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.