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.
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.
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.
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.
All in all, it was a perfect brunch.
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. |
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.
 |
| my awesome sitemates |
 |
| folded |
 |
| fried |
 |
| fantastic |
 |
| om nom nom |
All in all, it was a perfect brunch.
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