The bountiful harvests of Uvurkhangai

Just got back from my second trip out to assess the progress of the gardens after a nice long Naadam break. I was excited to go out to Arvaikheer, in Uvurkhangai aimag. The people there are extremely friendly and hospitable, and the countryside is like a painting. We had a nice trip that was neither boring nor stressful. At every ger we were offered freshly made milk products including aaraal (dried yoghurt), eetzgii (dried cheese), and airag (fermented mare's milk). The fresh countryside airag was much tastier than I remembered. It was fizzy and refreshing. The eetzgii and aaraal were also tastier than I remembered. At one ger we were offered shimiin arikh, a clear liquor made by distilling milk. Perhaps the milk of animals in midsummer is milder, because this too was quite pleasant.

People were excited to show us their gardens, which to their and my delight were flourishing. Compared to Ondorkhaan, the gardens here were doing even better! More plants per planter were alive, and those that were growing were more robust than those in Ondorkhaan. It'll take more time poring over the data to draw conclusions about why that is.

There were some nice surprises on this trip too. One family had been so taken with the gardening idea that they had started their own, growing some special grass for their livestock in plastic containers they kept in the bed of their truck. Another family had replaced the plants that hadn't grown with garlic cloves they had bought themselves. Another family whom I gave two sets of gardens consolidated the plants into one planter when some had been eaten by goats. It was great to see people's innovation!

During our trip we had one snag. In the search for one family we got stuck in a boggy mud patch. With the help of a nearby herder and a shovel he lent us, with me driving the car and the driver, Chingerel, and the man pushing the car, we managed to get out without too much trouble. It's not a trip to the countryside if you don't break down at least once or get stuck in mud!

Some photos of the gardens:

Proud gardeners!

Special grass for his livestock

The alyssum bloomed!

Uvurkhangai, a beautiful, empty place

The goats were nibbling the gardens so they put them up higher.

Lots of lettuce!

Look at all that garlic! It's flourishing!

These people rigged up a post to attach their gardens to!

Naadam

It's mid-July and the Naadam festival is upon us here in Mongolia! Naadam literally means 'games' and refers to the three "manly sports" of horse-racing, archery, and wrestling. Despite the name, only wrestling is exclusively a men's sport. Women compete in the archery competitions and boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 13 jockey their families' prized horses over 10-20 mile courses in the races. The traditional festival greeting, saikhan naadaarai!, translates to "happy games!"

Originally me and Matt were planning to leave UB for the Naadam festival. Unfortunately, we realized a little too late that most of the countryside Naadams happen before the UB Naadam. This way the competitors can compete in their hometowns and then go for more glory in UB. To make the most of the UB Naadam, we got up at the crack of dawn and went out to the race course, about 30km west of the city, to watch the stallion race. It was cool, foggy, and chilly. We got ourselves some hot salty milk tea right away to warm up, and some traditional khuushuur (fried meat pancakes). Having already experienced airag (fermented horse milk) we decided to give it a miss.

Soon after we lined up along the bleachers with a crowd of excited Mongolians. We were all crammed in against the ropes holding us back from the track, squinting into the fog for a sign of movement. After about 20 minutes the headlights of the lead car became visible and an excited murmur went through the crowd. Slowly the outline of the horses became visible through the fog. The horses came galloping in to a chorus of "coo! coo! coo!" from the crowd, the traditional encouragement to the horses and their riders to finish the race strongly. As the first five horses neared the finish line, a horse and rider galloped from the sidelines to meet each of them and cross the finish line with them.

Each race has hundreds of horses competing in it, so we stayed for a little while to watch the runners up finish the race. Afterwards we had some more milk tea and made our way back to the city.

The horsemen waiting to meet the first five horses.

The winner!

Runner-ups vying for a higher place.

Side note:

Hannah and her parents brought us back this beautiful tuski (Kazakh wall hanging) from Bayan-Olgii. It was handmade between 1962 and 1964, a true antique! We are totally delighted with it and we've hung it up in our apartment where it takes up an entire wall.

Up close.

Did they grow?

YES!

This weekend me and Chingerel went back for the first time to see if any of the plants had grown in the planters we gave our nomadic herder families. Since we went to Ondorkhaan, the closest of my sites and a short 2 day trip, Matt was able to come too and see the eastern steppe grasslands for the first time.

We were surprised and delighted by how well they had done with the gardens! I had been partly expecting them all to have been unwatered, abandoned, or possibly broken or eaten by goats, but almost everyone was able to grow something.

Each family had a very different experience with them and it was great to hear all their stories. For various reasons some of the gardens hadn't worked completely, but I'd say about 50% were doing well.

The good news: almost all the families' onions were flourishing in their bottle gardens. Garlic was also growing quite well, as were beets and turnips. The families all mentioned what a novelty the gardens were, and that people passing through often stopped to have a look and ask about them. I noticed that the nicer, friendlier families were the ones who had taken care of them the best. One garden had already been nomadic; they moved the two planters from their winter place to their summer place, and then from their summer place to their relatives' house in the town. To do this, they told me, one of the young men tied a planter onto his back and another onto his front and drove it by motorcycle across the steppe!

The bad news: all the tomato seedlings had died (not the right soil possibly?), plus most of the plants that weren't root vegetables. One family had thrown the garden out completely because it had broken and they couldn't be bothered to fix it. One family had been dutifully watering their garden, but the soil we filled it with was full of weed seeds so they were growing a flourishing garden full of weeds. One family's child had picked all the plants out of the planters, and one family had been sort of busy and not really bothered with it.

Interestingly, some of the families said they would have liked to grow more flowers and decorative plants, and others said exactly the opposite, they would prefer just onions and garlic and useful plants. All the families suggested plants that are easier to grow. Some families suggested a different watering system, and others liked the design. It was great, such a mixed bag of opinions!

We were really excited by our results, especially since I predicted Ondorkhaan would be the least successful growing site (a very dry climate plus less enthusiastic participants in general compared to Selenge and Arvaikheer). I'm looking forward to seeing how the other sites have done!

Now, we are taking a break before going out to the other sites for the summer Naadam festival. During Naadam everyone kicks back, eats khuushuur (fried meat pancakes) and airag (fizzy horse milk yogurt), and watches Mongolian wrestling, archery, and horse racing. It's a great time to be in Mongolia and we're planning a trip to the countryside to enjoy the holiday and revel in the festive mood.

Til next time!

Oh and check out some photos :)

Success! A few of these are weeds though :(

Very happy onions and beets :)

Baby cranes!

This tiny lady makes me look like a giant. I gave her the photo I took of her and her family and she was not impressed because she was wearing her work deel (long coat). I asked her if she wanted another photo and she enthusiastically agreed and then dug through her chest of deels, trying on three before choosing this one for the photo.

A herd of horses romping across the steppe.

Happy plants.

This family is so friendly and sweet. Their parents were out herding and they were hanging out at home. I asked about their bean plants and they sheepishly told me that they had left them outside and the goats had nibbled them up. Luckily the plants in their hanging planters did ok!

Road trouble

Ok I'm back! I took a few weeks off blogging to welcome Matt to UB and help him get settled in. He's just finished his degree in intercultural communication and Chinese studies and he's here to stay until I finish my Fulbright year! Woohoo! After getting over the jetlag and a welcome-to-Mongolia bout of food poisoning, Matt's been on the hunt for an English teaching job to pay the bills while we're here. So far so good; out of 4 interviews he's been offered 4 jobs. He's just working on scheduling the hours now.

It's probably for the best that I've had a few weeks off before I wrote about my third trip to the countryside, which can only be described as a fiasco.

First off, before I even headed out to the countryside, I was almost thwarted from finishing and picking up the planters from the agriculture school. Apparently they were holding some sort of secretive and confidential standardized tests in the school building that weekend, and no one was allowed in, not even professors. This kind of bureaucratic rule-enforcement is a typical Mongolian frustration that I'd been lucky to avoid for most of my time here. The security guard at the school was having none of my pleading and begging, and only through a combination of tears, and my very pregnant advisor roaring at him, did he let me in to get my stuff. I had been planning to finish the planters at the school, but instead took them home and finished them up in my apartment. I got back and realized I had left an entire bag of bottles at the school. After delivering some choice swear words to the walls of my apartment, I finagled the rest of the planters so I would have enough to give to all my participants, with a few adjustments. I maybe should have taken this as an omen and postponed my trip, but I figured the most stressful thing that could happen for this trip had happened and I'd gotten over it and it would all be fine. Oh, how wrong I was.

The next morning I met Chingerel at the greenhouse as she tried to find us a driver. Unfortunately, there were few drivers in that part of the city early Sunday morning. She found one guy, who took one look at the crazy foreigner with her planters and nervously mumbled that he "didn't know the way" (there are basically 2 paved roads in Mongolia, a roughly north/south one and east/west one) so that's why he didn't want to come. The next guy she found was driving an official taxi, with a green and white checker pattern, a meter, and everything. "Are you sure we can go to the countryside in that?" we asked skeptically. "Oh yea, no problem."

So off we went, put all the gardens in the trunk and the back seat, and set off on what seemed like was going to turn out to be another great trip. Our driver said he was from Darkhan, the main city up north where we were going, so all the better. The taxi car was roomy and comfortable and got great gas mileage (a plus since I pay for gas). However, as we drove over the paved road, zooming towards Darkhan, things began to unravel. A chunk of the bumper fell off, our driver started squabbling about the pay we'd agreed on, and my normally cheerful, smiling, laughing translator Chingerel was cross and stony-faced.

I couldn't understand everything Chingerel and the driver were saying, but I could tell he was annoying her. As we drove on, he began to annoy me too. At first just little things, like ignoring my instructions, or scoffing at my attempts to chat in Mongolian. However, by the time we arrived in Sukhbaatar, near the Russian border, I was actively reminding myself to take deep breaths and not snap at his childish and grating behavior.

I decided to give us all an early night, hoping the rest would put everyone in a better mood the next day. We found a nice hotel and a nice cheap triple room, as we'd done for our previous trips. But oh no, our driver threw a hissy fit and demanded to be housed in his own private room. Most drivers I've worked with need to be persuaded to stay in the hotel and not to sleep in their car, which is what they normally do on jobs in the countryside. So after a bit of a negotiating, we decided he could pay the difference if he wanted to stay in a single, more expensive room. Off he went to another hotel, to our surprise but also great relief.

The next morning we got up early and headed out to find our families. These were definitely the toughest families to find of my three research sites because most of them had moved and not all of them had cell-phone coverage in their new locations. Luckily though, I had photos of most of these families. By driving around and stopping at gers in the area where I suspected they were and showing the photos, we were able to find them. In the case of one family, we spotted a herder on horseback tending his flocks and drove up to him to ask for directions; it turned out he was a member of one of the families!

The weather was crappy that day; cold, rainy, buggy and boggy. Selenge aimag gets very mosquito-y in the summer. Because of all the rain, many of the families were difficult to get to because the ground was soft and marshy. We slogged through, getting soaked and more grimy at every stop, but at each ger we were greeted warmly and offered a much appreciated hot bowl of salty milk tea and a variety of fried biscuits and fresh milk products. The most delicious of which was, hands down, the fresh, even still warm, sheep/goat milk yogurt with sugar. Fatty, rich, creamy, tangy, and sweet, it doesn't get better than that!


The generosity and friendliness of the families we met gave me and Chingerel a boost, since the weather and dealing with our driver was taking a lot of energy. He spent most of the time whining, arguing about the best way to do things, ignoring me when I told him which way to go and where to stop, insulting Chingerel and my herder family participants, and acting like it was his vacation trip. I deduced that he was a spoiled little punk, and the constant head-butting was wearing my patience thin.


Despite that, we were able to give out almost all of the gardens the first day. We decided to drive back to Darkhan for the night and finish the last two in the morning. Mostly, the driver wanted to see his friends in Darkhan, and I wanted to be rid of his company for the evening.


When we arrived in Darkhan, we found a cheap and clean hotel for Chingerel and myself, while the driver was planning to stay at his parents' home. We said goodnight, and to meet us there tomorrow at 8am. "No" said the driver, "we'll meet at 9". I looked from him to Chingerel and back again. "No, we'll meet at 8, we need to finish everything and get back to UB early." At this point, the driver stomped out of the room without another word. I strode out after him. "Come at 8 or don't come at all." I stared him down as Chingerel translated this. "No, I'm coming at 9, 8 is too early" he sneered at us. Then he said something harsh in Mongolian and Chingerel burst into tears, and I lost it and started shouting at him with words I knew he didn't understand, and Chingerel started shouting the translation of my words at him, something about "bad attitude," "never had this kind of attitude from another driver," "not putting up with it," etc etc. As he continued to shout abuses at Chingerel, I told him that's it, he was fired, I'd pay him for the work he did and he could leave. I went to go get my money and came back outside, and he wouldn't unlock his car to get the planters out until I had paid him his wage and for the gas that was in his car before we started. We finally completed the hostage handover, and as me and Chingerel turned away to go back into the hotel, he spat at us. Not the way I wanted to end things of course, but it was a huge relief to be rid of him.

The next morning we found a friendly local guy to drive us to our last 2 families. The weather was sunny and warm, and we seemed to be ending our trip on a good note. But just as we were leaving our last family, a freak hail storm came out of nowhere and pelted us on our way back to the city. It seems that overall, my third trip to the countryside to distribute planters was rather ill-fated.

Here's hoping that my next trip will be a lot smoother!

Check out some of my photos from the trip :)

The taxi car, plus a puppy chewing on a bucket.

Gardens on the ger!

This family was so lovely! They were so enthusiastic about the plants that I gave them all the extra seedlings. We'll see what they do with them!

Showing a bunch of women from one of the families how to transplant seedlings and plant seeds in the planters.

Happy plants! Hopefully they'll be this happy when I go back in July.

A family with their plants.

Just call me Alaska

Here's the second post in the three-part series on the delivery of planters to my participating herder families in the countryside.

The second site I went back to was my eastern Ondorkhaan site in Khentii aimag. You may remember my slightly less enthusiastic post about my first trip out there. The people living around Ondorkhaan tended to be a bit more suspicious of me, and I picked up a sort of unfriendly vibe. So I was a bit nervous in bringing the gardens out to this group and worried about their reactions.

In the morning Chingerel and I hired another driver from the streets of UB, packed up the car, and headed off. Halfway to Ondorkhaan our driver Davaa turns to me with a confused look on his face and says in Mongolian: "Is your name really Alaska?" Haha! It turns out the pronounciation of my name in Mongolian, "Alayks", sounds a lot like a popular ice cream called "Alyaska". We all had a good chuckle once that was sorted out.

When we arrived in Ondorkhaan we called up Ganbaa, the driver I hired for our first trip. Although he lives in a haashaa (fenced in yard) in town, and he had asked if his family could have a garden as well so I said sure. We met up with his family, helped set up his garden, and he showed us the road to where the other families were living.

Again, I didn't need to be nervous! The families had all warmed up considerably since I first met them. I last visited this site in April, so it was a little trickier to find all the families since more of them had moved, but we found them in the end. See some photos!

I let the families decide where and how to put their gardens up. This family had a wagon caravan/trailer they use to move. So we put the gardens up on either side of it, so it drapes over like a saddle bag.

Herder kids are really strong. This little guy scooped up this lamb, nearly the size of himself, in one arm and posed with his bean plant in the other. Probably one of my favorite photos of all of them!

This family had found an orphaned foal a few days before. It was the cutest little thing, wandering around after us, nickering at us, flopping down to sleep next to their yurt, and tolerating lots of petting. When the time came for the garden photo it following it's 'herd' into the frame and the kids held it for the photo.

Gardens hanging from a shed.

An old couple with their nomadic garden. Another family looks after their animals (they're retired) so their gardens could be set lower than other families'. 

I got a few nice pictures of Demoiselle cranes!

Making the gardens together. 

Chingerel was cooing over this little filly even worse than me!

Stink-plant

It's been a long time since I last posted, but I come back to blogging with some exciting stories and cool photos :)

So the end of May saw me operating in a sort of methodically frantic manner to finish all the planters. I may not have learned to not bite off more than I can chew yet... anyways I was spending about 12 hours a day on the gardens, but I did manage to finish them all in the end! Here is what they look like fully assembled with a wooden frame:

 

I also planted some seeds so I would have seedlings to take out to my participants.

Some radish and turnip seedlings

With about 25 of these planters ready to go to my first site, I met my friend and translator Chingerel bright and early to arrange transportation the Mongolian way; flagging down passing cars on the street and asking if they'd be willing to cram the planters, seedlings, me, Chingerel, our supplies, and themself in their car and drive 5-7 hours outside the city over crumbling roads and paths that are little more than tire tracks through meadows and over mountains to find herders who may or may not have moved and who may or may not have cell phone coverage where they live. However, as this is Mongolia, drivers weren't too hard to find.

We set off to Arvaikheer, my third site, first. Since I didn't know quite what to expect when delivering the gardens I decided it would be best to go to the most recently visited.

I needn't have been nervous though because every single family was delighted by the arrival of their "nomadic" gardens. They thought they were cool! And to my surprise they readily strapped them up to the sides of their gers or hung them on the outside walls of their animal shelters and sheds. The best were the family with kids. I gave each kid a cup and let them choose a bean seed. My semester teaching kindergarten has given me a knack for getting kids excited about stuff that's not all that exciting on its own. So I turned planting beans into a game and by the end of it they were thrilled and convinced they'd gotten something between a new pet and a new toy. The big smiles on their faces made the whole thing worth it!

Garden on a ger! How cool is that?? Also note: Mongolians don't like to smile for photos, hence why everyone looks stony-faced and glum. They were just smiling mere minutes before!

This family decided to attach their gardens to their animal shelter. Most nomads' winter places have a permanent 3-walled barn structure to protect their animals.

All the littles ones with their bean-cups!

This family lived way over the mountains in the middle of nowhere (middle of nowhere for a nomad means even more the middle of nowhere than for the rest of us). They were so excited to see us that they insisted on having a good long chat, feeding us a meal, letting me ride their horses, and then taking pictures with their 1 year old daughter. Like most countryside Mongolian kids she will probably learn to ride at about the same time she learns to walk.

Attaching a garden.

On the way back we stopped at this lovely little marsh on the side of the road that was full of bird life. Many species of migratory water birds had made it their home for the summer. I saw a nice collection of cranes, geese, ducks, swans, and a stork!

And finally, I finish this post with an amusing story. At one family's place we drove up to their ger and upon opening the car doors were greeted with a wonderful herbal smell. A sort of minty-thyme scent carried on the warm wind. It smelled so fresh and nice! The herb was covering the ground and I picked a piece and asked Chingerel what it was. She promptly asked the herders, who sort of chuckled a little and then Chingerel explained that "the locals call it stink-plant"!

More blog posts will come soon about my second and third trips to deliver gardens :) Bayartai!

Prototype Planter!

Hello again everyone! Oh what a sad month May has been for blogging… apologies again. But like I said, the less blogging, the more I'm working on my project. Having spent almost every waking hour of the last month obsessively making parts for the planters like some sort of machine, I'm happy to say that my work is finally bearing fruit. (pun intended of course!)

Here it is folks! A nearly complete model of the planters I've been slaving over. I will be adding a wooden frame around it to make it even more sturdy (although it's pretty sturdy already since it all fits together snugly), and of course adding the plants to them. In the last week I've planted seeds that I'll take out as seedlings to my herder family participants in June.

Here are some cool features of my gardens:

-they recycle water; water poured in the top pipe trickles down all the columns of bottles at once. the pipe on the bottom leads to a container for catching the overflow water. Then this water, which is nutrient-rich from traveling through the soil, can be reused to water the plants again.
-they are designed to lie on top of a yurt
-the black paint on the bottles is to protect the roots of the plants from sunlight
-they are made out of discarded/recycled bottles
-the total cost of materials in each garden is about $6-8

I am thrilled with how these are coming out! They are a huge pain to make, but mostly because I've been making about 70 of them single handedly. I am eager to see what herders think about them, and I don't have to wait long to find out. At the beginning of June I will be heading out to the steppe again to deliver the gardens and provide a short training on growing plants and how to use the planters. I'm picking up the pace to finish everything by June 15th, when Matt will arrive! If I can get it all done I will be able to take a nice break until July, when I head back out to the countryside for mid-term interviews and question answering.

Ok that's all I have time to write now, I really should go paint more bottles...