Shaman

 I think I've mentioned before that one of my sitemates, Ben, has a host father who is a shaman. Last weekend, Ben's family invited us over to watch him do his shaman thing.  About five of us, plus a handful of Mongolians, were there for the evening. His mom fed us fruit, eggs, and cookies while we waited for his dad to get home from work. (He's a carpenter.)

Mongolian shamanism predates Buddhism, but has now incorporated a lot of Buddhist symbols/deities, as well as other gods from around the world. Ben is a Christian, and when he discussed religion with is family they explained that they honor Jesus as well. The shrine in their house looks similar to the Buddhist shrine in my apartment, but with some extra stuff added on.

Neither of Ben's host parents speak English, so we could really ask questions or understand a lot of what was said. So I'm going to write about what I observed without too much effort to explain what was going on.

First, Ben's host dad got home, chatted with us briefly while he got his shaman outfit on, and then went out to the yard to throw shots of vodka to the sky. He did this three times, and then came back in the house. He went into a small room with a shrine, blowtorched his leather drum, and then beat it while chanting for a long time. His wife attended him throughout.

After the chanting was over, we all headed back out into the yard. The shaman was walking like an old man, stooped over, and sat down on the ground slowly. When he spoke, his voice also sounded like that of an old man, and was difficult to understand even for the Mongolians. His wife gave him airag, vodka, cigarettes, and dried cheese curd whenever he asked. She addressed him as "Grandfather." One of the Mongolians in attendance did know a little English, and said he was a 300-year-old ancestor. He  asked Ben to sing. All of these hospitality things (food, drink, entertainment) seemed to be part of showing respect to the spirit of the ancestor that was hanging out with us for a bit. Ben did an excellent job of singing a Mongolian song his family had taught him.

After a while, Ben's host mom called him over. She handed him some sage rolled up in toilet paper that she lit the end of, and showed him how to wave it around his body in the proper direction and blow on it so it wouldn't go out. Then we all passed the sage around. The shaman put his hands on Ben's head, said some things we couldn't understand, and slapped him on the back three times. Then we all went down the line, approaching the shaman, letting him put his hands on our heads, and accepting the dried cheese curd he gave us afterward.

When it was my turn, the shaman didn't say anything at all and didn't slap me on the back. He did give me dried cheese curd, though.

Two of my friends were asked to sing. Koty was the first one put on the spot, and there was a cute Mongolian language moment. The word for "finished" and the word for  "sing" sound similar, and even though she knew they were asking her to sing, she hopefully asked "Do you mean I'm finished?" in Mongolian, to which the shaman's wife replied, "No, no: SING." And she did. Chris sang "You Are My Sunshine" while we all tried really, really hard not to laugh. (Laughing was okay. His wife laughed a lot of the time, too.) Leo wasn't asked to sing, but the shaman spontaneously beat his huge drum right next to Leo's head.

 

He had a lot to say about some people, but nothing we could understand. I don't know what sorts of things are usually said by shamans in trances channeling ancestors. But the Mongolians were smiling, so it must have been good.

After this, the Grandfather drank some more vodka, smoked some more, beat on his drum, and hit himself (not hard) with whips that his wife poured water on. This went on for a while. Some people left. Ben explained to us that the shaman usually came out of the trance by beating on the drum, same as he went in. So as he'd beat the drum, then slump over for a bit, his wife would ask him questions to see if it was still the Grandfather or if we were done. It got to be pretty funny after the fifth or so time, because she'd ask a question and then get an answer in the old-man voice, usually a request for more vodka or another cigarette, and she'd laugh and give it to him.

Eventually, he beat the drum for quite a long time, then pulled his headdress off and stood up, old man body language gone. His wife asked if he was okay, and he walked a ways off, jumped up and down a few times, and threw up. Then we all went back into the house, Ben's dad ate some fried eggs, and joked with us in Mongolian about who was dating who in our training group.

The whole thing took a little over two hours, but sometimes it takes as long as four. We were very lucky to be invited to witness it; a lot of Mongolians have never seen a shaman before. Ben's host family was great and very excited to have us there.

...

I only have one week left at my training site. On August 15, I will find out where I will be living for the next two years!

My Summer Vacation

 

During national Nadaam, I was lucky enough to be invited along on my host family's summer trip. We traveled for six days, through 4 aimags (provinces), to a monastery that was 500 km away on dirt roads. Ten of us went in two cars. We drove through streams, got stuck in the mud in the pouring rain and had to push the car, and other such adventures.

We left on Friday, but only drove about half an hour away to spend the night. This was because its more auspicious to begin a journey on a Friday than a Saturday. My host sister and I went down to the river. She showed me how Mongolians put some river water on their head when they come to a river, which is supposed to make it so you don't get sick from drinking the water. (Neither of us tested that theory, given the number of livestock milling around who probably use it is as their outhouse.)

The next day, we were out in the countryside and driving through pouring rain on dirt roads. We drove through roaring streams, splashed through mud, and the other car got stuck trying to go up a steep incline. Then another car passed by (first one we'd seen in an hour) and stopped to help us push. Then their car got stuck and we helped them push. Eventually, the rain slowed up and the roads got less treacherous.

 

Somewhere in the middle of this we stopped at an ovoo (spelling questionable) - one of the roadside piles of rocks that you're supposed to circle three times. We all got out, the women grabbing candy and the two men grabbing bottles of vodka, and scurried to the ovoo quickly because of the rain. The men poured three shots and threw them in the air, then poured a drink for each of us before we ran around the stones, throwing the candy on as we passed, in the hopes that sugar rush on the part of the nature spirits would make them cut it out with the rain already. These ovoos are really cool - they have candy, money, scarves, empty vodka bottles, animal skulls, you name it, tucked in among the rocks.

We stopped at some old ruins, called Tsogtin Balgas, which was a castle of one of the last relatives of the Khan that got burned down in some major and probably epic story that I only caught 10% of. The rain had finally stopped, so we decided to make dinner and find somewhere to camp nearby.  The ruins had a museum associated with them, and we ended up going back to the museum curator's ger to cook our dinner. This was example number one of Mongolian hospitality, in which a total stranger let us cook and eat in his home. This was totally normal to all of the Mongolians involved; in fact, we packed food that we would need a stove to cook despite not knowing anyone on the way. They just planned on people letting them cook in their gers, which is perfectly acceptable on both sides of the arrangement here.

After a night sleeping in tents, we awoke to a beautiful, sunny day with no lingering threat of rain, so we took out time, stopping frequently along the dirt roads to check out cool rocks, interesting views, or roadside shrines. We took lots of pictures, ate snacks, and generally had road trip fun without seeing another soul for miles. We blasted Mongolian folk music out of the car speakers and bumped along with the windows down. We saw the landscape change from grasslands with low hills to rocky mountains with a smattering of trees  to increasingly sandy soil and finally to desert. I perfected the skill of peeing discreetly in a field with no trees or bushes to go behind (traditional Mongolian dels are the best clothing option for this process, but a sweatshirt around your waist works too). We were in the Ovorhangay aimag (I think), which isn't technically the Gobi desert but includes a Gobi-like desert. (This is made more confusing when explained in Mongolian by the fact that the word "gobi" is the word for desert.)

 

Here, there were CAMELS! Just hanging out, being ridden around, and I even spotted a herd of at least twenty out in a field. As we rounded a corner, we saw a sign advertising camel rides (in English, in case you weren't sure who this was intended for, haha). My host family knows how I feel about camels, so we stopped, and all paid our 2000 tugriks to ride a camel. It was essentially a pony ride, with the guy leading me around in a circle, but it was still awesome.

The next day, we made it to Erdene Zyy monastery, the oldest monastery in Mongolia at 800 years old. It was really interesting, and you should look it up - it's a major tourist attraction, and really cool.

After the monastery, when we stopped to collect more spring water, I heard a baaaa coming from the other car. Sure enough, the kids had a live sheep laying in their laps - bought from the last ger we spent the night at. I fed it some grass and patted it on the head, knowing it was fated to be lunch, no matter how cute it was.

I wasn't allowed to watch them kill the sheep, because only men are allowed to. (You can imagine how well I took that! But my complaining was of no avail.) They borrowed my knife to kill/carve it up, though. I got to watch them clean and prepare the sheep, which was really interesting. Nothing was wasted - although I didn't eat the innards myself! I wiped the blood off my knife on my jeans and used it to carve and eat meat off the bone, because I am hardcore.

On the way home we stopped to pick strawberries, lounge by a stream, and generally enjoy our vacation. It was a wonderful five-day weekend before diving back into class on Thursday!

One Month

I left home one month ago today... wow.

I got to milk something!

My Host Mom Explaining the Cow-Milking Process

Last weekend, my host family and I went out to the countryside again.  My host mom was determined to check off all the "countryside jobs" that are on my list of things she needs to teach me how to do before training is over and I have to be able to feed, wash, and shelter myself somewhere in Mongolia.

First, I got to milk a cow! There was much laughter at my attempts, but I think I made a decent showing. I got milk out of the cow at any rate - I don't think speed should count. ;)

Next on the list was sawing and chopping wood. I didn't lose any limbs, and there were smaller pieces of wood after I was done. So, success. (And, again, much laughter!)

Then I helped make a fire in the ger stove using dung and the wood I'd chopped. We boiled the milk in a huge basin that slotted into the top of the stove. We made hoshur (fried dumplings), of which I am becoming an excellent pincher. They even made me special meat ones - they were eating intestine-stomach-kidney-etc. ones.  We drank yogurt.  A good time was had by all.

This week at school was insanely busy. We had two micro-teaching sessions, took trips to the cultural center, and I had the first meeting of what will hopefully work out to be a Spoken English table at the local cafe.

Also, I'm learning a Mongolian dance, to be performed at the end of training. It's a lot of fun, but definitely not easy - we had two two-hour practices this week and I think we've gone through about a quarter of it! There are six of us doing it: three girls, three boys. We're being taught by teenage Mongolian girls who are endlessly patient with us. ("Like a bird. Small, fast. No. No. Um. No. ... Still no... No. Again.")

Bi ochingder... (Yesterday I...)

I have an embarrassing language-learning story for your amusement:

Yesterday, the topic of our lesson was learning how to buy things in a store - asking how much something cost, etc.  So after we practiced amongst ourselves, the teacher sent us out to actual stores to ask the prices of things.

Horses Hanging Out in Front of the Hospital

(This is the second time we've bothered the people of our awesome little town with our attempts at speaking Mongolian. The first time went something like "HI HOW ARE YOU I AM FROM AMERICA WHAT IS YOUR NAME HOW OLD ARE YOU WHAT KIND OF FOOD DO YOU LIKE?" I got to talk to an old man who took my notebook, wrote the word "Ulaanbaatar" in really nice cursive, and pointed at it good-naturedly in response to every question I asked. I still have no idea what we were talking about.)

I was assigned flour and meat. Koty, Jill, and I teamed up and hit the store across the street from the school. They had bags of flour, which I successfully ascertained the price of and wrote in my notebook, and they had everything the other girls were looking for. But they didn't have any meat.

So Koty and I proceeded to a second store, further away from the school. Still no meat.  At least that made it less awkward then the first store, where we asked the price of six items and didn't buy anything.

We headed for a store a little further on, outside of which two men were standing, smoking. They worked at the store, and I asked in my stilted Mongolian if they had any meat. They did! Now, I decided to stretch my language skills to the max by asking about specific kinds of meat and how much they cost. I started with mutton.

The word for sheep in Mongolian sounds like "hon." The word for person sounds like "hoon."

Guess which one I used.

A Rainy Day - Felt Like Being Back in Binghamton!

Yep, I asked the store clerk how much man-meat cost.

This miscommunication was resolved when I figured out the question he kept asking me was "Whose meat?" and he pinched his own arm and repeated my mispronounced phrase. I drew a sheep, made a "Baaa!" sound, and quickly wrote down the price of mutton.

There was much laughter all around.

I also had my first micro-teaching yesterday, in which I taught seven ninth-grade Mongolian girls a lesson that was planned for fifth graders.  It was surprisingly not a complete disaster. They seemed like they might even come to next week's class, for which I will hopefully have a better lesson plan. (Micro-teaching is done in groups, where each group member solo-teaches for 20 minutes out of an hour. I only taught for 8 of my 20 minutes - oops - but my group is awesome and we rounded out the end of the lesson with an extra game so we didn't end early.)

One of the Micro-Teaching Classrooms Had to be Broken Into After the Key Got Lost - We Took Care of It

Some Photos

Cows Hanging Out at the Children's Park

Sunset

Sunset - From When I Climbed A Mountain

I rode a camel! Okay, okay, not a real one yet. ;)

Gers, Tumpens, and Things

Some updates from Mongolia:

I went along to visit my host mother's sister who lives in the countryside (about ten minutes out of town by car). I got to hang out in an authentic ger, eat yogurt out of a jug that was just hanging out on the floor doing its thing (Mongolian yogurt is really really delicious), watch sheep get herded by men on horseback, help take the felt cover off the outside of the ger and re-line the inside plastic sheeting to keep the rain out, and wander around in a field collecting dung to burn.

A cool story: One of my fellow trainees, Ben, has a host father who is a shaman. My language teacher/host sister was over at our apartment when she got a call from Ben's host mom asking her to explain to him in English that his dad was going to be dancing around, hitting a drum, and channeling spirits in the living room so he wouldn't be freaked out. She explained this, and then told him he had to pay attention so he could tell the class about it in the morning - which he did. It was very interesting. Mongolian shamanism predates Buddhism, but dovetails nicely with it now, at least according to Ben.



My Language Teacher Looks on Disapprovingly as Leo Washes His Hair



On Thursdays, we only have a half day of class. (Usually, we have Mongolian language lessons in the morning, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and technical sessions - teacher training - in the afternoons from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.) So after our language class, since our teacher had noticed some of the trainees were looking a little greasy, we scheduled a tumpen-bathing lesson at Patrick's ger. Yep, there were some trainees that had not washed their hair in the week we've been here. (Don't worry, I perfected that skill ASAP.) So they got to bring their tumpens and shampoo in the ger while the rest of us snacked and took pictures. Then we all went to the Nice Bar (Yes, that is actually the name of the bar) to have a beer and enjoy a chance to talk in English for a little while. It was a good afternoon.

Another skill I have perfected is dumpling-pinching. I have now helped my host mother and sister make buuz (small dumplings that you fill with meat and onions and cook by steaming) and hoshur (big dumplings that you can fill with meat, or potatoes, then deep fry). I may not be able to go as fast as they can, but mine look just as good and don't open when you cook them, so I consider myself to have achieved an advanced level of Mongolian food prep.

A skill I have not perfected is doing laundry by hand. I will never, ever, ever, complain about doing laundry with a washing machine again. Ever. (It takes SO LONG.)

The other night, after I finished my homework and went for a walk with my younger host sister's teenage friends (who speak pretty good English, especially with the aid of my snazzy Peace Corps-issued dictionary, quiz me on my Mongolian vocabulary, and are a lot of fun), I came back and chilled with my older host sisters (one of whom is also my language teacher). We watched Mongolian X Factor (yep), munched on dried cheese curd (this fills the role of popcorn and tastes like chunks of Parmesan cheese), and swapped makeup preferences. This is my life in Mongolia.