On Monday, our first speaker about the environment was a guy from the UNDP. He talked about various small projects help with biodiversity and combating desertification (41% of Mongolia is currently considered Gobi desert). Amazingly, about 15% of the country is protected land for national parks, reserves, and other protected areas. In the afternoon, a woman from the Wildlife Conservation Society came to speak to us about the efforts to curb the illegal trade of endangered animals. Unfortunately,, enforcement is impossible and many animails can be found in the markets in UB. The animals are used for their pelts, their meat and for traditional medicinal practices. Marmots, which are a traditional delicacy in Mongolia are being so overhunted that the government outlawed their hunting from 2007-2009, yet there were over 200,000 killed last year.
Tuesday brought with it more language class in the morning. I’ve actually learn some language now, but the grammar is so complicated and has so many exceptions that it would be impossible for me to really get this language down beyond very basic stuff. In the afternoon our lecturer, GreenGold (not his real name, but the project he worked for—we just called him that), talked about his current project to help educate rural families on pasture management. Pastures are badly damaged all over Mongolia mostly due to an increased goat population (goats can used for cashmere which is big money here, but goats pull out grasses by the roots, which permanently destroys pastures). His program has made significant progress in reseeding and reclaiming land in specific areas all over Mongolia. GreenGold himself used to run the Khustai Reserve where we will be going to tomorrow. He also worked with a few Americans to catch and tag the first wild snow leopards.
On the 15th, we had a speaker from the Boroo Gold Company in Mongolia. This girl was just out of college in the U.S. and spoke about the environmental monitoring by her company. Boroo tests the ground, water and air constantly and reseed land around their mine site as they finish with it. The companies work seems astounding as whole hillsides go from gravel pits to lush green land in as little as 6 months. They keep all the topsoil they displace and are very forward thinking; it gives hope that not all mining practices destroy and that mining has really come a long way at least for international companies. Mongolia still has a huge problem with illegal mining and “ninja” miners that do not follow any environmentally conscious practices at all.
After our lecture we took off for Khustai Reserve, which was only a short 3 hour drive. We took a tour of the visitors’ center and pretty much called it a day. After dinner, I pretty much taught the entire group how to play Durak and we played with 7-8 people for about 3 hours. It was a great time. In the morning we woke to the thickest pea soup fog I have ever seen. I was like being in Stephen King’s “The Mist”. We hung out at the research station in the park until the fog lifted about midday and only had to drive for about a mile before we came across The Takai horses, the reason the reserve exists. These are the only wild horses on earth. The horses are very distinctive with a stiff mane, solid light brown colored bodies, and stripes on their legs.
The story of the Takai could not be more incredible. The horses all died out in the 1960’s on Mongolia (yes, they went extinct in their natural habitat). Several of the horses were in zoos around the world with a significant population in zoos in the Netherlands, which created a reserve for the horses. Several Dutch proprietors and Takai lovers realized that the last of these horses would die out if not returned to their natural habitat, so they funded the transport of 15 of these horses from the Netherlands to Mongolia. For several years after more horses were shipped from around the world back to Mongolia to achieve the most genetic variation possible for the horses. They now number 400 in Mongolia and have returned to being wild horses (can you believe this). Takai are the last wild horses on earth not only historically but also genetically (those of you who believe in the wild mustang here’s proof that it what not originally wild). Takai have 66 sets of chromosomes while every other horse species on earth has 65 because Takais have been separated from other horses for so long, thus they cannot interbreed; in addition, zebras also have 66 chromosomes for the same reason and are why they are considered wild horses.
While we were sneaking up close enough to get good pictures of the Takai we stopped and sat on a hillside. Bagnaa, one of our instructors held up a handful of dirt to me and said “we’re sitting on gold”. Sure enough, we were sitting on tons of gold dust. It was all over my hands and my pants and just sparkled in the sunlight. Gold dust is not practical to mine and we were in a protected area, but Mongolia is so mineral rich that you can literally reach down and pull precious meatless out of the ground. After seeing the Takai, we drove to see some Turkish monuments left from when they ruled Mongolia. The stones were in the figures of men and animals and the site was a suspected burial site. Stones were also placed in a line for about 500 meters leading to the nearest river. We also saw white-tailed gazelle on the way back to the camp, which are another endangered species. After lunch we went to the northern edge of the Gobi desert and played in the sand dunes for a while. I found a porcupine skin, which is supposed to be very good luck if you take a few quills with you, so I did.
We returned to UB and slept the night (actually to be honest I’m still not getting full nights of sleep, and I cannot figure out why). On Friday, we had one last lecture on the environment from a man, Mr. Munkhbayar, who has started a project to protect and extend a river that all but disappeared in the early 1990’s. The river used to supply his family with water but dried up over the years as the river was diverted for irrigation and mining. He started the program and organized both locals and other environmental leaders to pressure the government and actually save his river and many others. He now is considered one of the foremost civil society leaders on environment and has grassroots campaigns that are actually effective on the national level. We also had a student led discussion before our UB home stay introductions. I am living with a 50 year old woman who is a trained accountant, but babysits for money currently; her 28 year old daughter who runs her own sowing show; and her 20 year old cousin who is taking a year off from school in Russia to be home.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Delgerhan Homestay
Sunday I made a trip to the black market to pick up some last-minute items. The market is fantastic because you just see the most amazing things; this trip the highlights included a dead porcupine being sold in the antique section, a whole live sheep in a burlap sack being carried in by two men with only its head sticking out, and ABBA music blasting while I at a snack at this little shop where I was the only non-Mongolian. The next morning we woke up and went to meet Ms. Oyun, who is the only independent party member of parliament and has been in the parliament for 10 years (only one of three women). She gave us some hard facts on Mongolia like: avg. GDP per capita is between $1500-1700 with a 5 billion dollar economy; their national budget is a mere 2.2 million (about the annual budget for the New York Police Department); they are experiencing 8-10% growth annually but their inflation rate is at about 33%; a third of the population is in poverty and it takes $100,000 to run a national campaign; they also have a ten year censuses (like the US) but they also have an annual census of the animals of Mongolia.
After our talk with Ms. Oyun we headed out to Delgerhan, the site of our next home stay. The road was paved for about half the trip, which was surprising, and about 15 miles outside of UB is an enormous statue of Chinggis Khaan that was reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty (you could also walk up through the statue and stare out of the mouth of Chinggia Khaan’s horse). When we arrived at base camp we had to set up our own ger, which was a lot of fun. You being with the door and five walls of lattice work that interlock. Then you stand up the internal support beams and the circular roof where you can attach poles that run down to the ger walls. Then large sheets of felt are put up all over the ger with a final weather cover put over the top.
The next morning we went on a tour of the valley we were staying in and visited 13 newly constructed ovoos and a sacred spring that produced sulfur laced water that was supposed to have healing properties (really the sulfur was just overpowering but did carbonate the water). We also went to a monument dedicated to the Sacred History of Mongols, which is the only real history book from the time of Chinggis Khaan. The site was next to an archeological dig site, both of which were here because it is believed to be the site of the fall palace of Chinggis Khaan, which is referenced in the closing pages of the Sacred History of Mongols. After lunch we learned how to play Shagai, a popular Mongolian game played with the ankle bones of sheep where each of the four sides of the bone correspond to an animal and like pairs are flicked together much like marbles. They also play a horse racing game with these ankle bones. Then we got picked up by our host families.
I got dropped off at my ger, which was in the community garden (my host father is the night watchman but the garden has not yet been developed though there is an irrigation ditch being dug to the nearby stream). I immediately dropped my stuff off and got back in the truck with my host mother and her granddaughter (named Nomin) and drove off. We stopped first at Christina’s ger because her host mother is sisters with my host mother; then we continued to the soum center. We picked up some cooking oil, a bed, and Bingo apple soda. I also saw Audrey and was accosted by some drunk guys who would not leave until I took a swig of vodka from them. After returning to the ger I had an instant panic attack when I could not find the gifts I had gotten for my family (of all the things to forget to pack) luckily I had just moved them and found them after several checks of all my bags. The first night I realized that the 8 and half by 11 inch solar panel that my family had only charged their battery to provide 20 minutes of light. We had no television and the radio was seldom used. The wiring for the light was so bad that after the second night he gave up on electricity and went to candles. Needless to say my family was not into technology and we went to bed really early due to the setting sun.
On the first of October, I spent my first full day with my family. Actually nothing happened. Really nothing. I ended up walking 45 minutes to Caitlin, who is the closest to me, and we walked in the hills for 5 hours to kill time. Before I left for my journey my host father gave me a stick to beat dogs with because they are so protective and vicious. This would turn out to be my entire home stay experience: long periods of nothing and long hikes to kill time (always with my trusty stick). My host mother and father do spend their time interacting with Nomin, who is three; they teacher her songs and vocabulary words and other little life lessons.
On the second, I tried to sleep as long as possible to pass the time, but the sun, a screaming little girl, and a man who cannot move around quietly all got me up pretty early. The pillow that they gave me the night before I realized was filled with twigs, which at a third the size of a normal pillow weight something like eight pounds. Breakfast was yogurt and rice mixed together and the word of the day was “buuz”, the Mongolian answer to pot-stickers that we had for lunch. The highlight of the day is when I actually went out with my host father and flipped dung for two hours so that I could dry properly in the sunlight because they use it for fuel (there are no trees in this area). For dinner we had Suven, which is noodles with meat and veggies, but the meat was dried and tasted awful; in addition, my family kindly boiled some water for me (they stick to milk tea and never drink water), and it tasted just like the noodles from dinner. On a very bright note, the stars that night were amazing. When the sky is clear you can see thousands of stars and the Milky Way is amazing.
On the 3rd our group went to the soum center for a day of activities. We were split into three groups and paired with Mongolian students who knew about as much English as we knew Mongolian. My group went to the local government house which was a large one-story that people just walked into without any invitation. We just sort of busted into office after office meeting the local tax collector and sub-director. We discovered the 10% flat tax that everyone is supposed to pay through the numerous socialist-esq propaganda posters. The last room we walked into had four women recording, verifying, and organizing what looked to be official documents. They were actually the voter registration cards for everyone in the soum, which are personally delivered to everyone in the soum (perhaps this is why they have over 70% voter turnout). They just let us stand there and watch and take pictures of them processing all these documents (god I love the access to politics we have here).
The other groups learned about the local school, which has two daily shifts to accommodate all the students some of which board at the school because they come from the country. The other group checked out local businesses like the restaurant/disco/general store or the more informal baker who functioned out of his own backyard. After a quick lunch at the restaurant/disco/general store, we went to see the local lama at his temple/ger. He blessed us and answered questions, though his rituals appeared to be heavily influenced by shamanism. Back at my ger I watched a man herd his goats and sheep from the back of a motorcycle. This practice is fairly common and efficient as you might imagine. That night I met my host parents son and daughter-in-law and their new baby (Nomin’s mother actually lives in UB-her remaining with her grandparents in the country is a common practice amongst Mongolian families that live in UB).
On the fourth I awoke to a breakfast of boiled mutton straight (we got fresh meat the previous evening from his son) with raw onions, all before 9am. Lunch was fat and noodle soup, which is what I call it because those are really the only two ingredients in the dish (this really is what people eat day after day). That afternoon me, my host father, Christina, her host father, and Caitlin (her host father who was supposed to go did not come back the previous night and she was “babysat” by her host grandmother) rode out to the sacred surrounding mountains. The mountains were beautiful and I have some great pictures of what was probably the only non-flat part of the landscape. When we returned to Caitlin’s ger we found that there was a giant padlock on the door and we just had to wait around until her host grandmother came back about an hour later (yep you just have to roll with the punches in the country, and they have the time to do just that).
On the fifth I woke up from yet another unsuccessful night of sleep. I’ve been waking up an average of five times and evening because my host father talks in his sleep really loud or the radio will be on or my host father will light a candle and smoke a cigarette in bed in the middle of the night. I spent most of the day reading. The election officials came by and dropped of the voter registration cards and I played Durak with my host father and other random people who would stop by. Surprisingly they tired of the game quickly and went back to the alternative…doing nothing.
Breakfast on the sixth was leftover noodles from the night before soaked in milk tea (delicious no?). I had a language class that day at Audrey’s ger; she was living with newlyweds whose ger was brand new. After class I had an interview with my host father. This is really where the trip soured. While my interview at my last home stay had been great and my previous host father answered all my questions well, this time around I could get almost no answers. Sharav was a perfect socialist product; he did not have to think for himself and thus could not answer any of my questions about his opinion on things like the status of Mongolia. The only answer I did get from him was that when socialism was around everyone had a job and now there were poor jobless people everywhere. He used this answer on three different questions, word-for-word. Now I was not upset by his answers to this point because it did paint a picture of a true child of socialism, but when I asked him if he was happy and what he liked about his herding life, he told me he was bored and had nothing to do all day. I had already noticed that he had nothing to do all day, but for him to admit that he was bored and didn’t really enjoy his life as really depressing because, while I would leave in a few days after stir-crazy boredom, this was his life forever with no change in sight.
On the seventh day, my host father slept until 1pm because he had gone out and gotten drunk the previous night and come home late (which woke me up again—he’s not a quite guy). The wind blew all night and day to make the temperature a lot colder today, so cold that it snowed about three inches in the afternoon while we took a family nap because we all got so bored we just slept. I interviewed my host mother in the morning, which presented a huge contrast to my host father. She likes her life and, while she also could not answer my opinion questions, she did contribute a bit more and was at least happy with life and didn’t think the socialist era was better than the democratic era despite clearly being a child of socialism. Her contrast from her husband made me feel even worse for him. That night was so cold that they had to blowtorch the stove to get the fire started, and we played host to five people from three different families who all ate the mostly fat filled buuz that we had for dinner.
On the eight I mostly read and did homework for the first half of the day (I got so desperate that I tried to read a Mongolian newspaper—I didn’t get very far, but I did see an advertisement for fantasy sumo, the way we have fantasy football). I walked to Caitlin’s ger to keep from going crazy, and as I walked up to her ger her host father was holding a sheep on the ground upside down. I watched its eyes twitch and look at me, and then I moved around the back of Caitlin’s host father and noticed the knife in his hand and the bloody hole in the sheep’s chest. By the time I move back around the front, the sheep was dead. Caitlin’s host father dragged the sheep into the ger and proceeded to skin it right in front of us. We were surprisingly un-phased, this is their way of life, and yet I had just watched the life drain from the sheep that was now slowly being taken apart piece-by-piece two feet from me.
We left before he disemboweled the sheep and walked through the hills to kill time. Four hours later we returned to a bowl of boiled intestines and organs and a fully cleaned carcass and skull. That night back at my ger, my host father gave me a sending off party, which consisted of playing cards with him and one other guy while we drank airag. Airag is the national drink of Mongolia and is made from fermented mare’s milk. It tastes like a combination of Mongolia’s tasteless cheese and seltzer water with a hint of lemon. The drink it like water, but with such a low alcohol content (about 3%) I can’t imagine they actually get drunk off of this stuff directly (I had 8 glasses by the way and I was fine). Instead, they boil the airag and distill it so that just the alcohol is left. This product is called arik, which is milk vodka, and tastes awful. My host father also made this for me but it didn’t turn out quite right, which is why I think it tasted so bad.
On the ninth, I packed up had steamed buns that taste like those big pretzels you get at sports events. Lunch was a dumpling soup that I ate while a group of people campaigning for the upcoming local elections came by and talked to my host parents. This solicitation involved the gentleman who was running for office giving candy, fruit, literature and money (yes money!) to my host family as part of his campaign. At 1pm I left my host family and went back to base camp to debrief and cook dinner for ourselves. The next morning we packed up and took apart two of the gers before we headed back to UB.
Back in the city I realized that I had been locked out of my e-mail account, so I decided to take a walk. I happened upon the UBS (one of the major T.V. stations in Mongolia) 2008 Music Video Awards. There was a red carpet outside of the national opera house where celebrities in leather biker outfits, giant fur coats, and traveling with entourages that included one very large doxon strutted in front of media and fans alike.
The next day I spent trying to get back into my email account to no avail. In the afternoon a group of us went to a wrestling match at the wrestling palace. The match begins with a speech by some high official, then the national anthem, and then a blessing by monks. The wrestlers then came out 12 at a time to have 6 matched going at once. The wrestlers each do an eagle dance and present themselves to the judges and the flag before beginning their match. I think they are seeded best against worse so the biggest guys always destroyed these scrawny little men in the first round. Losers have to go under the winner’s right arm and get slapped on the back and untie the top half of their uniform in defeat. The judge then crowns the winner with his hat, which the judge removed from both wrestlers at the beginning of the bout.
Mongolian wrestling is has no rules, restrictions or time limits. The first man (women do not wrestle) who has a part of their body below the waist, excluding feet, hit the ground loses. There are also no weight classes, which is why tiny little guys end up being crush by huge guys. Matches seem to be all about endurance because athletes must wrestle through 9 to 6 rounds to become a champion. We actually only stayed until the beginning of the second round because the first one took two hours, even with multiple matches going on constantly. On Sunday all I did was go to the market where as usual I had a great time and saw some ridiculous stuff like a two-year old smoking a cigarette that he must have found on the ground. People around me were actually shocked by this (this is the only thing so far). I also saw two guys replacing an entire engine to their Corolla on the sidewalk (it was sort of amazing). Tomorrow we being lectures on the Mongolian environment and environmental issues.
After our talk with Ms. Oyun we headed out to Delgerhan, the site of our next home stay. The road was paved for about half the trip, which was surprising, and about 15 miles outside of UB is an enormous statue of Chinggis Khaan that was reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty (you could also walk up through the statue and stare out of the mouth of Chinggia Khaan’s horse). When we arrived at base camp we had to set up our own ger, which was a lot of fun. You being with the door and five walls of lattice work that interlock. Then you stand up the internal support beams and the circular roof where you can attach poles that run down to the ger walls. Then large sheets of felt are put up all over the ger with a final weather cover put over the top.
The next morning we went on a tour of the valley we were staying in and visited 13 newly constructed ovoos and a sacred spring that produced sulfur laced water that was supposed to have healing properties (really the sulfur was just overpowering but did carbonate the water). We also went to a monument dedicated to the Sacred History of Mongols, which is the only real history book from the time of Chinggis Khaan. The site was next to an archeological dig site, both of which were here because it is believed to be the site of the fall palace of Chinggis Khaan, which is referenced in the closing pages of the Sacred History of Mongols. After lunch we learned how to play Shagai, a popular Mongolian game played with the ankle bones of sheep where each of the four sides of the bone correspond to an animal and like pairs are flicked together much like marbles. They also play a horse racing game with these ankle bones. Then we got picked up by our host families.
I got dropped off at my ger, which was in the community garden (my host father is the night watchman but the garden has not yet been developed though there is an irrigation ditch being dug to the nearby stream). I immediately dropped my stuff off and got back in the truck with my host mother and her granddaughter (named Nomin) and drove off. We stopped first at Christina’s ger because her host mother is sisters with my host mother; then we continued to the soum center. We picked up some cooking oil, a bed, and Bingo apple soda. I also saw Audrey and was accosted by some drunk guys who would not leave until I took a swig of vodka from them. After returning to the ger I had an instant panic attack when I could not find the gifts I had gotten for my family (of all the things to forget to pack) luckily I had just moved them and found them after several checks of all my bags. The first night I realized that the 8 and half by 11 inch solar panel that my family had only charged their battery to provide 20 minutes of light. We had no television and the radio was seldom used. The wiring for the light was so bad that after the second night he gave up on electricity and went to candles. Needless to say my family was not into technology and we went to bed really early due to the setting sun.
On the first of October, I spent my first full day with my family. Actually nothing happened. Really nothing. I ended up walking 45 minutes to Caitlin, who is the closest to me, and we walked in the hills for 5 hours to kill time. Before I left for my journey my host father gave me a stick to beat dogs with because they are so protective and vicious. This would turn out to be my entire home stay experience: long periods of nothing and long hikes to kill time (always with my trusty stick). My host mother and father do spend their time interacting with Nomin, who is three; they teacher her songs and vocabulary words and other little life lessons.
On the second, I tried to sleep as long as possible to pass the time, but the sun, a screaming little girl, and a man who cannot move around quietly all got me up pretty early. The pillow that they gave me the night before I realized was filled with twigs, which at a third the size of a normal pillow weight something like eight pounds. Breakfast was yogurt and rice mixed together and the word of the day was “buuz”, the Mongolian answer to pot-stickers that we had for lunch. The highlight of the day is when I actually went out with my host father and flipped dung for two hours so that I could dry properly in the sunlight because they use it for fuel (there are no trees in this area). For dinner we had Suven, which is noodles with meat and veggies, but the meat was dried and tasted awful; in addition, my family kindly boiled some water for me (they stick to milk tea and never drink water), and it tasted just like the noodles from dinner. On a very bright note, the stars that night were amazing. When the sky is clear you can see thousands of stars and the Milky Way is amazing.
On the 3rd our group went to the soum center for a day of activities. We were split into three groups and paired with Mongolian students who knew about as much English as we knew Mongolian. My group went to the local government house which was a large one-story that people just walked into without any invitation. We just sort of busted into office after office meeting the local tax collector and sub-director. We discovered the 10% flat tax that everyone is supposed to pay through the numerous socialist-esq propaganda posters. The last room we walked into had four women recording, verifying, and organizing what looked to be official documents. They were actually the voter registration cards for everyone in the soum, which are personally delivered to everyone in the soum (perhaps this is why they have over 70% voter turnout). They just let us stand there and watch and take pictures of them processing all these documents (god I love the access to politics we have here).
The other groups learned about the local school, which has two daily shifts to accommodate all the students some of which board at the school because they come from the country. The other group checked out local businesses like the restaurant/disco/general store or the more informal baker who functioned out of his own backyard. After a quick lunch at the restaurant/disco/general store, we went to see the local lama at his temple/ger. He blessed us and answered questions, though his rituals appeared to be heavily influenced by shamanism. Back at my ger I watched a man herd his goats and sheep from the back of a motorcycle. This practice is fairly common and efficient as you might imagine. That night I met my host parents son and daughter-in-law and their new baby (Nomin’s mother actually lives in UB-her remaining with her grandparents in the country is a common practice amongst Mongolian families that live in UB).
On the fourth I awoke to a breakfast of boiled mutton straight (we got fresh meat the previous evening from his son) with raw onions, all before 9am. Lunch was fat and noodle soup, which is what I call it because those are really the only two ingredients in the dish (this really is what people eat day after day). That afternoon me, my host father, Christina, her host father, and Caitlin (her host father who was supposed to go did not come back the previous night and she was “babysat” by her host grandmother) rode out to the sacred surrounding mountains. The mountains were beautiful and I have some great pictures of what was probably the only non-flat part of the landscape. When we returned to Caitlin’s ger we found that there was a giant padlock on the door and we just had to wait around until her host grandmother came back about an hour later (yep you just have to roll with the punches in the country, and they have the time to do just that).
On the fifth I woke up from yet another unsuccessful night of sleep. I’ve been waking up an average of five times and evening because my host father talks in his sleep really loud or the radio will be on or my host father will light a candle and smoke a cigarette in bed in the middle of the night. I spent most of the day reading. The election officials came by and dropped of the voter registration cards and I played Durak with my host father and other random people who would stop by. Surprisingly they tired of the game quickly and went back to the alternative…doing nothing.
Breakfast on the sixth was leftover noodles from the night before soaked in milk tea (delicious no?). I had a language class that day at Audrey’s ger; she was living with newlyweds whose ger was brand new. After class I had an interview with my host father. This is really where the trip soured. While my interview at my last home stay had been great and my previous host father answered all my questions well, this time around I could get almost no answers. Sharav was a perfect socialist product; he did not have to think for himself and thus could not answer any of my questions about his opinion on things like the status of Mongolia. The only answer I did get from him was that when socialism was around everyone had a job and now there were poor jobless people everywhere. He used this answer on three different questions, word-for-word. Now I was not upset by his answers to this point because it did paint a picture of a true child of socialism, but when I asked him if he was happy and what he liked about his herding life, he told me he was bored and had nothing to do all day. I had already noticed that he had nothing to do all day, but for him to admit that he was bored and didn’t really enjoy his life as really depressing because, while I would leave in a few days after stir-crazy boredom, this was his life forever with no change in sight.
On the seventh day, my host father slept until 1pm because he had gone out and gotten drunk the previous night and come home late (which woke me up again—he’s not a quite guy). The wind blew all night and day to make the temperature a lot colder today, so cold that it snowed about three inches in the afternoon while we took a family nap because we all got so bored we just slept. I interviewed my host mother in the morning, which presented a huge contrast to my host father. She likes her life and, while she also could not answer my opinion questions, she did contribute a bit more and was at least happy with life and didn’t think the socialist era was better than the democratic era despite clearly being a child of socialism. Her contrast from her husband made me feel even worse for him. That night was so cold that they had to blowtorch the stove to get the fire started, and we played host to five people from three different families who all ate the mostly fat filled buuz that we had for dinner.
On the eight I mostly read and did homework for the first half of the day (I got so desperate that I tried to read a Mongolian newspaper—I didn’t get very far, but I did see an advertisement for fantasy sumo, the way we have fantasy football). I walked to Caitlin’s ger to keep from going crazy, and as I walked up to her ger her host father was holding a sheep on the ground upside down. I watched its eyes twitch and look at me, and then I moved around the back of Caitlin’s host father and noticed the knife in his hand and the bloody hole in the sheep’s chest. By the time I move back around the front, the sheep was dead. Caitlin’s host father dragged the sheep into the ger and proceeded to skin it right in front of us. We were surprisingly un-phased, this is their way of life, and yet I had just watched the life drain from the sheep that was now slowly being taken apart piece-by-piece two feet from me.
We left before he disemboweled the sheep and walked through the hills to kill time. Four hours later we returned to a bowl of boiled intestines and organs and a fully cleaned carcass and skull. That night back at my ger, my host father gave me a sending off party, which consisted of playing cards with him and one other guy while we drank airag. Airag is the national drink of Mongolia and is made from fermented mare’s milk. It tastes like a combination of Mongolia’s tasteless cheese and seltzer water with a hint of lemon. The drink it like water, but with such a low alcohol content (about 3%) I can’t imagine they actually get drunk off of this stuff directly (I had 8 glasses by the way and I was fine). Instead, they boil the airag and distill it so that just the alcohol is left. This product is called arik, which is milk vodka, and tastes awful. My host father also made this for me but it didn’t turn out quite right, which is why I think it tasted so bad.
On the ninth, I packed up had steamed buns that taste like those big pretzels you get at sports events. Lunch was a dumpling soup that I ate while a group of people campaigning for the upcoming local elections came by and talked to my host parents. This solicitation involved the gentleman who was running for office giving candy, fruit, literature and money (yes money!) to my host family as part of his campaign. At 1pm I left my host family and went back to base camp to debrief and cook dinner for ourselves. The next morning we packed up and took apart two of the gers before we headed back to UB.
Back in the city I realized that I had been locked out of my e-mail account, so I decided to take a walk. I happened upon the UBS (one of the major T.V. stations in Mongolia) 2008 Music Video Awards. There was a red carpet outside of the national opera house where celebrities in leather biker outfits, giant fur coats, and traveling with entourages that included one very large doxon strutted in front of media and fans alike.
The next day I spent trying to get back into my email account to no avail. In the afternoon a group of us went to a wrestling match at the wrestling palace. The match begins with a speech by some high official, then the national anthem, and then a blessing by monks. The wrestlers then came out 12 at a time to have 6 matched going at once. The wrestlers each do an eagle dance and present themselves to the judges and the flag before beginning their match. I think they are seeded best against worse so the biggest guys always destroyed these scrawny little men in the first round. Losers have to go under the winner’s right arm and get slapped on the back and untie the top half of their uniform in defeat. The judge then crowns the winner with his hat, which the judge removed from both wrestlers at the beginning of the bout.
Mongolian wrestling is has no rules, restrictions or time limits. The first man (women do not wrestle) who has a part of their body below the waist, excluding feet, hit the ground loses. There are also no weight classes, which is why tiny little guys end up being crush by huge guys. Matches seem to be all about endurance because athletes must wrestle through 9 to 6 rounds to become a champion. We actually only stayed until the beginning of the second round because the first one took two hours, even with multiple matches going on constantly. On Sunday all I did was go to the market where as usual I had a great time and saw some ridiculous stuff like a two-year old smoking a cigarette that he must have found on the ground. People around me were actually shocked by this (this is the only thing so far). I also saw two guys replacing an entire engine to their Corolla on the sidewalk (it was sort of amazing). Tomorrow we being lectures on the Mongolian environment and environmental issues.
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