Funerals and Christmas

On christmas we got a call that my boss's father died. So that night we went over to the house to pay our respects. The funeral tradition is very different from what we are used to so I thought I would write about it. When we entered the house it was full of people, close friends of the family and her father. The first thing that struck me is that it is very quiet. No one was talking and there must have been 15-20 people there. Sanchir and her mom were both crying. Hugging isn't big here and leaving people to their saddness is big so they kinda wept by themselves but in the group. I don't know if that makes sense. No one was comforting them i guess. We were served milk tea, candy, salad and soup. When they were able to stop crying they were hosting us. It is very inline with mongolian hospitality and ritual but so different from the states, I wanted to be doing something but couldn't. People would periodically come in and make an offering at the buddist shrine (there is actually a picture of her father and the shrine on our first photo CD, he is the man giving jesse a snuff bottle). They made an offering of yellow fat (I didn't understand this part or where it comes from) and money. The money is used to host a party 40 days after the death. When we left the image that broke my heart was of the younger daughter who was serving us all this food quietly sobbing into her sisters shoulder. We gave money and a hug to sanchir and then left. The family will go into mourning, no special clothes or anything but I think they eat white foods and refrain from drinking. This is supposed to help send the departed pure into the afterlife. On the 40th day friends and family will gather again, light candles and eat rice with rasins in it. Jesse and I actually did that part yesterday for the past governor. You typically recieve matches and incense as well. The bodies are buried away from the town and depending on your sign and his sign and the month, loved ones may not even be able to visit the burial site. There are only simple rocks to mark a site. Burial sites are not tended to the same way either because there is so much superstition around death and being near death. Usually there are candles lit in the home for rememberance rather than visiting the grave.

There are a lot more funerals here than in the states it seems.

So that was our christmas funeral lesson.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Friends and Family

We wish you a very merry christmas and a happy new year.

We have just finished up training and are back in UB for the day to get some books and food to last the winter. We are headed back to site tomorrow and plan on spending a very quiet christmas just the two of us (our site mates were distracted by shiny things in the city and will not be joining us). New Years should provide a couple of office parties and way too much kareoke.

It is officially cold here and i have gotten my first real cold of the season as well. Yay me. When boogers freeze in your nose it makes it really hard to breath, who knew?

Our other update is that Jesse got into NYU as well. That makes 5 of 7 so far. The other two will come in Feb or March.

Ok then call if you can on christmas cuz it will be depressing if you don't. : )

Short update

Hiya,
Just a quick update before my meeting starts. We made it back to Mongolia just fine, and back to our site. It is cold but not the I-stepped-out-the-door-and-jesse's-beard-froze cold...yet. Right now it is more the immediate cough when i walk out the door and the slow freeze as i walk to work.

We are back in the capital to do IST training (in service training) for the M17s. Jesse is in charge of health and i am in charge of cyd. We are putting our sessions together this week and then on sat we start. It should be a busy but fine time catching up with all the newbies and not having to build fires and enjoying indoor plumbing.

Jesse has been accepted to two more schools since i last blogged....Georgetown and U Maryland. We sent in a tentative acceptance for georgetown but declined maryland's offer. We have created a decision matrix to size up all the schools and Maryland was always in the bottom three, so there you go.

I think that is all from us so far. Good luck to you as you do the holiday sprint.

cheers