My Kind of Mormon

It's been two and a half weeks since I applied for my dream job.  I followed up my initial application at the two week mark, and got the dreaded autoreply:  "Don't call us, we'll call you."  They actually say it more like, "We've got a shit ton of applications and we're weeding through them.  We'll be contacting suitable applicants for interviews over the next two weeks."  It still makes you feel like dirt, because if they were interested, wouldn't they have already emailed you?  And I've worked damn hard to make myself into a top candidate over the last few years, so they should have emailed me.

This is not to say it won't happen.  I still feel like it will - after all, I begged and pleaded in prayer for pretty much this exact job, so it's destiny, right?  (Of course, after my last botched attempt at a relationship - many moons ago with a French guy I was once stuck in Beijing airport with - for a while I still felt like somehow that might work out, too).  But faith is a funny thing.  It's not logical, which is fine, since sometimes logic turns out to be completely wrong.

I've been trying to be a better Mormon girl lately.  And by lately, I mean since July or so, because the last few weeks I've missed church for one reason or another, which I guess is ironic...that someone who pins her hopes of getting shortlisted on an all-powerful being's favor (at least a little - after everything I could do on my own, that's all you can do, right?) would allow herself to miss an opportunity to show obedience to that Being's commandments because of snow, or her stomach, or a kind of lame Japanese culture thing.  This week, though, I was scheduled to teach the English speaking Sunday school.  I was not thrilled about this assignment.  I don't have kids, after all - why should I have to teach other people's brats*?  After all, teaching is my job and the sabbath is supposed to be a day of rest.  However, there's also this thing in Mormon doctrine where you're supposed to help lift one another's burdens, and this isn't the sort of thing to which you say no, at least without a reason that does not sound like, "BUT I DON'T WANNA CLEAN MY ROOM!"  So I printed off the lesson and went to church.

On the way to the bus stop, I slipped for the first time this winter.  It hurt like hell and I probably dropped the f-bomb.  Maybe more than once.  Not an auspicious start.  Once I was on the bus I was stuck in traffic for the longest time.  I have no idea why there was traffic that far up in Zaisan at 11:30 on a Sunday morning; maybe Engrish will be able to tell me, if she was running up here this morning.  Either way, I did make it, and during the first part of church I mentally prepared myself for the ordeal of teaching primary. Except, when I went to teach, it seemed that all of the expats had left.  The room was empty, all the kids were gone, and I couldn't find any of the adults.  And even though I didn't actually want to teach them, I was a little peeved that they were all gone, because I was looking forward to the blessings that Mormons believe come from keeping the commandments (an attitude that I have in common with widowed prophet's wives from church history, if anyone is thinking I'm hypocritical).

The truth is, I'm not actually very good at being Mormon.  The screaming child behind me doesn't make my ovaries explode with envy that the woman behind me is a mother and I'm not.  And although getting married is supposed to be the second most important decision we can make in life (right behind baptism at #1), I'm honestly not that fussed about it anymore.  I'm not trading my independence for anyone but the most awesome guy ever at this point.  If that makes me apostate, then so be it.  I'll just have to settle for a lesser degree of glory in the afterlife.  But the thing is, I haven't given up.  You can call me crazy for believing what I do.  Maybe I am, but in spite of the disappointments I've felt and the fact that I no longer "fit" in the church as well as I did 20 years ago, I still buy it.  So I still believe I'm going to hear back from the dream job.  If God can manage the things he did in the scriptures, he can manage me.  And if not, that will be okay, too.

*I mean it affectionately.  (Or I do when I'm talking about my actual students....)

Fly Like An Eagle

As much as I loved Pamukkale, Turkish food was not and never will be the highlight of a trip to Bayan-Olgii.  That honor goes to the eagles.

The eagles were not the only thing going on out in this valley eastward from Olgii last weekend, but they are so amazing that they deserve their own post.  I took a LOT of photos of them, because they really were that cool.  It is hard to stop yourself.  And it's not just because of the birds - the Kazakh hunters (yes, Kazakhs in Mongolia - we'll get to that in my next post or two) are equally stunning.  Engrish asked me when we were walking around if I could tell the difference between the Mongolians and Kazakhs, and I could.  When she asked me which I found was more attractive, I had to go with the Mongolians, but the Kazakhs...as an artist, there is something so visually compelling about their weathered faces, their light colored eyes... 

On the trip out to the valley we drove past several groups of hunters riding out.  During the festival there are contests between them - calling their eagles down from the mountain.  On Saturday they were supposed to have come to the hunters' arms, but since our flight was delayed all damn day we missed that.  Sunday, on the other hand, the hunter rigged a sort of fox skin that they dragged behind their horse for the eagle to catch.  Some of them did better than others.  We saw some pretty sweet dives, and it was amazing to see how fast they flew.  Some of the eagles, when released, did a nice lazy circle around the spectators, or flew back over the mountain (they're well-trained, so I'm assuming they came back eventually).  And then there was this:

That guy is not nearly terrified enough.  A couple weeks back I stumbled on an article about footage from a camera on a Russian wildlife preserve.  It was there for the Siberian tigers, but it caught footage instead of a golden eagle taking down a deer.  That is how powerful these birds are.  In eagle hunting, they simply run down the prey and their hunter comes to club the animals, but they are more than capable on their own.  Well, friends of Engrish were telling us about the first day of the festival, and how a guy was climbing up the hillside where he wasn't supposed to be, and that one of the eagles attacked him, rather than flying to his hunter.  Mostly we didn't feel like we'd missed out on too much because of our delay, but that would have been classic.  We had barely finished talking about it when suddenly, one of the eagles swooped down ON THE SAME MAN!  We had no way to tell if it was the same eagle, but the fact that the guy got attacked twice over the weekend maybe ought to tell him something.  My takeaway is that if you look like an old, slow member of the "herd" (us spectators), you should not isolate yourself around predators.  Shit's gonna get real.

The eagles were everywhere.  This is the ger where Engrish, Geek, and myself stopped for khuushuur around noon.  This beauty was sitting there, patiently waiting.  I held a golden eagle when we were in Terelj at the end of summer, and they're heavy, so it's not surprising to see one parked in a ger...on a Kazakh carpet for sale...on the back of a motorcycle...

If you look closely at this man's arm, in fact, you will see a wooden prop.  This helps the hunters to hold up their arms for their eagles to perch on.  Looking at the hunters, I got the feeling that they weren't dressed up for the festival.  These were their working clothes.  Engrish, Geek, and I bought some antique Kazakh embroidery for wall-hangings, and as we watched the hunters, we began to suspect that our beautiful tapestries may have come off the legs of some hunters' pants, and that made me laugh to think of it.  They must think we tourists are crazy - spending so much money on their old, battered pieces - while gladly pocketing the money and making new clothing and tapestries with bright and beautiful colors.

The Eagle Festival has become my favorite thing I've done in Mongolia.  Get yourself out there the first weekend next October.  If waiting that long is too hard, hunting season is about to begin, and there are groups that run tours in which you travel with the hunters.  They don't always bring down prey, so be sure you go for the journey, not the destination (so to speak), and bring your long underwear because it gets pretty cold.

New Year, New Ger

I am not a very social person.  I happen to be one of those super-spiffy individuals called "introverts" and a tiny bit of social stimulation is just about all I need most of the time (side note: don't come to see me after I've been left to my own devices for a month.  Engrish and Geek were afraid I was going to hump their legs, I was that happy to have friends again).  However, the start of a new school year means we had a LOT of new staff coming in.  It also means that we go on a big staff ger camp, and the most expedient way of getting to know ALL those people is, of course, to take them out to the countryside and give them a lot of booze (yeah, I'm Mormon, and I don't drink, but I think you learn a lot about people, pretty fast, when you put them in a big group with their coworkers and they all start drinking...you learn who can control themselves, who's an ass, who's fun no matter what...all sorts of things), and since I haven't seen much of the newbies, I like spending time with Engrish and Geek, and - let's be honest - I was looking forward to an excuse to start fires, I went.

Last year the school took us to Hustai National Park.  The spring camp went to Terelj but I decided the people I DIDN'T want to be around when they got schnackered outnumbered the ones that I love to be around under any and all circumstances, so I gave it a miss.  What I had seen of Terelj, though, I really liked, and I was excited to get out and see more.  Unfortunately the bus I was on - which I was not exactly happy about because it was full of sedate people who, for the most part, I'd already gotten to know - went to the wrong ger camp.  Twice.  (There are only about a million ger camps in Terelj, so I really don't understand how he went to the wrong one.)  But we made it there in the end, and their food was pretty great - I could have eaten nothing but their bread, which was crusty on the outside, nice and moist on the inside and I swear had a hint of sourdough about it - even if it took them an hour and a half to serve us lunch this afternoon.

I had hoped to get up in the hills earlier in the week to find kindling, but in the rush to get ready for the new school year (which has upset me on various occasions, but that's neither here nor there) it didn't happen.  Fortunately our bus was 40 minutes ahead of the other when we got to the park entrance, which then gave me a little time to find some.  But there was a problem.  I don't know if any of you 6 faithful readers have tried to start a fire with wood that isn't completely bone dry before, but if not, it's not the best idea.  It rained a few times over the last week (it seems to me that it rains more here in August than other months), and the dead wood and pine cones I was able to gather were just wet enough to be a problem.  So helpful hint for pyros number one: make sure to get DRY kindling.  Helpful hint number 2: bring the FULL box of matches.  When you've got damp kindling, you go through a lot of them.  On the upside though (ain't I the optimist?) I seem to be getting used to the cold, because when I woke up at 2:30 in the earlimorn to the sound of some Mongolians blasting music out of the trunk of their car and needing desperately to pee, the ger didn't feel that cold, and neither did the air outside.  And when I had to go looking for the guy who (for once) was going to start our fire in the morning until I chased him off because I wanted to play pyro...to ask him to come back and start our fire because this pyro ran out of matches, the predawn gloaming was beautiful, in a solitary, alien sort of way.

One of the most famous rock formations in Mongolia is in Terelj.  Can you guess what it is supposed to look like?  If you've got a guess, tell me what you think it is in the comments - I'll send a postcard to the first person who gets it right (unless I worked with that person here last year).  We stopped there when I went with Ecovoyage Mongolie to cook khuushuur this spring, but at that point I was tired, undercaffeinated, and wanted to get the hell home.  I still haven't climbed the damn thing (maybe next time), but I did get to take some pictures.

We went to Terelj Monastery before the rock, but I wasn't really into it, and stayed near the bus for the allotted hour, weaving flowers into a coronet (I've been reading a lot of faerie fiction this month - can you tell? - including rereading all of Seanan McGuire's October Daye series, which I LOVE and highly recommend if you're into urban fantasy).  I was more excited, upon arriving at the Rock, to look at their eagle and have a picture taken.  I didn't hold him for very long - he seemed kind of grouchy, and I can't blame him, since his handlers encourage the tourists to bob him up and down to get him to open his wings - but even in that short amount of time I was surprised by how much he weighed.  I've been reading up a little on eagle hunting, because I'm planning to go to the Eagle Festival in Bayan-Olgii in October.  These badasses can take down and carry off a young deer, which I find a lot more believable after feeling his claws through the leather sleeve and seeing just how sharp his beak was up close.  That close up you could see the difference in his eyes, as well - the one closest to me was clouded over, which is probably how he ended up getting the tourist gig.  Regardless, he was an amazing bird, and I only felt slightly ridiculous telling him how beautiful he was and thanking him for letting me hold him.