What's that smell?

JM - Twice in the last week the answer to that question has been unpleasant, if not toxic. Last Thursday I came into the 10th grade room and they had the window open to let in some air. But it wasn't smelling too great. I went to look outside. On the other side of the driving course which is behind our school is some kind of factory building. It emits yellow smoke sometimes, and black other times. But this wasn't the problem that day. It was a group of men on top of the roof, doing some repair or sealing work. They had shovels, hard hats, and a giant pile of buring car tires. They were melting the tires for rubber to patch/seal/? the roof. The unlucky guy was the one that had to maintain the fire, adding tires and shifting them around, sometimes the black smoke blowing so you couldn't even see him at all. That can't be healthy. Here's a pic of the action.

Now the crane which has blocked the view out our living room window for 4 months finally started moving about 3 weeks ago. It looks like they're going to build a building behind us. This afternoon I was checking out the action when I got a lesson on how to effectively deal with unwanted trash on the construction site.

Step 1: Pile all the trash you don't want into the middle of the site and then light it on fire.

Step 2: Add a bunch of metal wiring that is coated in thick plastic on the top.

Step 3: Collect more garbage (especially plastic!) to add while the fire grows.

Step 4: Walk directly in the path of the nasty black smoke to add more to the burning pile.

Step 5: Let it burn until it turns the sky grey and gives everyone in the building next door a headache (and maybe black lung). Those black specks in the picture are pieces of ash floating by.

We look forward to seeing what other innovative approaches are used while this building is constructed!

More Published Works of Clayton Maring!

JM - Clayt isn't one to brag, but I am! He's such a good writer, and its nice to see his talent put to good use. Here are some links to his latest articles written for the Mercy Corps.

Here is a link to a brochure Clayt created from scratch - downloadable in Mongolian or English.
http://www.mercycorps.org.mn/index.php?coid=117&cid=150

NEW RASP CLIENTS IN SUKHBAATAR AIMAG BRING BUSINESS PLANNING HOME
http://www.mercycorps.org.mn/index.php?coid=116&cid=151

BAYANHONGOR'S GAN BOGD MILK MARKET: A LOCAL SOLUTION TO SAFER MILK
http://www.mercycorps.org.mn/index.php?coid=119&cid=151

A Second Trip to Terelj

This past weekend we took a short overnight trip back to Terelj, just about an hour outside of the city. We went with Sheridan and Amrah, in the comfort of their car. We were going to stay in a summer house owned by Amrah's father, a house none of us had been to before. Somehow we found the camp where it was supposed to be located, and tried the set of keys we had in several doors before finding one that opened. It was like a little abandoned ghost town. Some of the small buildings were kept up, while others were only shells, no doors or windows and lots of trash inside.

The little house had the bare necessities, and lacked a few too, depending on what you consider necessary. It was 2 rooms - a bedroom with 5 single beds in it lining the walls, and a living room/kitchen which had a woodburning concrete stove, a small table and some office chairs. The beds here, in case we've never mentioned, are not like beds at home. They don't use mattresses. They use the box spring, and thats it! In our apartment we've loaded it up with blankets to help cushion, but camping we had only our sleeping bags with us. We drank enough to make it comfy regardless. :) No toilets, no running water, etc.

Got a fire started right away, and settled in to cooking dinner - fried hotdogs and junk food. A mother dog and her three puppies showed up and made instand friends with us. The pups were still nursing and so friendly. Here the dogs usually all cower and run away from humans, because they are used to being chased away with stones or etc. But these dogs were so friendly and happy to play. I think they ate more of our food than we did, and everyone found excuses to take them out something to eat again and again.

Terelj is by far my favorite place here so far. Its not too far out of the city, but once you're there it feels like your worlds away from everyone and everything. The mountains and scenery are so beautiful. The silence that surrounds you is overwhelming sometimes! You hear NOTHING except for a bird now and then. No need for earplugs - its like the silence just stuffs into your ears and fills them up. And the view at night -- we went out to look at the stars at least twice - with nothing giving off light for miles around us, the stars were amazing. We layed on our backs in the grass (freezing, but it was worth it!) and just stared up and wished we could somehow capture what we were seeing to show you. And I'm not a good enough writer to do it justice! I've never ever seen so many stars in my whole life. Even with all the stars and some of a moon, the dark was also supressing a little. The minute you stepped outside it surrounded you and you couldn't see more than a foot or two in front of you! Here is a great photo of Clayt, Sheridan and I in the dark - none of us could see each other at all and we just stuck poses in the pitch black.

Sheridan and Amrah loaned us their Dels for this photo. They are really warm!

Having a little fun in our hooded sweatshirts - we had no tv, books or board games - what did you expect us to resort to?

Clayt took this photo during sunrise - 5 am. He woke up because the fire had gone out and we were all freezing. Nowadays it gets light at 5 am and stays light until about 8pm.

This is one of the birds we see everywhere here. They are the size of a crow, but their call sounds like a squeaky sneaker.

Some goats and sheep and their babies out grazing. Some were only a few days old.

You know who this is. We took advantage of the opportunity to have our photo taken together in such a nice setting.

A Fine Young Author...

CM - I have a particular student in my 5th grade class - not the best student - but one that tries hard, who has written some things that really struck me as unique. To give him some exposure to a wider audience, I have copied two of his essays below (I fixed the spelling, but not any of his other interesting word and grammar choices):

(1) I asked the class to write about what they would do with 1 billion Tugriks (about 1 million USD). Here is what he wrote:

If I had 1 billion MNT I would buy a chair.
Why? Because I need a chair.
I will sit there.
My kids will sit there.

(2) The class was bugging me to watch a movie. I told them that they are lucky to be in such a good school, and if they don't study hard, they won't get good jobs. I did, however, give them the chance to CONVINCE me with a persuasive essay:

I know we need to study. We all kids want to play and watch movie. If we play and watch movie all week we will be a garbage man. If we study we will be rich and also good man. But we're teacher said to we no always no. But english teacher said also no but grade fourths guys said to teacher can we watch movie maths teacher said yes. English teacher said yes to we're same days. Why one is no one is yes. I'll don't understand.

Ahhh the wisdom of youth...

School Spirit

jm- Yesterday was a special day at our school, sort of a Mongolian Day. All the students dressed up in their traditional costumes, and there were performances and presentation booths set up in the afternoon. Just wanted to show some pics of the highlights.
Here is the 11th grade class, all dressed up.

And here's some of the first graders. Aren't they so cute?

Here's Clayt with some of the boys from his class.

This is Batmoron, a tenth grader, playing the traditional mongolian istrument, the horse-head violin.

Oyundari performed a nice dance balancing a rice bowl on her head. There was also one on top of each hand, but one fell off and broke about 30 seconds into the performance, so she ditched both.

Here's a photo of the whole gang, or at least most of it. You can see the "King" and "Queen" seated in the middle.

What's that? Milk? Camel? Fermented? Well OK!

cm - You are in the vast Gobi, with no water, no food, and the scourge of nature’s barren emptiness spread out before you like a sandy ocean full of invisible sharks. Then, you see a sleeping camel - a sign of hope for life. As you approach, you see a baby camel nursing; but wait - something is wrong. The mother isn’t moving, and you don’t see the slow rising and falling of respiration in its ribs. It doesn’t matter. You are too famished. You bend down next to the small, nursing camel, and begin suckling, taking in the sour yet rich milk, fermenting in the small udder of your rotting surrogate mother.

Hopefully you wake up at this point, and think “wow, that was a strange dream! I think I’ll go have a glass of regular, pasteurized milk to settle my disgusted stomach.” Maybe, however, this vision has possessed you, like a viral demon, just after you’ve taken you first sip of camel-milk airag. Airag is a term usually reserved for the fermented milk of mares, but fermented camel’s milk often goes by the same name. I am told that camel airag and horse airag are like apples and oranges – totally different tastes. Mongolians hold mare’s milk airag in the highest esteem, which probably has something to do with the exalted position of horses in this culture (during Chinggis Khan’s time a man could get the death penalty for whipping his horse in the face), but camel milk airag is also quite popular (however, both can cause a mean case of what my Mongolian friend calls the “quick shits” in the uninitiated digestive system).

So, we were lucky enough to procure some camel’s milk airag at a market fair. This stuff is the real deal, straight from the producer who lives in Bayanhongor, 600 km from Ulaanbaatar. Let’s go to the tape to learn more about this fascinating product. I mean, before I came here, I wasn’t even aware that it was possible to ferment dairy products.

So, from this picture you can see how the majority of milk products are bottled outside of the capital. Vendors simply take any available plastic bottle and fill it with their product. No safety seals here – just look at the seller and hope for the best – this stuff is not pasteurized.


OK, the pour started with a slight chunkiness, but became more consistent as the pour progressed. This is not encouraging. Is it really worth it to milk a camel for this stuff?


Now the taste test. mmmm… this is hard to describe. There is definitely a dairy taste there, but then the fermentation imbues the concoction with a crispness that is hard to describe… maybe like a glass of heavy cream cut with ¼ apple vinegar. I am sure this is an acquired taste, but I am not sure that I want to suffer through the acquiring. I must say, though, that I would rather drink this than eat fat, which is another traditional delicacy.


Ooh, look at that mustache! Screw the “Got Milk?” campaign! I am signing up for the “Got Camel Milk Airag?” campaign. This unique taste has taught me that there is a fine line between the word “ferment” and the word “rot.” This is just another beautiful example of the durability and resiliency of mind, body, and spirit that you find all over Mongolia. These people take lemons and make lemonade. No, wait, lemons are expensive here. They don’t even get lemons – they get camel milk and make a fermented milkshake… and like it!

So, About the Hotel Wrestling Match

CM - By popular demand, I'll address the cryptic reference to a hotel wrestling match mentioned here.

I'll set the scene:

I had been out interviewing people about the local milk market (kind of a big deal as there was never a dedicated milk market in Bayanhongor before. The milk there is not pasteurized, and people had been simply buying untested milk off the street from dirty carts). I finished my work for the day, wrote up my notes, and returned to my hotel. Parenthetically, I was lucky enough to have a shower in my hotel room. It was attached to the sink, and there was no shower to speak of – there was a drain on the floor and you just stood there, wedged between the toilet (with no lid on the tank) and sink, letting the lukewarm water trickle over you. It was new for me.

Sorry, I digress. So, I had finished my day and sat down to my aforementioned meal of eggs and rice with milk tea to drink. As I ate, a couple of guys came in. They had already been drinking, maybe a lot. They invited me to sit with them. I saw no harm in it, as I was just eating alone. This turned out to be a mistake, however, I am still a bit confused as to why.

As it turned out, these young gentlemen were auditors for a national bank, in town to audit a local branch. One spoke some English (more than 99% of the other people I met there) and the other had two phrases he shouted repeatedly and laughed the frothy laugh of too many shots and not enough food (the phrases were “WHERE ARE YOU FROM!” and “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” – neither phrased as a question). We made small talk and had a few beers, then the guys ordered khuushur – a traditional Mongolian fried meat dumpling. As we ate the khuushur, one guy went to the bathroom (very near) and threw up all over the place. The toilet, while set into the floor, is plenty big enough to hit, even when piss drunk. Shrugging of the failure of marksmanship, the guy came back to the table. The second guy (the “WHERE ARE YOU FROM!” guy) had, by this time, rested his head on the side of the table and was spitting on the floor. He started throwing up, making no attempt to move (the waitress, maybe the best English speaker in the town, said “I am not cleaning that up”). While this is happening, pukeman 1 starts telling me that he likes to know women carnally, but in a bit more crude English. OK.

I took this as my cue to call it a night and put some distance between my digestively challenged acquaintances and me. I tried to pay my bill, but they had already paid it. As I was about to leave, I saw that the waitress was really not looking happy about the two young professionals. I decided to help pukeman 1 get pukeman 2 out of there. When we tried to rouse him, he just sat there moaning. Then, he shot up out of his seat and looked almost good-as-new. Odd.

So, here is where things get stranger than normal. I said I was going to bed. They said, no, I should come up to their room. This did not sound like a good idea to me. I said I needed to get something, and attempted to ditch them. They were surprisingly fast for their level of intoxication. They kept telling me, “Just come up to our room for 15 minutes.” This was beginning to feel a little homoerotic. Not that there is anything wrong with that. My lifestyle choices, however, have taken me a different direction. As there were two of them and one of me, I didn’t want this to become violent, so I played it all as a joke.

As we stood in the hallway near my room, them blocking my way, the bigger guy (pukeman 2, aka “WHERE ARE YOU FROM!’ guy) challenged me to a wrestling match (as translated by pukeman 1). I decided, (a) he was going to start this match whether I agreed or not, (b) this may give me a chance to show them that I am a man not to be trifled with (I sure hope I am not, anyway), and (c) I had better watch out for pukeman 1. Mongolian wrestling is a bit different than US wrestling. Your goal is to get your opponent to touch anything other than their feet or hand to the ground. You can also grab clothes. So, I grabbed this guy and put him in the fireman’s carry (just what it sounds like) without touching my knee to the ground. When I followed through and threw him on the ground, he hit a door. Nobody came out. Probably good for them.

Despite this act of overt masculinity, they still wouldn’t let me go to my room. They wanted me to come to their room. This was getting ridiculous, and I was getting angry. I barreled through them, and was trying to get my key in the door while they tried to stop me, still asking me to come with them, but still in an odd, friendly way. As this was happening, my phone began to ring inside my room. I said, “that’s my wife; I have to get that.” This apparently resonated with pukeman 1, who translated for pukeman 2, and they let me get in. I immediately threw the door shut and locked it before I got the phone. They stayed outside for a few minutes, kicked the door, then left.

Really strange... especially as the guys always seemed friendly, but were definitely pretty creepy. I don’t know what they were after. They weren’t poor, so I doubt it was money. I am a pretty good-looking man, so maybe with the urging of alcohol they thought they could get me to change teams – or maybe my Spartan good looks and chiseled physique got them to change teams. Maybe they were as confused as I was in the morning. Luckily, I didn’t see them in the morning to ask.

Not only did I have to carry this sign rolled up on the bus with me from school and then to the park, but then I had to stand holding it while clayt took and retook the photos, as my eyes kept being closed. Also, several people stopped to stare and laugh at me. But I think it was worth it in the end! Hope you have a great birthday Dad and Brian, I love and miss you both!

Miscellaneous Ongoings

JM- I went to the PO yesterday afternoon with my boss, a turkish guy who speaks mongolian fluently. The same lady was working and she again said there were no packages for us. As she turned the pages of the book, we saw our names. So again, we pointed out "hey! we're right there!" and again she offered no explanation or apology. We FINALLY received the package from Josh and Char (thanks soooo much!), which they sent out on January 5th. The lady said it just arrived last wednesday. It was banged up, the box was split open, and they had placed it in a giant canvas mail sack from china. We think we might like to keep that sack. No word yet on the package from Billy and Rose, but we'll check again in a few weeks.

This past saturday was a teacher's picinic, which was pretty fun. We played basketball, threw around an australian football, and walked along the river. The river was partially frozen, and so clayt and I spent a nice little chunk of time finding the biggest rocks we could carry to throw and try to break the ice. Good clean fun. Here are 2 photos of the place -- one of clayt playing b-ball, and one of the smaller part of the river.


Below are 2 photos sheridan just sent me from a while back. This is from the night I came down with tonsillitis. We were helping them make buuz, the traditional food. We presonally don't like to eat much of it, but during the tsagaan sar holiday they say you have to eat at least 30 or you will have bad luck in the next year. I can barely eat 2. But, it was fun to make them! All it consists of is a dough made of flour and water, and then ground meat (beef or sheep) placed in the middle and wrapped up nicely.

Other Points of View

There are only a few other native English speaking teachers at our school. We thought it might be nice to give you links to their blog sites, so that you can read about thier experiences as well. Its interesting how so much of what we're experiencing is the same, and at the same time there is so much that is different.

Sheridan is from South Dakota and got married just 10 months ago to a mongolian man. They had the wedding here, and he has never been to america yet. You can check out her impressions of being a newlywed in a foreign country here:
http://nomadicshare.blogspot.com/

Andrew is from Australia and didn't suffer any jet lag since he's in the same time zone -- lucky! His girlfriend is Mongolian and they have all kinds of adventures together. You can check out his stories here:
http://nomadrew1.livejournal.com/

A Taste of Home

A few weeks ago clayt and i found a shop that sells american foods and we bought a giant bag of generic tortilla chips. Here there are no tortilla wraps, shells, chips, nothing! So we were really excited about the bag of tortilla chips and decided to make "super nachos." Sheridan and I made them for clayt, amrah, andrew and ourselves. We layed out the chips on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil since the cookie sheet is charred and rusted, and then covered them with ground beef (mixed with homemade taco seasoning since there is none here), homemade nacho cheese sauce, red and green peppers, tomoatos, lettuce, black beans ($2.50 per can at the specailty food store!!!), and salsa (from germany, it was kinda gross). No sour cream, no guacamole (avocados - $9.00 for 2), but it was still pretty much the most awesome food we've eaten in 4 months! (ok, maybe not the best, but it was great to have a taste of home) Clayt and I liked it so much we made the same thing for dinner the next day also! Amrah (sher's hubby, mongolian) didn't seem too impressed, so I guess it's an acquired taste. Here's a photo of our end product, round one. We were a little like Gollum -- it was our precious, and we didn't want to take it into the boys to share! Notice the crazed look in our eyes.

My Mongolian Arch Nemesis

jm- It can be REALLY frustrating not to be able to express yourself in certain situations. One of those situations would be when someone isn't doing thier job and its ticking you off. Over the last 4 months, at least 9 people have sent us packages. We are missing 3 of them, as of today. Normally I would be understanding of the fact that in other countries the postal system may not be as efficient, and it may take a long long LONG time for things to arrive. But so far, things have arrived punctually, except for the 3 we're waiting on.

Now when we go to the PO, we have to go to a certain desk, and give them our ID and address, and they have a book they check (everything is manual - no computer system at all!) to see if they can find our name listed. If not, they say no. If yes, they take our ID into the back room, and return with a box. Usually I have the misfortune of visiting the PO when the same lady is working each time. She looks at me, does not open her book, and says "NO." Once she said, "NO, Tomorrow." So I came back the next day, and she again did not open the book, looked at me and said, "NO." Its extremely irritating. So, I gave up on the PO for a while.

Well yesterday we decided to check in as we were expecting a package from my sister Dawn (should have arrived late last week). I went to the express counter, and the man there checked his slips, looked through the packages he had, and said it wasn't there. I asked what about for a box that wasn't sent Express, and he pointed over to another counter. Working at that counter was my Mongolian Arch Nemesis, the "NO" lady. I walked over with Clayton and before I even got close, she saw me and said "NO." ...... "NO." I went up anyways with my ID and etc. and said (gestures, tarzan English, little Mongolian) I was looking for a package that would have arrived a long time ago. She sighed, got huffy, and tossed me the book. So, Clayt and I looked through it, and lo and behold, about 7 pages from the back, was our names!!! I was happy and felt a little vindicated and wanted to say "In your face!" to her, but with my mongolian all I could do is emphatically point at our names in the book and say "TEEM! TEEM!" (yes! yes!). She didn't seem anything close to apologetic, she just went into the back and brought out a box and gave it to the customs folks.

So thanks Dawn for the package! We got it, but almost didn't. As for the other 3 boxes that are still MIA... I just imagine the "NO" lady has a little room in the back where she is stashing our stuff -- eating american food, practicing her english with grammar books, etc. She almost got our girl scout cookies too! But actually, our school director is going back with me on Monday afternoon to hopefully find the missing 3. He said he had checked with them just an hour before we went, and they told him also that there was nothing. So it seems a little fishy to all of us now.

We'll keep you posted. No pun intended. :)

What, Me Worry?

CM - So, I thought I’d give a bit more information about one of my recent travels.

I recently flew to Bayanhongor a few weeks ago to see a dairy market. I went by myself into the heart of Mongolia, and the edge of the Gobi (just the other side of the Altai Mountains). I was met at the ramshackle airport by an energetic and all-around good gentleman named Eerka (not his real name, but the shortening of it I could pronounce). I could tell from the get-go that he is energetic just by the magnificence of his hair, which was carefully gelled - perfect and crisp. Surely this must take time. But don’t get the wrong idea about him. He's a down to earth guy with magnificent hair.

So, some sort of Russian military vehicle (presumably one they left behind about 17 years ago) went to the plane to get the luggage, and I waited in a Russian Jeep, with the driver. I could already tell that this driver was bent on hellfire and destruction behind the wheel from my first glance. He wore camo pants, military boots (as far as I can tell – not like I’ve been in the military), and wrap-around sunglasses (which I later borrowed to see a partial solar eclipse). He was ready for action.

I found that my impression was correct. People paid to be drivers in this country earn their money. He bombed across rocks and barren land and (only in the center of town) concrete at unsafe speeds. He did this with a satisfaction that sat deep in the slight grit of his teeth that resembled a smile and his rough accelerator foot.

So, I can’t go on too long about this trip, because there is too much to talk about, but let me tell you a funny (in retrospect) story. I was in Bayanhongor over a holiday (officially soldier’s day – unofficially men’s day). I told the local Mercy Corps staff that I could take care of myself for the day – I planned to climb up a nearby mountain.

To get ready for this feat (hey, it is a feat for a fat-ass like me), I went to the diner in the hotel I was staying in (I could write an entirely new post about the hotel and the wrestling match I was in, but I’ll save that) and ordered eggs and rice. I don’t know how to order much else.

There were a bunch of men drinking vodka at the diner (I later found that some people call the holiday “vodka day”). One man came over and gave me a shot of vodka. The custom, as I understand it, in Mongolia is to accept the first shot of vodka that anyone offers you. Reluctantly, I took the shot, and then ate my food. Soon, the gentlemen invited me over. When I got to their table I found that four of the six men were policemen, with one other being a military man. Apparently (from what we could communicate to each other) he is the guy who gets to shoot down aircraft that shouldn’t be there.

Anyway, we proceeded to drink about three bottles of vodka. I hadn’t planned on this, but different people kept offering me shots, and I couldn’t say no to just one of them, so I drank about 10 shots of vodka.

I thought about just going back to bed at this point, but NO. I had told myself I would climb up that Mountain before I left, and was damned well going to do it. Drunk or not. Keep in mind this was not K2 we’re talking about here, but for a man in my physical condition, it might as well have been.

I stumbled up the large rock, and suppressed my urge to vomit. I decided to take the express route down the mountain – walking/falling/sliding down the steep face of it. This was amusing to the locals, but I didn’t care. I got back to my room a little worse for wear (rather large bruising was taking shape on my buttocks and elbows from the aforementioned falling and sliding – what wasn’t covered by snow was mostly crumbly rock).

The next day, as I was preparing for departure, I noticed my passport was missing. This presented a problem, as I really didn’t want to walk the 600 km home. Gee, where could I have lost it? Hmmm. Maybe on that $&@*! mountain! And so, Eerka and I trudged up the mountain, following my tracks backwards (which means we climbed up the exact steep face that I had climbed/fallen down). We got to the top without finding the passport, but, on our descent, there it was, sitting in on top of the - little blue book that had lost its way. It was pure joy.

…And now I’ll never lose anything ever again…

Travels into No-Man's Land

JM - Our week-long spring break has come to an end. We had some interesting travels, most of which is really, really difficult to explain in words. So, this blog posting will mostly be photos from our experience. We travelled to Choir (like a state capital city), Shivee Gobi (which is a town in Gobi Sumber aimag (aimags are like states)), Munhhaan ( a town in Sukhbaatar aimag) and Baruun-Urt (the state capital city of Sukhbaatar aimag). All of these places were way off the beaten path. We left Wednesday morning, and drove for 4 hours to reach the first place. It was mostly paved road. The second day however, as we travelled to the next town, we took no road. It was a six hour drive following a path through the flat, open nothingness. We stopped 4 or 5 times at a random ger to ask directions. It was a very bumpy ride! In those 6 hours we saw only 3 other vehicles, all trucks of some sort. All our traffic troubles came only from random mud puddles, losing the track we were following, and slowing to a stop to let horses, cows, sheep and goats pass in front of us. Our trip back yesterday was a nine hour drive, the first half without any road, the second half with a paved highway that in a few places just ended, and then started up again a few km down the road. And now for the photos.

This is one of the men clayton interviewed for MercyCorps. We are sitting inside his ger. You can see on the sofa next to him a small bottle with some fabric. That is his snuff bottle, something that all mongolian men have. When people come to your house, it is a whole ritual of presenting your snuff bottle to them -- there is a certain way to present it, a certain way to receive it and inspect it and return it. Its pretty cool, but the snuff (tobacco powder) is pretty potent.

Above is a photo to show you the bowl of freshly cooked goat's meat that was shared with us. You can see some knives that we were given to cut ourselves off a chunk of super fatty meat. It was pretty good, if you got some without much fat, which wasn't easy.

here's a picture of a typical mongolian horse. they are small but stocky and hardy. We saw countless horses like this one grazing in the endless pastures.

This is the home of one of the people we interviewed. This is their "winter camp" which they will leave soon to move around for the spring and summer with their herds. You can see clayt in his red coat.

This cow was snacking on garbage in the middle of one of the "cities" we visited. In with the rubbish was a cow skull with horns, which this cow was using to scratch his face.

The sign at the top of this building says "delguur" which means "store." Not many people know that the swastika was used by lots of people long long before hitler, and is related to ancient buddhism practices.

This little girl was at one of the gers we visited. I just thought she was cute standing there in her purple sequined boots chilling with her puppy. She's at the entrance to the ger, which I wailed hy head against, as I always forget to duck to go in.

A view of one of the "cities" we visited. Can you imagine living here? Most of the cities had no roads, just a lot of open space and you drove where you needed to go.

Here is Clayt standing by our "road" to the countryside. Our translator said we were lucky, as this was one of the better roads available. Would you be concerned if your driver went off the paved path and followed this route instead? Better yet, later that day we got to drive an hour and a half of it in the DARK.

This guy was awesome. He was one of the people clayt interviewed. He is wearing the traditional del (the blue coat/robe) and the boots made of felt. Not really pretty, but super thick and super warm. You can see on the sofa in the corner there is an empty bottle of vodka. He was a generous host, and as we talked, he continuously poured shot after shot (in a rice bowl) for everyone, until the bottle was empty.

A big gold bust of lenin i saw in a tailoring shop we were visiting. Not sure what that's all about.

We got to see a horse race on our last day in Sukhbaatar. I was trying to take a photo of the finish line, but this guy thought I was taking his photo. I guess I was.

Here is one of the early finishers of the horse race. Mostly the racers are children, 5 years old and up. The race was for 25 kilometers. Can you imagine putting your 5 year old on horse for a 25km race?

Here are some camels we saw on the ride home! We had stopped for a bathroom break. Out in the endless open, with no tree or rock in sight to hide behind, I did not partake in the roadside bathroom breaks.

Here's another little cutie hanging around one of the farms we were visiting.

This couple were very nice herders that we visited on our first day. They had lots of cute little lambs and baby goats, and they let them out of the pen to visit with us. One that was only a few days old put itself right between my feet and proceeded to nibble on my jeans. Clayton said when they opened the pen I gave a squeal of delight and he thought I was going to die from being overwhelmed by so much cuteness. I don't remember the squeal.

A last shot of the goofy looking camels giving us the eye as they passed. It was really awesome to be out in the middle of nowhere, no cars, no roads, no people, no buildings -- just us, the earth, and some wary camels.

Thank you!

We have been in mongolia now for 3 and a half months. We just wanted to post a quick note to say thank you to all our friends and family members that have been so supportive of us. Your phone calls, emails, letters and packages are priceless to us! It makes us feel great to know that we have so many people that care about us, and support us and the work we are trying to do here. We know life is about choices, and it was ours to take this path. We feel lucky to have family members and friends that are cheering us on even though its a path not many would take. So, thanks for all the love!

Hillary President Don't.

JM - That is what our cab driver said today. He also said, "Osama Bin Laden... Boom!" in reference to a chinese hotel being built that he apparently hates. He was jovial and spoke a little english, and then tried to talk to us with a mix of crazy gestures, hungarian, russian and mongolian.

We got the package from my mom today, so a big thanks to her for that. She also sent hers express mail, and it got here in less than 12 days. No word yet on the whereabouts of Char's big shipment of goodies, or the x-mas card from jo and dan. We think they'll arrive eventually, as our friend just finally received a book from the states that was sent back in November.

School is going well and we have spring break next week. This term has been a real adventure for us, and we wish our break would be longer, but I think everyone thinks that way. We will do some travelling over the break, so we'll post a blog after then.

Saturday we had parent teacher conferences. They went well in general. The father of 2 of our students invited us to their house for dinner on Sunday. He said he would call between one and two, and then he come pick us up. They showed up at 12:30, without a phone call. This is how it goes in Mongolia. So, we went to their house, to see how real mongolians live. In our opinion, they were not living the typical mongolian lifestyle. Their apartment building was gated and had a guard. They lived on the 6th floor, but their aparment was the size of a house, and even had 2 floors. 3 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, an office, dining room, kitchen, huge living room, patio and play room (with a full sized piano). They also had a maid. It was a beautiful place, and we had homemade chicken soup with rice, salad, steak, scotch, merlot, coca-cola, buuz (traditional mongolian dumplings), dried fruits, candies cookies and cakes. They had the fine china out with the extra forks and everything. Maybe for some of our friends at home this doesn't seem like a big deal. But, compared to how most of the people here are living, its very very exorbident. While we ate and chatted, the maid washed the dishes. Some of them clanked in the sink, and both the mother and father spoke to her harshly in mongolian, then carried on with the conversation. They are really nice people and their kids are sweet. It was our first time riding in a Lexus SUV, with tv screens on the backs of the seats and cordless headphones. So it was an eye-opening experience for us, to see what life is like at home for some of our students. Bedrooms bigger than ours and several flatscreen computers and tvs, a maid to heat up soup and serve it to you whenever you like...

Here is a photo of clayt and amrah playing a game of some sort of poker.


And here are some things that are on our bathroom doors to indicate what you should do where. We have tried without success to remove them. I think they've been painted over. It looks real classy.

Bus Accident

CM -- Yesterday it snowed. This comes after a day that hit 45 F (incredibly warm for Mongolia at this time of year). The snow and warm weather created a lot of water, which, when the temperatures dropped again, turned into beautiful ice. The roads aren’t taken care of very well here. There are no plows or salt trucks. People are employed to sweep the roads off with giant straw brooms. Ice is removed by pounding it with large steel bars, then shoveling it on the curb. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen very quickly.

OK, now I’ve set the scene. After volunteering yesterday, I got on the bus to meet Jessica and some friends for dinner. As we passed the Wrestling Palace, the bus began to skid (just before a red light). It skidded right into the car in front of us. The bus driver got out. Everyone on the bus stood up to look, but the doors didn’t open, so everyone stayed on the bus. The driver came back, got something from the driver pod (the driver has his own miniature room built around him on the bus), then tried to run away. Someone grabbed him, but lost their grip. He ran off the bus, leaving us on a bus that had been in an accident without any driver. This was shocking to me, but no one else seemed too concerned. Another person (hopefully employed by the bus company) immediately sat down in the driver’s seat, and drove us away, making all the normal stops as if nothing had happened!

Maybe I missed something somewhere, but that’s how I saw it. Quite interesting, especially considering a Mongolian policeman was sitting in the seat next to me. He never moved. Our friend Amrah said that is normal. Since the policeman was not a TRAFFIC policeman, he really wouldn’t do anything. I have to say, it was convenient, though. I didn’t lose a lot of time, and it gave me something to ponder for the rest of the ride…

Coming Soon to ESPN!

JM -- How do you think this rates as a sport -- above or below those woodsman competitions when they balance on logs and the likes? This is what our TV options were the other night -- watching this, Transformer re-runs, Korean Soap Operas or MTv's "Pimp my Ride" dubbed over in Russian.

Please enlighten us if you know anything about this sport where it appears that you box with your knee while hopping on one foot.