Spring, etc.

May 23, 2009 at 8:05 am Leave a comment

Spring has definitely sprung here in Khuvsgul—you’ll see by the photos that we now have leafed out trees and little flowers growing here and there—what I’d call alpine flowers. The Siberian iris grow everywhere in town—not the tall ones we’re familiar with but short, stubby clumps of flowers. The fuzzy purple one in the photo I saw up by Khuvsgul Lake a couple of weeks ago. Do you know what it is? The photo of the ger and some trees was taken near where I work. Sunday is the election for President of Mongolia and the ger is election headquarters for one of the candidates. It’s right near the government offices where I work and all day big speakers broadcast election rhetoric and play music. At the moment, looks as if it could go either way.

Yep, I was back at Lake Khuvsgul for a quick overnight. The reason is that two women from Mongolia’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MNCCI) came to Muron to give some seminars. Two of the seminars were about a program that the German Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring: providing loans for rural business development. It started 2 years ago and has expanded this year to include Muron. Three or four small businesses here will receive loans of about $3000 to start or expand their businesses. Our office had been accepting applications for a week or so prior to their visit. I am hopeful that some of those who don’t get chosen might be able to get a loan through kiva.com, a microfinance website—check it out online. Kiva partners with Hac Bank in Mongolia to administer the loans and I have now met twice with people in the bank who seem interested. I’ll also be teaching the bank tellers some English and they’re interested in our Eco Club as well. Perhaps they’ll sponsor some of our activities!

Back to the MNCCI women–they had never seen Lake Khuvsgul so they planned to go up after giving a morning workshop on organic products and come back the next day. Seemed like a really short trip for such a long drive (around 4 hours at least) and I wasn’t too interested in going, but thought it was a good opportunity to build the relationship, so said yes, I’d go too. We were supposed to leave at 2, but I got picked up about 3:30 and then we had to stop at the zaak for food (we’d be cooking our own food) and then we had to have “lunch” so we didn’t get away until around 5. There were now 11 of us including Sara (my boss), a couple of co-workers, the MNCII people, and the drivers and a few others. This this the countryside was a lot more interesting. Along the way we saw many herds of sheep, goats, yaks and horses. First they look like little black dots on the hillsides and as you draw closer you see they are animals feeding on the new grass beginning to grow. Sometimes flocks of animals crossed the road in front of us and there was a lot of horn honking–vehicles here think they always have the right of way. We also sang a lot of Mongolian songs—or at least they did and I tried to follow along. I do know one Mongolian song about a horse. Reminded me of the singing we did on road trips with my family when I was growing up. Fortunately, the sun is setting around 9 now and we were able to reach our destination before dark.

Seven of us stayed in a little house on the water (how we all fit, I don’t know). And the 4 men stayed in a nearby ger. I had a narrow bed in a tiny bedroom barely bigger than the bed and 2 of my co-workers slept on the floor beside me and one of them is 8 months pregnant! In any case, it was nice to see the ice is receding—melting some around the edges now. The larches on the hills around the lake are still brown and should get their leaves in about 3 weeks, I’m told. The next morning, we took a little walk up the lake, prepared an early lunch from the leftovers from the night before, and then packed up for the drive back. The MNCCI women had to catch a 4:10 plane. Just as we were getting ready to leave we discovered the micro-bus (they call them mikers, pronounced meekers) had a flat left front tire. Fortunately we had a spare and the tire was changed. About halfway to Muron we had another flat tire out in the middle of nowhere. In the distance was a jeep and not far from that a ger. The two men with us began to hike towards the jeep and then someone in the jeep saw them and drove toward them. Then the jeep drove away and the men returned to our miker. They got in and we drove a good ways across the fields—on the flat tire–to the ger. Apparently the men had been told someone had a pump. At the first ger, we stopped and after talking with a herder there, he hopped on his horse and galloped off to the next ger and then another one in the distance.

While we waited, we enjoyed making friends with a little group of lamb and goat orphans that stay close to the ger. Some were very friendly! The photo of the ger shows the solar panel that probably runs the tv and electric light and the herder’s motorcycle. When the herder came back, he had a hand pump. The men pumped and pumped and pumped (I think the pump itself was leaky) and finally got the tire firm enough to put on the miker and we took off again, getting back to Muron just in time for the women to catch their plane. Whew!

Other photos: One of the friends I’ve made is in the Inspection Department for the aimag. She is also a trained chef and runs some cooking classes with two other women. She invited me to come and see it—it was their last day and they were being tested on their cooking prowess. The picture of them shows them preparing a salad: a carrot, a cucumber, a tomato and a piece of “hyam” or Mongolian sausage. See how tiny the slivers of carrots are? I’d never make a very good Mongolian chef. There’s also a picture of the most creative salad looking like some sort of dragonfly!

You’ll also see a picture of tomato seedlings in our greenhouse. It’s still too chilly to put them outside, but it won’t be long now. Potatoes were planted last week in the fields and the cabbage seedlings are getting big and ready to go. I have planted a little garden with marigolds, lettuce, and basil—so far only the lettuce is showing signs of life and maybe some marigolds. I replanted some this morning. I think a big issue is getting them enough water—the sandy soil dries out so quickly and rain is nearly non-existent. And knowing that Bold has to bring my water from the well makes me very conscious of conserving every drop.

This morning they slaughtered a goat (I only saw it after the fact–I need to give something to Tsermaa later and she offered me some bits of liver and fat she grilled right there on a fork over the fire in the stove. It was delicious! Wish I could buy some liver here–but you have to take the whole animal!

Bold and Tsermaa are also raising lots of baby chickens. Around two dozen already becoming adolescents and 6 more broody hens on 6 nests in boxes in the little anteroom of their side of the house. A little noisy–and smelly, but the flock will get bigger and the eggs more numerous and then there’s all that great chicken material for compost!