The children in the countryside are either sent away to relatives to go to school or they go to school is shifts. One family we stayed with had a boisterous son who tried so hard to stay up with us. He showed off all his school work and ribbons. Turns out he was a prized ballroom dancer! It feels good to know that education is still important even if you will only be a herdsman. Teachers are revered here.

The funniest thing to me was the high school uniforms. The girls have to wear this French maid costume! It is a black dress with a white pinnafore. Ruffels and all. I told our guide the girls looked like they should be cleaning rather than studying, but that is the custom.

Also, funerals are never black dress attire. You wear blue or white. We also were introduced to the snuff bottle. There is a specific manner is which you pass it. We, of course, were oblivious, but Nora taught us. I passed. My sinuses were already bad due to the sand and wind and such. I am not used to so many allergens introduced to me at once. My eyes are red all the time no matter what sleep I get and I am constantly blowing my nose. I have many flashbacks to the Okanagen. I now understand why some, well, maybe most, people wear the surgical masks. The sight driving back in to Ulaanbaatar was not a pretty one. Though not as bad as crossing the bridge from Burlington to Hamilton, there are Simpsonesque towers billowing out smoke. That is only one of the three power companies in the town. Apparently, from the country side they get most of their gas and power still from Russia. Also, the small towns only have power for a certain amount of time. Say, from 7 until 11. You could set your watch by it. I am unsure if they have it during the day at any time but they don't really need it then.

Many families in gers use battery power for light and some have solar panels. There is much sun during the day. It is like Colorado where the sun is up all shiny and warm but come night time, it's definately cold. Some families use dung to heat their places and others use coal. The ones who use coal are near the coal mines. There is a coal mine close to Ulaanbaatar, maybe a couple of hours drive. With even the families who use dung to heat their ger it is wrong to throw anything bodily of nature in.

I drank erikh (no idea if I spelled it right) for the first time on this trip. It is basically fermented milk that has gone sour and turned alcoholic. Not too savoury. I had a sip and felt that was enough. It smelled and tasted like sour cream gone bad. We helped a van at the side of the road (well, if you call it a road). They were out of gas and in return they gave us some curded camel milk, well, along with some money I presume. It seems to be so popular here! My students are always giving me this sweet, hard milk as a treat. I am simply not a sweets person. I suppose sweet toothes skip a generation, but Nora was very pleased with the contribution. One family we stayed with had just returned from Tibet. They brought the inscence from the juniper bush back with them. They gave some to Nora. She was happy and said it was a nice gift to give her mother. It's a smell that reminds you of childhood and those long summer days where you could fill them as you chose.

There was one day a countryside doctor on the back of a motorcycle. It had no headlight, at all. We drove behind to ensure they could see but they had to keep stopping due to electrial problems. There was nothing we could do other than give them light. I couldn't help but wonder where she was coming from and what kind of help she really gave. Colin got a bad burn our second to last day. The bottom gave out on the thermos we used and spilled all over his ankle. I felt there must be some kind of special Gobi salve they use, you know, made of camel fat or something to that effect. Nope. And, the company who took us did not even bring a first aid kit! I purposely left all my bandages and such at home as I felt they would have something. It was a good thing Maureen brought her items as Colin would have been worse off than he was. Funny how trivial something seems but it gains importance.