Another Friday at work, another day I left early. I’m not suppose to, but when no one’s actually in the office and you’ve run out of paper to print things – what’s the point? I’m enjoying this researching seeds thing but the more Mongolian things I do, the more I recognise in myself that I’m not a details person. I can see what my work needs help with, how to go about it and what I can help with. But I don’t want to research the details of the seeds. I want to tell someone else that they need to research the best pastures for particular conditions that I give them. And I want to tell someone to create a survey that fits my criteria and for them to have it filled and give me the detailed results. And then I can collate the stuff and do the fun bits – organising it to make sense at a broader scale.
Of course that doesn’t help me because unfortunately at the ripe old age of 25 I do not have minions to do my dirty work for me. Shame.
So I’ll have to do it. It won’t be hard, I’ve figured out how I’ll do it and at some stage I’ll decide the depth I’ll go in to. Right now I don’t want to choose to study the Gobi because then that’s not fair to the Tsaatan Reindeer Herders, or the far-east herders in Dornod province.
It makes me sick thinking about having to go to work tomorrow. I don’t want to do it. To do what they want me to (at least what I THINK they want), I need to be in a research based university with access to all available journal articles, anthropology reports, professors with detailed knowledge of the subject and access to a lot of different facilities from computers, map printers, GIS software, decent internet to decent soil testing kits and all that jazz.
But I don’t so I have to learn to deal. That’s also hard. I don’t like to be unprepared!
Anyway, I left work early on Friday because I didn’t want to be there. Story of my life.
Friday night was another farewell party for another Australian volunteer. It’s a bit sad. There’s a lot of people leaving. When someone leaves they usually have a bit of a give away with all their stuff they’ve collected over their time in Mongolia and can’t fit in their bag. I conveniently scored a few things I’d been looking for – two skirts, a couple of jumpers and a shirt that will all be handy. The party was fun and I took a lot of photos of everyone with the leaving girls’ camera so she had some photos.
No matter where I go and what I do, I can’t escape the ballet fingers (see above right). At least they’re graceful, when other things usually aren’t.
This all made Saturday morning quite difficult. I didn’t drink much as my hangovers always suck balls but because we were out relatively late (3:30am – WAY past my bedtime) I didn’t sleep much. We drove out to Terelj in our hired van and arrived at the grossest ger camp in the world at about midday. We wanted to go horse riding but the horses were all out. There was a big work function on and they had a great time, got rip roaring drunk and puked everywhere. All around our gers, all through the toilets…. Our gers were all dirty to start with. The actual grounds was an ex-soviet factory or holiday spot, I couldn’t tell. Half the buildings were demolished. The other half look like an ancient boarding house with lots of ghosts.
The great thing about gers is that there are no ghosts. That I know of, anyway. The gers move around so much that I imagine the ghosts get pissed off and pass over just because they couldn’t be bothered keeping up with the house they’re attached to.
The afternoon was spent wandering around the fairy-filled forest hunting for strawberries, spreading fungus spores (you know the ones you jump on and they go PUFF and all the spores spread everywhere) and climbing mountains. This is two of my friends and I on top of the ridge. We even saw little yellow and black bumblebees! We also saw edelweiss which is apparently very special in other parts of the world.
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I packed my little camp cooker thing and little saucepans and we ate pasta and sauce for dinner. It’s so nice not having to rely on Mongolian food. Most people stayed up drinking. In true Sally Piking Style, I piked and went to bed to read. I honestly can’t justify a hangover that’s caused by drinking terrible hot vodka in hot coke with people I’m going to spend the next year with and can get to know in a more civil environment. Plus the book I’m reading is really good and I wanted to find out if Simon the vet stayed with the circus and saved the elephant.
This all meant that despite the standard wake-ups of staying in a ger (note to self: never live in a ger, you’ll never sleep properly), I woke up relatively refreshed, unlike other ger-mates who woke up to puke a lot. We eventually organised horses to go for a 2 hour trek. It turned in to a 3.5 hour trek and I started getting tired, hungry, flustered, uncomfortable and scared. The recipe for the disaster that occurred at Khovsgol was almost fulfilled and I didn’t like it one bit. So when the guide kept whacking my horse to make it run I was crying under my sunglasses and screaming on the inside and much to my dismay, on the outside as well. He eventually got the picture and let me go at my own pace. I didn’t realise how much that horse ordeal affected me until I got back on this one. There was no way I was going to gallop on him. There is no way I was going to put myself in the same situation where I very nearly (despite what dad thinks) was killed by that rogue horse. And today’s horse was way crankier and less responsive than my horse in Khovsgol.
Basically, give me a motorbike any day. F**k horses.
The ride was beautiful but I won’t be riding again, I don’t think. Unless I can be seat belted in to those stupid saddles and someone makes stirrups long enough to be comfortable. And provides me with a motorbike helmet.
The drive back to UB was long and annoying although it only took an hour and a bit and the road was completely paved. We made it home, showered and then went and ate a burger/kebab at UB burger where they actually make fresh burgers and kebabs and they taste pretty good. Now I’m tired and grumpy and ready to have a sleep.
I’ve had a breakthrough lately and my photo-taking leprechaun has returned. Not really, I’m not that delusional (yet). But I want to take photos again because for a few weeks there I couldn’t give a shit about it. So I’ve organised a photo group for again this week and hopefully we’ll get some good photos. I also want to get my Russian Lomo started off so I can play with it as well.
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