"This is Tulga. I will kill you"

It was to be a long journey and short one wrapped into a neat little package. It usually only takes 45 minutes or so to get to Xotol from Darkhan. I waited in one car for a while. An hour or so later the driver suddenly told me to get out, another car was to take me, since nobody else would sit in his car. I approached the car that was to be my story, put my bag in the boot and sat behind the front seat. A younger man got in the front seat, kissing his girlfriend goodbye as he closed the door. We immediately started driving to my delight. Normally transportation here rips the patience away from your very soul, leaving you bitter and empty. I turned to my left, there was plenty of room only a father and son, and the son had just gotten off the father's lap to sit in the middle. "This shall be the most comfortable ride in mongolia". Only two adults and a kid in the back seat? That's unheard of. Of course it's unheard of. I should have seen it as the bad omen it was. Quickly the car started gossiping about me. It is quite amusing for usually they assume you don't speak Mongolian. I turned to look at the father and quickly made eye contact. It was too late. His half toothless grin had caught me and his eyes focused on my eyes. Fasten your seat belts. I diverted my eyes, hoping he would leave me be, but it was too late. My 45 minutes of uncomfortable, shoot myself in the face time, had started. The obligatory questions began. "Do you speak Mongolian?" "Where do you live?" "Where do you come from?" "Do you speak Russian?" "Do you speak Russian?" "Do you speak Russian?". He talks in Russian, "I said I don't speak Russian!" "What do you do for a living?" "How many students do you teach?" "What grades do you teach?". Not so bad right? Now lets add some variables. Number one, this man is very drunk and slurring his words, making it difficult to comprehend what he's trying to convey. Number two, he keeps passing the bottle for me to drink from. Number three, he keeps grabbing me and not letting go. Number four, he hasn't slowed down, and literally is chugging from the bottle for seven seconds at a time. Now lets focus the story on the poor seven year old kid caught between his dad and some random foreigner. He keeps grabbing his father's arm, trying to hold it back, but a grown Mongol's grip is like a shark's mouth, it will only let go if it wants to let you go. Thus the arm was securely attached to my arm. The child struggled for a while. Sadly, he seemed to be used to these circumstances. Then the hands of futility choked the kid till he fell asleep, or at least he pretended to be asleep, battling dragons and other great beasts while the war between the drunk and the foreigner raged beyond his closed eyes. I looked to the front passengers for help. They were either shaking their heads and laughing at me or perhaps they were embarrassed that the foreigner was getting harassed by a fellow Mongol, either explanation would suffice for the result was the same, there was no help from them. I'm already exhausted telling as much as I did, so we'll jump to the conclusion. We pull into Xotol and I get the "I'm a bad person, I'm drunk" speech. I tell him it's fine. He says "I won't remember you cause I'm drunk, I'm sorry Ken. I'm a bad person". That's right, Ken. I was a Ken for 45 minutes. I didn't bother to correct him, it would have been a useless ten minutes of my life. I got out of the car as quickly as possible and searched for my next vehicle, on my last leg home.

I walked into a store in my town. I greeted the shopkeeper warmly and she responded in kind. As I was deciding what to buy, she handed me half an orange. I was delighted. Thanks shopkeeper.

My eyes looked longingly at the outside world, behind my glass screen, shielding me from the harsh winds. The familiar up and down of all countryside car rides was present. I was on my way to Darkhan, but of course, the usually fifty stops in Orkhon were necessary, picking up random objects and people, setting them here and there; my lap, the trunk, wherever room provided. Faces came and went. It's an entertaining game figuring out who and what is staying in the car for the actual journey to Darkhan. Our car came to a stop outside a house. The horn blared for a minute, nothing unusual there. As we waited, a small girl, maybe 8 years old, came running out, without a coat, only her pajamas. "She's not gonna get far" I thought to myself, bundled in my four layers of clothing, with leather coat on top, fur hat, face mask, two layers of wool socks and my ship like boats. She ran 30 feet from the house and abruptly stopped. I saw an older woman coming up from behind her, but ten feet away. In a fluid motion, her pants fell to her feet. "Ohhhhh" I thought and quickly looked away, in the name of American squeamishness. So there was this girl, taking a leak on the open plains of Mongolia, while a car load of people watched, and the old women walking behind her kept coming. Meanwhile, the outhouse creaked, lonely and broken just 30 more feet away, filled with frozen piss and stalag-shits.

It was our break between semesters, actually quarters would be more accurate seeing how there are four of them, but mongolians insist on calling them semesters. I was out of money thanks to a banking error (And not of the cool monopoly type where you receive money), and Peace Corps pay day wasn't for another week. My buddy Chris decided to pay a visit to hang out and give me some dough. Also he was going to lend me money, the bread was good though. Chris brought some of his delicious ger made alcohol. We were enjoying an evening of laughs, taking moonlight pictures in -50 degree weather, and even managed to play an old game of starcraft. It was during this game that things got interesting. The only thing providing heat in my ger is a stove. There I said it, now you know what's going to happen. As I was playing, Chris was making his way around the ger. Things were fine. The earth was revolving around the sun like usual. Suddenly there must have been a massive shift in the balance of nature for Chris tumbled hard. I thought he was just kidding around, but then the yelp came. Instinctually, he had tried to grab onto anything as he was falling, only to find himself grabbing the stove. Now, the stove is a giant hunk of metal. We're not taking about a kitchen top stove where you touch the burner and you get singed. We're taking about a big box of metal and every inch of this thing is blazing hot. You can see the heat rising off of it. Anyway, Chris grabbed it. The rest is kind of a blur. I think there was an "Oh FUCK!" somewhere in there but I can't be sure. Needless to say, he plunged his hand into my giant tub of water sitting by the door, which is usually frozen. He smashed through the layer of ice and held his hand under for a considerable amount of time. In our drunkness, going through the medkit, we picked out athlete's foot cream and applied to the area of burnage, remembering our PCMO advice, "When you are drunk and have 3rd degree burns on your hands, immediately apply athlete's foot cream". We then took some funny pictures, of his 3rd degree burns with the biggest blister I have ever seen. Good times.

Chris and I were gonna try and make pancakes with yeast instead of baking powder. Things were going well, I mixed the ingredients cause old one arm "xiij chadaxgvi". I put it into a plastic bag and set it by the stove to rise. We waited. And waited. Then waited a little more. Then we said fuck it lets just steam this pile of goo that hasn't risen at all and we did. A week later I called the PCMO and I was put on cipro. Seems like I got a mild case of food poisoning and an intestinal infection too boot. Was it the bread? I like to think not, cause it wasn't bread, it was goo.

A typical morning in the life of me: I’m waking up to my phone alarm. I am groaning. I’m nice and warm in my PC issued winter sleeping bag and heavy fleece blanket, Jenna so generously made for me, wrapped around my head. I’m sticking my nose outside the wall of heat, and instantly it’s cold. I am approximating the temperature, maybe –20 or so. Yes –20 in my ger, my home, my place of not working, my house of leisure. I am groaning. I am making sure my sleeping bag is zipped all the way, leaving a hole for one arm to go through so I can begin the fire ritual. I am now quite adept at making a fire with one arm. I am rising from my bed. I am looking at the wood and paper I prepared the night before, my fire-in-a-box. I am a mummified bunny hopping to the stove. I am sticking my arm through the hole and guiding it with one eye. I’m opening my stove and putting in the wood and paper. I am finishing. I am now striking a match with one hand, still guiding my hand with one eye through the hole. It is flaring as it is coming alive. I am lighting the paper now. It is burning. I am hopping back to my bed. My ger is getting colder. The fire is using up whatever warm air that is left over from last night and sucking in all the cold outside air. Now it must be –30, –40 or –50 in my ger, the same as the outside world. After about –20 it doesn’t really matter, the results are the same, you are fucking freezing. I am starring out of my hole, watching my breath hovering away like dragon’s fire. I am starring at the fire, willing it to burn hotter. I am adding more wood. My ger is very slowly getting warmer. I am now wondering what I will eat. (From her the story varies). I am finding a jar of frozen peanut butter. I am not touching it with my bare hands cause it’s too cold. I am placing it on top of the stove, which is blazing now. I am now forgetting about my peanut butter and thinking of other things while hopping around my ger. I am smelling burning nuts. I am now saying “Oh shit”. I am hopping back to the stove. I am picking up the jar with a towel. I am making an evil laugh. I am now spooning globs of half frozen, half burning peanut butter and slapping them on pieces of bread. I am enjoying my fire and ice peanut butter sandwich. I am now testing the air to see if I am able to shed my skin. It is looking good. I am unzipping my bag and quickly putting on a few more layers. I am adding more wood to the fire.

Remember, when entering your ger, whatever you do, do not touch that padlock without a glove, unless of course you want instant frostbite.