The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

           Mongolia is a cold, cold place.  In the last three weeks, the temperature never rose above 0º Fahrenheit, and I would say that the average temperature was about -20ºF with a low of -40ºF.  And I left before it got bad.  January and February are already infamous cold months in which the temperature is no longer really taken into account except by the number of layers of long underwear you wear under your clothes.  These months sometimes come with a weather disaster called zuud which along with frigid temperatures brings too much snow that keeps millions of Mongolia’s animals from feeding on the grass.  During a zuud, these animals will starve and eventually be frozen in their tracks, and there is little a herder can do to save his or her herd.  It takes years to rebuild a herd after a zuud, and many herders who lose everything to the winter, will migrate to UB.

When the herders (and anyone else) come to UB, they will typically move into the ger district. Not everyone in the ger district lives in a ger—many live in houses—but what sets the ger district apart from the rest of UB is that it is not connected to central water, sewage, or heating.  Heating is the key service in Mongolia, and Mongolians living in the ger district will spend more on fuel to heat their homes than they will on food.  In UB, over 64% of people live in these ger districts, meaning that over half the population spends more on coal than meat.  Also, families which do live in gers must always have someone around the ger keeping the fire stoked; I met one lady who moved from a ger to a house because she and her husband weren't able to keep the ger warm for their son when they were away at work.  Undoubtedly, life is hard for people living in the ger districts in the winter, especially for the poor, who might not be able to afford fuel.

This emphasis on heating has serious implications for the rest of UB.  The fuel used to heat gers and houses is predominately coal and wood which are burned in inefficient stoves which warm insufficiently insulated homes requiring more fuel.  Fuel which, when burned, send copious amounts of black smoke into the air.  The change in air quality was noticeable the day the temperatures began to drop; as I walked to school, I noticed a pressure in my chest and that I was winded.  As the weather became colder, I could taste the pollution in the air, dusty and sweet.  Sitting in a taxi, I would watch the street lights and buildings disappear into a brown fog a half mile down the road.  And I left before it got bad.  In January and February, you can’t see the buildings across the street from you on a bad day, and just by breathing, you will have inhaled the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes.                                

There are rumors in milling around Mongolia that this winter will be particularly cold, and while I heard temperatures like -70º Celsius circulating the rumor mill, eventually cold is cold and the number doesn't matter.  But these low temperatures have the potential to create a zuud, and the entire country will suffer.  Herders will lose their most valuable assets, ger district residents will have to spend more money on heating fuel, and everyone living in UB will have to continue to breathe its poisonous air.

Foreign Perspectives

One of the best ways to make European friends is to go to a non-European country and find a hostel. Europeans will be everywhere. And if you happen to be in Ulaanbaatar around Thanksgiving, you will discover a multitude of Peace Corps volunteers, drawn from the crooks and crannies of the steppe, deserts, and forests. Coincidentally, I happen to be staying at a hostel in UB, and coincidentally, I happen to have met lots of Europeans and Peace Corps volunteers in the past few weeks. Coincidentally, this has been a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I have a 30 to 50 page research project to write, but in between trips to the library, I have met some very interesting people.  Everyone here has an interesting story; I think it takes a very special type of person who would choose to take the Trans-Siberian Railway during the winter or agree to spend two years living in a ger.
Peace Corps volunteers offer an interesting perspective on living in foreign countries and serving foreign communities.  Some are disillusioned, some are frustrated, some are invigorated, and some feel like they are making a real difference in the lives of the Mongolians they work with.  Most are weary with experience; Mongolia is real life to them.  Mongolia is most definitely not real life to the travelers passing through.  Everything is awesome or horrible, inspiring or unbelievable.  Everything is an adventure.  They relish the few nights they spent in a ger with a Mongolian family, the few hours they spent trying to control their Mongolian horse on a horseback ride through the steppe.  They live on a different scale than the Peace Corps. They are sprinters and marathon runners.
I think I must be running a 10 kilometer course that has little information stops at particular points of interest along the course, and I think these little educational detours are what have set my experience apart from other Westerners I’ve met in Mongolia.  I do not live here as long as Peace Corps volunteers so I lack the very personal insight of local communities, but I have gained an overarching knowledge and framework about the issues influencing those communities.  I haven’t gone to all of the tourist sites in UB, but I have learned about the history which have erected those walls and monuments.  Every day is an adventure, but I have also adjusted to aspects of the Mongolian culture.  I can read most of a menu and take a taxi.  I can eat relatively large pieces of fat.
This convergence of three Mongolian perspectives makes day to day life fun.  The travelers contribute a sense of adventure and wonder, the Peace Corps contribute cultural understanding, and I act perhaps as the bridge in between.  I eat breakfast sandwiched between Danes and Finns, I go out with Canadians and Irishmen, I stay in with Englishmen and Americans.   Occasionally I even talk with Mongolians. Life is one multicultural party sandwiched between some large helpings of knowledge over here in Mongolia, and it’s not even tourist season.

Two views of Selenge Aimag

Mother Tree

Eej Mod, Mother Tree

    The people of Sukhbaatar City in Selenge Aimag care about their forests, recognizing the trees as important factors in air, water, and soil quality.  In fact, most people recognize natural spirits as the inherent owners of the forest and its trees.  While beliefs in Shamanism are low here, almost everyone I have talked to acknowledged the presence of nature’s system and spirits, which have their own rules and their own penalties.  People speak matter-of-factly about families who cut down the trees near springs or cut down young, green trees.  Most of them died.  People believe that cutting down a tree is like cutting down your own life; your life becomes like the stump you just made.

Old Eej Mod

    One tree of particular importance here is called Eej Mod, or Mother Tree.  There are actually two Mother Trees. One was burned during Socialist Times.  It lays on the ground, charred and completely covered by scarves.  Some of the scarves are stiff and sour from milk offerings given to the tree, and as you walk around you have to duck under stiff scarf draped branches.  In some other trees, people have hung tires and other car parts, offerings made with the hope of safe travels.  The other tree was named after Socialist Times.  Mother Tree is a stirring sight; a tall tree, barren of leaves (because of the season), with colorful scarves wrapping around her trunk, hanging from her branches, and laying near her roots.  Ravens, magpies, sparrows, and black birds perch amongst her branches, representatives of spirits revealing themselves to men.  At Mother Tree we offer vodka, milk, rice, millet, candy covered peanuts, and juniper incense, and we pray not for ourselves, but for others, walking clockwise around Mother Tree three times.

Offerings at Eej Mod

    In Sukhbaatar, I heard two stories about Mother Tree.  This is the first, told to me in an interview by a kind, old lady who has lived in Sukhbaatar for 40 years.
    In the 1920’s a woman was in love with a man, but her father promised her to a rich, old Chinese man.  The woman did not want to marry the old man, and so she ran away.  The old man sent his soldiers after her, and as they were chasing her, she turned into a tree and was able to escape.  Later, she came into the area of the Eej Mod, and she was deep in the trees so those Chinese soldiers couldn’t catch her.  There, she stayed a tree, the most kind, most special tree, and so the locals named her Eej Mod and began pray and make offerings to her.

Eej Mod

    The second story as told to me in an interview by a woman who owns a farm with her husband, growing sea buckthorn bushes, trees, and other vegetables.
    Once, a female shaman from Khovsgol area lived in the area of Eej Mod, and when she died her spirit connected with this tree and also a tree in Khovsgol Province.  There is another special tree close to UB, and also in Arkhangai province there is an Eej Mod. People say that these trees have a very strong, very close connection between each other, and maybe the same spirit between the three of them.

Tree Time

These photos are of larch trees in Northern Mongolia, near Lake Hovsgol.

  SIT, the program through which I am studying here, is unique amongst study abroad programs for a few reasons, most notably for the final month of the program.  In this last month (which I have just started), SIT students embark on a month long research project of their choosing.  Students have the choice to study all over the country, to reach out to different community members, and to pursue what really interests them.  Within my class, students are studying railroads, maternal health, artisan miners, environmental policy, hydropower, and Mongolian students’ motivations in learning English.  I have decided to study trees.  And much more than that.

My research will take the form of three questions.  First, what is nature’s role in national Mongolian identity? Second, how does this identity influence Mongolian people’s relationship with the pine tree forests near Russia? And finally, what are the environmental impacts of that relationship?  My hypothesis is that Mongolian people’s traditional connection with nature is changing as a result of globalization and capitalism, and I think that this changing connection is having negative impacts on Mongolia’s forests.  (Illegal logging, fuelled by Chinese and domestic demand, is a particular challenge here.)  So, for the next month, I will be chasing down interviews here in Ulaanbaatar and in Selenge Aimag, Sukhbaatar City, the border town closest to the forest I am interested in.

I have already spent one week researching in UB, reading lots of information on identity, Mongolia, and Mongolian identity.  Today (Sunday), I am taking the night train up to Sukhbaatar, where I will remain for a week.  I chose to study Sukhbaatar’s forests because in Mongolia, they are unique.  Most of Mongolia is covered in larch forests; the forest I will study is pine.  I hope that my project will incorporate aspects of Mongolia’s past and quickly changing present cultures, the environment and environmental policy, and social and environmental impacts of people’s relationship with nature (particularly the forests).  In the past week, I’ve realized that one month is not enough time to do this topic justice, but I guess that means I have an excuse to come back!

Two weeks ago, we went to Sainshand, a town in the South East Gobi which Mongolia hopes to develop into an industrial park.  Besides its industrial potential, the area is also rich in spiritual sites.

Sainshand's ger district

Stupas leading the way to an energy site

Wish Mountain

Bon Appetit!

Ahhh, Mongolia, where fat drips freely and the vegetable soup is mostly meat.  Mongolia’s five vegetables are carrots, cabbage, white radishes, onions, and potatoes, and the average Mongolian gets about two servings of these fancy foods per day.  My class is convinced that this statistic is only possible because of the potato’s veggie designation.  Usually, when my host family wants to include vegetables in our food, we peel one carrot, slice it, and put it in our meat and noodle soup to share between the four of us.  So, at the rate of a quarter of a carrot every day or so, I get about two servings of vegetables a week from my  UB host family.  However, if I include potatoes in my calculations, the number probably jumps to one serving of vegetables every day.  In the countryside, one serving of vegetables every day would be a godsend and an unlikely miracle (even counting potatoes).
The lack of vegetables is offset by a huge amount of rice, bread, meat, and of course fat. Although it has been an arduously long personal journey, I am proud to say that I can pretty casually pop a quarter-sized helping of fat (specific sizes depend on the type of fat and how much it has been cooked) into my mouth and even consider it delicious.  Unfortunately, I have not been as successful at actually reading the menus the fat comes from. In the past two months, I have grown able to recognize some key words: meat, fried, soup, dumpling soup, meat, rice, potato, buuz, khoshuur, tsuivan, and kimchi (Mongolians eat a lot of Korean food).  Thus, my already restricted diet is further limited by Mongolian Cyrillic and occasionally salvaged by random pointing, whether to the menu or other people’s food.
When I am feeling risk adverse, I eat buuz and khoshuur, slightly different versions of fatty meat encased in dough. Buuz are steamed dumplings and khoshuur, (traditionally made with horse meat) are like fried hot pockets, and both are filled only with meat.  Both require either some aggressive slurping or clandestine draining of the fat trapped inside, and both are delicious. Tsuivan is a less delicious traditional Mongolian fall-back made with fried noodles, a few small pieces of vegetable (for color mostly), meat, and fat.  In the countryside, my family would eat tsuivan for dinner and then heat it up the next morning with some suu te tse, or milk tea, for breakfast.
City and country eating differ slightly; mostly, the countryside diet has less variety, less vegetables, more organs, and more dairy products.  I ate the freshest goat stomach lining of my life in the countryside, and I ate more than I ever thought possible.  I also ate the freshest yogurt of my life in the countryside, and again, I ate more than I ever thought possible.  The yogurt is quite tart and tangy, but Mongolians whip in at least two heaping tablespoons of sugar to sweeten the snack.  While the Mongolian diet places little emphasis on sweets, both city and countryside people are quick to add sugar to anything with dairy.  Additionally, both areas have a ready supply of highly processed, bland pastries (a welcome tea-time addition) which all taste the same but come in different shapes (to offset the lack of vegetable variety).
Mongolian people, in general, do not suffer from hunger, but nutrition is (unsurprisingly) a large issue.  As Mongolians abandon their traditional nomadic way of life in favor of sedentary city living, the Mongolian diet will become an even greater problem.  But for now, Mongolians will continue to chow down on their meat, fat, and breads, and I will continue to dream of spinach, extra-sharp cheddar cheese, and American breakfast foods.

Rivers and Roads

Rivers and Roads :

a year from now we'll all be gone

all our friends will move away

and they're going to better places

but our friends will be gone away

nothing is as it has been

and i miss your face like hell

and i guess it's just as well

but i miss your face like hell

been talking bout the way things change

and my family lives in a different state

and if you don't know what to make of this

then we will not relate

so if you don't know what to make of this

then we will not relate

rivers and roads

rivers and roads

rivers 'til i reach you

And look! A river, a road, and a river-road!

Family Time

I had been sitting silently in our family living room, sandwiched between 40 Mongolians, all members of my grandmother’s family.  Two months into language lessons, I feel confident enough in my Mongolian to struggle through basic conversation one-on-one or in a small group, but 40 members of my extended host family had intimidated me into quiet hellos, heartfelt smiles, and an attempt to stay busy washing dishes so I wouldn’t need to navigate the seating arrangement.  Unfortunately, after we had finished off several varieties of salads, different rice plates, and a huge platter of meat, the power went out, making dish washing impossible.
So I sat with my extended family, as one by one, each person took a small glass of vodka and led the entire group through a traditional Mongolian song.  I knew some of the words to the two most common songs, and I sang along with the choruses.  As voices echoed off the walls, the songs seemed a little to big for such a confined apartment, and I pictured us all on the steppe, with the music stretching across the grass and into the sky.  I felt encouraged and a little less silent as I appreciated this family reunion and Mongolian tradition.  I even started to think of ways to introduce the tradition to my own family.
Then, one of the uncles called me out.  It was my turn to sing.
I stared at him.  What! No. Noooo I said.  You have to they said, and my heart began beating rapidly.  I began to rack my brain for songs to which I knew all of the lyrics, and all I could think of was the Lion King.  “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” is just not as magical as a Mongolian folk song.  I can’t I said, and the group moved on, disappointed in their relative’s American student.  I felt deflated.  My time to shine, my golden opportunity to be part of my Mongolian family had passed, and as I continued to sit, I desperately strained into the dustiest corners of my brain for an acceptable number of words of an atmosphere appropriate song.
Suddenly, I stood up and took my little glass.  I had it; I was ready.  The room quieted, surprised mostly, and I launched into a horrible rendition of “Rivers and Roads,” a song my sister introduced me to last fall.  To the chagrin of my fellow classmates, I had been singing it nearly constantly for weeks while sitting in trains, while reading menus, while riding camels, while walking to class.  As I struggled through my solo, I forgot words, skipped lines, missed notes, confused keys, and only sang one verse. I sat down knowing that I had successfully embarrassed myself in front of a family of meadowlarks and gold finches.  The room remained quiet, surprised and probably a little horrified that a member of their family could sing so terribly albeit a temporary relative they had never met before, couldn’t talk to, and will probably never meet again.
As they sat in shock, I felt that without any rehearsal or backup, I had successfully soloed my way into my extended Mongolian family, if only for one evening.  I relaxed into my chair and looked around.  I felt less sandwiched, less intimidated by the relatives crowding the apartment, and I sat among my family, occasionally sharing a smile with an auntie squeezed on the other side of the room.

Adventure Time

“For a few moments we discover that nothing can be taken for granted…and our journey here on earth, able to see and touch and hear in the midst of tangible and mysterious things-in-themselves, is the most strange and daring of all adventures.”
-Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire 

The constant feeling of discovery in each present moment infuse each day with a acute sense of life.  The colors are more vibrant, the smells are sharper, the light is brighter, small moments hold more meaning, vast landscapes are more overwhelming, people‘s lives are more worthwhile, old people are more beautiful.  Every aspect of living is oversaturated with life.  Fall’s yellow leaves drip with color, as if each tree was dunked in paint and is still drying against the vibrant blue of the sky or heavy gray of the clouds.  People’s faces wear the sky and the earth in dignified wrinkles, and their eyes reflect years under the sun in understated sparkles.  Traditional Mongolian music celebrates nomadic spirit as the horse hair violin, the morin khuur, channels the spirit of the horse itself, and Mongolian throat singers capture man’s place in the vastness of nature.
I excuse inconveniences that I would never accept in the States as simply another aspect of experience and adventure.  The bus is late, but the bus is late in Mongolia.  The roads are terrible, but the roads are terrible in Mongolia.  The food is bland, but the food is bland in Mongolia.  The weather is extreme, but the weather is extreme in Mongolia.  This acceptance of the present moment as just part of the adventure endows each experience with its vibrancy.  I have little thought of the future; it is a hazy tomorrow that only deserves are hazy acknowledgement because right now, I am in Mongolia.
In Mongolia, the sense of each small moment is so overwhelming that concentrating on the big picture that incorporates the past, present, and future is impossible for me right now.  Each present moment is enough for me.  In the United States, the feeling of manageable, even boring, everyday routine necessitates a more acute awareness of the future in order stimulate a sense of wonder and possibility.  My expectations and concerns for the future are a product of a lack of awareness of the present.  I’m sure that as I become more comfortable to everyday Mongolian living, filled with all of its inconveniences, my awareness of the present will become more dull and my sense of the future will grow sharper.  My challenge will be to continue to live with acute awareness of the present with the same sense of discovery that has made each moment up to this so alive.

Living Well

    Oftentimes, I wonder if I am on the right path, and if I am living well.  I want to go up to someone, someone who has a deep understanding of me, an awareness of what is to come, and knowledge of what is right, and I want to ask them if I am doing it right.  I think we all want that reassurance, at some level.  I’m finding though that those nearly omniscient sources are hard to come by.  But what if I told you about Paul: a vegetarian from London, a practitioner of many spiritual arts, and the first none-Mongolian shaman to use Mongolian traditions to accept a spirit into his body.  And what if I told you about Joshua Roosevelt, an ancestral spirit from 17th century Russia who Paul successfully linked with, and the time I asked Joshua how to live well.
Our group had met Paul before his ceremony, and we were bubbling over with questions about shamanism, which he answered graciously and thoroughly. Shamanism is not a religion, it is a belief and a practice that connects our world with the spirit world.  The shamans themselves spend their lives helping others by using that connection with the spirit world to relieve suffering here on earth.  Every civilization around the world has its own unique type of shamanism, and Mongolian shamanism is considered to be one of the strongest types of shamanism in the world.  When we met with Paul the second time, we were much more hesitant and shy.  This time we knew that he had connected with his ancestral spirit, and I personally was wondering if Joshua was close by and could hear our questions.
We were the first people with which Paul called down Joshua without the help of his teacher.  He wore a loose black outfit embroidered with golden dragons, a large silver medallion, and several necklaces and rings.  Around his head he wore a black headdress with a feathers sticking up in the back and an embroidered face of white thread and seashells while black tassels that hung down in front of his own face so we could not see him.  We were quiet, tense with anticipation of the unknown.  Paul sat in front of our makeshift alter, prayed three times, then he took his animal hide drum and drum stick, sat deeply bent in a chair, and began to drum.  His head swayed back and forth like a snake, the headdress moving back and forth while the drum beat faster and faster until BAM! Joshua jumped up with a roar, crouching like a warrior, drum and drum stick extended like weapons next to our whiteboard.  One of the students led him to the seat we had prepared for him, and he asked for vodka and tobacco, which we also had waiting.  (Paul had told us that Joshua liked to drink and smoke.)  Calm after smoking his pipe and enjoying several shots of vodka, he called us to him, one by one.

It’s hard to know what to ask a spirit when the time actually comes.  What is the spirit world like? Why are you here? Why am I here? Am I doing the right thing? Am I living the right way? What should I be doing? Will everything be alright?  The room was quiet and respectful as we each revealed our deepest worries, questions, and confusions while we asked for reassurance and guidance.  Joshua answered in chopped sentences and a husky, barking voice, grunting loudly on nearly every exhale.  He was here to help us and would stay for as long as we asked him, taking vodka and tobacco breaks between each consultation.  The warm smell of juniper and tobacco filled the room, and as Joshua talked, the headdress that Paul wore seemed to become more animated and alive in the darkness.  Its eyes could see me, its ears could hear me, and its mouth was talking to me.   Eventually I found myself talking not to the tassels hanging in front of Paul’s face, but the seashell face.
I sat cross legged in front of Joshua, so close that our knees touched each other’s and I could feel warmth radiating between us.  He took my head with his hand and held my forehead against his own, the feathers in his headdress brushing my hair softly.  How can I live well? I asked.  He told me in halting sentences to sit quietly every day and reflect and think  What did I do well today? What did I do badly? How can I change?  It is a simple way, but a right way in the complicated times we are living in today that make our hearts and minds crazy.  He then gave me his blessing, blowing tobacco onto my head, and as the sweet smoke tendrils weaved through my hair, he took a colorful cloth whip and brushed the my back several times.
To get rid of bad energy he said.  I asked him if there was a lot of it.
Relative.

These are from a different shamanic ceremony from the countryside, but they have the same drums and masks..

Little Bo Peep and Other Lies

Ten hours into the twelve hour car trip from Moron to Erdenet, the driver of our Russian van noticed an animal running across a hillside.  The low sun stretched the figure‘s shadow, and we started to argue: Wolf! Dog! Wolf? Dog!  The animal looked too small to be a wolf, and we continued along the dirt road until our sharp-eyed driver noticed a herd of sheep and goats swell, tighten, and then flee the encroaching shadow.  Wolf! We tumbled out of the van to get a better look through camera lenses, and against the dried grasses covering the hillside a wolf crouched over a freshly killed sheep.

Sheep and goats in Mongolia are indispensable to herding life.  They provide herders with wool, cashmere, leather, and food, and I have to admit this: I hate them.  The endearing stories of Little Bo Peep’s little lambs and Billy the Goat are lies.  These dirty creatures complain constantly, bleating late into the night, and they emphasize their complaints with gaseous intestinal tracts that seemed to mock me every time I had to herd them back towards the ger.  After putting up with the challenges of these animals, I thought that I would enjoy eating them out of spite, just to prove that I had the ultimate upper hand.

I began to question that upper hand the moment I started helping my family butcher a goat.  My family would butcher their goats on the floor of their ger- peeling off the animal’s hide, separating organs, severing the head- without spilling a single drop of blood.  I helped my mom and sister clean the organs.  This means I ladled water down and through lengths and lengths of intestines, cleaning out any grass that was not “fully processed” and held the stomach (turned inside out) so my sister could scrape off its weird, papery membrane with a knife.
My upper hand grew weaker when I saw exactly what parts of the goat I had to eat.  Stomach lining, liver, heart, kidney, intestines, intestines stuffed with other organs, other organs wrapped with intestines all jumbled together in a large bowl.  Thankfully, it was dark.  I sat eating, nibbling on some liver here, some stomach there, occasionally stumbling over a treasured piece of actual meat, and morbidly, I imagined the animal I was eating.  I was already intimately acquainted with it, inside and out, and I remembered poop clumps that had dried into the fur that would have been processed into a cashmere sweater.  I thought of the pitiful bleats and constant farting that I could hear as I tried to fall asleep, and slowly (very slowly) the gerdis (what I was eating) started to taste a little less awful.  Spite works in mysterious ways.
However, the smell had soaked into me, and everything I smelled or tasted had slight hints of goat.  This pervasive smell was only compounded after I spent four hours wrestling, dragging, and throwing sheep and goats into a muddy, de-tick and de-flea wash.  In some ways, it was beautiful; the sun sank below the horizon and after a nearby pond reflected the sky’s fiery array of colors, the stars began to sparkle against the night.  But, as with everything in Mongolia, those beautiful moments were contrasted by the less beautiful as each animal had to be individually dunked in this concrete canal which they all actively resisted by kicking, bleating, and running away.  And, as if the memories alone were not sweet enough, I will carry the scent of goat with me everywhere, as the smell has soaked through my boots.
Whenever we drive through a grazing herd of goats and sheep, I don’t see a hint of Bo Peep or Billy.  Instead, I glare at the weak crook of the sheeps’ necks and their weird, floppy tails, and I grimace at the sound of bleating.  I remember stray hind legs landing and hoof shaped bruises, ribbons of intestines and bowls of blood.  Sheep and goats are not warm cotton balls that will lull you to sleep; they are beasts to be sheared, herded, and eaten with a small side of accomplishment. And needless to say, when I watched the herd flee from the wolf and saw the wolf’s fluffy, woolen victory, I cheered for the wolf.

                                                       

All the Small Things

My time in the countryside was not one of sweeping epiphanies and life changing experiences.  Going into the homestay, it was hard not to have those high expectations because of the nature of the environment and the lifestyle.  I think I expected the sky to cleave in two and Mongolian spirits to descend from mountaintops to personally tell me the meaning of success, man’s relationship with nature, and what I should do about it.  I tempered those expectations with doses of reality, and unsurprisingly, it was the day to day life of the steppe that shaped my experience there, not thunder nor lightning nor shamanic spirits.  Undoubtedly, it is part of a life changing experience, but I don’t think I will realize extent of its influence for months and years

A short list of little things:

My mom boiling milk on the black wood stove in the ger.  The stove has a built in hole in the top that large metal pans, like woks, can fit into.  After the milk boils, it has to cool, and so my mom would stand over the milk with a pink, plastic ladle, scooping up milk and pouring it back into the mix, a white ribbon releasing steam into the ger.  The steam would curl over the pan and up and around my mom, softening the bright colors of the ger.

Slurping milk tea out of bowls.  My mom would make the tea every morning, boiling water and adding an unnoticeable amount of tea leaves and just enough milk to color the water white.  It was delicious and comforting, even though hers had little taste, and we kept it hot in thermoses all day.  The Mongolians are not quiet eaters, and something is wrong with the food if you don’t loudly slurp it up.  And the thermoses were very effective at keep the tea hot, so slurping was the most effective cooling method.

My brother wrapping himself in his deel every day.  Urban Mongolians don’t really wear deels, but herders do, and my brother had two he would alternate between.  He would put the deel on over his street clothes and then wrap a golden, dirty sash around his waist.  He would wrap the sash a few times, locking it into place, and then he would twist and turn clockwise, adjusting the width of the sash with each turn.  His method was expert, the product of thousands of days on the steppe.

The stars at night.  With no light pollution, they sparkled like a million pieces of glitter, with the milky way slashed right down the middle.

My brother and sister standing on the small wooden stools used in the ger for just about everything, relaxing, cooking, milking, eating, and talking, and text their friends on their cell phone.  The service on the steppe is very poor, so the cell phone would be tied to a rafter in the ger, with a small piece of wire rigged to the antenna for slightly better reception.  The cellphone’s blue light would illuminate their faces, in stark contrast to the warm yellow light of the ger, as they looked at the screen.  When someone would call, they would put the caller on speaker phone so the phone could stay as high as possible and talk loudly into the speaker.  Still, the caller would fade in and out of static, and most calls were dropped a few times.

Heating leftovers in the morning.  Usually for dinner we would eat simple flour and water noodles with meat, and sometimes potatoes.  When we didn’t everything,  the next morning we would scoop some noodles into a bowl and then pour in some milk tea.  It was surprising ling effective and delicious, and as I ate, I couldn’t help but imagine reheating an American dinner in the same manner.  American food has too many flavors, few of which are complimented by a weak tea, and American kitchens have so many amenities that we would have never been forced to reheat with tea in the first place.

It is hard to describe the vastness of the Mongolian countryside.  Nothing provides perspective; the valleys sprawl for miles, the mountains grow into the horizon in the distance, the plains betray the curvature of the earth.  The land’s vastness is only compounded by the sky; by day the clear blue reflects the land’s width and by night the stars reflect the land’s depth.  Human presence on the land leaves little impression on nature, and unlike cities which dominate the natural landscape, the few gers, round white spots against the steppe, emphasize nature’s greatness.
Those gers, however, reveal man’s ability to live lightly on the land, and I think these nomadic people’s relationship with the land is what makes the steppe so easily romanticized.  Throughout history, man’s relationship with nature has centered around the environment.  We moved with the seasons, with the pasture.  In the modern world, that relationship has shifted to center on humans as we have exploited and extracted more and more from the environment around us.  We have cut down mountains, overturned plains, manipulated plants and animals.  As we shift this relationship from its historical focus, I think that we industrialists yearn for past ways of life at some level.  Mongolia’s nomadic herders have been slow to shift their relationship with the land- they have done what we did not- and I think that the modern world is jealous.  I know that I am.
Nomadic herders still leave their mark on the environment, and with each year, they embrace more and more aspects of modernization and globalization.  Herds of animals graze the land, people litter and burn plastic, and today, cars and motorcycles carve ribbons of roads into the steppe.  But, they eat the foods they grow, or that their neighbors grow, with the exception of sugar, oil, rice, and flour.  They are expert reusers- my mom used the ribbon I tied a present with as a belt to tie her deel, and then it became a toy for a cousin.  They generate little trash and besides gasoline to fuel motorcycles (that get 100km per liter) use renewable energies to heat their gers and power their few electronics.  Dried cow poop fuels the stove that feeds them and warms them, and solar energy charges reuseable batteries that are channeled into televisions and cell phones.
I think that humankind is filled with greatness; we are powerful beyond measure.  We have bent the world to our will.  But we have also abused the earth that has enabled our great civilizations and societies, and we know it.  We know that soon, if not already, we will face the consequences of our heavy foot prints.  Mongolia’s nomadic herder’s of life is harder and quieter than the modern world’s, but it is more sustainable and long lasting. It has already proven the test of thousands of years, while the modern world’s way of living has only proven itself against hundreds of years.  They have manifested their greatness in a way that does not exploit their relationship with the earth, but rather respects it.

Country Living

 I have spent the last two weeks in the countryside southeast of Ulaanbaatar near a small town (population 900) called Delgerhaan living with a nomadic herding family in a ger.  It was filled with bright colors, vast expanses of land, eagles, horses, goat, sheep, and cows, yurts, dairy products, animal organs, sunsets, and stars.  It is a romanticized place, filled with dreams of freedom and adventure, and it deserves much of its praise.  It is also a place filled with families who work hard seven days of week, with people who collapse into a hard bed or onto the hard ground nearly every night.

Best sunsets ever

Inside of the ger

 I would wake up every morning within a few minutes of 7:00 and usually walk to a disconcerting pond filled with grasses, algae, and animal dung to get water to boil for our daily milk tea, which my mom would make in the morning and keep hot in thermoses all day.  After a bowl of tea and homemade yogurt sweetened with sugar, I would help my mom and sister milk cows.  They would do the milking, and I would shovel cow poop (called argol), keep the cows from wandering away, and occasionally round up the herd of goats and sheep.  I would do homework and some chores until the afternoon, then walk through the steppe near our ger to gather dried cow poop to fuel the stove.  I would just spend time with my family in evening as it got darker, listening to them talk and laugh together, talking (or giving it my best attempt) and laughing  with them more and more as  I became more and more a part of the family.  Everyday had plenty of do and also plenty of time to rest and reflect, although somehow I still found little time for homework.  

My family!

 My family was kind and caring, and they welcomed me into their family graciously.  I lived in a ger with my mom and 26 year old brother, and my sister, her husband, and her baby lived about 20 feet away from us in another ger.  My mom would yell from our ger to my sister’s, and somehow they could understand each other through the layers of felt.  In the last few days, my younger brother came to visit from UB, and although he seemed out of place in his collared shirts and sweaters, he could still jump on a horse and gallop across the steppe bareback.   He and my older brother constantly teased each other, and every wrestling match ended in laughter.  My older brother was a competent herdsman who is respected in the family and community.   He could sleep through anything, and he was one of the most patient language teachers I’ve met.  My sister had been a cook in UB until she had her baby, and she was always checking my Enligh-Mongolian dictionary to communicate better.  My mom had a sparkly smile, and she was always working, always busy.  She was almost always in front of the stove, but she was also one of the few women I saw on horseback.  She was constantly telling me to eat more and was proud when I stomached gerdis, boiled intestines and organs.  

Basecamp Rainbow

  Now I am back in UB and I feel like I have been plunged into a cold shower (actually we had cold water in the apartment last night so that is just as much fact as metaphor).  I no longer see the open steppe but rather apartment buildings and construction.  I no longer wake up to my mom starting the morning fire but rather to the beep of my alarm.  I no longer wander around the ger looking for argol to burn but rather walk to school on the busy streets.  Compared to almost anywhere in the world and especially the chaos and bustle of UB, the countryside is a beautiful and inspiring place where daily life is earned in quiet moments and hard work, and I hope I will keep some of that same spirit for the rest of my time here.

 

UB Living

I have been here for just under a month, and so far, I have experienced a little bit of both city life and country living.  In Ulaanbaatar, I live on the top floor of a 16 story apartment building with my 13 year old sister and her two grandparents, as well as her mom who splits her time between our apartment and her own.  The apartment has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living area with a kitchen, dining table, and large couch and tv.  The building is new (there is even a combination code to get into the elevator), and I have a fabulous view of the city from my window.  Apartment buildings stretch out through the valley, transitioning to a colorful ger (yurt) district  on the hill sides to the north while two coal factories border the view to the West.  Two other SIT students live in the same apartment complex, and sometimes we walk the 45 minutes to school together.

This is the view from my window.

UB

 The city itself is manageable so far.  The traffic is terrible, and the dust and pollution are already noticeable.  I always see a few people wearing masks when I walk outside, and I always wonder if I should be wearing one as well.  The people here don’t smile as much as Americans do, and not speaking the language makes everything a little harder.  But that makes everything an adventure.  The people don’t smile much, but they are kind and helpful.  The weather has been a nice fall with cool mornings and mostly dry hot afternoons.  I have enjoyed the weather and cherished every walk, knowing that soon I will be so bundled up in layers that it will take me ten minutes to take off all my jackets.  The buses and trolleys are not too intimidating, and I haven’t had anything pick pocketed yet.  I am even enjoying the food here which is an accomplishment in itself.

Roads on the Far Side of the World

Sometimes it is easy to forget I’m on the far side of the world.  When I spend time in the school, which is a two story renovated house, with my fellow students and the staff, speaking English and laughing at our paltry attempts to speak Mongolian, it seems like a normal pattern.  We play ping-pong and talk about life at home, getting to know each other.

But sometimes, it is impossible to forget I am on the far side of the world.  The streets distinguish themselves from any I’ve seen in the world, and so far, they have shaped what parts of Ulaanbaatar and Mongolia I have experienced.  For instance, the air here is (for now) warm and dry, filled with dust and exhaust kicked up by the vehicles battling the congestion.  When I walk on the sidewalk, my throat becomes dry, and I spend the walk thinking about the water in my backpack, which is locked to discourage pickpockets.   The sounds of the street fill every building, including my hotel room.  Honking from cars, whistling from police who try to manage the traffic, engines shifting, brakes squeaking.  It is quite engaging, although I can’t say it lulls me to sleep at night.

The roads themselves look like they have been abandoned halfway through a construction project- some potholes are halfway filled with gravel and the sides of the road are torn up, as if someone is about to put down some piping.  But I haven’t seen a single construction worker on the streets. Perhaps they are all been hit by the cars jockeying through the streets, and are unable to continue their work.

People here drive like I have never seen before.  The amount of traffic is similar to that of Indonesia, but there are no motorcycles, only cars, and the bravest and biggest vehicle has the right-of-way.  There are lines on the road, but no one seems to pay attention to them, and there are as many lanes of traffic that need to be.  Today, I saw an uncontrolled intersection with two or three lanes coming from each direction, and there were a lot of cars trying to turn left.  The way they turn left if simply to start turning in front of the oncoming car which either darts around or screeches to a stop with a loud honk, sometimes inches away.  Needless to say, I am thankful not to be driving here.

Walking has its own hazard.  Of course, there is always a threat of being hit by a car, but so far we have walked in a large enough group that vehicles are forced to stop for us.  It’s also a matter of being aware and looking both ways several times.  There is a system.  I haven’t mastered it yet, but with my Bali experience, I’m not too worried.  My favorite trick is to shadow a local person, standing down-traffic of them, and just walking whenever they do.  There are plenty of ways to be safe; its really just a matter of being stupid, because the streets and sidewalks will get the stupid people.

As if traffic weren’t enough, the sidewalks are filled holes, shattered glass, overturned bricks, uncovered manholes, metal sticking up out of the dirt, and spit.  They sound a little dangerous, but Mongolian women rock the sidewalks in one to three inch heels.  They are fearless.  So I watch them, put on my purpose walk, staying vigilant, and think to myself, Here I am, walking down the street in Mongolia.

The Great Khan

Move over Alexander and Napoleon, Genghis Khan is taking his rightful place in history’s consciousness, or at least mine.  Genghis Khan was a badass, to use the technical term.  He rose from an outcast family to unite Mongolia, and then with innovative strategies that took few mercies and a powerful cavalry he built an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean in 1260.  Whether measured by the number of people defeated, countries annexed, or area occupied, Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any man in history, and at its height, the contiguous Mongol Empire was about the size of the African continent. 

And the great Khan could not only fight, he could govern.  He created a system of government based on merit and achievement, created history’s largest free-trade zone along the Silk Road, established the world’s first international postal system, guaranteed religious freedom, lowered taxes (abolishing them entirely for doctors, teachers, and priests), conducted a regular census, abolished torture, and instituted diplomatic immunity for ambassadors and envoys.  Quality of life for conquered nations could improve while cultures were still able to retain their traditional way of life, and this flexibility and success made helped strongly establish Genghis Khan’s empire; so much so that after Genghis died, the Mongol Empire continued growing for another 150 years.  This is rather remarkable because while Genghis spent his life developing an empire, he was not one for family values, raising a family of alcoholics to take his place who would almost all struggle as leaders. 

Genghis Khan succeeded in conquering and connecting.  He built systems that allowed culture, business, and government to thrive because of a foundation based on merit and achievement.  These systems were international in scope and thought.  Always proactive and strategic, the Mongols captured craftsmen, educators, translators, anyone who had an ability that would enable them to improve some aspect of their empire.  In that quest, they spread ideas and technology throughout the world as they learned and incorporated other society’s skills, strategy, and thought into their own empire.  They were the ultimate delegators and connectors, led by one of history’s greatest leaders.

If you are interested to learn more about the great Khan, I recommend Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, who shores the history textbooks shortcomings to give a well-rounded, informational, and engaging account of Mongolia and the great man responsible for its success.  I am currently reading Modern Mongolia by Morris Rossabi, so hopefully you can look forward to a summary of Mongolia’s more recent history.

The Countdown Begins

I am currently sitting on my back porch in the middle of Idaho with my poodle, listening to the birds chirp and basically watching the grass grow.  I spent the day gardening, and after spending the day playing in the dirt with flowers, I am tired.  I assume that life will be a little different this fall after a quick hop and a skip to the middle of Mongolia, the last wild place on earth (or so I am told).  Besides dramatic landscapes and a vegetable free diet dominated by dairy and meat products, Mongolia is also known for its up-and-coming country status (NPR even had a series on it this spring).  Last year, it had the world’s fastest growing economy, a product of huge amounts of coal and copper, among other natural resources.  Mongolia is rapidly changing socially, politically, and economically as people in the traditionally nomadic culture move to the city, the government continues to adjust from communism to democracy, and as the economy responds to development and expansion. 

This rapidly changing environment is what really sealed the study-abroad deal for me when I was deciding on a country to study in.  I didn’t feel particularly driven to become fluent in Spanish, the language I’ve been studying for just about forever, so I nixed South America, and I feel that Europe will more or less be the same in 20 years (if all goes at least marginally well in the Eurozone Crisis).  I’m pretty sure that in 20 years Mongolia will be an entirely different place than the country I will be exploring this fall. I want to see the last wild place on earth, live in a yurt, and talk to people about communism and coal.  Who knows what the mining industry, urbanization, and democracy will do in the next two decades. So I’m going to see it all now.

I am studying abroad with a program called SIT, and I will be learning all about Geopolitics and Natural Resources, which I hope will pair my majors, International Studies and Geography, nicely.  The program is based in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, where I will live in an urban homestay, and students also spend at least three weeks living in a rural homestay which will definitely be in the middle of nowhere.  I will also be expected to complete an Independent Study Project which I hope to focus on tourism and impact.  To set the record straight, I speak absolutely no Mongolian, and the host families speak little (read: no) English.  So as I sit on the couch and play in the flowers, I am getting ready for an adventure!

And in order to be fully prepared for an adventure in a country sandwiched between Russia and China, it is imperative to pack appropriately.  My packing list is a little daunting (definitely different from my friends studying abroad in Chile, Australia, or Spain).  The most important thing on my list is a sleeping bag that is appropriate for -15 to -20 degrees Fahrenheit; additionally I also need a down jacket, a heavy jacket, a heavy sweater, wool socks, wool hat, and “trekking boots.”  So that is step one.  I also have a book list to read which will help me get some handle on Mongolia’s history and culture.  I’m not even going to try to learn the language before I go, and instead I will rely on the universal language of smiling and good humor when I arrive while praying for a quick learning curve.  I also need to get a visa (that should probably be step one).

Because I expect this to be a crazy, probably fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of adventure, I’m not super worried about anything.  Assuming I get my visa, I’ll show up and hope for the best.  I’m not expecting my fall to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I am planning on surviving.  I also hope to ride a horse through the Mongolian steppe.  The whole experience seems like a long ways away (and it is—as the crow flies Ulaanbaatar is about 5,500 miles away from my back porch and that is cutting through the Arctic Circle as a shortcut), and I have no idea what to expect.  So I am trying not to expect anything except adventure.  I am crossing an ocean and half a continent to learn something, and I am confident that no matter what I do, as long as I meet the SIT coordinator on August 27^th at the only coffee shop in the Ulaanbaatar airport, I will succeed.