Sand & Wind

In the Говь, spring showers do not bring May flowers. They just bring элс (sand). The storms are subsiding and it's nice to get rid of the sand in my ger, pants and ears. Two weeks and I've been in Mongolia a year. 'Tis been at times a lovely and bone-smashing ride. Meat, flour, potatoes and (ugh) vodka have been the staple. I've gotten the shopkeepers to get me Heineken, cheese (pizza!) and European wine, so things aren't so bad after all. The Internet arrived last fall, a mobile network is set to come up within a year or two and the bank just got a Visa machine and Western Union. And I came here with a solar backpack expecting the worst. How far does one have to go to escape?

Culture is so very interesting. There really is no pure culture left in the world. The Mongols always are telling me how they dislike the Chinese, but love 'dem chopsticks. You can tell the way some Mongols suck on vodka that it's a Soviet hangover; there are not just a few drunk herders roamin' the streets (and wandering into my ger).

The capital is still called "Red Hero." Socialist behavior is still evident on the periphery; long-winded monotonous speeches and the way people stick to their party lines. A vote was cast (in a non-governmental institution) to oust a higher-up that hasn't been doing their job very well, and the employees were divided on basis of political party. The accused is a member of the current ruling party and all those who didn't sign the petition are current party members. Politics shan't have nothing to do with work. If they aren't doing their job: next. Maybe they still think they'll get fired for speaking up or taken to the Gulag.

Another year to look forward to, not before I head off to the Balkans for 48 days. It'll be a nice sort of homecoming, which will make another year in the desert tough. But I still have my friends Heineken, Snickers and the Economist to get me through. The people and kids, of course, are what keep and entertain me here. "It's about havin' those good times, baby..."

No idea really what I'll do when I'm done here next summer. I want to stay, I want to go. Life is too short and the planet too fascinating to sit still for too long. There are places to see, people to meet and language to be learned.