Day: March 6, 2008

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Mongolia Piece 2 in Pieces

Metal in Mongolia

The first time I heard heavy metal–_the kind I listen to, from Scandinavia_– in Mongolia was also the first time I heard this music broadcast on mainstream TV, while staying with a herding family in East-Central Mongolia.

I was seated outside on a carpet with my language teacher, we moved throughout the morning as the patch of shade shifted with the sun. The dog who didn’t die–yet remains nameless, at least in memory–lay napping by my side. I tried not to sound frustrated as I generated yet one more lifeless sentence of grammar crap.

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Flies – Ger – Annihilation (5mins)

I took what must have been my 100th lap around the ger–I had struck a rhythm; long underwear snapping against the canvas roof to the beat of my stilted step. My right foot always hitting harder as it centripetally held me in an orbit–clockwise of course, even when committing flyicide.

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From my field journal…

31 August, Afternoon
>Flies are everywhere. On my arm.
>…
>Fuck these godforsaken fucking flies. Wow, I sound angry, no?

31 August, 5:30pm
>FLIES AHHHHHHHH
>Now Lkhakvasuren is running around the ger rambo-style with a towel in one hand, and my pillow in the other, windmilling her arms.

4 September, 3:55pm
>Midday is definitely the worst time of day. It’s hot, and there’s nothing to do. My [host] father usually naps or watches TV, or both, while I make flashcards or do homework. Meanwhile, the flies go beserk. There’s no point in even trying to wave them away.

>Right now the only sound is of flies swarming above and around me. A chorus that ebbs and flows to its own chaotic pulse. Usually, I get up every ten minutes or so to clear my side of the ger, if only to lessen the number in my immediate vicinity, for a few moments of relative peace.

>It sorta works. At least I don’t feel helpless. My [host] father is going to tend to the sheep now…

8 September, 3:47pm
>When this baby screams, it’s like the sun is shattering, screeching-swerving through space. Except less cosmic, graceful, grandiose, or poetic. The shit is just LOUD and SHRILL.

>It’s also the witching hour. Or hours. WHen the flies all take their afternoon dose of speed and then go Bat-Shit-Insane all over the ger. _Todo: Become zen so I don’t care_

9 September, 3:00pm
>…they joked that I should give them burzag blah blah, that I was a poor host –pause to kill some flies–

9 September, 3:55pm
>Phew. There were 100’s, now there are, like, 20. The war is un-winnable, but I figure I can win a few battles to make their level at least tolerable. And strike some fear into their grimy hearts.
Anyways, so these guys show up…

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In Mongolia

In Mongolia, vegetable soup consists of:
mutton
salt
potatoes
onions (_optional_)
salt
cabbage (_optional_)

In Mongolia, the girls walk home to their slums wearing fake designer jeans and faux-fur-trimmed coats.

In Mongolia, Dogs are not man’s best friend.

In Mongolia, Chinggis Khaan is the God of Gods.

In Mongolia, marmots steal frisbees and other bright white, fast-moving objects.

In Mongolia, your cab fare is computed using a simple formula:
(distancekm*300) / (mongolian language ability) / (number of mongolians with you) + 500 \* (number of gringos) + random \* 100

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Exercises/Ideas

Green Bananas

People who eat green bananas are weird. The fruit is not quite ripe, I submit — the toughness of the skin is telling! _Wait, I’m not ready yet. I want to live up to my full potential!_ But the eater is hungry and impatient. the skin is bent-cracked split pulled. Upside-down. Assuming that monkeys know bananas better than us, we are going about the act __all wrong__!

But that’s not even the worst of it.

The pale residue — it’s hard, firm, you could say, and you really have to bite and chew. the taste is pleasant enough at first, if underwhelming. Banana. Only slightly tart, with a hint of bitter mouthfeel (if such a thing is possible?). Swallow.

The phantom residue clings to your mouth dry-hairy coarseness that no amount of water or milk can disperse. As if the fruit hadn’t been fully separated from its skin, and took bits of skin-adhesive with it, leaving traces for the eater to ponder.

If they even notice.

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Pico Iyer on Traveling, from “Why We Travel: A Love Affair With the World”
>We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate…. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again–to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”

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Titles for pieces to write sometime:
Notes on Watching TV in a Ger in East-Central Mongolia
The Sheep Trap Plot
Fly-icide (in progess)
On Urbanization and the Eating Habits of Town-Center Dwellers in Delgerkhaan, Hentii, Mongolia
from my field notes: “To write: POEM: _I want to kill you, goat_” it came to me when I heard myself yelling this at a particularly stubborn goat (I was herding).
__Maxcax__: _v._ To desire meat

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It lurked in the shadows, behind every counter, beneath every menu waiting for the opportunity to take hold of our GI tracts and wring them for all we’re worth. I made it for 1.5 months without getting really sick. The others weren’t so lucky.

But come, my day, it did…

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Quote (title of finished piece?):
>What a fucking ridiculous place
–KJC