we are fam-i-ly

This past weekend our site had our host family appreciation day. We celebrated with a picnic where we bought and prepared the food. Well, we mostly prepared the food – sometimes they didn’t trust our culinary abilities and took over. But it’s cool, nobody got sick and I probably gained 50 pounds in the course of three hours and that’s all that’s important. In honor of my awesome host family, this post will be dedicated to the poor people who courageously volunteered to take me in for these past few months.

Most of the time, it’s been me, my ээж/eej (host mother), егч/egch (older sister), and Nomin. Sometimes Nomin’s mother stays with us, but she works at the railroad and can’t come home very often which is too bad. Funny story – I didn’t remember that I had met her the first day I got here because I was completely bewildered that day. A couple weeks later, there was a strange woman washing her hair in my yard who said hi to me when I went home for lunch. I left the house early to get ice cream, forgetting about the mystery woman. That is, until I was approaching the store and the mystery woman stopped me before I could go in and made me walk with her up to the school. I was so flustered and confused and still didn’t have the language or life skills to ask her to her face “who are you and why did you steal me from my ice cream?” Luckily, I figured it out the next time she came around and didn’t make a complete fool of myself. Moving on, I also have an older host brother who lives in UB but came for Naadam and a 20ish year old host sister who was here for awhile but is off somewhere learning Russian right now and won’t be back until after I’m at site. Sad.

I’m not living in a ger and my family has a hashaa with two houses in it, which makes my life a little stranger than that of most trainees. My room is in the big house which has two small rooms and one big room. The little house is where my eej sleeps, where the cooking happens, and where the family spends most of their time. They try to make me more comfortable by giving me all my meals in the big house when they’re in the little house, so I actually have to make an effort to be sociable and get to know them and spend time with them. Not my strong suit, but I think I’ve done a decent job. Of course, Nomin needs no encouragement and follows me absolutely everywhere, including the outhouse. “Nomin, stay. here. I’m just going to the outhouse.” “Ashley, I’m coming too, I’m going to the outhouse too.”Gah. She alternates between being absolutely adorable and being annoying in the way that only 4 year olds can be. Sometimes I nap for a little bit just to escape her. But really I know that this summer would have been completely different and not as wonderful without her, so overall I consider having her a win.

I have two stories about how wonderful they have been to me. First off, my absolute favorite food here is buuz which are sort of steamed dumplings and are happiness on earth. During national Naadam, my family bought a goat. It was alive when I left for the morning and in pieces when I came back three hours later. I of course ran away to my room because I was more than a little sad for the goat. Well one day, my family is sitting at the table making buuz but then they handed me a plate of rice and potatoes. I was sad and jilted because they know buuz are my favorite and tease me about it a lot. I think they noticed because they offered one of the buuz to me and I was ecstatic. That is, until I actually put it in my mouth – innards. Fact: I can’t eat innards, especially goat innards. They were looking out for me after all! Wonderful people.

Second story: my eej is a retired tailor and I watched her make a deel for a local woman back during Naadam which was cool. They surprised me last week by breaking out purple fabric and measuring me for one. Having something tailor made for me and watching it happen is really cool. They have my measurements, but sometimes they have me try it on so they can see better. On Saturday, I watched her make it for about three hours and at one point they had me try it on to see where they should take it in and how much. I’m standing in the middle of the room with my eej and host sister poking at me and telling me that I am a Mongolian Barbie. The next time I put it on, Caitlin’s eej is there, and they poke at my stomach and tell me to suck it in (I eat too much bread, I can’t help it!) and that my hips are so much bigger than most Mongolians’, during which Nomin is repeating over and over “Ashley Mongol Barbie, Ashley Mongol Barbie.” It’s been quite the experience. It’s not quite finished yet, but I’ll be sure to post pictures when I rock it in Darkhan for placement and/or swearing in. And now, pictures!

Nomin and me, she always seems so innocent

the fam :)

Nomin took this one - my younger sister and older brother