Chillin' in the Gobi (literally)

May 1, 2009

I posted last week how Shuree and some of her students were going to come to my place for pizza. They showed up with a bottle of vodka, beer, and a cake that someone had made just for me. It had green icing like the kind you might buy to put on a cake in the U.S., and it was the best cake that I’ve had since being in Mongolia. The girls loved the pizza, saying that it was better than the pizza place in UB. That made me smile. They left after about two hours, leaving me with a kitchen full of dirty dishes. Maybe I’ll get them cleaned up when I get back on Sunday.

May 2, 2009

As usual, I went to UB for my Mongolian lessons. Today, I learned how to say that one think is like another. As always, there is more than one word to use, and depending on which two things you are comparing, there is a different way to say it. It was fairly easy, though.

This evening, I went to a birthday celebration for a girl that is a friend of a friend. She’s Mongolian, but she was raised in Germany. It’s kind of funny that Mongolian is her third language. While there, I met two American guys. They have been in the country for about four years working, and neither of them seemed to have anything nice to say about Mongolia, Mongolians, or the Peace Corps. One of them was just an idiot. When he started talking about how no one really cared about Mongolia, I wasn’t the only one who was offended. Instead of spending the rest of the night with them, I went to the guesthouse when they went to dance. That’s put me in the bed at a decent hour.

May 3, 2009

Today’s lesson consisted of the two ways to say “because” and the two ways to say “so.” That was pretty easy, so we moved on to different ways to say that I want something. I already knew one way, but the other is a stronger way to say it. I’m glad to learn it. It will be helpful. Right at the end of the lesson, I filled up my notebook. Since I can’t count the notebook that I’d had during training – that one was stolen from me, if you remember – this is the first one that I’ve filled up. That was a neat feeling of accomplishment.

On my way to catch the meeker, I met a cabbie that wanted to just sit and talk to me. He knew a little bit of English and wanted to practice with me. I told him I didn’t have time and left. It didn’t matter too much, though, cause I didn’t make it to meeker on time. Just like last week, it had already left. I don’t know what’s up with that lately. I was lucky enough that there were a couple of guys from my town with cars, so I got some tsuivan and got in one of them. I seemed to have picked the wrong one, though, since the driver crammed 5 people in the back seat and charged more than the meeker. I was really upset about being crammed in there. My legs were hurting and falling asleep until I finally put them across another guy’s lap. Since that was the only way for me to get home, all I could do was sit there and steam silently. I will not ride with that guy again, that’s for sure.

May 4, 2009

I went back to UB today. My friend James asked me last week if I wanted to help him with a health project, and since I’d only been waiting for an excuse to visit him, I figured this was a perfect opportunity. He lives in the Gobi desert, which is south of my town, but I had to go north to the city in order to get a ride. As you might imagine, you can find travel to anywhere in Mongolia, but it’s not always the most efficient. You often have to go to, or through, UB to get somewhere.

As soon as the meeker stopped in the city, I bought and ate some “boats” while sitting there. When I got to the PC office, I went looking in search of my favourite PC Medical Officer. He’s a really good guy and I always make a point to stop and say what’s up when I’m in town during the week. It was his lunch time, so I went with him to a Chinese restaurant. It’s the first time I’ve eaten Chinese since being here. Just like the last time we ate lunch together, he paid, saying that he knows he makes many times what I do. I was very appreciative. After that, I had him look at my throat. I’ve been having symptoms consistent with enlarged, swollen adenoids: mouth breathing, not resting well at night, constant build up of phlegm, etc. When he looked, he told me that I have an infection on one side of my tonsils and gave me a 10-day supply of penicillin VK. Let’s hope it helps.

At 3 o’ clock, I met James’ hashaa brother. Hashaa basically means fence/yard. Each Volunteer that lives in a wooden house or a ger lives in a hashaa with a Mongolian family that makes sure the Volunteer is taken care of. I was quite lucky that he was in town, so I didn’t have to pay the 11,000tg to ride the bus to the aimag (state) centre that is 70km away, then however much more to get to James’ place. His brother’s name is Shonkh and he has a paragon. It’s my first time riding in one. A porogon kind of looks like a Russian version of a Volkswagen van. It’s really basic, but tough cause it has a high clearance, off-road tires, and 4-wheel drive. When I opened the door to put my bags in, it was lined with all kinds of beer. Holey Smokes! His family owns a store, so that’s what it was for. Before we left the city, we made three or four more stops to get various things. On the way out, he was going kind of slow, but I figured he knew what he was doing, so I didn’t say anything. As we went through the gate going out, we stopped to wait on his friend that was to ride with us. We sat there for about 20 minutes then Shonkh suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten something. Dang! So, we turned around and went back into the city to get a bunch of oil.

When we picked his friend up on the way out, we started our five to six hour trip. For the first 30km, the road was paved, but we were only going between 30-40km/h (24-31mph). Again, I didn’t know why he was going slow, but I figured he had his reasons. After that first 30km, the road changed to dirt; and there wasn’t just one road, but three or four parallel roads, mostly going in the same direction. Occasionally, one of them would split off and run in perpendicular course. Shonkh never hesitated in his choice of which one we took, and his speed had suddenly increased to around 70km/h (43mph). Considering the poor condition of the road, it seemed like we were flying. It made me think of what my mom would say if she’d been in there with us: “You’re scaring the mommy!” It was obvious that he’d made the trip hundreds of times before, so I trusted him and enjoyed the ride. I saw my first ever eagle fly out of our path, innumerable mice scurry from the road to their holes, rabbits, and random birds. Other than the random birds, I haven’t seen any of those animals since I’ve been in Mongolia. It was cool.

About an hour before dark, Shonkh suddenly turned off the road and drove into the vast nothingness. Once we got over the hill there was a random ger. They were herders living there and they’d combed their goats for that most wonderful item we call cashmere. Shonkh would get out alone, go in and visit with the family for a few minutes, then come back and get us and his scales. We would drink a little tea, eat a traditional Mongolian pastry or harden milk curd, load up the cashmere, then get back in the porogon. We zig-zagged through the countryside, stopping at two or three more gers, repeating the above. When we got back on the road, it was dark, but Shonkh’s speed didn’t decrease at all. He seemed to have an internal GPS; his decisions seemed to be as infallible as if the sun was directly overhead. After a while, he suddenly turned off the road again, heading into the distance. Did I mention that there are absolutely no landmarks? I mean, nothing that my uneducated eye could discern anyway. But he never missed his mark. We went straight to a ger that would never be found if you didn’t know exactly where it is. When we left there, we headed out again, full speed. Our five to six hours had long been surpassed, so when he started looking around, I thought maybe he was looking for the soum (small village) that he lives in. He turned off his lights for a second and I was sure that’s what he was doing. Off to our right, we saw a signal light, and Shonkh immediately made for it. It was another random ger. Were they expecting us? How did they know we were there? There is absolutely no cell phone signal, so the rendezvous had to have been set up in advance. Shonkh traded some of his gas, which a couple of guys siphoned from the paragon, for a bag of meat.

It was another 2 hours before we finally got to James’ soum. I’d previously given up looking out for lights that would mean the distant sign of life and had let my heavy eye lids close their selves. My grip on the OH-CRAP! handle never loosened, though. Around 11:30, we pulled into their hashaa. James was waiting on me. We stayed up til almost 2, talking in his ger.

May 5, 2009

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

It’s really hot today. I guess that’s to be expected, since I am in the Gobi desert. Even worse, I had started making water during the day. I’d forgotten how quickly that will make a small, enclosed area heat up. James and I were sweating all day, wearing nothing but shorts. Speaking of, James had a pair of shorts that were way too big for him that he gave to me. They are a little big for me, but a belt takes care of that. I’d gotten some tequila in UB to celebrate today, so we drank that as we cooked fajitas for James’ hashaa family. I used to really dislike tequila in the U.S., but it doesn’t seem that bad now. After a year of drinking crappy vodka, almost anything is welcome. We invited his manager over, also. I don’t think they liked the fajitas as much as we did. No matter: I got my fill. I’m stuffed tonight.

May 6, 2009

Not long after I woke up today, the other James came. He lives in the aimag centre (capital) and has come to help us with the project that we will teach. Here’s a funny story about him. The James that lives here is Korean. The James that came here from the centre is white. The Mongolians were talking to us and said “Yellow James” to distinguish between the two. Going on how Americans often say that Asians are yellow, I figured that they were talking about the Korean James. Come to find out, they were calling the white James yellow. I thought that was pretty funny how white people call Asians yellow and Mongolians call white people yellow. We didn’t do much but hang out today. We had lots of leftovers from yesterday, so we ate fajitas again. Luckily, we didn’t have but a bit of flour, so I wasn’t able to stuff myself again.

May 7, 2009

We woke up to no power today. It seems like they don’t tell James about when the power will be out anymore than my town tells me. We found out it will be out tomorrow, also. We had originally planned on doing our project today, but Mongolian-itis kicked in and it was moved to tomorrow. Since there will be no power tomorrow, we’ve moved it to Saturday. Since we have no power, and there was nothing to do, we just hung out. Three guys sitting in a one room tent, about 12 feet in diameter has the potential of being kind of boring. Luckily, we all get along pretty well. Ha, that reminds me of the best knock-knock joke ever! I got Yellow James good.

Person 1: Knock knock.

Person 2: Who’s there?

Person 1: KGB.

Person 2: KGB…

Person 1 (Suddenly slapping Person 1 in the face and adopting a Russian accent): We ask the questions here!

Ah, good stuff. I hope my buddies back home use this one on each other and credit me. Somebody be sure to get Chubbo before he reads this!

When James talked to his manager today, she found out that we just ate some snacks for our lunch, since the power was off and we weren’t able to cook. She felt bad for us and invited us to her home for dinner. We got there at 6:30, and 10 minutes later, tsuivan was plated up. James had told her that tsuivan was my second favourite Mongolian food, so she piled my plate so high that it was spilling over the edge. For once, I had the sense to not eat it all, though I could’ve crammed it in. I knew that she would give me more if I finished, and I didn’t want to waste any more than the little I didn’t eat, so that was another reason to not eat it all. When we got home, we lounged around and watched movies. I’ve gotten lots of new music and movies from these guys since being here. You know I always enjoy that.

May 8, 2009

After that first day that was so hot, it turned cloudy and really windy. It was not very cold, so it was okay. That changed last night. I woke up around 6:30 this morning to use the outhouse and felt some moisture on the wind. When I got out of the bed a few hours later, the rain had come in earnest, and it was cold. By the time we went to the school, the rain had turned to sleet. Not long after getting there, there were big flakes of snow coming down. I was amazed at how much it was snowing in the middle of May, in the Gobi desert.

We had gone to the school to print out stuff for our project. I guess the rain had deterred whoever was going to turn off today’s power, so we decided to take advantage of it. The only thing was, James’ director had the printer we needed locked up in her office. We sat there for a couple of hours, waiting on her to return from the political meeting she was at. She never did. It was still good that we went, though, cause we were able to work out the bugs with the projector. So, if the power is on tomorrow, and we’re able to get to the printer, we’ll hopefully be able to do what we’ve come here to do. I’ll let you know.

Since things have been moved back a couple of days, I think that will put me back at my site sometime next week. Not a big deal, though, since I’m here to help, and I’m having a good time visiting while I’m at it.

I hope you are doing good. Write when you can. Talk to you later. See ya.