The Perks of Being 6'4"

On the way to John's and my apartment from the Dean's, we always pass a park with some play equipment and a good sized basketball court.  For the past week or so, with temperatures finally getting up into the high teens and twenties, I've seen some high school aged guys playing basketball in the afternoon.  I've wanted to play every time I walk by, and today, I finally asked them if I could.  It was around fifteen degrees outside, but with the sun, it wasn't terrible.  They were all pretty short, so when I came up, they were fascinated with me.  We started playing some three-on-three.  The team that won stayed on the court and played the other team, so my team played the whole time.  They were pretty fascinated when I dunked, and I think that we all had a lot of fun.  I was able to speak some Mongolian and when I left, they all said "see ya!".  It was a good opportunity to get out and exercise, plus I think it opened a really great door.  Hopefully, I will be able to invite them to church some time.

Tsagaan Sar, Day 3

NO VISITS!!!  Today, the Dean's only visited one family, but John and I did not go with them.  I slept in later than I have in a long time and talked to my parents in the morning.  After that, I was able to just stay in our hole-in-the-wall apartment, read my Bible, pray, and do a little cleaning.  Around seven o'clock in the evening, John and I went to an Indian restaurant since the Dean's were out visiting someone.  The food was great as usual!  So, that's my pretty uneventful day 3 of Tsagaan Sar.

Tsagaan Sar, Day 2

Today, the Dean's, Pattersons, John, and I visited two different Mongolian homes.  The first house we went to was that of Ganperuv and his family.  We had a pretty good time there.  After I took my coat off, the very first thing I saw was a big old cooked sheep- head, tongue, esophagus and all.  I was a little worried because it seemed like I saw more fat than meat.  Then there's the whole fact of this neckless head staring at me while I eat the rest of its body..... I really wasn't looking forward to eating that.  But fortuantely they brought out some buzz (I never though I'd be happy to see that) and potato salad.  So we ate and ate and ate.  Then after a few hours, we headed over to Bigay's family's house.  There we ate more buzz, but they had quite a few pastries that were very good.  So my first Tsagaan Sar visits weren't as bad as I was expecting them to be.  I guess I'll see in a few hours how my stomach held out...  I was able to take quite a few pictures today and I will be putting them on my shutterfly right after I finish this.  The address is on the right hand side of my blog.

Tsagaan Sar, Day 1

Today is the first day of the Mongolian New Year, Tsagaan Sar.  Traditionally, Mongolians will go and worship their gods or sacred trees early in the morning on the first day.  The church generally has a prayer meeting every Wednesday, so taking those two things into account, Pastor Dean decided to have the prayer meeting in the morning.  He set the time for 7:00 a.m. and announced it in church this past Sunday.  Well, John and I went to a missionary's house last night for dinner.  We had a great time, but didn't get to bed until just before 1:00 a.m.  I set my alarm and John set his at 6:20 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. respectively.  We woke up at 7:40.  So I haven't had a very good start to Tsagaan Sar, but I'm sure it'll get better... I hope.  Please pray for all of us.  We will be eating so much buzz and other Mongolian foods it's not even funny.  I really don't mind the food, but this holiday generally doesn't bode well for foreigners and their stomach health.  It's a really interesting holiday though, because more than any other time of the year, this is when the older Mongolian traditions come out in abundance.  I'm really anxiously looking forward to this next week!

Mongolian Culture

For the White Month celebration, our language school gave us tickets to a famous Mongolian opera.  This opera is the most famous opera written by the most famous Mongolian composer.  So yeah, it's kind of famous.  Well, I hate operas and I speak very little Mongolian.  Have you ever been listening to an opera, think it's in another language, tune it out, but then find out ten minutes later that it's actually English, but you just can't understand it?  Well, that's me.  So I really wasn't looking forward to going to this, but we figured that it would be an interesting experience so we went.  I was impressed.  I really enjoyed myself.  Granted, the theater was made for Mongolia sized people, not 6'5" Americans, so my legs were really squished.  Other than that though, it was well performed.  The singing was much better than I expected, and the instrumental pieces were very enjoyable.  So, I guess I like operas now.  I never though I'd say that.