Pig Diaries #2

In our city, there are dogs.

And there are pigs.

They do not like each other.

Everything below (mostly) is based on personal observation.

March 26 - The winter months are harsh on both pig- and dog-kind. For the past many months, the drove has been taking shelter in the human protection areas. I’ve noticed that the humans don’t care for those misbegotten dogs in the same way. Again, we are chosen as the superior creatures.

April 2 - We finally celebrated the coming of spring this month. We rejoiced in the streets surrounding a large group of buildings where the humans reside. Their trash bins are excellent sources of party food for the drove as we celebrate the changing of the seasons.

April 5 – Following our multi-day spring celebration, I have assigned shifts to different drove members for scouting expeditions. I must always ensure the safety of the drove.

April 6 – Gordy took the scouting shift this morning and returned with disgusting, albeit favorable news. He reported seeing only one dog during his shift. The dog didn’t give him any trouble or pay him any attention. This dog was preoccupied eating a dead member of his own pack. Say what you will about us pigs, but we would never resort to cannibalism.

April 15 – The dogs don’t seem to have organized into packs since the winter. Our safety is still intact on that front. However, the coming of spring brings violent winds that threaten to blow our houses down in a huffy puffy manner. The humans work to fortify the shelter to prepare for the incoming piglets.

April 19 – Our first encounter with a pack occurred today. Wilbur, one of our lesser intelligent drove members, was making the rounds and found himself in dog territory. Since we had no intel on pack activity, these territories were unknown until today. Wilbur was hassled by the leader of the small four-pack. With the support of the pack, the lead dog forced Wilbur to cross the street in front of oncoming traffic. Luckily for Wilbur, he made friends with a highly intelligent arachnid this winter who travels with him everywhere. Sitting atop his head, she quickly instructed him how to navigate the street and cross to safety. The pack didn’t chase Wilbur any further, but these displays of dominance will only get worse over time. When Wilbur arrived to make his report, he was sweating like…. well, he was sweating profusely. It took a long time to calm him down.

April 20 – After Wilbur’s incident yesterday, I am now assigning scout pairs. No pig will travel unaccompanied. Some of the drove say this is pigheaded, but sometimes, they just don’t understand the importance of safety. I can only hope they heed my advice so there are no accidents. 

-Napoleon, Head Pig (aka Sally)

Springtime in the Countryside

Thursday and Friday, Caleb and I were both sick for different reasons. We stayed home from school and took turns weaving in and out of consciousness and generally being sick. Caleb had some stomach problems, possibly due to some food poisoning. I was running a fever with a stuffy nose without being able to breathe. We were a pretty pitiful pair.

On Saturday, we were feeling mostly better. On Sunday, we were excited to have the opportunity to get out of the city. After thinking about it, we realized that we haven’t left our site since December… It was long past time for us to get out and the fresh air would do us good after the sickness.

Our sitemate, Kyra’s supervisor is really nice. Her husband is a teacher at my school, and they were nice enough to invite the three of us to visit some of their relatives in the countryside who are herders. Sunday morning at 9:00 with the snow falling, we all met to begin the one and a half hour car ride across a bumpy dirt road towards nothing.

The herder family's home

 When I mean nothing, I mean no electricity, hardly any roads, no signs that anyone lives in this direction. Later, I noticed the family’s gers had small solar panels outside, which was the only source of electricity.

When we arrived, we immediately saw the camels. Mongolia is home to both domestic and wild Bactrian camels, which have two humps. Later, we found out that these camels can live to be 30-40 years old, and they only reproduce once every three years. We were lucky, then, to get to also see several baby camels!

Kyra with a baby camel

Caleb with a baby camel

Caleb and an adult camel

Kyra and I getting some camel love

Baby camel!

The springtime in a herder’s life means lots of baby animals. Besides the baby camels, we also got to play with baby goats and see a few baby cows. There were so many goats and kids, they had a whole ger to themselves!

Kyra and I with our kids

The goat ger

My teacher, Galaa, with a baby cow

After playing with the animals and visiting with the Mongolians for a while, the five of us that traveled together decided to take a hike. My teacher knew where the highest mountain was in the area, so that’s where we went. It was called the Windy Mountain, and we quickly found out why. It was a ways to the top and a little difficult for me since I don’t get a lot of elevation change and don’t have to walk very far to school and was still in the midst of a cold with labored breathing. But we made it, and the views were incredible.

Caleb, me, Kyra, Kyra's supervisor Enkhtuya

Me and my teacher

Caleb

After doing a few yoga poses at the top, we descended to head back to the family’s home.

They fed us a typical Mongolian lunch, a rice dish with dried beef and potatoes washed down with hot milk tea. Caleb played cards with the oldest Mongolian man there, while Kyra and I snuck back outside to see the camels and goats once more before leaving.

We got back home by 5:00. It was a great day! It felt so nice to get out of the city for a day and experience the beauty that is the Mongolian countryside. Even though it is still snowy and cold in mid-April, spring here is definitely different from the bitter dry cold of winter.

Springtime Blues

Trail head in Alabama.

 Last week, we had what will hopefully be the last snow of the season. The weather set in on a Thursday with gales that swept the sand from the steppe. During the day, the snow/sand mixture was painful to exposed skin and almost impossible to see in. That evening, I found myself walking home from my school’s dorm after watching Jurassic World with the students. The light snow moved across the ground in waves with the wind like something in a Discovery Channel special on Antarctica. The week before in pure frustration I packed up my winter parka, with the hopes that this act alone would bring warm weather. Now walking in the wind and the snow with my light jacket all I could think was, “This isn’t so bad. I don’t have ice forming in my beard; therefore it is not too cold.”

Tyler in Oak Mountain, we had just reached 500 miles in one year. Summer of 2014

It is amazing how perspective changes. To quote Crist Sperling, “Life is a constant period of adjustment.” A year ago, if someone had dropped me in this weather, I would have panicked. While many of the changes in Mongolia have been good, there are some things that are still hard to get used too. Sure Sally and I miss family, friends, and convenience (The things I would do for Taco Bell…), but for both of us, it’s the sweet experience of the Alabama forest that haunts our dreams.

Many of you know that before Mongolia, I worked for four years at a mental health facility. The amazing individual that I spent most of my time with, Tyler, loved to go hiking. He and I would explore the parks and backwoods of Birmingham with a shared passion for the solitude and peace that the woods offered. In all seasons and weather we could be found hiking the trails of Oak Mountain, Red Mountain, Ruffner Mountain, and the uncharted, un-hiked access roads in the mountains surrounding Lake Purty. We were a dynamic hiking duo.

Lake at Oak Mountain, Summer of 2012

As a child, my sister and I became intimately familiar with our back yard and surrounding forest. Children who play outside know the land better than any adult could possibly imagine. A child knows every tree, every bush, hollow, rock, and animal. Each becomes a unique part of an incredible world that only a child can truly comprehend.

In the woods of Birmingham, with Tyler, I found myself becoming intimately familiar with an enormous area of land. We covered thousands of miles in our time together. With Tyler, I watched the seasons change and the forest grow. We knew how each season affected each park and trail. We knew which trails would be washed out in spring, which peaks would be bitter in winter winds, which trees had fallen in summer storms. To become connected with the land in such a manner as an adult was a magical experience.

Often as I walk to school, I will think of the many hikes Tyler and I took together. I will find myself wondering what changes have occurred in the forest of Birmingham, which parks have opened new trails. With Mongolian spring, I find myself thinking of how the Mountain Laurel keeps it’s leafs through the winter, how the Quarry Trail in Ruffner becomes a literal paradise of wildflowers. How in a matter of weeks the trees in Alabama burst forth in beautiful canopies of greens and browns. In spring and summer the Red Jeep Trail in Oak Mountain is particularly beautiful with rushing streams over moss covered rocks and towering cathedral-like oaks.

Sally and I at Cheaha Mountian in Jan of 2015.

 Mongolia is beautiful too. I will forever cherish the image of a herder in a deel riding a horse down the main street of town, but the beauty of Mongolia is different. This is a harsh wild world with wide open swaths of land. Seeing the curvature of the earth over the steppe is awe-inspiring, but it lacks the charm and hospitality of the southern Appalachians and the subtle nuances of a forest in spring.

The Appalachains have always felt welcoming to me. Like ancient sleeping gods that dot the landscape in rolling peaceful mountains. They are gentler than the Rockies or the harsh hills of Mongolia. In the Appalachiansrich ecosystems flourish and life is, relatively speaking, easy.

I will often comment on a single sound that I miss more than any other sound. This sound is that of the wind caressing the trees. The rustle of leafs in winter and summer gales, and spring and autumn breezes. To look up and watch the branches swaying as the sunlight shifts and falls like streams of gold, and to know that this must be heaven.  

Cheaha Mountain sunset Jan 2015

Many of you live near our beautiful homeland and perhaps you haven’t enjoyed it as I have.  I invite you to go for a hike. Please, let me live viciously through you. It is so easy in America to let spring pass us by. It is easy for the years to pass without enjoying natural beauty, and to get trapped in monotonous patterns. Enjoy our world. If you feel inclined to post pictures in the comment section of this post, I promise you we will enjoy them. I challenge you now to get outside. Go. Stop reading this post!

~Caleb

Seriously, Go Outside!

Suggested Possible Hikes in North Alabama:

McDill Point—Cheaha Wilderness

Shackleford Peak—Oak Mountain

Green Trail—Red Mountain Park (Follows Ridgeline)

Quarry Trail to Quarry Overlook—Ruffner Moutain

Desoto State Park

Sypsy Wilderness

Field Expedition

The springtime blues is viewed as a very real epidemic in Mongolia. Mongolians report feeling a lack of energy or will power as the weather warms up. It is possible that everyone is dealing with allergies which seem to still be present even with the lack of plant life. Luckily there is a cure for this terrible illness. One must simply watch the melting ice on the Хэрлэн Гол (Kherlen Gawl river). The melting ice is revitalizing and gives life to all that witness it.

For this reason I was kidnapped on Friday to go to the river for a half hour. My English teachers had heard through the grapevine that the ice was moving. When we got to the water’s edge, it was apparent that most of the ice had already flown downstream, but we still saw a few small chunks drifting swiftly by.

Returning from the river, I noticed a large monastery on the outskirts of town and asked about it. My teachers, feeling no hurry to return to work, detoured immediately. The walled fortress was intricately detailed with stupas (tall pointed rock carvings) and prayer wheels at each corner. I reverently followed my CPs into the main building filled with clouds of incense. Along all of the walls were thousands of small gold painted Buddhas each in a plaque in Cyrillic that loved ones had dedicated to deceased. The center altar was a collage of colors with large painted statues of various religious people. A family sat on a beach before a monk in orange and red robes who chanted a prayer for them. Tibetan Monasteries are a very tactile experience; there are prayer wheels and carvings to touch, incense to smell, chanting monks to hear, and holy water to touch.

This is an example of a prayer wheel on Өндөрхан Уул. I didn't have a camera at the monastery.

Also an example Stuppa on Өндөрхан Уул. 

After circling the inside in a traditional fashion, I joined my teachers at the exit. A young monk took up a tea kettle and poured water into each of my coworkers hands. They raised it to their lips and anointed their heads. When the time came for me to take the water, I eagerly joined in and raised the liquid to my lips sipping from my hands, before dousing my head. As the fluid moved down my throat, I felt a panic because it didn’t taste like water and had a thicker consistency. Was this some sort of oil? Had my CPs just touched it to their lips rather than drink? Cooking oil is not deadly. Is candle/anointing oil deadly, like gasoline?!?... Fortunately for me, the water was just flavored and blessed by the monks with special herbs.

On the way back, my English teachers debated on the correct word for the field trip. Exhibition was tossed around, flooring me with their English vocabulary, but I realized they meant expedition, so we settled there. I didn’t have a white board and decided I would explain field trip/excursion at a later date.  

So the moral of the story is simply that after 10 months of living in a small town in Mongolia, I can still be whisked away on a completely new cultural experience.

~Caleb 

Chinggis Town’s Best Breakfast Sandwich

Early in our service, Sally and I started eating this breakfast sandwich every morning. For 7 months we have had it almost every morning with a few regretted deviations. Why do we like it so much? Perhaps, it feels like a little bit like home and lacks Mongolian flavors.

Ingredients:

·        Bread

·        Mayo—I use the UB brand in small jar

·        Mustard—Usually try to use the German brand

·        Sausage—Венкая is a great brand of хиам that lacks some of the taste of traditional Монгол хиам. This is also the one taste that would be difficult to create in the states.

·        Egg

·        Slice of cheese—Happy cow brand is good

·        Onion, pickles (German brand is good), cucumber if desired

How to make:

1.      Warm up a little oil in a frying pan.

2.      Slice the bread. Coat bread evenly: one slice with mayonnaise, the other with mustard.

3.      Fry the sausage. Once fried, place on the mustard side of the bread and cover with the slice of cheese. (Sally likes onions on her cheese).

4.      Fry the egg to desired style with salt and pepper to taste.

5.      Place egg on top of the cheese. Cut the sandwich in half for better taste.

6.      Eat while warm! Or save half for later!

For a more summer/spring taste, I slice cucumber and pickle and layer on the sandwich in this order: mustard, cucumber, sausage, cheese, egg, pickle, mayonnaise. 

Sally and I have fed a number of PCVs with this deliciously filling sandwich. The consensus is unanimously in favor as best breakfast in Chinggis. The sandwich is quite filling so it allows one to get through the morning without being hungry.