In the Interest of Time Conservation

To all doctors located in the Philippines:

For your convenience I will place here my half of that weird conversation we keep having at the beginning of my appointments. Please read it, and fill in your side of the conversation.

"No, I'm not Mongolian, I'm American. I just live in Mongolia."

"For about 2 years."

"I'm just visiting the Philippines. My husband taught a module course here for 2 weeks and now we are having our vacation."

"Yes, well I knew the Philippines had good medical care because I lived here for 2 years."

"That was three years ago."
"No, I didn't go straight from the Philippines to Mongolia. I was in the US for about a year-and-a-half in between."

"Yes, we'll only be here until the end of this week, so I'll need to have my follow-up appointment as soon as possible."

"We won't be going to the US yet. We have one more year in Mongolia."

"No, we won't be coming back to the Philippines. After one year in Mongolia we'll be back in the US for one year, then back to Mongolia. A year after that we might return to visit the Philippines."

"That's right, I may or may not be returning to the Philippines in 2013 or 2014."

Now we can begin my appointment with that weird look you give me after this conversation.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Baby got buuz

Sunday begins a three-day holiday called Tsagaan Sar (white month). This is the beginning of the lunar new year and it marks the “end” of winter, at least the so-cold-you-want-to-beat-your-head-against-a-wall part of winter. During the first day Mongolians will be visiting their families and the other two days will be spent visiting friends. During these each of these visits buuz, meat dumplings, will be served. In preparation for Tsagaan Sar people all over Mongolia have been spending the last few weeks making buuz. Our helper has been telling me a little about her buuz-making activities. Last Saturday she slept until noon because she was up half the night making it. She informed me her family now had 1,370 buuz. She spent Saturday taking care of our children while we were at a 6½ hour meeting at church. She then stayed up until 4am making more buuz. So much buuz is made during this time that each family will be eating it not only at Tsagaan Sar, but will continue eating it until April. Fortunately the temperature doesn’t really get above freezing between now and then, so everyone’s buuz stockpile is safely preserved.

I had asked our helper to help me learn to make some Mongolian food and she pointed out that we need a steamer. I had not yet gotten around to finding one when she walked in a few days ago with a steamer tray that would fit in our rice cooker and asked when we could start making buuz. Today we finally had time, so I got to watch and learn.

I didn’t write much down because she wasn’t measuring at all. She said the recipe was in her head. I got to help wrap the dumplings in their flour-dough blankets. We steamed a few so I could see how to cook them, and froze the rest. So now, my family has 27 buuz. Somehow I don’t think we’ll be able to make them last until April. Joel already ate three today.

When civilians attack

Recently the police here have really cracked down on microbuses. Microbuses are vans that run routes throughout the city for the purpose of public transportation. We also have a city bus system, but the microbuses fill in some gaps left by the bus system and are a cheaper way to travel short distances. Usually at a bus stop you will see one or two buses at a time, along with 5 or 6 microbuses. Now that the police are cracking down, you see microbuses at the bus stop only when there are no policemen around.

Yesterday as I was approaching our bus stop to board a microbus for a ride to school, I saw the microbuses scattering like roaches after a light has been turned on. Sure enough, a police car pulled up to the bus stop and parked there. The policemen were sitting in the car, yelling at the microbus drivers through a bullhorn. Every time a micro would pull up to the stop and stop to let someone out, the policemen would begin yelling at them and they would quickly drive away. I watched this for a few minutes, expecting the policemen to move on to another stop, but they just stayed there. I was seriously considering knocking on their window and asking them to give me a ride to school since they were scaring away all the micros. It pains me to say this, but FORTUNATELY there was a car accident just down the road and the yelling policeman had to go help out with that while the other one stayed with the police car. The micros began stopping again and I finally was able to get my ride to school without getting arrested for harassing police officers.