"I book walking". "I not eat you". "There is restaurants".

On the way to Darkhan a grown man sat on my lap.

My neighbors yard exploded into flames. Not sure how it started but the winter feed for the cattle quickly turned from stocked food to fuel. It blazed brightly in the dusk and into the night. My soum filled with a white haze. The fire truck from Xotol took two hours to arrive (Yes fire truck) . By then the fire had died down dramatically. The family obviously lost a lot of money, pretty sure they didn't have cattle feed insurance. I felt bad, but there was not much that could have been done.

There was also the cat adventure. Most Mongolians do not appreciate cats in the same way as me. As I was sorting potatoes with my older sister from the harvest, my dad came running towards us yelling in Mongolian "Kevin there's a cat on your ger! Run please!" I laughed to myself and humored him by running over to my ger to find a very personable cat lounging on my ger. I scooped him up and brought him outside the hashaa. He came wandering back in and hopped right back on my ger. I left him to his own desires. A minute later my dad was shooing the cat away. Then the dog got a sniff of the scent, and events become blurry. The cat ended up with a gashed lower back and a slashed nose. His miserable head peered through my toone (top ger window), and let out a low howl. Blood flowed freely out of his nose into my ger. Eventually my younger sister got him down and took him to the old postman, a very kind hearted individual. There he has been recouping from his adventures. I wish I could have kept him, but with three hashaa dogs, it would have been a difficult life.

I asked for my winter ger three weeks ago. It finally came two days ago, after two weeks of sub-degree temperatures. My summer ger fire was useless, since the ceaseless steppe winds blew all the warmth away immediately. If Peace Corps hadn't issued these sleeping bags I would have been "ice cream" as my egch likes to joke.

On my way to school one day I caught a glimpse of a cow being slaughtered (In sub-zero temperatures). I stopped for a second then continued on. When I came back an hour later, only its ribcage remained, reaching skyward.

Walking to school to teach my fourth grade class, I kept running into kids branding saws and axes asking "Kevin Teacher, where are you going?". "To class of course" I responded, and continued on my merry way. This question was asked several more times. I taught my fourth graders and returned to my ger to find a small army of fourteen children hacking and sawing away at my structure of tree trunks, with my older sister branding a branch above them and handing out smacks when they slacked off. I had stepped onto a slave ship. I thought of grabbing my drum to keep the rhythm, but then decided on the more humane idea of helping them to chop the wood and buying them all ice cream. I'm sure this process will be repeated several more times, since I barely have a months worth of wood. The kids here are very helpful.

I have a few more short stories, but I'll save them for the next installment. I'll leave you with this tidbit. Thirty years ago, the Soviets exiled a Mongolian intellectual to Darkhan City in Mongolia, to be the curator at the Darkhan Museum. Yes, exiled, as in punishment. Now I'm off to enjoy Darkhan.