Emotions

            “We’re leaving for good.”

I broke the news to my ladies two weeks ago. Their reactions stunned me. The jewelry workers got angry, didn’t-talk-to-me-for-three-days angry. Everyone threatened to leave the project. Emotions of mourning.

Last week, we had our exit interview. I cried as I described how I felt every experience of my life has prepared me for this season. Fulfilled.  Friday, we gave away our plants to friends eager to care for them.  Satisfied. Yesterday, I cleaned out the drawer of my bedside table. I reminisced over Russian candy wrappers, language flash cards, and 7 year old florescent notecards holding farewell prayers. Supported.

On the weekends, we have enjoyed cruising the web, dreaming about how we could update our Olympia home. Eagerly anticipating. Every once in a while, Jim, grinning ear to ear,  gets out our one-way tickets just to read them, to feel closer to going home. Excited. One of my ladies teases me that if she could find and hide those tickets we couldn’t leave. Loved. How can one heart feel such opposing emotions: excitement, giddiness, glee, dread, fear, and heart breaking sadness simultaneously? Emotions of mourning.

Our chalk board has read: “104 weeks” . . . “99 days” . . . “4 Mondays” . . . We’ll make our final descent down five flights on October 16, 2014. This chapter of our lives is ending. This adventure full of notable Facebook posts is coming to a close. I thought I was eager but I find myself sad! Emotions of mourning.

When we get on that plane, we will leave a part of ourselves in this Outer Mongolia, south of Siberia. This place, language, life that once seemed other worldly, has become home. ‘Mongolia’ has been seeping into our blood for more than 14 years. This leaving is not sudden. From the beginning, we anticipated being here for 6-10 years. The Lord whispered to us 3 years ago that this would be the time for our departing. Yet anticipation does not soften the transition. Emotions of mourning.

We’ll miss the collection of ancient perspectives, home remedies, and traditions. We’ll miss functioning in two languages, trying to teach our tongues to pronounce parades of consonants. We’ll miss conversations about extreme weather, mutton and mares’ milk. We’ll miss keeping our eyes peeled for new sights and behaviors. We’ll miss our deepened dependence on God, the stretch of doing what seemed impossible. We’ll miss being part of radical changes in people’s lives.  Emotions of mourning.

We look forward to going home: to flowers, green grass, smooth roads, to salty crunch, gentle rain and being within hugging range of people we love. But we’ll not forget the joys, the struggles, the faith journey, our Mongolian family. We have entangled roots.  Names of daughters, sisters, grandmothers have been etched onto our hearts.  Emotions of mourning.

Scarcity

         We know people who have lived in Mongolia since the early 1990s. They tell stories about how everything was scarce. They barely had to look both ways to cross streets in the capitol. There was no choice but to live off mutton like the locals. A member of each family had to spend most of every day just standing in lines for basic things like bread.

        Here in UB in 2014, supplies are abundant by comparison. Six years ago, when we first came, shopping was still a challenge and exhausting. It took us months to furnish our apartment, spending whole days searching for one item like tall drinking glasses, a can opener, sheets or pillows. Many things we brought or had sent from the States like hair gel, almonds, and picture frames.  For over a year, we hunted for a living room lamp. The one we finally found is not one we would choose if we’d had a choice. But it was a miraculous, albeit, expensive, find when in the back corner of the outdoor market, there stood a 5’ tall fake mahogany floor lamp with a 1890s style shade with ugly gold tassels.

        Our apartment is comfortable now, and Mongolians have discovered how to make or import some of our favorite things like scented candles.  There are fruit and vegetable stands on the streets. But some things remain scarce and seasonal. Seasonal, as in, it seems a container full gets shipped in and then peanut butter or kidney beans pop up in every shop. But, a month later, when that load has been sold, the same items cannot be found anywhere.  And there are other things that are here but you have to know what they look like for example butter. Butter has always been available. We are in a nomadic land sporting 10 times as many animals, including cows, as people. But we bought what looked like butter in several alternative forms before we discovered the right stuff: sour yogurt butter, margarine, and lard. Yuck!

        This week, Jim, discovered another such camouflaged product. He went to five different stores looking for baking vanilla. He tried asking clerks in his broken Mongolian. He called Liz to ask for the right Mongolian spelling and pronunciation.  He even had one of my ladies talk to a clerk to ask if the store had the stuff, all to no avail. A determined shopper, Jimmy persisted, and on the way home, found a little paper packet of dried vanilla at a nearby shop. It was wearing a very tricky costume. Some foreign word for vanilla was used, Turkish, German, or Russian? Confused by the picture on the front, he bought several anyway. There was no vanilla bean pictured, just a giant strawberry on the label.

        When I got home, he was very excited to show me his little treasure. We examined the packets carefully. The envelopes were so thin, they barely seemed to contain anything. The word, Aromat, was on the front making us think that maybe it was a deodorizer rather than a spice. Curious, we opened it. It smelled like strawberries with a hint of vanilla, like fast food restaurant versions of a strawberry milk shake. A little leery that we’d be eating berry scented chemicals, I stuck my wet pointer into the fine white powder and licked it. Indeed, strawberry flavored powdered vanilla.
        We have never heard of such a thing. We’ll have to be choosy about what we use it in, strawberry-coffee might not be so great, but strawberry-vanilla oatmeal sounds scrumptious.

"Sue avaray! Sue avaray!"
We hear the distant chorus early in the morning.
Carrying metal jugs sloshing with the freshest of the fresh, a herder comes hawking his milking in front of our apartment building. From our balcony, I watch our neighbors respond to the call bringing vats of every size and shape. Curious about the weather, the animals, life - they stand and chat with countryside folk long after they've watched their containers fill with ladles of creamy fresh liquid.
This is Naadam weekend when hundreds of horses and school age riders have gathered to race for fame and coveted prizes. So the 'sue' in the urn is likely mare's milk.
Since we don't drink mares' milk in the USA, I wondered about its nutritional properties. Google offered information from the International Dairy Journal. The conclusion of the 2002 report said,
"mare’s milk is, on the whole, more suitable than cow’s milk as nourishment for infants." (Nitrogen%20fractions%20and%20fat%20composition%20of%20mare%20milk.pdf)
So, get your plastic bottle ready for the next time you hear the caller's song.
"Sue avaray! Sue avaray!"

Dal-eeke Dal-low-la

                 
 I'm always fascinated on shopping day when a full sheep carcass is brought into the shelter and cut up into usable portions. Today I learned some new things while watching Owndra chop up the sheep. She explained that the tail fat is used as baby lotion. And the shoulder bones are special. They are called dal (meaning 70) After boiling, the triangular shaped pieces are set aside. Then Dad in a common ceremony distributes tasty tidbits to the children piece by piece. This process is called Dalike Dalowla All the other bones are placed in a bowl and everyone chomps on whatever they'd like.

Weather Lag

Dry out the webbed feet. Be reminded of what the sun looks like. Warm up and have some fun. Winter vacations to warm places, for PNW-erners, are soothing respites from chilling rain and cloudy skies.
We've been transplanted to the dry, Siberian, polluted cold of UB.
We looked forward to getting out of winter for a spell in order to warm our bones, moisten our skin, clean out our lungs, and enjoy being together. For 2 weeks in December we were able to do those things in Taiwan.


But coming back is quite a transition. The -30s feels numbing.  Coal smoke makes us gag even while in our living room. And Jim turns into Jack Frost on his 10 minute walk to work.
Mongolians hunker down in the winter. They tend not to make changes in the coldest months. Its all about surviving. We're surviving but still in weather-lag after a great time of rest & fellowship with other Covenant folk in a land of shorts & sun glasses.