Naadam

Naadam, Mongolia's national holiday, was July 11-13. Most towns have their own celebration and there is one huge 3-day celebration in Ulaanbaatar. There are competitions in the three national sports--wrestling, horse racing, and archery. There is also a fourth sport, shagai, that is becoming more important at Naadam. Shagai is a game played with sheep ankle bones. There are several different versions but they usually involve some combination of flicking a bone into another bone and/or rolling the bones. I've played shagai with my host family. I am not a very accurate flicker, so I'm not very good at it. In my town, there was a one day celebration. It was kind of like a town fair. There were vendors set up selling drinks and khooshur (fried meat pies). Different groups (like the school, the hospital, political parties) have tents set up and offer airag (fermented mare's milk--the traditional alcohol) and food. There was wrestling, and they had a stage set up for singing and dancing. Mongolians are all about the singing and dancing. In fact, as part of our cultural training we are learning a couple Mongolian songs so we can sing along at parties. There was also horse racing but it was out in the khodoo (countryside) so I didn't get to see it. Most people dress up in their best traditional clothing, so it's very colorful. I tasted airag, fermented mare's milk. It tastes like watered down, bubbly sour cream. I thought it was ok, but some of sitemates really hated it. Airag is supposed to be "good" for your stomach, which I think means it cleans you out. I didn't have any trouble because I didn't drink that much, but a couple of my sitemates spent quite a bit of the next day in the outhouse. The wrestling is fascinating. When the wrestlers first come out in the arena (a field) they do this eagle dance, waving their arms and then they slap their thighs and butt. They are showing their power, or something like that. I took a video of some of the wrestlers coming out. I'm trying to attach it, but it's taking over an hour to upload. The winner also does a little eagle dance after the match. There are some wrestlers who clearly wrestle frequently, but they also take competitors from the crowd. There is a military base in my town, so there were a few military guys who took up the challenge. There are very few rules in Mongolian wrestling. You just have to get the other guy to hit the ground with some part of his body between his knees and shoulders. And apparently, you can do that anyway you can. The wrestling outfits originated many years ago when a woman entered the wrestling matches and beat a bunch of men. After that, all competitors have to wear the speedo-like bottoms and the sleeves that reveal the chest. No women allowed. I went to Ulaanbaatar with my host family for the 3rd day of Naadam. We went to Sukhbaatar Square (which is the center of the city and where the parliament building is) and there was a parade of people wearing traditional Mongolian costumes. Each region/tribe has their own style. It was very interesting. The couple in the top left picture are Kazakh. I didn't get to see any archery. I guess I'll have to try and catch that next year. We only have a couple weeks left in training. I'll find out where my permanent site is about August 16. We have a big graduation ceremony in UB where we meet our site counterparts (our supervisors and people we work with at site). A lot of trainees are having traditional clothes made for them for our swearing in ceremony. My host mom is a seamstress, so I'm having her make me a jacket that will be really cool. I'll be sure to post pictures when it's done.

Storm

Hi all! Sorry it's been so long since my last post. PC is keeping us busy! Remember in my post about Mongolian weather that I told you about the really cool storms here? Well, a couple weeks ago we had this big thunder storm that had the coolest lightning. It took me about 15 tries, but I finally got a picture of the lightning. The lightning did not really go down toward the earth much. It looks like the Greek gods are having a war and throwing thunder bolts at each other. I took this picture from an upstairs window in my house.

Mongolian Food Part 2

Well, I had my first taste of marmot. My host dad, Tuyakho, loves to hunt marmot with his buddies. He goes frequently to the countryside. This time he and his buddies brought the marmot home to cook and eat. They cooked it the traditional way by stuffing it with hot rocks and then blow torching off the hair. I did not see the first part, the stuffing of the hot rocks. But I did see the blow torching off the hair. They did all this in our backyard. For those of you who don't know, a marmot is a large rodent. It looks like an oversized guinea pig. The one they had yesterday was small, I'm told. It was about the size of a cat (at least when bloated with hot rocks and being blow torched). After all the hair is blow torched, they cut it open and remove meat and rocks. It looked like to me that there were just chunks of meat on the inside, but I can't be sure of that. I got a chunk just removed from the inside. It wasn't too bad, but it was tough. I think it tasted like gamey old shoe leather. And of course, the Mongolians ate the fat with it. I did not. Tuyakho's friends asked me to come out in the yard and join them in the eating and drinking vodka. I took a sip of the vodka that was offered me (it is rude to refuse) and one bite of the marmot. That was enough for me. I was also given one of the hot rocks that cooked the marmot. It is supposed to be good for the body. You pass it back and forth between your hands til it cools down. Then you put it in a plastic bag and put the rock in your pants next to your stomach. I guess it cures what ails you (which of course could be the marmot, ironically!). I felt a little silly with a rock in my pants, but when in Mongolia... I washed my hands about 4 times after that. The rock is greasy and smells like you might imagine a wild, torched rodent would smell like. It was a little difficult to get the smell off my hands. I also did not break out in plague boils. Marmots carry the black plague--yes, that black plague from the Dark Ages. I heard that 4 or 5 people a year die from the plague after having eaten an infected marmot. My host dad eats it all the time, so I took the risk and lived to tell the tale. I'm going to try to post my pictures now. You've got to see these, especially you, Sarah!

Mongolian Food

Hi all! So, I'm sure everyone is wondering about the food in Mongolia. The traditional Mongolian diet consists of meat, fat, and starches. The meat is usually mutton. Eating at home with my host family, we have had all mutton except for the chicken we've had twice that they bought especially for me. The meals are almost always some variation on mutton, fat, cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, rice and noodles. It's usually a soup or a kind of stir fry. Mongolians believe that meat, fat, and hot food and drink is good for you. There is no trimming of the fat off meat. Last week, I saw a pile of mutton that my host mom had chopped up for dinner, and I thought to myself, "that meat looks really lean." Of course, she then took another slab of meat that was mostly fat and chopped it up too. I made it clear from day one that I don't like the fat (appropriately called ookh in Mongolian). My host mom tries to avoid putting fat in my bowl, and they let me pick out the large chunks of fat and put it in their bowls. My host dad thinks I have gotten sick because I drank cold water (which I buy at the delguur or store next to our house) and don't eat enough fat. Apparently, cold beverages make the stomach turn. It is difficult to eat hot soup and hot tea when it's in the 90s outside! Mongolians have no rules about not combining starches. There is almost always two starches in a meal--potatoes and rice or potatoes and noodles. And there is bread at every meal too. Except for the chunks of fat, the soups and stir fries are good. They taste quite good. Mongolians also use a lot of oil. I sometimes get scrambled eggs for breakfast which are pretty much dripping in oil. When oil is put in the pan, it's usually about 3-4 tablespoons worth. I bet my family goes through 1 32-oz. bottle of oil a week. When I first got here, my host mom would give me a huge bowl of food, the same size bowl as my host dad, and she and my host sister would get the small bowls. It only took a few meals of me not being able to finish the bowl of food when I was able to communicate to my host mom that I only wanted the small bowl. All of my sitemates are having the same experience of being overfed. My host mom says I eat very small meals (jaakhan, jaakhan, she says). I don't know how the Mongolians are not all really fat and walking-heart-attacks. The noodles in meals are usually handmade from flour and water. Sometimes we'll have store bought spaghetti noodles, but usually it's these flour and water noodles. They mix water with flour til it makes a dough and they roll it out (which I learned there is a way to do it so that your dough is a perfect circle). Then there are lots of options. Sometimes the large round, rolled out dough is laid on top of the soup and steamed, and then cut up into pieces after it has cooked. Sometimes it's cut into strips like linguini. Sometimes it's cut into small round circles to make bansh, which are small meat dumplings which are put in soup. And then there are larger round circles which are used to make buuz, which are large meat dumplings. Buuz are like one of two national dishes. They're quite good (if you know what's in them; it's quite the adventure if you don't know what the stuffing is). I had fish buuz last weekend when we visited my host dad's ger by the river out in the countryside. It was really good. There is a trick to pinching buuz and bansh, which I have not been able to master. I was quite the source of entertainment when I tried to pinch bansh. My host dad said I am unable to pinch buuz because I am unmarried. Apparently, Mongolian women cannot do anything competently until they are married. It may be a long while yet before I can competently pinch buuz. Not everything is fatty. We sometimes have kasha (cream of wheat) or buckwheat (cooked in milk) for breakfast. I am grateful for the fiber and the meatless meals every now and then. My host dad has a very traditional Mongolian palate. He always wants meat and fat. We joke about it frequently. He also does not like really sharp flavors. I brought home a bottle of prepared yellow mustard (for egg salad), and Tuya wouldn't even taste it. He said he had some in Russia and it's "hot." The other night Tuya was in UB for the evening so Tsetsgee made us a vegetarian meal with tofu, fake soy meat, cabbage, carrots, onions, and red and green peppers. It was quite tasty. One of our required tasks is that we have to cook an American meal for our host family. I don't really know what to make that doesn't have any sharp flavors. Tuya doesn't like chicken either. I guess I'll figure something out. The food is really pretty good. There's just not that much variety. The Peace Corps said they would provide us with multi-vitamins if we asked for them. All of us at my site asked for multi-vitamins. I'm taking them daily. Well, I bought a cold coke at the delguur next door, so I think I'll go have a glass!