Mongol Mingle

The Longest Post Yet: Farewell, Mongolia.

2010-07-31T01:54:00.000+08:00

Leaving Mongolia last December wasn’t hard for several reasons:
1) I was desperately missing fruits and vegetables.
2) It was -27C outside…everyday.
3) I had tonsillitis.
4) I was headed to Europe.
5) I was about 87% sure I would be back this summer, as I had landed the funding for a summer’s worth of research (thank you, Cornell!).

And my inkling was true. For those who are picking this up now, I returned at the dawn of June after a week in Kenya and have been working for the past two months on my senior thesis: Mongolia’s developing vegetable agriculture sector. It’s been a grand ol’ time. But it had to end sometime. Today is my last day.

In all honesty, it will probably be a long while before I return which, unsurprisingly, is making me nostalgic. Mongolia, you’ve used me and abused me, but you continue to charm me nevertheless. So to remind my followers (and myself) what it is about Mongolia that keeps me coming back for more let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

My Top 10 Favorite Mingle Moments:

1) It’s All About the Food:

I think food is an integral part of culture. To turn one’s nose up to trying new foods is to lose out on unique cultural experiences if not also making offense to your host in the process. So I try to be liberal in my diet when I travel, preferential to plants, but open to new ideas. In accordance, last fall I ditched my vegan/vegetarian ways and went all out omnivore. As I briefly mentioned in my pre-arrival post, Mongolia is not known for its cuisine. I've learned that what a lot of Americans know about Mongolian food is what they've learned from Genghis Grill and other generic Mongolian Bar-B-Q, which is at best a grand embellishment on the authentic fried noodle dish (ingredients: flour, water, mutton, fat (potato if you’re lucky)). While it may not be a dietary paradise for consumers of the vegetarian/vegan variety, Mongolia does have some resourceful and interesting meals (at least to my Western tongue).

A list of the most interesting things I’ve consumed is as follows: boiled blood (finally something I can relate to Bear Grylls about), intestine sausage (stuffed with fat, strips of stomach, and more blood), the roof of a sheep’s mouth (“it brings you skills,” says my host father), cow tongue (my first meal), aaruul (or dried cheese curd), airag (or fermented mare's milk), half of a pig’s ear (see #3), horse, camel, yak, cow, goat, sheep…and so the list goes on.

Mongolia, while your tastes astound me and your stomachs impress me I happily reverted to my vegan ways when I returned State-side and in my Mongol return have attempted to make it through to summer on a plant-based diet (or close to) this summer. There were a few unavoidable and/or compulsory meat and dairy intakes, but nobody’s perfect.

2) My Khuvsgul Host Family

Khuvsgul province housed the site my first homestay in Mongolia and it was probably my favorite. For one, the Darkhad Depression was absolutely beautiful. I'd emerge from our ger to view a glowing purple mountain range each morning. My host family in Darkhad was also amazing. My mother, Davaasuren, was one of the kindest women I’ve met, even with our inability to orally communicate. My older sister, Ariuntogs, was a badass and a great teacher, showing me how to herd the goats and sheep, weave a rope out of yak wool, sew an ulzii, and scoop poop (the correct way). My two younger sisters, Hulan and Ariuntungalag, for the two days that I saw them, were adorable and happily played with me. And my father, Tsogbayar, was a laid back, friendly guy that would take me out herding.

He didn’t trust me with the horse like my sister did, so when we’d go out for an afternoon’s ride he’d hold the reigns while my horse followed behind his. We would go to a high point in the modestly rolling valley floor and he’d give me his binoculars to spot the herd. He taught me the names of the mountains, showed me the medicinal herbs and smiled when I tried to make conversation (as pitiful as it was). Perhaps the most memorable mingling moment with him was out on a herding venture where we met up with two of his friends. We dismounted horses, laid in the grass and I watched and listened as the three weathered men rolled cigarettes from old newspaper and chatted about the rains and their horses.

3) A Pig's Head Hike

With the pollution, the craggy sidewalks and the crowds it was hard to get much exercise while I was in the city. So when my UB host family took me out to go hiking…I was more than ecstatic. Read more here.

4) Knives are for Cutting, Meat is for Eating

This is my mother’s favorite and, I have to admit, one of my more humorous faux pas. Twas Glimpse-worthy. Read about it here.

5) A Day at the Horse Branding

Also a Glimpse-worthy story. An incredible event and tradition to see. Dusty though. My host family didn’t partake in the day’s happenings as they didn’t have any young foals that year. The previous winter’s dzud (a really, really, really harsh winter) had sadly gotten the best of all but two of their cows and several of their horses. But I was still invited to watch. Read about it here.

6) Thanksgiving

Myself and the five other American students on my program were living on our own during the month of November and so we decided to host our own Thanksgiving feast. There are no turkeys in Mongolia, so Kara roasted two small chickens, we had side dishes galore including home-made applesauce and stuffed squash and I made a pear-plum pie (baked in a frying pan, as Mongolia also lacks pie pans).

Kara’s host family joined us and like most Mongolian meals I’ve had we ate while watching the wonder that is sub-titled American films. For better or worse, at the end of the night we somehow convinced them that drinking a shot of vodka was a Thanksgiving tradition…maybe that’s true in some households. In any case, I thought it was a jolly good time. And as tradition goes, I recognized a lot that I was thankful for.

7) World Cup Jollity

I returned to Mongolia this summer and just like the rest of the world it had caught the World Cup fever. This evening’s plot happened time and time again throughout the tournament, mostly with Batmunkh and his “home-boys.” I had my hopes up for Netherlands in the end, but alas the octopus was victorious. In any case, I came out 300₮ the richer (about 21 US cents).

It's clear I will never be a gambler.

8) Naadam

The three manly games. I missed the archery and wrestling as my grant had dwindled in no time, but the horse racing was incredible! Read about my Naadam experience here.

9) Face Club

I had experienced a little bit of Mongolian night life last fall and a little bit this summer, but I had never been to a dance club before this night. I got a text from Batmunkh asking if I was busy. I said no and he said, “ok. I have a plan.”

We met up with some of his friends around 10:00 and went to a pub for a beer. About an hour later we went to Face Club, reportedly one of the best night clubs in UB. It’s rather small, but the DJs were good and I’m a sucker for trance. The dance floor was fairly empty for the first half-hour, but when two girls decided to break the tension and be the first to dance a crowd soon emerged. We danced until 3:30 with a few intermittent pauses when the power would go out (not uncommon in UB).

That night that rates among the most fun I’ve had in UB by far.

10) Хөдөө (The Countryside)

[Warming: Corny, nostalgic conclusion to follow.]

[Disclaimer: This may or may not be contradictory to this blog’s title]

I’ve enjoyed my time here immensely and these mingling moments will stay with me for as long as my synapses will let me keep them. But perhaps the best part of Mongolia, and ironically the subject of the social and political debate that my research has boiled down to, is its land.

I’m a traveler at heart and I find great thrill in being in motion. Be it on planes, trains, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, horses or my own two feet, I love being able to absorb the environments around me. Perhaps it’s because I’m a photographer and I love to see and photograph the world around me. Perhaps it’s because I’m curious about what's "out there." Or perhaps I’m just human. Regardless the reason, I love to travel and am privileged to be able to do so.

But while I love mingling (aforementioned instances among many) I also love being an objective observer—looking, listening, smelling, touching, and just being in new places as I watch time and space go by. I’ve done a fair amount of travel in Mongolia and in doing so have seen some of what this country has to offer. It’s no wonder land in Mongolian folk art is esteemed; it is beautiful. Here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here too. And that’s only a sliver of it.

I will be back. There’s so much more to explore. Mongolia, you’ve grown on me…or rather a part of me.

Farewell, Mongolia. I’ll miss you.

Women's Grand Prix

2010-07-29T22:29:00.002+08:00

I have three days left before I head back to the States Sunday morning. I'm tying up loose ends, gathering last minute details and saying goodbyes until then. Today I went to the American Center for Mongolian Studies to take advantage of my membership and exploit their library. I found 89 years of statistical records, though the 1921-1990 listings were scant. Statistics WIN! It was a far more fruitful time investment than my trip to the National Statistics Office which, ironically enough, couldn't provide me with anything except population numbers at 500₮ a page.

On my walk home I decided to pass through Sukhbaatar Square. I rather enjoy playing dodge-the-frisky-eight-year-old-on-wheels game and, being the largest pedestrian-only space in UB, there are a several dozen kids on roller-blades and bicycles speeding about. But when I rounded the corner today not only were there kids on wheels there were two red carpets laid out, a large stage and a big crowd.

Turns out today is the kick-start of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix chess tournament. It's one of six tournaments in the two year long championship. Mongolia will host twelve brilliant young women, four of which are former world champions, from China, Mongolia, Russia, India, Bulgaria, Georgia, Turkey and Qatar as they battle it out over the next two weeks.

I'm not surprised that the Grand Prix has come to Mongolia. Chess has become a beloved and esteemed game here. Some even say that at least one person in each Mongolian household plays chess. I won't get to see any of the action, but it's supposed to be an inspiring event. As the FIDE President said himself in address for the Mongolian tournament, "The example, which famous grandmasters show to young chessplayers, gives them a powerful impulse both in life, and in sports."

Bid Neg Moroodoltoi

2010-07-28T00:24:00.001+08:00

While my Ithacan and Cornellian chums were basking in the Grassroots goodness this weekend, I was feeling a little bummed that I wouldn’t be able to share the experience. I spent most of the weekend working on my research paper as I’ll be departing for the States on Sunday and am trying to finish as much as I can before I leave. On Saturday I came home from the French bakery, where I do most of my work (real espresso…’nuff said), around 6:30 to make myself some dinner.

As I was waiting for my buckwheat to cook I heard the World Cup “Wave Your Flag” song from the street below. Now normally I wouldn’t think twice as along with the rest of the world this summer, Mongolia had caught the World Cup fever and played the song endlessly (interruptions permitted only by Shakira). But World Cup ended several weeks ago. Granted, many Mongolians have yet to lose the spirit, the city’s mass amplification of games, recaps, and songs has, for the most part, ceased. So I thought twice, opened my window and saw a huge stage set up in front of The Beatles monument with four Mongolians proudly singing to an attentive albeit unenthusiastic crowd.

A large TV screen had been set up at the back of the stage which had the words “Бид Нэг Мөрөөдөлтөй” (Bid Neg Moroodoltoi / We Have One Dream) in big red font. When the World Cup song had ended two emcees came up onto the stage and tried to get the crowd to cheer, applaud and otherwise be involved. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but this was obviously a big ordeal (stages like this don’t get erected in UB every day) so I removed my buckwheat from the stove, grabbed my camera and went down to investigate.

I later found out from a friend that the event was held to promote music as an activity for youth to keep them out of trouble. The evening was intended to showcase Mongolia’s musically talented as an inspiration and what a showcase it was!

I may not have been in Ithaca for Grassroots, enjoying the regional talent of the greater New York area, but for all I know I got to enjoy something better: a musical world tour! I didn’t get video of all of them, but here’s the itinerary with respective links.

It all started in South Africa, of course, with the Mongolian adaptation of “Wave Your Flag.” We then visited Switzerland to spark the Mongol hills alive with the sound of yodeling by an impressive young singer.

Switzerland was followed by a taste of Latin America and the (in)famous reggaton. This was sung by a young Mongolian woman who, performing like a 13 year old in a home-made production, swung her hips and flipped her hair with a face that showed her self-consciousness, but intense effort.

Off to Italy for a taste of classical opera. Followed by a Mongolian pop boy band akin to the Backstreet Boys sans screaming pre-teen girls (though the young females in the crowd seemed to have a suppressed desire to wear the lead singer’s face on their t-shirts and cry when he looked into their eyes and sang, “Bi chamd khairtai” (I love you).

A hip-hop performance was up next. After getting an introduction to the budding Mongol hip-hop scene in the film “Mongolian Bling,” I wasn’t entirely impressed. Perhaps it was contextual though as there were only four mics available for the five rapper group which meant that one of them was left to awkwardly bounce to the beat.

My favorite group came out next. A Mongolian-Italian trio in matching sea foam blue, iridescent, satin suits with silver glitter ties that sang an operatic montage with a few supplemental disco and rock beats thrown into the mix.

An indie, acoustic group of teenage kids came up to the stage to perform an original. I've become accustomed to this music, as said indie kids hang out in circles next to The Beatles monument every night at dusk singing songs like The Cranberries' "Zombie" over and over and over again. I admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the "Zombie" performance, myself.

A young woman came out next and a cappella-ed “You Make Me Want to Pray” by Christina Aguliera which was quite impressive. She was later joined by a young pop singer to duet a Mongolian song. At the time I was about 90% sure half of it was lip-synced (the half being the other pop-singer) as he didn’t look like he was exuding any air during his solos, but I could easily have been wrong.

And the whole thing ended with a rave, no less. After the emcees came up on stage and encouraged the crowd to chant “Bid neg moroodoltoi,” even inviting a little girl up on stage to lead the chant, they introduced the DJ in the sound booth and invited everyone to stay dance the night away.

While I’m not one to turn down trance, I was starved and so returned to my apartment, opened my windows and enjoyed my buckwheat while watching a dozen Mongolians techtonik.

Naadam

2010-07-13T22:01:00.003+08:00

Eriin Gurvan Naadam (three manly games) is a three day holiday in mid-July that commemorates the nation's 1921 revolution and their declaration as a free nation (though it's been said to have existed for centuries). The three manly games include wrestling, archery and horse racing and competitions occur all over the nation. The largest celebration is in Ulaanbaatar city, while smaller towns and regions will host their own games.

Lacking money myself (my grant has all but disappeared) I decided to stay in the city for the holiday period despite my original intentions of visiting the countryside. Tickets for the opening ceremonies at the Sports Stadium, which hosts the archery and wrestling events, were $25 for foreigners, which I unfortunately couldn't afford. So I joined a couple of my friends to wander the perimeter of the stadium. Tons of booths were set up, half of which sold khuushuur (a favorite food typically consisting of chopped mutton inside flour dough and deep-fried) and half of which sold anything and everything from Narantuul, a huge open air market which sells goods that are mostly from China.

After wandering around for about an hour we found the Luna Blanca tent and ordered some delicious vegetarian khuushuur. Not much else was happening and the clouds were looking ominous so we grabbed a taxi to a pub in town.

A friend of a friend had invited us over to his apartment that evening at nine. It was two. So we talked the bartender into opening up the karaoke bar for us and proceeded to sing The Beatles, The Cardigans, Madonna and a little Britney for the next four hours.

Essentially nothing was open that day, restaurants included, so we grabbed some produce from the only open grocery store we could find and made our own dinner. At nine we met up with the friend of a friend who's apartment was about as luxurious as you can get. He had half of the ninth floor with some huge windows framing some pretty amazing views, including an unobstructed view of Sukhbaatar Square. A huge concert was taking place on the square with Black Rose among others, which we watched from above and on TV. An impressive fireworks show was set off across the road from the apartment building and we had a great view from the balcony.

The final World Cup match was at 2:30 and I couldn't help but stay up to watch it. Twas a mistake on my behalf 1) because Netherlands lost and 2) because I had to get up early the next morning for the horse races. I got a call from my friend Tulga at 7:30am informing me of an 8am departure. We met up, grabbed a taxi out to the edge of town and transferred into a micro bus (a.k.a. cramped travel). In order to make the trip profitable, about 15 people have be on board. I was lucky enough to have a window seat, but the heavy traffic out of town meant that any breath of what should be fresh air was just a gulp of diesel fumes.

It was still worth it. About an hour later we made it to the incredible site of the horse racing finish line in the empty rolling hills about 20 kilometers out of UB. Hundreds of people were gathered around the finish watching the young jockeys gallop in.

We arrived just as the winning horse was crossing the finish line and saw the crowd of people rush to dab the sweat from the horse, a gesture to bring good luck. Others stayed in the bleachers to watch the runners up cross the line.

Depending on the age of the horse, races can stretch between 10 and 20 miles. It's a vigorous race and unfortunately too vigorous for some. As I was standing on the bleachers about 20 meters from the end, I saw a horse struggling to the finish. It picked up its front leg, but couldn't put it down before it collapsed. The jockey jumped off to the side looking helpless and afraid. Several policemen rushed over to the horse and started kicking its chest, presumably to get it's heart beating again. Unfortunately they had no luck. A few minutes later it had stopped breathing and went stiff. It was so sad to watch.

As the racing was winding down and the rains picking up we decided to call it a day and took a micro bus back into the city. I was so exhausted from the two days that I passed out as soon as I got home, awaking only for a few hours to join a friend for an Indian dinner at Hazara.

See more photos from the races on my flickr site.

Slideshow is up!

2010-07-09T00:28:00.000+08:00

It's official now, my contract with Glimpse is up. My photo slideshow was posted on Monday. Also be sure to check out my photo story which was (finally) posted last week.

:)

One Small Step on the Litterbug

2010-06-30T19:25:00.001+08:00

I stopped at Minii Zakh, one of the prominent chains of grocery marts in Mongolia, on my way home today. I was ecstatic to see bok choy on its produce shelves and bought a bunch, thrilled with the idea of leafy greens and some meal variety. I later turned this into a slightly creative yet delicious tofu salad, more or less.

I had forgotten my grocery bag at home and my book bag was stuffed to the brim with papers, so I opted for plastic. I don't see a lot of families bringing their own shopping bags to stores and often feel like I stick out like a green sore thumb. However, I was pleased to learn that Minii Zakh charges for bags! It's not much: 60₮ each (about 4 cents USD). But it's a start!

Litter is an unfortunate problem here and inflated grocery bags tumbling down an alley like a tuft of tumbleweed is disheartening. But in my meeting with the Chamber of Commerce's public affairs representative a few weeks ago I learned that litter is a shared concern among city officials. He told me that there's been an effort to eliminate plastic bags entirely, offering paper only. He said stores were supposed to be following suit since last June, but the stores reportedly don't mind breaking the law if it's cheaper and plastic bags are cheap. Despite the four or so Mongolian companies producing paper bags, there hasn't been much success in the program's implementation. In personal observation, I confirm that statement as I certainly haven't seen any paper bags around the city's stores.

In any case, the baby-steps of good intentions are there.

Published on Glimpse!

2010-06-28T08:51:00.002+08:00

It took a while, but my photo story from last fall has finally been published on Glimpse. Check it out!

A Summer's Night at Zaisan

2010-06-27T00:25:00.001+08:00

The silver lining of these 37C days is the warm summer nights. Perhaps it reminds me of wandering the empty streets of Pullman growing up, but there’s something about an evening of warm, unlit air that fills me with joy.

So, in an effort to take advantage of such an evening’s pleasure three friends and I ventured up to Zaisan, a large Soviet monument on the hills south of UB. I visited the monument before last August with SIT in mid-day when the vast view of UB and its borders were clear.

We grabbed a taxi out from the State Department Store to the base of the hill (or mountain, for the Rockies deprived). Up several hundred stairs I broke a sweat, but a satisfying breeze blew atop. Several families, teen groups, couples and even a group of guardsmen were enjoying the evening as we wandered around.

There is a large basin in the center of the monument that holds what I hear is supposed to be an eternal flame. The guardsmen had gathered around the basin, several of their ties loosened and shits unbuttoned with vodka bottles in hand. One of them pulled out a box of fireworks, set it on the basin and lit the fuse with his cigarette. Sparks suddenly flew into the air through the center of the monument ring and burst into an explosion of pinks, blues and greens.

Granted I think fireworks are awesome in the most literal sense of the word, albeit unnecessary, but I tend to find the setting off of fireworks in public, under the influence of vodka no less, a little disturbing. With personal experiences in Berlin over New Year’s and endless stories of roman candles gone wrong, I decided to watch this show from afar. And rightly so, as several rockets were faulty and blew just a few feet above everyone’s faces. The first of which led to the all nervous families’ departure. Several of the guardsmen were carrying duffel bags which I suspect either held more fireworks as the supplies for a continuous show kept appearing.

Despite these few instances of failure, the families cheered in awe of the explosions lighting up the night sky. In personal observation, it seems anything that shines with bright colors is beloved to Mongolians. Light up razor scooters, bouncy balls and helicopter toys can be seen all over the city at night. Neon signs, glowing toys and fireworks are perhaps a flashy and fun symbol of modernity.

In any case, we stayed atop the hill for about forty minutes before descending back down. We also paid a visit to the giant golden Buddha statue on the way back. And I returned home in time to catch the exciting second half of Korea versus Uruguay.

What do Jamaican and Mongolian tomatoes have in common?

2010-06-26T16:17:00.001+08:00

In talking with vegetable farmers last November I learned that financial support (or lack thereof) was one of the biggest hindrances to small, developing farms. Farmers told me that in Mongolia there is an endless cycle of the banks supporting the farmers and the farmers supporting the banks with no net growth (at least on the agriculture side of things). Most farmers lacked basic tools and equipment, so they would take out a loan in late Autumn (if for a year's term) or early Spring (if for 6 month's term), use it to rent a tractor to plow their fields, purchase seeds or a new irrigation hose. Because of this, their work is relatively inefficient. Doing most of the work by hand, on small plots of land and growing all of their vegetables organically, their season's yields are relatively low and in order to make a profit they have to charge higher prices per kilogram (e.g. the price of a farmer's market tomato vs. an industry grown, box-store tomato).

Many of them spend months in the capital selling their produce on the streets or at expos hoping to pull in a profit. In Autumn, at the peak of harvest, sales prices are low and its hard to compete in the market. But loan terms quickly approach and farmers are forced to sell their produce all at once rather than selling in winter when prices are high. Most sell to wholesalers who buy cheap (irrespective of season) because produce imports are cheap, which are mostly from China. All of this means that the little profit they make in Autumn is barely able to pay back the loan amount with such high interest rates. With no profit made, they take out the same loan the next year.

And so the process repeats itself.

Farmers I spoke with talked about several investments they'd like to make in their farms: irrigation systems, greenhouses, storage facilities, tractors, tools, jarring and pickling equipment, barcodes. But they needed considerable amounts of money to invest in these things, amounts of money that they can't seem to find.

By the time I had identified this as a primary problem afflicting reportedly all small vegetable farmers in Mongolia, my month was over and my research report was due. So, I returned this summer (thanks to the Rawlings Cornell Presidential Research Scholars program) to look into it further.

I just returned from my revisit to Shaamar and in meeting with 37 farmers there (about 3% of the population) this problem was made more clear.

About 90% of the farmers I spoke with this trip who had received loans in the past said that loans that were available to them were lent in low amounts at high interest rates and for short terms (between 6 to 12 months). The above bank-farmer cycle was prevalent. They also explained that the low amounts were only enough to pay for yearly chores (renting a tractor for plowing, buying seeds, etc) and with high interest rates farmers were hesitant to take out more than 300,000-1,000,000₮ (about 200-700 USD). Farmers were putting down their land, their houses, their furniture, everything that they owned for collateral to get a few hundred dollars a year, every year. If a drought, a blight or a bad sales year in Autumn hit they could lose everything. They explained that every year they stressed about the fact that their entire livelihood was a risky bet.

There was a recent Planet Money podcast on NPR I heard that sounded strikingly familiar. I encourage you to listen to the podcast, as I won't use this space to repeat it, but I will mention what perked my interest most.

Tomato farmers in Jamaica are competing with industrial farms abroad with technologically advanced equipment and efficient processes on large plots of land. When the question was posed as to why Jamaican farmers don't take out a loan to buy the same equipment, the response was that most farmers didn't have the proper paperwork to put down their land as collateral and banks thus wouldn't lend to them the amounts that they needed, if at all. Sounds a little bit like Mongolia; farmers are just in need of a financial support to become competitive in the globalized market.

In contrast to Jamaica, however, Mongolian land is not a very valuable piece of collateral. After the revolution in 1990, land was more or less privatized as part of the nation's decentralization process. Mongolia's land privatization scheme is a little unique, however. Since nomadic herding is such an integral part of the nation's culture, heritage and lifestyle, only a small proportion of its land is privately owned or leased (to farmers, residents, companies, etc). Rivers, lakes, forests, pasture lands and everything else is owned by the government and is essentially open use. So there is a lot of land available. In fact, Mongolian nationals can obtain less than a hectare of land (it varies depending on where you want to claim it) for free! Farmers explained to me that, unlike Jamaica, putting down their property as collateral isn't enough--it's not worth enough to the banks. So they have to put down their house, their furniture, their tractors or cars (if they have them) just to get the $200-700 a year. Barely enough to make it through the year and hardly enough to invest in the competitive equipment that they need.

My goal now is to find out what is being done about this. If it's a matter of food security the government should be interested, no? I have two meetings with government representatives on Monday (copious thanks to Batmunkh!) to hopefully get some answers.

Shaamar Success!

2010-06-23T20:31:00.001+08:00

I have returned to UB after a full six days in the countryside. Twas a wonderful escape from the polluted air and city hustle, but I’m glad to have left the blood-thirsty mosquitoes that devoured every inch of exposed skin. In any case, I have returned with some great data and a fabulous sandal tan. Thus, I consider my trip a success! Details are below for those interested, but they're hefty.

Friday, June 18^th

Started out early at 8am. Voyage, Voyage was playing on our way out of UB, which I thought was fitting. I soon learned, however, that it was part of a dreadfully 80s cassette tape that I came to despise after its continuous repetition.

We stopped in Bornuur soum (town) on our way up to Shaamar which is about an hour outside of UB. Purevdarj, an aged, blue-eyed old man who was probably the most hospitable farmer I had met last November, lives in Bornuur and he asked me to bring some Calcium supplements from the States for his son. Last November they had cooked a feast of horse meat for my driver, my translator and myself and this trip’s visit yielded an equivalent level of hospitality, albeit more modest. A lunch of fried mutton, noodles and onions topped with carrot salad (a treat!) was the first of many breaches in my attempted maintenance of a vegan diet this summer (it’s possible in the city, but impossible in countryside lest you appear rude). Purevdarj proudly led a tour of his greenhouse before our departure and offered me a place to stay if I wanted to escape UB in July, an offer I very well may take up.

We continued north to Shaamar arriving at 3pm. We met with Gantomer, another farmer I had met last November, in addition to three other vegetable farmers before seven when our stomachs called for supper.

The majority of land in Mongolia is owned by the government and people are free to camp wherever they please, so we settled down for the night in a quiet meadow just outside of Shaamar. My driver, Daasha, and my translator, Boloroo, sat talking into the night while I laid looking up at the sky as it evolved from a periwinkle to a navy blue. The evening was lovely except for the swarm of mosquitoes that smothered the meadow. Their hum was overwhelming as they bounced swiftly side to side in unison like ready Cassius Clay.

An friendly, old man with a cane approached us from the dirt road at dusk and knelt on one knee for about an hour chatting about the weather and other news with Daasha and Boloroo.

Saturday, June 19^th

I awoke to several itching bites and the chilled morning air. As we were packing up our things a young man approached us from the dirt road. He was the old man’s son and their family was inviting us for boiled milk. We all piled into our car and drove a half kilometer south. The man’s mother was eager to meet us and she set us down on a bed in their two room home. She served us boiled milk, orom (or clotted cream) and biscuits and proceeded to pull out all of her photo albums to show me (vegan diet attempt: FAIL number 2). A little girl was sleeping on the bed across from us. I learned that the girl’s mother was in Chicago when they pulled out her gift bag from the States and an English ABC’s book. They asked me to read it with the little girl on camera so they could send it to her mother and show her that she was learning English. This was, of course, followed by a compulsory photo shoot with the foreigner.

We stayed and chatted for about an hour and left for a 9am meeting with Burenjargal, another farmer I had met last November. This day we visited a total of 7 more farmers, most of them new. A small ger camp was coincidentally located about 100 meters from where we set up camp the night before, so for 15,000 togrog (about 10 USD) we opted for beds for the night.

Sunday, June 20^th

A marathon of interviews took place visiting 19 farmers in about 8 hours. The temperature had peaked at a grueling 37C. We went to Sukhbaatar, the provincial center about 20km North of Shaamar, for lunch. I couldn’t bear to eat a hot meal so I opted for the potato and carrot salads instead. Daasha laughed at my measly order, but I relished in the cold, crunchy vegetable medley (vegan diet attempt FAIL number 5, but a vegetarian WIN).

Monday, June 21^st

Another HOT day which we fortunately spent in the cool, cement buildings of Sukhbaatar. We stopped at the government building first. An hour and 2000 togrog later I recovered five years of fantastic statistics on Shaamar soum and Selenge province’s demographics. We then stopped into the land department office to meet with an expert of land management. The office was swarming with people and loud requests were going in every direction, so we were asked to return at 2pm.

We stopped into the Ger Initiative office and spoke with a representative there (Ger Initiative is one of three NGO programs helping vegetable farmers in Shaamar). The World Vision office (the second NGO program in Shaamar) was right across the square, but they were busy writing a report and asked us to return at 9am the following day. Lunch was in the Selenge Hotel restaurant where I, yet again, ordered potato and carrot salads.

We returned to the government building to meet with the land department woman who gave me some great stats on land ownership in Shaamar, a map of the current land lots and, best of all, the “Citizen’s Guide” to reforming land relations in Mongolia (in English)!! This booklet is what I’ve been searching for for the past seven months. It explains the land law in its entirety and its implications, something the actual land law, despite its translation, fails to do (at least to my limited legal vocabulary). She let me borrow the book for the evening.

We stayed in a hotel in Sukhbaatar for the night. The shower was the selling point for me. In the prior four days, every reapplication of sunscreen resulted in more and more dirt clinging to my skin as the afternoon dust storms of Shaamar blew.

Tuesday, June 22^nd

We visited World Vision at 9am. Then waited around for about an hour waiting for a store to open that had a working photocopier (or a Kanon as they’re called in Mongolian). Three opened at 10:30 and an hour and 6000 togrog later I had my own copy of the citizen’s guide. WIN! We returned the book to the land department and went back out to Shaamar for the afternoon.

It was once again 37C and unbearably hot under the sun, but we managed to meet seven more farmers that afternoon before retiring to the cold, cement hallways of Shaamar’s government building. We met with a local representative of World Vision as well as a local land department representative, which was great.

We finished the day with some sea buckthorn popsicles and retired to the ger camp for the night.

Wednesday, June 23^rd

I was happy with what I had collected in Shaamar and Sukhbaatar. Though my sample of 37 farmers was only about 3% of the population in Shaamar, my budget for the trip was rather small and I couldn’t afford another day out. But I think it will provide a good illustration of the current situation for small and medium vegetable farmers in Mongolia. Satisfied, we embarked on our return to UB in the morning listening to Hands Up…again. We stopped in Darkhan to visit the Agricultural Institute. They unfortunately was unable to identify the two pests plaguing the watermelon crop in Shaamar, as the entomologist was on vacation, but I was able to meet with the Institute’s director.

We arrived in UB at about 3pm and stopped at Bars Market, a food market near the train station that harbors several vegetable wholesalers that vend Shaamar’s produce. And I arrived home at 4:30.

I’m back in the city for the rest of the summer, more or less. I’ve got a World Cup event to attend on Friday and a meeting with an official at the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday. In the meantime, I’m taking a day off to relax. Twas a good trip, but hard work.

To Shaamar!

2010-06-17T22:39:00.000+08:00

I'm setting off for Shaamar soum (town) tomorrow for a week of field research. Shaamar is a small town in Selenge province about 20 km outside of the provincial center, Sukhbaatar. I visited the town in November and met with five farmers there, some of whom were farmers during the socialist period, some just newcomers. I'm hoping to meet with those farmers again and many, many more as Shaamar will be the site of my case study. It harbored a large collective farm during the socialist period and still cultivates a large proportion of Mongolian vegetables so it's an ideal site (and fits within my mediocre budget). I'm hoping to learn how this region has fared transition specifically focusing on land ownership and financial issues.

I'll be gone for the week without internet access, so don't fret if you don't hear from me for a while.

This should really kick-start my work and I'm excited to hear, see, experience and perhaps taste everything that's going on up there. Many words to come upon my return.

Here's to blue sky, fresh air and veggies! Cheers!

Viva FIFA!

2010-06-12T13:29:00.000+08:00

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months you are well aware that yesterday kicked off the 2010 FIFA World Cup (no pun intended). Futbol is not the favorite sport in Mongolia, they'd much prefer wrestling (traditional, Sumo or otherwise). Regardless World Cup is pretty big here this year. Various beer garden-esque tents have popped up around UB with soccer balls and World Cup logos painted on their sides. The Prime Minister even called for a curfew extension for all UB bars in light of the upcoming matches (alcohol still limited to midnight or earlier). I'm not usually one to follow sports, but I'm pretty keen on watching soccer and thus have been pretty excited for the next month's festivities.

So for the first game of South Africa versus Mexico I joined my friend Batmunkh and his "home-boys," as he put it, to watch the match on the big screen. I ate dinner with the Spring 2010 SIT students prior to and took the bus into city center to meet Batmunkh. He said we were going to meet his friends behind the central library, but when we arrived I was a tad surprised by the venue. A large, colorful circus tent had been erected in an empty space between apartment buildings. Through the gaping flaps I could see a smoky haze over a gathering of people all facing the west end, their faces aglow green of the Johannesburg stadium's grassy field. We walked in and met a group of his friends, ordered a few Jalam Khar beers and sat back for the game.

At one point Batmunkh leaned over to me to ask if I wanted to bet on the winner. "How much?" I asked.

"How much do you have?" he replied.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out 100 togrog (about 7 US cents) leftover from my bus fare and showed it to him. "Which team are you rooting for?" I asked.

"Ladies first." So, for sake of home-field advantage, I placed my 100₮ on the table for South Africa hoping to double my money at the end of the night. No shortage of excitement nor jollity were present throughout the match, but I had no such luck. When the match ended in a draw half the crowd started to disperse and only the die hard fans (or those too inebriated to walk home) remained, planning to sit out the next two hours to wait for Uruguay and France to take the field.

While I would have loved to stay for the next match I was thoroughly exhausted and my eyes were burning from the lofting cigarette smoke. So after saying my goodbyes I returned home for the night beginning to recognize that World Cup probably would not be conducive to my work these next couple of weeks.

Mongolian Bling

2010-06-10T23:01:00.004+08:00

Today was the start of the American Center for Mongolian Studies' (ACMS)Second Annual Conference sponsored by the Luce Foundation. The topic this year is "Cultural Practices in Post-Soviet Mongolia" and the ACMS has invited several educated speakers to discuss their work regarding the arts, language and religion in relation to identity shifts following the 1990 revolution. Today featured a keynote address by University of Cambridge scholar Dr. Carole Pegg and a panel discussion on the arts such as khoomii, or traditional throat singing, and ballet. The evening followed up with the first public screening of the documentary film, "Mongolian Bling" at the Khaan Bank Theater.

I had actually met the Australian writer, director and producer of the film, Benj Binks, a week ago at the Ozomatli concert. When I asked him what he was doing in-country he said he was producing a documentary film on the Mongolian hip-hop culture. Having heard the NPR story (although in retrospect of this film, while NPR called it a feature it should really be called a brief) and having heard a lot of the music in my time spent in Mongolia I was thoroughly intrigued by his project. He mentioned he was screening it at a conference the following week and when we connected over the upcoming ACMS event I went into a state of anticipation that was only relieved tonight.

Binks said that idea for the film started to manifest in 2007 when he came to Mongolia with a few friends and limited understanding of the Mongolian hip hop scene. He filmed 120 hours in three months time and discovered a network of characters all worthy of attention, thus, Binks and his team continued to shoot the film over the past three years.

"Mongolian Bling" chronicles the uprising of hip hop since the early 90s and the collapse of socialism. It follows three primary hip hop artists, Quiza, Gee and Gennie, (as Binks put it, a commercial, an underground, and an upcoming rapper) to illustrate the story. They tell how hip hop has enabled them to express their opinions about the government, its corrupt policies and neglect to the Mongolian people. It's also served as a tool to reach youth whereby they can promote their Mongolian heritage and history to a group that may be becoming an apathetic generation. Moreover, the film introduces a slew of aspiring and/or inspired artists, many still in secondary school, who wrote about societal issues like alcoholism in addition to the government.

The artists words and messages were passionate and powerful and I think the film has the definite potential to put modern Mongolian culture on the global radar. But I think what really made the film great was its investigation into the unique juxtaposition of Mongolian hip hop and traditional culture, noting distinct parallels between the two. For instance, a shaman interviewed in the film said how shamanism has made hip hop possible and inspired a lot of its characters. He noted the similarities between shaman dances and rappers' movements, which are sharp and quick like an imitation of the animals, and an ability for both shamans and rappers to say a lot of words on just one breath.

Despite a few technical difficulties the screening was impressive and very well received by the audience. Binks said he expects the formal screening to occur at the end of the year.

Ozomatli

2010-06-08T21:44:00.008+08:00

My neighbor Stephanie knocked on my door on Friday evening asking if I was busy for the night. Apparently the L.A. born band Ozomatli was playing a concert on Sukhbaatar Square (reportedly the first American band to play such a venue) and a whole group of ex-pats were going. We went to Budweiser, a pub off the square, for a nice, cold Chinggis while The Lemons were playing an opening set and set off to the square during the intermission. The square was already heavily populated with a wide age-range of Mongolians. There were about four successive ropes orbiting the stage and we managed to get under two before we settled. The last two kept about twenty meters between the stage and the crowd--a lot of empty space for a concert...

It was a pick-pocketer's dream: the start of the tourist season and a huge crowd of people packed tightly together. I left everything but my house key and about $3 at home and watched as several young boys situated themselves between a few of my friends and I slyly unzipping purse pockets and backpacks. I pushed aside the ones that I saw, but I'm sure they made out pretty well that night.

Ozomatli, who according to one of the fans in our group, was finishing a world tour and stopped into UB on their way back to L.A. Whatever brought them to Mongolia, however, was not enough incentive to get them to learn a few key phrases in Mongolian and as such their entire show was a trifle hilarious. The music was pretty good, but their requests for the crowd to jump, shout or repeat certain words yielded only the response of the small group of Peace Corps volunteers happily dancing as if they hadn't been to a concert in 26 months. As hard as Ozomatli tried and as many charades as they attempted, the crowd just couldn't translate their requests.

At one point they had a few members of the famous Moriin Khuur ensemble come out for few a jam sessions. While the language of music may lessen the impact of any cultural barriers it still took them a few failed attempts before they got into a groove. The back and forth with Ozomatli's lead singer and one of Mongolia's famous throat singers was particularly entertaining.

The band finished their set, took a bow, thanked the crowd for their welcoming, albeit confused cheers and left the stage. At this point even the hard of hearing could figure out where in the crowd the Westerners were as the traditional encore cheering was only sparsely heard. The rest of the Mongolians surrounding me began pulling out their mobile phones and leaving the square. And as the cheering started to die out I wondered if an encore would even happen. Is it too much of a blow to the ego for a band to come out with a weak encore request? But one of the evening's emcees came out onto stage and began to plead for the crowd's cheers. She explained (in Mongolian) that Ozomatli wanted to hear their hoorah. Once she rallied enough support and those who had started to leave turned back around the band re-emerged on the stage. The lead singer prefaced their song with a request which, this time, was promptly translated: everyone jump. And that's all it took--just some translation. The encore was good and the crowd finally connected with the group. A few beloved (and admittedly adorable) Mongolian kids even took the stage to jump along with them.

We went to a pub following the show for a few beers and the night turned into te recital of many (most being non-pc) jokes. One of my favorites was delivered by a Mongolian friend of the group:

There's an American, a Frenchman and Mongolian stranded on this desert island and they come across this interesting looking bottle. They rub the bottle and this genie appears and says "because you have released me I will grant you each three wishes."

The American says: 1) I wish I were back home in America. 2) I wish was rich. 3) I wish I was famous. The genie then grants his three wishes: done, done and done.

The Frenchman says the same: 1) I wish I were back home in France. 2) I wish I were rich. 3) I wish I were famous. So the genie grants his three wishes: done, done and done.

So now only the Mongolian and the genie are left. The genie says "okay, now it's your turn. What three wishes do you want?"

The Mongolian sits and thinks for a while and then says, "I wish I had some vodka." So the genie grants him his wish and the Mongolian gets a bottle of vodka.

When he finishes the bottle the genie says to him, "okay, well you still have two more wishes. What do you want?"

The Mongolian sits and thinks for a while looking out at the ocean surrounding him and then says, "I wish this ocean was vodka." So the genie grants him his wish and turns the ocean into vodka.

While he's drinking the ocean the genie starts to get anxious and says, "okay, come on, what is your third wish going to be?"

The Mongolian sits down and thinks some more. Then in a slurred reply he says, "well I can't drink this all by myself. So I wish for those other two guys would come back here to help me."

Mongolian Immigration Registration

2010-06-06T10:31:00.010+08:00

U.S. citizens staying in Mongolia for less than 90 days don't need to obtain a visa before entering the country. But I found out last week that foreigners staying in country for less than 90 days, but more than 30 days have to register with the Mongolian Immigration Office, lest they get stopped, held and/or fined upon attempted exit. This registry must happen within seven days of arrival and I had about three days left when I found out. Phew. Said immigration office is in a shiny new building located several kilometers away from UB's city center. Convenient, absolutely. It would be at least a thirty dollar taxi ride out and back which I wasn't enthralled about. Luckily my neighbor recalled that I can take the bus, "I think it's the number eleven?"

I had two days left to register, so I thought if the first day turned out to be a failure for taking the wrong bus or some other mis-step it wouldn't be the end of the world (or result in an exit fine). So I hopped the number 11 near the flower center a few blocks from my apartment cautiously carrying any and all important documents that the immigration office might like to see (their website was down and thus their list of '"things to bring'" was unavailable) hoping to return with legal status.

I didn't exactly know where I was going so once we skirted the city limits I kept my eyes out for any building that looked official. I got off the bus near the new sports stadium that's still under construction and wandered through some empty fields (with the exception of some milkweed, which my allergy loved...) towards the only building in a three kilometer radius that could possibly house immigration. Sure enough it was a success.

I won't bore you with the details of the registration process. I will only say that it took me three hours and the wait felt somewhat like this.

Hoorah! I'm legal now.

Mother and Children's Day

2010-06-02T07:19:00.004+08:00

Yesterday was Mother and Children's Day, a national holiday in Mongolia that occurs annually on June 1st. The day of celebration is a variant of International Children's Day which was proclaimed in 1925 at the World Conference for the Well-being of Children. I had heard that in UB the festivities would start at 11am on Sukhbaatar Square, but I didn't quite know what to expect.

I had fallen asleep after a much appreciated early morning skype date only to be awoken an hour later by horns, yelling and cheering. I looked out the window of my new apartment (which is a hop, skip and jump away from State Department Store) to see a long parade passing by along Peace Avenue. I grabbed my camera and headed down to see more.

I followed the parade down to Sukhbaatar Square which was packed with people. Multiple stages had been erected for dancing, singing and contortion performances and vendors had set up shop selling everything from sea buckthorn juice to umbrellas to games and toys. One particularly entrepreneurial pair set up game where for 500₮ you got three chances to knock over a pyramid of old paint cans with a ball of packing tape.

The music, games and celebration echoed across the city until dusk. I suspect that it would have gone longer, but the strong gusts of an evening dust storm chased most of the families home.

Kenya

2010-05-30T10:17:00.003+08:00

May 21st:

I arrived at the Jacaranda Hotel on Friday morning at about 9am. I met up with Louise Buck in time for a nice breakfast of fresh mango, pineapple and granola and we headed out to the field at 10. We are, as the pitch goes, pioneering a ground-based photomonitoring methodology for eco-agriculture landscapes and this trip was a pilot test and a necessary first step in writing the draft for the final product: a ground-based photomonitoring user’s guide, more or less.

We visited the KENVO (Kijabe Environmental Volunteers) office to get some maps and then headed down through the Kijabe landscape to take some photos. If I had been there the day before I would have gone to several pre-established transects within the area with Louise and the rest of the group, but I wasn’t (damn you, Virgin Atlantic) so I was just able to visit some specific sites. KENVO has been initiating some “intervention” projects to promote biodiversity conservation and rural livelihood development within the area. Beekeeping, fish-farming, agroforestry, tree nurseries (the one we visited was in conjunction with a school) and forest rehabilitation sites are among these projects so we took a sample photopoint at each one of these sites.

After several hours of taking pictures along bumpy roads we made our way back into Nairobi to visit the World Agroforestry Center headquarters and met with the Director General.

The evening was topped off with a much appreciated meal and good night’s rest.

May 22nd:

Our prior plans for the weekend had been cancelled, so we decided to rent a driver and car and venture to Nakuru National Park for a safari (my first). We stayed at Mbweha Camp in the Mbweha Conservancy of the Great Rift Valley which was a slow 3 hour drive out of Nairobi. Louise, Simon (our guide) and I took an hour long evening safari on some tattered bicycles which my chain fell off several times, my seat tilted fiercely sideways and my ankles were eaten alive by mosquitoes, but we saw a lot of zebra and impala and the sunset was magnificent. It was well worth those few pains. The rest of the evening was spent by the fire enjoying some delicious Tusker.

May 23^rd:

A 6am wake-up call was in hopes of an early morning in Nakuru Park, named after Lake Nakuru within its boundaries, but we weren’t entirely successful. We didn’t get out of Mbweha until 7:30 and having to drive all the way around Nakuru’s border to reach the main gate meant we didn’t get into the park until about 9am. This unfortunately meant we didn’t see any cats (either that or the lush grasses from days of immense rain disguised them well). Regardless we saw plenty of zebra, buffalo, baboons, flamingoes, rhinos and more and the weather could not have been better.

We stopped into the Lion Hill hotel for some tea around 3pm, watched a flock of weaver birds conquer a tree and then headed back to Nairobi for the evening.

May 24-26th:

The Community Knowledge Service (CKS) Africa conference was being held at the Co-operative College of Kenya this week and we, arriving late Sunday evening, joined them a day late. Lots of people from different organizations and countries were present to discuss CKS issues, strategies and projects for the upcoming year. On the last day of the conference (Wednesday), I gave a presentation about ground-based photomonitoring as a potential CKS tool and we probed some discussion about its utility and how we could make the user’s guide as more suitable for its, well, users. We got some great feedback, heard from one leader who said communities in his working area were already successfully using this method, and from another who said communities in his working area were using the method informally and appreciated its formal capacity. All good notes for our draft which will be in the making this summer.

May 27-29th:

Peace out, Kenya. It was a short, but wonderful trip. I had a 2pm departure for Doha marking the beginning of a very long journey to Mongolia. A five hour flight to Doha and a twelve hour layover, an 8 hour flight to Beijing and a 21 hour layover and finally a 2 ½ hour flight to Ulaanbaatar.

Success! I’m exhausted and totally out of it, but I’m back! Turns out my apartment for the summer won’t be ready until Monday, so my host parents from the fall have graciously taken me back under their wing and offered me a place to stay for the weekend. I’m off doing errands tomorrow. I’ll be in UB for two months (and up in Selenge for about a week) looking into more of the vegetable agriculture sector here.

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My goal is to keep this blog up twice a week at least. I don’t have school or a priority blog to blame the neglect on, so hopefully the goal will come to fruitition. Check here for updates, stories and ventures.

Virgin Atlantic Part II

2010-05-29T16:49:00.004+08:00

Virgin Atlantic raped my wallet.

I got kicked out of the airport and had to pay for two nights room and board in London without warning (as you can probably tell, I’m still bitter, but getting over it). I spent two days in Houndslow Middlesex: the first resting and fasting out whatever was in my system and the second getting lost in the Houndslow Heath Local Nature Reserve two hours (it’s a lot bigger than the map looks), which was actually quite pleasant. Two days later I go back to the airport plenty early to get my tickets when I find out (surprise, surprise) there’s another fee. Apparently the inconvenience I was causing Virgin Atlantic (in getting sick and forcing them to reissue my a ticket) required some compensation--$200 worth of compensation. Turns out, if I had accepted the compulsory albeit ill-advised offer to go to the hospital on Tuesday night this fee would have been waived (although, the hospital fees might very well have been more than $200). However, since I “declined the offered hospital visit” they had to have someone make sure I was “fit to fly” and that was going to cost me. No amount of arguing brought the fee down or out of the picture all together, so I handed over my credit card, grabbed my boarding pass and grumpily went to my gate.

I was set aside at the boarding gate for further inspection once everyone else had boarded. The so-called “fit to fly” inspection consisted of two questions:

(1) How long were you sick?

ANSWER: About 30 minutes on Tuesday right about when you de-boarded me.

(2) Are you feeling fine now?

ANSWER: Perfectly, thank you.

Well worth the $200, eh?

In any case, I made it to Nairobi two days later, one immigration stamp richer, but about $300 poorer. There’s a chance I can get refunded for the $200, but that requires some haggling with insurance and customer service representatives which is always a joy.

Kenya to come.

Virgin Atlantic Part I

2010-05-22T02:39:00.001+08:00

**I had a lovely first post for resuming this blog that I had written during my eleven hour layover in Heathrow airport. I had planned to post it as soon as I arrived in Nairobi.

That was the plan. I have incredible luck with airlines.**

My first impressions with Virgin Atlantic air were positive. They had good service, great in-flight accommodations, nice people, ETC. But they have some crooked policy enforcement.

About to board my flight to Nairobi after being up for some 36 hours of travel, I started to feel a little ill. I got to my gate and boarded the plane fine. Unfortunately, however, I was feeling a little nauseous. Now, I don’t mean to be graphic, but you know how if you feel sick to your stomach, throwing up usually makes you feel loads better? Well rather than take off with an upset stomach, I went to the lavatory as the rest of the plane was boarding and puked. Maybe I should have done it earlier or perhaps I shouldn’t have spared my neighbor in 45G the courtesy and just used an air sickness bag in my seat. Regardless, it was the cabin crew’s cabin-check time when I emerged and a flight attendant flagged me down and sat me in another seat. “You look terrible? Are you feeling okay? Were you just ill?” I was still a little woozy and apparently this didn’t yield the appropriate reply.

Two other flight attendants came over to my seat with a yellow garbage bag, a pair of rubber gloves and a 40oz. bottle of water. “I think we should de-board her,” one of them said.

“Yeah, she looks terrible,” another one agreed.

“Flight attendants unsecure the doors and cross-check,” came over the airline speakers.

Shit.

A woman in a pressed red suit and platinum blonde bun brought my carry-on bag to me along with another 40 oz. bottle of water and extra air-sickness bags. “Come on, let’s get you off.” Before I could say otherwise they had shooed my off the plane onto the jet-bridge telling me I’d be put on the next available flight to Nairobi (which, by the way, they said would be the following day).

Back in the terminal they sat me down on the cold, black benches of the empty waiting area and scurried off to the check-in counter computer to make some phone calls. A London Ambulance Service medic came into the room twenty minutes later to check my vitals. Everything was fine. I told her I felt a bit sick on the plane, but was fine aside from feeling a little nauseous. “You’re fine,” she said. “Must have been just a little bug. Don’t eat any dairy or meats for a while and drink plenty of water.” Mmhmm.

I sat on the cold chairs alone for another five minutes and watched my plane back away from the terminal.

Goodbye, Nairobi. Maybe next time.

A flight attendant came over to me and said, “I’m sorry, but there are no flights to Nairobi tomorrow. The best we can do is put you on a flight out on Thursday night.”

**For those of you who don’t know, I was set to arrive in Nairobi at 8am on Wednesday. I’m working with another professor on establishing a photo-monitoring methodology for eco-agriculture landscapes. And our first day in the field was scheduled for Thursday. Fantastic.**

I asked if there were any other flights that would get me there by Thursday morning. “You kicked me off this flight and now you’re going to make me late?” I said. They looked at my blankly and returned to the desk to make some more phone calls.

A flight attendant came back with a cell phone pressed against her palm. “Lindsay? I have a hotel on the line, would you like me to make you a reservation for two nights?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to leave this airport unless I’m on a flight to Nairobi.”

“The rate is £160. It’s a lovely little hotel… That’s the best rate I can find so far.”

I didn’t answer.

A man walked into the waiting area wheeling a folded wheelchair in front of him and stopped next to the row of benches I had been placed upon. The group of flight attendants slowly started to dwindle, leaving one by one until I was left alone with the wheelchair man and the hotel inquiring attendant.

“Now I’m sorry, but you cannot stay in the terminal, you’re ill. You should be in a bed and get some rest.” She directed me to sit in the wheelchair, as it was a long walk back from the terminal gate. I sat down and they piled my carry-on bags on my lap.

We started walking back towards the main terminal as the woman made several phone calls to different hotels in the London area.

“Yes, hello? Hi. I’m from Virgin Atlantic Airways and I have an offloaded passenger that needs a hotel room for two nights. What’s your best rate? £160? Ok, thanks.”
Seemingly identical conversations were taking place as they wheeled me through the back passageways and elevators of the airport. As we came into the large, industrial-like customs room and approached the immigration woman, I told the flight attendant, “I don’t want to leave. I can’t afford your hotels.”

She looked at me quietly for a while and said, “You can’t stay in the terminal.”

She looked up to the immigration woman and said, “I have an offloaded passenger.” She started to fill out an immigration card on my behalf. “Can I have your passport, please?”

Wheeled through customs and into the baggage claim room the flight attendant picked up my offloaded bag and we exited between signs that read, “You cannot return after this point” and “Welcome to London!”

They wheeled me over to the hotel reservations and information desk, parked me a few feet away from the counter and began to discuss rates with the man at the counter. “Everything is booked tonight, it’s very busy,” he said. They started to phone through a list of hotel numbers.

£160 ($231). £100 ($144). £80 ($115). £45 ($65). They narrowed the prices down to, granted, cheaper fares, but still outrageous prices for my wallet. After presenting their lowest bid of £45 she said, “Of course, you’ll also have to pay for a taxi to get there.”

“How much will that cost?” I asked.

“Between 30 and 40 pounds, probably,” the flight attendant said.

I had $160 cash and a $50 bill for my Kenyan visa in my wallet. As ludicrous as I thought it was, it was clear I wasn’t going to get any help from the airline that night. The best I could do would be calling the insurance company and make a claim after the fact. Whether or not they would cover it, because this is apparently a Virgin Atlantic policy is still questionable.

One of the airport service assistants who was helping with the whole process and noticed the obvious sense of frustration and distress on my face approached me and said, “I know a cheap hostel that’s open right now. They can rent you a room for half the price and it’s a bus ride away from the airport.” He walked a few steps away and dialed a number on his phone. He came back and handed me the phone.

“Hello?”

An Indian woman with a British accent was on the other end and she asked me how much I was willing to pay.

Nothing, I thought, this is bullshit.

After no reply from me and a short silence she asked me how much the hotels were going to cost. “Forty-five pounds,” I said.

“Okay, okay. I have a room you can have for £25 pounds a night. It has kitchen, bathroom. It’s very nice,” she said.

Meanwhile, the flight attendant was calling a taxi company and asked me if she could order me a car. Contemplating whether or not I should take the deal or not I said yes to her. She hung up the phone shortly after and told me she was going home.

Looking at the few dollars and pounds in my wallet and entirely too bitter at the Virgin Atlantic staff, I decided to take up the hostel offer. The service assistant gave me transportation directions and an two and half hours after I was supposed to depart for Nairobi, I was in a cold, twin bed in Hounslow Middlesex for two days and two nights.

Still feeling slightly nauseous.

**Part II of this wonderful adventure to come…
SPOILER ALERT: I make it to Nairobi, but Part II isn't necessarily fun...**

Ireland

2010-01-06T01:08:00.002+08:00

My flight was scheduled to leave from the Paris-Beauvais airport at 9:25am on Christmas Eve. I found out the night before that the Paris-Beauvais airport wasn’t technically in Paris (as the name would suggest) rather 80 kilometers outside of the city. So I awoke at 5am, caught the earliest tram at 5:30 to cross the city and just barely made the airport shuttle at 6:25. I checked in at the airport and made it to my gate on time. Phew. The only thing left to do was wait, and wait, and wait …for three hours. The region’s foggy morning inhibited all incoming flights from landing and as a result some 500 people were crammed into the tiny terminal eager to leave. At 12:30 an announcement came on saying that because of the weather Ryan Air flight 25 would be re-routed through Lille airport, which was about a 2 hour drive north. All the passengers were loaded into five buses and sent northward. We finally took off at 4pm from Lille and arrived in Dublin at 4:30, seven hours later than we were supposed to.

I had anticipated spending New Year’s back in Berlin, but I wasn’t sure how long I wanted to stay in Ireland nor the mode of transportation that I wanted to depart on. So I entered the country with a TBD ETD. Well, the immigration office was not pleased to hear that. I spent half an hour talking to the woman at the immigration desk, being mistakenly honest. “Yes, I know I’m travelling on Christmas Eve. Yes, I know that I’m travelling alone. No, that doesn’t bother me. Yes, my parents know. No I don’t have a return ticket. No, I won’t try to live illegally in Ireland. Yes, I do plan to return to the United States. Yes, I do have a place to stay. Yes, it is a real place. No, I don’t have the phone number of my hostel….” And so it went. After a second officer came in and confirmed that the Avalon House was an actual hostel and not code for ‘illegal immigration’ they finally stamped my passport and let me in, but with significant suspicion. I caught the 16A bus and headed for the city center to check in at my hostel.

Being the Catholic country that it is, it’s needless to say that Christmas is big in Ireland (AKA every thing is closed for the holidays). When I arrived Christmas Eve all the markets had locked their doors, pulled their metal screens down and pasted their “Will re-open in January” signs on the windows. Shops, pharmacies, train stations, restaurants—all of them closed. I wandered the eerily empty streets around my hostel in search of dinner and settled (without choice) on a ‘hot and ready’ Spar dinner. Spar became my new best friend over the holiday weekend; with the exception of churches they were the only place to keep their doors open. Over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and St. Stephen’s Day/Boxing Day, I ate just about everything Spar had on the deli menu.

I made some friends in the evenings at Avalon and took a complimentary tango lesson one evening, but wandered the streets of Dublin alone during the day, enjoying the time to myself. On the 27th when things started to open up again, I visited the beloved Guinness Storehouse. For 11 Euro I experienced a walk-through commercial for Guinness beer and enjoyed a ‘free’ pint at the top floor’s bar overlooking the city. It was already two o’clock by the time I finished my draught and I only had a few hours of daylight left. So I took the elevator to the ground floor, conveniently located amidst the Guinness gift shop where I escaped spending only 50 cents on a postcard. I wandered the streets toward the River Liffey catching the Christchurch Cathedral, James Joyce statue and the Spire (a god awful monument).

I only had one full day left and I really wanted to see at least part of the countryside. I visited the train station that day to see if I could travel westward for a day and a night before I left, but I could only catch a train to Galway or Limerick the following morning and try to take in the sights in just a few hours of daylight. It would definitely have been worth it to see the cliffs and coast, but I wasn’t sure I would have enough time. My only other option was a guided tour. I had wanted to avoid such tourist traps, but with my limited time-frame alas I caved. I woke up the following morning at 6am to catch a tour bus out west. I hadn’t made reservation, but I was lucky enough to get the last seat, at the last minute. After three hours of driving through the frosty morning countryside we were at the coast. I got to see the cliffs, some castles and the Burren (my personal favorite). The day was spent mostly driving, but I thought it was worth it to experience not-Dublin. When we got back to Dublin I had enough time to grab some hard cider at a market, pack my bag and take a nap before my early flight the next morning back to Berlin.

Berlin-->Nice-->Barcelona-->Paris

2009-12-29T20:56:00.002+08:00

Guten tag (again)!

I’m back in Berlin! Once again my blogging consistency has failed and it’s been three some weeks since I’ve posted. To catch you up, if you’re interested, this is what I’ve done so far.

Berlin, Germany

I spent three days in Berlin recovering from tonsillitis, waiting for my ears to pop from the airplane’s descent (took four very painful days of waiting), waiting for my bank to understand that I would be withdrawing money from strange places and waiting for a train to Nice, France. I tried to spend as little as possible and just walked around the city for the duration of my stay.

I met up with an old friend (from pre-school) who accompanied me to Nice and on to Barcelona. We visited the Holocaust Memorial, which was more striking and eerie that I had anticipated; snacked on some currywurst at a little indoor market waiting for the rain to pass; and visited Soluna Brot und Öl, to see if the New York Times really knew what they were talking about. We bought a two kilo loaf of Rundling bread and some raspberry-ginger jam and snacked on a picnic bench outside a nearby church (and for days after…the loaf lasted us about a week).

Nice, France

We finally boarded a night train from Berlin to Nice the following day to arrive in a torrential downpour. We planned to stay three nights at the Villa Saint Exupery Hostel up on the hill waiting in anticipation of Barcelona where we were going to meet Claire, yet another friend from grade school. We spent two days wandering the beach, harbors and markets, especially admiring the fake-snow covered conifers displayed at the ubiquitous Christmas markets.

Barcelona, Spain

We met Jacob, a student from Stanford who was traveling to Barcelona day ahead of us. With no set itinerary, we cancelled our last night in the Villa and followed Jacob to Barcelona a day early. Together we took a free walking tour around Las Ramblas, the main road through Barcelona, and otherwise just wandered the city taking in sights like Gaudi’s Sangrada Familia.

The next day when Jacob had left, we met up with Claire and spent the next five nights in Kabul hostel off of the Placa Reial. Experiencing the night life in Barcelona requires one to sleep half the day if not more, as things don’t really get started until 2am and last until 6am. We still managed to be awake in daylight hours to see the Barcelona Zoo, the magic fountain and catch a movie at the Verdi Cinema. And lots of paella, tapas and sangria were consumed in those five days.

Paris, France

Claire returned to the States from Barcelona on the 21st. We said our good-byes and Owen and I set off North. We went as far as Montpellier then parted ways, he back to Nice, I to Paris. I hadn’t anticipated visiting the bank-draining metropolis, but it had the cheapest flights out to Dublin, my next stop, so made a pit stop in the interim.

I stayed at a 20 Euro a night hostel, the cheapest I could find, for three nights. I spent the following two days leisurely (and cheaply) seeing the city. In an attempt to travel cheaply I ate mostly out of a grocery marts (with the exception of some compulsory éclairs and crepes), enjoying some Muenster, camembert and bries on bread.

My first site was the Notre Dame Cathedral. I had intended to find an English bookstore, but the metro stop I got off at was coincidentally kitty-corner to the magnanimous church. Shakespeare & Co., the bookstore I was trying to find, ended up being right across the street and rather than finding a guide book as I had hoped, I walked out with a new Chuck Palahniuk novel and read several chapters at a neighboring café with an espresso and crepe. I perused the Jardin du Luxumbourg, the Pantheon perimeter (it was 11 Euro to go inside) and wandered the streets en route to the Tour Eiffel.

That night I visited the Eiffel Tower. I showed up before sunset to see it in daylight. I found another café around the corner and read and consumed copious amounts of espresso until twilight when the lights turned on. I retired to my hostel with a round of brie, a loaf of bread and an orange for a quiet evening.
The next day I circled the Arc du Triomphe (9 Euro to see the center) and the Musee du Louvre exterior. I stopped at yet another café for an espresso and éclair and read. A friend had recommended that I scale the Eiffel Tower at night so I returned for another go. I spent sunset perusing a Christmas market across just across the Seine. I enjoyed some warm Christmas wine and a chocolate crepe in the waiting. At twilight I paid 3.50 Euro to scale the 800 some stairs to viewing level one and two. I waited for over an hour and was on my way down when the delightfully tacky twinkle show started. When it was all said and done I descended the tower, headed back to the hostel and enjoyed some Muenster and rye and prepared for my early morning flight.

Dublin is another story. I'll update soon (this time I promise!).

Epic Blog Fail

2009-12-09T17:00:00.002+08:00

I’m writing this post (or at least the start of it) in a quiet morning lounge in Frankfurt, Germany’s airport. There’s complimentary tea and coffee, free newspapers and the people greet me in German because they can’t tell I’m foreign (!). If you’re not a Facebook enthusiast or haven’t been in direct contact with me, you’re probably wondering why I’m in Germany… Well, I’ll tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was traveling abroad in Mongolia. “Mongolia?!” They all said, “Where is that?!”

“It’s a rather large country above China and below Russia and I’m ecstatic to go,” I said. “And I’ll keep a blog of all my happenings so that you can learn a little about what (and where) Mongolia is.”

FAIL.

I think I quit after Khuvsgul. I hope that you all have been following Glimpse as my weekly deadline kept me posting. As for the incentive-less blog-spot, well check my last post date. In any case I told many of you that I would be traveling the Trans-Siberian Rail from Ulaanbaatar to Moscow, experiencing the frigid temperatures of December Russia and seeing the Urals. I was going to depart Moscow to Helsinki and travel the Euro-Rail wherever my heart desired this winter’s break. I planned to meet a dear friend in Barcelona for a week or so, but other than that I was itinerary-less. In fact I never bought a ticket home, date TBD.

So what happened to the Trans-Siberian you might ask? Talk to the Russian Embassy. I unfortunately never got a Russian visa before leaving the States, hearing through the wireless grapevine that I could easily obtain one in country. I had three months, no problem. I acquired my visa application form in the cold concrete building in UB and even found a Russian speaking friend who wanted to accompany me (at least to St. Petersburg).

As you might know, Russians can be sticklers about who they let in their precious borders. We needed an invitation. No problem, we thought. My friend knew a friend in Moscow that we could register with and avoid the invitation fees. Some conflict of interest or limited amount of time (one of the two) meant that she couldn’t invite us, but was pleased to offer a residency for registry. We went to the Mongolian Russian Embassy website, clicked the red-white-and-blue link to an “official invitation” site and paid 56USD each for a little slip of paper to arrive by fax. Yes!

Harry, the man we were corresponding with, didn’t fax but emailed a PDF copy of our invitation. “Sounds good. Thanks a lot, Harry.” We drop by a little photo studio in the back of a clothing store in downtown UB, have some horrid portraits taken and photoshopped to oblivion and head to the Embassy.

When we dropped by the Embassy last they said, since we were registered for over 90 days in Mongolia we could obtain a visa no problem. We show up with our appropriate documents and you guessed it, get denied.

“Do you have the original copy of your invitation?” the woman asks.
“Um, no. We used the promotional site on your website, to which the protocol is fax, although we got a PDF.”

“No, I’m sorry we need the original in order to get your visa. Oh and you’ll also need three weeks for processing.” Harry!! Peeved, running out of time and visa-less I immediately contacted Harry asking him if there was any way we could have the original copy shipped to us. ASAP.

Being in country for about two months at that point, I had discovered the reason we call it ‘snail mail.’ Mongolian mail is incredibly slow and rather unreliable and as far as the students and I were concerned a big basket of envelopes en route to the U.S. sit around until the basket is full and only then are they shipped to China and then to the U.S. Parcels have been averaging three weeks or more and at a $100 DHL charge, the short time constraint wasn’t worth the price. So we gave up. On to Plan B.

My dear friend would still be waiting for me Barcelona and tickets across the Pacific were far too over-priced. So on November 14th after much deliberation I booked a flight from Ulaanbaatar to Berlin. I would leave on December 8th from UB, fly to Beijing, take a red-eye to Frankfurt and arrive in Berlin at 8am on the 9th.
So here I am. In Frankfurt, ten minutes from boarding and less than two hours from setting foot on European soil for the first time. I’ve booked a hostel for a night in Berlin and then the continent is mine to explore. I’ll be in Barcelona on the 15th, as promised, but otherwise I am still itinerary-less. Since I failed at updating you on my Mongolian ventures, I’ll do my best to keep tabs on my Euro-trip.

Wish me luck, pray that my tonsillitis will go away and stay tuned. And if I’ve disappointed you in blogging, call me when I’m back in the States and I’ll make time to grab coffee and re-tell all my Mongolian stories in person.

Khuvsgul Catch Up

2009-10-18T23:48:00.003+08:00

I’m alive, I promise. My apologies for not updating the ‘mingle’ for some time. I meant to give you all the scoop on the rest of Khuvsgul before I left for Khentii and then when I got back from Khentii I meant to give you two scoops on both Khuvsgul and Khentii, but I failed and I’ve returned from Sainshand without giving you anything. Please forgive. To make up for lost time I’ll start by giving you the breakdown of my Khuvsgul homestay day by day. Here goes:

September 12:
Today was the first full day of my homestay. My father had arrived late the night before so I woke up hazy eyed to his greeting. My host mother gave me a hot bowl of milk tea and some fresh bread with orom. Orom is the foam ladled off the top of boiling yak or cow’s milk. When the foam is cooled you’re left with a rich and creamy spread that is absolutely delicious. I helped my sister shovel the poop out of our goat and sheep pen. It was an octagonal fence with made from several Siberian larch logs. I glamorously pushed thousands of little goat terds with the flat, tarnished shovel into a big pile in the corner of the pen. Then my ten year old sister, Hulan and I shoveled the pile onto a torn synthetic burlap sack and in several trips moved the pile to a larger dung heap about ten meters away. My host mother was so proud of my poop-scooping abilities that she invited me back into the ger for another cup of milk tea and a hard candy. About an hour later I was sitting inside the ger watching my mother mend a shirt. Hulan was running back and forth from behind the ger to the door bringing my mother new cuts of meat. I asked my mother if I could help her at all and she took my hand and led me outside. My father, Tsogtbayar, my oldest sister, Ariuntogs, and Hulan were busy slaughtering a sheep and my mother sat me down with them. My father had already skinned it and removed its organs and was now separating the cuts of meat. Ariuntogs handed me a knife and one end of the large intestine. We squeezed out the rest of its dung onto the grass and then slit the small intestine along the top. Then we scraped the inside out. After we had finished, we went inside to prepare dinner. We rinsed out the stomach and then poured a mixture of blood and salt until it inflated ten times its size. We cut strips of fat, the small intestine, and some unidentified rubbery thing to stuff the large intestines for a ‘sausage.’ The stuffing was topped off with some more blood and salt and the end was sewed shut with a splinter of wood. All our concoctions and the liver and kidney were tossed into a pot of boiling water and left to simmer for an hour. I had already determined that I didn’t like the boiled blood the day before and I was hoping I could skirt that portion of the feast. But they generously gave me a piece of everything, extra blood and I had to choke it down. After several offered helpings I was finally able to convince them I was full.

September 13:
I helped my mother make aaruul today. Aaruul is the traditional Mongolian cheese curd that’s rock hard and rather sour. It’s made from yogurt that’s boiled for an hour over the fire. It’s thickened and cooled and poured into silk fabrics, placed into a tray and put outside to harden in a rectangular shape. Once it’s hard enough to remove from the fabric, it’s broken into smaller blocks and dried for several days. When it rains we have to run it inside before it gets wet. A storm rolled in today and I made several emergency runs with my mother. Our ger had a solar panel which powered our single energy-saving lightbulb and black and white satellite television. That evening we watched sumo wrestling. Boiled mutton and flour noodle soup for dinner.

September 14:
My little sisters departed for school today. Countryside kids spend the week in dormitories at the Soum center and come home on the weekends. After an hour of preparation, packing clothing, food, and books, the family loaded all their supplies to the back of the motorcycle and my father, mother and two younger sisters set off for school. I spent a large part of the day examining our ger and landscape today. My family has two gers side by side. One housed Ariuntogs and my sister-in-law, Bolormaa (I had two older brothers, only one of whom I met) the other housed my mother, father, two younger sisters and myself. Ours was a relatively large ger with five walls. The stove in the center was tarnished and black. There were two beds on the east and west sides. The north end traditionally holds an altar. The altar can house anything that the family cherishes or finds sacred: photos, buddhas, figurines, offering plates, etc. The Darkhaad Depression was an open, grassy valley nestled between a majestic mountain range and a river in front of rolling hills. My family’s camp sat a few hundred meters from the river in a field of boulders, something that I still don’t quite understand. Boiled mutton and flour noodles for dinner.

September 15:
This morning Ariuntogs and I rode our pair of horses to the Bag center (local ‘town’ center) to purchase some items at the store. We rode through several ger camps and as my blonde head stuck out, were approached by several locals to share their greetings. The store we visited was a short larch log shack too short to house me. The store’s owner was an adorable little eight year old boy with Down syndrome who shook my hand and then proceeded to sneak candy out of the baskets. I later found out that he was the son of every family in the bag center and known as the happy child. We bought a package of baaw (cookies), a block of black tea, a package of raspberry gum and a bottle of lotion. On our way back we were approached by a young, drunk man on his galloping horse. He tried to sweet talk my sister, but his attempts failed and when we gave up and galloped away my sister raised her pinky finger at him and said he was gross (an upturned pinky finger is akin to a downturned thumb). In the afternoon my father took me out for another ride to herd our sheep and goat herd. We rode to the highest point in the middle of the valley, dismounted our horses and looked over the landscape through his tarnished binoculars. He took me a few kilometers further and taught me the names of each mountain in sight. We met two of his friends and dismounted again to take a break. Laying on one shoulder, I chewed a piece of grass and watched the three of them roll cigarettes in old newspaper and smoke them in the afternoon sun. We stayed out several hours and when we cantered back I was (surprisingly) eagerly awaiting our dinner of boiled mutton and flour noodle soup.

September 16
Today was a very, very bad day. I had thought a month into my stay in Mongolia I had outsmarted my body and skipped the usual twenty-four hour sickness. Not true. I woke up at 4am violently ill. I spent the five hours running in and out of the ger. I spent the afternoon with an empty body, trying to sleep off the pain. This was the day our class was supposed to visit the local shaman and ranger and I was extremely disappointed that I slept the entire day. At 7pm my family drew me a bath (filled the little metal tub with boiling water and let me crouch in the tub with a ladle. Needless to say I was happy for that day to end and for my sickness to be over. The family had boiled mutton and flour noodle soup for dinner, but I opted out of dinner.

September 17:
I watched my host father kill fifty flies with a rubberband in our ger today. He held one side back like a slingshot and nailed them every time. I helped shovel poop out of the goat pen again this morning. The afternoon was devoted to scraping moldy aaruul. Aaruul is an extremely important food in the winter and helps sustain the family in the toughest of times. My family stocks up on aaruul in the spring, summer and fall months in preparation, storing bags and bags of the hardened curds on the periphery of the ger. We had a bag that had gotten wet at some point and was covered in mold. Rather than dispose of the supply we spent hours scraping the spores with a knife (the same knives used for preparing dinner after a quick wipe of a rag). To spice things up, we had buudz for dinner tonight, one of my favorite Mongolian dishes, steamed lamb dumplings.

September 18:
One of my last days with my host family we spent a large part of the day taking family portraits. We saddled up the horses with the traditional, decorative saddles, dressed up in deels and started snapping away. In the afternoon I visited my peer’s ger for our language class. She lived fifteen kilometers away and my father and I took our motorcycle across the valley to get there. She lived by a series of healing springs and after our lesson the students and I drank to our head, stomach, eyes, heart and ears. This evening I helped my sister weave rope from the hair of a yak’s tail. First we separated the hairs and laid them out in large squares. The squares were rolled up and twisted with two hands to make tighter strands. Two of the tighter strands are then twisted and rolled into a longer rope. For the saddle straps we were making, three of the twisted ropes were then braided and leather bound hooks were sewn to the ends. Boiled mutton and flour noodle soup.

September 19:
Today was the last full day of my homestay. I spent most of the day scraping mold again. By the afternoon I had developed arthritis. I tried to explain to my family the probability of my graduate school path. They told me I study too much, but said it was a good thing. They gave me their address to mail them my photos and told me I should visit them again. A heavy snowstorm had hit UB much of southern Mongolia. As a result our drivers were delayed getting to us in the isolated Darkhaad valley and we fortunately got to stay with our host families a little longer. Boiled mutton and flour noodle soup.

September 20:
We were supposed to depart at 8am, but the storm delayed our departure until 3pm. It was a slow and bittersweet morning. My family gave me a wooden necklace and a vest my sister had made me as departing gifts. In the afternoon a surprise entrepreneur stopped by our house. My host mother teared up as I left and kissed me on the cheek. It was sad to say good-bye. We drove into Ulaan Uul, the Soum center, for the night and had soup for dinner again.

In the interim...

2009-09-28T18:38:00.004+08:00

I've got more stories from my trip to the countryside that I will be posting in the next day or two, but in the interim I'll tell you about the picnic I had with my family yesterday.

I had originally wanted to visit the Museum of Mongolian Traditional Medicine this Sunday and my host family in UB said they would be happy to accompany me (my host father is a doctor of traditional medicine...I watched him do acupuncture in our living room.) but when I woke up that morning my mother said that her brother was going to a monastery and asked if I wanted to come. Of course I did, so I postponed the museum outing for the time being. After a fresh breakfast of eggs, 'sausage,' cucumbers and yellow rice tea (like milk tea, but with sauteed yellow rice kernels added into the mix) my uncle, aunt, and two cousins arrived at our house with a Chinngis Khaan hot water thermos and a bag full of apples.

We piled nine people into their low-rolling van and set out. I thought we were driving to the Gandon Monastery in town, but as it turned out we started driving to the next aimag over, Tuv. Forty five minutes and a flat tire later we arrived at the gates of Manzhir monastery park. At most parks or famous sites foreigners have to pay two to sometimes five times the entrance fee, but my host mother successfully told the fare collector that I was her daughter and I got in Mongol price.

We pulled into the parking lot filled with tourist buses and minivans, poured all nine people out of the van and started up the hill. Manzhir is one of many monasteries that were destroyed during the religious oppression under Soviet control. All that stood was the clay bricks of a foundation, a partially reconstructed wooden building turned museum and the modest wooden roofs scattered across the mountains face protecting large paintings of Guatama Buddha on the largest of outcropped boulders. My host father and mother are both practicing Buddhists, so the summit to each hut yielded whispered prayers and bowed heads.

I was es tactic to have an opportunity for climbing. Being in a crowded district and just coming out of a cold front the air quality in UB is horrendous and will only get worse, inhibiting my runs or any form of exercise out of doors. My mother called me a mountain goat as I hopped up the rocks to the peak where an ovoo had been erected overlooking the valley. After circling it three times in solitude, my family finally caught up to me and we decided to descend back down to our van.

At the base, my father and uncle went down to the car while the rest of us staked out our picnic spot for our late afternoon meal. When we found a few square meters of stone free grass my uncle and father returned with a rolled up carpet on one shoulder and bags and bags of food and drinks. We rolled out the floor rug, removed our shoes and began the feast and I mean feast.

My mother feeds me like there's no tomorrow. Even when my hands were full with an apple and half a sandwich she reached out to me with a cookie and yet another sandwich and said, 'Eat Lindsay, eat.' We had three loaves of bread, apples, grapes, oranges, chocolate cookies and wafers, pickles, salami and the holy grail of Mongolian picnics, an entire pig's head. My uncle whipped out the cutting board and started slicing pieces of fat from it's neck and ears. Shortly followed by my mother making me another sandwich. I tried to explain to them that I prefer the leaner meats, but my attempts were lost in translation and my ability to reiterate my preferences obstructed by the two other sandwiches I was being forced to eat.

When the sun set over Tuv aimag and our family had finished eating we packed up the leftovers, rolled up the carpet and piled back into the van to drive into the early evening lights of UB. What I had expected to be a three hour tour (a three hour tour) of Gandon Monastary turned out to be a whole day of climbing and chewing the fat. It didn't work out so well for the paper I had to write that evening, but I must admit it was one of the most interesting picnics I've had in a while. And that beats the watermelon and three spoons party I had on the Ithaca Commons late this August.

Russian Hummers and Boiled Blood

2009-09-25T15:12:00.003+08:00

Sain baina uu!

I’m back from the countryside! We spent the last two weeks traveling to Khuvsgul Aimag (the northernmost province in Mongolia) for our countryside homestay in the Darkhaad Depression. We flew from UB on EZNis Airlines into the small rustic town of Murun, the aimag center, surrounded by vast plains and low rocky mountains. From Murun it was some 300 kilometers to our homestay site, so we stopped at a ger camp for the night.

On our way to the ger camp we stopped at Uushgiin Hondii to see the largest known deerstone site in Mongolia. We were able to hike around the valley below our camp before our dinner: spaghetti and meat (sans sauce). I shared a cozy ger with two of my peers for the night and woke up to a light dusting of snow across the plains.

The second day’s drive took about nine hours. Our group rode in three grey Russian vans which are virtually indestructible. The dirt road from Murun to Ulaan Uul, the Soum center (regional town) closest to our homestay site, was beaten and undefined. Years of wear in the sloppiest of conditions have beaten the road into a lumpy mess. New paths are created whenever the mud gets too thick, so our drivers were constantly jerkily swerving to pick the “smoothest” route. If there’s one thing I’m thrilled I didn’t inherit from my mother, it’s her car sickness. In the bumpiest parts we drove 5 km an hour and to make up for such slow moments of travel the smooth parts became a race track for our three drivers, often slamming the brakes when we approached a dip too large to handle. I was surprised our car didn’t roll at some points or float away as we drove straight through a river. The Russian Hummers, as one of my teachers called them, are fearless.

Lunch was at a canteen ger along the road and the family that lived there invited us in for soup and tea. We stopped for directions at a snowy spot and broke the travel monotony with an impromptu snowball fight (we were all excited to see snow). We descended into the Darkhaad Depression, a valley of grassy pasture paralleled by a snowcapped mountain range and entirely Siberian Larch forests, after passing a line of ovoos or shrines. I was given a handful of seed and gradually tossed the grains onto the shrine while circling it three times. The ritual supposedly brings good luck so we all obliged. When we arrived in Ulaan Uul around 6 pm we were sick of driving (some more literally than others). We wandered the ghostly streets along broken wooden fences and worn down alley roads to find the last remaining open shop. We bought a jar of peaches and a bottle of Khuvsgul’s own vodka and spent the evening sharing stories and chasing the bottle of rubbing alcohol with peach syrup.

The next day was a short drive to our homestay sight. At the base camp we a lunch of bread with orom (the foam from boiled milk cooled into a delicious cream), khuushuur (meat filled fried dumplings), and the organs of a recent sheep slaughter; stomach, liver, kidney, sausage (intestines stuffed with strips of stomach and liver), and the notorious boiled blood. I ate all but the kidney. The stomach was like chewing gum, the liver wasn’t bad (I had been eating liver paste for breakfast with my UB family two weeks prior), the sausage had a good taste, but a…diverse texture, and the boiled blood was….not my favorite. It’s served in slices like discs. The texture is smooth, but it falls into pieces as soon as you take a bite. I found taking it in one bite was the best way to consume it. It tasted….like blood. I later found out they often season it with lots of salt and some diced onion, the only flavorings in the countryside. It was salty, rich and though I didn’t gag like Bear Grylls, I was not about to have seconds.

We had a brief horse riding lesson after lunch where we got to try the Mongolian saddles. They’re wooden and seem more decorative than practical. The saddle itself is so narrow one can’t sit inside of it. In a walk, you sit on the back and anything above canter you just stand. SIT provided us with combination Mongol-Western saddles which allowed us to sit, but were no more comfortable. Mongolian horses also come in a size small, so my time riding that week was quite humorous.

My host mother and sister were kneeling in the group of parents when we were all introduced. She raised her thin, short body to greet me; my sister stayed kneeling behind her. I used up my arsenal of Mongolian dialogue in a few minutes and so we sat silently, my sister still watching me intently, waiting for the van to drive us to our ger. The rest of the day was spent spitting out my limited vocabulary, flipping through my translation dictionary and dancing out my life story to my new family. I showed them pictures of my family and tried to explain the professions of my parents. I tried to explain that my mother is an orthodontic technician, but all I could get out was “dentist.” Hope you like the change in profession, Mom (or should I say doctor). A number of my explanations were similarly simplified and falsified. If ever find yourself in the Darkhaad Depression, my new major at Cornell is ‘grass’ and I no longer hail from the evergreen state rather our nation’s capital.

I got better at communicating as the week went on, but the first day was rough. As evening settled in my host mother poured me a cup of warm milk tea and at 9 pm when the stars were drifting across the Darkhaad valley I settled into my bed of folded blankets and deels.

2009-09-08T22:07:00.001+08:00

Sain uu!

I'm posting to say that I won't be posting for a while. We'll be departing tomorrow for the countryside, Hovsgol aimag, where we'll be with our rural homestay family for two weeks. I'll have much to say when I return and many photos to share. Don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while. I'll be out of internet entire contact for the two weeks. I'll respond to emails when I return.

In the meantime, check out my first blog post on Glimpse!

Khaans, picked pockets and the new fam.

2009-09-02T20:22:00.004+08:00

Bonding over Chinggis, becoming a pick-pocket victim, getting lost on the UB bus system and meeting the former Prime Minister of Mongolia. Much has happened since I arrived in UB a week and a half ago and I apologize for my poor correspondence as of late. The first week was action packed with orientation, over the weekend we moved in with our UB host families and this week was our first section of classes. SIT has kept me busy, busy, busy.

There are five other students in my program: Sam, Brandon, Nathan, Kara and Britt. All of us are from the States and I think all of us are juniors. We started out in Anuujin Hotel in central UB about a half hour walk from our school. It was nice all being together and there was a nice pub across the street (they like to call bars pubs here) which meant for some lovely evenings testing out Mongolia's brews. I think the general consensus lays with Khar Khorin. We had a number of informative introductions to the city and the program which unfortunately has kept us too busy to explore on our own. A lot of us are antsy to get out and about.

We visited Narantuul, literally the black market, last week as part of our orientation. It's a few acres of endless stalls and tents selling everything from Cucci bags and Adidoos shoes to sofas, chainsaws, Changhong satellite dishes, fabrics, bike parts, kitchen supplies, meat, dairy in addition to some hairstyling and nail painting service shops. It's a pick-pocketer's dream with crowded aisles, lots of money coming in and out and quite a few foreigners. I had put a pack of cards in my back pocket to see if anyone would take it, but no luck. I'm going to keep trying though. Our visit was not without purpose. We were given 1000 Tugrik (about 75 cents), an hour and a half and asked to buy something that would be useful in our countryside visit. A lot harder than sounds. I spent and hour and fifteen minutes perusing all the sections and getting lost. I finally ended up with a MacGyver-esque needle and thread which was well-received. We're going back later in the week to get riding boots for our trip to the countryside next Wednesday for our first rural homestay.

Last week we all ventured through central UB to Mobicom to buy some cell phones for our stay. When we got to Mobicom I took off my pack to find my bag open and wallet gone. I may have escaped Narantuul, but I was a target on the streets and they outsmarted me. Needless to say, I didn't get my phone that day and rushed home to start calling my bank and canceling accounts. B of A said they could express ship me a new ATM card, but when I gave them my address here in Mongolia they rejected it. Street names here are obsolete. Mongolian directions are by proximity: next the Laos Embassy, near Sukhbaatar Square, etc. Thus, the postal system has to rely entirely on P.O. Boxes. Well B of A doesn't approve of P.O. Boxes, so I had them send it to my house in WA and my parents will send it here. I'm eagerly and frugally awaiting it's arrival.

Our UB hometay started Saturday. I'm living with a family in the fourth district about 10 kilometers from my school. My father, Tomorbaatar, is a doctor of traditional medicine. My mother, Ariuna, works has his assistant in his clinic. My sister, Odko, is 17 and will be studying international business in Australia come October. Very friendly, very helpful and they feed me well! I may be missing those leafy greens, but what Mongolia lacks in vegetative variety they make up in quantity!

I take a bus to and from school everyday. The UB bus system is rather ridiculous as far as I can tell. Market economy ideologies have carried over to the bus system and they really enforce efficiency. Forget the word bus, I ride to school in a clown car. I can take the five or the thirteen route, but the only confirmed stops are where I get on and where I get off. If the bus gets stuck in traffic or it can't turn left it will spontaneously take a detour. Yesterday the driver literally jumped the curb, did a number of three point turns and went back to the main road skipping three stops. My first day riding the bus I ended up taking the wrong one home. I was rushing out of the UB Hotel (the best wireless in UB) and jumped the first bus with the number five pasted to its window. But apparently there's more than one five route and I got on the wrong one. When we were approaching my neighborhood and it was supposed to turn left it kept on trucking. I got off about 3 kilometers from where I wanted to be and had to flag a taxi for the rest of my ride.

Today we visited the government building in UB and met with the former Prime Minister R. Amarjargal. We talked with him about Mongolia's economy, the effects of the global economic crisis on Mongolia and mining interests. Then we got a tour of the government building. We got to see the Parliament room and a number of works of art. I'll elaborate later.

A week from today we'll be heading up to Hosvgol Aimag (province) for our first country-side homestay. We'll be there for two weeks and will be back mid-September. I've been restraining my typically snap-happy habits to try and adjust this week. When I go to a knew place everything seems worthy of a picture and my snap-happy habit takes on plague-like symptoms. I've desensitized myself a little to my new environment and have learned a little about keeping my beloved Nikon out of some particularly eager hands. I'm hoping for my first real photo outing this weekend and will post some pictures soon. I'll also be taking my camera to Hovsgol for as long as my batteries last, so expect some new photos after that. I've taken a lot of video, but I've only uploaded a few so far. I'll get working on that as well.

Mongolia is incredible so far! Despite the bumpy landing, this semester is taking off. I'll keep posting.

Bayaritai!

I'm here!

2009-08-27T07:15:00.001+08:00

From DFW to LAX to PEK to ULN, I arrived on time (for once) in Ulaanbaatar Monday morning. Twenty-two hours of flight time and a red-eye from Los Angeles to Beijing meant the jet-lag crept up on me halfway into our program’s first academic lecture on Sino-Mongolian relations, but I’ve managed to adjust to the 12 hour time difference pretty quickly. The LAX-PEK flight was twelve and some hours. A few rounds of single serving Air Chinese, half of a This American Life podcast, and nine hours of sleep made the flight go by quickly. I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me, which made for a relatively comfortable economy ride. I met Sam, Kara and Britt, three of my five peers, in Beijing at the boarding gate for ULN. We cracked the ice over some tea and edimame one of the terminal’s cafes then scurried off to catch our last leg.

The descent into ULN was surreal. The juxtaposition of gers (yurts), energy stacks, open fields and city bustle was like nothing I’ve ever seen. When we first touched down I saw the airport’s terminal with the city’s skyline in the background and by the time the plane had pulled its brakes there was nothing but open land. One of our program directors picked us up and drove us to the Anuujin Hotel where we’ll be staying for our orientation week. Driving through the exit gates at the airport a herd of goats and several horses crossed in front of our black land rover escort, which I quickly became desensitized to. The whole drive into UB was a bizarre juxtaposition of rural and urban landscapes. In America, the two are separated by a fence or a distinguished border. In the countryside and the outskirts of UB there are no fences.

My first Mongolian dinner dish was unee hel or cattle tongue. Not much flavor but it tastes a little like roast beef and the texture is very similar. In Mongolian, hel also means language. Mongol hel is Mongolian, anglo hel is English. My reading has significantly improved since I’ve arrived, acting like a four year old reading every word I see. I’m starting to pick up speaking too and we start our first formal language class today. I’m really determined to become proficient by the time I leave. I didn’t have much background before I left, but I’m determined.

Genghis Grill

2009-08-22T09:52:00.002+08:00

Speak of the devil, tonight in celebration of my bon voyage, I had Mongolian BBQ and a "Khan Mojito."

I also made the strawberry-rhubarb pie, as promised.

I am NOT a parfait

2009-08-21T03:36:00.004+08:00

I leave for Mongolia on Saturday. So I wrote a poem today:

My sweet leafy greens

My dearest nectarines

You are loved

You will be missed

By thine taste bud

I have kissed

You good-bye.

To all the fruits and vegetables out there, this blog entry pays tribute to you, the herbaceous wonders of the world. Arugula, you were dear to me. Kale, too kind. Cabbage, so sweet. I will miss you. Mongolia is not necessarily known for its elaborate cuisine, partly because in America it’s been degraded to “Authentic Mongolian B-B-Q” and partly because it has none (so far as I know). While my vegetarian and part-time vegan habits were inspired and maintained by the atrocities of the American meat industry (e.g. Food, Inc.) I’ve grown accustomed to the lifestyle and have since maintained it partially out of preference. It’s become clear to me that with the exception of artichokes my dietary inclination is to all things autotrophic. But to each his own and to Mongolia it is mutton.

In Mongolia, meat and dairy aren’t just the staples of the diet, they’re the staples, the paper, the ink and the essay. In Ulaanbaatar and a few other urban areas some fruits and vegetables will be available, but for the most part I will soon accustom myself to the diet that strengthened the Mongol army centuries ago. Since I’ve gone meatless for some time, this summer I tried to reintroduce meat to my digestive system and so far the interactions have been civil. I started buying lamb and mutton from the Ithaca Farmer’s Market and since arriving in Dallas have been consuming meat at least once a day. As for dairy, I was graciously gifted with a gigantic cheese platter after the E.L. Rose Conservancy’s photo contest ceremony and spent my last week in Ithaca nibbling on the lactose medley. It’s no comparison to my upcoming diet, but it’s a start and I think my digestive system is ready.

One of the books we were assigned prior to our program’s start is Clifford Geertz’s “Interpretations of Cultures.” In the second chapter, he explains the “stratigraphic” conception of human life. He says, “man is a composite of ‘levels,’ each superimposed upon those beneath it and underpinning those above it.” There are certain ‘universal’ biological traits each Homo sapien has which in turn govern certain psychological functions which in turn influence certain social behaviors which in turn manifest themselves in the anthropologist’s Holy Grail of conceptions: the said Homo sapien’s culture. So in the deepest corners of our biological construction there is a single layer, a biological layer to which we almost all share. As you emerge from those cellular crevices and arrive at the brain, there lay another layer that is less common, a psychological layer. Above that, a social layer. And above that, a cultural layer. New experiences or living environments add more layers to each person’s unique collection. The further a layer is from the biological core, the more contextual variability there is within it. So while these layers can overlap among many they also provide the means for infinite diversity.

Though I almost immediately reverted back to the genius that is Shrek (thank you, Pixar, for my juvenile mind), this analogy made me think about my own layers. I started to think about my childhood and the psychological layers that were developing as a result of my biological layers. The way my brain learned to perceive a lump of brass as a candlestick and not a pair of faces or how it learned to differentiate shapes, colors, sounds, smells and then proceeded to label them. And the development of those layers were undoubtedly influenced by the social and cultural environments that I was brought up in. As a result of all that, the day-to-day phenomena that I experience have been assigned specific meanings and they will retain those meanings in perpetuity. I also thought about those angsty, emotional, frustrating adolescent years and how that was probably an acquisitional transition period where I went from having a meager collection of widely-shared inner layers to having my own diverse collection. The pair of rainbow knee-socks that I sported for two years in middle school wasn’t just the fashion faux paus of my Lincoln Spartan days, it was the manifestation of my stratigraphic self taking shape; my struggle to superimpose each layer into the one, cohesive ball of layers that everyone else calls Lindsay. Kind of like a cabbage (or an onion, but they have a certain...odor about them.).

I’ve come to realize that each new adventure, each new social or cultural experience that I have is my acquisition of a new layer or a new leaf. The more layers I have, the more well-rounded I become and I like being round, I always have. Rather than being the deformed cabbage that grew phototropically in one direction and turned out flat on one side, I’m hopefully maturing into the lush and robust Brassica that I’m proud to be. Moreover, each new experience that I have, each new layer that I develop can bring me closer to all the other Brassicas or all the other Captitatas or even all the other Brassicaceaes in the world. The more layers that I have, the more I share with others, the more I can relate with others and the more I can learn with others no matter how different we may be. Since I have those layers I have the means to mindfully share my knowledge, my philosophies and my culture. And because I've encouraged my adventurous side (for better or worse) I am no longer a mere biennial cluster subject to various tropisms rather I am an infinite learner. Forever growing round.

I live in the moment and by my senses. I love to see new places. I love to meet new people. I love to smell new things. I love to hear new music. And I really do love to try new foods (vegetable or otherwise). I think I love to do all these things because I love acquiring new layers. I am so excited to see what layers I gain this semester.

Who knows, I might come back to the States with an insatiable appetite for mutton. But all I know is that at the end of the day I can always go for some good, well-rounded cabbage.

Moreover, Cabbage, I’ll miss you.

Genghis Khan was the newt to my world

2009-08-15T19:19:00.004+08:00

Saying goodbye to Susquehanna County for the season I returned to Ithaca in a "vista blue" Ford Focus equipped with Sirius satellite radio, a real fleet treat. It took me a while to figure out how to even work the radio, but when I did I came across Deepak Chopra's radio show and imediately became enthralled. He had Michio Kaku, the mind behind string theory and author of Physics of the Impossible. They devoted a full hour to discussing the theory of the "impossible."

Kaku depicted his first experience with the complex subject as a young child. He was peering into a goldfish pond and wondering what the societal structure of a goldfish community was like. Was there government? Were there teachers or scientists among them? As a goldfish scientist, he thought, the world above the water line must seem impossible. They know left, right, forwards and backwards, but above the surface was an unthinkable world sans gills or fins. To enter into the world as we humans know it was the impossible for the goldfish community and yet to us, it is commonplace and trivial. Kaku thought that the modern unthinkable things like alternate universes were the dry-land impossibilities of the human mind.

The two brilliant and soothing radio voices went on to describe the contents of Kaku's book in which he deliniates three classes of civilization. The first is a planetary civilization in which humans or the dominant population can harnass the power of the planetary systems. The second class is a stellar civilization in which the population can control the stars. The third, galactic. He said that we, the dominant population of the third rock from our sun, don't even qualify on this scale. We are essentially a class zero civilization as we are dependent on the energy of other organisms, be they live or fossilized. However, we are slowly approaching the transition and the internet is just one example of our strides of progress. The internet has begun to connect the world, share information and transform our kind into a unified, planetary, cooperative species. But to the tech-savvy be warned, Kaku said that the transition to a class one civilization is the most dangerous of all, nuclear weapon threats being an example.

A prominent glitch in our current civilization is the default to human emotion: anger, fear, passion, jealousy. In order to become a cooperative planetary civilization we need to adapt and mature mentally into the new global consciousness. While the modern world is full of borders and limits, the planetary world is unified. Until we can attain that paradigmatic view, our stuggle to globalize will be full of conflict, thus the dangerous transition.

I haven't read Kaku's book yet, but I hope to soon. In preparation for Mongolia, I've been coming up with questions I want to explore and Kaku's insight into the struggles of globalization have peaked my interest. Gaining independence and entering the global market both within the last century, Mongolia is experiencing the effects of rapid development and growth on its small, pastoral culture. What other nations have done over centuries, Mongolia has done in decades.

After answering the geographic inquiries of people I've told my upcoming travels to, I've realized that Mongolia has received very, very little attention. Despite the low frequency in national borders within Eastern Asia, Mongolia's presence has been somewhat ignored. Which is funny to me, because without Genghis Khan, our world would be totally different. Genghis Khan built more bridges, both literally and figuratively, than any other leader in history. He introduced the world at large to societies who thought their region was all there was. He connected the Eastern most points of Asia to the depths of Europe and the Middle East. His empire was the size of Africa. In my opinion, at a time when having a global consciouness was truly impossible, Genghis Khan had a stronger grasp than many current leaders today and we've mapped the sphere. And yet, he has been dismissed as a malicious conquerer who cared little for intercultural relations.

I think that this semester I'd really like to study the Mongolian mentality towards globalization and the development that's been sweeping through the country. The nomadic culture that has maintained its presence for centuries sees few borders. They read and listen to the land. To Genghis Khan Eternal Blue Sky was God. The Sky is not compressed into a single building or book, it is omnipresent and transcendent. It has no borders or limits. It is ever-present and watches over the planet. I think this sort of consciousness is critical for globalization and if still dominant, would be of great benefit to the nation's shift into the world economy.

A week from today, I'll be starting my journey from the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. I have much to do between now and then, but I really cannot wait. What a world Mongolia must be without gills.

Catching up on what hasn't begun

2009-08-10T09:01:00.020+08:00

And the countdown begins...

On August 24th I'll be starting my semester abroad in Mongolia with the School for International Training (SIT). I've been wanting to write a pre-departure post for some time now, but it's been a bumpy and busy summer. Better late than never though, eh?

I had originally planned on a semester in Vietnam with SIT studying the ecology of the Mekong River Delta. Come early June, I had applied, been accepted and been busy preparing for the coming semester. Then I received a heartbreaking email: "We regret to inform you that your program has been canceled." Only two other people had been accepted into the Mekong program and I guess the semester wasn't worth it for just the three of us. My options were to apply to a different university independently, switch to another program within SIT or cancel my semester abroad altogether and spend another fall in Ithaca. As much as I love a Northeastern autumn, my housing, anticipated coursework and overall mentality were set on a semester abroad.

After a day of woe I decided I would find another SIT program. None seemed as good as Vietnam, but after eliminating programs with language prerequisites and less than thrilling program topics I found what I wanted--Mongolia: Culture and Development. Copious amounts of phone calls, emails and paperwork secured my spot in the program's fall semester and since then I've been busy re-preparing.

I'm freshly inoculated with five immunizations, my passport is now home to a Mongolian student visa, my 22-hour airline travel itinerary has been set and I'm now busy packing and reading. Our program director, Ulzii Bagsch, made her first contact with us students sending a tentative schedule of the program in addition to an intimidating reading assignment for the time allotted. I'll spend my first days with my urban host family in Ulaanbaatar acquainting myself with the city and learning the language (anticipating Vietnamese as my new language study, I admit that I know very little Mongolian right now, but this summer I taught myself to read Cyrillic and have learned a few key phrases).

This week I finish up my summer internship with the E.L. Rose Conservancy of Susquehanna County, stuff my belongings into the basement of my spring semester abode and say goodbye to Cornell (for awhile). On the 16th, I'll be departing for Dallas where I'll spend my last six days with my dad, stepmother and grandmother. The action-packed week will consist of last minute packing, strawberry-rhubarb pie baking (as per request by my father), reading, reading, reading and some nice family time. I'll depart the 22nd on a red-eye out of Dallas and my semester abroad will officially begin when my Air China International flight touches down in Ulaanbaatar two "days" later.

You can follow my travels on this blog and catch some other highlights from the links at left. Here's to my last two weeks.