ger down, ger up

This story is two weeks old, but there have been some technical difficulties and I figured it’s better late than never. Okay, so for about a month, my coworkers and director were all telling me that my ger was bad (bad floor, leaky roof, holes in the wall covering, only plastic covering the window holes in the roof) and that everything would be upgraded and fixed when it came time to winterize my ger. New floor, better coverings, and glass windows would all serve to make me warmer. Awesome, I’m cold, I’d love to be warmer. So two Wednesdays ago around 2pm, I got a call from my counterpart whose hashaa (read: yard) I live in saying that not only were classes cancelled for the afternoon but that school workers were on their way to my ger at that very moment so I had to quickly pack all of my things and be ready for them. Well I was super speedy and shoved everything into random bags and was packed in about an hour. Not my most efficient pack job, but as anyone who has ever watched me pack knows, definitely my fastest (hi Mom). 6pm rolls around and my counterpart walks in and says, “Oh well, maybe they’ll come tomorrow.” Thursday: the director told me they wouldn’t come that day so I was off the hook and still living out of my bags. Then on Friday morning, the director sent me home at 11:30am because the workers were again on their way to my ger and I had to meet them there. I took all of my bags, moved them into my cp’s house, and then proceeded to take a nice 2 hour nap on their couch because they were in fact not on their way. I still don’t know what happened that day. I eventually gave up waiting, left my key with the kids, and went to school for class. I got back from class at 4 just as a truck loaded with dirt pulled up. They looked at my ger, unloaded the dirt, then said they’d come back tomorrow because they didn’t have the new door. I almost cried and the boys laughed at me. Saturday: again, no dice. I honestly just sat outside and pouted for an hour because I didn’t want to start doing anything in case they came and half of my stuff was in my cp’s house. Apparently something else came up so they couldn’t make it. But Sunday. Sunday came around and I decided that they probably weren’t going to come that day either so I got some water to start doing laundry. The moment I poured the water, I got a knock on my door. Ready, set, ger! I scrambled to get my things out because they started to take the ger down around me. And now, after the longest paragraph in the history of forever, I’ll tell the rest of the story in pictures. All in all, the taking down and putting up of the ger took about 5 hours.

The general splendor. They took down all of the felt while I was still inside

Taking down the roof poles



Bye-bye wall



No floor and killing mice. Did end up getting 6 with the poison, but there were still more. Ugh



Adding new dirt for under the floor. Hopefully will stave off any further mouse invasions



How many Mongolians does it take to put together a floor? 11. How many PCVs does it take to remember the word “tangram”? 4.

Putting in the old floor because they thought the new one was too big (I was with them on that one, it did seem too big).

Back to the new floor! Ура! (That’s Russian/Mongolian for hooray, just roll with it)

The 17 year old that I entrust my life with (he fetches my water and chops my wood aka he’s awesome) putting a lock on my new extra-wide door – makes my ger bigger!

This is about the moment when I ask if the rug shouldn’t go in before the bed and table

Turns out I was right. I counted that as a win

And up we go

This is the reason my ger smells like a county fair. But the extra protection is worth it



Not the first or last time someone from my hashaa family will climb on top of my ger



The crappy (their words, not mine) summer ger felt is acceptable as a nice third layer. I’ll take whatever I can get



Did I mention that the leaking problem’s solution was basically Saran-wrapping my ger?



Ger cake!



There’s also now an impressive ring of dirt around the bottom, but that came a few days later