One week has passed and a lot has happened in this time. From a lot of family gatherings and workover to starting the road trip, starting to explore Mongolia. Also some freeze/branding horses were included.
Family gatherings
Basically we had every day from the arrival day to the first start of the road trip a family gathering. With the same family members. They got to know me already and are used to me. This is nice, so there is more of myself happening which is good.
I did not feel so welcome from some people in the family at first, but that changed into something better. Basically we held the family gatherings always at different locations, but with the same members.
We wanted to leave Saturday for the road trip through the country, but ended up staying until Monday near the capital.
On Friday we had a huge family event and on Sunday there was a first birthday being celebrated on the edge of Ulaanbaatar. There one aunt and uncle from her had built a house with electricity, without water and they also had a yurt there, for storage. More to that in a bit.
Working before leaving
The last week of work before my two weeks of vacation was very stressful. I changed to 30 hours from 40, but in the last week I was doing nearly 40 hours again and still had to give working colleagues some work by myself. Even on my day off I worked almost 8 hours. It is because I don’t like when I can’t finish stuff on time.
I learned a lot in the last week and can use the knowledge after the vacation again. This will be good to see. Still I need to stick to the 30 hours after the vacation, because it is not so good doing more than I can handle at the moment. I do it for my mental health and that is more important than anything a job could ever give me.
Even on the day where there was a traditional event happening with roughly 30-40 people I had to work the whole time. That was a bit annoying, but I was still able to enjoy it a little bit.
Big event in the countryside
We drove to the countryside and saw 5 yurts in the distance. Before that we had to pick up the wife of Marlas Brother and her cousin up. This cost us quite some time, because we had to go to the city center. In the cities there is a loooooot of traffic.
After we picked them up we drove 1,5 hours to reach the place. We saw it from a distance and it was very peaceful. Just silence around us with green scenery and mountains. Of course you were able to see some animals everywhere like horses, sheeps and goats everywhere. Sometimes when they crossed the road it was important to take care and slow down a bit.
After arriving we were greeting Marla’s uncle who owned everything there. All the horses, the yurts and the other animals. He was inviting us to be there and to experience the upcoming event, where they were branding the young horses. They were not using a hot iron, instead they used the freeze-branding method ( Read here to understand what it is about ).
How was the freeze-branding horses at the event?
The people tried to get a herd of their free running horses into a cage, they did it mainly with horses and motorcycles. It was very efficient. After the horses were in the cage all men walked in the cage. I went also. We searched for the horses which did not have a branding yet. We were pulling it by a rope away from the mother and the other horses.
While pulling the young horse back, someone was pulling the horse often by the ears and tackled it down to the bottom.
When they reached the ground they tied three legs together and had people keep force to pull it down, to make it more calm.
In the next step we had to shave the spot where the freeze-branding was happening. It was also cleaned after.
At the next step they were getting the cold iron and putting it with strength on the shaved spot. It had to be massaged for like 60 seconds and after that they freed the little horse again. Just to be reunited with the rest.
After all horses in the cage were branded, it was time to let them run out in the wild again and the next one was coming. During the day around 50 horses had to experience that. It was very interesting to be part of it and I was also allowed to do the freeze-branding once which was an honor for me. That horse was gifted to me from her uncle and I thought it was a gift, but he wanted to give it to Marla anyway, so it was legit. Basically we are now owning a premium Mongolian Horse, kind of a fun experience. Even though I thought I would receive many horse kicks, nothing of that happened.
The yurt system
There were five yurts. One yurt was to relax and sleep. The other was to cook food and the other three seemed to be for the workers. While in the relax and sleep yurt you had to put the shoes off. This was in the cooking yurt not the case. There were many chairs and as you sat in the middle at the end of the yurt you were seen as most respected.
Also the men need to sit closer to the middle at the end of the yurt as the woman, when it is a couple.
At the beginning, the uncle let me sit right next to him, which was a nice gesture. Also I had to sniff some of their smells out of a snuff bottle. ( snuff bottles explained )
It was an interesting experience where I had to sniff at three snuff bottles and some of the smells were intense.
It was a great experience, but still when it came to the food it wasn’t that easy to get around the meat, but it worked somehow. There was a lot of food on the table and when you want to eat some of it, you need to touch the plate first.
Also when you are offered some of the alcohol you don’t finish it and just drink like half of the glass, as explained to me.
They made me vegetarian food, which was actually very nice of them.
Horse riding
I told Marla that I had horse riding experience from my trip in Kyrgyzstan. It is not a lie, but I was just like a minute on a horse. Still I felt confident and just went on the horse and walked around. I didn’t even have the easiest horse.
Still everything worked out fine, even riding a bit faster was happening. Especially riding around the yurts and the open field, it was a great experience.
Sometimes I was riding alone and then joined others as well. I liked being on the horse and especially when being with others it was even more fun. The weather wasn’t the best, but at least on the first day it was quite dry.
Sleeping
Before sleeping we were playing some card games, but there was not electricity. It was just dark and we used some flashlights. First we thought of sleeping in the yurt. When we found out that someone who was snoring loudly would sleep in there, we decided to sleep in the tent and ended up just sleeping in the car, which was super uncomfortable.
Outside we were hearing loud partying and it was raining basically all night, at least we ended up being dry and inside the car it was also quite warm.
Next day
We were waking up and I saw many goats and sheep which I just had to take pictures of. They were very cute and also the surroundings were great. They didn’t like me to be close to them, so they were taking some distance.
Later on I helped the workers to guide them in a direction they wanted to take them for the day, that was a lot of fun.
Also a German family came for a visit, the husband was German and the wife Mongolian. They had three kids together. The men weren’t so keen on getting deeper in touch with the culture, which was sad to see, also not being interested in learning the language.
I was playing some games with the kids and that was quite cool.
Also it was again time for some horse riding, before going back to the city.
In the city I was getting a local dress, but more about that and the rest I will be writing about next week.
What’s up next?
Next I will just write about how the story continued, stay tuned it will be exciting!
