I’d like to start today by relating a couple of anecdotes from our trip to Arshan, which I left out before.

The first involves Buryati! Buryats are the sort of local ethnic group. They’ve been in the area a turrible long time, guvnor, and Russians like to explain that they’re the equivalent to our indians (in fact I think the ones we met self-identified that way). Though, since they still comprise some part of the population in their historical stomping grounds, I’m not sure how well the comparison holds. Anyway they have their own langauge and stuff.

We were in this cafe, because Natalie had ordered these things that took forever to make. Also it was the only thing on the menu any of us were familiar with (we can read all the names, but most weren’t Russian for “Duck with Sauce” or whatever – they were just proper nouns). So we all had them. They were like big pelmeni, which are meat tortellini. Anyway as we waited these two Buryati men we’d already noticed drinking vodka invited us over to their table. So we drank vodka with them and attempted to converse. The more talkative one demonstrated many times that he could say “Fuck You” and flip the bird fluently. He also explaned several times how, when he had been younger, he’d considered Americans his enemies. But now, he said, he knew he’d been wrong and was happy to drink with us. Also he displayed some anti-semetism and told us his friend was a lama. The friend claimed he was a translator. Apparently not into or from English, though.

The other story is about how, when we returned to the little cottage we’d rented, there was a big padlock on the door! We didn’t know what to do, but then a little boy appeared and let us in. While the others went to our rooms, I realized we’d want to be safe, and, after much discussion, convinced this boy to lock the padlock again after I returned inside. I couldn’t understand why he had seemed so dubious until about five minutes later when one of the girls wanted to go to the out-house. We were padlocked in, and for a minute it looked like I was gonna have to start kicking out window panes. But the kid, presumably knowing I was an idiot (and after such a short aquaintance!), had hung around in the yard and respodned to my semi-frantic tappings. He let us out.

Yesterday it became evident that I had a cold. I passed the whole day avoiding any folk cures, and thought I was home free around ten that night. I was wrong! So the first thing was that I had to drink tea with jam in it. I know I bash the jam water a lot, but jam in tea is entirely different and entirely delicious, particularly the new jam they unveiled last night. However, after this I had to lie on my bed and cover my eyes (but NOT the bridge of my nose!) while my sister shined a heat lamp on my face. Periodically I also had to open my mouth so she could shine it in there too. Then I got to rub something on the bottoms of my feet and my ncck, which I never felt, and something ELSE on my forehead and nose, which turned out to be basically Icy-Hot. Then I had to were socks and wrap a towel around my face and neck to keep the fumes in? It made up for lack of unpleasantness in being one of the more bizarre experiences of my life.

Leonya and I have a good time. It’s a lot of fun to hang out with him, and good conversation practice (when we’re not simply yelling one of our ever-more-common catchphrases, or when he’s not speaking English in a ridiculously strong Russian accent on purpose (he doesn’t have a bad accent normally, but likes to speak with a almost Borat-like one for kicks, and it is hilarious)).

We saw the film “Mongol” today. It was about Gengis Khan. I don’t think it was very accurate. But it had lots of blood and some cool bad-guys who seemed vaguely druidic? The plot of this movie was that Gengis Khan (while he was still Temuchin) got kidnapped a whole lot his entire life, and then eventually took over the mongols because they were all afraid of thunder and he wasn’t. The movie was dubbed, either because it was originally Mongolian (maybe?) or because the director decided to film it all in Mongol for artistic reasons. I assume the first explanation.