don't I know that boy on the yak?

Our last/big adventure here in Mongolia was a wonderful experience all around. We visited a large 80 mile by 20 mile lake over 800 feet deep in the North central part of the country. Our hour flight on MIAT landed on a real concrete runway, and after waiting an hour for our luggage we began our four hour journey of 100 miles to the lake and the ger camp. As Kinky would say "the mail don't move to fast in Rapid City, South Dakota," and road trips here in Mongolia of whatever distance don't either. Now I don't want to say that it gets cold up there, but it was the 28th of May, and the whole lake, and I mean the whole lake, was still frozen over. You could see where the thaw was trying to start, but with minimal success. The edges would thaw out 5-10 feet at night, but by morning, would all be frozen over again. We came to this area to see and have the opportunity to talk to the yak people. MIAT flies only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so we had the full four days there. We were unpacking our luggage and had our map out on the bed. When the woman who whose family we were going to visit and do the yak thing, came in to light the fire that night she squealed something which of course we didn't understand, but she pointed to the map cover which had a picture of a boy about 8 years old riding a yak. She went out of the ger and brought Anya in and we discovered that the boy on the yak was her brother, and that was who we were going to visit the following day. She had never seen the picture herself, and was so thrilled to have it staring right out there at her. Now, how's that for coincidence? or Karma? or whatever? On our way there in the morning, we were brought to a halt by a yak who had just calved 30 minutes earlier, and the baby was still struggling to get its feet. We watched, talked, filmed, and were really happy at our timing. The family who owned the yak pulled the afterbirth, broke the sac and gave the liquid back to the yak and took the sac to be dried for use as stretchable rope. Nothing goes to waste around here. We finally got back on our way and found the family which was our original purpose. They all came out to greet us, grandma, the yak boy, now 22 is married and has a 3 month old son, other brothers, sisters, and assorted relatives. But the grandmother was the pick of the litter. She had one of those faces filled with so much character and history that they just had a thousand stories lining her face. She could have been 60 or 100. She had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, a traditional green calf-length coat with bright sash tying it at the waist, boots, and red-checked scarf tied around her head and hiding, somewhat, her grey hair. We brought cigarettes as presents, and since she smoked, we gave the pack to her, the accepted the gift in typical Mongolian fashion by putting both hands on it and placing them on her forehead as a gesture of thanks. We went into the ger and this was the first one that we had been in that was not a tourist camp one, but rather a real ger lived in by people. We had seen literally thousands of them as we plied our way down the various roads, but this lifting the curtain and seeing what went on behind the screen was special. In the center of the ger was the traditional stove, this one with a big circle cut out of the middle where a liquid was cooking in a big wok type kettle. From the color, it could have been for washing dishes, or a soup, or a dye for coloring cloth. She worked at the liquid for a while Carol's and my eyes just took in the whole scene surrounding us. We were directed to sit on one of the two beds, they were metal framed with springs on them with some kind of felt covering over a thin mattress. Grandma squatted at the fire, went to the cupboard brought out some liquid, poured it into the cooking mixture, dipped into it several times pouring it back into the pot from a height of about two feet. She did all this while squatting on her 6" high stool with her new American cigarette dangling from her lips dangerously close to the mixture. Some white powder went into the mixture, and now came the scary part, out came the bowls, a bunch of them since there were about 12 of us in the ger. The mixture was poured into a tea pot and as honored guests, we were served first. This was our initiation into Mongolian tea. It's a mixture of tea leaves, yak milk and salt. I won't say that I'll order it again at the local Mongolian barbeque, but it was drinkable. Bread was served that was quite good, and a dish pan sized bowl of steamed fish from the lake, heads, tails, and skins and all. They were broken into chunks and they looked like something we might throw out after getting all the good parts we wanted to eat. Carol, always the brave one, had some fish, I stayed with the tea and bread around the room was a cupboard with the bowls and dishes in it to the right of the doorway, of course, since all the kitchen utensils are on the woman's side of the ger. She had a silk scarf covering the cabinet to make it look cleaner. To the left of that was the other bed, and continuing counter clockwise were a kind of clothing chest with a radio playing music, battery operated since there's no electricity, a threefold photo frame containing all the family pictures - with maybe a couple dozen photos total. They formed a complete history of family. All the big events , Grandma's trip to UB, a picture probably 50 years old of the whole family with all the living parts of it at the time, and various photos of events which were cherished by them, but had only hidden meaning to us. The most surprising thing to me was that there was a battery operated clock ticking away with the correct time. This really gave me pause. I just considered that these people were totally unimpressed by time. They work hard from morning till night, there is no difference between Tuesday and Friday, and there's no giants game coming on in an hour, or dinner reservations to be kept, so why a Clock? Actually there was another smaller one just to the left, keeping perfectly good time and set to the exact minute as the one foot circular one. Carol's theory is that it is their show of affluence. Maybe a gift from one of the children. Who knows. These all sat on a chest which contained the clothes of all the family members, and anything else which needed to be kept out of the way. They don't wear much. Not drawers full of tee shirts or sweats. Just one 4 foot wide four drawer dresser for the whole family. Continuing around the room was a pile of pillows covered with colorful embroidery containing what, we know not. To the right of the bed and covered by another cloth was the bedding with which everybody covered themselves at night, and a covering to make it look more tidy. Then we got to the men's area just to the left of the doorway. Saddles reins, straps of various length, bridles and other equipment for riding. This was obviously the men's area. We sat there some time talking and the old lady showing Carol how she spun and braided the yak hair to make the straps we had already noticed and the various ropes which they used. Of course, nothing would do, but to give Carol some of the finished products off the wall. When it was time to leave, we gave her a magnifying glass we had brought. She was thrilled because now she could read the newspaper she occasionally got. (After which newspapers were used as cigarette papers) and we had brought packs of Crayola colored pens. We went back to the ger camp with our minds whirring about what our eyes had seen. We compared notes, each of us adding little details which the other might have missed. We were to have another day with them, but that's as they say: "Another Love to all, C & J