The World’s Three:
Dark is a night without the moon.
Dark is a person without knowledge
Dark is a flock without sheep.
Proverbs:
One log is not a fire
One person is not a home
A man falls 7 times and raises 8.
A person comes to a home with the man’s name and leaves with the woman’s name.
Recently, I have been reading Mongolian culture and folktale passages with my Mongolian tutor. I thought I’d share a little.
Traditional color symbolism:
Like I said, these are the traditional associations. Now, people wear black whenever they feel like it, and no one cares what color your gift is.
Spring sand storms bring
an icky grimy feeling.
Also, being caught in spring sand storms induces such thoughts as, “Aw man, I just washed my hair two days ago.”
America’s Worst Airline Will Charge $25 to Lose Your Bag: Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations Blog
Travelers reacted with annoyance and anger earlier when United announced that it was going to start charging $25 to check a second bag, but at least with United you stand a good chance of your bag actually showing up at your destination. Now USAirways is following suit.
ugh. I’m glad that I hauled a huge suitcase full of Mongolia items back to America this past winter. I flew both of those airlines on my recent visit.
Note to USAir: You are feeding passengers again. Cut this expense. I only had a 3 hour flight; I could have lived. If I hadn’t just come from Mongolia, I probably wouldn’t have been that excited about it.
Additional Note to USAir: Even though my flight was delayed and I almost missed my connection, Daddy Day Camp playing on the screen above me was the most painful part of my USAir experience.
As I got on the plane to Korea last month, I got slightly emotional about leaving. I was reminded that my PC service will have 8 months to go. Although I have no plans to extend my service, it still has been an important part of my life.Today, I am in Korea. I’ll be back in Mongolia before dark. However, excitement about returning has been numbed by the fact that it is January. Our Saftey and Security Manager reminded me of this via e-mail:
I would like to inform you that it is getting ver cold these days in Mongolia, especially, 11-16 Jan,It will be the coldest time in last 6 years in Mongolia.It will be -35-45C at night, and -25-35 at day time.
For you Celsius challenged folk, that’s -31 to -49F at night and -13 to -31F during the day.
Mongolian Peace Corps Volunteer’s waistlines are subject to an extra long holiday eating binge. We still celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas by making stuffing, cookies, pies, and cooking chickens that we have slaughtered ourselves*. Then comes New Year’s. This is a big holiday in Mongolia. Every Mongolian workplace has their own party which includes eating, drinking, dancing and Russian champagne. In the beginning of February is Tsaagan Sar, the Lunar New Year. That holiday is marked by 3 - 7 days of endless meat dumplings, dairy products and vodka.
This year my holiday eating has gotten off to a fantastic start. First I celebrated Thanksgiving with my co-workers with a Thanksgiving pot luck. I brought pizza, and my co-workers all put their money together to buy boiled meat.
The Hovd volunteers celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend. Besides having chicken instead of turkey, we managed to perfectly re-create American holiday food.
And in two and half weeks, I’m going to spend three weeks eating Tex-Mex, sandwiches, dark green vegetables, ham, turkey, and every other traditional Christmas food. Oh, and enjoying drinking coffee and quality beer.
Yes, I’m coming to America.
I decided to come to the land of supermarkets, fountain drinks and infrastructure for a few weeks of long underwear-less vacation.
Here is my schedule:
Phoenix: Dec 16 - 20
San Antonio: Dec 20 - 25
Houston: Dec 25 - 27
San Antonio: Dec 27 - 31
Phoenix: Dec 31 - Jan 7
Yeah, that’s a bit of travel, but I doomed myself to it by visiting my family over the holidays. However, I’m flying between AZ and TX which is a lot nicer than my family’s traditional CO to TX drive.
Please let me know if you will be in those places while I am. I’d love for you to take me out for dinner or a beer. :)
Sorry if our paths will not cross during my short stint back in the homeland, but the ones I care about have done an excellent job of spreading out all over the place (says the woman that lives in Mongolia). We can meet up next year.
*Actually, the chicken thing is only a Thanksgiving tradition out where I live. And this tradition was started last year by me.
I am utterly amazed at the fact that it is Thanksgiving 2007. I’m not sure what happened to fall. I do remember buying kilos of tomatoes for 300 turgruk. (Now, they are 2,000 turgruk a kilo). The months didn’t disappear. I lived them, but some days it doesn’t feel like it.
I’ve been fairly busy.
On the health side of things, several other volunteers and myself have started working with the Parents of Disabled Children Association that is run out of the hospital. The Mongolians that run it are a dedicated group of people that do physical thearpy for the children (with amazing equipment donated by the British Embassy) and help parents. We are trying to assist the organization with some adocvacy work, trainings, data collecting and whatever else gets thrown our way.
In November, some PC volunteers in another part of the country organized a Mongolia National Fitness Day. With the local Red Cross and the exercise methodolgist at my work, I organized a hike in honor of the day. However, I woke up with a fever that morning and couldn’t make it. To top it off, the power was out, and my cell phone battery died; I had no way of letting people know I couldn’t come. Even in my absence, about 30 people showed up, and they went on anyway.
Currently, I am getting ready for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1st. Hopefully, a radio PSA contest, AIDS ribbons and information boards all come together.
I’ve been doing some side projects as well.
Another volunteer and I are finishing up a 6 week English computer course. We are teaching at the library. We are teaching secondary students, college students and 1 university teacher. The course is a survey of all things computers - basic hardware, Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Internet. Each class also has a typing section. We have been developing the material ourselves which takes a lot of time. We will run the course again after the new year. We are also hoping that our students will help us translate the book into Mongolian.
I’ve been getting materials together to teach Internet classes at my work. However, that is something that will have to put off until the new year because I have to find a volunteer translator to help me teach.
I have also started the very beginnings of a media development project for the local TV, newspaper and radio station. However, it has gotten stuck at the needs assesment phase due to my Mongolian partner being incredibly busy.
What has been really helpful in getting work done this year is my Mongolian language. My langauge skills are far from amazing, but I can, for example, go to a doctor and ask, “What are you doing for Worlds AIDS Day?”; get the gist of what he says, and then tell him how I want to contribute. The conversation is pretty rough, but it can happen. I’ve made a couple of those cold calls recently. It feels pretty good to be able to pull them off. It’s also nice to have those interactions with people that met me shortly after coming to Khovd. After the World AIDS Day conversation, the doctor shook my hand and said, “Congratulations. You’ve learned Mongolian.”
Not quite. But I’m getting there.
Thanks to All Mongolian Recipes, I bring you “Mongolian Food that I have Eaten in the Past Year.” To find out more about the food (and how to make it!) click on the link. I have ordered these items from tastiest to least tastiest. Well, in my opinion, of course.
* Khorkhog - real Mongolian BBQ
* Tarag- Mongolian yogurt
* Tsuvian- homemade noodle dish
* Suutei tsai- milk tea
* Gambir- fry bread
* Budaatai Khuurga- rice dish
* Khailmag- caramelized clotted cream
* Khuushuur- fried meat filled pockets
* Chansan Makh-boiled meat and innards (Note: I enjoy the meat much more than the innards.)
* Boortsog- fried bread snack
* Guriltai shul- noodle soup
* Buuz- steamed meat filled pockets
* Bansh- small boiled meat filled pockets
* Aruul- dried curds
* Byaslag- Mongolian cheese
* Mongol Arkhi- milk liquor
* Ayrag- fermented mare’s milk
* Urum- clotted cream
* Banshtai tsai- milk tea with bansh
* Bantan- flour meat soup
* Uuz- mutton back (with lots o’ fat)
* Ul boov- hard holiday sweet bread
* Arkhi- vodka
So, there ya go. Just a taste of my Mongolian culinary experience, but trust me, in order to really experience this stuff, you have to eat it yourself.
A few mornings this week, on my way to work, I have noticed that a large shallow pool of water has floating pieces of ice.
It warms up some during the day, but since Sunday, there has been a lingering chill in the air all day.
Winter wasn’t that bad, but, well, I have discovered that these nice fall days are making me slightly anxious for the months ahead. Perhaps I’m just not dressing warm enough.
I am counting down the days (about 2 weeks) until the heat and hot water switch on. My apartment isn’t chilly until the evening; The past few days, after dark, I’ve been hunkering under a blanket with my book.
Hovd Soum, the Kazakh soum in Khovd Aimag, plays baseball.
Baseball is not a sport that is played in Mongolia. Volleyball, basketball and soccer are very common. All games can be played with A Ball* and equipment that, once installed, lasts** Thus, they are pretty cheap and accessible games to play. Baseball, the other hand, needs more equipment. Like the other sports, only one ball is needed for a group. However, every fielder needs a mitt, and there needs to be a least one bat involved; you also have to play baseball outside. And well, it’s cold in Mongolia for 8 months of the year. Plus, I’m sure Russians introduced those games to Mongolians, and I don’t think baseball is very popular there.
However, Jordon, the M14 volunteer that lived in Hovd Soum, liked to play baseball. I discovered this a few months ago from a Hovd Soum resident and secondary school student, Eljis. I sat next to him during an English Sports Idiom presentation at the library. A picture of an American baseball stadium appeared on the screen; Eljis gasped and whispered to me, “We play baseball in my soum. Jordon taught us, but we use rocks for bases.” He laughed. Not only did Jordon teach them how to play baseball, but Jordon’s dad sent the soum softballs, gloves and bats.
Recently, Andy and Eljis chatted about all the PCVs in Hovd Aimag going to Hovd Soum to play baseball with the local kids. Eljis decided that this needed to happen and called us and told us to come on Saturday. Six PCVs piled into a hired jeep and drove to the soum to meet with Eljis and Hovd Soum’s new PCV, Amber. When we pulled up to the wrestling field (our baseball field), we were greeted with a huge group of eager kids.
We let the kids throw around the ball for a bit, and Brody led a batting practice. Then we kicked the little kids off the field; Eljis found suitable bases by the creek, and we played a bigger kid softball game. We divided the Americans evenly across the teams. However, this was really unneeded because several kids put us to shame playing “America’s game.” We probably played 6 or so innings. We played until one team got to 10. I fell right into my standby role of “annoying fan,” and I definitely entertained kids by cheering my face off.
I don’t really like baseball all that much. I don’t follow the MLB, and I stopped playing softball during middle school. However, I do have fond memories of going to friends’ softball adult league games in Parker and being one of two fans in the stands. There is something about baseball/softball that triggers a cheesy, small-town feel-good emotion. (See the movie: The Sandlot).
I felt a little bit of that on Saturday standing on the wrestling field in the shadow of the Altai mountains listening to children laughing with each other in Kazakh and listening to the clang of a softball on a aluminum bat.
*A Ball is many times used for all three sports.
**Outdoors sports equipment sticks around unless it is stolen for scrap metal. Basketball hoops often fall prey to this fate.
