Countryside weekend

I don’t want to bore you with my work situation so I’ll keep it short before I move on to more stimulating topics. Work is picking up. Although last week most of my coworkers were out of the office I was able to accomplish many things. The most exciting however was receiving a translated Nutrition lesson from Peace Corps. Having translated materials makes things so much easier for me. I don’t have to go through the tedious and many times painful activity of sitting with my counterpart picking through our dictionaries trying to decipher each word, phrase, or sentence. Anyways we are planning to do some nutrition training to both hospital and health department workers sometime this week (or so they say, you can never really be sure).
This past weekend I traveled to the countryside with practically the entire staff of the health department. We traveled to a small town by the name of Tsagaan-uur (white-nest) which is roughly 90 miles Northeast of where I live. As you know traveling in this country isn’t exactly an easy feat. And like many aspects of Mongolian life traveling to the countryside is easier said than done. Traveling 90 miles in the states would take about an hour and a half, however here in Mongolia it took a little over eight hours. Why? Well simply because there are no roads (paved or dirt) to where we were going. Luckily because it is winter we can drive on the frozen rivers, saving some time (for what its worth). This does however include pit stops known as tea or white food stops in Mongolia. Many times these stops don’t even include drinking tea but taking shots of vodka, eating candy (I’m pretty sure that candy is considered a main food staple, considering how much is consumed), and singing. Each stop would also include the driver whipping the dust accumulated from the drive (I don’t know why they just don’t wait until the journey is over, but you know appearance is everything).
However slowly but surely we arrived at our destination “Erdenbulgan Soum”. I was more than ready to get out of the car, my butt felt as though it was turned into raw hamburger meat after our journey. We were accommodated by the local hospital, and upon our arrival were greeted with plentiful amounts of noodle soup and you guessed it vodka. Although we had to wake early the following morning (6:00 am) we ate, sang, and danced well in to the hours of the early morning. I was sleeping comfortably until I was rudely awakened by a severely intoxicated coworker, who for whatever reason found my bed an appropriate place to pass out (with me in it). To say the least I made the decision to sleep on the floor. The following morning I woke groggy and under slept and in no way looking forward to the four hour drive we had in front of us. The standard Mongolian breakfast was served (bread, jam, and milk tea). We were headed for a monastery. There we would meet up with a Monk who would guide us into the mountains to a cave of spiritual significance. Again after several hours we had finally arrived at the monastery. It was situated in a small valley (literally in the middle of nowhere), and I thought to myself how they survived being located in such an isolated area. I was told that the monastery was over a hundred years old but had recently had minor renovations. The monastery and its surrounding were beautiful. From the monastery the Monk guided us further into the mountains. However only part of the way were we allowed to travel by car and we had to switch to other means of transportation, in this case it was horse. I was excited for this, since I have not ridden a horse in several years. Well it was fun until my already sore ass was being subjected to even more torture provided by the wooden saddle… yes the saddles in Mongolia are made of wood. It did make for quite the adventure though. After several hours of ridding through heavily forested mountains (somewhat of a rarity in Mongolia) we made it to our final destination “dyeen deer” where at the base of a mountain there are more shrines.
Let me take a second and explain these “shrines” I speak of, in Mongolia there referred to as an “ovoo” I have several pictures of them on my blog. They are usually constructed of a pile of rocks or made from a tree. They are covered in cloths called “hadag” most of the time they are blue but they come in many colors such as; yellow, red, and white. It is tradition to walk about the “ovoo” three times clockwise. With each pass depending on the situation you will throw a rock, adding to the pile or throw “white food” (as I mentioned before). It can also be custom to light incense and leave a small amount of money.The reason that “dyeen deer” is so special is because at this location there is a labyrinth of caves and tunnels within the mountain, also located in the cave is yet another “ovoo.” I have been caving in the states several times, so walking around in a mountain was nothing new to me (but never forget the Mongolia factor). The Monk would lead us through the cave to the room at which the “ovoo” was located. The cave was like any cave dark, damp, and cool. As we were entering the cave I was thinking to myself “I wonder if anyone brought flashlights” well who needs flashlights when you can use a candle…one candle which of course was held by the Monk. Crawling around in a cave with one candle made me somewhat uneasy but everyone else seemed fine… I mean the Monk of course has done this before…right? After squeezing through cracks and crawling on all fours…we made it, yet again. The room was impressive and the “ovoo” was quite substantial. In this room there was also a spring. Supposedly the water from the spring will give the consumer “positive energy.” I figured, can’t hut right. After about an hour we emerged from the abyss…safe and sound and would start our trek back home. You would think the trip back would take just as long as the trip there. First we had to drop the Monk back off at the monastery but in Mongolia you cant just simply drop someone off honk your horn, wave goodbye, and be on your way. Oh no no no… you have stop and drink tea, and eat soup, and then you can go…two hours later. With the Monk dropped off I figured we had no other stops. It was seven at night and we had an eight hour drive ahead of us. Well we stopped yet again at the same hospital we stopped at on our way in. Drank more tea and ate more soup. It was now 9 p.m. we were off again. Made it about three hundred yards and got a flat tire. But why have a spare? The drivers had to patch the tire. By ten-thirty we were finally on the “road” again. My tired limp body dozed in and out of sleep for the next four hours. We came to a stop a ger, I looked at my watch and it was two in the morning (in no way were we stopping for tea). The driver banged on the ger door. When the door was answered I heard the driver ask witch way it was to Murun. In short we were lost. After going what seemed to be every which way we were back on track. After many hours the driver pulled up to my ger. I glanced at my clock; it was five-thirty in the morning. I stumbled into my ger, managed to light a fire and passed. When I woke it was three in the afternoon. What a weekend! I had come to the realization that I spent more hours in the car than outside of the car.