On Saturday it was the usual wake-up from Davaa ("Eat! Eat! Come! Come!") ushering me out the door, telling me that we were going to have a picnic next to the Tuul River with his church group. I had plans, but what the hell. I'll gladly go somewhere that has a place to swim. Of course, true to Mongol fashion, we left the apartment at 10 AM but didn't actually make it out to the picnic spot (a mere 10 miles away) until 1 PM. A lot of bickering at the church, an adventure to get a key copied at the Black Market, scrambling together transportation (as always, demand far exceeds supply of working wheels in this country).
In Mongolia, you always eat before you swim. That is the general rule, and it has its consequences (at least 50 people drown in the Tuul River per year). So we had a filling meal of coffee and various bleached flour bread items, offering a feeling of fullness, but no real nutrition (we wouldn't have it any other way). Then we jumped into the frigid Tuul. The current happened to be strong from recent rains, so there wasn't much swimming, just a bunch of tumbling and struggling.
Then it was time for the Mongolian style of Barbeque (which more closely resemebles slow roasting meat in a crock pot) called Khorkhog. First you build a wood fire around a pile of stones. Then, when the stones are red-hot, you place them in a steel, vacuum-sealed kettle, along with scraps of meat, potatoes, and carrots. Once all the ingredients are inside, close the lid tightly and place this pressure cooker back into the fire pit, flame-cooking it for 30-40 minutes.
Be careful when opening the highly pressurized kettle, many Mongolians have scars from Khorkhog "incidences." In fact, it's more like a minor bomb going off. But, once the lid is opened and most of the scalding water trapped inside is ejected into your face, it's time to eat! I'll be honest, this method of cooking mutton is by far the tastiest. The meat actually tasted like roast beef, though everything else had the distinct mutton tang to it. Once again Davaa says something and everyone laughs at me and I haven't the faintest idea what the hell is going on or what they're saying, but I eat everything up like its no big deal. Oooohhh, look at that! A non-Mongol who eats meat and potatoes! Soooo strange!
*****
Later that night I decided I was tired of spending my evenings huddled around a book or my notepad, so I called up the 2 other American students on the same program as me. We meet up at the British Pub and are instantly befriended by Ted, the 35 year old perpetual grad student. He is working on his Masters thesis in Mongolia, basically piggy-backing off of someone else's Fulbright Scholarship. Now here was a guy full of contradictions. First, he asked Dan if he lived in Michigan. Dan just goes to grad school there, but Ted grew up there. Later, after a few more shots of Jim Beam, Ted tells us he was born in Kentucky. He also tells me my plan to raft 30km of the Tuul River by myself is preposterous and un-doable. No, the better thing to do, he says, is buy a few inner tubes, a six pack, some rope. Tie the tubes together (one man to one tube, an extra tube to carry the Budweiser) and float the Tuul from Gachuurt to UB (about 10 km). This is his idea of adventure in Mongolia ("Let's do exactly the same thing we do in the States, only do it in Mongolia! What respect for the country we'll show by rafting their rivers like the drunk Americans that we are.") Brilliant idea, Ted. Sets a good example. Anymore ideas?
Ted also spoke eloquently about the relative safety of Ulaanbaatar. He compared it to Mexico City, where everyone had guns and drugs. Here, they can't afford guns. Mongolians don't know what heroine is, or cocaine. They might know what Meth is, but they don't sell the ingredients here. So, Okay, Mongolia is a safe place, right? Well, I thought so until Ted pulled out his six-inch knife and said "I don't take any chances, though. If they want my wallet, they can have it. But if they want my life, they'll have to fight me for it." A mere two seconds later, after I speculated that my host family was probably more worried about my safety than I was, he said "Mongolians over-react and are too paranoid."
Here's another golden nugget. Ted wanted to come back to Mongolia to write his Ph.D dissertation someday. He would write it about the rampant alcoholism in the country. He said this while stumbling over the sidewalk, foaming at the mouth.
So I have a character for my next story.
******
Yesterday I went to see "La Boheme" at the State Opera House. The House is magnificent and top-notch, though a bit small. The Liberty Theatre in Astoria is actually bigger, with a better chandelier. But this one, it was obvious, used to entertain Royalty. The only thing that made the whole experience completely weird was the low attendance. Out of 500 seats, only 40 were taken (for a box office revenue of about $200). When the show ended, it sounded like a high school tennis match and one of the athletes just made a comeback win. Tinny applause. Ironically, I think there were more performers onstage bowing than were in the seats clapping. But no matter, this entire production is sponsored by Germany. Losses are expected. The State Opera is just another service subsidized by a rich nation so Mongolians can skip out (most in attendance were "yellow-heads," as we're called).
After the show I ate the best danish tasted so far in Asia. Not surprisingly, it was at an Austrian-run bakery. I've also realized I've been missing out on big sandwiches with cheese and meats and mustard.
And real coffee...
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