Just a Dream

Last night I had the pleasure of dreaming a marvelous dream! I was walking down the glossy (so glossy you could see your reflection), tiled aisle of Wal-Mart. I remember saying 'Oh, it is so clean! Everything is in order! I know where everything is!' Then I actually looked at the shelves and they contained only the food available here in Mongolia. Same ol' root vegetables, rice, noodles, dairy products...Regardless of what that dream Wal-Mart had in stock, I was happy to be there still. Then some zombie started chasing me and the dream went on...


Anyway, Justin is totally right about dairy products here. If there isn't a picture on it, I don't buy it. It can say the word cow all it wants, but if there is no picture-- no deal. He mentioned buying some sausage (called 'heyam' in Mongolian) that had the words saying it was made from pig...and there were actually cartoon pictures of pigs on the label--but once opened we realized that it very well might have been pig, but it was not a part of a pig we were going to eat & expired at that! The meat was black. Probably blood and intestines. Dzolzig got a good meal that night. BTW, Justin didn't mention that the yogurt his school director gave us was expired--by two months. I use it in my baking--just mix a little bit with water and make a milk substitute from it.

Speaking of baking. I made some pretty yummy rolls last night from scratch. It was a perfect Saturday. No school sports competitions going on, no unexpected yard chores, no real work--just my Community English class that Justin helps me teach. We made our way to the class (it was 10:45am, snowy and dreary-- so perfect for Justin, he loves it) and none of my students showed up-- so we went home, put on a huge pot of vegetable soup, had a fire going and I made my rolls. Then we just ate soup and rolls open bar all day long. It was nice and toasty and cozy. Justin made the yummy soup. It was delicious.


So about a month ago Justin winterized our ger. In order for a ger to be ready for winter two layers of felt should be put on the ger, then a skirt needs to be placed around the bottom on the outside, then dirt needs to cover the skirt (to cover holes/cracks) and a ping is attached(a small detachable room that connects to the door of the ger, it is used to store fuels, a freezer, and to block as much wind as possible from coming inside the ger). We still do not have our ping up-- but I'm sure it will come soon, as the weather is dropping rather quickly.




So now that our ger is toasty, it keeps the warmth in pretty well. If you build an awesome fire your ger can get over 100 degrees inside!

Justin is outside of our ger trying to show the immense difference in temperature between outside our ger and the inside. Inside it is over 100 degrees, outside it is in the teens. His breath is showing, but my flash couldn't catch it.

Here's a picture of me doing laundry in our toasty ger. We've mastered making fires, now we need to master regulating a comfortable temperature-- because our ger is either 40 degrees or 100.


And finally, just some random pics of the Newberry Ger. I found another use for our indoor clothes line-- holiday decorations! (Oh! we learned last weekend that we can't really put our clothes on the outside line anymore-- they froze stiff. It was hilarious. You could hold our towels completely horizontal. Justin wanted to play sword fights...well that's nothing new.)


I went to one of the markets and found these adorable thingies. They are the cutest Cutie Pies I have ever seen. I love holiday clementines! I was surprised to be seeing ANY type of citrus-- I bought a kilo and eat about 6 a day. :)


I know I'm rambling, but just one more thing. I've learned that when I am not busy I tend to be more selfish. I think about what I could have been doing in the states, what Justin and I could have had, how normal our lives could be....I day dream. I think most people are like that. Usually we are too busy to think about ourselves because we are helping/serving others (and I think that's the way it should be). There is a quote that I have to repeat to myself when my attitude falls short of a serving attitude. "Forget yourself and get to work." told to Gordon B. Hinckley by his father--Bryant S. Hinckley. That quote seemed to straighten Gordon right up. I chose to come to Mongolia to help teach. And I don't regret coming here. But you know, the grass is always greener. One day I'll wake up in my later years and think all of this time in Mongolia was just a dream. But before that times come-- I will live it up here!