Ice Cream Advertising
Strangely convenient, the shops in this little soum seemed to put up the packaging of the ice-creams they had in stock - this place had the most, the others usually had 2-3 wrappers! Considering it's -40 outside, you wouldn't think ice-creams would be especially popular!
Shoe Dusters
Instead of inconveniently removing your shoes when entering a house, in this soum at the entry to any building was a kind of brush with big clothe bristles that you used to smack the dust of your boots!
Chinese Road
The kind, generous Chinese (cough, cough) funded and built an amazing paved highway stretching about 300km through the south-west tip of Mongolia...basically a no-man's land. Except there is alot of coal here. The road stretches from the Chinese border to the coal mine, and not a centimetre further! It takes a route that is almost totally useless to local people as it doesn't go near any of the towns - which it could have done without too much trouble. The road passes through some amazing mountain passes, twisting and turning through very narrow valleys and along frozen rivers. Chinese work crews clean the ice off and keep it in top condition. An amazing trip compared to the mongolian "roads" - barely dirt tracks. The irony was that to get to the main city in the province we traveled 3 hours on the 300km of this road which abruptly ended at the coal mine, and then 3.5 hours for the ~150km on what is considered the worst road in Mongolia - which is saying something! - across the bumpiest, rockiest...everything-est excuse for a road in Mongolia.
Enkhy's Family
The itinerary of the trip was first province for 3 days, 14 hour drive to next province, flight the next day to the very south of the aimag, 4 days there, 10 hour drive back to the main city of the province, few days there, 6 hour drive to the next province, work a day there, 6 hour return trip to a town in the east of that province, work another day then fly home.
What I didn't know beforehand is the town in the south of the second aimag - town name Bulgan, province of Hovd, was the home town of the colleague I was traveling with. I also didn't know what an awesome, kind and friendly person she was. This town is home to a certain ethnic group of Mongolians - most of the 20 or so towns in Hovd province are home to a certain, different, ethnic group - making it the most diverse ethnic region of Mongolia. It is also the biggest town in Mongolia - called a soum - with a population of 10,000. Each province has a provincial centre, or city, in the east the populations of these are only a few thousand. The next level down are the regional towns, usually a population of a few hundred to a couple of thousand, except these awesomely massive soum where I found myself - it had the conveniences of a provincial city (ie. a hotel, "hot" water, "heating", shops), an airport! - but it had the friendly, curious (sometimes overwhelmingly awkward) locals of a small town. Throw into this mix that my colleague, Enkhy, has 8 siblings, a gazillion friends and classmates and you start to get a picture of the amount of visiting we did, and the kind of super-friendly reception we received.
Arriving at the airport everyone knew everyone, and we had three cars waiting to take us into town and offering to drive us around while we were there - one was Enkhy's little brother, one her brother-in-law and a third was a Mercy Corps client who wanted to help out. The men collected our baggage and made sure we were comfy in their cars. We were taken to Enkhy's brother's hotel, I was fixed up with the nicest room (relatively speaking) and we were whisked off to Enkhy's sisters house for some food.
On the way a sweet old lady came running to our car - turns out it was Enkhy's mum. She was super excited to see her little girl - Enkhy hadn't been back for a few years. She jumped in the car and came to lunch with us.
Enkhy's sister turned out to be a super sweet woman - the kind you find yourself having amazing conversations with even though you have no common spoken language! I ended up spending a bit of time there over the next few days - she made me breakfast everyday (rice and eggs!), we had a few meals and met a few family members, when Enkhy was working on things that I coudln't help with I hung out with the two sweet teenage girls from the family too.
One afternoon we went to the town's mountain alongside the town's river:
The first evening in town we had dinner with Enkhy's grandparents at her sister's house. Turns out that day was National Teacher's Day, and Enkhy's dad was awarded the highest honour in Mongolia. I then found out that Enkhy's mum had skipped the award ceremony to see her little girl at lunch time!
Above is a family pic with Enkhy's parents either side front, her dad proud with his medal on his chest, an older brother in the middle, younger brother who owns the hotel on the left, next to him her little sister, her son, her youngest daughter, Enkhy, sisters eldest daughter and Enkhy's brother in law.
The second day we had lunch with one of Enkhy's older brothers. He had two gorgeous little boys. Which was a little unusual as people generally have their kids around 20 years old so by the time I am visiting the family the kids are grown up and not so cute! So meeting an almost 40 year-old couple with two little kids was a treat, and you could see the extra tenderness the dad had towards his boys. The youngest boy was one of the most interesting characters I have ever met. He was sooo angry when we came to visit, and not interested in seeing us - here he is hiding under the bed:
When we tried to look at the family photo album he grabbed it and said it was his, we couldn't see it.
About half an hour later his attitude did a 180 and suddenly he was scolding his mother for not caring for her guests, he said it was cold and that we were hungry. He got out his own packet of small lollies and went around the table ceremonially giving each guest a lolly!
Dad was having some trouble opening the wine and left the bottle while he looked for an instrument to help remove the cork...the boys decided they wanted to help -
The cheeky young guy was out of the scene very quickly - leaving his older brother looking guilty!
Later when his Dad was serving each guest a cup of wine the little boy scolded his mother for drinking alcohol - a very un-Mongolian attitude!
Towards the end of the visit the boys started the traditional reciting poetry and singing songs. Then the older boy asked if he could sing a hip-hop song...and then the concert really started! The boys competed with each, taking turn by turn.
Here is the older brother, very happy to sit with his daddy or watch hip-hop on tv, he wasn't too fussed about us or getting attention:
Leaving Town
In this town we were traveling with Batsukh - the very rotund, very jovial manager of Mercy Corps in the province, and the popular Enkhy meant we were not short of social occasions involving much vodka and the who's who of town - the governer, the head of this and that dept etc etc. Trying to leave town we were stopped at the last possible building - the airport - to randomly drink and eat in a room there to say goodbye!
Everyone was having a good laugh...they apologised for not being able to speak english with me, but assured me that should I choose to stay in their town, I could pick any man I wanted for a husband and it would only take him a few days to learn english. Over the past few days a few of the men took an interest in learning english and came away with "hello" and "i no speak english".
Here's Enkhy, Batsukh and Enkhy's little brother having a laugh.
