as the ox cart pulled up to ger #4, i noticed a foreign couple standing in front of a ger (i could see four gers total) as well as a young kid...the kid turned out to be 3 years old, and i almost always saw her with a smile on her face...
i was directed to put my stuff in an extra ger...there were bags and such on one side, near one of the beds, so i ended up on the east side...(traditionally the woman's side of a ger)...even though it was the guest ger, there was a table set up to serve tea and anything else in the middle of the ger, juts as a family ger would be organized...my hostess poured me some milk tea, and offered bread, butter, and nutella..NUTELLA!!! i haven't had that since i can't remember when...i love it, but outside of europe it isn't cheap...i don't know if one of her previous guests left it for the family, or whether she buys it specifically for the guests...either way, a couple slices of bread, one with butter and one with nutella, and i was a happy camper...
after eating my snack, i wandered outside...the weather was fantastic, i didn't want to be inside...i met the couple i'd seen while arriving, they turned out to be canadian...well, in his defense, he is half american, half canadian...lol...they were doing a homestay program through ger to ger, this was their 2nd night of 6 total with this family...it was fun talking to them, hearing about their travels, and what they planned to do after their trip was finished...like quite a few others i met while in mongolia, they were killing time while waiting for their russian visas to come through...
after lunch i went for a walk...again, i had seen some frozen river areas, and i wanted to explore in general...i love sunny, warm-ish, weather...at one point i found a tree and laid down for about 20 minutes, just soaking in the sun and silence...my face got plenty of sun, not that i minded:)
after returning from my walk, i found the canadian couple in the ger, playing an ankle bone game with the daughter of my hostess...the hostess is a grandmother, the daughter is 23, and her daughter, 3...this particular ankle bone game features flicking the bones, and i wasn't very good...i can flick well enough with my first and second fingers, but i'm terrible with my thumb...the daughter won...this particular game can go on and on and on and on and on...after a little while i think all of us wanted the game to be over...
the canadian girl and i helped prepare food that night...i think she'd helped with the meal the night before as well...part of her homestay experience...the hostess made the main food, but she and i helped make bortzog, which i'm pretty sure i mentioned in an earlier post...when we were finished frying all of them we got to eat...sooooo good...they're good all the time, they're even better when they're still warm...
i can't remember for sure, but i think i went to sleep pretty quickly that night...the canucks didn't snore, which was nice...
breakfast the next morning was the same as my snack had been the day before...bread, butter, nutella, milk tea...even though we'd all overeaten the night before, we did the same at breakfast...i told the couple that not all nomadic families feed you like this...lol...
after breakfast the daughter showed us how to shoot a bow...it's one of the traditional weapons of the mongols, back in the days when they were taking over the world...those bows are strung really tight, with really thick string...a few times i was able to shoot properly, but it was hard, and my arm hurt afterward!! we didn't shoot for long, partly because the little granddaughter threw a temper tantrum at one point and sat down close to the target...we figured it wasn't a good idea to shoot at her...
the family told me we'd be leaving at 10, to go to the bus station where i'd started this ger to ger tour...we didn't leave until almost 11, after the family was all dressed up...all three of the ladies were wearing their nicer clothes; my hostess and her daughter were wearing makeup...we started moving on the oxcart, though we didn't get very far...the first part of a river we tried to cross was still partially frozen...so the ox went partway in, but the wheels of the cart got a bit stuck on the ice...the daughter got the ox to back up enough that we were on dry land again, then got off and walked back to the ger...she came back with one of the family guys, who was wearing waders...he walked into the water, and pulled the ox by a rope...needless to say, the ox wasn't happy, but he continued moving...once we were through that river, we were fine...the trip in total took two hours, we went by oxcart most of the way...the last kilometer or so we walked...
i don't know if we'd just missed a microbus or what, but we ended up waiting in the little store for almost an hour...after watching the little granddaughter have ice cream, i decided i wanted one as well...yum! finally, the microbus came, and i started my trip back to the big city...
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