As I had arrived in Mongolia at the beginning of the tourist season, the only people around were a group of 5 Japanese girls, so the camp was very quiet. I had a ger or yurt (Mongolian tent) all to myself! Fantastic!
I entered through the door painted in the style of the little Hobbit and entered a cozy room furnished in the traditional style with painted wooden furniture. On each side of the yurt (can a round thing have sides?) There were two box beds; at the back was a dressing table; to one side a small closet, and in the center next to a small table and stools, was the wood stove! This excited me so much as I LOVE playing with fires and I particularly love the convenience of the wood burners, although I did manage to set my pretty expensive travel towel on fire the next day, which was very annoying. The fire was already roaring happily and of course I couldn’t resist adding more fuel to hell. After a refreshing shower and some food, I sat in the yurt, wrapped in the heat and listened to the breathing and the crackling of the fire, it was all very relaxing. When I walked out the door to see the night sky, everything was quiet; only a thin silver moon and a bright star lit up the sky. The night air was crisp and crisp with the damp fragrance of the grasslands and mountains and I could see a small stream of wood smoke pouring from the fireplace that peeked over the top of my yurt. No sound came from anywhere. It still was. Do not worry. I crawled back into the yurt, turned off the light, crawled into bed, and watched as the flickering flames from the wood stove cast their shadows and danced on the walls. Looking up into the space in the ceiling where the fireplace disappeared, I could see the moon shining down on me and I felt incredibly lucky and very, very happy to be there.
The next morning was bright and clear with a fabulous blue sky and the plan was for Zabloo and I to ride with the shepherd to the family yurt, where he would spend that night and most of the next day. We weren’t sure what time it would be, as I had to catch our horses first, but at 10 a.m. someone knocked on the door and there he was, with a face the tone and texture of a polished conker, with a look wild. pony with any evil gleam in his eyes! He was actually surprisingly obedient (I mean the pony) and we set off at a brisk trot through the grass. Mongols seem unable to walk their horses, it is a brisk trot or a gallop (what they do standing up) and that’s it! I don’t care about the canter, but the trot is done sitting and I can tell you, it is very uncomfortable without the sports bra and with a backpack bouncing off your back. We pushed the horses into a gallop and soon the yurt was in sight. In my mind, I thought we probably looked like the devastating hordes of Genghis Khan (or more correctly, Chinggis Kahn) charging through the fields, but in reality, since there were only three of us, probably not, but it was exciting nonetheless.
We were greeted by a large, fat, cheerful woman named Tunga and the father who had followed us on the modern equivalent of the horse, a small motorcycle, led us to our yurt. There were four yurts in total: one for the guests, one for the men, one for the women, and the other was the “next door neighbor.” The family I stayed with had something like 700 sheep and goats, 70 horses, 30 cows, 2 yaks, some dogs, and a cat. After leaving our bags in our yurt, we were invited to have tea in the main yurt. Well, I have to say, compared to this, my yurt in the camp was a palace! I wrote in my journal “It will be a miracle if I survive without food poisoning!” The floor of the yurt was earthenware with some scraps of old linoleum around the edge where the beds and cabinets were. The furniture consisted of two metal beds on either side of the door with a dirty-looking blanket on each and a small mountain of assorted old boots underneath; a “kitchen” with pots and pans, flour sacks and plastic containers; an altar, several stools, a chair, plastic jars, a goatskin hanging from the ceiling, and large pieces of lamb hanging to dry from a rope stretched across the yurt; Decorated on the walls were all kinds of paraphernalia: rope ties, metal stirrups, blankets, carrying bags, pots, tin lids, and photographs.
We sat around the central wood stove and chatted, with Zabloo translating, while Tunga made tea. Mongols’ drink of choice is made from whole milk (straight from the cow), green tea, and salt, and they drink it by the gallon. Let me assure you, it was as disgusting and disgusting as it sounds and since I don’t drink milk, it was even more disgusting and disgusting to me. I took a few sips to be polite, tried not to feel nauseous, and put the bowl back down. This was followed by some sweet and crunchy cookies to dip in the tea and then some bread which Tunga spread with a homemade cheesy thing that also tasted very milky / creamy. He was completely filling his face with everything and noisily sipping his tea.
After those treats, it was time to feed the goats that were really very cute until I realized that most of them were deformed or diseased in some way so they needed feeding. Two had something wrong with their hind hooves, so they only used three legs to move while dragging the fourth, and the other goat looked quite sick and had green poop hanging from its rear. Tunga seemed unaware of any of this as he busily filled the bottles with milk, collected the mud-smelling goats, and began feeding them. His shirt became the reservoir of sprayed milk, poop, mud, and God knows what else. I fed a couple because they really were cute and I felt very sorry for them, but I was careful not to touch them too much in case I caught foot and mouth disease or something like that. Thank goodness I had remembered the antiseptic handwash! All I could think of when I looked at her was, I hope she washes her hands before making lunch. The sky had gotten a bit cloudy and it was quite windy and since I was a western pamby and was a bit cold, they found me a dell (the traditional coat) and a sash to protect me from the cold. Time to make lunch !!
I’m not entirely sure he washed his hands, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and we got down to business with the meatball prep. While Zabloo finely chopped a large piece of lamb on a not very clean cutting board, Tunga boiled some water on the fire to wash the pans (hooray!). I tell you, you never really value having access to unlimited hot and cold water and electricity until you have to do without it. Life is hard without it! She made a dough out of flour and water and then she took the finely chopped lamb, added some spices from a packet and some chopped chives, mixed it all together, tasted the mixture raw, added some more herbs, tasted again, and declared it was done. Zabloo and I then rolled out little dough circles that we filled with meat and then turned into mini Cornish patties (or at least that’s what they looked like). It was a lot of fun, but I’m sure if I had to do it every day, the novelty would soon wear off. Tunga then heated up some lamb fat and fried the meatballs and I have to say they were absolutely delicious!
Another pastor appeared whose face looked like polished mahogany. He didn’t say much, he just drank his salty tea and ate some dumplings and then disappeared from the yurt. Two minutes later, I heard the sound of a motorcycle trying to start, so Zabloo and I went out to see what was going on and she managed to convince him to let me try. It was just a small 125cc and after having ridden big bikes trying to ride something as small as that is practically impossible. I staggered across the grass, trying to avoid cow / goat / sheep / horse / dog poop and tried unsuccessfully to get the damn thing out of first gear. I don’t think he was very impressed!
Tunga still seemed hungry, as he had found some old bones with lamb on top and had started cutting pieces of dried meat with a knife. She seemed a bit surprised that I wasn’t interested in trying some!
I walked a bit uphill and came back and then a few more shepherds appeared with a little kid that was tied inside the yurt (it was so cute!) And so another batch of salty tea was prepared which they all noisily sipped. Then it was time to make dinner, which took forever! We really take our modern conveniences for granted. We actually made noodles! Back home, I would open the closet, take out a package, put the contents in the pan, cook for 3 minutes and bingo, there were cooked noodles. In Mongolia, flour and water are mixed, made into a dough, kneaded, rolled out many large circles of dough, partially cooked on a metal plate over hot fire (to look like pita bread), spread a thin layer with a little oil, stack them together and then very, very, very, very finely chop them into long, thin pieces. The whole process took over an hour! Then we had to cook more lamb with some potatoes and a carrot and then add the noodles. It was pretty tasty, but it speaks to a starch and carb overload!
After dinner, she was supposed to help milk the cows that had been in the steppes, but every night they came back alone to be milked. I’m afraid to say I took a look at the process and was a complete coward and backed off faster than you could say, “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!” And anyway, he didn’t want to risk getting cow foot and mouth disease in addition to the goat foot and mouth disease he had probably caught that morning. I’ll give it a try on most things, but sitting on a three-legged stool, in a manure-filled field, pulling the udders of a poo-encrusted cow, was really not on my list of ways to spend the night! My street cred was sinking even deeper into his eyes! As I watched the cows come in, there was a magnificent sight: it was like Western. At that time, the evening twilight was fast approaching and the moon was already in the sky and as I was looking towards the top of the hill, I suddenly saw a long, long dotted line on the horizon. As they got closer, I realized that it was animals that were scattered in a line along the entire ridge and silhouetted against the evening sky. The shepherds led a herd of wild horses to the camp. Came galloping down the slope, mares neighboring by foals, young stallions challenging each other, manes and tails fluttering in the wind. It was a wonderful sight. Then I realized that all the goats and sheep had magically appeared (all 700!) And we were surrounded by hundreds of animals, it was incredible! The shepherds separated the horses from the herd and it was fantastic to watch them ride horses and see the true skill they have on horseback.
By now it was around 9pm and it was almost still light and I made my way to our yurt, which was now completely surrounded by goats and sheep. Inside, Zabloo had lit the candles (there was no electric light here!) And the fire was roaring away (because I had interfered and packed lots of logs in when she wasn’t looking) and everything seemed very cozy. We got ready for bed and I fell asleep to the sound of sheep bleating, kids crying like little children and, it seemed to me, ALL the animals farting at very regular intervals. I had never realized how flatulent a herd of animals was, I felt that every 5 seconds an impressive display of wind exploded, I felt at home!