The Virtue of Patience

Patience in Mongolia is a very strange thing. Mongolians are at once incredibly, stoically patient, and at the same time pushy and completely impatient. Last Friday while I was at the post office trying to buy more units for my phone I experienced just how impatient Mongolians can be. When a line isn't enforced (such as at the bank) there isn't even a semblance of order, just a swarm of people. So there I was, waiting patiently a respectful distance behind the person in front of me (really I should know better by now), while other people continued to just shove their up to the front. Rob, another PCV who lives in Arkhangai was with me, and he explained that the best, and really only, way to get service is to get your money out and basically shove your way to the front and hold out your money. Trying to buy food in the supermarket is a similar situation. A sort of line forms, but unless you are pushy and stand touching the person in front of you, you will find yourself continually at the end of a moving line.
On the other hand, Mongolians have the ability to wait for hours and hours in complete patience. When taking a taxi or mikr somewhere, the driver may give a departure time, but inevitably you can expect at least an hour wait sitting in the car. Probably more than that. And it is pretty much a given that something will break during the course of your journey. And maybe that is why Mongolians are so patient when it comes to cars and trips, Mongolian drivers all possess the amazing ability to fix ANYTHING! Broken axle? No problem, as long as you have some scotch (what we would call packing tape, pretty much the only type available in Mongolia) you can fix a broken axle, along with pretty much anything else that goes awry. Scotch is to Mongolians what Duct Tape is to people from the Midwest. There is, apparently, even a word in Mongolian for "fixing things the Mongol way." I think the best way I have heard it described was by Rob, who introduced me to the term "Monguiver."