at Chugar and Batsetseg's

Here is their ger. Note TREES! We travelled through one of the valleys (the one with, SO FAR, no hotels nor tourist ger camps in it, tho that is due to change any minute...not a good thing, by my reckoning) of Terelj National Park with an organization called Ger-to-Ger. Very interesting organization. They have agreements with families to provide a place to camp, a simple meal or 2 (47 ways to prepare starch) (well, to be fair, there are also some very interesting ways to use dairy products...more on this later), and a chance to observe or , sometimes, take part in, their daily routines. The families receive payment from the organization and are thereby able to augment the income they receive from their various herding activities and the women's seamstressing work. We were told that each of the families we visited had been below the poverty line before working with G2G, but that within a few months, they had all changed that.  The hope of the man who founded the organization (a native American/native Alaskan..go figure..who has made his home in Mongolia for 14 years) is that these families will also be empowered to demand their rights and to resist unfair and inappropriate land uses in their areas. They don't have to accept just any old economic opportunity that is tendered them, they can choose. Seemed righteous to me.That is Chugar to the right of me, his drunken brother to the right and somebody else who was around for awhile, drinking vodka (lots of that) and hanging out (lots of that, too) on the metal bed inside the ger.
This is Batsetseg and her daughter with you-know-who. And if you think you can pronounce her name from the spelling of it, you are SOOO wrong!
OK OK, so enough of the pictures of me...BUT, it is a good way to get the people to pose...in fact, all of these photos were their idea and have been printed out and sent out to them thru G2G. Here I am getting instruction in milking a cow. VERY different than milking a goat, which I actually can still do fairly proficiently. Couldn't get anything but a dribble running down my hand from the cow. The daughter was pretty disgusted with that.
The kids have quite a bit of responsibility for the herding duties. This guy was a cousin, I think. And a brighter, more engaging kid you couldn't hope to meet. He was 11 years old and pretty much in charge of a mixed herd of goats and sheep numbering, hmmm, I don't know..it was big...maybe a hundred animals, what with babies and all.
The family also kept bees. So they live in the land of milk and honey!

to and from-yin and yang

Now we are back in Ulaanbaatar for one day to prepare us for our next excursion. We are signed up to go visit some Nomadic families that live in a National Park. We will be staying with them so there is an orientation to help with questions about what to expect about the different life styles to be encountered. For some reason.......... the orientation ran a bit long and we missed the store that sells plastic bags and rain poncho to protect the gear in case of rain. Not to worry, the forecast is for sunny days all week, besides, we can buy the bags in the morning before we get on the bus. Ha! Mongolia retail stores don't open until after 10:00. No poncho for Boomboom, no plastic bags for backpacks.
The morning started sunny and warm, we boarded the local bus that takes 2-3 hours to travel 60km to the Terelj National Park. We had not seen many trees since arriving in Mongolia so we were looking forward to some greenery. Once through the main gate into the park the most striking image is that this place looks like Yosemite. Large granite outcroppings mixed with fir and cedar forest make it breathtakingly beautiful. As we wind our way through the valley floor toward our drop off point,(where we will be met buy a local herder with an ox cart and some horses for our transportation to his Ger), the sky begins to darken. The farther we move up the valley the darker the sky becomes. Lightening and thunder mix with the grey/black clouds. We are supposed to get off at the LAST stop, whatever that means. Now it starts to rain, not just regular rain that you can pull your coat over your head and run through, but a deluge. Rain drops the size of quarters coming down in sheets so thick you can only see a couple hundred yards. I know we are not at the last stop because there are still a lot of locals on the bus, when a man comes on board and gestures for us to come with him. Ger! Ger! Yoo Come! We pile out of the bus, he has our luggage and we run through the downpour for a tin shed............. I must add here that we boarded the bus with two Frenchmen, an Aussie couple and a guy from Kansas that had been teaching English in Japan for two years and was on his way home via Europe, they too were meeting the Herder. We all stood under the tin roof, the more experienced travelers put on their rain gear while I fumbled for my hat that must have dropped out of my pack on the way to the bus. All of a sudden this large rust/green Soviet troop carrier pulls up in front of the tin shed. The Herder, with hand signals that made no sense, motions for us to get in the back of the troop carrier, which we all gladly do as none of us wants to get on a horse in this heavenly washout. The driver is straight out of central casting, a dark chiseled Mongolian face with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Does he care much about the load of round eyes in the back of his most worldly possession? The engine starts, no muffler, we hang a U-turn and head toward the swollen river. At the river's edge he drops the transmisson into granny low and creeps forward. The river is about 100 yards wide and not real deep but this is heavy desert rain that can flash flood. Half way across the river, with 3 inches of water sloshing at our feet the loud engine starts to sputter and steam as the water reaches the block. I look at the Frenchman who is about my age and we begin to laugh, like this is just the best. We do make it to the far side of the river where Chacha will describe the rest of our adventure, but now we are headed back to China where I will finish this blog, and describe the bus trip back to Ulaanbaatar, which is just as eventful as this, the yang of this yin.

love
Boomboom

Flowers and Views of Hustai National Park

Be grateful: I am sparing you all seventeen pictures of wild flowers that peeked out on the north side of the ridge after so much steady rain. Plant fanatics can see them all (photos, I mean) on our return.This one looks like dock, doesn't it? Just with fatter leaves.
And this one like clary sage, with a faint scent of it too.
GREEN! Much smell of artemesia, too.
BoomBoom heads back.

Inter-species Communication

So, on an afternoon in in Hustai in which it was not absolutely pouring rain, we decided to hike up the ridge (see last photo) to see if we could find our way onto the next mountain, which had TREES! We'd not seen a lot of those in past days. We were heading for a big pile of rocks. When we got to it, we climbed up it and had a look around. We saw big sky, we saw a beautiful valley, stretching way out, we saw rain clouds moving across the land. And then we saw the foal! At first we thought it was dead. But then it moved it's ears, then it's head a little. It was a Takhi foal, alone on this ridge by a rock pile. No mama in sight. No herd. What the heck was going on? Was it sick? Injured? Where was it's mother? Why would she leave her baby? Maybe she was sick or injured. Maybe she was dead.I went to the far side of the rock pile to see if I could spot her. I didn't. But when I turned back, I saw the foal was standing. It looked like it was trying to nurse from the rock overhang.
We decided to go down to the lodge and ask the manager to call the biologist at the research station to see if they wanted to go fetch it or...? We were all messed up over this poor creature. It seemed quite young; it was wobbly on it's spindly legs. Night was coming on. And rain was threatening. She did call, but didn't reach him..left a message. My heart stayed on the ridge with this baby horse in the fierce night. A man who was part of a group of US zoo keepers and teachers who were there on an educational tour overheard our tale. He said that wild ungulates (I don't think a horse is an ungulate, but never mind) "park" their babies in a safe place for the first few days and only come to them to allow them to nurse a couple of times a day. Perhaps that was the explanation for otherwise inexplicable behavior on the part of a mother mammal.

The next day we climbed up again. No foal, no blood, nor signs of struggle. I guess his theory was correct! Whew!
And, this, ladies and gentlemen, is a marmot. Why it let me squat so close to it and take it's picture, I have no idea. I talked softly to it, told it I meant it no harm. Then I just hung out with it for awhile. 
We had seen quite a few of them the day we first saw the Takhi, running for their holes as the truck startled them, with their tails straight up in the air. They have golden retriever gold to Irish setter red coats. By winter, their coats are luxuriant. You can buy a jacket made of their pelts at the State Department Store. Gorgeous. Local people also like their meat..fatty and rich. Old school, their fat used to be rendered and used for everything from cooking to oiling bridles.

They also can carry the fleas that carry the plague! When I remembered that fact, I brought my interspecies communication moment to an end.

Wild Horses

There they are! A breeding group of 5 adults and 2 foals, the white one was lying down the whole time we were observing them. They were not skittish at all.  I was getting all misty-eyed about these being the ancestors of every horse alive in the world today, down to the pony, Tar Baby, that Laurel and I got for the girls years ago. Then we went to the research center  (we were in (K)Hustai National Park, which is one of 3 Mongolian homes to these horses that have been re-introduced from zoos and breeding programs in Europe, where the only ones were living prior to 1994) and talked to a young Mongolian biologist who said that it's more like the Takhi and today's domestic horses share a common ancestor. Well, duh! I reminded myself of the anti-evolutionists who declare "I'm not descended from a monkey!"
Still, it was cool to see them. And impressive to hear about the re-introduction, which has been very successful. About 40 mares foaled in Hustai in May, with a few more to go. The herd here numbers about 220 now. At one other reserve, the reproduction rate is not as great although the herd is growing. But in the third place, there have been no foals born at all. Some of the research is about why that might be.
Although domestic animals are "absolutely illegal" in the park, when I asked about the horses I had observed there, the biologist said that they have found that with a few other animals roaming about, the park's population of wolves (around 30-40 individuals) will sate their hunger on various animals and not just baby Takhi. 
Most of the Takhi are the "buckskin" coloring that I have always liked so much, but look at that spotted foal! And the one lying down appeared to be all white. Their manes stand up like a brush, they are thick-necked and sturdy.

date-line Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia

Hey, when we said "keep the home fires burning", we didn't mean the whole damn county! We are getting somewhat mixed messages about the current state of things, but it sounds most like FOR NOW the homes of people we know (including our own) are safe. All praise and gratitude to what here in Mongolia is known as "Blue Sky", the dominant force behind it all.

As we returned yesterday to UB from a 4-day jaunt around one of the valleys of Terelj National Park with an organization called "Ger-to-Ger" (horses and ox-carts being the modes of travel, dairy and starch {since, to the bafflement of locals, we eat no meat} being the foods), we had lunch and sat out the afternoon's rain in a ger that had a tv (oh, yes) and we saw that UB was demonstrating and rioting! Here's what I have gathered so far:

There was an election Sunday. The communists were (re?)elected. During the vote counting, the electricity went out several times and the opposition figures that means a perfect opportunity for election fraud was thus created. They also say that votes are bought. Therefore, the party that has the most money can buy the most votes. And which party has the most money? The communists. And why? Because they accept donations from the communist parties of China and Russia..BIG donations. Why would such donations be mad? Because Mongolia has many untapped resources, mostly minerals (copper, coal, gold) that those 2 countries want access to. The donations would buy them deals with the government to come and extract these resources, thus ruining the countryside, the traditional way of life, and taking the wealth away from the people who would lose so much that they hold dear.  So, much protesting in the main square in front of the parliament building as well as attacks on the communist party headquarters. On the tv in the ger we saw riot police beating some protesters and hauling others away. Last night, 2 buildings were torched..one burnt to the ground. One had something to do with China.

More news as it breaks. (Photos, too, of our excursions since last blog)

We fly to Beijing Thursday to try to get visas for Pakistan, so that we can bus/train to western China, thence over the Karakorums via the only land route south to Pakistan, thence to India.

We'll keep you posted. Keep those cards and letters coming (that would be emails in this electronic age) 

love through cyber-space from

ChaCha and BoomBoom 

Ger (yurt) Camp

That's the wooden door to the felt ger. Virtually all of those we've seen are also covered with a layer of white canvas and have white sheeting inside. Brightens things up. So does the bright painted decoration on all the wooden parts.
There were about 20 gers at this camp. Ours was the closest one in this photo. That may even be BoomBoom standing there watching the full moon rise over the steppes of Asia.

Sunset on our last evening. OK..OK so it could be a sunset anywhere, but, trust me, it is setting over the steppes of Asia. We were seeing it from near a stone circle that could be a burial mound from Ghenggis Khaan's time. Or a pile of rocks formed as the herders tossed them out of the way of the track their animals take.  More questions than answers, that's for sure.