July 14, 2014
This
past week has been pretty fabulous. I’ll start from today and work backwards. I
am on holiday, because of Naadam so I had Thursday, Friday, and today off from
work. Today, I went on a hike that I have
been looking forward to and planning on doing since I arrived at site, but for
some reason or another, have just been putting it off and finally a year later
I successfully climbed Bulgan Mountain. Bulgan Mountain is the Buddhist
mountain at the northern most end of town, right near my apartment, which is revered
as a sacred mountain by Mongolian Buddhists. It is part of the Khangai Mountain
Range. Women are not supposed to climb it, but my counterpart said I could get
away playing the “fatuous tourist” if any one questions me, which I have played
on more than one occasion in the past. Pretending to not understand the
language does let you get away with some things, like climbing Bulgan Mountain
as a woman. Luckily, no one was even around when I started the climb, therefore
I was able to climb it peacefully. On the face of the mountain are these large
paintings of Buddhist gods and symbols, I really wanted to make it up to the
paintings and seem them up close. The climb was more tedious than I thought,
and involved a lot of rock scaling and trying to grab on plants to pull me up
the steep parts, hoping their roots were deep. I realized half way up, that I
definitely did not take the route that was suggested to me, but it was a lot of
fun trying to find nooks and crannies to put my feet in and ridges to grab to
hoist myself up to the next rock ledge. I ended up making it to all the
paintings, which were much, much larger than I thought they were. Some of them
are massive. They were even more striking up close. The paintings are actually
carved into the rocks and then painted over. It must have taken so long to
complete them! Once I reached the last painting, I decided the weather was so
beautiful out that I might as well climb to the top of the mountain, which I am
glad I did because the view was spectacular, but the thigh high grass and
swarms of flies and deer flies were not so pleasant. I then decided to go down
the opposite side of the mountain I came up, which was even trickier than the
first side, plus tall grass and flies. I could not wait to get back down to the
bottom. Note to self: long pants and bug spray are not optional. Next time, I
will be better prepared. But the view from the top did not disappoint and I saw
so many hawks and other birds. It was an awesome hike, which I can’t wait to do
again when the new volunteers get here! I can’t believe I waited this long to
do it.
Today,
was also my sister’s graduation brunch. She and my family had brunch at Saratoga National Golf Course. I wish I was
there to have celebrated, but when I get back to the States next summer, we
have so many things to celebrate together Ash! I cannot wait to make up for all
the missed holidays, birthday and various other events and dates that deserve
celebrating! My sister also has an amazing blog http://letterstobrittnana.blogspot.com/.
She is really a fabulous writer. I will be addressing some of the things she
talks about in her blog, as her blog is written as letters to me, which is such
a neat concept. Her latest letter was about graduation and it brought tears to
my eyes. Ash, I am so proud of you and I
just know that you are going to be so successful. You are such a confident,
loving and the funniest person I know, you will have friends anywhere you go
and you have some of the most amazing friends from college, who will always be
in your life. I have always been envious of the close friendships you had with your
sorority sisters, and I am so lucky that you let me get to know and hang out
with them. They really are such wonderful women! You are so lucky. But never
forget how wonderful you are alone without the whole crew. Yes, we both have
had pretty easy lives, mommy and daddy have taken care of us (THANK YOU!), like
not many parents do, but guess what, for everyone who thinks we were spoiled or
caudeled ( we have heard this millions of times throughout my life), I moved
across the world and am alive! Even though most things were done for me in the
past, I have figured out how to cook, wash clothes, walk around without getting
lost, and various other life tasks and I think I am doing pretty well at them,
so I have the utmost confidence that you will thrive in these next couple years
after college and I cannot wait to get home and witness it and be a part of it!
You have had the past four years to ease your way into real life. Plus, I will have
been gone for two years, I am going to need some friends to hang out with in
Albany, so if you could please work on our social life, it would be greatly
appreciated. I can’t wait to read your next post!
Yesterday,
I got to skype with Emily in the morning and we basically have our
Turkey/Greece vacation dates set. I am so excited and cannot wait to fly into
Athens at the end of September! I so need this vacation and it is going to be
absolutely amazing and so much fun! Words cannot describe how thrilled I am to
see her and I know we are just going to have a blast traveling around Greece
and Turkey for three weeks. I then did a
small hike to my usual reading spot which was infested with black flies, so
reading did not last very long. I think because of all the rain we have had
lately, it has made a breeding ground for flies, it can stop anytime now.
Wednesday
and Thursday was Naadam, the three games of men, which is my favorite Mongolian
holiday! Naadam has existed throughout Mongolian history, buy It now formally
commemorates the 1921 revolution when Mongolia declared itself a free country.
The two days are full of wrestling, archery and horseraces. Mongolian archery
is interesting because they do not aim at a single target. They have dozens of surs
(targets). Each sur is a small woven or wooden cylinder. They are
placed one on top another forming a wall 3-high, which is approximately 8
inches high by 5 feet wide. Knocking a sur out of the wall with an arrow
counts as a hit, though knocking a sur out of the centre will bring you
more points. After each hit, an official repairs the damaged wall and makes it
ready for the next attempt. So the archers aim their arrows to go up in the air
and then curve down to hit the cylinders, since they cylinders are on the
ground that they must hit. The first day
is my favorite, because the morning is the opening ceremony. The opening
ceremony starts out with a parade around the Naadam Stadium, which I got to be
in this year. I was told to wear my del and that I would be marching with other
important people of the community, including some of my HD staff. It was really
exciting, I got wave and take pictures with people. At then at end of the parade,
we went to the center of the stadium to sing the Mongolian National Anthem,
which for some reason always makes me emotional and proud to be an American
even more. We then walked to our seats in the stadium and watched the opening
ceremony performances. The first couple were dances done by children, which
were absolutely adorable. The first group was dressed in traditional Mongolian clothes
and performed a Mongolian dance, the next group sashayed out in latin outfits
and preformed a salsa and tango. These kids were no more than 7 years old, and
they were dancing their little hearts out to Pitbull and Shakira songs. Next,
was an older group doing gymnastics and then a long line of adult singers who
sang various traditional Mongolian songs. I walked around the stadium during
the singing with one of my coworker’s little brother and sister (in my English
club). We played a couple carnival games, which I was terrible at. The game
where you throw darts at balloons, I went 3 for 12 in. My darts kept bouncing
off the balloons. Apparently I have lost strength in my arms. The little boy
felt bad that I did not win a prize so her played two rounds of the game and
won stuffed animals for me and his sister. So sweet. We then got shish cabobs from one of the vendors for lunch. I then met
up with Will and the French Volunteer. We walked around and then I left with
Rudolph (French Agriculture volunteer) to meet up with his translator who was
going to drive us to the horse races. Her brother ended up driving us to the
races. We made a pit stop at her father’s countryside ger, where we had a snack
of bread and cream before jumping back into the car. We arrived at the horse
races early, the horses wouldn’t be crossing the finish line for another hour
and a half, so Rudolph and I walked around taking pictures and sat down to eat
a couple hushuur which is like the food of Naadam. Hushuur is mutton fried
inside dough in a flat shape. Finally, the race was about to finish, so we ran
over to where the finish line was to watch them all come in. We ran across the
field to get to the less busy side and were yelled at by police, but that was
the perfect time to pretend to be tourists who don’t speak the language, because
Naadam was crawling with tourists, so we blended in well. Except I was still in
my hot pink del, which drew a lot of attention, next year I will remember to
bring a change of clothes. So many people pointed at me but more of them also complimented
me, so it was okay. I had not planned on going to the horse races that day, so
there I was running across a field in a hot pink del, my bright blonde hair
curled and in high heels. Everyone else was in regular clothes with boots and
hats on. There was trying to blend in, so I just pretended not to notice the
pictures being taken and the people pointing at me. The races are exciting, but
are actually really sad to because the horses and jockies, who are boys ages
6-11 years old look absolutely exhausted and look as though they will barely
make it over the finish line. Mongolian horse racing is a cross-country event, with races
15–30 km long, dependingon the age of the horses. Usually the horses are
ages 2-5 years old. The races are among
the same age horses. So one race is the 2 year olds, the next the 3 year olds,
and so on. In the race I watched, one horse was jockieless, another boy was
actually holding the other horses reins and crossed the finish line with both
horses. In each race there are always a number of horses who finish without
their riders. This year a law was passed that all the boys had to wear helmets
while racing, thank god. I remember last year none of the boys had helmets on!
It was terrifying to see, especially because many of the boys ride bareback, so
there is nothing for them to grab at in case they start to fall and they are
going so fast! Rudolphe who is a vet in France, was shocked to see the state of
the horses at the end of the race. Many of them were injured, several crossed
the finish line limping and barely moving. Once they cross the finish line, men
on horses run up to the boys and their horses and pull them off the horses onto
their horses, because the boys are so absolutely exhausted that they are doing
all they can to hold on till the finish line, so once they cross they are
grabbed and put onto another horse with an adult who holds them and brings them
to the winners circle. It is so intense. I was cheering like crazy and it is very
cool to see, but sad to actually see what happens after the race. I am sure many
of the horses and riders are fine, but it is apparent at the end that there are
also ones that are not.
After
the race was finished, the man drove us back to town, where we then met up with
Will and two other volunteers who were visiting for a couple days. It was so
great to see them and spend the next couple days with them. We went hiking to
the old soviet cemetery and up to the Monastary on Bulgan Mountain, and went camping for a night at the river. It
rained and stormed for an hour when we first got there, but then cleared up
nicely. We cooked horse meat and veggies on the fire and listened to music. It
was a nice relaxing night. The next morning, we woke up and walked home and had
a nice breakfast together.
On
Wednesday I will taking a week long trip to Selenge to visit my host family and
then visit Ulaanbaatar. It will be so nice to see them again, I cannot wait!
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