it's getting cold here, and I don't like it.

August 30, 2008

I went to the city today. I’ve already told you a bit about it. I did a lot more walking than I was expecting; plus, I had an extra 10 lbs. or so in my backpack when I got there. And I think my shoes are just a tad bit too small. I wore those same shoes when I was in Amsterdam last December. When I was there, I did a lot of walking, too. I ended up getting a blood blister underneath the nail of my big toe. It was there for weeks before it finally grew out. I think I will have another one after today. About 20 minutes into my walk, my left foot started hurting me. I thought that it was because I was walking as much and as fast as I was, and that I had extra weight on me. Now, I think it was just because I had those shoes on. As soon as I took them off, my foot quit hurting. It’s a little sore, but I’ll be okay. I’m tough.

After I updated my blog earlier, I went to do a bit of shopping. They have wonderful grocery stores in the city, with pretty much anything that you could want or need. The one I went to is called the State Department Store. I think it really is run by the state, too. It’s kind of like a big mall with a grocery store in it. As I’m sure you might imagine, the prices match the elaborateness. I found some things that I haven’t seen anywhere else, though, so that was nice. I got some vinegar, soy sauce, canned mushrooms, hot kimchi, mayonnaise, a large towel, and a Mongolian beer that I haven’t had yet that was bottled right there. The mayo and vinegar are two things that I’ve been looking for since I’ve gotten to Mongolia and haven’t been able to find until now. I got a 2kg tub of mayo. I don’t know exactly, but that’s around ¾ of a gallon. That should last me a while. I was surprised that the vinegar was only 5%. Have you ever thought about or noticed the acidic percentage of your vinegar? Everyone has been telling us that vinegar here is 70%, and you have to really be careful with it. Supposedly, it will burn your skin if you get it on you. They even have a formula that someone worked out so you can dilute it to 5%. I guess that store is used to having foreigners, so they get the 5% kind, just for us.

While I was in there, I ran into some U.S. Army guys. They said they had just gotten into town and would be there for a month. I talked to them for a bit. They were really nice guys. It made me feel good to meet them. Sometimes I meet U.S. military people abroad and they have this aloofness about them, like they are better than the local people, and they would rather be anywhere else. There has been more than one that I’ve heard bad mouth the country they are in. I never enjoy talking to those guys. Those guys today were nothing but smiles.

When I left there, I had added about another 10 lbs. to my pack. As I said, it took me 40 minutes to get downtown from where the microbus let us off, so I decided to head back. I stopped at a place called Maggiano, got a chicken salad to go, and ate it as I was walking. It was the closest thing to a “real” salad that I’ve had since I’ve been here. By real, I mean something with lettuce, vegetables, and dressing. Here, they call slaw a salad. Back home, I used to love to go to a salad bar and pile my plate high with everything, then put so much dressing on it that it would be dripping over the edge of my plate. This salad wasn’t that big, but it did have that much mayo dressing. Yum. I don’t know what could have made it better, but it wouldn’t have taken much.

When I got back to where I was to find a ride, I inadvertently turned in one entrance too soon. The market is a big place, and that was my first time there. On the way to the city, the microbus costed 2,500tg. I don’t know why, but just as they only leave from my town going to the city until a certain time, they only come back up to a certain time, too. I don’t know what that time was, but it was close, and I couldn’t find a microbus. All I could find was taxis, and they were charging 10,000tg. Apparently, I was the first person for the guy I secured, so I had to wait for him to find some other people that were going my way. If you’re going a fairly long distance, drivers will pack their vehicles as full as possible, so as to maximise their profits. And they drive like freaking idiots. On the way in, I was glad to have a book with me. Several times, I would look up and wonder what in the heck the driver was thinking. They drive fast and take dangerous chances on passing other vehicles. It’s really no wonder why that wreck happened the other day. Anyway, I ended up waiting an hour and 45 minutes before my driver finally got enough people to feel justified in going to my town. Wouldn’t you know it, right as we were about to pull out, I realised that I went to the wrong entrance when I saw where I was supposed to go. Of course, it really was too late by then. I had tried to sit in the front seat, so I would have plenty of room, but there was a guy with his son, so they shared the front seat. That put me in the back, in the middle, on the hump. Very uncomfortable, seeing as the car was a small 4-cylinder. It wasn’t long before my butt was sore, and I was squirming for the rest of the ride. When we got to where we should have turned to come to my town, the driver kept going. When he looked in the rearview mirror, he could tell by the look on my face that something was wrong. After some confusion, I finally got him turned around and going in the right direction. Apparently, my town goes by a different name that what I know it by. One guy in the taxi that spoke a smattering of English said the name, but I didn’t really catch it. I’ll have to learn what that is for next time.

Like in many languages, names here are really words and have some kind of meaning. Many girls are named some kind of flower (e.g., golden-flower, sun-flower, steel-flower), while many of the men have masculine names (e.g., red-hero, steel-steel, strong-age). If you don’t know those words, it makes it hard to remember names. It’s not like in the U.S., where words like Chris, Matthew, and Carl are set aside to only refer to people’s names. Luckily, many people have nicknames – they call them “short names” – and those are much easier. Some of the nicknames I’ve heard are Moogi, Bogi, and Ogi. None of those nicknames are anything like their full names, so I don’t know why they call them “short names.”

September 1, 2008

Today was the first day of school, all across Mongolia. Schools everywhere have what is called a Celebration of Knowledge. Of course, since I work in the governor’s office, my boss and I were invited to attend. When we got there, all the kids were dressed in their finest: most all the boys were wearing suits; most all of the girls had on some type of uniform that made them look like a French maid. First, my director and I went into the school director’s office. There, we ate airul (bleh!), and drank airag. Airag is that fermented mare’s milk that I’ve written about before. You know, the alcoholic kind. It was very weak, but still. When the governor finally showed up, we went out and he and some other people gave a little talk. Then, my director and I were called up. She went on for a few minutes, talking about me, then handed me the microphone and said, “Introduce yourself; keep it short.” Uhh, okay. I said, “My name is Trip. I’m from AL. I speak very little Mongolian.” Was that short enough? I wish I would have known that I was going to be asked to say something. I would’ve prepared something a bit more elaborate. When everyone had said what they were going to, a small boy and girl held hands and a bell and ceremoniously went around ringing the bell. When they finished, all the kids streamed by us, each taking a piece of airul and drinking some airag. Next, we went to the other part of town and did it all over again. When we got back to our office, I had just enough time to sit down, then my director told me we were going to the kindergarten. It’s brand new, so when we walked in, they gave us plastic bags to tie around our shoes so we wouldn’t dirty the carpet. I didn’t realise how warm they kept my feet until I took them off. While there, we were given the grand tour, then went into some type of small break room. We sat down with the head of the kindergarten and another lady to drink some tea and eat some snacks. Then, we were poured some juice. Then, we were poured some vodka. What is up with these people drinking alcohol all the time? I took my time with the one shot that I got, trying to not drink it at all. People watch you when you have vodka, though. They make sure you drink it. So, before I left, I had to down it. Yuck!!

When I got back to the office, I had a package waiting on me from one of my very most favourite people in the whole wide world. It was for my birthday. Yay! It took just a day or two less than two weeks to get here. You know who you are: Thank you so very much. It was a small version of a “birthday in a box.” If you don’t know what one of those are, then you obviously haven’t gotten a birthday package from someone who tries to make you feel loved across long distances. It was mostly food, and I appreciate it very much. The little confetti things were fun to clean up, too. I’m sure I’ll find them for days to come. Of course, that’s part of the fun.

I found out the name of my town. It is one of the first things I asked my director this morning. It translates to “tall head.” See what I said about names? That should be easy to remember. Now I just have to figure out if that name refers to the whole town, or just the part that I live in.

This afternoon, my director took me around the whole government building and introduced me to everyone and showed me where my new office is going to be. It’s at the far end of the hall from where her office is. Right now, a lady that has something to do with passports and some kind of registration is in that office. There’s a tall counter in there that will be taken out, and some old, dirty carpet that will be gotten rid of, too. I was told that it would be ready by Wednesday. I’ll be surprised if it is. After we’d met everyone, my director said that she had to go meet with families of the people who died in the microbus accident, and I could take off the rest of the day. Also, since she is going to UB tomorrow, I don’t have to go into work then, either. Sweet! To put it in the words of one of my friends: “I love Mongolia.” His building is getting a new paint job, so he doesn’t have to go to work until Friday. Ah, government jobs. Can’t beat ‘em.

This evening, I’ve started watching a new TV show called Extras. Have you ever heard of it? It comes on BBC. It’s about a couple of wanna-be actors who are extras in a bunch of movies. Every episode has a different famous actor. The guy that wrote the original The Office is in it. Very funny, if you like British humour. Check it out if you get a chance.

September 2, 2008

For dinner, I made my second attempt at Mongolian food. It was the one that sounds like “boats.” The recipe is really easy. You make a simple dough out of flour and water and let it set while you chop up meat, onion, and whatever veggies you might want, adding any kind of spices you like. In mine, I used mutton, onion, mushrooms, garlic powder, pepper, all-spice, and Ranch dressing. I have to say, they are the best that I’ve had since being here. I think, mostly, it’s because of all the spices and Ranch dressing. When you get all the meat and stuff minced and mixed, you take small pieces of dough and roll them out thin, to about the circumference of the palm of your hand. Next, you put a big spoon full of the meat mix and pinch the edges of the dough together. You know, kind of like a dumpling. To cook them, you steam them for about 20-25 minutes. Luckily, the guy that was here before me left a steamer, so that was easy. I had a few too many for my steamer, so I fried the extras. I think they were better than the steamed ones. And, of course, they don’t take near as long. When either the steamed for fried ones are done, you can eat them plain or dip them in your favourite sauce. I’m sure you guessed that I used Ranch dressing. I had some soy sauce, too. Both were good. I must warn you, though: when these things are still hot, be careful when you bite into them. There will be some juice inside that is very hot, and it has a tendency to squirt everywhere until you figure out how to bite them just right. When you take that first, gentle bite, suck the juice out so it doesn’t drip out and get wasted. Then think of me. Yum, yum! Enjoy.

September 4, 2008

At work, I spent almost my entire day translating what will be my “action plan.” My boss gave it to me around 10 o’ clock and I spent the rest of the day working on it; and I only got two of the five parts done. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to translate something from Mongolian to English. So I’ll try to explain it to you. First of all, the grammar is totally different. Say, you want to say something like, “This shirt is small on you.” Well, you can’t just translate those words and put them in that order. If you were to directly translate the Mongolian for that sentence into English, it would sound like, “This shirt being small is.” Or, imagine someone is touching something of yours and you don’t want them to, so you decide to say, “Please, don’t touch that.” The Mongolian for that would directly translate to English as, “That-to don’t touch.” Or maybe you want to ask someone to do something for you. The Mongolian translates as, “You to me it do please.” To just speak it, I don’t have that hard of a time with the grammar. Mostly, it’s because of the way I learned it: I didn’t worry about the direct translation. But now that I’m doing what I did at work today, I’m having a hard time with it. When I translate a sentence worth of words, I get a string of nonsense. One of my counterparts (who, as I’ve written before, speaks less English than I do Mongolian) was helping me a bit today. We translated a sentence and when I looked at it, I had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Finally, she would give me examples of what was being talked about and I think I figured it out. It takes me longer to figure out what the words are supposed to mean after I translate them than it does for me to actually translate them. Another thing about it is that the dictionaries that the Peace Corps gave us aren’t the best: there are a lot of words that aren’t in there. I’ve been told that Oxford makes a good one, and after doing some research and finding that it has about 5.625 times as many words than what I have now, I’ve decided that I’m going to order it tomorrow. That should help a lot. When I get finished with this, I won’t have weeks at a time of doing nothing. Not that I mind not doing anything, but it’d be nice to do something.

At the end of the day, we all went to check out my new office. As I wrote before, my director is at one end of the hall and I’m at the opposite end, and across the hall. The only reason that I don’t like it is if I have any questions or problems, I have to walk all the way down there to see if she is there to help me. (Most people do not have land-line phones in their homes or offices, and I’m not about to call on the cell phone for that.) But the office is cool. Oh, well, I guess I just thought of another reason that I don’t like it. When I was where I have been for the last couple of weeks, my window looked out over the town and the park that is in front of our building. It’s cool to see all the comings and goings, and the park has all kinds of statues and playground equipment. There are always kids and other people out there. Now, my window looks out of the back of the building at an empty lot and some buildings in a state of disrepair. But, I’m in there all by myself, with my own desk and computer. The computer box looks cool. On the front, there is an LCD display that has one of those graphs that moves with however much action is going on, and it shows the temperature, too. Of course, it’s in Celsius. There are speakers, so I can listen to music and not disturb anyone, since my door is usually closed. I will have internet, but not until next week. For now, I’ll have to go back to where I have been if I want to use the internet. I think, when everything gets the way that it’s going to be, it will be alright. The office is pretty big, and I’ve been told that it’s one of the warmest in the winter. My boss’s boss is right across the hall and he told me that if I need anything at all in my life, just to let him know. Everyone is nice and takes care of me like I’m some kind of VIP or something. That’s cool, but I’m not quite used to it yet.

September 5, 2008

First of all, a correction:

A few weeks ago, I wrote that before their recent gold medal wins, Mongolia had the most medals without any golds. I learned later that the correct statement is that Mongolia had the most medals PER CAPITA. I guess when you have less than three million people in your country, that doesn’t sound as cool as having the most medals. Sorry about the misinformation.

Last night, when doing my nightly journal writing, it came to my attention that today is Friday. It’s nice when a Friday sneaks up on you. My day has been alright. All I’ve done, for the most part, is continue to work on the translation that I began yesterday. It took me all but an hour of my day to finish it. Now I’ll have to type it up and make it pretty. All day, random people stuck their head in my office with a look of confusion on their faces. The lady that used to be in there moved to the office right next to mine, so I just pointed that way and they got the idea. Good thing I wasn’t doing anything I wasn’t supposed to, cause some of them pulled the door open quickly and scared me.

When it was time for lunch, one of the maintenance guys came and told me it to come with him to eat. Umm, okay. When I got into the hallway, I saw that everyone was smiling and giggling, heading to the same place, and I knew that something was going on. We went downstairs and into a room that had some tables set up with all kinds of food and drinks. Sweet! I love food. Especially when it’s free. We had a good meal, and I stuffed myself. When we left, they gave us all gift bags. In my bag, there was a coffee cup, a can of coffee that I gave away, incense sticks, and a box of matches. In Mongolia, whenever someone gives you incense and matches, it is culturally appropriate to immediately light one of the matches and let it burn until it goes out on its own. I haven’t figured out what that’s all about yet.

Later, I asked my boss what the meal was for and she said that it was a “Mongolian tradition.” She was going to leave it at that, but I was still curious and knew there was more to it than that. After several more questions, and both of us trying to figure out the correct words, I figured out that a lady had died, and her family had put on the meal. You know, kind of like a wake or something. It’s different than in the U.S., though. There was absolutely no mention of anyone having died at the meal. There was a picture, with some candles burning, but I just thought it was someone that is respected. Also, when someone has died, and you go to visit the family at their house, you don’t say hello or goodbye, there are no loud noises made, and you usually give a small gift of money because the family is expected to feed all the visitors. And you are NOT supposed to say that you are sorry. A common response to you saying you’re sorry might be, “Why are you sorry? What did you do? Did you do something to make my mother die?” Then you have to go through all the awkwardness of explaining what it is that you’re sorry about. After a few days of mourning, Mongolians are expected to go about their life like everything is cool. Sometimes, families will have something like a “death anniversary” each year, on the day that the person died. Other than today’s lunch, I haven’t experienced any of this here, and I hope I don’t. From what I understand, it’s very awkward for an American, since all the things that we would say or do at one of our “death ceremonies” is inappropriate.

September 6, 2008

Around midday, I set off on a walk to the other part of my town. I thought I would see what the walk is like, and check out the stores over there and get a beer while I was at it. I was told that the store that is near the train station has a lot of stuff that can’t be gotten in my part of town. For the most part, I cut through the fields since the road zigs and zags around the old Russian airfield. About halfway there, as I was crossing the road, a Jarrin Yuce (‘69) stopped. A ’69 is an old 1969 American model military jeep that the U.S. eventually stopped producing, for whatever reason. The Russians thought it was a good design – and they are, since they can basically go anywhere – so they bought the patent and started making it themselves. Now, they’re everywhere around here. Even though they are all called ‘69s, I have seen some brand new ones. Anyway, it was a couple of guys that work in the same building as me and they told me to get in. They asked where I was going, and when I obviously didn’t make myself understood, they asked if I was going to watch the Naadam that was going on in Bayan (Rich) Soum, about 10 miles down the road. I didn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I decided to roll with them.

As I’ve written before, one of the big parts of a Naadam is eating hoshor. When we were parking, they asked if I liked hoshor. Heck yeah, I do. So, our first stop was one of the several hoshor vendors. Most of them are all the same. There is a wood stove with a hole in the top, where a big, cast-iron wok sits and is half-filled with oil. An old lady sits at the front of the tent by the stove, feeding the fire and taking care of the cooking, turning the hoshor and taking them out and putting them into bags for the customers. Behind her, in the tent, there is usually at least three other people. One person does the ingredient chopping (meat and onions), the second makes and rolls the dough, and a third fills the dough, pinches it closed, and puts it in reach of the old lady. Usually, they are backed up with orders, so when we put ours in, one of the guys and I went walking around to see who and what we could see. Of course, since we were so close to home, there were several people there that we know – all people that work in our building.

The first person we ran into ushered us to his van, at the edge of the festivities. It was already full, but we squeezed in anyway. Can you guess what happened next? If you guessed that someone passed around a bag of hoshor and pulled out a bottle of vodka and a shot glass, you are right. I wasn’t surprised: I was expecting it. The seal was quickly broken and the one shot glass was filled and passed around repeatedly. After my second shot, in only 5 minutes, the guy I was with saved me by deciding he was ready to go. Everyone was willing to let him go his own way, but it was harder to extract myself from the situation. When I told them I was going to go eat some hoshor, they tried to give me their bag as they tried to force me to sit down. Somehow, I got out of there unscathed. Wouldn’t you know it, we left from there and went straight to another car full of people, where we squeezed in and were given more hoshor and vodka. Luckily, there was only one shot’s worth left in their bottle, so it wasn’t long before we left to get our own hoshor. We sat in a microbus with some more people from our workplace as we ate them.

Everyone around here knows that I coached wrestling in the U.S., and that I wrestled at Naadam earlier this summer, so I was asked several times if I was going to wrestle today. They seemed disappointed when I told them that I wasn’t going to, but took consolation when I told them that I would wrestle at next week’s district Naadam. It’s been rescheduled for Sep. 12. Seeing the guys that wrestled today, I’m not expecting any wins. The smallest guy was still bigger than me. Oddly, there was a guy there who looked like the guy that I wrestled earlier this summer. Maybe I was just having flashbacks. The name of the vodka I’d had translates to “sights; visions.” Oh, and I couldn’t help but to notice that one of the referees looked just like an Ichabod Crane character. But the wrestlers were good. Most of the matches lasted several minutes. And, as I’ve mentioned before, there are no weight classes, so everyone was mismatched. When I see a pairing with a guy who is about 6 feet tall and weighs around 210 pounds wrestling a guy who is about 5 feet 8 inches and weighs about 375 pounds, I can’t help but to wonder if those guys feel as unmatched as I think they are. There were only about 20-30 wrestlers in today’s Naadam, but that doesn’t mean the prizes were lacking. There were three, brand new, still-in-the-box Honda motorcycles for the winners. Maybe one of them was for the horse-racing, I don’t know.

Before the wrestling was over, we got in a microbus and went into the soum to some random house. When I got there, the governor was there with some random Korean guys. We sat there for about 15 minutes as the governor gave a toast and they took shots of Jim Beam. Luckily, I was sitting on the outskirt of things, so I wasn’t given any. All on a sudden, everyone made a dash for the vehicles and we rushed back to catch the end of the horse race. Seeing the winner of a horse race is a big deal. It’s really quite a dangerous place to be. Everyone crowds around the finish line, waiting on the winning horse. It’s a good place for pick-pockets and drunks. People believe that to touch the sweat of the winning horse grants one good luck for the next year. We got back after the first horse had crossed the finish line. By that time, the wrestling was over, too. But the hoshor stands were still taking their final orders. We went back to get more, and I got 10 to go. I ate a few when I got home and saved some for tomorrow.

On the way back, I got them to stop in the other part of our town so I could go to the store that I had wanted to check out. What I’d heard was right: the store by the train station does have lots of stuff that I can’t get in my part of town. I got a couple of beers and scoped out some things that I will go back for later since I didn’t take all my money with me. Actually, it might save me a trip into the city. Maybe when I go back, I’ll get lucky and get picked up. I’ll let you know.

P.S. I’ve seen how my last blog looks. Sorry. I know that was probably hard to read. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t do that again.