if the horns of a 4 year old yak freeze, what does that mean for my toes?

21 January 2012

Mongolian winters are cold. I’m cold. Outside is cold. The school is cold. Taxis are cold. Mornings in my ger are…cold. Everything is cold. The most common greeting I get is, “Are you cold? How well can you build a fire?” I then regale them with stories about how my mornings go and they laugh at me. At least I’ve stopped burning my hands on the stove.

I mean, if morning ger fire making was an Olympic sport, I would be a serious contender for a medal. I have a system. The night before, I lay out my wood. I put it in order of how I’m going to place it in the stove. First the two bottom pieces, then the smaller and thinner ones that the kindling will catch, then the thicker and maybe wet pieces that will go on top of those. Before I go to bed, I convert to a mostly useless coal fire (seriously, all it does is stave off the inevitable for another hour), then curl up in my sleeping bag. Sometimes I don’t plan well and make it far too hot before I go to bed and fall asleep not completely covered by the sleeping bag. Which then means I wake up in the middle of the night to properly cover myself.

Morning comes around and I spend at least 30 minutes muttering angry things at my alarm. Not because I’m tired (well…..not mainly), but because it’s cold outside of my sleeping bag with my furry space heater. I’ve discovered that my ger will lose all heat after about 4 hours of my stove not producing heat (which is different from coals still being hot), so after 8 hours of sleeping, it’s more or less the same temperature as outside, maybe a little warmer. At least there’s no wind inside.

Then comes the main event. I apologize to the cat for disturbing her, bound out of my sleeping bag, put on my slippers because that extra layer over my toes is important, grab the bags with ash and kindling, empty the ash tray, make my wood stack, grab a piece of paper next to the stove, set it on fire, make sure the kindling catches, then run back in bed. I’ve sort of timed myself and from getting out of bed to zipping the sleeping bag up takes about 7 minutes. Regaining feeling in my fingers and toes takes about 15. Warming up my ger to a balmy 40 degrees takes 20-30. Maybe it’s not impressive, but I think it’s at least respectable.

You might be thinking, “Maybe if this girl was dressed properly, she wouldn’t be so cold.” Well, my rude reader, I sleep in three pairs of wool socks (two midweight, one heavyweight), two pairs of long underwear, one pair of pajama pants (thin, but surprisingly helpful), one heavyweight long underwear top, and a fleece jacket. My sleeping bag is rated to -20 and I have another blanket on top of that. Sometimes I still wake up cold.

The bright side, if you want to call it that, is that this is/was the coldest week of winter. We call it the fourth nine. The Mongolian concept of winter is that the season is divided into nine sets of nine days starting with the winter solstice. The breakdown goes a little something like this:

First Nine – Airag (fermented mare's milk) freezes

Second Nine – Vodka freezes

Third Nine – Tail of a three-year-old yak freezes

Fourth Nine – Horns of a four-year-old yak freeze

Fifth Nine – Boiled rice does not congeal anymore

Sixth Nine – Roads blacken (meaning snow melts on paved roads)

Seventh Nine – Hillsides blacken (meaning snow melts on the hillsides)

Eighth Nine - Ground becomes damp (meaning snow melts on the grass)

Ninth Nine – Warm days set in

As you can see, the fourth nine isn’t exactly pleasant. At the beginning of it, Mergee (my hashaa man) brought wood to my ger and gave me a very serious look. He said, “Ashley. The next few days are going to be really cold,” then showed me his fancy phone with the weather forecast. Lows of at least -30 across the board for the week. I swear when I’m sitting in my chair that’s maybe 5 feet from the stove and 3 from the wall, I can feel the cold air rushing in. Walking the block to the store takes considerable effort. The outhouse? Ha.

At least this means that things will only get warmer from here. I’m told that after Tsagaan Sar at the end of February, things should be warm again. Keep in mind that when they say warm, they’re generally referring to what most people stateside consider an average winter. I swear if I see one more person stateside say how cold they are, I will find a way to punch them through the internet.

Here’s my point: if you ask how I am and I respond with “cold,” it’s not a joke. I am, really and truly, cold.