New Year's Eve Dinner - Mongolian style

We were invited to Liz's language tutor's home for New Year's Eve dinner. So we arrived at 7pm expecting mutton and cake. We were "coached" a little on what to bring.

(Photo of "Shin Geel" New Year's tree with Mongolian money in the branches. "Grandfather Winter and his Grand daughter statues are under the tree.)When we arrived we presented Ariuna's mother with a box of nice chocolates and Ariuna with a bottle of Coca Cola (her favorite). The apartment, for Mom, Dad, Ariuna and her 10-year old sister, has a kitchen, living room and one bedroom. The parents sleep on the fold-down living room couch.

We were escorted into the living room. While the family was out of the room, I placed Mongolian money on the New Year’s (Christmas) tree for the children (a Mongolian tradition). Liz also made earrings for Ariuna, her mother and sister, so I put those on the tree also.


As the family returned to the room, we turned our attention to the table in front of the couch. On the table before us was the front half or a roasted piglet decorated with spiral cucumbers. We were served a cup of salty milk tea.

Then Ariuna served the NINE salads; carrot, cucumber and tomato, fruit in yoghurt, red cabbage, white cabbage, pickled various vegetables, and everything in various combinations. We were given a little salad plate and salad fork and told to serve ourselves. We were also warned that we could not leave until all the food was gone.

After enjoying samples of all the salads, Ariuna's father poured us each a shot glass of vodka, which we did not have to drink, but we needed to accept. Ariuna’s non-Christian father dipped the tip of his right middle finger in his vodka and flicked it in 4 directions, then touched his forehead.

Then Ariuna and her mother served the meat. Cold beef ribs, beef tongue and heart and mutton butz (dumplings). There was some red hot sauce that we added to the butz but Ariuna’s father just put a whole dumpling in his mouth. He commented that I wasn’t a Mongolian yet because I used a fork to eat the butz.

After the meat, Ariuna served the chocolate, 3-layer cake. (See the Dec 31 blog re: Mongolian cake conspiracy).

After 3 hours of feasting, we made it clear that we could not eat anymore. We thanked our hosts and as we got up to leave the table, the family presented us with gifts; long underwear and mint mouth wash for me and white chocolate and a sock box for Liz. It’s amazing to experience Mongolian hospitality.

More ugly "Christmas" trees

As we said on our November 27 blog, very few Mongolians celebrate Christmas. But everyone celebrates "Shin Geel" or New Years.

Instead of the Christmas tree, Mongolians have Shin Geel trees. There are not a whole lot of natural trees in Mongolia so a few stores sell artifical trees. I think some Mongolians have forgotten what a real tree looks like, because some of the Shin Geel trees are REALLY UGLY.

Blue is the Mongolian national color (like the sky) so it's no surprise that they sell blue colored trees. But ketchup red must be a left over from the Communists' favorite color.

Mongolian "Fast Lane"

Ulaanbaatar has terrible sidewalks. The old sidewalks are cracked and often have rebar poking thru the worn cement. As a safety guy for 20 years, I’m used to pointing out tripping hazards. In Mongolia, forget it.

It’s cold most of the year in Mongolia. Since mid-November, the sidewalks have a solid layer of compacted snow. This has an interesting effect. The cracked sidewalks suddenly become smooth; very smooth!

The kids have this figured out. On most of the hillside sidewalks, the kids have chipped away the compacted snow to get down to the layer of ice. This strip of ice becomes the “Fast Lane” as the kids and adults use this icy strip to slide down the hill.

The Great Mongolian Cake Conspiracy

Mongolians rarely bake. I think most apartments have ovens but I don't know of any indigenous foods that require baking. Of course, they don't bake in gers.

(Photo of Ariuna, Liz's tutor) Apparently cakes are an essential part of a modern Mongolian New Year's eve party. Today (New Year's Eve) there were stacks of boxed cakes at the grocery store. During our walk home from school, I counted 18 people carrying cakes in one block!

I think it was a Communist plot to create work for the bakeries. If cakes were not part of the culture, and New Years celebrations were not part of the Mongolian culture, and you want to destroy old Mongolian culture and make it Russian, create a New Year's holiday and tell everyone that you must have a cake to properly celebrate!

Many Mongolians have told me they don't like sweet baked items. Two weeks ago I got a big piece of cake at the Ukrainian restaurant and asked Liz & Bolooro to share it with me. Bolooro took one bite and said she really didn't like cake. Mongolians don’t like it but they buy it for New Years. It’s a plot by the bakery industry.

Do Americans have a traditional food that no one likes? The Norwegians have lutefisk, the Germans have blood sausage. The French have liver pate'. The Japanese have their salted fermented squid guts. The Chinese have century-year old eggs. Maybe the Americans have hot dogs at Coney Island and baseball games. Got to eat one but no one would order one at a restaurant. (Becky votes for Fruit cake!)

Merry Christmas

We put up a little artificial tree last week. Jim got his Christmas gift early (thank you supporters for your special gifts). He is preparing a service for JCS folk for the eve of Christmas Eve. Liz has worked with the homeschooling co-op kids teaching them the signs for a song to be performed this Friday. We haven't been able to find a creche but we have a beautiful card depicting a manger (thanks Kate), the ground is white & it feels like Christmas. 'Emmanuel' seems to be the theme that is speaking to us this season and we are grateful. A very Merry Christmas to you all.

Shin Jill Gemelick (New Year Decorations)

It seems to be the standard for stores to hang tinsel. Workers stick double-sided tape on the ceiling and then hang tinsel one strand at a time. Labor intensive but worth it, apparently. Mongolians don't celebrate Christmas but New Year's is a big deal and looks much like Christmas.

Frigid

We have pulled out our heavy duty winter wear and it isn't even winter yet, so they say.

Forecast: Smoke

Living in the Pacific NW, we knew what 'sun breaks', 'showers', and 'drizzle' were. Living in Mongolia has meant a whole new wardrobe and a definite change in forecast terminology, for example:
"Smoke. Hi -6° Frigid. Temperature of -6°F. Winds NNW 11mph. Feels-like temperature of -24°F."
The temperature has not been above freezing for months so the snow that has fallen remains. The local delight is with fresh snow because it cleans the air as it comes down.
These 2 photos were taken from the same window of our apt, same time of day, with smoke & without.

First Thanksgiving in Mongolia – 2008Nov27

Thanksgiving is not a national holiday in Mongolia.
There are no turkeys, yams or pumpkin pies in Mongolia.
I don’t know of any Mongolian Christian churches that have Thanksgiving services.

So for our first Thanksgiving in Mongolia, we invited 10 Mongolian friends to join us for supper. We made homemade roasted vegetable soup, rolls and carrot cake. Several of our guests brought juice to share.

I think the Mongolians thought our feast was strange. Several of them pushed the vegetables around in their soup trying to find the mutton. Very few people ate the rolls. Our tutor told us not to tell them they were made with whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour is rarely eaten by Mongolians but they do put it in their dog food! The carrot cake was a hit. Traditionally, Mongolians don’t bake. They don’t have ovens in a ger.

After dinner we played “Four on a couch” and “Spoons.” They thought the games were great and it gave us another chance to practice our Mongolian in a competitive situation. After games we made a list of the attributes of God, sang some Mongolian Christian songs, and I explained the US traditional history of Thanksgiving. One of our friends read Psalm 95 in Mongolian and then everyone went home.

It was a good first Thanksgiving celebration in Mongolia.
Thank you for your prayers.

Ugly Christmas trees

This week at the grocery store we saw our first Christmas trees.
They were artificial.
They were Tomato soup red, Daisy yellow, and Navy blue.
They were ugly.

I hope that Mongolia gets the unsold Christmas trees from China.
It’s hard to believe anyone would make a Christmas tree this color.
The scary thing is that an American veteran missionary sold me, “They grow on you.”
Coming from the Evergreen State, I find that hard to believe.

Perhaps I have a new “watch-out” indicator – “You know you’ve been in Mongolia too long when the red, yellow and blue Christmas trees started looking good.”

Grating carrots…and Murphy’s Law

I like carrots. I remember buying carrots in the States; clean, uniform and ready to eat.
I like carrot cake. Our recipe calls for 3 cups of grated carrots.

We bought Mongolian carrots, which are orange, sweet and SMALL. Sometimes after peeling a carrot, there is just enough for ONE carrot stick.

Steps for grating carrots today:
1. Wash the carrots with a vegetable brush. All carrots and potatoes in Mongolia come with a healthy layer of dirt. I think it adds a little weigh at the grocer’s scales.
2. Peel the carrots with a peeler designed for small hands. Our peeler reminds me of a slingshot for Tinkerbelle.
3. Dig out the worm holes.
4. Soak the peeled carrots for 15 minutes in filtered water with a teaspoon of bleach. Altho we believe we are purchasing Mongolian carrots, many people sell Chinese carrots “impersonating” as Mongolian carrots. The Mongolian rumor is that Chinese use human waste as fertilizer. So to prevent parasites, everyone soaks fresh vegetables in dilute bleach water.
5. Rinse the bleach-soaked, peeled, SMALL carrots in filtered water.
6. Begin grating small, bleached carrots, being careful not to add any knuckle skin to the grated carrots.
7. The Chinese 4-sided grater falls apart. What to do now? One of my first thoughts is to call Carolyn Stoll!
8. Hold the tin grater surface in the palm of one hand while grating with the other, one palm-full at a time.
9. After grating 3 cups using 15 carrots, my hands are covered with grated carrot so I turn on the faucet to rinse my hands.
10. No water! Another example of Murphy’s Law in Mongolia.

Wearing furs!

In some parts of the world, wearing fur is an environmental taboo.

In many parts of the world, wearing fur is a socio-economic statement of the rich.

But in Mongolia, wearing fur around your face really makes a difference in the cold.

You know it’s cold when the cars wear blankets

I've never seen this before, but at
-13F, even the cars wear blankets.

Shal-nee mod – Another good idea from Mongolia

“Shal-nee mod” (floor’s tree). You find them in the Parliament building, the public schools and every apartment, including ours. To wash the floors, steps or porch, all you need is a bucket, some water (relatively clean), a rag and a Shal-nee mod.

A Shal-nee mod is a t-shaped stick. You drape the rag over the T-end and push and pull the rag across the floor. When that side of the rag is dirty, you flip the rag and continue. This was one of the “accessories” that came with our apartment.

So every Saturday morning, you can imagine us using our Shal-nee mod to clean the floors!

Older, smarter… and lazier?

I’ve lived for 50+ years in places where the winter sunrise comes late. I’m a morning person but I don’t like getting up in the dark. So last week I enjoyed sleeping until sunrise and going to language school in the afternoon. (Photo from our window - "Prayer Tower" red cross at 7:30am)

However, we were supposed to return to morning classes next week.

On Friday, I was “inspired” to suggest to our teacher that we start class later in the morning. As it turns out, she needs to teach other students from 9-11am so we will have class from 11-2 and I will get to sleep until winter sunrise! Sounds like a win-win solution to me. Thank you Lord!

Cold today

For the first time, we have ice on the inside of the insulated windows.

I was surprised and checked the Weather Underground webpage (below).

The air is so smokey outside from the coal fires in the gers that we cannot see anything more than 1/4 mile away.

We're grateful for the warm clothes, coats and boots that we brought and your prayers.

From Weather Underground: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Local Time: 7:56 AM ULAT on November 18, 2008
Current Conditions: -15 °F / -26 °C Clear

Is it a Bird? A Plane? No . . . It's Super . . .

Is it a burglar trying to break in?

Is it the latest in decorating fashion?

Dogs out for a walk?

Lucky charms?

Mongolians both fear and respect wolves. Wolves are a dreaded enemy of herders but they are a powerful and smart animal. Hang one next to your ger door (or apt. balcony) and you will definitely be protected by the spirit of the mighty hunter called grey wolf, 'chawn'.

Who is Watching Who?

Wherever we shop we draw a crowd. Today we went to a market rarely frequented by 'gadaa hoomoos' foreigners. The goods are sold out of pick-ups and vans if you want meat (carcasses) or rail containers if you want dried goods. We were hunting for 'boar goaral' whole wheat flour which Mongolians only feed to their dogs (literally). 'Why would you want to eat that?' we've been asked many times. Out of 30 sellers, only one had what we wanted. No one wants brown flour, why would you want to sell it? But as we talked with the 'hoteldutch' seller, suddenly we were surrounded by half a dozen other shoppers supremely interested in this gal's goods.

Our next stop was a large department store where we were searching for 'heeves' area rugs. Each time we bent over to touch a carpet, there were suddenly 3 or 4 others eagerly observing the same selection. But one guy was more curious about us than about the wooly squares, he stood out almost as much as we did in this modern store. He was tickled that I cared to take his photo.

Milk & Eggs

Hon,
Could you stop & pick up:
A dozen eggs,
A gallon of milk,
& some yogurt?

Sweetie,
All I could find was:
A tray of 6 or 10 eggs,
A bag of milk,
And a carton of yogurt.

You Know It's Cold When:

 30 degrees F feels ‘warm'.
 Mongolians have hoods up and hands buried in their pockets.
 It takes 10 minutes to get your outside gear on.
 You cough as soon as your lungs breathe ‘fresh’ air.
 Your nose hairs freeze instantly.
 The river doesn’t move.
 Your eye lashes freeze and stick together.
 Ger smoke hangs in the air like fog & taints your hair and clothing with its scent.
 Banana peels lying on the street are frozen stiff at strange angles.
 The bottoms of your feet are cold b/c you’re wearing thinned soled shoes.
 Long underwear doesn’t keep your legs from turning bright pink.
 Ice crystals in your beard block the strokes of a comb.
 Fingers inside down mittens feel cold.
 Your cheeks turn bright red and sting with a cold-burn.

I’ve been called lots of names...

Over the years I’ve been called lots of things, most of them nice.
• During my awkward adolescent years, my older brother and sister called me “Bobbles” because I often dropped things.
• As a high schooler and college student I was sometimes called, “A nice, young man.”
• As a wildfire camp manager, I wore a mesh safari hat and people called me “Jungle Jim” referring to a 1950 TV African safari hunter.
• One of my unique titles at large fire camps was “Porta-Potty Prince” as I managed sanitation contracts for thousands of fire fighters.
• Referring to our move to Mongolia and my face, a recent retiree referred to me as a “Don Quixote” look-alike.

But last week I was called something new.
Here in Mongolia, we occasionally shop at a Christian business that sells slippers, cards and leather goods made by poor Mongolian women. The manager told me that the clerks at Mary & Martha Ministries refer to me as:
• “The man with the shining head.”

“I don’t know that I have ever seen a bald Mongolian man, so the top of my head is rather noticeable in Mongolia. This “title” reminds me of Exodus 34:28-30:

“Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant”

I hope my “shining head” reminds people of God.

I just wanted to drop off our ballots

Last week we received our US voting ballots. The ballot said we could take our ballots to the US embassy and they would send them to the states fast and free! Great.

We learned from another US missionary that the US embassy in Mongolia would only accept ballot on Mondays and Thursdays from 1:30-3:30pm. So we rerouted out walk home from school on Thursday so we would walk past the embassy and drop off our ballots. Sounds simple, right?

As we walked along the frozen river beside the embassy in a wind chill of 8 degrees F., Liz suggested that we take a pretty photo of us in front of the frozen river with the snowy hillsides in the background. That’s a good idea. So we took the photo.

Then we walked up to the embassy to turn in our ballots. As we approached, a uniformed Mongolian officer came to us from the parking lot guard station. I said warmly, “Sain bainuu (Are you feeling well?), can we drop off our ballots?” He replied, “You take picture?” I thought he was asking if we wanted our photo taken as part of registering as a US citizen in Mongolia. I said, “We are registered but we have not had our photo taken.” He said, “You take picture?” At this point, Liz caught on that he was not asking if we wanted to have our pictures taken. He had been sent out from the guard station to confiscate our camera because he thought we had taken photos of the US embassy. The security cameras around the embassy had seen us take photos. Our camera was pointed the opposite direction from the embassy but, I guess, they didn’t notice that.

Liz explained, “We took some photos of the river. Would you like to see them?” He said, “Follow me,” and he “escorted” us into the security station. Simple minded me, approached another guard who was sitting behind bullet-proof glass. I asked him if I could drop off our ballots? He said, “Passport please.”

In four months in Mongolia, I have never carried my passport. It is locked up securely in a safe. We did not have our passports. We did not have a copy of our passports. I had no identification at all (except my ballot). Liz had her JCS identification card, her voter registration card, her Covenant World Missions identification card and a copy of her Mongolian visa. (Aren’t wives wonderful? I carry the money but she carries the important papers.) Liz showed the two photos to the parking lot guard.

The guard told us that we must wait to speak to a “counselor.” But first we had to pass thru a metal detector. Liz and I were dressed for sub-freezing weather with lots of zippers, buckles and snaps in addition to our day packs. We both triggered the metal detectors and the inspector used the wand on both of us. (I just wanted to drop off our ballots.) My cell phone, keys, apartment burglar alarm remote control and my multitool/pocket knife triggered the wand. The inspector confiscated my multitool/pocket knife. We were escorted into a waiting room while 3 guards watched us from outside. As we took off some of our layers of winter clothing, a guard came to the door to tell Liz that she dropped her hat on the floor. We were being watched carefully!

After 5 minutes, they came to the door and asked for Liz. I gave her the ballots and told her to “remember me” if she never saw me again. I have no identification. (I just wanted to drop off our ballots.) In the inspection room, she was handed a Visitors badge that clipped to her sweater. She was escorted out of the inspection room into a different room where another Mongolian guard stood behind bullet proof glass. Liz spoke thru a metal circle in the glass and asked, “Can I drop off our ballots?” The guard said, “Yes.” She slipped the ballots under the glass and was escorted back to the inspection room.

A guard came and got me. I was free to join my wife and leave! He handed me my multitool/pocketknife and we walked back thru the metal detector and out of the inspection room. As we walked past the parking lot guard station, we thanked the officer for his “assistance.” They have all been very polite. It’s nice to be outside in the freezing wind again.

The “Countryside” and the Capitol:

Within Mongolia, there are two major geographic designations; the countryside and the capitol. Everywhere outside the capitol is commonly referred to as "the countryside."

Like many third-world countries, Mongolia has one major city, Ulaanbaatar. This city contains more than 40% of the whole population of Mongolia. Most of the money, power, resources and opportunities are in Ulaanbaatar.

This picture is an overview of downtown taken from the top of the hill near our apartment. The challenges here are many; jobs, poverty, hunger, pollution, substandard housing, crime, sanitation, education and spiritual hunger.

This picture is a common view in the countryside from a hilltop about 30 miles from Ulaanbaatar. The challenges here are many; jobs, poverty, hunger, pollution, substandard housing, crime, sanitation, education and spiritual hunger.

Where do you begin? In Ulaanbaatar you can serve more people. But the people are moving to the Ulaanbaatar because there are so few resources in the countryside.

We are in Ulaanbaatar now, so this is where we serve now.

Writing Mongolian

One of the many challenges in Mongolia is writing. Many Mongolians can write their language in 4 different forms.

• Traditional Mongolian is written vertically. This beautiful script is like Arabic. This photo shows Liz learning to write traditional Mongolian.

• However, during the Communist era (1920-1990) the Russians insisted that the Mongolians use Cyrillic (the Russian alphabet + 6 letters) to facilitate publishing. The Mongolians learned to spell Mongolian phonetically using Russian letters. After 1990, there was a Mongolian patriotic movement to return to the traditional Mongolian script. But many people complained that it was inefficient publishing in this format and many young people had never used traditional Mongolian script.

The second word is cursive Mongolian Cyrillic. Like English, some cursive letters don’t look like printed letters. For example, the printed letter T is written in cursive as an M.

. The third word is Mongolian Cyrillic printing.

• Many people in Mongolia have cell phones. All the cell phones use the English alphabet. Therefore, Mongolians send text messages using English letters to phonetically spell Mongolian words.

This photo is an example of Traditional Mongolian script, Cyrillic Mongolian cursive, Cyrillic Mongolian print and “English” Mongolian. All four words spell “Telephone.” It is pronounced, "Oo Tas."

Mongolian meat "department"

This photo shows the meat "department” in an Ulaanbaatar grocery store. Signs hang from the ceiling indicating the area for Chicken, Beef, Mutton and Goat. All parts of each type of animal are on display on the counters including heads, tongues, kidneys, lungs, etc. Nothing is refrigerated. Nothing is labeled.

There are piles of animal parts here that I have never seen before. Sometimes they are blue (sheep kidneys). Sometimes they look more like the soles of shoes than meat (cow tongue).

The heat and smell given off by this fresh meat fills the room. We have learned to look straight ahead as we wall thru this section of the store.

Liz says, “In America, you can buy a package of meat and have no idea what animal or what part of the animal it came from. Not in Mongolia. You know what you are eating.”

One friend told of climbing on a van traveling between cities in the countryside. In the seat next to him was the “drumstick” of a camel. Now that’s a big drumstick.

"Building" a traditional Mongolian home

Mongolians are traditionally nomads, moving 4 or 5 times a year to find good grazing for their animals. They have developed an amazing home they call a “ger” (rhymes with bear).

Most gers have either 5 sections of lattice walls, for a small family, or 8 sections of lattice walls for a larger family. If the family gets too big for the ger, they purchase another ger and have two.
A family of 2 parents and 2 children can usually take down the ger, load it on yak carts and be moving in two hours.

The ger has one door and one window in the peak of the roof. The door always faces south and an insulating layer of felt rests between the wooden ceiling poles and a canvas, waterproof cover. The ger is well insulated and heated by a dung, wood or coal stove in the center of the single room. Furniture is positioned around the perimeter and the ground is covered with mats and/or carpets.

Liz & I stayed in a ger in northern Mongolia in 2005. So did Pastor Randy and Drew Stevick. Ask them about it!

"Red & Yellow, Black & White?"

At one of our language classes we described (in Mongolian) a photo of three children. One child was White, one Black and one was a Mongolian.

Our teacher corrected us. In Mongolian opinion, the three children were Yellow, Brown and White. The Mongolian was White. The Caucasian was Yellow.
In all my years singing "Jesus loves the little children..," I always assumed that I was in the "White" group. Not in Mongolia. In Mongolia, Caucasians are Yellow!

In the photo are Liz, Tuya our Mongolian teacher (the White one), and Kemba from Los Angeles.

Well dressed men in Mongolia

Mongolia, like many cultures, has many choices. Recently we spent an hour at Sukhbaatar Square talking to people. The Square is similar to the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. It is a large open park surrounded by government buildings. I think that every Mongolian comes to the Square at least once in their lifetime to have their picture taken.

I took several photos of older men, included men dressed in:

• Traditional robes (dels) with derby hats and boots with curled up toes,






• Pin-striped suits and wingtip shoes, and











• Sweat pants, baseball hats and running shoes.





Such is the nature of many lives in Mongolia. You can choose to keep the old traditions while welcoming new ideas. This is a wonderful time to introduce new ideas in Mongolia.

Monday: Fall, Tuesday: Winter!

A few white flecks danced on the cold as we walked to school on Monday. Snow or dust? Tuesday morning there was no doubt about it, a blowing storm covered cars and roof tops with an inch of snow. We have dug out our scarves, gloves, and hats. Such weather at this time of year is no surprise to Mongolians. They take it in stride and we all marvel at the beauty.

Starbucks Mongolian Style

Airag gers are on corners all over Ulaanbaatar this time of year. Go on in, have a seat on a foot hi wooden stool and sip on the sour taste of an 'eyeyuk' cup of fermented mare's milk, 'ayeruk'.

Toe Dust

What is the first thing you do after you get to school?
Hang up your coat? Sharpen your pencil? Say ‘hi’ to your pals?
The first thing we do is answer our teacher’s greeting. She usually asks,
“saikin hommer snow?” to which we answer, “Saikin, saikin hommer snow?”
How did you sleep? Peacefully, how did you sleep?
Then we take off our shoes. Clean shoes and clean floors are a big deal in Mongolia.
We heard recently that a woman’s testimony in church was compromised because her shoes were dusty. Our friend who told the story equated it to Americans wearing a baseball hat in church. Here, most apartments and even churches have a rag sitting by the door for using to wipe off your shoes. I was waiting at a photo development store this week next to 3 teens doing the same. I noticed one teen hand another a tissue. It caught my attention because tissues are not usually used for noses (another story). The second girl immediately bent over and wiped off the toes of her shoes. Should’ve known.

Ashes in Seconds

This afternoon we looked across the valley from our apartment and saw a ger burning a mile away. A ger is the traditional Mongolian home made in a circle with wooden lattice walls, felt "insulation" and a canvas cover. This one-room home contains all of a family's furniture, clothes, tools, food, and "earthly possessions."
Within minutes, a second ger was in flames. Within 15 minutes they were both ashes. A fire truck arrived a few minutes later and stopped the fire from burning down the fences and spreading to the neighboring homes but they were too late to save these two.

I Do!

According to the Lams (Buddhist lamas) Sept 17 & 18 were good days to get married, 100 couples did so in UB. A typical Mongolian wedding involves a bride dressed in a western style 'gone, gone, tsagone paloch' (fancy white dress) and a groom in a dark 'costume' (suit). Many of the older adults in attendance wear ankle length, silk deels decorated with a chest full of medals. Most couples live together before getting married, so often there is a child (in a 'gone, gone, tsagone paloch) between bride and groom.
If you attend a modern traditional wedding in Ulaanbaatar you would:
Meet at the wedding palace (a national institution) at your appointed time, anywhere between 6:00AM and midnight.
March thru a series of rooms just as the previous group leaves. In one room you have the legal ceremony and exchange rings.
Have your family photo taken while the next group waits behind the closed doors.
Get into a car decorated with balloons, streamers and the obligatory Barbie and Ken dolls taped to the hood. The driver takes you to Sukhbaatar Square, in front of the Parliment Building.
Have more family photos snapped in front of the statute of hero Sukhbaater on his horse and the gigantic statue of Genghis Khaan. You'd have to wait in line for these opportunities since there will be 5 or 6 other wedding parties at any given hour doing the same series of things. Within 5 minutes, runner takes your photo to the digital developing shop next door and returns with your framed photo.
After the patriotic photo session you and your family would go to a restaurant to enjoy a meal and 3 tiered cake.