February 23, 2007 - Surviving Tsagaan Sar

See photos below

Oh. My. Goodness. I survived Tsagaan Sar. For four days we had absolutely no work, and all we did was go from house to house, each family feeding us as though it was our only meal for the day. We went to 12 houses altogether. I had (roughly) 30 buuz, 5 pounds of niiceltei salad (potato-mayo Russian stuff), 20 glasses of kherem (boiled milk), 20 glasses of airig (this is the fermented salted mare's milk), a whole bunch of sheep meat (if you want to know what part of the body it came from, I can tell you because they just put the whole sheep on the table and cut off pieces as they go), and more pickled carrots than you could ever want, and I'm proud to say that I'm the only American sister who didn't puke the whole time.

We mostly visited branch members' homes, and we went together as a district with our elders. Everybody got to wear their dels, and the elders all wore the most ridiculous hats. When you enter a house during Tsagaan Sar you have to exchange new year's greetings with everyone in the room before you sit down. Whoever is older between the two of you lays their arms over the younger person's arms, you say, "Amar baina uu!" or some other holiday greeting, and then the older person either kisses or sniffs each of your cheeks. It was a little weird at first, but I got the hang of it and it was really fun because every time I did it with someone they'd smile or laugh and say, "Look at the cute American acting like a real Mongolian!"

Back to the food. Most of the stuff Mongolians eat is pretty normal. The meat is really good if you don't mind eating around all the fat, and I actually grew to like buuz pretty well over the holiday. They're steamed dumplings with sheep stomach meat inside. But the airig...is disgusting. I had heard so much about it before hand that when I had my first taste of it, it didn't seem that bad. But after having to drink a bowlful or more of it at every house...*shudder* I would be happy if I never had to taste it again. Airig is served cold, which is unusual because every other drink Mongolians drink is served boiling hot. There's like a rule that you can't drink anything cold when the weather is cold out or you'll die. My tongue has been in various stages of burnedness ever since I got here, but now I've gotten used to it. Plus, if you let your drink get cold it tastes worse. The airig comes cold, however, and I just had to will my way through every single gulp, but not too quickly. You have to learn how to get your timing right. You have to drink just fast enough that you finish just as you're leaving but not too fast or they'll notice your cup getting low and give you a refill. Some people will listen when you say "Zuugeree. Bolson." ("It's okay, I'm done") But some people don't care how much you've had already, they're not stopping until you've exploded.

On the second day of Tsagaan Sar we started off at this one member's house who just would not take no for an answer. Elder Moulton was driven to trying to hide his cup from her, but she ran around the table, and grabbed it from him, and filled it full of airig while Elder Moulton silently sobbed. It was our first house of the day so we wanted to take it slow and not eat too much, but then she brought out the buuz. Usually they just set out the plate and say, "buuz id!" (eat buuz!) and then leave you to dish your own, but when she saw us all tentatively dishing up a mere two or three per person she ran up and shoved six on to everyone's plate. I was near tears at this point, but one look from my companion told me that we wouldn't be leaving until everything was finished. Then she insisted that everyone sing a song by themselves. It's not too bad because once you start everyone else joins in, but we were all ready to hurl and the lady simply would not let us leave.

We had another "eating appointment" right after that, and I just didn't know how I was going to make it through the day. I was readying myself for the very real possibility that I was going to puke in somebody's home in front of everyone, but then we experienced a tender, tender mercy. The person we were supposed to meet with had gone to the khuduu! The glorious khuduu! The khuduu is just the countryside and everyone is constantly disappearing off to the khuduu. These people are nomadic, mind you, and sometimes the khuduu is a bad thing because you'll go to teach a lesson to this golden investigator and find an empty lot where their ger used to be because they up and left overnight. In this instance, however, the person was just visiting family in the khuduu, and I didn't really care because all that mattered to me was that I didn't have to eat any more right then.

In the middle of the day for all the days of Tsagaan Sar the missionaries from all the surrounding branches met at the church and played ping pong. Mongolian meetinghouses don't have "cultural halls" like the ones back home, but they do all have a ping pong table. One day we had a huge ping pong tournament. I'm proud to say that I made it to the semi-finals of the winners bracket, but then I got matched up with the two best players, and I lost twice very quickly. It was okay, though, because I was having more fun playing shogoi (sheep ankle bone) games with my companion and some of the other Mongolian missionaries.

In the midst of the holiday cheer and celebrating we got a rather alarming call from our district leader on the second night of Tsagaan Sar. One of our branch missionaries, Enkhtur, had suddenly passed away. He had heart problems ever since he was born, but it was still shocking. I've only been in the branch for a week, but I knew Enkhtur from before because our branches met in the same building. The day after we found out we took a break from our holidaying and went to visit the family. As we entered their ger the weight of sadness in the room fell upon me and we all just sat there and cried with the family for a while. His two siblings are also branch missionaries, but I don't think their parents are members.

We came back the next day to help with funeral preparations. I wasn't sure if the dad had noticed any of us the night before because he had seemed a bit dazed, but as soon as we had all sat down he turned to me and said, "What happened to your del? You look better in Mongolian clothes." The sister missionaries went and cut potatoes and carrots for a couple of hours while the elders helped make arrangements for the coffin and such. We were up at 5:30 this morning preparing for the funeral service. The hardest thing is preparing food for all the people who come visit the family. They had the service at the church and it was just like any other funeral. Family members said some words and then everybody walked by the coffin, which was opened just enough to see the top of his head. Having a holiday and a funeral all in one week has been pretty intense, but I feel like I've really gotten to know my new branch and I'm excited to serve them.

-Sister Johnson

PS I'm starting three new English classes this next week. One of them is at an Investigation Unit, and I'll be teaching a bunch of lawyer-type people. It should be interesting, and yes I will be teaching all on my own now.