Christmas Time is Here...

12/26/2014

Well winter officially “started” here.  Winter has been here, with temperature hovering in the negatives. We have now entered the first of the 9 9’s as Mongolians like to call it. Here in Mongolia winter is classified into 9 sets of nine days. Mongolians in the countryside didn’t always have the luxury of knowing the date or time so a set of “standards” were set that herders used to determine where they were in winter. Here they are:

 1st 9s: Vodka made from milk freezes.

2nd 9s: Normal vodka freezes/congeals.

3rd 9s: The tail of a 3 year old ox freezes and falls off.

4th 9s: The horns of a 4 year old ox freezes and falls off.

5th 9s: Boiled rice no longer congeals and freezes.

6th 9s: Roads start to become visible through the snow.

7th 9s: Hill tops appear from beneath snow.

8th 9s: The ground gets damp.

9th 9s: Warmer days have set in.

The 3rd and 4th nine are supposed to be the coldest and then it is supposed to warm up after then. However, don’t let this list fool you. It will be well below freezing until April. 

To celebrate winter starting, Jen and I bundled up and went for a walk to the river. It was actually surprisingly sunny and warm when we did the 6 mile round trip walk. The river was completely frozen in some parts, where we boot skated, and then melted through at other points. It was really beautiful and nice to actually get outside of the buildings and enjoy the fresh air. It has been brutally cold here for the past couple weeks so I rarely leave my apartment. Because of this I have a lot of time to read and peruse the internet. Here are 7 interesting tidbits about Mongolia that I have learned from chats inside my health department and hours spent on the internet, laying on my radiator for warmth.

1. Mongolia has 13 horses for every citizen.
2. Mongolia has the world’s lowest population density. Just 2 people per square km. The U.S. has 35.
3. Mongolian’s tend to only have one name. They differentiate from other people by using their father’s first name as a “last” name. This means people’s “last” name changes with each generation. There is no family name that is passed down.
4. The top sumo wrestler in the world is Mongolian.
5. Mongolians on average consume 26 liters of alcohol per person per year. Of that, only 1 liter is beer. Vodka and fermented mares milk make up the rest.
6. Mongolia is home to the only truly wild horse. Here they are called takhi but are known as Przewalski’s horse around the world.
7. Mongolia still has outbreaks of the bubonic or “black” plague. Mongolian’s hunt marmots for their meat and sometimes the flea’s on the marmot pass the plague to humans. That is why when cooking the marmot, they literally blow torch all the fur and skin off.

Now onto Christmas…. I was able to skype with my Nana, my parents and my sister on Christmas morning. I opened present sent from my family and a stocking sent from my 1st grade teacher, Miss Francato! I am so blessed to have such caring people in my life. Christmas morning was spent dancing around my apartment with my kitten to Christmas music. Around 1pm, I got a call from my director, asking me to come to the Health Department. I had taken the day off, but I knew she must have a gift for me. I quickly got dressed and ran over there. I walked up to her office, where she had a beautiful cake and card waiting for me. My Christmas gift. It was wonderful. I celebrated Christmas with my site mates, listening to Christmas music and watching movies. Our real Christmas party will be on Sunday, when all our soum volunteers can come in for dinner. Although, I had a lot of fun, I am so happy that this is my last Christmas spent away from family!

On Christmas Eve, I went into my Health Department bearing gifts for my coworkers and my director. I brought in a big bowl of candy canes as well to give all the soum doctors who traveled into the city for their annual reports at the Health Department. I had given my main counterpart, Ariuk, gifts for his three daughters. He rushed home to give the gifts to them, and sent me these adorable photos on facebook, thanking me for the gifts! (I finally figured out how to add photos to this blog)

Every December, all the soum doctors have to report to the Health Department to give them their statistics and annual reports. This means, that my Health Department doctors have two weeks of receiving reports and finalizing the reports to be sent to the Health Ministry. So I have no actual work to do at the health department right now. It is a welcome break. I just go to work to plan and research health trainings I want to do the coming months and use the internet. Haha. Another volunteer in Mongolia and I are trying to start a DARE like program in the schools. We have contacted the DARE company in the US and they have agreed to help us set up a program here! In Mongolia, drinking, smoking and fighting are all huge problems plaguing every aimag. There is no program in schools to help diminish this and police officers are feared and hated. I would love to set up DARE in the schools, not only to combat all the bad behaviors, but to also develop a strong, trusting relationship between the schools, students and police officers. People do not trust the police hear and therefore never call them when they are in trouble. I want to change that. I want the Police Officers to become role models for the community and I am hoping setting up DARE in the schools could do this.