UB

When I got back to UB I stayed with a friend's older brother and wife. They have a son in college, studying music, in Korea. When I got there they were watching a Russian soap opera that is on every night. The dad, Naran-suh, perhaps trying to come across as tough said, "I usually don't prefer to watch these kind of shows, but with only one tv I watch them sometimes with my wife." The next night his wife was work and when I came home, what was he doing? Working in front of the tv. What was he watching? His wife's favorite Russian soap opera. haha. I think he tried to compensate a little for me seeing him watching the soap opera because the first night he talked about Chinggis Khan for about 2 hours. He ended up showing me a Japanese film about Mongolia's hero.

In the middle of his Chinggis narative he told me that Chinggis, whose birth name was Temujin, was called Chinggis, because like the word 'tingis' in Mongolian, which means 'ocean,' he thought of himself to be comparatively great and expansive. Another word for ocean in Mongolian is 'dalai,' as in 'Dalai Lama.' The Buddhist priest that is as great and expansive as the sea. I could go all day on random stuff like this. Here's another one. The name of the country Hungary, or 'Ohn-gar' in Mongolian, is a contraction of the words 'Barone' and 'gar,' meaning 'right' and 'hand.' This is because that is where Chinggis' 'right hand' army, or right side army was stationed. (At least that's what Naran-suh told me) Even in Hungarian, where the name for the country is 'Myagar,' you still have the word 'gar' that remains. 'Mya' in Mongolian is slang for crappy so I wonder if the locals decided to give a new adjective to describe Chinggis' army.

Since is was getting late, we skipped through a lot of the Japanese Chinggis Khan movie. At about midnight, an hour into this movie Naran-suh says, "Yeah, this movie isn't actually that good...I'll get you a better one from the store tomorrow." I am now the proud owner of "Chinggis Khan: The 30-part mini series."

So the next day, (before getting home late at night and watching parts 1 and 2 of my new Chinggis Khan miniseries, of course, with Naran-suh) I went to the mission home to drop off some pictures in the branch mailboxes to send to people, that I had taken throughout the previous week. I ran into the mission driver, Botbold, who has been helping mission presidents for about a decade now. As we walked out of the building together I saw one of the American office-elders I had met earlier. He was wearing a custom-made brown suit. "Ahh darn. I forgot that I had wanted to get a suit made." Botbold, always a positive thinker, and wanting to help people out says.

"So why don't you?"

"Because, I'm leaving early in the morning the day after tomorrow."

"So what? You still have time."

"I basically only have a day."

"You have pleeeeeenty of time."

So he had me call his wife who then took me around to buy fabric. Barely thinking twice about whether or not we would be able to find someone who could sew an entire suit in a day (after all if Botbold said it can be done, if can be done. Right?) we bought the fabric for about $60. At this point it was about 5pm. We then went to a couple of seamstresses. One couldn't finish it because she had to go to the doctor the next day. And another seamstress shop wouldn't touch it because they said that there was no way they would finish it in time.

I was starting to second guess Batbold's enthusiasm and confidence that it could be done. A little disappointed that I was already $60 into this decision, his wife called him and he told us we had one more option, a lady who used to make suits for the missionaries in years past. He called her, and she said she was coming from the market but would do it if we could be there when she came home from the market. Wow. So we did a stake-out in front of her house for about 45 minutes waiting for her to come. She took measurements and we agreed on a price: $32.

The best part was the next day I talked to her and she said, "You know you got enough material for a vest too. Do you want one?" "SURE" "Ok then, we'll take some measurements and make you a vest." Sweet. I called her around 9pm that day to check on the status. "Just putting the finishing touches on the vest, but the pants and coat are done. Come on over and pick it up." So now I am not only the proud owner of a 30 part Chinggis Khan series, but a custom 3-piece suite, sewn in a day.

I'm pretty excited to go to Beijing to take a shower. The water line was broken during some construction on a neighboring building, so there hasn't been any running water at the family's house during my stay. High speed internet but no running water is actually a very common living situation here. You crack me up Mongolia.

UB -> Choibalsan

The city of Choibalsan is in northeast Mongolia. It is quite close to the Russian, and Chinese borders. Something about the place gets you when you're there for a while. I don't know if it's the fresh air, the landscape, or the chill people but it has been a long-time favorite place for missionaries to serve. It is a two hour flight, or a 14 hour car drive. The road is paved for about 1/3 of the travel time. It is quite cheap to fly there if you're a Mongolian (about $85) but around $200 to fly as a foreigner (The Mongolian way of business). I decided I would take a mini-bus out and fly back. I may have paid a lot less for that minibus, but it was a LOT more memorable.

By my count the mini-bus had seats for about 27 people. About 11 two-person benches, and a back row with 5 seats. There was no undercarriage luggage storage so everyone fit as much as they could in a small overhead rack. The rest of the luggage, including my backpack, was just piled in the middle of the aisle. That wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been, by my best count, 41 people on board. So naturally there were two little kids sitting on my backpack the entire 14 hours. No problem with that. One kid even decided it was nice and soft so he started to jump up and down on it like a trampoline. No problem with that either since I didn't have anything breakable in the bag, except a CD I bought at the St. Besil cathedral in Moscow. I went to check and see if my CD was ok at one of our famous roadside bathroom breaks, and it was fine. However, I noticed a lot of my clothes were a little damp. Either some kid decided to wee-wee on my CD, or the alternative: little kid bum sweat.

About 2 hours into the trip, after we had already taken one bathroom break, a guy from the back row started shouting at the driver. "Hey driver! Can you stop?" No response. (Louder) "Hey Driver!! Can't you stop?!" This continued intermittently for about 5 minutes. "Hey driver!!! I have to go!" He kept shouting at the driver and started to annoy people. Someone yelled back at him to shut-up. "Don't tell me to shut up, I'm just a guy with a body like everyone else, and it has to go!" Then someone yelled back, "What are you, a kid?" "If I was a kid, you'd stop the bus! Kids have to go, adults have to go, we all have to go! Can't you think about someone else and just stop the bus?" At this point he was either gaining some sympathy or just completely annoying everyone because one lady yelled to the bus driver to stop and let this guy go. So he did.

The real hit of trip were the two girls in front of me who kept looking into this cookie tin. I noticed it had a bunch of wholes punched in it. All the little kids gathered around and I saw that they had two turtles. It really freaked out one of the guys in front of them so for a little while, every couple of minutes they poked him, or were putting one of the turtles in his face.

There was a little grubby kid, about a year old, whose older brother had given him some chewing gum. It was really funny to watch this kid play with this gum. Then he dropped it. I realized later that night that my backpack had been the lucky landing spot for this gum.

Oh man, there are plenty of other stories I could tell you about this single, trip. The angry lady who accused the driver of losing her bag. The wheel seat where I sat with my knees to my throat. The way you help a little kid go potty in the wilderness. The 9 hour dirt road. Wild horses. Good stuff.