Monthly Archives: January 2012

New Song

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Today in a teacher training session at school one of the teachers taught us a song that she learned from Nana the local JICA volunteer. It is very cute and I thought I would share it with you. It is sung to the tune of Where is Pinky? and done with hand motions:

Чулуу хайч цаасаар 

Чулуу хайч цаасаар

Чулуу хайч цаасаар

юу хийх вэ?

юу хийх вэ?

Баруун гар цаас

Зүүн гар чулуу

нисдэг тэрэг

нисдэг тэрэг

Чулуу хайч цаасаар

Чулуу хайч цаасаар

юу хийх вэ?

юу хийх вэ?

Баруун гар хайч

Зүүн гар хайч

нүдний шил

нүдний шил

 English translation

Rock scissors paper  (fist, peace symbol held like scissors, open hand)

Rock scissors paper (fist, peace symbol held like scissors, open hand)

What is made? (one hand on your chin, the other supporting your elbow-like you are wondering)

What is made?(opposite of above)

Right hand paper (right hand open flat)

Left hand rock (left hand in a fist)

Helicopter!              (Right hand on top of left hand moving back and forth like helicopter propellers)

Helicopter!

Rock scissors paper (fist, peace symbol held like scissors, open hand)

Rock scissors paper (fist, peace symbol held like scissors, open hand)

What is made? (one hand on your chin, the other supporting your elbow)

What is made? (opposite of above)

Right hand scissors (right hand in a peace symbol)

Left hand scissors (left hand in a peace symbol)

eye glasses! (both hands held up at the eyes, fingers pointing towards eyes-like you are making raccoon eyes)

eye glasses!

Our New Bed

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After 4 months of sleeping with just a couple of old school desk tops and sheets of felt between us and the ground, we decided to upgrade and move our old school desk tops and sheets of felt a couple of feet off the ground. Darkhuu, the industrious, found us the old front of a traditional Mongolian bed, and with some newly purchased wood and a few additional school desk tops Brian went about building us a top notch bed. First Brian added a frame to the back of the bed front, as well as a middle and back frame.

He then joined the three frames together from the top using the desk tops.

A few more strategic cuts for the ends of the bed….

and voila-a wonderful sturdy and much warmer bed.

Even Santiago thinks Brian did a great job.

Laundry in Mongolia

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Laundry in Mongolia is a laborious weekly or twice weekly activity that involves getting water from the well, heating water on the stove, hand scrubbing every thing, rinsing everything, and then hanging it up to dry for 12-24 hours, depending on how dry/cold the day is.

If you look at the picture above you can see how the process unfolds. I take clothes from the dirty pile, scrub them with powered Tide and a bar of lye soap (yellow thing on top of the clothes) in the purple bucket, and then deposit them in the green bucket. Once I am done I empty the very dirty water (see Brian’s shirt as an example of what I am cleaning)

into the blue bucket, and then repeat the process with clean water to rinse out the soap. One of the hardest parts of the job is wringing everything out by hand.

Once everything is washed I either hang the clothes on an indoor rack that we borrow from Darkhuu or on the line outside.

Here I am hanging up the laundry:

Note carefully the steam coming off the clothes due to the very cold air temperature. In the winter the clothes freeze solid in a matter of minutes and then the moisture sublimates off of them.

When it gets dark out, we bring our clothes in and either fold them and put them away or hang them on the rack to finish drying. As you can see, cold weather can make for some strange laundry.

And that is how one does laundry with no power or running water.

School, Kindergarten, and Hospital Donations

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While we were in America we received some very generous donations from my father Richard Munson, and Franz and Sally Jaggar, two participants in last year’s CAORC conference which was held in Mongolia. Together with an assortment of supplies that we purchased we were able to make some very much appreciated donations to the school, kindergarten, and hospital here in town.

I held a small ceremony at school and invited all the teachers to check the materials out. While some things are only useful in my class (e.g. English books), other materials such as scissors, glue sticks, and construction paper were excitedly welcomed by all the teachers.

I also took some of the supplies over to the Kindergarten where I know all sorts of fun things will be made.

Lastly, thanks to my father we were able to give the hospital some much needed supplies including band aids, bandages, and alcohol wipes. While band aids are not super expensive here, they can be hard to come by. It is not uncommon for people to literally buy one or two band aids at the store.

Thank you again Dad, Franz, and Sally. Your donations really made a difference in the lives of people with boo boos or the need the craft.

Quick trip to Korea

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On our way back to Mongolia we had a scheduled 34 hour layover in Korea. We got into Incheon airport around 4 in the morning, and after going through immigration we immediately made our way to the airport 7-11 and stocked up on teas, onigiri, and all sorts of sweet and salty Korean snacks. We spent the next few hours until the rest of the airport opened exploring the airport and stopping to refill on snacks every 30 minutes or so. The Incheon airport is one of the best in the world, and no wonder.  Where else can you see a 3-D lighted paper-mache model of a boy flying a kite?

From the airport were able to book our hotel room, get a free shuttle to and from the airport to the hotel, and organized a 5 hour bus tour to Seoul.

The bus trip took us to Seoul which is about an hour from the airport. The area between the city and airport seemed to be a mix of industrial areas and scrub brush nature with a lot of fog mixed in. In Seoul we walked a bit around downtown next to a recovered and rebuilt river that flows right through the middle of the city.

The city was clean, open, and quieter than I had expected. There were also some lovely pieces of art.

We then went to Gyeongbokgung Palace, a large, multi building palace in the middle of downtown Seoul which was built in the 14th century. We got to see a number of the buildings as well as the changing of the guard ceremony. While the palace was lovely, I did wonder how comfortable it was in the winter. Seemed pretty drafty to me!

A super fancy water fountain

The main entrance gate

Details of the buildings

And the obligatory peace sign photo

Our last stop in Seoul was for lunch and a bit of shopping in a tourist district downtown. As always the food was amazing, and we bought an assortment of wooden and metal chopsticks.

We will definitely be heading back to Korea for a real vacation in the near future. First stop on my list: the Korean Folk History Museum. You can watch them make kimchi the old fashioned way!

Christmas

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We spent the week before Christmas in Ohio, which largely went undocumented by photos since we were too busy shopping, relaxing, and eating.  As always it was wonderful to see my parents, my grandmother, and other relatives, although it was not the same this year without a visit with Aunt Sue. Aunt Sue, who was actually my grandmother’s other sister and therefore my great aunt, passed away on Thanksgiving at the wonderful age of 94. There never was a nicer, kinder person than Aunt Sue, and I miss her everyday.  When we returned to Mongolia we received a fruitcake in the mail from her which she had sent in early November. It was the best cake from heaven we have ever gotten.

Here is Brian with a gift he didn’t get for Christmas (my mom’s cat Ginger)

My grandmother and mother opening grandma’s new television. Mom bought it for her to replace the black and white television in her kitchen that was so old that it still had dials to turn.

We were unable to find our stockings so I made us some out of unused wallpaper. When we got to my Dad’s house we found our real stockings hanging on his mantel. I have absolutely no recollection of giving them to him. Very strange.

My most wonderful gift-a two sided mini-quilt made by my mom of Nigel and Santiago. The Nigel side is proudly displayed in our ger since we can still gaze lovingly at the real Santi.

We also got to visit my Dad and his partner Libby near Cincinnati which was wonderful. We took their dog Rusty to a nearby state park and collected fossils along the river bed. Brian has worked on his rock skipping skills and impressed us all.