Kharakhorin

Whoops, I forgot to add a post about my day in Kharakhorin 2 weeks ago. Here you go….
A couple weeks ago, my sitemates and I took a quick trip to visit the ancient capital, Kharakhorin, and home of my friend and fellow PCV Marisa (whose service is ending in 3 weeks). All the Arv volunteers went, as well a PCV named Katie I hadn’t met before who lives in Arkhangai (whose service is also ending).
This was actually my first real meeker ride, which is amazing as I’ve been here almost a year. It’s a confusing mode of travel. Meekers (vans—the word comes from “microbus”) leave whenever they want. You have to just walk around the area of the market where they hang out and bang on people’s windows and ask them where they’re going and what time they plan on leaving. So someone told us they’d leave Saturday at 5pm. We were bummed that it was going to be that late (since we had to come back on Sunday), but there weren’t any other options. So on Saturday at 12:45 I was sitting in my long underwear and eating peanut butter (what? It was Saturday!) when I got the call from Babila that the driver wanted to leave at 1:00 instead. We ran to get our stuff together and the driver agreed to meet us near my place instead of at the market. The van was full by the time we got there of course, but we managed to squeeze in…..then we went to pick up all the other passengers. In total, it was only 15 people and a baby, which isn’t really too bad in a van that seats 10, but it’s not fun, either. It’s always surprising to me how quickly we drive out of my town. Just half a mile away from my place and the houses, gers, and buildings stop. Then there’s nothing for another few hundred miles. The road stretches on for a little ways though, and after a few minutes the driver started honking and slowing down. I thought, “Wow, is there another car on this road?” but when I turned around, I saw it was just a really big herd of sheep. The countryside is absolutely beautiful in the summer, of course. Especially if you’re heading north towards the steppe rather than south into the desert. The whole ride looks like a postcard—green mountains with a little snow and a smattering of horses here and there.
By the time we got to Kharakhorin, the others—Marisa, Allison, Katie and Jo—had already had a private tour of the not-yet-opened museum and visited the monastery. I missed the museum, but at least we went to the monastery again the next day.
That evening, we visited with Marisa’s hashaa family. She won the host family lottery—her family is so sweet. Her host mom and dad were really good at talking to foreigners, so I could understand everything they were saying. They’ve also been trained by Marisa so they made us vegetarian food and didn’t even offer milk tea. We toasted Marisa and went through some vodka. Marisa’s dad explained to us that she’s his “tom okhin” (oldest daughter). She asked him if he’ll miss her and he said, “Yes. I love my oldest daughter.” Awwww.
We all looked at the family’s old pictures. The couple went to school together from elementary to high school school—very cute! The wife pointed out the girl in their class photos that her husband dated before the two of them got together, and we all proclaimed loudly that she was not nearly as pretty as her.
Marisa’s host dad, Bihay, spent a significant portion of the evening sizing Babila up—asking him his weight, height, shoe size, etc.—to try to guess what his chances would be in a wrestling match. He brought out his wrestling speedos and told Babs he would have to come back for Naadam and wrestle him. By the way, Babila shortens his name to “Babi” to make it easier for Mongolians, but Bihay thought it was “Baby,” so we called him that for the rest of the trip.
Later, Marisa was teasing me for having a rear end that is maybe ever-so-slightly on the large side. Bihay didn’t understand, so Marisa explained what she was saying. He looked at me with a straight face and said very seriously, “Zugeer (That’s OK.) Don’t feel bad about your big butt. It’s good for women to have big butts and breasts.” So if my sitemates make fun of me for my appetite (and they often do), I’ll tell them I’m just trying to maintain a sufficiently feminine physique.
The family also showed us a video they had taken on their cell phone of Marisa eating sheep testicle soup. There was a lot of squealing and grimacing, but she put away 3 balls, so she’s a braver man than I. Then they showed us the video of them extracting the testicles from the live, conscious sheep. I watched about 20 seconds of that before moving to the other side of the sofa.That night we slept Mongolian-style, with 6 people in Marisa’s little ger. Not the most comfortable situation, but at least it was very warm.
The next day before we left for another meeker trip we went to Erdene Zuu monestary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdene_Zuu_monastery), which was lovely and there were already a handful of tourists there (it’s finally getting warm!) The temples were beautiful, but I’m not Buddhist, so I didn’t really know what was going on.
There was a group of Russians visiting, and one of the men sidled up to me in the monastery and tried to have his friend subtly take a photo of us together. I realized what was going on, so I just smiled and posed with him. He and his friend laughed but didn’t otherwise explain themselves before walking way. Later Katie told me another Russian had done the same to her. I don’t know if they were weird or didn’t speak any English, but I suspect both.
When we went to get back in Bihay’s car, we realized we had locked the keys inside. Bihay immediately started asking other people for their car keys and trying them. We Americans all sort of raised our eyebrows at each other—how did he think another car’s key would be able to open his car? But sure enough, within 2 minutes someone had opened his Nissan Pathfinder with the key to a Hyundai Sonata. So, if you have a Pathfinder…don’t park it next to a Sonata, I guess.
Back in the car, we drove around the monastery to the back, where the ruins of the ancient city are. We wanted to see one of the four stone turtles that were placed at the four corners of the city (to represent long life…I guess tortoises do live a long time, so it makes sense). Unfortunately, the area was blocked off by a barbed wire fence, with a metal gate tied shut with more barbed wire. We all groaned our disappointment at having to miss out on seeing the ruins, but Bihay was unfazed. He parked the car and got out. We all simultaneously asked, “Is he doing what I think he’s doing?” and, sure enough, he walked up to the gate and started painstakingly (and painfully, I imagine), unraveling the barbed wire that was holding the gate shut. Every few seconds he would prick himself on the wire, wince and suck his finger, then get back to work. Within a few minutes, it was open. Even as I kept waiting for some monks or police officers or someone to come yell at us, he got back in the car and drove through…onto the ruins. We did a quick photo shoot with the turtle, and the Buddhists among us prayed, and drove back (Bihay got out to retie the barbed wire). I know I’ve mentioned that people here don’t seem to acknowledge obstacles, but I never stop being amazed.
As soon as we got back to Marisa’s hashaa, we had to get on the meeker, which was, of course, already full (we totaled 17 people this time). Somehow, we got the four of us plus bags in and took off again. I was not technically on a seat—the edges of my hips rested on 2 different seats, while my aforementioned voluminous buttocks spanned the gap between them, and I held my backpack on my lap. The man facing me, who had been displaced when the hefty foreigners had taken over the meeker, was also not on a seat, but sort of perched on the edge. This meant that my knees were wedged between his, our faces were about a foot apart, and we were unable to move. I’ve gotten so used to living here that it was only about an hour into the ride, when both my feet fell asleep and I was trying to adjust them in some way without disrupting this guy too much that I realized it was kind of an awkward seating arrangement. We spent the ride carefully avoiding eye contact. I would rate it about twice as uncomfortable as the ride the day before, when I was facing a woman who breastfed her toddler for about a third of the trip. On both rides, we passed a section of the road out of Kharakhorin that had 7-foot piles of dirt and old tires blocking it off, with a sign nearby saying that the road was closed. I guess they were doing construction or paving. Both times, though we had different drivers, the driver took a running (so to speak) start and hauled the van over the piles of dirt and continued on the road. I don’t know why anyone bothers trying to make rules here. I also don’t know how that van managed to make it up such a steep hill (it also made it, slowly but surely, across a smallish river, so I guess I don’t give astrovans enough credit). About 45 minutes into the 5-hour ride, I got a call from Marisa saying that she had my wallet. So Peace Corps service has not quite made me a responsible adult yet, but I do have another year to work on it.

Marisa and her sister in Marisa's ger:


Marisa' sister giving what I think is the peace sign. Her hair is really short because she recently had her hair-cutting ceremony:


The neighbor boy gets a spot on my blog just for being so freaking cute:


Erdene Zuu:


Monks-in-training at Erdene Zuu:


Bihay shows us the skull of a wolf he killed. Baby Isu is a little apprehensive.


Bihay sizing Babs up:


Awww. Almost makes me wish I had a host family. Almost.


Inside Erdene Zuu:


The Turtle: