On Friday afternoon, I wandered into school an hour before
my class to see a piece of paper that all of the teachers and workers were
signing but I couldn’t understand the heading. Luckily, Odgerel was the one in
charge of the signup sheet so I could actually ask what was happening. It
turned out that all of the teachers and workers were going to spend Saturday
planting trees in the school yard. My response was something along the lines
of, “Oh hey that sounds cool!” and got myself put on the list.
Everyone was told that we were supposed to meet at 9am at
the school. Considering that I’ve been here for nearly a year now and have
picked up on a few things, I asked, “REEEALLY 9am?” She laughed and said
probably not. Look at me, smart girl. So come 9am Saturday morning, I was still
in my ger drinking my tea and eating my breakfast. I got to school at 9:30 (30
minutes late, mind you), and was the fourth person there. The social worker
started a sign in sheet (from which I was omitted because I’m not permanent) that
included arrival times which I found hilarious but sadly irrelevant because
nobody cared and I will continue being 30 minutes late and among the first to
arrive at every event. At least it’s dependable.
So we moseyed outside a little after 10 and started digging
holes. Digging and digging and digging. Nobody told me that I needed to bring
my own shovel (silly me thinking that they’d be provided) so Odsuren and I
shared hers. That is, we shared until we started stealing other people’s
shovels. Much more efficient that way. Once we finished digging, for some
reason I never figured out, we made mini wells in all of the empty holes even
though the trees were nowhere to be seen. I got the honor of babysitting the
garden hose which I of course had to put my thumb over and make it rain. Not on
me, even though it was terribly hot, but on everyone around me. I was super
popular. Fists were shaken; I was chased around the yard. My maturity astounds
even me.
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| lighting the trash we found on fire |
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| when life gives you duststorms, this is how Mongolians water plants. nbd |
After finishing the digging around noon, it was lunch time!
My people played canasta which I don’t play so my attention span there lasted
about five minutes before I started wandering the school. I got called into the
workers’ room where we had the typical
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“HA no.”
“Why not?”
“Boys are silly.”
“Well… I have a son. He’s cute and
strong.”
“That’s nice”
conversation. I also learned that I’m supposed to get
married before I leave next year and that I need to have five children. Luckily
there’s no time frame on that one.
After lunch was finally put into my body, plants with evil
pointy thorns showed up to be planted. I avoided those after being pricked and
bled from the thorns. Then a few of us had nap time before the rest of the
trees arrived. At least five people told me that I could just go home and rest
because I was bored/ tired but I wanted to stick it out and see the actual
trees. Eventually they came in all their pointy and stabby glory. Planting baby
Christmas trees is rough on the skin. While planting the second tree, I stepped
on the dirt to pack it in around the tree when much to my surprise, the silly
water that we put in the holes earlier turned the dirt into very liquid mud. My
foot sunk straight down to the bottom of the hole. Unfortunately, that meant
the mud was up to my knee. The thought crossed my mind that it was payback for
spraying everyone earlier, but that’s just silly. The oddest part about the
experience is that that leg wasn’t much dirtier than the one that didn’t sink
into Mongolian quicksand. Sand is weird.
The great tree planting adventure ended with pine needle
stab marks, splinters, bug bites (winter’s over so they’re back…sad), blood,
dirt, and a sunburn. In an ill-fated attempt to pay me back for making it rain
earlier in the day, my friend called me over to the hose to wash the dirt from
my hands and a splash, but it ended with the hose popping apart on him and me
escaping with hardly a drop on me. It’s fun being included.
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