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.
