The Sunsnow Glowbow

November 26, 2015

Apologies for the delay since the last post; I hate to keep my adoring fan waiting needlessly.

Which is okay, because this wait was not needless. The first quarter of the school year ended, and my life became far, far busier. Classes, clubs, housework, social engagements, more classes at the library, more clubs at the library… I hate to whine so publicly, but hey. I did.

What? The title? Yes, well, that’s the term I have coined for a natural phenomenon which I have only seen here in Mongolia. It happens when the sun shines amid minimal cloud cover, which too recently has covered the entire sky, dumping snow on our fair city. Though snow no longer falls, the moisture in the remaining in the air freezes, causing tiny ice particles to form, falling to the ground. You can't even see them unless they're caught in a sun beam, much like a mote of dust hovering lazily in the light of a window. But when you could see the floating ice, the air itself seems to sparkle, as if someone has thrown glitter from a passing plane. Add to that the barest glimpse of a rainbow behind the clouds, and you get a Sunsnow Glowbow.

Mongolia is a strange, strange place. Another example: it’s been snowing quite a lot recently. There was a stretch of about a week where it snowed all day every day (and most of the night). It was essentially a constant flurry, so accumulations are still barely more than ankle high in most places, but I can’t even imagine the shitshow this would cause in the states, especially where I come from, when combined with the below-0 temperatures. Mongolians just take it in stride. Literally – I've seen kids sprinting at full speed across sheets of ice that I can barely get over safely with a granny-shuffle.

What's more, there are no snow plows here, so cars just continually drive over the snow, packing it down into a thick layer of ice all over the road. It’s much the same on the sidewalks; eventually, it will be too cold to drive a car, so people do a lot of walking. Obviously, that much ice is not tremendously safe, so the city devised a simple way of dealing with it. Each institution is responsible for clearing the snow and ice in front of their establishment, out into the road. People show up with shovels, hoes, picks – I even saw one guy using a discarded wooden sign – and they clear the street and sidewalks, inch by inch.

Of course, then it snows again, and the roads freeze again, but at least the ice is only an inch thick instead of two or three, right? I will say this for the whole thing, though: it makes walking/sliding home a lot more interesting. One must choose one's path and speed very carefully.

Shifting gears a bit as we move on to some other things: today (Friday) is a sports day at my school, with teachers competing against teachers. I'm on a team with at least ten others, one of whom is a dude who is famous in this aimag for being a mountain climber, another of whom is the tallest dude in my school (even taller than me, though just barely), and another of whom is my four-foot-something counterpart. I've been asked to play in the volleyball and basketball events. I like our chances. More on this story as it unfolds.

As of the time I'm writing this, it's Thanksgiving at home. Dinner would have finished a while ago, and people would be staggering home (NOT DRIVING DRUNK, RIGHT?). We here in Uvs province celebrated last weekend, as that was the only time our fellow PCVs could travel in from their soums and, as you might imagine, Mongolia doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving. You may have seen the picture on Facebook; Emily, Amy, and the two aforementioned out-of-towner PCVs made a hell of a meal – roasted chicken, garlic and herb mashed potatoes, scalloped cheesy potatoes, honey-braised baked carrots, homemade wholewheat rolls, gravy, cake, snickerdoodles, and beets. It was an absolutely delectable meal. (That list might seem to suggest that beets were considered a dessert, but that's not the case. I just don't like beets very much, so they came last.)

I assisted by doing some prep, but wasn't much help otherwise until cleanup began. Later in the evening, the vodka came out, and we attempted to drunk history Thanksgiving, which was fun. I haven't seen the final product of that, but I imagine it will be just as much of a circus as I remember it being.

Umm... not too much else to report. Emily and I have started teaching at the library, I've started doing a “movie club” at the school with Raiders of the Lost Ark, we'll be heading out to UB for some training in about a week and a half (two weeks for me), we're learning Korean, and I plan to start learning German soon, and um... that's about it. Thanks for reading.

I reiterate my recommendation to listen to Sufjan Steven's most recent album “Carrie and Lowell” – it's kind of incredible how he can mix the sweetest melodies and instruments with the most heart-wrenching lyrics, though some of the songs he's written are the definition of melancholy (the Fourth of July, for example). Instead of asking you to wallow in the misery, this album helps put your life into perspective. For me, at least right now, things are simple and uncomplicated, blissful and wondrous. For the most part, you can choose your happiness. There may come a day when the sadness overwhelms, but today isn't that day. As always, I recommend a set of headphones.