Since I am currently in the Gobi Desert (more on that in a later post), I figure it's a good time to catch up on writing blog posts. Last time I posted was back in early February (I think) and I put up about 5 that day. I have 3 or 4 to post over the next couple days so keep on the lookout for that.
We'll start off in early to mid February in the preparation phase of Tsagaan Sar. Tsagaan Sar (White Month) is the Mongolian New Year and is a REALLY big deal. I decided at the beginning of February that I needed to start preparing to have a fantastic holiday season.
Phase 1: the invitations
The way Tsagaan Sar works is that there are three days of visiting family, friends, and coworkers. Since I knew most people probably wouldn't think to invite me, I began to coerce other teachers at my school into inviting me to their houses for the holiday. "You know guys, I really like to eat buuz and potato salad............" "Oh Ashley, you should come to my house for Tsagaan Sar!" "Well gosh, thanks so much for thinking of me!" Yes, I'm shameless. By the beginning of Tsagaan Sar, I had gotten more invitations than I would have gotten had I just left it to chance Great success.
Phase 2: the outfit
Back for swearing in, I got a Mongolian deel from my fantastic host family but it is a summer deel and not entirely appropriate to wear during a Mongolian winter. So one day during school in the teachers' lounge, I announced to the room that I wanted to buy a new deel to wear during Tsagaan Sar. There's one older teacher who helps me keep my 4th graders in line and she told me that there is actually a tailor in town (shocking!) and that she sells fabric (even more shocking!). So one random Tuesday I wandered over to the tailor's office near the bank and put in an order for a winter deel. My deel is lined with a quilted material rather than fur so I can still wear it outside but it isn't the warmest version. Either way, it took her only about a week to make and it's fantastic. Pictures will be in the next post.
Phase 3: the food
This might be the craziest part of the entire Tsagaan Sar preparation process. I'm not entirely sure that I can put the insanity into words. I knew ahead of time that the holiday involved a lot of buuz, but I hadn't realized the scope. A couple weeks before the holiday started, I went with one of my CPs to visit her best friend who happens to be the sister of PC/M's admin officer. While I was there, I helped them make about 200 horse meat buuz. The family rolled out the dough for the dumplings, I filled them with meat, onions, garlic, and seasoning, then pinched them closed. Luckily my host family taught me how to pinch really well over the summer so I impressed everyone with my buuz pinching skills. We put them all on a metal sheet to be put outside and frozen to be steamed at a later date. My next buuz pinching experience was with my hashaa family where we had an assembly line going - one rolled out the dough, one placed the meat on the dough, two of us pinched them closed, and one took the pinched buuz and put them on the tray. I wish I had a picture of this because it was really intense, but I forgot my camera in my ger and they never asked me to help again. Alas, there's always next year.
Phase 4: the money
For the two weeks leading up to Tsagaan Sar, all anyone at school could talk about was buuz, making buuz, meat, and how expensive meat was. Yes, those are four distinctly different topics. Apparently the price of meat skyrocketed before Tsagaan Sar (as my basic economics learning taught me but befuddled everyone else) so people were panicking trying to figure out where to buy meat, what type to buy, and bemoaning that rice buuz are culturally unacceptable. In order to afford the crazy prices of meat, at least everyone in school and probably most of the people in town went to the bank and took out loans to the extent that both banks in town completely ran out of money. I went into Erdenet the weekend before Tsagaan Sar and every ATM there was out of money and the "lines" at the bank were out the doors into the street. It was complete madness.
In an upcoming post, I'll tell y'all more about the actual holiday. Get excited.
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