Buuz for Breakfast

What a week!  We took the whole week off from school and I was glad for it.  We made two visits Thursday, one to Ganpurev's house and the other to Bilgee's house.  My first Tsagaan Sar visit was certainly interesting.  Ganpurev's living room was transformed into a dining room with extra tables laid out with a full spread.  I large wooden platter sat in the middle of the table holding what was left of a roasted goat with the head beautifully garnishing the top.  Behind it sat the tower of bread.  Each house buys these breads shaped like large maple bar doughnuts and stacks them in an odd number of layers.  Each alternating layer represents happiness and sorrow.  If there is and even number of layers then the happiness and sorrow are equal; and odd number means there is more happiness than sorrow.  Atop the tower of bread was piled all manner of dairy products such as arohl and candy.  Along with these table settings were bowls of candy and bread as well as thermoses full of Sootay Tsay.  The spread was similar at Bilgee's house except that he had an extra cake type bread that he served.  I enjoyed myself and it was exciting to see all the traditions.  All in all I eat four or five buuz as well as some other meat and bread.  At Bilgee's I didn't eat any buuz, just cake and sootay tsay.  Kevin and I didn't go with the Dean's for the visits they made on Friday.  On Saturday morning we, along with the Deans, Pattersons, and MacIlvains, went to Buren's house for a visit.  We got to Buren's house at 9:20 and stayed for about and hour and a half.  While we were there I ate more arohl and Mongolian dairy products than I would have thought I could.  (Is that confusing?)  I ate more buuz than I had to and I actually asked for more sootay tsay.  After that visit Kevin and I had the whole rest of the day free; I spent it walking around UB with Kevin and a girl named Barrie who is on her way through to Hatgal to help the Cofers.  Throughout the afternoon we retraced our steps twice as we walked from place to place only to find most of our intended destinations closed because of the holiday.  Then we had dinner with the Siekberts and watched a movie.

John

National Holiday

Yesterday was the first day of the Tsagaan Sar celebration, one of Mongolia's biggest holidays.  People make visits to family and friends and eat a lot of buuz.  Usually people visit family on the first day and then spread out to the rest of their acquaintances.  Today I will make my first two Tsagaan Sar visits.  The first to Ganpurev and his family and then with Bilgee.  I've heard that those to people make pretty good buuz and I've had some of their before so it may not be so bad.

John

Double Love Triangle

For Tsagaan Sar our school gave all of the students tickets to a famous Mongolian opera.  For the longest time Kevin and I couldn't decide if we really wanted to go but finally today, the day of the opera, we decided for it.  We were glad we went.  Although we couldn't understand any of it the music was good and there was some really good singing too.  During the first intermission it had only been thirty minutes and we wondered if it was already over.  In the end they had a wedding ceremony in the opera with lots of traditional Mongolian celebration, including Mongolian wrestling.  That was interesting.  Afterwards a bunch of our classmates decided to go out to eat at Hazara and we considered going but decided against that in the end.

John

Return to the Hole in the Wall

The Pattersons finally returned yesterday from their world travels.  Not only did they bring good news from a far country they also brought McDonald's from Korea.  We took the day off of school yesterday for a couple of reasons but we were certainly glad for it.  Not only did we have a lot of work to do in moving and getting ready for the Pattersons but we also would have had a substitute teacher because our normal teacher is moving this week.  Yesterday as we were running around moving stuff and then helping the Pattersons when they actually got there we knew it would have been infinitely harder if we had gone to school.  Speaking of substitute teachers, today we got to school right on time but the teacher wasn't there.  We waited for twenty minutes or so and then our classmates went to find out what was going on.  They came back a few minutes later without a teacher; there was no teacher for us.  Kevin and I thought we would just go home but instead we joined another class taught by our other teacher.  That class was still in the first language book so we basically reviewed until break.  After break we returned to our classroom with another substitute teacher named Kenzo.  It was a little difficult because he is an English teacher at the school and not a Mongolian teacher but we got along okay.  When we were finally done and started heading home who was there to pick us up and drive us home other than Mr. Dean and Ganpurev.  We're stoked to have next week off for Tsagaan Sar even though we're not as excited for all the buuz.  When we returned to our apartment yesterday we found that our power had been turned off while we were gone, most likely to save a few cents on the power it took to run our fridge.  There was nothing we could do about it until today so we went home last night to a dark powerless apartment.  This morning I took a shower by flashlight.  Thankfully we got it all worked out today and I'm hoping that I'll be able to use the wonder of electricity this evening to get unpacked.

John

John

Cold

This past week has been bitterly cold and has nearly erased from my mind the signs and sensations that the fledgling spring had tried to bring forth only a week before.  This cold doesn't not travel along either but brings with it biting wind that makes it's sting felt even more severely than winter's.  Despite all that I think, and begin to feel, spring's renewed attempt to enliven this frozen land with it's warmth and energy.  Even this evening feels like it is warmer and no doubt we will begin to shed layers soon.  With the entrance of spring however brings another change not as looked forward to.  With the Pattersons returning this Thursday Kevin and I will be moving back into our hibernation hole this week.  After the freedom and the space we have so enjoyed it will likely be quite an adjustment re-entering our one roomed cell.

John

Normal Life?

I seem to have slacked off a little bit in my writing and that may be because I don't think that much is happening of interest around here.  I got to thinking that other day about what happens in a normal week over here and I came to the conclusion that what I consider to be a normal week just might very well be great news or exciting happenings to my friends and family back in the States.  I will try to objectively analyze my adventures for content that may be of interest to you all.

This Friday (the 13th) just happened to be my birthday.  I've had my birthday package sitting on my desk for a long time and was finally able to open it.  It was the packages that came one week.  I was glad that it was sitting on my desk waiting for me and not still arriving in the mail.  It's a good thing there wasn't anything that could spoil while it sat unrefrigerated in my room.  On Friday I had a couple of appointments on Skype that I was looking forward to and I didn't want to keep anyone up too late on the West Coast so I wanted to get home from school as soon as I could.  Instead of waiting for the bus I decided that taking a taxi would be much faster.  Since that driver of that taxi didn't recognize our address I had to give him turn by turn directions in Mongolian.  It was totally alright since giving taxi directions was one things we learned in the first few weeks were here.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

John

Fire Brigade

Tuesday night was a night with a surprise.  We had just gotten back to the Dean's apartment after eating out at one of our favorite restaurants.  Mr. Dean and Mrs. Dean had an appointment with another missionary family that evening so we were left alone with the children.  The kids were taking baths that night as well and while they were doing that Kevin and I watched the A-Team.  Right after Elsie finished her bath I looked up from the movie and was talking with Charissa when I saw something in the air.  My first thought was that it was steam from the bathroom.  Regardless I got up just to check things out.  It was then that I realized there was a glow coming from the corner of the kitchen behind the cabinets.  Right then I was thought to myself "It's so dumb to have candles lit over there.  Who lit the candles."  When I got there however I found out that it wasn't candles, it was a fire.  Quickly I told Kevin and he got up from the couch.  Then I grabbed the distilled water from on top of the fridge and doused the flame.  Under the burning stickers, for that was what had caught on fire, was a heating coil used for heating water.  Elsie had plugged it in and left it when she went to take her bath.  Kevin and I spent a few more minutes cleaning up the mess and throwing away burned material.  It was pretty wild, I'm just glad Kevin and I were there to take care of it.

John

All But Unheard Of

We experienced an anomaly today on our way home from school.  We waited a few minutes at the bus stop and then finally crammed ourselves onto an already crowded bus.  I earnestly despise crowded bus.  People aren't just dumb, they're complete idiots, and being crammed like animals into enclosed spaces with them doesn't improve their image.  We were on our way along the south road when I suddenly felt the bus turning.  We had never turned there before and it was the wrong direction as well.  It was also interesting because I know there are no roads heading south away from the south road.  It wasn't long before I realized why it was we were stopping.  A bus full to over flowing with passengers was stopping for gas.  I was almost dumbfounded.  Buses never stop for gas while they are circulating.  Apparently that wasn't true today.

John