Visit to the countryside and real Mongolian BBQ

a beautiful Ovoo outside of Murun City

Last weekend I was invited to the countryside with 15 other school workers.

A short hour dive to Burentogton Soum to have a traditional khorkhog (хорхог) Mongolian countryside barbecue.

No, this is not like your Mongolian bbq restaurants in America. We arrived at our dorm teacher’s family ger to enjoy a glass of hot milk tea and fresh made yogurt. Than the group quickly killed two sheep for us to eat.

hide is sun bathing, grandmother is chillin and a tracher is cookin up the stove

As seen in previous blogs, the process of killing animals in Mongolia is very humane and the best part is, they use ever part of the animal. Not letting a single thing go to waist.

heart of two sheep

While we waited for the innards (гэдэс) to be cleaned, I watched as we cut and cooked the heart over flame and coals. Then wrapping the heart meat in stomach fat and cooked it.

ingrediance

Once the vegetables from the families country garden were cleaned, it was time to set up the barbecue. (Onion – cонгино; potato- төмс; carrot- лууван; turnip- шар манжин)

adding the hot stones

You add about 4″ of water to the bottom, then throw in layers of meat, salt, veggies, and hot stones. The stones sit in the fire for an hour before being used, to get them nice and warm. Once the pot is full of goodies, you tighten down the lid and put it on top of the existing fire.

45 mins later, you have a delicious pressure cooker type of veggies, meat and brother for the whole group to eat.

Khorkhog might be my favorite Mongolian food. So much flavor and the meat is cooked to tender perfection.

half the crew getting water at the well

After lunch digested and some volleyball was played, we made our way to a special water well with healing minerals. Everyone grabbing a couple of gallons of water for their families back home.

This was a great way to start my weekend, but also a great way to start off my school year. I am so happy to have great people to work with at my school.

motorcycles are the number one form of transportstion in the countryside

Most of the teachers will come back to work the week I am gone to a peace corps training. But for now, I am able to enjoy the quiet and productive sounds of the school with my co workers and friends.

me with my beautiful social worker Miga!

Next week I will head back to UB for MST (Mid Servise Training). This will be my first time back with our entire cohort since swearing in last August. Right now our group is down to 56 volunteers after coming to country with 72 just 14 months ago. We have lost 22% of our group. Most Peace Corps cohorts have 1/3 leave by the time they finish. I hope the rest of our group can stay strong and rely on one another when things get hard. Because living here and doing the work we do; making the relationships we are making, is nothing like we will ever experience before.

Until next time

SA