Exciting news!

Me and Matt are engaged!

The day me and my family got back to UB from the countryside, he told me he wanted to take me out for a nice dinner after work. We went out for a fantastic meal at the Ivy, pretty much the fanciest restaurant in Mongolia. Matt had pre-ordered our entire meal and we enjoyed a thoroughly mutton-free, gourmet dinner. I thought he might propose at dinner (I had guesses about the intent of the night hehe) but we headed back to our apartment after the meal. He opened the door, and I think my jaw literally dropped because our shabby old apartment had been transformed into a pavilion of roses and candles. Our good friends Nina and Hannah had snuck into our apartment while we were at dinner and decorated the place! Matt proposed, we drank champagne to celebrate, and told everyone the next morning. We really couldn't be happier! But before you ask, no we haven't set a date. It will probably be awhile in the future yet, and we need to decide where!

When we met in Peru, 2008

Now, engaged in Mongolia!

Family trip to Mongolia

It has been a long time since I last posted, sorry! Lots of stories to tell though, so enjoy!

Last time I posted we had just had Matt's birthday party at the end of July. I enjoyed about a week's break afterwards during which I was able to prepare for the arrival of my family in Ulaanbaatar on August 7th. I scraped together a pile of maps and tourist info, a local cellphone, and some Mongolian money to meet them with at the airport.

The day arrived and I took the bus to the airport to meet them. It was awesome and weird to see my family actually in Mongolia! My mom and dad, Grandma Isenberg, and Jonathan all managed to make it over. Bryan had to stay back and do visa stuff for his upcoming trip, but he will be arriving in a few days for a two week stopover before beginning his year studying in Japan.

Overall I think they had a great trip! We stayed in Ulaanbaatar for about a week while they got over the jetlag. They got to check out lots of museums, cafes, and restaurants, as well as monuments like the Zaisan memorial which overlooks the city and the Chinggis Khaan statue in front of the government house. For our first meal we went to Khaan Buuz, a Mongolian fast-food joint. My intention was to introduce them to a variety of Mongolian foods including salty milk tea, fried mutton noodles, steamed dumplings, fried meat pancakes, Mongolian goulash, etc. I unintentionally introduced them to the realities of Mongolian restaurants, which is that half the time they only have half the menu they claim to have, and Mongolian food isn't that great. Khaan Buuz was particularly bad, so I unintentionally set the bar for future Mongolian meals very low that morning. The good thing about this is that every Mongolian meal we had afterwards was "not bad".

After hanging out in UB for about a week we headed out for an epic 8 day road trip. We managed to cram all of us, our stuff, Chingerel (who we hired to translate), and our driver Miga (you may remember from my first trip to the countryside back in March) into the van.

The highlights of our trip:

Day 1: Khustai national park, I finally got to see the famous, reintroduced Przwalski's horses! It was super cool and the national park was beautiful. In the morning I saw owls!

Day 2: We rode camels (I hopped on a horse) in the picturesque sand dunes on the way to Arvaikheer.

Day 3:We visited my garden families and they showed my family everything from the gardens they'd been keeping to how they milk their horses, and we exchanged gifts of candy and aaraal and chatted over lunch. It was a really special experience. We tried to make it to the waterfall but the weather caused us to fall short and we ended up staying at a very "local" ger camp. The beds were hard and my family got a kick out of the outhouse, but the people who ran the place were so friendly and kind that we didn't mind!

Day 4: We drove up to Kharkhorin, also known as Karakorum. We looked around the town and my family went for a guided trip of Erdene Zuu monastery. We stayed at a ger camp on the banks Lake Ugii.

Day 5: We had an exciting day trying our hand at fishing and riding horses. We drove to Bulgan city and stayed the night in an old Soviet hotel with grumpy staff that still gives us a laugh.

Day 6:We drove to Amarbayasgalant Monastery and stayed in a lovely ger camp. The weather was starting to get cold.

Day 7: We drove up to the Russian border town of Sukhbaatar. We had fun shopping in a Russian grocery store and stocking up on Russian treats. Before dinner we drove right up to the Russian border at the town of Altanbulag to have a look.

Day 8: We drove back to UB looking forward to a hot shower and a meal without mutton in it.

Favorite quote: Dad: "Is this dirt road the shortcut?" Me: "this is the road"

Jonathan with a hunting eagle

Grandma with a hunting eagle

At Khustai National Park

Wild horses!

 

Riding horses and camels at the sand dunes

Sunset after a storm at Lake Ugii

A random deerstone.

Party time!

Hello again!

Since I last posted I've been out to the countryside for my last mid-term assessment trip, and we've also celebrated Matt's 24th birthday. Coincidentally this was his 2nd birthday in Mongolia; last year we were traveling through Mongolia from China around the same time.

First the birthday coverage: Hannah, Nina, and Taylor, good friends of ours, offered their apartment up for the festivities, which was very much appreciated as our apartment is tiny and shabby. We decorated the place with balloons and a happy birthday banner while Hannah decorated the cake. I managed to bake the beastly chocolate cake in our small rickety oven, and Hannah, the artist, decorated it in a multitude of colors and Mongolian patterns!

Decorating the cake

The birthday boy with the finished work of art

A few days before the birthday celebrations, I completed my 3rd midterm assessment countryside trip. It was back out to Selenge/Darkhan aimags in the north. Now my research project is officially 75% of the way done, yikes! Since the last trip to Selenge was so hairy, I was hoping this one would go smoother. In the end it did go a lot smoother (just because that last trip was so horrible), though I wouldn't call it an easy trip. It started off well, (as these trips usually do). We found a driver in Darkhan city who agreed to take us to the families on our way up north, stay over in a city near Russia, and then come back the next morning. Sorted! So off we went, but as we made our way to the first family we drove beside a lake with lots of baby toads leaping across the sandy dirt roads towards the water. Our driver stopped the car, clearly terrified, and told us he didn't want to keep going because frogs in the road were a bad omen. With a little persuasion we convinced him to drive on the grass next to the dirt road so he wouldn't squish any toads.

When we arrived at the first family's ger, I was disappointed to see that hardly any of their plants had grown. Even the onions hadn't grown! I asked them how often they watered their plants, as I asked at every ger, and like at every ger I received the same answer: "every day!". Since even their onions hadn't grown at all, I was very skeptical. But that is the nature of this research project, determining whether not it will work and why.

As we said goodbye til next time, our driver, who was looking very worried, told us that he was taking us back to Darkhan city because he was getting a bad vibe from us, and the frogs were a bad omen and he couldn't deal with it....

So back to Darkhan we went, and found another driver to take us north to Sukhbaatar city. When we arrived, we hired yet another driver to take us to the families up there. Luckily, a woman from one of the families was in the city at the time. She offered to show us the way to two of the families who had moved. I didn't realize quite how far she meant, but after over an hour and a half of driving through a pretty forest we emerged in a lush valley dotted with gers. To get to one of the gers we had to park the car, carefully walk over log bridges to cross a marsh, and hike a little further uphill. It was worth it, as we were greeted extremely warmly, fed milk tea and fresh fried biscuits and sweet aaraal, and served a delectable nomads' meal. A pile of meat was chopped into bite size pieces and boiled with some onion and salt. A few meaty ribs, the breastbone, and some vertebrae were thrown in and then served in a pan with a few sharp knives with which to serve yourself. Luckily the Mongolians perceived my lack of skill at cutting piping hot meat off the bone, and obliged to slice me up some meat and fat. After that the main course of mutton soup with noodles was served. The fresh meat was so tasty and tender, truly a delightful meal in the countryside.

2 skies

Crossing the marsh

The next day we finished up the interviews. I was surprised to find that this site, which I thought would do the best because of the climate (wetter and milder) was more or less on par with Ondorkhaan for successfulness. I'm beginning to think that successfulness has more to do with how motivated the individual participants are. This also relates to how I selected my participants to begin with. For the Arvaikheer group I drove around to gers, introduced the garden project, then asked for an interview. Those who weren't interested didn't bother giving an interview. For Ondorkhaan and Selenge it was the opposite, I asked if they would be willing to do an interview and then introduced the garden project at the end of the interview. A lot of those people sort of shrugged and said "sure". This is one of the many lessons I've taken away from my research project so far!