Moving the Ger
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2011
1
41
195
Trip End
Feb 28, 2013
Where I stayed
Sereg's Sister's Apartment
Khovd City, Hovd, Mongolia
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
August 31st, 2011
Northern and Western Mongolia Tour
Day 25 of 32
Tsambagarav Uul Mountain to Khovd City (pop. 31000)
11AM to 6PM
137 KM
TAKING DOWN THE GER
At 7AM, the top flap of the ger was opened and the sunny day lit up the entire ger. We had slept wonderfully. Today, the plan is for us to help the people break down their ger for the autumn move. The truck driver spent the night with the 2 brothers, age 20 & 16, down at the river ger.
We followed examples for untying the many strings and ropes that are needed for the ger to be sturdy and for holding the wall hangings and decorative appliqués circling the edge of the inside roof. And the rope securing the 28 meter long apron band was looped around each of the 80 or 90 roof supports. The Kazakh ger is almost 9 meters in diameter.
It took exactly 50 minutes for the entire ger to be disassembled. 1st the square center roof flap. After the final layers of felt were removed, nothing but the skeleton of the ger was left. Every roof pole is strapped onto the wooden wall bottom structure. 3 equally spaced roof supports were left to balance the center pole. While many gers have pair of wooden center poles, this one had a metal pole that attached to the circular wooden crown wheel. A few people supported the heavy pole assembly while the final roof supports were untied and remove. Then the pole assembly was gently lowered.
Now it was time for the door and walls. The walls are made of 6 standard sections of lath that scissor and fold to about 18 inches width and 10 foot in length. We untied the strings, compressed the wall sections and stacked them near the truck. That was all there was to it. We helped move all the stuff to be loaded near the truck but left the actual packing of the truck up to the experts.
We had breakfast; boiled eggs, bread and jam. Pancho lost interest in climbing the mountain. Uemaa paid for our stay and asked to buy some the fresh aaruul (yak curd cheese). She was thrilled when they let her buy the whole lot! She planned to bring it home to her family.
About 11AM, we bid adieu and were on the road. The road had its share of bumps, grooves and rocks but also lots of relatively level areas through mountain passes and wide valleys, barren desert landscape, and steppe.
LUNCH AT THE WIDE SPOT IN THE ROAD
Four of us were in great spirits, but as usual, Pancho didn't utter a word. And remember, this is the same guy who bragged about being familiar with 20 languages and being able to speak 6! Now he had his bandanna pulled high on his face so only his beady little eyes poked over the top of the bandanna. He never included himself in conversations. But we did not want to let his 'tude ruin our fun so we let it go.
The road snaked into a wide gorge where a small grouping of ramshackle buildings lined each side of the dirt track. It was a surprise to us to find two restaurants in this tiny berg. There wasn’t a store and Uemaa needed to supply vegetables for the otherwise meagerly stocked restaurants. But the cook was happy to make our soup and prepare a salad with our stuff. It took awhile. Michelle waited inside the odd little restaurant with foil covered walls. Dave and Pancho lingered outside. Dave decided to talk to Pancho only if Pancho initiated the conversation. Needless to say, nothing was said. Dave issued the same challenge to Michelle because Michelle had kept trying hard to include Pancho without much result. So when everyone was waiting inside the restaurant, we had 20 minutes of dead silence. Then the delicious thick soup arrived. They must have had extra spices and other things to jazz it up. And the salad Michelle ordered was great too. Then Michelle slipped and offered some of her salad to Pancho. He nodded and took some salad. We never heard another word, just his lips smacking and soup slurping.
As we were finishing lunch, Umeaa asked Pancho to fish in the small river behind the restaurant. He shook his head. We got back in the van for the drive to Khovd city.
STAYING WITH SEREG’S SISTER
A 6PM, we arrived in Khovd and stayed with Erkegul, Sereg’s sister. We all bedded down on the floor of their living-kitchen-dining combo room of her one bedroom Russian style apartment. Sereg’s sister is really his sister-in-law but Mongolians and Kazakhs don’t use an expression for ‘in-laws’. Upon marriage, it is just ‘sister’ or ‘brother’ or ‘daughter’, and so on. So Erkeguli is married to Sereg's real brother who is a policeman, They have 2 children. The 7 year old daughter is starting the second grade tomorrow.
We were happy the apartment had a nice bathroom with a proper western style flush toilet and a shower with bath, the first one we have seen in Mongolia. But in most sizable towns in Mongolia the Russian apartment blocks have centrally supplied hot water systems and Khovd city doesn’t turn on the heat until winter! Until then, it is cold showers for everyone. But Khovd has a big bath house with hot water. We decided to go there for a hot shower.
We arrived at the bath house and found a line of 40 people; mothers with their school age children. Ahhh...school starts tomorrow and there was an unusually big demand for hot showers today. Uemaa was told the wait was over an hour but if we come back at 9PM, the line should be pretty much cleared out. We decided to come back at 9.
We drove back to the apartment. Pancho laid down with minimal words and a few groans. Uemaa asked, and Pancho said his joints and head were hurting. Sereg’s sister got him a rug and pillow to lie on and felt his forehead. Maybe, they concluded, he has a slightly elevated temperature. Pancho seemed to enjoy the attention. Sereg’s sister offered to make some medicinal tea and Pancho accepted. Uemaa asked if he wanted to go to the doctor or pharmacy. No, the tea would be enough.
Erkeguli was obligated to make the dinner for the guests. It is the Kazakh way, Uemaa explained. She prepared and served us a nice soup.
At 9:00, the line at the bath house was the same – very long. Uemaa talked to the attendant we had seen earlier. Uemaa asked her to let us (Pancho stayed home) in the front of the line. She said okay, but we would have to nonchalantly slip to the front. This, btw, goes totally against our grain and sure would have ticked us off royally had it been the other way around with some hoity-toity foreigners being moved to front of line. But have to admit, we didn’t object too hard. We worked our way into the front waiting room. Then the lights went out. All the lights in the city were out and it looked like our sneakiness was going to be in vain (karma?). But the water was still hot and we had a flashlight! We were in.
Power to the city was quickly restored. We got back to the apartment and Erkeguli was upset. She whispered to Uemaa that Kimchee had been extremely rude. He had spit in her tea cup, she explained, "the bathroom is so close why couldn’t he have gone to the bathroom?".. "He did it with the bathroom just steps away. Why would he do that?", she asked. Michelle apologized for our rude travel companion.
