We call him Saturday

I figured out how to do pictures and jesse formated them for email so i thought i would put a few up for your viewing pleasure. The first one is the center of our ger. I told you orange is a hip color. This one as well as the first was taken while we were winterizing. I think it is funny and I hope you like it.


First a cultural lesson. Naming in Mongolia is a really cool process. Random like in the states but pretty cool. Typically people have several words rolled into one that is their name. Men often have strong or steel in their name (jesse's host bros for example, all three started with bat- meaning strong). Babies are named on the third day of life. Often the relatives will put their vote for a name in a bowl filled with rice. Then the bowl is shaken and a name comes to the top. Whatever the name is the father will whisper it into the baby's ear three times and that is its name. Other times people are named for their relatives or on the day they were born. This is where the good part comes in and an explanation of the picture.... so our kitty came to us on a friday. We wanted to call him the formal day of the week name friday (which is baasen) but the same word means pooped. Since we didn't want to name our cat shat we decided to name him Saturday instead (byamba). And that is the story of our kitty. He has been awesome and is the most spoiled cat in all of mongolia. We just watch him play for hours and we talk to him and he eats like a horse. We are in love. At night it is cold and he doesn't like the house I made him so he sleeps under the covers with us. I am always afraid we will crush him but so far he is ok.