The Hudoo Life

Last week I spent several days at a ger camp, Beaten Paths, in Battsengal. It is set up on the family's land, a few hundred feet away from the well (there are no rivers or water sources close enough for the animals) and consists of two tourist gers and the family ger. Beaten Paths is a Mercy Corps client, so I went out to give advice on how to improve and a basic accounting/bookkeeping training. Also to hang out with some other PCVs who happened to be there. We were the season's first "tourists," so it was a good chance for the family to figure out what they still needed to do to set up for the "Jinkin" tourists who will come later.
Spending more than 1-2 nights in a ger camp is quite rare, most tourists spend an average of 1 night in any given ger camp and then move on. And with good reason, there isn't a whole lot to do. But sometimes it's nice just to sit under a dirty tarp awning and watch the sheep, goats, horses and cows go by. Our proximity to the well meant that close to 1,000 animals came and went several times a day. We fought the baby cows for the integrity of our ger and outhouse (they thought the dirt pile by the outhouse was AWESOME), stared down goats and pondered the worth of "sheep language," which it turns out is seriously annoying (and, as everyone knows, sheep are stupid so probably not very worthwhile either). One morning we were sitting outside reading and looked up to find about 50 goats ten feet away from us, just staring. I guess we are interesting too.
Watching the various herds of horses was really interesting for me. Horses in America don't generally live in proper herds, but in Mongolia they do. A stallion has 7-8 mares with their foals and "daags" (2-year old horses, who are actually only one by conventional count but Mongolians consider them 2) following them around. There was one herd who's stallion looked just like Spirit Stallion of the Cimeron, and whenever they drank at the well he would stand back and keep an eye on everything, occasionally chasing away a goat.
The last day we were all there we drove to the river and had a sheep horhog (after having the sheep's innards for breakfast...) Then we spent the night in Rob's ger in the soum center and Tuul and I came back to Tsetserleg yesterday. As seems to happen whenever I go to the countryside, we came back to find that there will be no running water in town until the 20th. So much for that shower we were both really looking forward to. Living in an apartment without water is awful. The faucets and shower just sit there mocking me, and I am currently having a debate with myself between paying Fairfield to do some much-needed laundry (they have their own water system), or just being smelly for a few weeks. We will see which wins out.

One Year!

It's official, I have been here a whole year now. It's weird to think that last year at this time I was afraid to even take a shower in the Darkhan Hotel because I was still used to American standards... So much for that. I recently had to move to a different apartment, and my new bathroom makes Darkhan hotel look almost nice. It's weird to think that now I am one of the "experienced" PCVs. The M19s arrived in Mongolia a couple days ago, so I am officially an "old" volunteer.
The past few weeks have been the busiest I have had since training last year. Full of travel to the countryside doing research for a Tourism Value Chain analysis I'm working on, hosting SIT study abroad students and moving. Today I'm headed out to Battsengal to spend several days at the ger camp out there helping out and teaching some basic accounting to the owner. This ger camp is one of my favorites, it was started last year with the help of the PCV in Battsengal, it is a Mercy Corps client, and it also happens to be where I go riding when I go to Battsengal, so I'm excited to help them out and hopefully get a lot of riding in this week! Next week I head to Bulgan soum to visit another ger camp, and then shortly after that up to Darkhan to help with training. Where does the time go?