Amaraa Bainuu? Saikhan Shineleerei! (Not so literal translation for both: Happy New Year/ Happy Tsaagan Sar). Tsaagan Sar means (Literally) White Month/moon (sar can be translated as both month and moon and I have heard it used both ways in this case), is what we would call Lunar New year (or maybe Chinese New Year – though Mongolians would HATE this – they still hate all things Chinese because the Chinese occupied Mongolia after The Mongolian Empire fell apart in about the 14^th century, why they don’t also hate the Russians is anyones guess. But the hatred for china is very deep, in fact Mongolians teach their children Russian and not Chinese although most trade in Mongolia now is with China). Tsaagan Sar is based on one of two lunar calendars –the Tibetan Calendar or the Chinese Calendar and was very late this year. Usually it is early February but this year it was February 25. This is the year of the Cow, (there are 12 years all based on animals the same as the Chinese calendar). I also found out my Mongolian age is 25 (which would be much more exciting if I was 19 now and would have just turned 21, than it is), and that the ages that the people have been telling me are in fact calculated the same way as ours our (probably the Russians imported that). All people add a year to their Mongolian age on Tsaagan Sar, and don’t (didn’t) actually mark their specific birthdays. Birthdays are not a big deal here and I suspect historically were not even known, you would just have to know what year (animal) you were born in and then could calculate your age. Also the extra year is that Mongolians are born at 1 and so the birthday after the first year of life is 2 not one. But like I said people now use the same age that we use for official business.

For all the people I have been talking to that came to Mongolia with me Tsaagan Sar has been some what of a mystery. And in fact it still is to a degree. I think I have one of the best Tsaagan Sar stories, in fact it is the best I have heard, and purely Mongolian. I went to the hodoo again with my Haashaa family, which I will talk about later. So we woke up (again not so early, I like going to the Hodoo when it is not the summer, Im not looking forward to going when the sun rises at 5 am.) And dealt with the animals, nursed the calf and milked the cows (there are only three with milk now), separated the mothers and the lambs (more complex there are many of them – though I don’t know how many – between 50 and 100) and let the rest of the sheep/goats into the big enclosure, and got the kids dressed to go. Then my counterpart and I started walking to my Haashaa dad’s mom’s house (in case you don’t know this my Counterpart (the person I teach English with) and my Haashaa mom are the same person). We were walking because I am not allowed to ride a motorcycle, it is an immediate administrative separation (meaning a ticket back to the states) and besides that I would never ride a motorcycle with 4 other people even if 2 are little kids. So we were walking then the motorcycle came up and it turned out the four year old thought he was going to fall off so my Counterpart got on the motorcycle and left. I wasn’t entirely sure I knew where I was going, and it was a LONG walk. I was a little angry and more frustrated, in fact if it hadn’t been Tsaagan Sar I would have turned around and gone home, but I kept walking (I think it was about 8.5 kilometers). Anyway I got there tired hot and a live. I was wearing two deels (traditional Mongolian dress also spelled dell and it sounds like the computer brand). Mongol Deels are extremely faltering as it is (they are not designed to be flattering they are designed to be warm which they are), then put on two, one being a sheep skin lined deel, and you have the same experience as actors wearing fat suits adding about a hundred pounds. Also the sheep skin lined deel is heavy and EXTREAMLY warm. So I got there, and stripped off one deel, and greeted everyone (there is a special Tsaagan Sar greeting, and im sure I messed it up a few times but I got through and had a built in excuses as one of the men who had had to much vodka said when he saw me “American”). Drank my tea, ate my buuz (mutton dumplings) drank my vodka (or politely sipped it,) and watched a game I had never heard of that I don’t understand, with tiles and animals on them, presumably the animals of the lunar calendar. All the while my cp was saying they were going to leave soon, actually that was the first thing she said to me once I got there, because they had to let the sheep out of the enclose so that they could eat, the animals are weak now as it is so not feeding them until late is not good. But then we went to another person’s house (somehow related to my haashaa dad) and did the same thing (drink tea, eat buuz, drink vodka). Then that family nicely gave us a ride home (in a car) the prospect of walking with a 3 and 4 year old was not at all appealing so this was VERY good (as it was we had to walk about 100 meters, and that was difficult enough).

When we got home and went to work again, it was supposed to be a day of rest, which it turns out is very difficult when you have 700 animals, about 100 lambs, a calf and live in Mongolia in February. We melted water (the current water supply for the hodoo ger is big blocks of ice in the back of a truck), we fed animals, gave animals water (and tea – this makes sense in some ways because animals would like the salt and boiling water is always good but the tea part Im not sure I understand also the milk tea part). My haashaa dad decided it was time to change horses so he rounded up the whole herd (about 10) and corralled them and roped the one he wanted). My 4 year old duu was so excited about the horses being around so we went and watched. They found a very week lamb, that we brought into the ger to feed, my cp fed it, my haashaa dad fed it, I fed it, both last night and this morning, but I think it was dead when I left (I didn’t ask). The first day I got there 2 lambs had died, and the next day 2 yearlings died. It still gets really cold at night and the food is harder to get to than in the summer so animals die. I have thought a lot about why the sheep are having their babies now, it is still really cold and I think it would be more difficult to keep the young alive then if they waited to give birth for a month or so. But I think I might have figured out at least part of the reason, it gets cold really fast in the fall (for those of you familiar with Maine, there is a long fairly warm fall – stretching into November usually, here it is regularly freezing by mid October and December is one of the coldest months (with January) where as in Maine January and February are the coldest months). I think it is a delicate balancing act between having babies to early for them to survive and early enough for them to survive their first winter, and I would guess that earlier has proven more successful than later (though the success rate is very far from 100%, they are planning on making a deel for my haashaa dad from the pelts (they cost 3 dollars a piece in a country where a teacher makes 300 dollars a months) it will take about 36 pelts and it looks like they are well on their way. Living in the ger with the family is the calf (much more valuable than sheep) a very old sheep that can’t take the cold and the lamb (that is no longer living, I think). One side of the ger is a little enclosure for animals. Having the calf inside means that the mom likes to hang out just outside the door trying to get in, so it is really good my last trip to the hodoo I got over my fear of cows, because I had to remove it from the door several times, so the kids wouldn’t freak out. I also tied a cow feeding bowl to a cows head (with was interesting but I succeed). Mostly I assumed 4 jobs while visiting, caring for the kids (not my strong suit), melting ice, feeding the fire (my strong suite unless you value your fuel lasting a long time), and taking pictures (I have lots of pictures of lambs, so those of you who get to look at my pictures are going to get to the point you ask what was I thinking). And admiring how beautiful it is, my town is in a really really beautiful location, and at night looking at the stars, there are more stars than I thought existed, it is really spectacular (keep in mind I lived in Maine and I have seen a lot of stars but here there are more).

The crowning moment was probably this morning when a sheep gave birth to a lamb and I got to watch (actually I didn’t see the actual birth but I saw the little bitty baby right after it was born and watched it take is first steps, and from the amount of blood around I was grateful I didn’t see the actual birth). It was very cute, but sheep are not really maternal. Lambs coats remind me of Bichon Freise coats when they haven’t been groomed for a while, and they are really quite cute not as cute as a puppy mostly because they don’t have the personality but still cute. The calf is also cute, and my 3 year old duu is very cute with the animals, as long as you don’t think about the trauma she is inflicting on the poor things. They are only going to have one foal this year, 10 calves, and 100ish more goats (as well as 150/100 lambs). The goats are going to be born in three days so they say. My cp says lots of exciting things happen when the goats come mostly goats milk (which just sounds like a lot of work milking 100 goats to me). But I might get to see the baby goats.