Don't Step In That

I'm going to try to write a quick note with several pictures.
We spent about a week in Ulaanbaatar (UB) while we were being transferred to a new town. While we were there Deni went to the dentist to get a new crown (for her tooth, not her head). They did a great job and it was only 250,000 Tuges (about $150).
While we were there we got to see more of the city. The weather is warming up so we didn't have nearly as much smoke as when we arrived. I copied a few pictures from when it is really smoky in UB like when we first got off the plane in December and could hardly breathe.
As I mentioned before, there are cows, dogs and other animals wandering all over town, on the streets and alleys and everywhere that we walk. We never worried about their droppings BECAUSE everything was frozen as soon as it hits the ground. With the weather warming we have to be careful wherever we go NOT To Step In That.

I have mentioned my fascination with the way that they heat their homes and businesses in Mongolia. I tried to take some pictures of the hot water pipes which take water from the plant outside of the town and pipe it to the town, generating heat for the town and smoke for the air. I found a picture that shows the pipes going over a road.


Here you can see a typical "Ger district" which is like a subdivision in the US. They call it a Ger district even if there are only wood or adobe homes in the district.

This is a more typical Ger district that we would see in the towns that we are in (although this one is in UB and they have cars. In the countryside almost no one has a car). You can see several Ger's and a few structure homes.









The Mongolian word for home is Ger and the name of a felt structure is also a Ger. Here is a Ger with a lady in a deel. We see many people every day all over town wearing their deel's.

Here are some Ger's on the hill overlooking UB. Most of the smoke in UB is caused from the coal that us burned to heat the Ger's. 

I don't remember if I posted the picture of Deni in the vegetable market but here it is again. We have found that we love the vegetable's here. They are dirty and taste like they are right out of the garden.

  This week we went with the Sister missionaries to visit a few families in the huge Ger district outside of town. We were really surprised how big the district is for the size of the town. Remember, they don't have running water, bathrooms (even in the homes) or heaters other than a wood stove.

We were told that we would do some walking and when we got out of the meeker (a mini van that they load with about 15 people to take people out to the Ger district for about 500 tuges (30 cents) each) we asked how far did we need to walk. The sisters, in their very broken English, said over that mountain. We, of course, thought they were joking. They weren't joking.









For those of you who don't really know where we are, Mongolia is between China on the south and Russia on the north. Deni and I are in a small town closer to the Russian boarder.






I tried to include a video that I took of Deni trying to follow the Sisters across a small mostly frozen stream on our way to cross the mountain on our way to visit a family in a small Ger but I couldn't get it to download.

DON'T DRINK THAT

Wow, are we ever having an experience. In less than 2 months we have grown to know and love the people of Darkhan. We have laughed with them, cried with them, eaten at their Ger's and fed them many meals at our apartment. They have enriched our lives as we learned about serving and being served. 

Things don't always go the way we plan and we have found ourselves in a position that requires that we move away from Darkhan. We are sad to leave friends that we feel like we have known forever and that we know will continue to be our friends throughout eternity. We can't go into the details but we are being "transferred" to another town. We have already met some of the people in our new home and we are excited to learn to love them also.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BUT I WROTE THIS A FEW WEEKS AGO AND MOST OF IT FELL OFF THE BLOG. I THOUGHT OF TRYING TO GO BACK AND RECREATE WHAT I HAD WRITTEN BUT I AM ALREADY SO FAR BEHIND SO I AM JUST GOING TO START A NEW POST AND YOU WILL HAVE TO WONDER WHAT I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO EAT AND WHAT ALL THE PICTURES THAT I POSTED WERE.
I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THAT BUT SOMETIMES TECHNOLOGY DOESN'T WORK FOR ME.

This is a picture of the town that we are visiting