WRESTLING WITH LIFE

 

Wrestling is the biggest sport in Mongolia and all boys grow up learning the sport.  So, of course there had to be a wrestling match the last day of YSA Conference camp.  There was much excitement building up to this day.  The doctor was required to stay for this event so he could pick up any broken pieces of bodies.

 

 The ref has his SWAT hat on and his orange waist band tight against his belly in case he has to break up any fights...and when he raises his arm the wrestling begins.

 

 Belt holding is a popular stance.  One wrestler will try to lift his opponent up by his belt so he can tip him over.  (either that or they could be having a little chat about the cute girls in the audience).

 

 Just a little more weight on that shoulder so that it touches the ground and we will have a winner.

 This winner is really excited because it was a tough match.

 Some fellas land pretty hard, but there are no sissies in this game.

Just like wild bulls going after each other, they kick up a lot of dust, roll around on the ground and get really dirty and sweaty.  I wouldn't want to kiss the victor after this match.

 

 Now this is an interesting part of the match.  The winner goes to the flag (Mongolian) and does an eagle dance. With wings spread wide he circles the flag to celebrate his victory.

These are the serious wrestlers.  They brought their wrestling costumes and can show off their many muscles.  These two men each just won their matches and are doing the eagle dance of victory.  Now they will fight each other.

 These little boys are about 4 yrs. old and after watching the big boys wrestle they decide to have a go at it.

Not knowing exactly what to do the taller boy looks up for instruction.
 

 Ok, now he's cooking with gas.  The object is to get the other little kid on the ground.

 The smaller boy puts up quite a fight.  He won't be tipped over so easily.

 Just by shear weight the bigger boy finally gets the other pinned to the ground.

  
And then my favorite part happens.  Ahhhh, the innocence of childhood.  Not understanding the fierce competition that awaits him when he's older and wanting to help his little opponent he kisses him better...

brushes him off...

and says "lets go play".

THE HAIRCUT

 I can't decide whether David's haircut was military or missionary, but I'm leaning toward military.  Ulziika, our translator took him for his first haircut and she hovered over the lady cutting his hair and gave her strict instructions on how short his hair should be and he looked really good.  These photos are of the second haircut.  No one was with him to give instructions so the lady made a unilateral decision about how it should look and she chose "short".  I have added the military haircut photo to show you just how short "short" is.  The photos of David were taken a few weeks after his haircut so its had a chance  to grow out a bit.

 Megan, I have never (meaning not in the 45 years of our marriage) seen his hair this short.  I almost saluted him when he came back from getting his hair cut, but checked myself because he may have burst into tears.  No one can cut his hair like our Megan can.  Thanks for all the good haircuts, Meg.

 The good thing about hair is that it grows.  I don't think he'll need another haircut for about 4 months.  I will go with him next time.

I'M A SCHOOL TEACHER

 Outside the classroom where we teach medical English we discovered this plaque which means that sometime in the past DIC did a classroom project (I would guess it may have been to donate all the computers and interactive materials for students to use in learning English) for the Health Sciences University of Mongolia.  I don't know what that project was but I am so proud of all the humanitarian projects that our church has going on around the world.


These are our Monday students.  They are bright and anxious to learn.  Last week I made playdough and we used it to make a cell.  Once the cell was designed they labeled all the parts.  These kids are between 18-21 and have had at least 5 years of English.


Our Tuesday class is a girls only class.  There was one boy in this class but he was so intimidated that he changed to the Monday class.  (Go figure).  These girls rock!  The cell they made was miles ahead of the Monday class.


 

 This is a work of art.  I can see it in a modern art museum named "life".

Two weeks ago we were talking about the parts of the body so I had them label themselves.  Have you noticed that people love to see photos of themselves?  I have found that taking photos of what we do in class is a good review for our students and they love to see themselves looking silly.

 

 We finished up with singing and doing the Hokey Pokey.  They were a little hesitant to participate but warmed up by the time we got to the last few body parts. (I know what you are thinking.  Mom made them do all 22 body part verses, but no I did not.  We just invited all 10 students to pick a different body part to hokey pokey with).  I hope they can learn and have fun at the same time.  I love doing this!

CLOSE TO NATURE #2

 You are absolutely right about too many gory details with animal husbandry so here are some photos of the countryside where we camped with the YSA.

 If you didn't know it you would think this is somewhere in the mountains of Utah or Colorado.

 Potty time is the first order of business in the morning when camping and the walk to the "place" is lovely.(The "place" is not).  Just as the sun is coming over the mountain to dry the dew off the petals of delicate field flowers, and with camera in one hand and toilet paper in the other, I go in search of something beautiful to photograph.

 I think we would consider these daisies weeds in our gardens at home but they are perfect in this setting.

 You would expect a tiny fairy to tumble out of one of these sweet purple bells.

 I would love seeing this vista out my window. Living in UB means I see buildings instead of trees.

 

 Purple is the theme of the mountain meadows this year.

Beautiful time of the year and so short lived.

This is the beginning of the long road home.  It will take about 7 hours of driving, much of it on the freeway (that means there is no paved road) to get back to the city, but I'm in no hurry to leave this beautiful, quiet place.

Wow!  One afternoon it rained and at dusk this is what we saw.

Now we didn't just fall off the last hay wagon.  We now have "camping experience".  This time we had an air mattress under us that stayed inflated.  The only problem was leaving the big double sleeping bag home and bringing the little single one instead...maybe next time we will get it "all" right.

CLOSE TO NATURE

 This little feller was saying "baaaaa" about 10 minutes ago.  Slaughtering animals is all in a day's work and Mongolians know animal anatomy first hand.  I think they would get an A in anatomy class and would be whiz kids at the dissecting lab.

The innards are the tastiest bits and every part of the animal is eaten right down to the ears.  I bet you can guess what this lady is cleaning out in one bowl and what some of the organs are in the other bowl.

Skin is  eaten as well so they scorch off the lamby fur with a blow torch so they can boil the whole head and eat the skin.  This sheep head looks just like the one we ate when we were visiting the countryside town of Khovd. 

They like to eat the legs and hoofs so these legs are waiting for the scorch treatment that the head will get.
 

These look like a couple of fuzzy rags don't they.  But I think they are sheep stomach.  People love to eat stomach.
 

If you didn't know what this lady was really doing you might think she was getting her yarn ready to roll into balls.  She has just finished cleaning out the intestines and is getting them ready to stuff with all sorts of goodies like blood vessels and other tender bits.

  

Now that it's cooked it looks pretty good.  The food we ate at YSA Conference was tasty.

Most of the time you could eat your dinner from a cup.  Lots of soup made with sheep, potatoes, carrots, onions and broth is how they cook because they don't have ovens so meals are one pot throw togethers.  Easy cleanup for the doctor.
 

Here are some of the innards, organs, skin and sundry pieces people could slice off and eat.  The far left rounded object is uterus stuffed with blood which congeals into a pasty solid.  Yum!  This beats the Maori boilup hands down.

PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF

 The doctor had what he called a "polyp" growing at the base of his big toenail and it was rubbing on his shoe when he ran. (If you're going to have a polyp I think its much better on your toe than a polyp in your colon).  He said to me "could you please cut off this polyp?  Its hurting me."  Now I have cut up a lot of meat in my day but it was already detached from the animal and it didn't bleed when I cut into it and I have, on occasion, helped him cut his toenails which I thought very altruistic of me, but this was clearly out of my league.

 So he decided to take care of the problem himself.  ( I think he was confident because he had watched the utube video of ingrown toenail surgery).  A little aside here.  Notice that he can reach his toes...and all this time I thought I was helping him cut his toenails because he couldn't bend down to reach them.  With my sewing scissors in hand he went at it.  Much like the executioners of Great Britain the first blow was not enough to sever the head and multiple attempts were made before the little bugger came off.  I  headed for the bathroom for some dry heaving.

 With blood running onto the floor he called out "bring some toilet paper back with you" so with tears running down my cheeks (dry heaving will do that to you) I brought back toilet paper to stench the flow.  Was a tourniquet needed?  Was he going to lose his big toe?

There's the little polyp's head never to hurt this boy again.  I just have to say that the patient was quiet and cooperative during the surgery.  He didn't have anesthesia and he was brave.  (I think a lot of women had set him a good example).
 

In the end one little bandaid did the trick to cover the raw stub of polyp.  No tourniquet needed and no transfusion given.  So the physician did heal himself.  Long live the physician.  The nurse is a wuss but she did put the bandaid on the owie for him and told him he was a brave boy.  (She also cleaned up all the blood).  Now there's teamwork for you!