Pre-Tsaagan Sar

This week is the lunar new year which is celebrated here as “Tsaagan Sar”, literally “white moon” or “white month” depending on who you talk to. Tuesday through Friday no one was at the office because of the festivities. On Monday during our “business meeting” the ADP (area development program) manager expressed her concern that I was going to be bored out of my mind. They then decided to make sure that each day of the holiday celebration I would have something to do, divvying me out to different people’s homes.
I wish there was a better way to capture the events and atmosphere of the last few days but this all I can do for now to give you a glimpse of what I’ve seen and done. Foolishly I neglected to bring my camera, so you are stuck with the images you create in your mind based off of my words. To avoid making it so overwhelmingly long lets break it down into 3 segments, one for each day.
Wednesday. February 6, 2008.
Yesterday I was supposed to go to Batsuren’s house to learn how to make buuz but she had to go to the hospital as she is pretty far along in her pregnancy. I had been hoping to redeem myself after my failed attempts from the day before but her getting checked up is of much higher importance.
I was told that I would go to Munkhzul’s house at 2pm today so I thought they must want me to each lunch beforehand. So I walked to town and bought some instant noodles and eggs and made lunch at home. She arrived around 2:30 and we went to the pharmacy so she could pick up some medicine for her baby that had come down with a fever. On the way to her home she asked me if I had eaten lunch and without thinking I replied that I had. The stifled look of disappointment paired with the response of “oh really?” made me want to slap myself. As quickly as I could muster something up I said something about it being a very small lunch—I didn’t want to ruin her gesture of hospitality. She then said something about her husband being at home steaming up some buuz.
Up the stairs to the second floor and through the door on the right we went. I began to take off my shoes and she said, “you needn’t” twice but I still did. She took her shoes off. The wood colored plastic floor covering led me through the corridor into the living room where it ended and turned into carpet. She jacket and laid it on the arm of the couch and introduced me to her husband, a driver who, unlike Munkhzul, cannot speak English. I also met her two beautiful children, a 1 year old boy and a 3 year old girl.
They then motioned to sit on the couch next to my coat behind a small table covered with plates. As soon as I sat down I was asked if I want tea and then commanded to eat. Oh, the hospitality. I felt strange eating as they were back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, leaving me by myself some of the time. On the table there was a plate of sliced sausage topped with pickles that matched their size and thickness, a plate of macaroni salad and a plate of dairy stick thingies that looked like little noodles.
Later the wondrous, steaming buuz come out in all their glory. The chunk of meat on the inside is much hotter than the outside, shocking me as I take a bite into my first dumpling. There is also a lot of juice from the meat and fat that you have to slurp as you bite. Many buuz later I take a sip from my now cold milk tea and she tells me that you shouldn’t drink cold tea, but hot tea after eating meat. Makes sense to me, if all the oil gets cold it hardens.
Her husband gets a call and excuses himself because he has to do some work. We talk about Tsaagan Sar and she gives me new little details that I hadn’t heard before. Her daughter is not shy at all and jabbers to me and her mother in the middle of our conversation. She wants to dance. So she pulls out her laptop and plays the music video for the song “Beep” by the Pussycat Dolls. To my relief and amusement the cute little ham doesn’t replicate the dance moves from the video but busts out her own little moves that I can’t help but laugh at. (Reminds me of a time when I went to a recital for Naomi and Bethany’s music school. One of the performances was a group of 5 year olds dancing to Tata Young’s “Sexy, Naughty, B*tchy Me.” At the time I had thought “only in Thailand.” Hmm.) She provides entertainment for most of the afternoon in between her mother showing me a 45 minute Mongolian comedy where I have no idea what’s going on. At one point she wanted to decorate the place with shiny red balls that you might hang on a Christmas tree, putting them on doorhandles and everything else within her reach. We finally stacked them all on one handle, making a big shiny pyramid.
Today I was very privileged to get to eat buuz because according to my host although today is a holiday it is a day of preparation. The real festivities begin tomorrow. I appreciated them being so hospitable on a day where they could have been doing other things. I went home with a full stomach and a smile on my face.