Bottom line is: Cows are pussies.

Okay, I'm a bad blogger. Sorry. I have been getting complaints so here is a new update for all my adoring fans {does that make me sound like a douche?} whatever. It has been typed and so there it remains. It has been nearly one month since I last posted and it is now April. Wait really? it's april? for real? I really can't believe that I have been here for over month. Wild. I can't believe that I can actually speak to people in Mongolian, even if I can just barely speak the language. It has been an interesting adventure so far. It has had it's ups and it's downs but overall it's been a blast. The highlight, so far, was the time I got to spend in northern Mongolia living with a nomadic family. I spent about 9ish days sharing their ger, eating meat [oh my god so much meat], drinking milk tea [surprisingly delicious, John Murphy would love this stuff], and kickin' it with the nomads. My family consisted of my father Damie, 35, my mother Zaya, 36, my little sister Anu, 4, and my brother knaack, 20. In addition to them there were several families living nearby that I hung out with on a regular basis. My first night with them was awkward to say the least. I was nervous, they were nervous {they had never hosted an american student before} and we pretty much just sat in silence staring at each other for the first 20 or so minutes of my stay. Then, my father pulled out his semi automatic rifle from underneath the bed and began to clean it across the room from me. Oh shit. I thought to myself. This is going to be interesting. However, the ice broke when I helped my family make meat dumplings a little later. They all laughed at my ineptitude and from here on out everything was smooth sailing. Man, I gotta say the Nomads have a nice lifestyle. Get up in the morning around nine, tend the cows, then hang out, ride your horse around, eat, take a nap, read, hang out with the neighbors, etc. It's a good time, although tending the cows in the morning did mean that I spent about two hours everyday loading shit into an ox cart to dump onto the poop pile down the way. Not really all that gross, but man shit can be really heavy when you have a whole lot of it in one place. During the day I would hang out with my little sister, explore the wilderness area behind our ger, drink tea, and on occasion party with the nomads.
Yes, I got to go to a few nomad parties. On my second day Damie took me to the ger next door and introduced me to some of his friends and neighbors. They were all hanging out, feasting on buuz, talking, exchanging snuff, and yes, drinking vodka. So I ate buuz, took snuff with some herder fellas {weird stuff, they called it a mongol cigarette}, and learned how to drink vodka the mongolian way. Basically, you have a vodka pourer, and they are in charge of giving out shots. The first one of which gets sacrificed to Chiingis Khan, duh. Anyways, only except vodka with your right arm, left hand supporting the elbow, then with your ring finger touch a drop to your forehead and flick another drop into the air. Damie also told me that vodka is good, but getting really really drunk is rather shameful. After this advice I was handed over to Ganhuu, a very cool older guy with long hair who spoke a little english, his wife and another women for a vodka/buuz tour of the neighborhood. We drove around in a jeep, drank, and at somepoint I got kissed by an old man {that part was a little weird}. Eventually, I came home and watched the mongolian version of American Idol on a little black and white solar powered satelite tv in my ger.
Man I have lots of stories from this couple of weeks it will be nearly impossible for me to post them all. So I will go a quick bullet point summary and move onward.
-Made origami for my sister alot, we kicked it and I tickled her when she tried to tickle me
-got to ride a horse around mongolia, awesome.
- snuck into a mongolian elk type animal re-inroduction area with my host dad to see the bigass deer. awesome
-went to a mongol birthday part, drank vodka
-learned a mongolian card game- not easy since I couldn't understand the directions I was being given
-met lots of random herders
-ate part of a sheeps head
-ate a rediculous amount of meat
-saw a cow fight {crazy awesome}
- made secret friends with two cows, danielle the spotted lady cow, and a huge fat bull who will be delicious someday that I named biggiesmallswilliamhowardtaft {I named them in secret}
-Saw yaks
-hiked around in the mountains
-watched silly mongolian television
-met a really sketchy herder who told me was michael jordan, then osama bin laden, then he asked me if I thought my host mother had nice breasts. I did not answer this question.
Okay, That's the short version of the countryside.

The city has been interesting as well,
bullet points
-got punched by a drunk women at the black market after I caught her friend trying to pick pocket me. Found a booth selling eagles heads, bought a cheap sweat shirt.
-went to the circus, very silly/entertaining, many mongolians were eating meat.
-learned that mongolians clap in unison at performances.
-uh, class lots of class. Depressing lectures about politics and environmental issues.
-Watched lots of universe best songs with my host family.

okay i'm bored and I have to pack for my second nomadic homestay in bayankhongor province,

bye