It's 'spring' here now. I really cant believe it. Mostly because it just keeps snowing...
But with spring, comes NEW BABY ANIMALS. lambs, kids, calves...it's exciting. It is interesting to actually see a reason for spring break instead of just a break from school. Those children have to go help their parents with all of these babies being born!
So, on the first chance I got, I went to the countryside to visit Firecracker's family, and pretend to be a herder... FC still had to work, so I went with her young niece to fully test my mongolian skills.
Her parents live in the middle of nowhere, about 6 hours away from where we live, in the distance from a small village call buutsagaan. When we went to the market to find a car, there was only a small car going. The driver said that they were only taking one other small child, and that taking me would be no problem. FC, however, called his bluff, and convinced him to let me have the front passenger seat. We all agreed, and he said that he would be by to pick me up about 3 hours later. A suprising 20 minutes later, I was in the car with Enkhjin (FC's niece) and the drivers adult friend. The first stop was to pick up the "1 small child." Turns out 1 small child in Mongolian really means 6 medium sized children and a teenager. So total for the tiny sedan was 3 adults, 2 teenagers, and 6 children. I sat so comfortably in that passenger seat as everyone else, quite literally, crammed into the back.
So we set out on our journey driving on the open field (there are no roads in the countryside) towards our destination. We were driving pretty fast, so I was hoping it would be on the 'faster than 6 hours' side. About 2 hours in however, we hit a ditch going a little too fast, and we broke the front axel. Now what this means is that we were stuck, in the middle of vast unpopulated mongolia- about 2 hours away from the next small village, with no cell phone reception in the cold ass weather.
So here is a how to, on fixing an axel.
step 1. light a cigarette
step 2. assess the damage
step 3. crawl under the car, and try fixing it by hitting it with a nearby rock.
step 4. get back in, turn the car on, and see if the car can move.
step 5. repeat step 3 and 4, roughly 4 times.
step 6. use the car jack, cut out a seat belt, remove the tire and tie the axel up.
step 7. start the car up, see that it works, and pile all the kids back in the backseat while the foreigner relaxes comfortably in the front.
so this fix to our situation only would only work if we drove going 1 mile per hour, stopping every 5 minutes to repeat the process. Needlessly to say, we were well past the time we were supposed to arrive at our destination, and we wereonly about halfway there. we eventually had to cut out another seat belt after hitting another ditch. However that second seat belt only lasted us until dusk, and about a mile from a small village. The driver just went ahead and told us all to walk to the village at dusk aka wolf time (aka actually a pretty scary time) while he figured out the situation. The kids darted out all scattered like towards the village, and my motherly instincts were yelling after them to stay in a group...but they seemed quite intent on their scatter pattern...so what i realized is that there is probably a good reason that I am not a mother yet.
DISCLAIMER: no one was eaten by a wolf
Since we were close enough to the village, that there was someone that drove by us and picked up all these random kids running. The kids were excited to tell him of our car situation, and he asked if we knew anyone in this small village. Once he figured out we didnt, he just kind of let us sit in his car for a while. Since we were at a village, we had cell reception, and I called FC to let her know where we were. She called actually a former teacher from my school who now lives in this village, who invited me and Enkhjin over and fed us.
They eventually got the car to the village, and fixed it up in the dark with a welding tool, in about an hours time. The now fixed car picked us up, and once again we were on our way at a faster speed. Now however, the drivers friend took the front, leaving me snuggling with the kids in the back. They all fell asleep on me. While I didn't fall asleep, my legs surely did.
We arrived in the middle of the night to our destination. I was very surprised that the driver just found the correct house, in the huge landscape, without actually any directions from me or Enkhjin.
We stumbled wearily out of the car, and stood tiresome under a blanket of the brightest stars and waited for FC's mom to answer the door.
But with spring, comes NEW BABY ANIMALS. lambs, kids, calves...it's exciting. It is interesting to actually see a reason for spring break instead of just a break from school. Those children have to go help their parents with all of these babies being born!
So, on the first chance I got, I went to the countryside to visit Firecracker's family, and pretend to be a herder... FC still had to work, so I went with her young niece to fully test my mongolian skills.
Her parents live in the middle of nowhere, about 6 hours away from where we live, in the distance from a small village call buutsagaan. When we went to the market to find a car, there was only a small car going. The driver said that they were only taking one other small child, and that taking me would be no problem. FC, however, called his bluff, and convinced him to let me have the front passenger seat. We all agreed, and he said that he would be by to pick me up about 3 hours later. A suprising 20 minutes later, I was in the car with Enkhjin (FC's niece) and the drivers adult friend. The first stop was to pick up the "1 small child." Turns out 1 small child in Mongolian really means 6 medium sized children and a teenager. So total for the tiny sedan was 3 adults, 2 teenagers, and 6 children. I sat so comfortably in that passenger seat as everyone else, quite literally, crammed into the back.
So we set out on our journey driving on the open field (there are no roads in the countryside) towards our destination. We were driving pretty fast, so I was hoping it would be on the 'faster than 6 hours' side. About 2 hours in however, we hit a ditch going a little too fast, and we broke the front axel. Now what this means is that we were stuck, in the middle of vast unpopulated mongolia- about 2 hours away from the next small village, with no cell phone reception in the cold ass weather.
So here is a how to, on fixing an axel.
step 1. light a cigarette
step 2. assess the damage
step 3. crawl under the car, and try fixing it by hitting it with a nearby rock.
step 4. get back in, turn the car on, and see if the car can move.
step 5. repeat step 3 and 4, roughly 4 times.
step 6. use the car jack, cut out a seat belt, remove the tire and tie the axel up.
step 7. start the car up, see that it works, and pile all the kids back in the backseat while the foreigner relaxes comfortably in the front.
so this fix to our situation only would only work if we drove going 1 mile per hour, stopping every 5 minutes to repeat the process. Needlessly to say, we were well past the time we were supposed to arrive at our destination, and we wereonly about halfway there. we eventually had to cut out another seat belt after hitting another ditch. However that second seat belt only lasted us until dusk, and about a mile from a small village. The driver just went ahead and told us all to walk to the village at dusk aka wolf time (aka actually a pretty scary time) while he figured out the situation. The kids darted out all scattered like towards the village, and my motherly instincts were yelling after them to stay in a group...but they seemed quite intent on their scatter pattern...so what i realized is that there is probably a good reason that I am not a mother yet.
DISCLAIMER: no one was eaten by a wolf
Since we were close enough to the village, that there was someone that drove by us and picked up all these random kids running. The kids were excited to tell him of our car situation, and he asked if we knew anyone in this small village. Once he figured out we didnt, he just kind of let us sit in his car for a while. Since we were at a village, we had cell reception, and I called FC to let her know where we were. She called actually a former teacher from my school who now lives in this village, who invited me and Enkhjin over and fed us.
 |
| Naraa teacher and her family |
We arrived in the middle of the night to our destination. I was very surprised that the driver just found the correct house, in the huge landscape, without actually any directions from me or Enkhjin.
We stumbled wearily out of the car, and stood tiresome under a blanket of the brightest stars and waited for FC's mom to answer the door.
No comments:
Post a Comment