by Klara Gabriela Heuchert, of Carleton College
Mongolia Study Abroad – Fall 2019 semester – September 6-14
Tengish-Shishged:
Two furgons full of eight students, three Round River instructors, our sweet cook, Amkaa, and two very capable Mongolian furgon drivers travelled two hours north of our base camp into Tengish-Shishged. There we stayed for 10 days (sort of) in the hashaa of a ranger named Battogtokh.
The Work:
Don’t let the photos mislead you— it was not all fun and games out on the steppe. It was, in fact, mostly the 83 survey plots we did. Each plot had 100 data points collected, measuring the vegetation type and cover as well as scat type. That’s 8,300 flippin’ points to be entered on an Excel sheet, not including the additional Daurian pika info we collected at each plot. And nothing stopped us from getting our precious data! We collected data in pouring rain, burning sun, buffeting wind, tummy-grumbling hunger, happy smiley moods, and cranky bored moods. We spent half of our days bouncing along in the furgons, getting jostled to the bone, and the other half bent over vegetation with meter sticks in hand.
We joked that every time we saw a pretty meadow, we wanted to call out the grass height and presence of artemisia (a sign of steppe degradation). When I measured survey points with Noah, he taught me how to say all the information in French: Merde de chèvre et moutton, or Y’a pas de caca! I subsequently taught him how to say everything in German. Though we worked hard and diligently for most of the day, we also had some bendy meter stick fights and short periods of poop-flinging. Some of the flattened cow scats were perfect frisbees! Cow and horse scat is also great for plugging pika holes so that we could check to see if they were re-opened the next day, so we generally spent 6 hours a day touching, squishing, crumbling, studying, and searching for poop. Also, knowing that we would have the wonderful opportunity to enter all of this data for hours on end back at camp, we left various notes and poems on the data sheets to entertain ourselves:
There once was an untidy crest
who could find pika burrows the best
but in every dream
She’d toss, turn, and scream
at the echoing shout, “pika fresh!”
Oldies are brown,
freshies are green,
this is the most scat
I’ve ever seen.
I reached in and felt
that shimmering sheen,
and then I knew
that these scats were ‘shin’.
(‘Shin’ in Mongolian means ‘new’)
The “untidy crest” refers to Sophie, whose hair is highly untidy and whose project this pika data was collected for. She constantly and frantically had to scribble down information while ten people shouted “pika fresh!” at her, and it became a joke to yell it out at any point in the day when we saw fresh pika sign. We all know Daurian pika scat like the backs of our hands now, and remain astounded by the fact that there was never a square meter of land found that did not have some kind of domesticated animal crap on it.
We also spent a lot of time identifying and counting waterfowl on the many lakes in the area, though mostly Birds (Qingqing) and Chris (aka Bob to many) did this. It was fun at first, but I became a tad frustrated when the dabbling ducks started diving (They’re not supposed to! Dabblers vs divers! This is supposed to be a distinguishing feature!!!). We all laughed when the Ruddy Shelducks sounded like human voices yelling for help or attention: “Ay! HEY! Wait! Eyy!” Some waterfowl were really cool, like Bean Geese or Red Necked Grebe, which we didn’t expect to see. It’s pretty fun to see a bird’s silhouette, or vague colors, and still be able to open a bird guide to recognize it, and it’s pretty ridiculous how Chris/Bob can have a .025 second glance at the forehead of a duck 700m away and instantly recognize the bird. But I still felt a little proud that I could identify a totally common Tufted Duck after 20 minutes of binocular-peering and flipping through the guides.
The Fun:
Some of the trip was actually fun and games, though sometimes high-stakes. We had lots of group bonding time, including group acrobatics. Our stomachs were left sore with laughter after collapsing into a pile of bodies or zooming into concentrating faces in photos. It never became dull trying to avoid putting hands and feet in cow patties. We were proud of our tricks and showed them to Chinbold and Taagi, our drivers, and to Amkaa, who were highly entertained.
Fun for us but stressful to the drivers was our Furgon Fiasco. While crossing a stream in the dark on our way home, one furgon got stuck in muddy water. We all got out and pushed it, and shouted with happiness as it got out and shot backwards— right into an even deeper area. Then, we spent another hour and a half using tree trunks as lever and stumps to lift half the furgon. Taagi’s del belt was used to tie heavy logs together, and then finally to tie the two furgons together in order to tow (Yet another use of the wonderful del! Furgon-towing, goat-carrying, warmth-keeping, poop-protecting, you name it!). After the cold, dark, exhausting experience, our fantastically capable drivers got us home at 1 am.
The Culture:
For me, what I learned and saw of culture was most important. Though I couldn’t speak more than a few words to Battogtokh, he was very kind to me, and we bonded over picture-taking. We had similar cameras, and he would point to them, grab my hand, and we would go on a walk to see some ducks, or find a polecat hole, or herd his goats and sheep, or just lay on the ground and enjoy the sun if we didn’t find anything. He would show me pictures excitedly and sometimes just grab my camera to snap something I wasn’t seeing. He played cards with us a few times, and seemed to really enjoy spending hours and hours measuring grass and crap all day with us. His family would provide us with copious amounts of urum, the thick, fatty cream that can be separated from fresh milk if boiled, and we ate the crap out of it. We’d eat an enormous bowl of fresh yogurt every day as well. We’ve grown to love the large amounts of extremely varied dairy products we eat; many of us plan to attempt to make these products at home. Also, if we were wearing our dels wrong or forgetting to button the buttons, Battogtokh would patiently remind us, and few times, he even joined in on our cow patty flinging bouts.
Quick digression: the dels are a traditional robe-like Mongolian garment that both men and women wear. There are fancy ones for special occasions, like weddings or celebrations, and more casual work ones for every day use, which is what we have. Isaac, Sophie, and I ordered dels from local Mongolian women and had them for the trip, and Noah and Birds received theirs shortly after. Women have a short belt on the waist, and men have a long thick belt on the hips with ample space left for a sizable belly, affectionately labelled a ‘delly’. Dels are warm and cozy and long and extremely useful in every occasion, as aforementioned. They even encourage social bonding, as the armpit buttons are typically impossible for one to do alone! Amazing garments, all in all.
On the last two mornings at Battogtokh’s hashaa, a sheep and goat were slaughtered, and we were allowed to observe the skinning and cleaning of the animals, with pretty much all of the Mongolians there helping. I watched all the organs get scooped out, and that same night, I saw them all again, cooked and ready to be eaten. It was really interesting, and something I’ll probably never get to see again, or have nearly as fresh.
In the picture of Battogtokh, he was drawing a jerboa to let me know what inhabited the tiny hole we had come across. He is a fantastic artist and loves depicting small rodents or big animals fighting. In the photo of us all drawing, it was our Art Night with Battogtokh— we all went in his home to draw and spend time with him. He and his family offered us milk tea and bread and kindness and warmth. Every single person in the group joined in for a while, people of all artistic levels, and I thought the little event, our enthusiasm, and our group in general were all pretty special.
Amkaa: our cook, sippin’ on her tea in the cold, giggling and shy because I was taking her photo. She cooks and assembles pretty much all of our meals, quite a formidable task. She let us spend one night at her winter home to help us get in as many pika survey plots as possible, and she came with us on the coldest, rainiest pika survey day. She dances with us at our little dance parties, and teaches us Mongolian— we all know how to say I love you, Amkaaaaaa! because it’s very true. She cooks delicious Mongolian foods for us, and calls us her babies. She laughs very loudly and sings very beautifully during furgon rides spent together. She’s a talented singer and I love to hear her voice in the car, or from her ger when she’s cooking up something scrumptious at base camp.
Dancing has been a pretty important feature in our stay as well, and it happens somewhat regularly. We had a little dance party outside of Battogtokh’s hashaa, and all eight of us students, plus Chris/Bob, were dancing our hearts out. Then Amkaa, Badmaa, Battogtokh, his wife, and even Taagi came to join us for a while. For one song, Battogtokh grabbed Chris/Bob to dance the Mongolian waltz that we all learned at the park headquarters dance. Isaac and Noah seized their chance to practice and started waltzing as well, and it was a glorious moment. We danced in the cold, cold air until we were sweaty and warm and our Mongolian friends had all gone to bed.