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.

Looking ahead

This picture is a common view in the Mongolian countryside. As you look ahead, you see a bumpy road going on for miles with few landmarks. Perhaps this is an accurate image of our future. We are moving ahead without a lot of specific directions or signs. We know the future is going to be “bumpy” but we keep moving ahead. Thanks for your prayers.

How do you learn Mongolian?

Q: How do you learn Mongolian?
A: Anyway you can.

Certainly it helps a lot to go to a language school, memorize vocabulary and learn rules about grammar. This is the easy part.

But the best, riskiest and most fun (usually) way to learn Mongolian is to talk to Mongolians! Of course you make lots of mistakes and sometimes you get funny looks. But the 20th, 50th, or 100th time you try to say what you are thinking, Mongolian comes out! In the meantime, there are lots of embarrassing moments, anxiety and (hopefully) laughs. Liz is great at this. As you can see, people quickly love her and are eager to share in the strange experience of hearing and seeing an adult grope for simple words.

Here are some examples:
• To a friend, I might say, “Would you like to go for a (alkh) walk?” But Liz said, “Would you like to go for (arkh) alcohol?”
• To the painters in our apartment I meant to say, “The (khana) wall is dirty.” But I said, “The (khaana) ruler is dirty.” And this was just after elections!
• In answer to, “Would you like more food?” I meant to say, “Jahung” (a little). But I said “Jarlung” (toilet). (No reflection on the quality of the mutton, please!)

Stop Complaining

We complain about inconsistent water pressure and temperature. But it could be even more difficult. These kids live in a ger district that we can see from our apt. They are responsible for lugging water to their house/ger.

Daily flexibility

Those of you who attended our "Send-Off" service at Grace Covenant Church may remember the message from Dr. Drew Stevick. Drew is a veteran of 4 trips to Mongolia. And he has endured my (Jim's) "over organized" mission trip planning. Drew encouraged Jim to "become more flexible."

I am becoming more flexible. I have to. Here is one example:

Every morning when I get up , I check the water. The options are:
a. We have hot water "khalon oc" and good water pressure. (Unusual but it does happen. Jump in the shower immediately before conditions change.)
b. We have hot water but very little water pressure. (Shower "shu-shu" by trickle.)
c. We have no hot water but great cold water pressure. (Turn on the auxiliary water heater "osknee botsalgach", wait 20 minutes and enjoy a hot shower.)
d. We have no hot water and very little water pressure "geegig osknee shachach." (Turn on the auxiliary water heater and wait 40 minutes for a trickle, warm shower.)
e. We have no water (common - No shower "shu-shu gwee.")

The strange thing is; Liz always seems to time it right. Sometimes she gets a hot shower but when I take my turn, the hot water is off. She has a blessed life!

See Drew, I am becoming more flexible! (Please be careful what you pray for us. But keep on praying.)

2008 August - A visit to the Mongolian forest

Most of Mongolia, including the part of Ulaanbaatar where we live, has very few trees. Therefore, it was a treat to get into the forest of northern Mongolia last month. Many of the north slopes are covered with Siberian Larch, Siberian Pine, Birch and Poplar. In August the knee-high grasses were sprinkled with Fireweed, Rose, Edelweis, Aster and Gentian. Whenever I tell Mongolians that I am a forester, they are encouraging and tell me there is a lot of work to do here.

Near Misses

Last week during a lightning storm, our “ger ytac” home phone suddenly made a loud whining buzzing noise and “nas parsen” died.
Wednesday:
· 2pm - A man knocked on our door saying, ‘Telephone’ in English. We let him in. He pushed the phone buttons and declared with authority that the phone no longer worked!
· 4pm - Kim (a Korean/German who heads a Christian rehab ministry for former inmates) came to see the broken kitchen counter top. It broke when his crew painted the apartment last week.
Thursday:
· 6am – The internet service is down in our part of town again.
· 8am - Leaving our apt to go to school, we see a battered apartment door. It had obviously been pried open, destroyed & replaced. I remember hearing some banging last night!
· Noon – While walking home, a 20ish man quietly walks up behind us and unzips J’s backpack. There is nothing worth stealing: only toilet paper, a notebook, baseball hat, water bottle and peanut butter sandwich. He secures the zipper pulls with a bread bag tie.
· 4pm - Our landlord tells us that his nephew, Chuga, will install an alarm system in the apartment around 7 or 8pm tonight. We visit some other missionaries for dinner and return home about 8:30. We assume the alarm is installed or Chuga will come tomorrow. Wrong. (“Remember what country we live in?”)
· 8:45pm – We’ve changed into our pajamas. There is a knock at the door. It is Chuga. .. a woman. . . and 3 older men we don’t know. Everyone takes off their shoes. One stranger puts on Liz’s slippers that were on the shoe rack by the door. The 3 men are Chinese and install the alarm system…in every room. They test the very loud alarm about 50 times (remember it is after 9pm in an apartment building.) The Chinese installers don’t speak Mongolian or English. The woman translates from Chinese to Mongolian (she knows no English). Chuga is supposed to translate from Mongolian to English for us. Chuga is shy about using English! We get to practice our Mongolian! They finish in about an hour but the alarms don’t have batteries. Maybe tomorrow Chuga will get the batteries and bring them to us with an English language owner’s manual. (When tomorrow? Let me guess. Sometime when we least expect it. Perhaps while Liz is taking a shower and Jim is scrapping glue off the floor?)
· 10:30pm - As we go to bed, we review the crazy happenings of the past 24 hours. There were many near misses but “yumch xamagui,” it didn’t matter. Every thing is fine. God has His eye on us.

Suits and Bows

No such thing as Labor Day in Mongolia. But today was the first day of school (Sept. 1) and it looked like a holiday to us. As soon as we stepped outside our apartment building we saw kids and moms headed for school carrying fancy bouquets of flowers. Many children were in uniforms or dressy clothes,little boys wore suits and white shirts, girls were in jumpers and white puffy hair bows.
Colleges started today too. Our bus goes right through the university district. Today it was much later than usual. Last week we had our choice of seats, not so this morning. After all the seats were full and the aisle was jammed, at least another 20 people “sardined” on board. When the driver stepped on the brakes I just leaned into the crowd leaving my feet under someone else’s body 3 rows behind my shoulders. We passed 4 schools and each one had a huge banner and balloon arch over the entrance. The college across the street even had a red carpet draped down the crumbling front stairway.
Kids were excited, parents were extra busy, buses were extremely crowded and traffic was super congested. One school banner said, “Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow.” Education is valued here in Mongolia. On the way home from school there were boys swimming in the river. Perhaps they finished school in the morning or maybe their families couldn’t afford the uniforms (and flowers)?
I asked one dressed up 7-year old boy if I could take his photo. I told him he looked cute and asked if this was his first day of school? He answered my questions and then asked if I knew Mongolian? I answered, “Just a little, just a little.” But I walked away proudly because I successfully had a conversation with a 7-year old who assumed I knew his language. Cool.