Adventures, both failed and successful

REMINDER TO READERS: After this blog post, there will be several posts dealing with interactions with Shamans.  As shamanism is greatly misunderstood in the world, I will keep some posts private. Furthermore, some posts will deal with my interactions with these shamans.  For my own privacy, I will keep some posts protected. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THESE POSTS, please subscribe to this blog and I will be able to select you as a reader. 

Dec 22

It's hard to walk around Mongolia and see the amazing Mongolian winter boots without coveting them.  I mean, they are AMAZING.  Finally I gave in and asked my hosts if we could go to Narantuul "black" market.  I don't entirely know why it's called the black market. It's completely legitimate.  It is, however, quite an experience.   It is huge, and made up of stalls and tarps and the occasional sheet metal wall. It is an absolute labyrinth. I can't imagine trying to go there without an experienced guide.  My experienced guides demanded that I walk arm-in-arm with them, due to the sheer number of people.  I also had to keep my purse under my jacket.  Like any mass market, it's a haven for pick-pockets.  And it has EVERYTHING.  When I say everything, I mean everything.  Garden hoses, wallpaper, buddhist altars, blue jeans, camel wool socks, mongolian deel (robes), western fashion, modern and traditional boots, batteries, shamanic supplies and more.    As we started walking, I couldn't help but get "Portobello Road" from bedknobs and broomsticks stuck in my head.  And it wouldn't stay in my head. I had to sign. Fortunately, I sang quietly. Unfortunately, no one started spontaneously dancing.

Exactly like this. Except no spontaneous dancing.  We went around to several boot makers until finally we found one with quality, price and size that met our needs. I now am the proud owner of the most amazing boots ever.

Containing a felt lining. Mmmmmm.  Man these are awesome.  Our next stop was hats.  I picked up a traditional mongolian hat.  I also wanted a jews harp, or an aman huur (mouth fiddle) as it's known here.  For that, we headed to the shaman quarter of narantuul, where one can fulfill all their shamanic item needs.

Batches of "snakes" (cloth ropes that are attached to a shaman's robes) hung from all the stalls, chimes (hungunur) mirrors (toli) and small metal imitations of weapons and blacksmith tools to be attached to a bartag (beating stick) or robes for protection, butter lamps, statues, and quite a selection of animal parts.  This is the only place to get an aman huur. Although the aman huur is an instrument used in folk music, it is special for shamans, and therefore the best ones are all to be found in shamanic supply stalls.   My host, a shaman himself, helped me test run several aman huur until we found one of decent quality for a beginner.  I still don't know how to play it, but now at least I am starting to learn.

Mungunu (my host) bought a new traditional cigarette holder, as his previous one was broken by his curious two year old, and a few wolf teeth necklaces as gifts for a younger brother visiting from Russia.
Faces stinging from the cold, we hustled our way back through the market to the car and to a local traditional mongolian food restaurant. I ate bintai harshul, (meat broth with dumplings) and we also ordered lamb joint with a sort of steamed pancake and an onion dipping oil and of course plenty of salty milk tea to go around.  The perfect food for a frigid winter afternoon that was quickly turning into evening.

When we came home to show off the amazing boots, we dressed me up in my deel that I got last summer to put together the full look.  Man, those boots are comfortable.

Dec 23

Monday morning I made my way to class.  After 2 weeks of delicious, but quite bland food, I was about ready to kill for something containing vinegar and chilis.  When I told my teacher, he offered to take my out for Korean food.  As we sat getting dinner, we got a call from Mungunu that we would be going up to Selenge Aimag, a province in the far north, next to Russia, for four days.  This sounded like a great adventure, so I headed over to the house.  Mungunu and Soyloo helped me choose appropriate clothing (my Tibetan sheepskin robes, new hat and boots) and Mungunu, Ankhaa, Enkhule and I piled into a car.  Our first stop was to pick up Huygaa at Mungunu's sister's house.

Two of the daughters are part of a girl band and they charmed us with lovely singing.  I, then, was called upon to sing back to them.  Enkhule pulled them aside and told them how to congratulate Tibetan singers, so before long I had a few blue mongolian Khatags around my neck.

We sat around chatting with our hosts, the time getting later and later, but happy to leave late as we would have no traffic and arrive in morning after a 7 hour drive.  It turned out that this was an excellent move.  At around midnight we got into the car and it wouldn't start.  We thought the issue was a lack of gas. We took the family car to the petrol station, filled a gas can and filled up the car.  We made it about half a mile before the car stopped again.  Fortunately, still being near the family home, we were able to catch a taxi and head back to Mungunu's home.  Unfortunately, the trip to Selenge had to be scrapped, but luckily our car broke down at the family home, rather than in the middle of nowhere, at night, on the streets of Mongolia.

Also, fortunately, Mongolia is a culture that loves to joke and get a laugh out of everything. So our adventure in four cars (our car, the family car and two taxis) and 4 hours of travel to go only 15 kilometers became a source of laughter.  We made our way home, had a few drinks and laughed about our mixed fortune and misfortune, before piling into various beds at 4 AM and not waking up until well afternoon.

REMINDER TO READERS: After this blog post, there will be several posts dealing with interactions with Shamans.  As shamanism is greatly misunderstood in the world, I will decide to keep some posts private. Furthermore, some posts will deal with my interactions with these shamans.  For my own privacy, I will keep some posts protected. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THESE POSTS, please subscribe to this blog and I will be able to select you as a reader.  

Daily winter life

From Dec 15
I had been told that my host, Mungunu, a shaman, would be Shamanizing that morning.  However, Enkhule, my friend and translator, had to take care of some work, so we decided to postpone until afternoon.  Morning moved into afternoon and afternoon into evening and Enkhule's work didn't finish, so we just spent the day at home.
Dec 16
In the morning I made my way to Dashchoilin monastery, where my friend Altankhuu, a managing monk at the monastery, would be my teacher.  We covered some very important topics that had been driving me nuts, specifically if constructions, when constructions, and making requests.  All three of which are painfully complicated. However, after a few hours, (and a few bowls of sweet rice) we had made significant progress.

After two hours of intensively practicing these constructions, we decided to get a late lunch (around 2:30 PM) of some khuushuur (meat pasties.)  Just as we were heading out of the monastery to the khuushuur place, Soyloo called me saying come home now, Mungunu will be shamanizing.  Fortunately, Altankhuu has a better understanding of the Mongolian definition of "now" and agreed that as long as we ate quickly, we had time to eat our Khuushuur.  He was right and the khuushuur was delicious. I also tried a drink of boiled curd of some sort. Sweet, sour, salty....all in all very strange.

I jumped in a taxi and made my way to Tolgot, our section of the Ger district.  When I arrived, the house was full of Mungunu's relatives, including several children running around.  One of whom, a little three year old, very quickly learned how to access and use the camera on my phone, even without the password.

During the ceremony, two spirits came to visit. Mungunu's grandmother and grandfather. They advised and blessed the attendees in an overall short ceremony which was hilariously interrupted by children frequently.  It was interesting to see a different shaman, as I had only seen one other Mongolian shaman.  I was interested to look at the similarities and differences. I shall write more about that when I post about the previous experience.

Unfortunately, Enkhule was still busy with work, so all of this was done without a translator. With some help of the dictionary on my phone, we were able to get a basic communication going on more complex topics and after Mungunu came out of trance, he discussed with Soyloo and they were able to express a bit of what I was told.

We then all packed up and went with Mungunu's mother back to her apartment in the city.  She made a delicious dinner of Buuz and we played with the children and went to sleep, 7 adults scattered across the floor of a room that was maybe two and a half meters across.   'Twas cozy.  Being a nomadic culture, like Tibet, when you wake up in this situation, people are scattered differently than they were when they first went to sleep and quite likely in different states of undress, but in a completely platonic way. I never feel like quite as much of a prude and raised in an over sexualized culture as when I'm in Mongolia.  I think I was the only one sleeping in full pajamas. Everyone else was in varied states of underwear.  I think it says much more about America's inability to separate the body from sexuality than it does about nomadic culture.  Kind of sad really.

Dec 17

In the morning, I got a ride to the State Department Store to meet Roy, an australian NGO worker who has been living in Mongolia for the past 6 years.  He invited me to a new year party being hosted for a local orphanage and school for mentally handicapped children.  The party was a blast.  Hosted at an american restaurant, the kids got burgers and fries and fried chicken.  Different kids got up to sing, professional dancers performed and the kids had a blast on the dance floor.

The orphanage and school are run by a catholic charity. When priests or workers come to volunteer, they must first spend a year undergoing intensive Mongolian language training, to gain complete fluency in Mongolian.  In addition, the workers are not allowed to proselytize to anyone.  The goal is just to provide a loving, caring home and school for kids in need.

After lunch I made my way back over to Dashchoilin for a few more hours of class.  We worked on numbers and "Because...so..." constructions.  After class I  went to meet Simon, a former PhD student at University of Washington and a Mongolian literature scholar here with his wife on a fellowship. We had a nice time just sitting, having coffee and chatting.

When I made my way back to Mungunu's mother's house, Mungunu and Soyloo needed to run home to pick up some things. I asked them to get me a change of clothes and my backpack and then they headed off, leaving me with Mungunu's mother, neice and older sister.  Well, when you just have girls.....First came the junk food, then the vodka (...still not a fan), then Mungunu's sister's UNBELIEVABLE HEAD MASSAGE. I cannot even describe it. It was unreal.  I've asked her to teach me, or to let me kidnap her to america.  45 minutes of BLISS.  My scalp was bruised the next morning, but I would do it again. And again. Oh man.  It's not just a head massage, she also does shoulder and upper back.  To give you an idea of HOW GOOD this is, part way through she told me to take off my shirt and unhook my bra so she could properly do my back.  Meanwhile Soyloo, Mungunu and at least one other guy came in AND I JUST DIDN'T CARE BECAUSE WE SHOULDN'T STOP THIS MASSAGE. (Also, nomad culture, no one gives a damn, and I was still somewhat covered from the front).

Dec 18
I was woken up at 5:30 by the arrival of Temujin, a younger brother who has been studying in Russia. He made us breakfast and I went over to the State Department store to finally buy a Mongolian language text book.  Unfortunately, I also seemed to have picked up a cold so class ended early and I went home to get some sleep.

Dec 19
After a slow morning, Chuka came over to take me to Terelj national park.  Chuka and Mungunu chatted for a while about mutual interests, which is good, as Mungunu is very protective of me in Mongolia. He is worried about me getting targeted by bad people, and so felt much more comfortable about me traveling with Chuka after having met him.

Unforunately, traffic was a nightmare and after 2 hours, we still hadn't crossed the city.  Realizing it would be after dark before we could reach Terelj, we gave up on that idea and decided to go to Chuka's place and watch a movie.  Chuka made dinner and we watched "Slumdog Millionaire."  No one warned me it had quite so much torture and police abuse in it.  Still a good movie.

When we got home, we saw Mungunu had been shamanizing again and was quite exhausted, so we all went to sleep.

Back in Mongolia

Since I am also posting back logs, I will write inside of the post whether this post is from the current trip or previous one.  For the duration of my trip, it will probably be current.  Also, setting up a personal hotspot from my phone might have been the best idea EVER.

FROM DEC 12- DEC 14

I got very lucky on my flight from New York to Turkey, sitting next to a wonderful man, originally from Chandigarh, India and now residing in Toronto. He was heading home to India and for a family trip through Himachal, so we spent hours reminiscing about our favorite (and least favorite!) parts of life in India.  We traded tips on the best places to go in Himachal and just had a wonderful ride.  This also helped both of us conquer jetlag, because we didn't sleep for most of the flight.

At Ataturk Airport I made my way to my gate and it became very clear that there would be very few non-Mongolians on the flight.  At our stop over in Kyrgystan, this number dwelled even further.  In addition to the two or three Russians scattered across the plane, there was one family with four adorable blonde children, ranging from around 3 to around 14.  Something about their clothing and speech made me a bit curious as to why an Australian family would be going to Ulaanbaatar in Winter.  I ended up talking to the oldest daughter at the luggage carousel.  The family travels a lot, it seems, but had been settled in UB for the past two years.  When I asked what the parents did, she answered that they were on a language visa and very professionally evaded any request for details.  As usual: Missionaries.

I got a pleasant surprise at the airport to find that I was being picked up by both my friend Enkhule and our friend and my host, Mungunu.  We decided that I should get a SIM card immediately and stopped at the first Unitel shop we saw.  No new sim cards.  Well, that's fine. We went to the next Unitel shop.  Yes, new sim cards, no mini card puncher.  So then we went to another shop where they charged us to punch the card (we joked that the unitel shop keeper and the card puncher must be husband and wife, working a racket.)  But 3g would have to wait.   Welcome to Mongolia!

We made our way back to Mungunu's house where I was able to distribute the massive suitcase of gifts I had schlepped along.   Later several members of his family came over to hang out.  Really wonderful people, including a 13 year old neice named Bujinlham.  Mungunu and Soyloo asked Bujinlham and I to babysit their 2 year old son, Duulag, the next morning.  I thought this would be a great chance to practice Mongolian and agreed.  By 8 PM, jetlag had gotten the better of me, and I collapsed on the bed they had made me.

I woke up at 5:30 to a very surreal scene:  At some point in the night, Bujinlham and climbed in bed next to me, the lights from an LED christmas tree were flashing in my face from the living room, the shaman's altar was too our left and when I looked up I realized that all the shaman's ritual clothing and masks was directly above me.  Welcome to Mongolia!

But it was time to face my fear.  5:30 AM, around -20 F outside, and I had to pee.  I tried to wait it out, I really did. But before long, I knew I would have to face my fear.  I bundled myself up, walked past the scary watch dog (who was tied up for my safety) and to the rickety outside with no light. I successfully relieved myself without freezing, falling in, or being eaten by a dog.  I SURVIVED!

The next morning Mununu headed off to work, and Soyloo headed off to pick up the older child, a girl named Gunje.  Bujinlham and I took turns taking care of Duulag and playing with him and coaching me in Mongolian. Nothing is better for learning Mongolian than a mongolian kid.  In the afternoon, my friend Chuka stopped by, which was awesome.  We made some travel plans for later.

In the evening, Enkhule, Bayra and Tudu all showed up so I distributed more gifts and we sat around talking, drinking a bit, and joking a lot.  I helped peel potatoes and Soyloo made tums khuushuur, fried bread stuffed with milk-mashed potatoes.  We dipped this in Thai sweet chili.  It was one of the most delicious things.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  I ate four.

We ended up staying awake until 3 AM and falling asleep scattered around the house on blankets and pillows.  Some aspects of nomad culture are the same everywhere.  Partway through the night, people changed positions, which led to a lot of jokes about Mungunu having a boyfriend and Soyloo needing a girlfriend now. Mungunu of course proceeded to play along and tease the man who had somehow ended up curled up next to him.  This meant that I needed to snuggle up to Soyloo.  :P

Since my Mongolian language teacher would have a meeting, we decided to head up a mountain to an oboo, or a mountain top cairn.  We got all bundled up and headed up the mountain. At some point at the top, we all decided that it was more appropriate to have a snowball fight than visit the Oboo, so although the men took care of their duties, offering some vodka, we spent the rest of the time tackling each other and trying to get snow in each other's faces at -14 degrees.

That night we all came home, drank tea and sat by the wood stove, ate rice and beef stew and just talked until around 11 when we collapsed from exhaustion, just as scattered around the house as always.