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.
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.
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