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!