My Mongol House and Host Family Excursions

Here is a picture representation to catch up my life from the tales in my last post until this week in Darkhan!  I miss my host family, and I am excited to go back tomorrow after my mid-training language assessment.  Happy Fourth of July to all of my American friends and readers!

The 'garbage dumpster' by my house, and some of the dogs that hang out around it.  The dogs that I have met in Mongolia are almost always afraid of people, and will not approach you, but rather stay away.  The Peace Corps Mongolia Medical Office gave the trainees a round of preventative rabies vaccine, since most likely some of us will be bit by dogs at some point during our service.  I can't wait to get my own puppy at the end of the summer when I go to my final site!

My brother, in the middle of this picture, loves to jump rope and play volleyball.  Almost every day, he asks me if I want to go visit Lorre and play with her and her two little host sisters.  I have gotten better at jump rope since I have been in Mongolia, but I am still at a pretty mediocre level!

Lorre, on the other hand, is a great jump-roper.  Way to go Lorre!  Also, the man on the right of this picture randomly stopped by with Lorre's neighbor (on the left).  He spoke a little English and a little Russian, and with my little Mongolian I found out that he is a large animal veterinarian.  He told me that Sukhbaatar has around 6 or 7 vets for the entire area, and that the only place where there are any small animal vets are in the capital.  

I snapped this picture of my brother taking a nap--this wasn't difficult, since I am convinced he spends about 15 hours a day sleeping.  I am pretty jealous!  This usually means that when I get home after a full day of language and technical training, he is pumped and ready to play games, walk around town, or just talk a whole bunch.  He is a lot of fun, and keeps me busy!

This is a great picture describing my sister's personality.  Bilgunyam loves talking on the phone with her friends, straightening her hair and fixing up other people's hair, and she loves being a jokester and sticks her tongue out at me all the time!  She quizzes me all the time on mongolian vocabulary, which has really helped me to learn new words.  She is spending this week in Erdenet, the third largest city in Mongolia.  I hope she is having fun and has a safe trip back to Sukhbaatar this weekend.

This is a shot of my room from the doorway, although since I took this picture, my family got a whole bunch of furniture that fills up most of the wall space.  It is a big room, and it is nice when the sunlight comes in the windows and lights up the space.

The kitchen/den-type area of the house.  My mom is making milk tea, a very popular Mongolian drink. It is a savory tea with milk, special tea from Huvsgol aimag in the northwest region of Mongolia, salt, and possibly other things I don't know about.  It is customary to make milk tea when people come to visit your home.  My family mostly uses two large electric pots and a rice cooker (not pictured) to make all of our food, and it works surprisingly well for everything we have made!  

One of my favorite Mongolian foods besides Suutai Bodaa (this sweet rice and milk soup that is kind of like an Asian version of oatmeal) is this fried bread call Gamber.  My mother makes it every few days, so we almost always have some to eat with our meals and for snacks.  My mom makes some with onions and some without because my brother hates onions.  I love the onion gamber though, it is sort of like a savory elephant ear.  I have seen my mother make gamber several times, and I hope to photo document it and try myself so I can make it after this summer!

This is my house from the outside.  It is a one story wooden frame house, very common in Mongolia.  The main part of the house, where everyone sleeps, is very well insulated and it does a good job of staying cool even when it gets hot outside.  I am sure this house is warm in the winter as well.  Our outhouse is around the corner behind the house.  It is a squat outhouse, so there are no seat but rather a hole in the floor.  Once you get used to it, it is not bad at all!  I accidentally dropped my sandal down the hole a few weeks ago, and that was sad, but I practiced my Mongolian language skills by buying a new pair at the market!

My brother took a picture of me in front of the house, it shows my fashion choices to de-emphasize how much I really need to wash my hair!  We have no running water in our house, and use tubs like the yellow one by my leg to carry water from a nearby water supply building, which we do about twice a week.  Each time, we probably fetch about 80 or 90 gallons by my rough estimation.  

My family invites Lorre over a lot, and then they give her lots of food.  I like this, because then I usually get slightly smaller portions, which is good because my family always gives me lots and lots of food.  She is eating my favorite Mongolian food, Suutai bodaa, or a sweet milk-rice soup.  My family knows I like it, and we eat it often.  Yumm!

A view of some of the neighborhood near my house.  Lots of wooden houses with dirt roads.  Might not look like much, but it has grown on me.  

My sister, brother, Lorre, and I went for a walk one evening.  We do this often, and my sister always links arms or holds hands with us.  It is very common for young women in Mongolia to hold hands while walking, and young men will also throw their arms over each others' shoulders while walking as well.  Mongolians have a very communal culture, and it shows in how close they are comfortable being with each other.  

My brother and sister decided to walk Lorre and I to a big shrine on the other side of Sukhbaatar.  There is a large statue of Borte, Chinggis Khaan's first and main wife, who was an important advisor during his rise to power.  

There were lots and lots of people that came to the shrine at night, and it was very pretty with all of the lamps lighting the way.

Lorre and I with our tourist picture with Borte!

Borte again, looking very stoic.  After my family got a bunch of new furniture and put a lot of it in my room, they started joking that I was getting married.  I asked who my husband was, and after a lot of laughs we decided I am married to Chinggis Khaan.  So, I guess it is just a matter of time before Borte is my new nickname! (just kidding, please don't start calling me Borte.)

A view of Sukhbaatar at night!  Not the greatest picture, but it sort of gives an idea of the size of town Sukhbaatar is.

About a week later, Lorre and I went on another adventure.  My mom and my aunt (at least I think that is how she is related to me, I am really not sure about some of my extended relatives) told us to get ready, that we were going to go to the market.  Then we got a taxi, walked around a few houses, and eventually found my mom's friend who has a big SUV.  We got in, and then Lorre and I realized that we weren't going to the market, but we had no idea where we were headed.  After basically driving straight up a small mountain, we arrived at this beautiful place.  It kind of reminded me a little of Pittsburgh, since it is where two of the rivers in my aimag (or province) join to form another river that flows into Russia, and I am assuming pours into Lake Baikal, a large lake in Siberia that holds about 1/7 of the world's fresh water.  

My mom brought binoculars, and when she lent them to me, I could see houses and gers, or Mongolian tents, that were probably several miles away.  I don't think pictures can really do justice for how beautiful the landscape is here, and how far visibility can be on a clear day (which is basically 6 days out of the week)!

A view of the river valley.  

My mom and I enjoying the scenery!  This was another day where I was in need of a good hair washing, which happened that evening.  Every opportunity to wash is sacred to all of the Peace Corps trainees, and we talked about how excited we were to come to Darkhan to have showers for at least two weeks.  Now that we are here, we have running water....but not hot water.  Still, washing every day and not needing to prioritize body parts or hair washing is still amazing, even in freezing cold water!

My mom and I had walked down the slope a ways.  My aunt and my mom's friend stayed near the top, where there was a 'grandfather' shrine, called an Ohvoh.  They are all over the land, and you are supposed to respectfully walk clockwise three times around the shrine, tossing three stones onto the shrine whenever you come near one.   

Such a beautiful landscape!  

A very Mongol picture with my very Mongol family.  Mongolians (for some reason, I don't know yet), try to remain stoic and not smile for any pictures.  My aunt, a very bubble and kind person, can't quite stay serious, which is one think I love about her.  She often comes to our house and eats with us, takes naps, and sits and talks with my mom.  They both love to have fun and laugh, and she is very inquisitive about me and my american habits.  She doesn't speak any English, so hopefully I will be able to communicate more with her over the next few months as my language skills improve!

After a great afternoon with amazing sights, we headed back to Sukhbaatar.  This happened on Sunday, so I am basically caught up to my current activities.  This week, I have been at Mid-Center Days, which is basically a workshop that Peace Corps Mongolia holds for trainees about halfway through our pre-service training.  We have had many sessions on different topics to prepare us for our service, and we have assessments tomorrow to give us a chance to better understand our language level to prepare for our final language exam at the end of training, and reflect about our technical training and preparedness for volunteer service with the service coordinators.  I am nervous, but also excited to learn more about how I am doing after about a month of intensive language, cultural, and health volunteer training!

Сайхан Амраарай, or Goodnight!