Happy 2013!

Happy new year!

After the big office party on the 26th, I decided to have a quiet New Year's eve in. I celebrated by watching a lot of Parks and Rec and making tasty food. My new favorite is making bread pudding in the rice cooker.
Should you be so inclined to give it a go, here is my recipe:

Teresa’s adapted bread pudding recipe for the rice cooker
1 loaf white bread, left out to dry and then cut into squares

in a bowl:
2 eggs, beaten
1 full cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch salt
Dash vanilla (1 tsp?)
Few shakes of cinnamon (1 tsp?), sprinkle of nutmeg (1/4 tsp?)
1/3 cup raisins? (let’s be honest, no one eats it for the raisins)
4 spoonfuls of nutella (oh yeah)

whisk liquid mixture briskly with fork until well-combined.

Line steamer tray with foil and lightly butter, dump in bread cubes, pour mixture over bread and squish the bread pieces down into the liquid (if using nutella, pour mixture over half of bread cubes and then place the rest of bread in on top. This way the nutella won’t stick to the lid of the rice cooker but bake into the center of your bread pudding)

Put 1-2 cups of water into rice cooker, set steamer tray on top and put on “rice cooker” setting for about half an hour to forty five minutes, put on keep warm for another half an hour-ish to let set
Carefully remove steamer tray from rice cooker and enjoy!
Put foil over leftovers (still in tray) and refrigerate.

Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays to you and yours :)


(And no, I don't generally wear that hat at home in the evenings...but it is very comfortable. I do love to rock my Tsaagan Alt felt slippers though)

Holiday Spirit

Merry Christmas Eve!

I had a list of things I wanted to post about, how the holiday season has been here in Mongolia...

talk about Christmas cookie decorating party

lights when I leave work

random Christmas songs blaring

Christmas pot-luck plans

packages under the tree

my new earrings

my stocking

...but then I realized that I get to open presents in about an hour while skyping with my parents, and the Christmas nutella bread pudding (that I steamed in the rice cooker, oh ho!), smells really tempting...so...

An actual post will be forthcoming sometime soon. I'll make sure to take a picture of my stocking and my tree with presents underneath. Maybe there will even be a photo or two from Christmas day potluck at Christa's tomorrow, or the Arts Council party on the 26th to celebrate the year and exchange Secret Santa-esque (monita) gifts.

But for right now, I'm going to celebrate by eating a tasty home-made desert while wearing my special penguin socks and waiting to see the people I love most via webcam so we can open presents and be together :)

However you celebrate the holiday, hope it's wonderful!

Food....something to think about three times a day

Today I enjoyed one of my favorite Mongolian lunches: beefsteak with fried egg, gravy, rice, carrot salad, beets, and fried potatoes. With some traditional milk tea, naturally.

Besides hiam/sausage, I haven't tried to purchase and prepare meat here in Mongolia. Some of it is to escape the constant Mongolian meat diet, some of it is the interesting storage and selling of meat bits at the grocery, and some of it is even in the U.S. I only cook a few, very particular types of raw meat. It does make getting enough and tasty protein a challenge sometimes.

This weekend for the first time I successfully used my apartment's rice cooker, and I feel ridiculous for only just now using it (almost three months in to my stay here). As the weather grows colder yet the seasonal pot lucks continue, I've compiled a list of a few recipes to try with my new-to-me rice cooker.

First up, after Thanksgiving's time-consuming mashed potato process, I would really love to get some more mashed potatoes (and peas and carrots) into my dinner rotation.
http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/969206-Smothered-Potatoes-in-the-Rice-Cooker?full_recipe=true

Next, I'm feeling a nice, indulgent brunch for the Christmas week (and an excuse to eat more nutella).
http://aromatestkitchen.com/2012/09/26/bread-pudding/
I've made bread pudding in a slow cooker before, so we'll see how steaming in a rice cooker goes.


But for next week's Christmas dinner pot-luck, this will be the real test for the rice cooker:
http://www.food.com/recipe/pasta-in-a-rice-cooker-2007-231964
It's gotten several reviews, so I'm hopeful. My kitchen has a very limited selection of stove tops dishes and I only have one pan for the oven, so fingers crossed it works out.
Said oven pan will be full of this:
http://bakerstreet.tv/2012/10/nutella-shortbread-bars/
Which I'm pretty sure are going to be amazing and make up for any shortcomings of my pasta dish.


This may be a little more day in the life than you're interested in, but when living in a foreign country the daily necessities of life consume a good deal of mental energy. Just be glad I'm only sharing my trials and tribulations with food ;)

Breakthrough!

The interviews have officially begun. Today I had an interesting conversation with a Turkish organization. I ended up staying an hour more than I had intended, talking about heritage and development and other cool things like that while sipping traditional Korean lemon tea (delicious, btw). Back at the office, I got some behind the scenes details on the “culture and development” forum that will take place this week, and I’m all registered with the government palace like an actual person. Not sure if the lectures will be any more comprehensible than the other conference I went to (listening comprehension is still my worst skill-set, great for an anthropologist), but it may be more interesting talking to people about the forum and analyzing the speaker list anyways.

This afternoon I made two unexpected advances. First, a great talk with my NGO director about my time in Mongolia (past and present) and how I can be more engaged with 2013 projects. She is a really lovely and intelligent lady, and it was wonderful to talk through the reasons why I am here and to remember why I am excited about my project. Second, I not only heard back from the State Registration Office about my request for a list of arts, culture NGOs in Mongolia, but they went ahead and sent me a print out. It raises more questions than it answers, but it is definitely excellent data!

Every day and every week has a few rough patches, but I really feel like I’m starting to gain traction here. The more I learn, the more I also know that this is the right time for me to be here and be asking these questions. Even though the winter is cold and the night is very black when the power goes out in the office (ah, UB), I have bright hopes for the next several months.

As for this holiday season, I have a few packages/letters on their way to me to go under my little artificial Christmas tree, and I’m hosting a cookie decorating and cookie swap party this weekend. Overall, life is indeed good :) Thank you for sharing it with me.

a day in and some music

Another random bout of stomach sickness, so I spent most of today sleeping and then talking myself into drinking more tea out of my new Toy Story mug.

Here's a bit of fun for you, a music video from one of my favorite Mongolian bands that shows lots of famous Ulaanbaatar landmarks. Of course, since the video is animated every place looks much nicer than it actually is :)




At 0:50 the guitarist is sitting on the steps on the State Department Store (State as in nation state, not an American products store lol). My apartment is a two minute walk from there, and right now the storefront is decorated with a big christmas tree and lots of snowflake lights.

Hmmm, watching the whole thing through, feel free to skip 3:20 to 3:50 for an animated sex scene I totally was not expecting.



Anyways...

This is a music video by the rap band one of my co-workers at the Arts Council is in. There are several interesting rap artists who talk about problems in Mongolia and life in UB. You can see my friend Bilguun at 2:15



Mongolians seem to listen to lots of different kinds of music, and of course they always appreciate a song with a beat to dance to. Someone is playing such music rather loudly right now, somewhere above me...oh well :)

Life's little struggles

Two random bits of local color for you...

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I am in the office. Every morning the cleaning girl in her neon t-shirts and track pants washes the floors and then leaves for a while. When she returns she wipes down all the surfaces, and I never quite expect her because I'm working. So I'll be typing away and all of the sudden she appears with her taciturn expression and inevitable wash cloth. I hurry to pick up my notebook, pens, mug, etc. as she brusquely wipes down the desk and sometimes the keyboard, the monitor, the scanner, whatever else on the desk that day and she feels looks dirty. I always feel like apologizing, no matter how many times this dance has played out. I really hope she has something to smile about at the end of the day...can't imagine cleaning offices was her ideal job.


As a method of survival in the ever cold-ening winter, I take my showers in the evenings so my hair is dry when I walk to work. It's now at the point where if I'm not wearing my facemask (air pollution today was 12 times the WHO standards, woo) that I can feel my nose hairs freeze. I usually get home from the office around 7:15, hopefully I've made and eaten dinner by 8:30...and then somehow I wind up on the internet and then it's time to skype and then I'm so warm and cozy that it is ridiculously difficult to convince myself to get in the shower. Overall I love my apartment, but the main area is incredibly drafty and the walk from the bedroom to the bathroom is turning into a real rite of passage. Some days go better than others :-P


Anyways...
I'll post some pictures of the ACM anniversary party soon, promise. And I've got a few good music videos to share too (not ACM related)...trying to plan more updates :)

Happy December!

Last night we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Arts Council of Mongolia. It was a fun night, full of lovely people...but all the same, I'm glad that the planning and preparations (and the dance routine!) are over.

Here's to a new month and new research opportunities...excited to start interviews from a few different stakeholder groups soon.

And of course, it'll be nice to start getting into the Christmas spirit. If you would like to mail yours truly a Christmas card/inspirational poster/general letter-sized ridiculousness, it'd be best to send it before the 10th.

Even if I can't celebrate with my family and loved ones this year, I'm sure I'll still get plenty of holiday spirit. Here's a picture with my Christmas tree and my advent calendar,not pictured are my holiday penguin socks :)

Unfortunately the ballet isn't performing the Nutcracker this year, but there are plans for a cookie swap and maybe even cookie decorating, so fun seasonal treats ahead!

Happy holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I went to my friend Christa's Thanksgiving Day for a tasty dinner with chicken substituted for very difficult to find and expensive turkey and cowboy potatoes (mashed potatoes with cheese, corn, and carrots- yum!), as well as traditional items like stuffing and sweet potato casserole.

Woke up this morning to this picture: my family back in the U.S. celebrating Thanksgiving and "eating" some potatoes in honor of me.

Note: the ketchup bottle...a crucial part of the turkey eating experience for me



I miss my wonderful, goofy friends and family back in the U.S., but I'm grateful for the community I have here in UB as well. And I even get a second Thanksgiving meal this year, with the Peace Corps/Fulbright celebration tomorrow. Fingers crossed that I don't mess up the mashed potatoes too badly :)

Full Circle

I came to Mongolia for the first time when I was 19. I've come back at the age of 25, after studying Mongolian for three years, to complete my dissertation. There are some days where my brain seems to throw up its hands in defeat at the constant barrage of Mongolian, and then there are days where I really feel like I am understanding and learning things I couldn't have without all of the time and energy I've invested in my studies. There's still a lot more to do for my dissertation data collection, and I need to be better about keeping track of what I already have and my interpretations.

But for now, I want to share a few special moments.

Getting back in touch with my 2007 group leader and the possibility of her returning to Mongolia this summer for her own research

At the Norman Rockwell exhibition, I saw an older Mongolian woman who looked so familiar to me. I managed to rather quickly memorize everyone at the Arts Council, but I've met a lot of people at SUIS that I don't always know/remember their name. After staring at her furtively for about fifteen minutes, I associated the name Hongorzul, and after fifteen more minutes I worked up the courage to approach her. In 2007 Hongorzul was incredibly helpful to my field group, and she took us on a trip to Sainshand in the Gobi region so I could visit the Danzanravjaa museum and monastery.

Here she is in 2007 ringing the great bell.

It was very neat to see her again and to be able to say that the experience inspired me to start studying her language and then return for my PhD.


But the person I was most excited to run into was my museum mentor and all-around great lady, Nara from the National History Museum. It turns out she now works at a research center of SUIS, and I never might have known if I hadn't gone to a Cultural Heritage conference this past Friday. It was so good to see her, and a little funny to remember that I said at the end of 2007 that I didn't think I'd return.

Nara and I in 2007 :) We'll have to get a 2012 picture together

There are still times where Mongolia feels overwhelming and/or frustrating, but it is a very special place. I feel incredibly fortunate to have gotten so much support over the years to continue my research and so lucky to have re-met old friends :)

I have no idea when and where I'm doing what, some days

I want to post a quick apology for not updating more often, but you see...

I planned to last week, after fulfilling my SUIS efforts. And then I got ridiculously sick and basically didn't move from bed for three days.

Then I had ACM business and all of the craziness that is planning for the 10th anniversary

Then a surprise national holiday for Chinggis Khan's birthday, which meant my office days got wonky

So finally, I planned to write on Friday or Saturday or Sunday...all free days, right?

Wrong

Tomorrow I am either going to a dress-maker or a cultural policy conference or both

Saturday I am going to a photoshoot and a play...if everything works out

Sunday is maybe another photoshoot?


Basically, I don't know what is going happen from 9 am tomorrow until Sunday at 5 pm

This is life in Mongolia. There are reasons nobody plans ahead much.

Also, beefsteak with fried egg is becoming my new favorite Mongolian lunch. Some local color for you

Freedom of Speech

Today I sat down to lunch (meatballs in gravy, rice, beets, shredded cabbage, and shredded red pepper) with the director of the NGO I work with. As we prepared to dig into our meals, she casually says "This is a big week for America, isn't it? The presidential election!"

I voted absentee this year, as Ulaanbaatar is a bit of a commute to the polling place. I can even be fairly confident that my ballot has been properly received and counted, as I voted as an Ohio resident and my parents are no longer receiving phone calls and mailers directed at me in an effort to sway my valuable-Ohio-state-citizen-vote.

Out of curiosity, after lunch I went and looked up voter turn-out rates in Mongolia and the United States, respectively. Mongolia was the first Communist country to transition to democracy, and it did so very peacefully. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of discontentment about political corruption, and the former president was recently arrested on charges of corruption just before the latest parliamentary elections. This year Mongolia had its lowest ever voter turn-out: 65.2%.

This is, of course, a regrettable slide as Mongolians increasingly lose faith in their elected officials and the election process. But I was curious to see when the last time was that the U.S. had such a high voter turn-out rate. The answer: 1908.

I know there are a lot of problems facing the American democratic process, and that the electoral college system is not ideal. But honestly, that's even more of a reason to vote, to be active and engaged in our political system and our communities.

This Wednesday kicks off an exhibit of Norman Rockwell's artwork, a project through the Arts Council that is funded by the U.S. Embassy. Walking through the gallery today and seeing the paintings hanging, I stopped in front of the four freedoms. My Mongolian colleague was next to me as I pointed at the painting, "Freedom of Speech". I vaguely remembered a few of the other pieces, but this one, "This one is famous in America. It is the Freedom of Speech."

I am not usually struck by a profound sense of patriotism, but to see that painting just before the election...to know that when I come to the opening party on Wednesday night that we will have selected our next president...this painting really spoke to me in a new way.

Tomorrow, please remember it is not just your right as an American to vote, but that it is also your responsibility.

Projecting

Apologies for the lag between posts, I came down with another cold last week that turned me temporarily into a very lethargic snot-monster. I have never used so many tissues in a single day...I'm almost impressed. TMI aside, last week I was out and about on Arts Council business six days out of seven...impressive and definitely not expected.

Thursday I got a chance to do a site visit to the "Trash is not Trash" up-cycling project, combining arts education and environmental outreach. The kids were an enthusiastic and good-natured bunch, and they had been working on a lot of cool projects. I have a whole write-up about it the English language newspaper "Mongol Messenger", but of course that is at work. For now, here's a picture

Friday I slept in and then went to my friend Hannah's art show at the Red Ger Gallery. There were a lot of fantastic pieces, so I'll put those pictures up on facebook. Here's a group shot that Ganaa got of us though.

After viewing Hannah's show, I went to a school with Oyunaa and Daria to give a presentation on Halloween I'd thrown together last week for an English language class. After a traffic-jam filled drive, we arrived at the school to discover they had no power. Twenty kids were sitting in the semi-dark waiting for us, so I just told random factoids about Day of the Dead and popular Halloween costumes. Afterwards some of the kids gathered around to talk pop music. It is always embarrassing to realize you don't know the beginnings to some of your "favorite" songs but can still sing along to Taylor Swift.

Saturday then was the Halloween Party for three different schools, including the one from Friday's outing, at a bowling alley located in an amusement park. Luckily the Zorig Foundation and their American worker Ned took charge of most of the games. There was a mummy costume contest and an apple-eating contest. Plenty of candy, of course. And then there was some bowling, with too many kids for too few bowling balls and shoes. They still had a blast though. I only got to throw the bowling ball three times and got the gutter each time. Not a proud day for America, but oh well.

Oyunaa and I modeling our Halloween stickers

Overall it was a scattered but good end to the week. And on the seventh day, she rested and watched much "The Legend of Korra" and "Avatar: The Last Airbender"

Happy Halloween!

In celebration, I will be streaming "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and indulging in several Reese's Peanut Butter Cups courtesy of my care package! Hint hint: the mail system works internationally :)

Thursday is usually either my free day or my SUIS day, but tomorrow will be neither! In the afternoon I'll be going with the Arts Education program coordinator Daria to check out the "Trash is not Trash" project. I'm, of course, writing an article for the Mongol Messenger English newspaper about it, but I'm excited to get to see a project in-process.

Friday then is my friend and Fulbrighter Hannah's show at the Red Ger Gallery. I've seen some pictures of her work already, but I'm looking forward to the full show experience.

Said goodbye to Alex last night...thus officially begins the exodus of the 2012 friends. Trying to look forward to the memories I can still make before people head off to their next adventure and to then look ahead to all the neat people that will arrive for 2013. Understandably, most people center their time in Mongolia around the summer. I'm unfortunately tightly constrained by the academic year if I want to get funding and health insurance for the next cycle, but I figure the winter will be quite the experience. And who knows, maybe I'll hole up and doing some creative writing yet :)

Hope wherever you are and whatever you do to celebrate Halloween that it's a blast!

Fragments from a Glorious Weekend

This evening I went to dinner with Tachibana and Undraa, a Japanese Mongolist here in UB for a conference and my Mongolian friend/big sister and former Fulbrighter to IU respectively. We ate at a bistro just outside a movie theatre on plush brown couches surrounded by glossy pictures of food, like you do in the crazy metropolis that is UB. I was sitting there munching through my meatballs and cheese, and I was suddenly struck by the realization that I could follow the entire thread of the Mongolian conversation. Here is the topic of the conference Tachibana is attending, a question about a prominent scholar, the expense of his hotel compared to another one that has an Indian restaurant on the second floor, a mutual friend has moved to New York state with his wife and small son, etc. Sure, there were words I was unfamiliar with and I didn't contribute much to the conversation, but I understood it.
There are many times here where living in a foreign country with a foreign language makes me feel small and incompetent. So it was wonderful to have this evening, an outing where no one was purposefully pandering to my skill level, to realize that I really have made progress in three years.



And now for something much more facetious, the Babushka nesting dolls being attacked by the dreaded Mongolian death worm.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_worm

And

It was, indeed, quite the weekend

In which I attend a modern dance performance

Tonight I went to "Duruu" or "Stirrup", a modern Mongolian ballet. The story goes that during the time of the Xiongnu (Hunnu), some Mongolian men were out hunting and trampled the eggs of the cranes. The cranes, lamenting the loss of their young, decide to curse the Mongolian warriors. After saying their goodbyes to their mothers and wives, they ride off to battle. But here the curse of the cranes is fulfilled: their iron stirrups break and they all fall to their deaths.
The moral is that when we fail to preserve and protect nature, in the end we all suffer. Or as the program puts it, "If nature sets revenge it returns bitterness"

I unfortunately got a bunch of blurry pictures, but believe me when I say the movements were fascinating and the costumes and music beautiful. Though a purely contemporary piece composed for this year's competition, it had a lot of elements calling to Mongolian traditional art performance. For example, the 'mother' dancer (who I later found out was also the choreographer) began her piece using traditional folk dance (or Bilgee) hand motions. The poor trampled crane eggs were represented by three extremely talented contortionists, another art form traditional to Mongolia.

It was fascinating to see cultural heritage become contemporary, both through modern dance movements and through the message about the dangers of environmental degradation (a growing problem in Mongolia due to desertification, global climate change, and mining). A great night!

The entry posters for Duruu

Inside the Opera and Ballet theatre

Lamenting the broken crane egg(s)

Cursing the stirrups

The warriors heading off on their journey, about to meet a tragic end

Assorted images

If a picture is worth a thousand words...pretend I've been updating more than I have been.

A gift from the latest Arts Council board meeting, this is a business card holder. Now I just need to print some business cards...

Most of my postcard stamps looked like this...really pretty, but I had to mutilate a lot of Mongolian empires to get the stamp free.

I went to UB mart's grocery this weekend and bought a few ridiculous things. Two of the best finds were a huge block of cheddar cheese (!!!) (there is also yak cheese made in the french tradition that I have plans for at some point) and these squirrel candies. I have no idea if they taste any good, but anything involving chocolate and squirrels is definitely worth $1.80

The head table at the wedding reception. You see the traditional tower topped with tsagaan idee (white foods= dairy products) and what I like to call the "fat back". Luckily that's not what we ate for dinner.

Bride with lots of relatives and friends

The receiving line. Changed into traditional garments, the bride and groom accept their gifts. Every person has a chance to share their good wishes with the group before kissing the new couple on both cheeks.

And finally, snow! Winter has arrived...though it's mostly melted two days later.

Short but sweet

Today I went to the black market for the first time in five years on the hunt for cheap but appropriately gaudy babushka wear. Flush with middling success, I have decided to host the Halloween party and am looking forward to filling my large, rather empty living room with new and old friends.

This evening I went to the wedding of a friend of a friend. There was food, singing, dancing, and several cute children.

Though UB can be big, dirty, smelly, scary, difficult to navigate, harsh, etc....
Today, I enjoyed the company of several wonderful people and met several more warm and welcoming people.

Random thoughts:

The mother of the bride would not be satisfied until I kissed the cheeks of a beautiful little girl not once, not twice, but three times. Later she pulled me firmly into a picture and said "Bayarlalaa" afterwards, pleased that I had made an effort to celebrate her daughter's special day and to learn her language.

I saw old men in deels and cowboy hats, old men in suits and ties and government medals, young men in suits and shades, and women in deels and dresses and scarfs and hats and beautifulness all get down on the dance floor courtesy of the DJ.

All the guests presented their gift(s) to the new bride and groom and gave a speech to the whole audience, giving their good wishes and words of wisdom to the community in honor of the special day.

Toasts were made in airag and vodka. I drank a lot of fruit juice.

During their first dance, the couple was serenaded by a friend who encouraged the audience to sing along and then other couples to join them.

There was a western style cake and a ceremonial cutting, without the face-smashing.

The bride entered in a tiara and white wedding dress, beautifully decorated, and the groom in a suit and tie. They changed in the middle of reception into traditional deels, and the bride wore a pearl-styled headdress and the groom a cowboy hat.

I took a few pictures, which I'll upload soon. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more, better ones from my friend Ariell, who was kind enough to ask if I could come and acted as the official photographer.

For now, I'm off to sleep...a scattered, unexpected, and special day.

Some days end with chocolate cake and beer

So heading into my second full week of working with the Arts Council and actively dissertating, every day is an adventure. I'm also on a quest this week to finally firmly establish terms with my university. I really like my Mongolian advisor and most of the people at SUIS, but I feel like the administration doesn't really understand what I'm doing and what a Fulbright scholar is. I've received enough moral and official support in the past few days to the point that I feel comfortable better establishing my boundaries. I will do a language hour a week at the SUIS building and some website editing and that is it!

In other shenanigan news, I went to a party across town this past Saturday that took two hours to get to due to traffic. I met a Mongolian woman who teaches at an American university who loves Maeve Binchy books, just like my mom. I wore jeans for the first time to the Arts Council on Monday because I was a bit cold, and then I found it that Monday was the board meeting. Besides the board meeting being interesting in and of itself, I walked away with a tuperware full of delicious food from the catered lunch leftovers, a fancy business card holder courtesy of Khan Bank (the location of the new Red Ger art gallery that the Arts Council runs), and the staff took home a whole chocolate cake that we ate after work with some lukewarm Tiger Beer (which I politely sipped). I am apparently going to go to Halloween party with friends as the middle Russian babushka doll, which should be ridiculous and fun and awesome.

And then today I spent entirely too much time geeking out over Surveygizmo and all the cool things I do with an online survey for my research questions. It makes me a bit sad I can't do it for both organizational survey types, since it seems to handle Cyrillic characters really well too. And it exports SPSS files....it's pretty great, and it's free since I'm a student.

The rest of the week is pretty busy, which is both good and bad. I probably won't be able to do anything not-research related until Saturday. A goal of mine is to buy postcards this weekend. So if you've bothered to read this much, please email or facebook message me your address! I have a few postcards promised already, so you might have to be quick to make it into the first batch. But no worries, I'll be here long enough to send plenty :)

And lo, a plan forms

My weekly schedule for the foreseeable future:
Monday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council, 4 pm staff meeting
Tuesday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council
Wednesday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council
Thursday: 3 to 4ish pm language hour at SUIS, meet/drop off documents for my Mongolian advisor Dolgorsuren to inspect
Friday: 2 to 3ish pm language hour at SUIS building 2 (school of civilizations), try not to freeze on the long walk there and back

Thursday/Friday mornings: read/translate things, do errands, etc.

I'm not super pleased to be going to SUIS and SUIS #2 every week, since it is a distance to walk and it's going to get coooooooold here. But it sounds like these will be opportunities to practice my Mongolian/bring thorny problems to a regular group as well as get to speak English without feeling too guilty. And who knows, I might break down and start taking taxis on Fridays.

My advisor also seems to understand that when February rolls around and I start doing interviews that I will scale back these language hours drastically so I have more time/flexibility to offer my dissertation research respondents. I'm hoping by that point too the administration at SUIS will feel that it was sufficiently worthwhile to 'sponsor' me.

In any case, the people I will be working with most closely for most of the time, Dolgorsuren and the ACM staff, are all excited that I'm here and working patiently with me to communicate. I have great hopes that this research will actually be collaborative and have a life here in Mongolia after I leave.

I'm currently still on track to get my survey mailed by December, which is the first big hurdle. I also have a feeling that I'll need to break my reading/translating/discourse analysis up into chunks of time as opposed to day-long sessions, but that's not the worst either. At the very least, the point is to get my hands on as much as possible, and if need be I'll work on translating and doing discourse analysis next year back at the U.S. And then whenever I am craving tacos or a teriyaki chicken sandwich....

Let me tell you this, if I do end up getting my research leave in January, you can bet I will have all my meals planned out well in advance. This is not to say that I haven't had tasty food in Mongolia or that the grocery hasn't provided, but there are some things you just can't get in Asia. And of course, there are then some things here in Asia you can't get in the U.S. I fully anticipate strong tsuivan cravings to haunt me for the rest of my life.

And on that note, I'm going to go make dinner :)

The Joys of Grocery Shopping

Spice packs written in Russian, German soups, and a whole jumble of other languages (Turkish? occasionally Italian. Korean. Some form of Arabic?) And just occasionally Mongolian. even rarer English.

You may have guessed that I went to the grocery this morning for a big food haul. More details on that later, but for right now I need to ask my German studies friend Sasha for help....

Behold, the most photographed (box) of soup ever!!

I get the general gist that I pour some water in a cup and let it sit, but I'm just curious if you know exactly what it says, Sash. If you are even more intrigued I can take a picture the back ingredients, which appear to be promising me natural flavoring, oh ho!


Also, you might find it amusing to know that applesauce is not shelved with fruits and jams in Mongolia, it is placed in the baby food section. Really, Mongolians, really?

Getting Acquainted at ACM

So, the dissertation begins! This was my first week with the Arts Council, and overall it went well and I may even know all 11 of the full-time staff.

I am failing a little bit on my side (non-research official) project to experience Mongolian cultural heritage through “participant observation” though. Due to weekend travel and working the first three days of the week, I missed the UB Art Fair in its five day run. This week also marks the 20th anniversary of the Morin Khuur (Horsehead Fiddle) State Ensemble, and my plan to go to the second (of three) concerts was foiled by the tickets being sold out/no longer being sold (the concert was starting only five hours after I tried to get a ticket). Or at least that's the general message I interpreted from the ticket seller. My transactional Mongolian continues to need people to be patient and speak slowly, which is understandably not the way transactions work.

In terms of the research collecting itself, right now I am overwhelmed by documents, some of which are bilingual but many of the most intriguing are titled in English and then written in Mongolian. I sense there will be much, much translating in my near future. But what better way to keep warm during the winter then snuggled up to the computer with a dictionary and mug of hot milk tea? I mean, there are more enjoyable plans to be sure, but I'm looking forward to growing my Mongolian vocabulary. I am also, however, not wanting to create extra work for myself. The shared server the Arts Council uses is a maze of file folders, occasionally organized by year, sometimes by project, and sometimes by expediency. I'm sure as I continue poking through past projects, building my funding database, and helping out on new projects that things will fall more into place.

In any case, I work at the Arts Council only three days a week, so tomorrow I head back to SUIS to meet with my advisor, hopefully get my passport back (complete with permit), and have my first English conversation hour. But that's all tomorrow afternoon, and in the morning for the first time in several days I can sleep as late as I want!
Simple joys are still worth counting :)

Steppe-riders Weekend

Steppe-riders really isn't located so far outside Ulaanbaatar, but even a hour and a half drive makes a world of difference. The rolling hills, nice (and sometimes chilly) breeze, and the stars at night...

The main reason we went though was for the horse-back riding. Despite a childhood fascination with horse books, I really have not ridden very many times. I think I've ridden a horse maybe five or six times before this weekend, so I'm not the world's most confident rider. Luckily Mongolian horses are fairly short, so if you were to get bounced out of the saddle the ground wouldn't be too far away.

We arrived at the ger camp and decided to postpone lunch until after our ride, which was probably a wise decision. I asked for a slow, nice-tempered horse and was given Donkey, so-named for his grey, donkey-like color. Of course, this caused me to try to remember all of Eddie Murphy's best speeches from Shrek. As we went up and down rolling and sometimes rocky hills, at times we were "a Donkey on the edge".

Me and Donkey, off in search of waffles.


To get Mongolian horses to go, you are encouraged to yell "Chu!" at them. This is rarely effective, and the slow horses especially tend to stick in packs and only move as fast as their friends. With enough encouragement from our guides/herders, however, there were prolonged periods of fast trotting. Fast trotting is incredibly hard to adapt to and makes you feel like any moment you may well bounce out of the saddle. Rarely, however, the horse will progress into a canter, which is faster but sooo much smoother. During the trotting, I tried my best to remember tips about how to post, with varied success. All in all though, it was a really fun experience and a beautiful day. Temperatures in the 60s, few clouds, a light breeze, and good company.


After our ride and a hearty lunch of tsuivan, we did a bit of hiking in the surrounding hills.

We stayed overnight in the ger camp, enjoying new and old friends and some chicken potato curry for dinner. After abstaining from the airag (fermented horse milk) and vodka drinking games, it took some finagling to get our wood stove in the ger burning. But once it was going, in my sleeping bag and two blankets on top I was quite comfortable throughout the night. In the early evening it was dark enough and pleasant enough for stargaze for ten or twenty minutes, which was incredibly beautiful. In the U.S. it is so hard to get far enough away from light pollution to really see stars, but in the Mongolian countryside you can see as many as you want for as long as you can stand the cold.


The next morning after a breakfast of fried bread with jam, a few of us headed out a short second ride. My horse this time around was a real sweetheart who loved to go fast, but a canter is really much more enjoyable than a fast trot. It was another beautiful day, and I'm glad we got to go a second time. After that we headed back to the city, bouncing around in our van, and then had a hearty lunch at Stupa Cafe. Now I'm off for a well-needed shower and to rest my bruised bones. Definitely worth it!

That Escalated Quickly?

I had my first meeting today with the Arts Council of Mongolia, a really awesome Mongolian NGO with an unfortunately hacked website I can't show you. They were originally going to be my visa sponsor for the Fulbright, until I discovered I needed to be affiliated with a university. The ACM is about to become my work home away from work home, or whatever less confusing term there is for: place where I have a personal desk, computer, and email account. I met today with the financial director to go over my expected research plans and the ACM's needs, and I'll start on Monday! They work Monday-Friday from 10 to 7 (Lunch break from 1 to 2), so I think starting out I'll try to work full-time three days a week. It's a great group of ladies (plus one male intern), and the organization is fully bilingual which is fantastic for me. I get to doublecheck/edited pretty much everything, which means I get to read/analyze pretty much everything and get to see how such topics are written about in Mongolian for different audiences. Plus, the ACM covers all the arts, so another opportunity to hear about shows/exhibits/films/concerts/etc.

The real meaning: my dissertation research officially starts collecting data as of Monday!

Talking with Dolgorsuren yesterday, I realized anew that this is an excellent time for my research topic (trying understand how Mongolians understand and manage cultural heritage and how that is impacted by international funding). Only a few months ago, all government activities/organizations/committees that dealt with "Culture" have been moved from the former Ministry of Science, Education, and Culture to the new Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism. We'll see if this indicates a growing shift in how Mongolia considers its cultural heritage and how it wants to preserve it for the future, but I'm excited to investigate.

Leaving aside the academic talk, since I know this blog has a variety of readers: Mongolian countryside time!

I've ridden a horse five times in my life, two of which have been in Mongolia. (I have also ridden a yak and a camel here). I am not, by any means, a great rider. I think horses are beautiful, but we don't seem to communicate well.

I have been camping (tent/ger) a decent number of times, including a few times this past spring. The last experience I had camping in ger was actually in Pittsburgh and about this same time of year...and I was the coldest I have ever been in my life. The weekend here in Ulaanbaatar is supposed to be 60s and sunny (probably the last hurrah of warm weather), but the evenings are going to be 30 degrees. I've been advised to bring a sleeping bag and warm clothes...no kidding. My sleeping bag is pretty decent gear: it packs really small and is certified to 0 degrees, I believe. Right now I'm feeling fairly confident and actually more worried about what to wear during the day while riding (helmet and half-chaps are apparently provided). I'm also debating about whether or not to bring my camera...pictures I get to upload myself when I want vs. the possibility of it getting broken/lost/other unfortunate incident.

I know the blog has gotten a bit text-heavy though, so I'll see what I can do next week.

I hope you all are enjoying the fall! Please, eat lots of pumpkin pie for me. Apple crisp is something I should be able to make here, so don't worry too much about me though. ;)
Enjoy your weekend, however you spend it!

Trying to Do Two Things in One Day...

When I last wrote, the specter of HIV and a shitty (literally) toilet loomed large. I am happy to report those demons are vanquished (knock on wood?). Wednesday I got all of the official paperwork I thought I needed, and when I dropped it off at my university the International Affairs worker didn't say anything about getting retested here in Mongolia. He instead informed me that he was taking all the international students to the Immigration Ministry Thursday at 10, so it would be good for me to show up. Oh advance notice and details...

Once I showed my landlady the problem, she got a plumber stat, went out and got the new hose from a store, got the plumber back, and then sat with me awkwardly as we tried to politely ignore the noises and smells of replacing a drainage hose. TMI? Believe me, there are some sights no one ever needs to see. I am proud to report that after some diligent cleaning by the plumber and then myself that the bathroom is in top condition, and it should ideally last well beyond the ten months I'm staying here. The plumber even fixed the slow draining sink while he was there, so fingers crossed that this is the only problem I'll have. My landlady is really nice, and if her English is about as good as my Mongolian when it comes to day to day necessities at least we are both trying and usually manage through a hodgepodge of Monglish to understand each other.

Today I had two goals, both involving SUIS: go with Guenbat to the Immigration Ministry to obtain my long-term residency permit and then meet with my Mongolian advisor, Dolgorsuren. I suppose when I saw just how many international students Guenbat was doing the paperwork for and knowing how far away the Immigration Ministry is that I should have expected it to take five hours. I killed some time by chatting with some of the Inner Mongolian exchange students, a few of whom fondly recall Atwood bagsh (the professor of Mongolian studies at Indiana University). There was, however, a lot of sitting and waiting and then quickly leaving/lining up/doing something. Note to self, always always carry a book/article. I started reading my Mongolian/English dictionary at one point.

Anyways, an hour later than I had originally planned, I finally met with Dolgorsuren. We went over my research questions and methods (which my Mongolian language teacher at IU helped translate for me one afternoon) and she gave me two books to read for background. We have some tentative research plans in place, and I'm hoping to nail done specific logistics with the Arts Council tomorrow. Overall, a very promising start.

I checked back in with Guenbat, since I hadn't gotten my passport back. According to him, my passport will be returned in exactly one week with an approved long-term residency permit....there should be no further paperwork necessary on my part. Fingers crossed that this is true and that my last bureaucracy hurdle is over.

In any case, I am looking forward to getting out of the city this weekend for a bit and just concentrating on enjoying being in Mongolia. There's also an art fair opening this weekend at the Zanabazar Art Museum, and a concert series next week of the Morin Khuur (horse-head fiddle) state ensemble. It's not exactly related to my research topic, but I'm hoping to partake of the UB arts and music scene, time, weather, and expense permitting :)

First Full Week in UB ambles along

This weekend I mostly nested in the apartment, unpacking and settling in. I did attend a dinner party Friday evening that introduced me to several Fulbrighters and other expats, and it is quickly being helpful this second week (story to follow).

Monday I went with the landlord's daughter to get what I thought was the proof of residency. That and a fixed, properly working toilet have yet to obtained, but cross your fingers that both will be resolved tomorrow. Monday evening I received a text message from my friend and SUIS intermediary that SUIS (my sponsor university) would require me to retake the HIV test here in Mongolia, presumably for some part of the long-term residency process. I have since gotten conflicting reports about whether or not this is really necessary/how Mongolian bureaucracy actually works. I am not particularly enamored of the idea of getting an unnecessary and possibly expensive test done, especially not when my HIV test in the U.S. should still be within the valid time frame. We shall see...

But most of today and the rest of this week involve nice, friendly folk. I was planning to meet my friend from this summer's SWSEEL class at 1 for tea, but I ran into my new Fulbright compatriot at the Stupa cafe while eating lunch (more tsuivan!). One week and I'm already running into familiar faces...in traditional expat hang-outs, but still. After a nice lunch, I met up with Ariell on time and we went to Nayra cafe and got some excellent coffee and delicious hot chocolate, respectively. We developed grandiose baking plans for my oven (cookies! pies! crisps!) and discussed UB's best Indian and Italian restaurants. Ariell leaves for a countryside research visit soon, but I'm excited for fun plans when she returns.

Lest you think that my time in Mongolia will be spent entirely in UB, however, I plan this weekend to join an excursion of Fulbrighters on a overnight horseback trek (called stepperiders, if you are inclined to google). I'm not a great horseback rider or the best camper, but I'm looking forward to seeing the countryside for the first time in too long and getting to know more people.

To cap off this afternoon, I had a meeting with the cultural affairs officer at the US embassy here in UB. Even though this is my third time in Mongolia, I had never been to the US embassy before. The security process was a little unnerving, but the guards were very friendly. As I was leaving, one of the guards asked how long I was staying and complimented my Mongolian pronunciation- praise indeed! The CAO was extremely friendly, and hopefully she and the other cultural assistant can give some advice on successfully navigating the long-term residency process and (possibly) some research leave...TBD.

Tomorrow I hope to conquer the khoroo office, the SUIS international relations worker's strange requests, and my toilet problems. Tonight, however, I am going to cap off a rather good, friend-filled day by opening my first Mongolian jar of nutella.

Hope you are well, dear reader, wherever you are and whatever you're doing today.

Apartment Pictures

I've mostly stayed in this weekend, trying to kick a cold and getting fully unpacked. My apartment is a rather spacious two bedroom, though the second bed is currently acting as the living room's couch. I am enjoying having an "office" right now though, nice to have a dedicated working space.

First up, here's the living room. It has an enclosed balcony, but unfortunately I haven't gotten a good shot of it yet. The kitchen is basically just the right side of the living room, but it's a nice space.

The kitchen is a little lacking in counter space and cabinets, but it makes up for that with the appliances. I'm sensing some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in my future (yes, I brought collapsible measuring cups with me and a baking pan).

Next up is the office, which is basically a desk, desk chair, wardrobe, and a rug...not super exciting....

....Except there is a random Christmas tree hidden in the wardrobe. There are also two christmasy candles hidden in the kitchen...guess a previous tenant was feeling the holiday cheer.


Last up, quick shots of the bedroom and bathroom. The washing machine is between the shower and the bedroom wall, and I'll be testing that tomorrow, wish me luck! There is also then a rack to hang clothes up to dry, in traditional Mongolian fashion.

And that's it for now. Sometime soon I'll try to do a food post.
Later!

Things that made me happy today...

Warning: tone is overall very silly

Going outside and seeing grade school children laughing and doing dance moves. A few of them waved at me and said "Hi!", to which I responded "Sain baina uu"...excellent cross-cultural communication, but still :)

Talking with two excellent friends from Bloomington and the possibility of a care package involving flip flops! My apartment (soon to be pictured) has wooden floors and few carpets, so it's both dusty and super noisy if I wear the house clogs provided.

Getting a supportive email from a professor about my research and her vision for my future career outside academia

Learning that the comedy central website allows international viewers, so I can watch all the crazy pre-election shenanigans via Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and keep up with that crazy American pop culture

Scheduling meetings for next week...I am here to dissertate

Anticipating a dinner of left-over tsuivan, reheated in my microwave! (You guys have no idea how crazy it is that my kitchen has a stove top AND an oven AND a microwave. For there to be a rice cooker as well is just ridiculous. Appliances are super useful to have, I'm just sayin')

The fact that this exists:

It combines Star Wars AND Grilled Cheese AND Nerd Puns!!! If there is a stuffed penguin on the dashboard, I could not even handle it. I don't know where Fayetteville, Arkansas is, but I sense a quest...



On a similar note,

Yes, you're welcome


My fancy new cell phone that cost me a grand total of 20 bucks. It...it might be fancier than my U.S. cell phone. I just hope the buttons hold out on me for ten months...we'll see :) Also, if I do take pictures with it I'm not sure how I'll get them off the phone...




And....that was today! Lots of unpacking and cleaning to do, but that is much less entertaining.
Hope all you lovely readers are well :)

Soyol Urlagiin Ikh Surguul, we meet at last

Today was a much more successful day, thank goodness. After a leisurely wake-up (minus the hour from 5 to 6 I spent awake due to a combination of jet lag and a noisy new construction machine for the new apartment building nearby) and bandaging my sore feet from yesterday, I headed out and successfully found the Mongolian University of Culture and Arts, more properly known as Soyol Urlagiin Ikh Surguul or SUIS. After fifteen tense minutes, my friend Bulgaa arrived to meet me. After a period of cooling our heels and practicing my conversational Mongolian, I met with the international relations team at SUIS. Guyenbat, who never answered any of my emails, turns out to be a very nice guy in person. His colleague was also really friendly and stressed that if I had any problems, I was to let them know.

Bulgaa and I then headed out to the Immigration Ministry to make sure I was official with the Mongolian government before my one-week of lee-way was up. It's a forty minute to an hour long bus ride, so I was really glad Bulgaa was with me. The Immigration Ministry process overall went fairly smoothly, though they were quite firm with Bulgaa that I need to come back for my long-term residency permit ASAP. But I don't have to worry about that process until Monday, thank goodness. Bulgaa then made sure I got on the right bus and headed off to visit her sister, who lives in the gers on the outskirts of town. I met her sister and her two children the summer of 2011, when Bulgaa was my language TA. They are very sweet ladies.

The bus ride back was...interesting. Understandably, a guy on the bus figured out I was American...guess my blonde hair and North Face jacket are fairly obvious. We spent some time talking about the troubles of learning a language and the popularity of various American singers. There were also a few moments where it seemed like he was going to try to ask for me at SUIS, though he insisted he didn't want my number. He got off a few stops before me though, so overall it was a nice, if a bit weird, conversation and made the bus ride back a little quicker.

Flush with the victory of registering with Immigration and my comfortable tennis shoes, I stopped at the Stupa Cafe, which is part of a Buddhist Cultural Centre. They gave me a big plate of vegetarian tsuivan, which consists of strips of bell peppers, carrots, and cabbage mixed in with long flour noodles, for about 3 USD. The wait staff has always been very nice in my experience, and I like that part of my meal goes toward helping the restoration of Buddhism in Mongolia. I have a feeling that I'll eat there a lot, especially seeing their tasty-sounding menu this year. There's a short write-up on lonely planet here if you are curious.

Now I'm back at my apartment, relaxing for the evening. I think I'll spend tomorrow resolving my phone dilemmas and working on translating my research questions...the dissertation, it begins!

First Full Day in UB

I arrived at my apartment around midnight and met my landlord briefly before being left to my own devices. I gave up trying to remember where I had packed pajamas and settled for brushing my teeth before heading to bed. I did wake up every two hours as my American body clock tried to reassert the notion that during the day only naps are appropriate, but I managed to get about 6 or 7 hours.

This morning I set to the task of unpacking and trying to figure out where things will be placed long-term. I have the unexpected luxury/dilemma that the second bedroom is an office...the desk is a nice plus, but I had hoped to get a roommate for at least part of my time here. I suppose I could always drag the couch in there, but that seems a bit iffy.

So after a bit of orientating myself with the apartment, Amgalan from ACMS (the American Center for Mongolian Studies) arrived to help me set up the internet. After she dropped me back home, I discovered that the internet did not, in fact, work. After a confusing meeting with a IT guy, internet connection was achieved (hence this blog post). It was now almost two o'clock, and I was supposed to meet my friend and university sponsor at 3. I had purchased a new SIM card, but my cell phone refuses to turn on. I'm not sure if it needs to recharge fully after you take out the battery to put in a new SIM card, or if its successful turn-on yesterday was merely a taunt as it died. I figured a 1998 Nokia 3210 wasn't likely to last me the whole ten months, but I had hoped for a few weeks in the beginning here.

So, picture a tragic figure heading off into the distance...cell-phone deprived, running a little later than she had planned, and on her way to a location that googlemaps Ulaanbaatar had seemed pretty sure of. One hour later, the few people I'd struck up the nerve to ask gave me rather unhelpful wavings of "not the way you're going, but that other way." I stopped back at the ACMS to write Bulgaa a quick note of apology, and when I started looking around more on googlemaps I discovered something troubling. The Mongolian University of Arts and Culture in Mongolian is written as Соёл Урлагын Их Сургууль. Googlemaps had two veeeeery different locations for the English translation compared to the Mongolian language name. The English one lists the correct address (according to the official website), but the Mongolian one actually looks like it's on the right street. This is all further confused by the fact that Baga Toiruu Street makes a big U-turn, so it's hard to say exactly where 26 Baga Toiruu Street is supposed to be.

As I'm writing this, Bulgaa wrote back to me that the Mongolian named location on googlemaps is the correct one. So I walked all around the Chinese embassy, blistered my feet, and bled through one precious sock in the completely wrong area with a broken cell phone.


For many reasons besides my general incompetence though, Mongolia humbles me. I am sitting in a beautiful apartment, safe and warm, with a fridge full of eggs for omelettes and an internet connection which I will use shortly to skype with my parents. Coming home, tired and footsore and embarrassed, I carried my new shiny bag of groceries past a pair of Mongolians collecting empty bottles which they will recycle to earn some cash. If they're lucky, they'll have someplace inside to sleep tonight. I've arrived just as the weather turns chilly, and it rained off and on today which hasn't improved on it.

I definitely in comparison am incredibly privileged. Even on a graduate student's income, I've received enough support from my universities, the federal government and my family enough to live a cozy life in pursuit of my work on the protection of cultural heritage. I know the large degree of unemployment is just one of many factors that requires cultural heritage organizations to seek outside funding in order to better preserve Mongolian language and culture, but it does make it hard to prioritize new museum exhibits when every day I've seen people struggling to eat. Mongolia and Mongolians face a lot of challenges, and the big buzz around new money from mining may not make any of them easier. I've just got to do my best to learn and share their experiences. But that's tomorrow's challenge.

Sitting in Seoul

If you have to take a thirteen hour flight, Korean Airlines is the way to go. Of course, it is ideal to spend some of that time sleeping, but I do love the diverse movie/music choices you have to while away the hours. The Lion King, Back to the Future, My Fair Lady...there is an eclectic mix. I skewed Disney this time...nice to fall asleep to.
Another one of the reasons I prefer traveling through Seoul is I have a friend who lives nearby. Unfortunately we couldn't meet up this time, since she's working and my layover is only a little over four hours, but considering how tired I feel right now it is probably for the best.
Incheon Airport has free wireless, so I've been writing a few emails/facebooking/very briefly minecrafting, but I'm debating taking a quick cat nap...only two and a half more hours til I can board my final flight. Thanks to the largesse of KE, I have several snacks squirreled away just in case, but considering I've eaten four meals in the last fifteen hours I'm not expecting that to be a problem :) Since my flight from Seoul to UB is three and a half hours, they might feed me again even! Oy.

Random find for the day, a posting about Mongolia on the indigenous issues blog. Maybe I'll bore you, dear reader, some other day about whether Mongolians could be considered an indigenous group or not. For now, you're safe :)

Hugs and love,
T

ETD: Imminent

Sain baina uu!

I leave Monday morning for UB, so I'm in the final stages of packing and planning. There are, of course, two more sets of threateningly official paperwork to do once I arrive in UB but that's next week's problem.

I know the area around my apartment fairly well and know some details about the furnishings of said apartment, thanks to a friend who lived there last summer. This does not, however, fully prepare me for how to best pack for the cold.

I found the following website, which presents a neat (but intimidating) overview of average temperatures and daylight for UB. If you're curious, check it out:
http://weatherspark.com/averages/34116/Ulan-Bator-Ulaanbaatar-Mongolia

I am a bit of home-body anyways, but I have the feeling I'll be in my apartment by 5 sharp every day and spend my evenings writing up field notes and then playing minecraft or reading on my kindle. The wonders of technology :) It really will be very different and in some ways a lot easier than my first trip in the summer of 2007.

For now, I'm off to a special Thanksgiving dinner :)

Love and hugs,
T

Countdown to Departure

Sain baina uu naiz min!

Plane tickets are purchased, visa has been successfully obtained, and I've negotiated my apartment lease and paid some rent already! Now to just pack...and 6 million other things (small and not so small).

But for now, a geospatial orientation.

First off, where is Mongolia?
Located between China and Russia, Mongolia is the 19th largest country in the world (in terms of landmass...population not so much)



Where will I be?
I will be located (90% of the time) in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. The best place to orient oneself when looking at a map of Ulaanbaatar is to look for Sukhbaatar Square. I've taken a googlemap capture that shows three keys locations, all just to the west of Sukhbaatar Square (about a ten minute walk or so).
The red circle is my apartment building, the green shows the building the Arts Council of Mongolia (the non-profit I'll be volunteering with as one of six data collection methods) is located in, and the yellow is the new location of the American Center for Mongolian Studies (a nice hub for fellow American Mongolists and a superbly helpful support staff).

(please click to make the image bigger)


That's all for now!

Sain baina uu!

Hi there family and friends! I'm just setting up my internet space in preparation for fieldwork. I'm not exactly sure yet how this space will function...whether it will just be fun updates, days in the life, or grapple a bit more with the trials and tribulations of fieldwork (and of living overseas).

As a fun way to start this blog off, here's a Mongolian folk song and its English translation. Singing is a big part of Mongolian culture and learning the language, and music is pretty accessible to everyone. Enjoy!

Mountain flowers are blown in the breeze
Like thoughts about Densee, of the city Khuree, cross my mind

Refrain: When I think of my dear Densee,
The flavors of good, strong tea lose their taste

We are separated by the blue mountains
But the wind connects us
My beloved Densee
Calls to me as she plays the Shanz

Refrain: When I think of my dear Densee,
The flavors of good, strong tea lose their taste

Though the cold air off the river Tuul
Frosts the sable fur cuffs of my deel
My heart is warmed by love for my Densee

Refrain: When I think of my dear Densee,
The flavors of good, strong tea lose their taste