My Uncle the Shaman

June 2010

During the first week in Bagakhangai, I awoke one Saturday morning around 9:30, as I routinely do, and I walk into my host family’s ger for breakfast only to find several people I have never met, a man in his late 40s I would guess and two very young ladies (maybe 25). They were sitting on the floor around the table drinking vodka and laughing with my host father and grandfather. The man was clearly well beyond hammered and he kept saying something in Mongolian to me and laughing. My father insisted I sit down at the table and handed me a small shot glass and filled it with Chinggis Vodka (the vodka of choice in Mongolia). I am not a fan of vodka, but offending drunk Mongolian men is not a wise choice. I politely did the Chinggis Khan flick (with the ring finger) for each direction: North, South, East, and West. Then I put the glass to my mouth and let the vodka touch my lips--a polite thing to do when you don’t want to drink. Anyway, I later found out this man is my father’s brother (although I’m still not completely sure). In the middle of my father and brother’s conversation, the uncle figure turned to me and said the words “bi shaman” (meaning I shaman). I turned to my father who nodded his head. I honestly did not believe the man because it was 9:30am and he had already drank approximately 8 glasses of vodka and by 10:00 he passed out for the entire day. I honestly thought this man was no shaman, unless shamans are required to be drunk early in the morning.

A few days later I was walking back home from school at the end of the day (after cross cultural class), and I walk into the host family’s ger (as my routine made me do) only to interrupt a religious ceremony. After an aunt figure who spoke English quickly ushered me to a seat and explained that the spirit of the shaman, who was several hundred years old, had entered my uncle’s body, the first thing I noticed was my host father’s brother sitting on the floor in front of a table full of food--mostly meat, milk, yogurt, and rice. The next thing that took me by surprise and creeped me out a bit was the voice of the shaman, very dark, eerie, and a bit of sore throat sound. Every sentence started with a word that sounded like “hey”. One by one, every family member crawled up to the shaman, kneeled down next to him, on hands and knees, and the exposed their back. The shaman then began to whip the family members’ backs, after a brief conversation that sounded like pleading to the shaman to not hurt them. During this ceremony my father jokingly suggested that I go up and talk to the shaman. I respectfully denied and after nearly 7 family members had their conversation with the shaman, my host father pointed to me and then pointed to the door. He was telling me to leave. I was a bit bummed because I was so interested in watching and trying to learn about Shamanism (although I have two years to learn about it).

First Contact

June 2010

The day I arrived at Bagakhangai and meet my family was awkward to say the least. The trainers preformed a skit detailing what would potentially occur during the first meeting with your Mongolian host family. The skit consisted of the American walking in, being placed at a table with lots of food, instructed to eat the food, and once finished eating, instructions for sleeping were given by the host family. And that is exactly what happened the first night I arrived to my host family’s ger.

I also gave them some gifts I bought in the States before I left. A box and beach sandals and a bag of sand (btw, the sand bag broke a bit in my suitcase and I’m still finding sand in the bottom every now and again) is what I brought them. They throughly enjoyed the gifts, even though they probably didn’t know exactly what they were and I couldn’t find a literal translation in the English-Mongolian dictionary. Well, so far they’ve been a great host family. They own a food delgur (food store) and they typically feed me food solely from their store (I suppose they don’t like to shop at other delgurs or something). They typically feed me the same thing in different forms: pasta or rice with potatoes, some veggies, and a nice hot bowl of cuu te (milk tea). I am slowly adjusting to the new diet. I haven’t had too much of anything strange to me, like goat intestines or cow stomach; some of the other trainees have told me horror stories. All is well on my front.

The Beginning to Now(ish)

June 2010.

I’m sorry to get to you readers so late in my training process, but I’ve been busy adjusting to new diets, new culture, new families, and being in school constantly. Well, I’ll start from the beginning. On June 3, 2010 I flew to San Francisco for staging, which was a lot of awkward meetings and conversations with new people, or the handful of those I met on Facebook. We were placed in a large room where we had several classes, activities, and lectures on what being a Peace Corps trainee and Volunteer means. I learned the phrase “The best job you’ll ever hate” to describe the Peace Corps and the experience one has during his/her two years.

The next day was spent in airports and airplanes. My favorite memory would be playing a drinking game during the movie Leap Year with my seat partners, Cody and Alyssa (I say it’s is my favorite memory because the game killed 2 hours of the flight for me). When we finally arrived in UB, Mongolia, the weather was rainy which is good luck in Mongolian culture (good first sign).

After waiting for 140 pieces of luggage, we all walked single file through tunnel made of current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). What a greeting! After chatting with some of them, we had an hour drive to Zuunmond to a dormitory and school for orientation week. I, as well as the other 74 Peace Corps Trainees, attended the Peace Corps Orientation, which consisted of several lectures on safety, Peace Corps policies, and language classes. The trainers (current PCVs) threw a dance party for us (and I immediately thought I was at WWW camp again). The coolest part of orientation, besides the frequent tea breaks, had to have been from the first day, the Mongolian students dancing and playing the horse fiddle.

Overall, Peace Corps orientation was a fun and informative. The last day of orientation we each were given a sheet of paper with our host family’s information: names, how many dogs they have, interests, what they live in (ger or house), and occupations of the family members. My family consists of my grandfather (ovoo) Mondoon, my father (aav) Chuluunbaatar, my mother (eej) Mongi, my little brother (duu) Bojo, and my little sister (duu) Chuluuntsetseg. They all live in a Ger and often times different family members will drop in and stay for a week or two (which was interesting because the first week I was there I met a new family member every morning). We were also told what city group we would be in for training; mine was Bagakhangai

After some sappy goodbyes, we all split up in our different city groups and left the start the next phase of the adventure.