Mutton me up

For those of you lucky enough to have known me for a while, you will know that my dad grows some pretty tastey sheep. We eat them as lambs though – not stinky mutton.

Mongolians like their mutton. They like the flavour. I do not. Each to their own UNTIL I have to eat it too. The moral to the story is: I blame my dad for growing delicious sheep and killing them young for spoiling me and not getting me used to eating stinky mutton in preparation for Mongolian field trips.

Mutton. For lunch and dinner (not for breakfast because we specifically asked for plain bread). Mutton soup with fat, mutton chops boiled til they fall apart, mutton noodles with fat chunks, dried mutton with noodles in soup.

I don’t like mutton. It’s not a bad weight loss strategy though. I eat enough (no chewing; just swallowing) to make it look like I tried and them exclaim how full I am. It’s hardly a foolproof plan but for now I don’t care.
Right. So today was kind of what I would like to describe as a lifetime of preparation rolled in to one. I was expecting to come to Dornod and do nothing but observe. That’s pretty much what I’m doing but I’m definitely part of a team. Each team has three people and we go to herder’s houses where a whole group has gathered (a collective herder group that is currently/has previously received funding from a specific project to protect pasture land and encourage farming diversification). We sit on tiny wincy little stools for hours on end drinking milky tea (the East don’t like salt in theirs, thank goodness) and chatting. I don’t chat – I don’t chat well in Mongolian. I sit there and admire.

The language is becoming totally normal and the gers are all feeling more homely. Children run around in their absolutely filthy clothes. Everyone talks and answers questions. I occasionally get translated snippets of what is going on and I can ask questions too if I want. We have an ultimate goal of answering specific questions regarding the collective herding group, how it’s functioning, how it is governed, how they plan for the future, how they deal with change, information sharing and dissemination. All that jazz.

I asked two questions today (most already had been answered). One: how do they sow their crops (A: hire a tractor from the soum centre for a day or two and then they all go nuts and plant everything at once) and two: how do they maintain the genetic diversity of their herds (A: one family in the area has breeding stock and if they want to add more genes/change the breed a little they hire an animal from somewhere within the soum).
I am knackered. It’s only 2pm – I’m not sure how we got out of the day so easy.

Anyway. In regards to a ‘lifetime of preparation rolled into one’  it really is. I’m in a developing country talking to nomadic families who have been function for thousands of years about their herding management practices because globalization and shitty management strategies have left them high and dry. Specifically without any knowledge because it was all wiped out during previous rules. I get to be a functioning part of a team that is researching pastoral management for the better of the Mongolian people. The research also encompasses political ideas and encourages community action from the bottom up as opposed to previous eras. Mongolia is in such a unique situation – where they can learn from so many other countries and so much rangeland science to create a functional, sustainable farming system that allows people to thrive, not just survive. And I get to be a thinking hat – an Australian thinking hat with ‘fresh ideas’ (I love being young; apparently young people have fresh ideas) and enthusiasm to share (okay, I have a little bit of knowledge to share but NOT much).

The minority group in this area is called the khalk (I think). They make delicious bread as per my mention re: breakfast.

So this group of herders we were talking to this morning. This is a summary:
The group came together as a collective and applied for funding from the project I’m working on to plant some vegetables. They only got 4million tugs as the project only is suppose to fund native grass management things. Only problem is that in this area, the funding would be useless because to replant native grasses would get them no where (wrong climate).

The 10 functional families worked together to get the funding. Now they’ve got the funding, they work together to farm the 2 acres of vegetable land. They buy seed from China (I imagine) and sow in April. They all work together and then when they harvest they share equally the money they make. Last season (their first for veggies) they harvested 4million tugs worth. They eat a lot of what they grow and sell the surplus.

The land is leased to them by the soum governor on a 10 year basis. Land is not owned by anyone in Mongolia but privatization is slowly happening (for better or worse) and taxes are enforced if you haven’t organized to lease a parcel of land.

That’s kind of it. There’s more but I’m sleepy. There was also the cutest little 2yo girl. Her mother is the most beautiful Mongolian woman I have seen. She had beautiful white sparkly teeth, plump lips and blue eyes. She is the youngest of the collective so was very busy serving bowls and bowls of tea and looking after her two children.

Tonight is a performance from the kids at the kindergarten. Tonight would also be a bloody good night for a shower but I don’t think it’s going to happen. There is no running water. I have enough drinking water for tomorrow but am slightly worried about the following days. I’m sure someone has it under control.
Bayartai
xox