"The Blue Sky"

Nå har jeg vært her èn måned. Er ferdig med feltarbeidet og nå er det mest skriving og tolkning som gjenstår. Ja, hvordan var det i felt? Den første tiden var fantastisk. Kom til en familie som hadde 3 barn, så utrolig søte! Fikk god kontakt med de og de andre i familien. Gjorde de daglige tingene som de gjorde, hugget ved, melket kuer og gjetet 800 sauer og geiter på hesteryggen to timer om dagen i førti grader. Tøft, men utrolig opplevelsesrikt. Mye vanskeligere enn jeg trodde å jobbe med tolk. Jeg kunne jo ikke snakke med dem! Og det var jo det jeg ville. Ble liksom ikke det samme å snakke gjennom tolken. Men det er jo min første opplevelse å jobbe med tolk så man venner seg jo til det. Og det gjorde jeg og. Etter noen dager bare hadde jeg mistet alt tidsaspekt, alt gikk etter sola. Stod opp 5 og la oss 9. Alt handlet om dyrene og de daglige behovene deres. Produksjon av melkeprodukter, klipte sauer, hentet vann og laget mat. Våknet til soloppgang og tidløse sletter med vrinsk av hestelyder i det fjerne. Jeg forstår nå at landet blir kaldt "the blue sky". Jeg kommuniserte gjennom peke-boka mi, jeg pekte på figurer i boka og den 5 årige jenta sa hva det het på mongolisk og jeg skrev ned. Håinn=sau, schåvåå=fugl, åz=vann...lærte meg en del mongolisk. Jeg heter...=mini ner, god natt= sæchenambrarè, god dag=sen beno, takk=bairla, hadebra=bairltæ, ja= kiim, nei=ogoi, timon= jeg forstår. Vel, dagene gikk. Hver dagen kjentes som en liten uke. Så mye å gjøre. Mye intervjuer, filming, prating og bilder. Alltid noe som foregikk. Utrolig å møte en sånn kultur så nære. Oppholde endte uforventet, så vi dro hjem. Mye var observert allerede og det var som sagt utrolig varmt å ligge i telt i 10 dager uten å dusje :) Nå er jeg tilbake på cafeen i Ulan Bator og en ny epoke er i vente med mye lesing, skriving og tenking...

Squeezed sheep-legs :D

A lot of things have happened lately. So many things going on. My trips is settled. Got all the stuff I needed on the local market (Black Market) Sleepingbag, tent, matress, gas-stove, wool socks and now its only the food left. On tuesday I am buying 24 liters of water, 12 kg rice, 10 kg wheat and a tun of nudles :D

In general I really like it here. So here you can read some stories:

I walked on the street here one day, and could not stop paying attention to this tiny detail. Back home, people are sometimes, after their dinner or so chew on a toothpick (of tree of course). Nothing very much to pay attention to really, but on the street one day I saw a man with a metal pin in his mouth? Really weird, the same size of a toothpick. Chewing on it! And it really made me think of that it reflects the people here. Very harsh in a way. In a good way. A metal pin!

Yesterday I did some grocery shopping, and went by the "fresh food" section. Which is, in NO way, like the one`s at home. There was sheets laying in the storage, legs everywhere and the people working there did everything from (not slaughtering the animal), but not far from that!

On friday we were watching the soccer game between South Africa Mexico. The interest of football here is amazing and very surprising. They don`t cheer for one team, but for the goals. There were about 200 people at the Grand Khan Irish Pub on Friday. For each goal, independent on which one that scored, they cheered like I have never seen before. Crazy screams and joy every time either of the teamed scored. Very different from back home. Like they just enjoyed and empathized with the happiness of that person in a way.

I also, because of economically constraints and work, chose to stay home saturday night (yesterday). Even though I got the offer of going out. I haven`t been out yet here since I have arrived. Too much work, and too tired. I was home alone, and really felt for going out, but used my small grey brain cells and thought it over. I stayed home. In the beginning I was a bit restless, but after I got started on my work it was okey. I took some pictures in my state of thinking "I have turned lonely, boring and almost can identify with a geek" Oh no! Haha. I took some pictures of the variables that made me come to this statement. (I am not really afraid of that, but the state of mind was hilarious :D)

Today I met Batmunkh. He is a guy I met on the horse-riding in Altanbulag Soum. He wanted me to learn him english. His english was really bad, and its fantastic how much one can learn from each other only by really trying and by "body-language" (...no its not what you`re thinking) So I met him today at the Cafè Amsterdam and tought english for an hour. I felt it was a really good thing to do, and he tought me some Mongolian. I told him to get an english-mongolian teaching book with a CD (Marthe- was thinking about your experience in Japanese :D) Well. It ended up with him only wanting me to write sentences like: "Do you want to have dinner with me?" and "Can I take you to the movies" So, that was kind of a natural closure of our conversations/teaching process and I politely said I had to work and went off :)

Update on the climatic variations in this country. Weather update: Yesterday - 4 degrees and rain. Today: sun and 30 degrees. I dont know, but I really tried to prepare myself for this climate, but it seems impossible...

From the "Fresh market", to the left of the guy you can see the leg of the sheeps. Whole sheeps where laying in a basket, where the meat were squeezed out of the sprinkles of the bin. Very "from nature"

This is from a "Guld-sme" where Munchkjargal took me. She is a Mongolian girl that I met couple of days ago. She can speak swedish!? Really nice girls! Her friend was going to make a ring, red-gold, because she got an Indian pearl (from her brother) that she wanted to melt into her old ring. It costed 60 SEK. Crazy, they are seriously good in hand-crafts here.

Well: This is Ida going nerdy! OÆÆÆ! :D Oh no! :D

Gobi sand on my pillow...

After only two days in Mongolia, Ulan Bator, I have got a heart for the country. The people here are some of the most friendly, big-hearted and care-taking people I have met so far on my journeys. I feel safe here.

After some complains about the norwegian language at this homepage; I will write in english from now on...

So, my journey started off in Russia, the 26th May, with 12 hours at the Moscow airport. Enough time to observe the vulgar, loud speaking, down-to-earth russian women with good humor and clothes designed form the 90s. Much of the time went to work and sitting at the "Pektopak" which is "Restaurant" in English (source: Jakob Grandin, see picture)

Well, after 8 hours flight to Beijing, I easily found Leo Hostels which was a great tips from Marthe Røgeberg (http://mblogg.blogg.no/). The hostel was full with people, design inspired by the 70s with christmas accessories all over and Jimi Hendrix live concert shown at a monitor loud in the common area. Lots of people walking in and out, I was wondering what they were doing. Many backpackers, but also some lonely souls looking for a partner. You could easily see that the place had been open for some years. The standard was okey and we payed 60 YEN (60 SEK, easy calculations!) per person per night. Fantastic price! Stuff that we did was: Went out at a place called "Propaganda", danced and had GREATE FUN! Home at 7 am :P Met the chinese culture, pink "Little Kitten" accessories, a lot of spitting, misunderstandings, nice food, huge crowds and the well-working sub-way system. Went to the Great Wall with a Chinese friend of Irina, ate a lot of noodles, had H.U.G.E problems with the language and to get around, went to the Beijing Planning Exhibition Museum (fantastic, and got inspired to the GCSF course at Cemus) and met a lot of greate people (including Mr.Rush which helped us with the tickets to UB)

The 2nd of June we were off to Ulan Bator (UB), with more struggle of getting hold of the tickets than you can imagine. We payed 1350 SEK for the train trip (quite expensive?) for 29 hours to UB. But what a ride! Crazy views of timeless landscapes! The train trip was amazing! Though we hit two sheeps along the way, and could see the results of the drought on bones/sculps from dead animals along the railways. Sad, but my eyes opened on how the hard life in the desert could be like. 3rd of June I woke up with a layer of sand from the Gobi desert on my pillow, with sand in my nose and ears. I slept well anyways, but felt a bit filled with foreign particles.

At the UB station we were met with Tunga (my local contact from the University), and her brother (Chinså). We went straight to the apartment to drop of our stuff. Great apartment! Huge and very nice facilitated, a terrace, big bed and all basic every-day-life devices. The day after we went horse-back-riding in the steppes some hours out of UB. SO AMAZING! As I was galloping alone out on the steppes, up on great hills, I could feel freedom and good inner feelings of exploring new parts of the world. The horses was owned by a family in a Ger (Ger=Nomads/Mongols tents) that we also visited where we tasted some of the dairy products that they made there (to be honest; I have tasted better...but I better get used to it as I will stay with a family like this for 2 weeks :))

Well, with sore buts and thighs we went to the National Museum of Mongolia and the Contemporary Arts Museum of Mongolia the day after. This is also the day that Irina was going home. It has been so nice traveling with Irina, and it felt quite sad the moment she left. But today (day after) I woke up with sun-shine, did yoga, ate breakfast with horse fiddle music and now I am all busy and into the work I will do here. So, I have more than enough time to keep myself busy. I am at the moment sitting at the Cafè Amsterdam with a cup of Cappuccino.

Well, I will try to keep you updated on my adventures. The internet is not connected in the apartment yet, so I am dependent on these internet cafès at the moment.

I hope you all are good at home, and even though it seems like I am busy with all my new impressions; you pop up in my head now and then. For you that think this is just amazing and fantastic; it is also a lot of organizing, culture chocks, practical difficulties, hassle with easy every-day-doings and sometimes extremely tireding :P Just so you know ;)

(Pictures from my phone, will upload the ones from my camera soon)

To be continued...

Russian Restaurant (Jakob ;))
Beijing at night
We met some swedes along the way!

Propaganda Club in Beijing

Beijing 7am :)
"Morin Khuur: The Horse Fiddle. Symbol of the mongolian nation, the sound is expansive and unrestrained like a wild horse neighing, or like a breeze in the grasslands. Horse is the most honored and spiritual animal in Mongolia among the 5 traditional ones. The magic sound is to touch everyones heart. It is marked as a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of human identity by UNESCO. The body of the fiddle is made of cow bladder or crusted scum of newly born calf." - National Museum of Mongolia.

I am reading " Sult" av Hamsun at night, such a great language!

A light keeps me sleepy and reflective over all impressions during the day...