Thanks to the perseverance of Brian and his giant computer like brain we now have wireless internet in our ger. It can be amazingly slow at times (try 1kb a second download speeds) and the power likes to go out at annoying times, but we have internet. We don’t have running water or indoor plumbing but we have internet. I love it!
Our wonderful router and modem.
In America we prepare our homes for winter by having the gas or oil delivered, by raking the dead leaves from the yard, and putting in storm windows. Here in Mongolia there are different tasks but the general idea is the same.
The first thing that you do is give your door a nice warm blanket cover. Darkhuu and I made the cover from a large piece of felt, like the kind insulating our ger, and then we covered it with an old blanket. She, our neighbor Mandakh, and I then nailed and tacked it to the door so that all the cracks and joints were covered, greatly cutting down the amount of wind that gets in.
Door blanket
Next we covered the outside bottom two feet of our ger with old cement sacks and clothes which were then covered by a good two feet of dirt. The school director brought over two truck loads of dirt as well as 4 tenth graders to get the job done for us.
A made in Mongolia cement sack
Spreading dirt
Moving onto fire making, the next thing we and our neighbors did was collect bits of desert shrubbery as kindling. While Brian and I did not actively help in this endeavor we did supply the gatherers with important things like candy bars and juice.
Some shrubberies
The other kindling that is used is dung. Brian and I collect that ourselves from the desert around us.
Brian collecting dung
Lastly we had 6 tons of coal delivered directly to our door from one of the largest coal mines in the world. Thanks to governmental subsidies the coal cost us less that $20.
The absolutely huge coal truck backing up into our yard.
Our 6 tons being dumped into our coal holding pen
Our ger is now nice and cozy.
I had a wonderful 34th birthday complete with food, friends, and electricity. We were joined by Darkhuu, Emma (the Peace Corps volunteer), and our good friend John who was riding his motorcycle around the world and just happened to be in town for my big day. We made pizzas in Darkhuu’s tiny oven, had delicious drinks prepared by Emma, and finished with a glorious cake. I received much needed slippers and books from Brian, wonderful goodies from Sarah in England, and a totally unexpected Chinggis Khan rug from Darkhuu. It now hangs in a place of honor in our home.
The lovely cake Darkhuu ordered from Dalanzadgad.
Some delicious candy from Tsendee.
Darkhuu giving me a wonderful new Chinggis rug.
Checking the placement.
The centerpiece of our ger.
Hanhongor has a very special place in my heart. It was where I was a Peace Corps volunteer and where many of my dearest friends live but it is also home. Since some of you didn’t know me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer I thought I would describe it for you.
Hanhongor is the county seat of an area that includes Dalanzadgad (the provincial capital), the Gurvan Saikhan mountain range, and lots of Gobi desert. There are about 2,500 people in the county but less that 500 in town. The rest of the population are herders and are spread out over hundreds of miles of empty desert.
In town we can boast of a school with a little over 200 students in grades 1-11, a brand new 2 story school dormitory, government office, community center, 2 story kindergarten that is currently being renovated, two banks, a communications office that used to house the only phone in town and now acts as an internet cafe and post office, a community development office, a uniform sewing factory, a ger factory, and 4 stores of various size with business hours ranging from never open to infrequently open. It is not much of a stretch to say that you can see everything in town from your home.
Living in such a small town leads to amusing interactions. The store owner you buy bread from is also your sub-governor. The neighbor who does carpentry work for you is also the town electrician. And running into one of your students at 6 am in your pajamas on your way to the outhouse is a fact of life. In fact I think seeing my students around town is something I will never get used to. At school we are all dressed in our best (nice office clothes for me, and school uniforms for them), they call me Ms. Sadie, and I am the law. Out about in town though we wear our dirty “collecting dung for the fire” clothes, we speak in Mongolian, and I revert to being called “bagsh” (teacher) in Mongolian. And oddly enough they often are better behaved around me outside of the classroom. Must be innate for kids to be punks in class…
This week has been unit one testing for two of my classes which always brings in a few classic English offerings. My favorites this week were:
Nana is from Japan. She is crime.
I am never angry and watch operas.
I really like sining.
Brian and I are the proud owners of our very first home, and ger. With this purchase I have learned a few interesting things about gers and people.
The first thing I learned is that when you buy a ger it doesn’t quite come with everything you would expect. For example our ger came with the lattice walls, a door, the roof poles and center poles and circle, a layer of felt, the exterior cover, the top window flap for inclement weather, and the ropes needed to hold it all together. It did not come with a floor, windows or window frames for the top of the ger, and some other necessary ropes.
We are now in the third week of ger improvement and have added interior wall curtains which go over the lattice walls, window frames (still working on the glass), a rope that hangs from the center of the ger which is tied to a heavy object to keep your ger from flying away in a sandstorm, furniture, and a stove. Future work will include finishing the window project, adding a padded blanket to the door as added insulation, and covering the base of the ger with a foot or so of dirt to keep the draft out.
Finally getting glass in our windows!
Window's drying on the fence
Owning a ger has reminded me of how wonderful all my friends are in Hanhongor. Before we got here, they poured a cement floor, drove the ger over from the factory on the other side of town and assembled it, painstakingly hung the wall curtains, and connected the ger to the electricity grid. Arriving to find our home pretty much ready for us was a magical feeling.
I am on my way! All 100 surveys have been collected, coded, and inputted into my computer. I have conducted 2 interviews, have two more planned for this week, and my lovely transcriber has already completed half of an interview. The interview process is really fun and I am really happy that I am able to do it all myself.
When I was a Peace Corps volunteer here in Hanhongor I lived a charmed life in which I rarely taught by myself, never had to grade anyone, and never ever ever went to boring teachers’ meetings.
Well this time around I am a “jenkin” or “real” teacher. As a recipient of a monthly salary of about $250 and a social security book, I am now expected to perform all the duties that the rest of the teachers do. I write and give countless homework assignments, quizzes, and tests. I offer extra classes for the good students, extra classes for the bad students, and extra classes for the students who will take the college entrance exams next June. I have an official Ministry of Education teachers’ journal in which I 1. must write in blue ink, and 2. must never ever ever at the expense of death make a mistake in. Also as the one and only fluent English teacher on the pay roster in the province I am expected to lead seminars for the other English teachers. Good thing I kept all the materials Christy and I made as volunteers-a little white out turns a 2002 seminar handout into an instant 2011 seminar!
Walking the dog in America was a pretty mundane activity-not far from what you think it would be. Put the dog on the leash, walk down a street, up another, stop to sniff things, stop to pick up dog poo, and see other people walking dogs. Sometimes you might even see a squirrel or cat to bark at. Pretty routine stuff.
As I have been in charge of walking the dog this week while Brian is in Ulaanbaatar I have found myself comparing American dog walking, see above, to Mongolian dog walking. Walking the dog here means putting the leash on the dog, walking 20 seconds until you have reached the edge of town, and then letting the dog off the leash to go absolutely crazy. We tend to play two different games while walking. The first one is called “Don’t eat that” and is usually played by Santi eating something (often produced by man if you know what I mean) and me yelling “don’t eat that” while I throw rocks at her. Variations on the game include “don’t touch that sack, I have no idea what is in it”, “stay away from the outhouse” and “camels can kill with one kick so get over here.” The other game we play, which involves Santi practicing her smelling and licking abilities, is called “Whose skull was that?” So far we have identified a horse, camel, dog, and sheep skull. The sheep head was extra glorious and came with an “option to roll in.” Walking the dog in Mongolia means lots more times yelling “put down that vertebrae” but also means never having to pick up a poo.
And when you get home in Mongolia your dog gets to chew on a camel bone the size of a small child. American dogs should be so lucky!
On the trail of a camel? A goat? Some exciting dung?
Chasing baby camels is so much fun!
A rare moment of repose.
Small towns are great for rumors because, aside from retelling the story about how that one guy rode his motorcycle into the outhouse hole last year, there is not much to talk about except gossip. Rumors, both founded and unfounded this month, have revolved around when the electricity would come back on and why it was off this time, who is crazy enough to put up their ger in the middle of town so far from any outhouses, and what the mining companies are up to. Hanhongor seems to have potential mineral resources that are enough to get several mining companies to fall all over themselves to win the town’s graces. Last year one of the mines spent almost $50,000 renovating the English classroom into a learning lab complete with fancy computers (note-this is not the room I get to teach in) and last week another one gave out televisions and satellite dishes at a community meeting. The newest rumor is that one of the mines which is connected to Tavan Tolgoi, one of the largest coal mines in the world located north east of here, is going to give every household 2 tons of coal for free. As someone who burns coal and enjoys being warm this is one rumor I hope comes true.