Visiting my host family

July 23, 2014

                I arrived back in Tsetserleg at 11 o’clock last night. I had an energizing week vacation in Ulaanbaatar and Sukhbaatar,Selenge. The highlight of the week was definitely reuniting with my host family again for three days. I love them so much and I am forever indebted to them for helping me get through my first 3 months in Mongolia.

                I first took the 9 hour bus ride to Ulaanbaatar where for two days I gorged on veggie burgers, iced coffees and chicken sandwiches. Hands down, the best meal I ate was the veggie burger which not only had hummus and tomatoes on it but an avocado as well! I literally dream about avocados, among other foods. I saw on the menu that the burger had avocados on it, but in Mongolia, ingredients listed on the menu are commonly not actually on the food you are served. Most of the time, the dishes in the menus are not even available. When going to a Mongolian Restaurant you must ask what they have, because if you just go by what the menu says you will be severely disappointed or will have to keep naming dish after dish to only be told they don’t have that today. So it is just best to not even look at the misleading menu and ask the waitress what they have today. So when the burger came out and avocados were present, I nearly squealed with delight and to celebrate I ordered a glass of white wine, more expensive than my burger, who cares that it was only 1130am. I sat outside in front of the fountain at this nice table devouring my veggie burger and trying to not guzzle the wine. I then ordered a bottle of sparkling water and sat at my table admiring the beautiful day and reveling in the fact that I was on vacation and could drink wine at 11am on a Thursday. In UB this summer, they started what they call “pop up” restaurants near the main square. Local restaurants take turns cooking their food in tents  and have tables near the fountains and statues. It is so nice to be able to sit outside and enjoy your meal. That is something I really miss about home, enjoying a meal out on the patio of a restaurant or sitting outside a café with an iced coffee in hand.

                After lunch, I went to the Chojin Lama Monastary complex, which is in the center of Ulaanbaatar among the new modern buildings. The difference in architecture is striking. When walking up to the Monastery, the background behind the beautifully crafted temples, is tall glass buildings and construction cranes. It is a representation of how quickly Mongolia is urbanizing and how very different the culture is now than it was 50 years ago when the temples were built. The monastery is now completely surrounded by high-rises and construction. But the minute I took my first step inside the monastery complex, it was like being transported back into time. There were magnificent gardens and statues. The complex itself it house to 4 different temples, which each served their own purposes from 1908-1960s. In 1938 it was turned into a museum by the Stalinist government. You are not allowed to take pictures inside the grounds, which was disappointing, because the architecture was extraordinary.

                One my tour of the monastery was over, I met up with some friends and other PCVs who were traveling in UB to go dinner. I ate a delicious grilled chicken sandwich with and iced mocha coffee. I swear I spend all my money on food when I travel into the capital. Everything I crave can be bought their for the most part (except sea food), so it totally worth spending my money on the overpriced dishes. The 20 minutes of joy it gives me is worth the empty bank account when I go home. Who cares that for the next week I will have to live on oatmeal, raisins and Fluffanutter sandwiches (thanks to my parents for sending them), it is worth it. I also can bake a cake if I get desperate enough. After my two days were up in UB, I boarded the train to Selenge aimag to visit my host family in Suhkbaatar city. I splurged on first class train ticket, which got me my own soft bed in two bed cabin. There was no way I was going to sit on another bus for another 10 hours, or sit on a crowded train. And boy was it worth it. I was able to read, watch a movie on my laptop and sleep. I wish the train went all around Mongolia, because that by far is the best way to travel. Unfortunately, it only runs north to south from UB on the Tran Siberian railroad system. Seeing the Mongolian countryside via the train was one of the most beautiful things. Wide open space for miles upon miles and wild flowers and herds of animals everywhere. Also, I lucked out, in that my cabin mate was a young man who was fluent in English. He had just gotten back from the United States where he studied for a year in Chicago through an exchange program with a university. He was on the train with his son, on their way to visit his grandparents. For the most part, we kept to ourselves sleeping or watching our own movies, but we chatted for a brief period. And as luck would have it, I also was placed with him on my way back from Suhkbaatar! What are the chances! More about that later. So after another 10 hours, I was arriving in Suhkbaatar around 8pm on Friday night.

                My oldest host sister Muksayaa and my family’s new volunteer met me at the train station and walked me back to the house. As I walked up to the house, Amaraa (3 yr old host brother) and Anokaa (6 year old host sister) ran to me screaming my name and hugged me. I was so happy to be back and hearing them scream my name was the best feeling. I was hoping they would remember me, but they were both so little, I wasn’t sure if they would. Amaraa did have problems remembering my name over the next couple days, most of the time calling me Bill (the new volunteer is named Will, but they can’t pronounce Ws so it becomes a B sound). I responded to Bill or Brittnana. I was ushered into the house where dinner was waiting for me. Delicious noodle soup and bread. My host mom told me I needed to eat more because I had lost weight and winter was coming again, therefore I needed the weight back to survive. My host sister kept looking at me and told my host dad numerous times that my face was smaller. Haha. Before I sat down to eat, I gave everyone their presents from America. I then sat down to dinner and chatted with them and the new volunteer who seemed to be having the same experience that I did with the family. After dinner, we decorated shirts my parents had sent from America with puff paint. The girls loved it and really took their time writing and drawing on the shirts, Amaraa just emptied the contents of two paint bottles all over the shirt and then spread it around with his hands. So adorable. We then played with their new barbies and they did my makeup. It was like I never left, we got right back into the same routine. After spending some time with the kids, I went to meet the new volunteers in town at one of their host family’s houses. It was a lot of fun talking with them about how training was going and hearing them all so excited about finishing training and swearing in as a volunteer. At the house, was one of my favorite family, more like favorite host dad, of one of the volunteers in my group. This man is hilarious and is so into peace corps volunteers. It was fun to be hanging out with him and his wife again and to hear his new PCV talk about the craziness going on in his host family house, just like the madness that went on last year in the very same house. So much fun.

                The next morning I woke up and helped my host mom, along with the new PCV, make hushuur. That afternoon we were going to be going on a picnic with my host family and their friends. I love making food with my host mom, she just laughs at me the whole time, as a try to figure out how to properly pinch the dough. I still can’t do it, and inevitably my hushuur looks like large raviolis instead of properly pinched Mongolian hushuur. Although esthetically unpleasing, they still tasted great. We packed up the car and drove off to the mountains to meet up with their friends. We played volleyball and soccer and hung out for the whole day, drinking beer and eating huushur and chips. It was a great time! Half way through our time there, Amaraa, who is obsessed with cars, hopped into my host family’s car and pretended to drive it around. Anokaa hopped in as copilot and they played for hours in the car. At one point, Amaraa called me over and told me to get in the back of the car. He asked me where I would like to go and for 30 minutes I sat in the back seat telling him different places to drive, which he did so with driving sound effects. He is obsessed with cars. Over the three days, he played with the little match box cars I gave him, as well as his little car he can sit in and move with his feet. Also, anything that was in the shape of a circle, he turned into a steering wheel and would pretend to drive around. He used a plate as a steering wheel throughout the house all night long. Driving in and out of the rooms and outside, making his little driving noises. Eventually it turned into driving his play car around the house, picking up the girls’ barbies from different locations and making up stories about where they were going and what they did.

                I was planning on leaving Sunday to go back to the capital for a couple days, but my host family asked if I would stay a day extra so that I could visit a friend of their’s at her ger for lunch Sunday afternoon. I was having such a great time, I said of course I would stay another night. So Sunday morning, I woke up early and walked around town. Everything was pretty much the same as when I left a year ago, except for the fact that there were now sidewalks along most of the streets and a new apartment building had been built on the main road. After a couple hours of playing with my sisters and brothers, we all once again piled into the tiny car and drove off towards the outskirts of the town to a friend’s ger for lunch. As soon as I entered the ger I was offered milk tea and dried yogurt curds. Two of my favorite Mongolian foods/drinks. We all sat on the floor of the ger snacking on the dried yogurt, waiting for the meat to finish cooking. I listened to them talk and was introduced to several family members. The meat was then brought into the ger in a giant metal bowl, along with a smaller bowl containing potatoes, onions and carrots. We all dug in grabbing pieces of meat and vegetables with our hands. No bowls, plates, forks or napkins offered. We were each simply handed a knife to help aid us in removing the meat from the bones. This is one of my favorite parts about Mongolia in the summer. Freshly cooked/roasted meat and vegetables, that you just simply eat with your hands. Something about the raw animalistic way you rip the meat off with your teeth (me mostly with my fingers, because I hate how the meat gets stuck in my teeth if I use them primarily to remove the meat from the bone), really makes me feel like I am in Peace Corps. This is exactly what I imagined eating in Mongolia would be like. Sitting on the floor of a ger, chomping away at meat and root vegetables. There was very little actual meat in the bowl, I think I may have gotten one of the only pieces actually; most of it was the organs and insides of the animal. Luckily, I spotted pieces of the liver and heart and steered clear of the intestines. After we were done eating, the grandfather of the family, took my on a proper tour of his house next door and of the “barns”. Not sure if that’s what you call the buildings that pigs and sheep live in, but that is what I will call it for now. First stop on the tour was the pig barn, he showed me the large hole they had made in the ground from rolling in the mud, and explained that they like to sleep in that hole. I was happy to just look into the barn, but he then pushed me through the little door and told me to walk around and really see it. So I walked around and tried to seem impressed, but really it just looked like a wood shack with a lot of mud inside. But apparently, this was a nice barn and one that should be admired. We then took a look at his potato plants and headed over to the sheep barn. This one was much larger and had a place from them to graze in front. Again I oohed and ahhed at the barn. He seemed pleased that I was so pleased about it. We then went into his house and he showed me around the two rooms. It was actually a pretty decent sized house and with really cool Buddhist paintings and masks hanging on the walls. After my tour was over, my family decided it was time to go home and take a nap. So we all laid down a took a nice afternoon nap. When we woke, we decided to try out the water balloons I had brought. Since there is no running water, so no faucet, the new PCV suggested we use his air pump, put water into it and shoot it into the balloons to fill them. It worked, although it was very time consuming to go to the well and fill up a couple pots of water and then funnel them into the air pump and them fill the balloons. We each ended up getting three balloons after about an hour and a half of work. The kids really enjoyed throwing the balloons at the house, they did not like when I threw it at them however. That night my host parents left to go to a friends house so Will (the new PCV) and I were left to watch the kids. Luckily, the kids are really good at playing by themselves and doing their own thing, so we watched a movie and hung out for the night.

                I left Suhkbaatar at 6am on the train. My host parents gifted me with some snacks for the train ride and nice Russian shampoo (which I actually needed to buy when I got back to site, so it was great to get it). They walked me to the train station and carried my bags for me. They even boarded the train with me and made sure I got to the proper cabin. They joked as they left the house that morning, that they would be going back to Arkhangai with me and that Will needed to take care of the kids for the rest of the summer. I told them as they left me in my cabin that they should come visit me in Arkhangai and that I would visit them again this winter. On the train I was walking down the aisle, looking out the windows when I ran into my friend from the way to Selenge Aimag. It was so surprising seeing him again, what are the chances we would be on the same train again. So he moved himself into my cabin to chat. This time we talked for almost the whole ride back to UB. He told me all about his time in Chicago and how he would watch Family Guy and the Simpsons to learn English slang words. He also told me about some fun clubs and bars to go to in UB. He is really into trance/EDM music and told me some different Mongolian DJs to listen to. He was so funny and I shared all my funny Mongolia stories with him. He became seriously concerned though, when I told him how I keep my food in the back of my toilet to stay cold since I have no refrigerator. He told me that I was going to get sick and I told him, I have it all figured out and I know how long certain foods last back there and that I have yet to get sick from it. He just shook his head is disapproval. It was such a great trip and talking to the new volunteers really energized me and helped me to be more excited for this next year! I made it back to UB and stayed there for another two days, shopping for items I couldn’t get back at my site and enjoying the food options.