Horses, camels, cows/yaks, goats and sheep
By Charlie UB is full of characters. One of them is this guy: That’s Jimme. He’s a Dutch guy who has, among other jobs, worked as a test pilot for the Dutch Air Force. I first met Jimme last fall at a World Series party. I met him again a few weeks ago at a […]
Continue Reading
By Charlie Lest you forget how amazing this country is, here’s a picture of a hunting eagle. We met this eagle on a trip outside of UB two weeks ago. On our way to the fabulous Ayenchin lodge, our driver spotted a guy in a field training this eagle how to hunt. The eagle didn’t […]
Continue Reading
by Rachel I have been slogging on through Mongolian. In an effort to actually accomplish something I started studying five days per week. I meet my teacher, Sovda, at the Stupa Café. It is a very calm and pleasant restaurant and hangout place next to a Buddhist center. I usually drink a cup of peppermint […]
Continue ReadingThe Mongolian judicial system has now had its turn to weigh in on the issue of our apartment. The details of this are explained below in an e-mail I sent today to Byamba, our original landlord. —————————————————————– From: Charles Mayer Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 2:44 AM To: ByambaSubject: apartment Byamba, The court has made […]
Continue Readingby Rachel My main thought about Valentine’s Day this year was wondering what would happen to all those parties that were cancelled by the East Coast snowstorm. I e-mail with one of my students from last year, and she was very excited about the party and card exchange. She figured that this was something that […]
Continue Reading
By Charlie We moved the tables and chairs and laid out the airport complex on the classroom floor. The terminal and hangar were trashcans. The taxiways and runways were pieces of paper marked with the appropriate numbers and letters: 32, 14, F, C, E. With this makeshift airport, ten MIAT pilots practiced something that they […]
Continue ReadingBy Charlie Here’s everything you need to know about our apartment, the Central Post Office and today’s bus ride from the airport. The Apartment There is now some dispute over who owns our apartment. A fashionable lawyer named Burenjargal descended into our lives about two weeks ago and claimed to have bought the apartment from […]
Continue Reading
By Rachel There are basically two food economies here: one in local food, which is quite cheap, and one in imported food, which is more expensive. The good deals happen when the food we want happens to be food the Mongolians want too. Yesterday at Mercury I got this bag of garlic for 1200 tugrugs, […]
Continue ReadingBy Rachel Faithful readers of this blog have observed the highs and lows of Charlie’s work here in Mongolia. From the optimistic days at the newspaper to the pre-dawn waits in the cold for a ride, this has been a rough trip for Charlie. Faithful followers of Charlie in Real Life know that work is […]
Continue Readingby Rachel Mongolians count their winter with the nine nines. These are nine groups of nine days, beginning on the winter solstice, that mark the span of winter. The third and the fourth nines are usually the coldest, but I am afraid this year breaks with tradition. We are now well into the 5th nine, […]
Continue Reading