Monday, October 29th, 2007
October: UB Homestay and Mongolian Christians
So Halloween fast approaches, and with it, our ISP period. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH
I haven’t written much about the last few weeks, which I should, but I’m thinking I’ll probably just type up some of my journal entries, since they give a pretty good picture of some aspects of life here. We went on a whirlwind trip down to Khamrind Khiid (Monaster) in the Gobi, and saw the shambala (108 stupas, and a place to cleanse your karma), a museum dedicated to Danzanravja, the Gobi Saint (he was a lama who lived in the Gobi in the 19th c. and built Mongolia’s first theater, among other things), and some dinosaur bones and petrified wood. The train ride was wild, we spent more time traveling than we did in the Gobi!
Otherwise, I’ve been living with a family here in the city, in the 13th microdistrict (I’ll have to post a map of the city at some point as well, and some photos of the neighborhood are forthcoming). My father is an Evangelical Christian pastor, who has his own church; he also runs the Mongolian Bible society, which is responsible for maintaining a Mongolian language version of the Bible (its NRSV I believe, which is pretty progressive). He was actually one of the lecturers during our religion week, so we all knew who he was when I found out I was living with him. He’s not so extreme, but still, it was pretty insane at first. Anyways, I have 3 host bro’s 13, 11 and 20, and one who’s 25 or so and lives in a ger district by himself (he’s a starving artist, which is awesome). My mom works at the Bible society as a translator, and likes talking to me in English that is only barely better than my Mongolian, which is frustrating. Our apartment is actually pretty nice, it’s on the ground floor of one of the 80’s stalinist apartment buildings, and has 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living room (where I stay). They have a TV, a pretty nice computer (and digital camera etc…) and lots of German stuff, since both my parents studied in East Germany. My host father was actually studying to become a vet at first, but he decided to switch to theology. I’ll write more about church later, maybe. I’ve been twice, once to the adult morning service, and once to the youth (teenager) service, both led by my host dad. The youth service was much more interesting because my eldest brother, Sotou, helped us follow along in an English language bible, as well as translating some of the most important words so we could at least follow the main ideas of the service. I had a friend, Kevin, who came too, so I guess it was due to our accumulating a critical mass, but a few times my father paused to give a quick English synopsis of what he’d been talking about. It was a little unnerving to be the focus of attention, but it was worth having a clue what was happening. My mongolian isn’t bad, but it’s not quite sermon-level…
On another note, we had our final language exam today, which went amazingly well. I’m not sure what “level” I’m at officially, but I can hold a pretty decent conversation about anything not requiring special vocab. The key is that my grammar has gotten good enough that I can figure out at least an awkward way to say most things, and finding the vocab is easy since most people I talk to speak some English (yeah, kinda lame, but I think it’s actually helped me learn to some extent, since they can explain what we do wrong). Sooo, ISP…
I went through about 4 different topics in the 36 hours leading up to our proposals being due (thursday), and met with three different people, all of whom have agreed to advice me on different topics… O_o I settled on studying regional development, with a focus on the far western aimags (provinces), specifically Hovd. I plan to travel out west for two weeks or so to chat with the aimag governer, as well as some of the soum governers (smaller division than a province), and regular people. The lady I will hopefully be bringing to translate (my Mongolian isn’t nearly good enough to conduct an academic interview… but I’ll be able to follow along decently) is actually from Hovd herself, and used to be a language teacher at SIT. I’m meeting her this afternoon, so we’ll see how that goes. But overall, I’m still pretty mixed about my topic, since it feels a bit like a compromise. But at this point I really need to move on and just get started researching. I’m hoping that especially once I’m out west, I’ll be able to find some neat angles from which to look at things to make the project more interesting and engaging. I hope.
UB is getting colder, much colder. It’s pretty much below freezing all the time, though midday can be a bit warmer. Also, the smog that hovers permanently over the city in the colder months is rapidly accumulating, turning once lush views of surrounding mountains and hills into a hazy, sulfurous blur, even at night. The air doesn’t feel too bad yet, but we’ve been told during the coldest months you can taste coal in your mouth by the time you get to school (20-30 minutes), provided you’re walking outside. The cause of the pollution is mostly the scores of gers that blanket the land surrounding the city center for kilometers in all directions (except the areas with cleaner air, where the rich people build their mansions and keep their many landcruisers). Since there’s no wood left, people burn mostly coal in small metal stoves, that aren’t very efficient, and are running constantly to keep the frigid Mongolian winter at bay.
Gotta run, time to meet my new translator… more later
