In the early spring, the day begins well after sunrise. At about 645 am, Biyambai, my host Durukh’s wife, would be the first out of bed (although sometimes I would lay awake under the warm covers, well before the others woke). As expected morning is the coldest part of the day, and she would brave the cold to first get the fire started in the stove, then head outside to gather water from the storage barrels next to the Ger. The day’s drinking and cooking water is usually boiled the first thing in the morning. The central and critical portion of the Ger is the stove. It’s most important function is providing heat and warmth.
The sheep, goats and riding horses would already be up and grazing. After finishing our morning rituals (brushing teeth, toilet, etc) the sheep and goats that were not corralled, needed to be brought back in closer to camp. This was relatively easy and usually just involved walking up the closest hill and herding them back on foot. Next the horses needed to be tracked down. This was “hit or miss” as sometimes they would wander far and sometimes not. From a previous post:
After returning to camp with the horses, next the sheep had to be sorted. I don;t really know the selection criteria, but the the nomads did. Certain parts of the flock would go to a certain pastures. They would go out on their own.. after initially being driven in the right direction. Typically the new offspring and young were not allowed to go out as the were still being weaned (milk fed) and would often get lost or left behind. By this time it would be mid morning (about 1000am) and we’d have breakfast.
Goat meat flour porridge
Breakfast would usually consist of whatever was left over from dinner the previous night, accompanied by store bought bread, jam and tea. Sometimes a fresh rice porridge would be cooked in the morning. If you are very observant, you will notice that the liquid in the above picture is not level! That is because the Ger is built directly on the ground. So whatever the leveling/flatness of the ground is the leveling of the Ger and everything in it 🙂
Late morning work would vary (for me) from day to day. Typically it would involve watering livestock or doing some type of maintenance/cleaning work in the vicinity of the Ger.
Afternoons would almost always involve “pasturing” or tending the sheep and goats. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s important not to let the flocks wander too far or get spread out. The worst thing that could happen (worse than some of the livestock dying) is that one nomads flock gets mixed in with another. It will take almost a full day to separate the flocks. This never happened to me, but did happen to some neighbors when I was there.
I can not remember a regular lunch or afternoon meal. If you came back to the Ger during your work breaks you would have something to eat. This is because the work schedule is quite irregular during the day. Sometimes we would have a 1-2 hour break in the afternoon.
At dusk it was time to gather the sheep and goats back to the camp. The flocks were pretty smart and knew this routine, but would want to stay out and graze until the last possible minute. This is understandable since the vegetation is so scarce. Also at this time the offspring were matched to their mothers to ensure they were being fed. Some offspring were orphans and had to be bottle fed with cow’s milk.
The nomad’s cow was also milked in the evening and it’s calf allowed to nurse. The cow, calf and two other young cattle received supplemental feed at the end of the day. I never figured out why. These guys also knew the routine and well before sundown would start to hang around the Ger, anticipating their evening meal. Sometimes I would open the door in the Ger and be starting face to face (no exaggeration!) with one of these guys.
Something else I never figured out was that every evening, after milking, the cow would try to run away! This made no sense to me since it would hang around the Ger all day. I guess there is a sense of relief and relaxation for the cow after it has been milked, so it has to wait around for someone to do that. We had to keep an eye on it as we were busy with other evening work and would eventually tie it up. Once we lost track of it and had to spend an hour on horseback (with a flashlight in the black Mongolian outback) to track it down. It was an absolute conspiracy……..
This would typically end the work day. Sometimes we would eat dinner before this point, and sometimes after. My next post will be on “evenings in the Ger.” Stay tuned!
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