The Rain Is Gone!

The rainy season finally seems to have ended. Happily, the weather has been dry and sunny for at least three days. Of course, this also means that the mud has dried up and turned into dust again. I suppose you can't have everything.

The group packed up and went to Bulgan over the weekend, visiting Ganaa, who taught us Mongolian in Pittsburgh. Tim and I, alas, were laid low with an unfortunate stomach bug, so we spent a lot of time sleeping and eating plain bread. Therefore, I can't divulge any details of what went on in Bulgan; that's classified information, and it's out of my hands.

My advisor and I met last week for the last time before he took off for the countryside. I administered a few more surveys. So far I have about 50. The questions I ask are related to foreign language experience and loanwords in Mongolian. "Do you think that foreign words are fashionable?" I inquire. "When foreigners come to Mongolia, should they learn the language?" "Are there too many loanwords in Mongolian?" "Do you ever use the word ___? Is it a real word?" (Bodybuilding, apparently, has entered the lexicon here, and I've seen it written in Cyrillic on many signs for gyms.)

That, of course, is an oversimplification, and in fact I ask more detailed questions about a few specific words. I am finding that a large proportion of people under 30 have studied English, along with a sharp dropoff in the number of schoolchildren studying Russian. This fits my expectations.

The black market was closed during Naadam but reopened again today. I plan to make a final trip to buy souvenirs and a needle and thread to mend my skirt (which ripped spectacularly when it caught on a metal fencepole).

As far as illness is concerned, I am feeling almost entirely better. The summer has gone by without major sickness in the group until now, and probably we should be grateful. We seem to have avoided food poisoning for the most part, yay! Good health is priceless. And that's enough empty philosophizing out of me -- it's off to work on my paper again.