made it into my ger with all my limbs.  Later I had to go out to get some coal, and I took my flashlight.  I made sure Banxor was in his normal spot, before I shut the door.  There was still an animal out there, but come to find out it was only a cat.

Mongolian doors.

you think i would have learned by now to duck when entering anything with a door, but I have not.  and my head hurts...often.

cars

cars are a little different here in Mongolia.  well...i guess cars arent so much different as in ideas around cars are different.  for example- car seats for kids, who  needs 'em!  The most people my corolla ever had inside of it was 7 people...sure, ok.  it seemed like a lot at the time, but let's be honest, there was so much room still available.  Here in Mongolia - the police dont care if you have enough seat belts for everyone in the car...its more like a game of hmmm, there are already 9 people in this back seat?  I think there is still room for a couple small runny nose children to fit in, oh and this goat.

literally as big as my head.
dairy products.

just when you think there cant possibly be any more dairy products invented, you then are invited to eat solidified boiled milk foam.   yum!  Fact.  solidified boiled milk foam is actually my favorite.

in other news, my former hatred of the arol, the dried cheese curd has now disappeared, and I actually like it. It's a pretty big deal, because now i dont have to hide it in my pockets anymore!  My favorite kinds are the super hard pieces that you think you might chip a tooth trying to eat.  Also, a super awesome nice teacher from my school gave me an entire bag full of it the other day.  I couldn't have been more thrilled.  Some pieces were as big as my head!



I scream, you scream, we all scream for trash?!?

There is this truck that drives about the city on random days playing delightful music...to me, I automatically think, wow...mongolia has an ice cream truck?  But no.  in fact it is not an ice cream truck. Fact: It is the garbage truck!!!  It's kind of brilliant- it's so people know when to bring trash out and throw it on the truck.

It's a trap.

My ger also has flys in addition to spiders.  Not a big deal really.  I hung up some fly paper from the upper poles of my ger, and it took care of the problem.  Now the only difficultly with this fly paper is that the my ger is a little...short.  and I am not, and the up most part of my body is my golden locks.  That's right.  I have gotten my hair stuck in it twice. You may ask yourself, what is worse than having to pull sticky fly paper out of your hair?  Well I am here to tell you. It is pulling the dead fly bodies out of your hair that didnt come off with the fly paper.

Do you have a dog?

In Mongolian, there is only a slight difference between the word for dog (no ckai), and the word for husband (no cker).  For the untrained ear and mouth, it is quite very subtle.  Unfortunately, here in Mongolia, I get asked about 5 times a week if I have a husband, since being 27 and without husband is viewed as unreasonable here.  Let's just say that quite often I reply to the husband question with,  'of course I have a dog'...because i think they are asking me if I have a dog. furthermore, once the person I tell that I have a 'dog', they usually ask me where my 'husband' is. To which I reply, tied up in my yard, of course! since he is so mean!

Brunch!

If it is one thing I miss about American culture, it is brunching.  So my fellow site mates and I planned a
brunch weekend complete with Mongolian bloody mary's and breakfast huushuur.

If you dont remember, Huushuur, formerly spelt hosher, is a deliciously fried pocket of dough filled with meat. to reiterate, delicious.  But this time it was breakfast huushuur.  That's right, eggs, cheese, and quite fortunately, there was bacon!  Since I am still confused on how to perfectly combine the perfect amount of flour with the appropriate amount of water in order to make the huushuur dough, I invited all of my fellow english teachers to my ger to help.

my awesome sitemates
In traditional mongol fashion, they were about two hours late, so by the time they arrived, JC, L and I had perfected our bloody mary recipe, were a few bloody marys in, and feelin' it.  We tried to offer some bloody mary's to the mongolians, but they found them rather 'spicy' and distasteful and refused them with wild hand motions as if the disgust on their faces didn't convey their point enough.  When trying to convey that it was spicy, they just said their mouths were busy.

folded
Some of my teachers had a basketball competition (one explanation for lateness) and when they arrived, they were all wearing Bull's uniforms with some sketchy numbers sown on the back.  So mostly the mongolians set to work creating this delicious meal, and the americans tried to help where we could.  Once the meal was finished, we all grabbed some huushuur and stuffed our faces.  We had a siracha dipping sauce, which of course was equal in dissatisfaction as the bloody marys.  One mongolian covered her huushuur in it however before she knew it was spicy.  After she took her first bite, she quickly realized her mistake and let out a huge 'oh my' and tried to scrape it all off.
fried

fantastic

om nom nom


All in all, it was a perfect brunch.