Learning to be a nomadic herder, Part 3

Everything here revolves around the animals and when the milking needs to happen. I haven’t spent time around livestock, so this is all new to me. I was somewhat frustrated at first by my feeble results as I tried to milk a cow. When Enhee does it, huge amounts pour from the teats. When I did it, even when I got a rhythm going, it was a tiny stream and the cow would get irritated with my pulling and whack me in the head with her tail. Every day, the 11 cows get milked once at 5 am and once at 8 pm. Seventy sheep and goats get milked once a day at 3 pm. So far I have been learning with the cows, and seeing a small improvement each day. By the end of the first week, I could milk one cow by myself until it was finished. I have one cow in particular that I like. Her teats are big and knobby and easy to handle, and though she looks back and me and sighs big exasperated sighs, she is more patient with my tugging than the other cows. I’m still having trouble with the goats. Many of them fight being milked and I don’t know how to make them still enough to squeeze effectively. They move their legs side-to-side and then if that doesn’t stop me, they sit in the milking bucket as I stare helplessly on. When the goats give Enhee or Hoolang trouble, they yell at them in Mongolian and the animals still. Haven’t gotten that trick mastered yet.They make a dizzying array of products from the milk. For breakfast they have milk tea--a salty milk water and tea hot drink--and bread with a butter-like substance that is the thick skin of boiled milk. The make a fermented yogurt called airag they believe is good for digestion, but which makes my stomach very unhappy. They make cheese from the curds (my favorite so far) as well as some hard dried curds and cheeses. Every morning, I take some of the fresh cow milk, boil it and make my coffee with it, and have some cereal. For lunch and dinner, they make hand made noodles and eat them in soup or dry with thinly sliced meat (every day they get a chunk of frozen meat that is stored at a neighbor’s house with a freezer a mile away). In the soup they sometimes add potatoes and a little carrot. Sometimes instead of noodles, they use rice. Everything is well cooked, with no refrigerator, it is a good thing they don’t like their meat pink. The only things they make from the horse milk are a fermented yogurt called airag, and Mongolian vodka (distilled from the airag). Yesterday, Enhee woke me smiling and waving for me to follow her. They were just finishing the distilling of the first batch of vodka and she wanted me to have some. As it was first thing in the morning, I just had a taste. It tasted like hot watery vodka that tasted vaguely of sour cheese.I’m beginning to feel like part of things here. Enhee gave me a sewing project using the hand-cranked sewing machine to make a fancy horse blanket for the big upcoming national celebration, Naddam. They are calling on me to help with many kinds of jobs, and are beginning to understand the strengths and skills I can offer. When good friends of the grandparents came to visit, I was invited to sit in the big ger packed with laughing visiting people. I did my best to answer questions, and my family helped translate my attempts in Mongolian for the visitors. In Mongolia the men carry beautiful little jars made of bone or stone which contain tobacco snuff. It is part of the ritual greeting to take out the snuff bottles, exchange them a certain way, take a bit of snuff (or at least sniff the bottle) and return them. I had read about it, and seen it in a movie, but hadn’t been anywhere it was done. I successfully did the ritual without coaching, and looked up to see my family looking at me with some degree of pride.The little kids like me and when I am out of my ger they call to me to play. My name here is Baraa, which is “Rain” in Mongolian. I love that my name can change to wherever I am, but still be my name. When I go out, I hear little voices calling “Baraa! Baraa!” and when I look, they laugh or wave to me. My second day here, I was throwing a Frisbee with the kids and throw it a different way than they had seen before (which made it go much farther than their method). The grandfather came over and had me show him how I was doing it. He practiced for an hour and was throwing really well by the end. It was a fun way to connect with him.
In my immersion experience with the Thai family, it took a full 3 weeks to get to a more comfortable place. I think after 10 days I am farther along that path here than I was in 3 weeks there. The giardia is gone (I think) and overall I’m doing well with the food and water here (knock on wood). I’m more able to make sense of what is being said or asked even when it strays away from my limited vocabulary. I have also started teaching some English to anyone who wants to learn. We were able to get some English books to work from by a relative visiting from UB. I will enjoy that.