Mar 26 2008
silly things
I made chili and am storing it in the fridge at work. I thus got my coworker to eat a bean or two, though with great distaste. And I think she was excited by the smell of the food until she tasted it… 
It also snowed overnight fairly heavily (about 2″ near my apartment). My sleeping bag’s at Andy’s place now though, so I was a bit chilly last night.
I have some nice pictures to post, but don’t know when I’ll do so.
Also, last week many of us piled 12-to-a-jeep to go out to Khovd soum for nouraz(sp), a Kazakh holiday. This was kind of similar to Mongolian holidays but without the big pastry construction and with two special foods: kujee and kaaz. Kujee contains things I don’t already like - like aarts - so I wasn’t too fond of it when it was combined with milk, fat, bulgur, rice, a bit of meat, and salt. I sipped it at various houses rather than doing the proper downing of at least one bowl a house.
Kaaz on the other hand just gets better and better - it’s horse sausage and has quite a good flavoring (more than just salt?? not sure) to it. I ate this all over the place.
I also got to watch a horse race (ending) and wrestling tournament. I’ve decided these things are far more interesting in a small group, where you just stand around in a loose circle, than in the big leagues, like UB or Selenge. You can see more and people get pretty into it, too.
Amber’s Kazakh ger is pretty cool - indeed quite a bit taller in the center than Mongolian gers, and looks like it may be a 4-wall. It’s also a lot neater than Doug’s 
and she had jelly beans!
I got to sit on a 3″ high (virtually) horse and look at lots of baby goats…as well as use an outhouse in 40-degree weather. I got kind of sick by the end, though, so I wasn’t all that excited about the outhouse at that point.
All in all, I visited 4 houses, I think, and it was super cool. A nice quick jaunt out of town, too - about an hour or so.
Blah back to work.
