What horse meat controversy?

There’s comfort in routine and the familiar.  It’s nice to know what to expect—to know what your food will taste like even before it touches your lips; to sink into the driver’s seat of your car and navigate familiar streets and familiar destinations; to take a worry-free predictable stroll to the store; to work methodically through a to-do list at work and leave the office at the end of the day satisfied with steady progress on tasks large and small. 

I write these words during my first days in in Kiev, Ukraine, my new and unfamiliar home after surviving the weather of a harsh Mongolian winter and the unknown of a new land.

Here are some thoughts from my final weeks in Ulaanbaatar:

Backpack incident

A few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon following a lovely, lazy 90 minutes at a nearby café, I was walking down a busy street in Ulaanbaatar.  With my trusty backpack strapped over my shoulders, I was thinking about extending my afternoon stroll to do some light grocery shopping.  That’s when I heard the unexpected sound of a zipper opening just inches from my ears.  As soon as I turned my head I realized two men were directly behind me opening my backpack—obviously ready to abscond with whatever from my bag they could get.  My immediate reaction was to grab the closest one by the shoulders and yell at him, “What did you take?!”  I started guiding him off the sidewalk and toward the street.  He immediately addressed me as ‘my friend’ and said it was ‘the other guy,’ who by that time was ten feet away making a casual getaway by blending into the foot traffic.  I let go of the man and looked at my backpack.  It was obvious that nothing had been taken, but even so the event was quite upsetting.  The culprit who I had just released continued to plead his innocence.  Before I turned to continue walking down the street I let him know what I thought of his claim of innocence by stating: “But you were right there.”  Embarrassed and upset about being a target (if not a true victim) of theft, I decided to forgo the walk to the grocery store and instead went directly home.  And for the next hour I allowed wild fantasies of vigilante justice and sting operations run through my head.

Dog sledding

On a much lighter note, my final Sunday in Mongolia included an unexpected adventure of a completely different nature.  My colleague had recently learned about a group that takes thrill seekers dog sledding.  So on Sunday morning, she and another colleague and I drove to the outskirts of UB.  I was concerned that the recent ‘warming’ trend in Mongolia (i.e., daytime temperatures hovering around the freezing mark) might have led to a lack of adequate snow cover for the canine-led voyage.  However, my concerns were eliminated when I realized we were not relying on snow but on the slick, frozen surface of a river. 

We arrived at the same time as the dog sled company.  The dogs were quickly harnessed, but before launching down the icy river behind the anxious mutts—who were yipping, barking, and howling with excitement—we received a crash course in mushing. 

 

Nearly 20 dogs emerged from the trailer to pull us across the river

Eagerly anticipating the ride

Supervising final preparations

Luckily, our instructor spoke enough English to explain how to use our foot to stop the sled by pushing down on a brake lever.  (The explanation consisted of him pushing the brake into the snow and saying “stop” repeatedly.)  He also demonstrated ‘steering’ by gripping the hand bar and leaning left and right.  And that was the extent of our lesson, so we jumped on our sleds and stepped on the brake until the men got in their truck and started driving down the river and yelling out the window to the dogs (and us) “go, go, go!”

I cautiously lifted my foot and the sled surged forward with frightening speed as the dogs launched toward the departing truck.  So I pressed on the brake to slow down until I felt a bit more balanced and accustomed to the ride.  With the men in the truck urging us on: “go, go, go!” I released the brake and slid speedily down the river behind the barking dogs.  Although still very precariously perched, I started to feel more in control of the journey—a foolish notion, really, but sometimes ignorance is bliss, especially for a first-time musher like me.

Away we go!

After several hundred meters of worry-free travel, the dogs shifted from a flat part of the river up a slight incline.  By veering up the uneven surface, any certainty of my role in controlling the sled was dashed when my balance betrayed me and the dogs continued joyfully up the river without their precious human cargo.  I quickly transitioned from passenger to spectator, but not before crashing hard on the ice—the brunt of the impact absorbed by my right hip and the back of my head.  The impact was jarring but not catastrophic and I was back on my feet in a matter of seconds (partially because my colleagues and their dogs were quickly advancing and I didn’t want to be trampled by the charging fleet).  I caught up to my dogs and sled, which was parked near the stopped truck another hundred meters up the river, remounted the sled, gave a thumbs-up, and was ready to continue the adventure.  The rest of the journey was slower and tamer—perhaps the dogs tired—although one of my colleagues also found herself on the icy river after spilling off the sled.

All in all, I chalk up the 45-minute dog sledding escapade as a success.  My headache faded after a day and my bruised hip stopped bothering me within a week.  And when I saw headlines from the Iditarod, which coincidentally started on the same day as our adventure, I was fairly certain I could hold my own in that race.

Horse Meat

Horse meat has been in the news a lot recently after having been found in fast food burgers and tacos across much of the Western world.  Such news would not make headlines in Mongolia, where horse meat is regularly sold and consumed alongside mutton, cow, and chicken.  So I decided on one of my final grocery store trips in Mongolia to buy a package of horse meat and see what the scandal was all about.

 

There’s really not much to say except that I would challenge anyone to distinguish horse from cow’s meat.  The flavor and texture were quite similar to cow, and I did not feel compelled to call the New York Times in alarm about my horse stroganoff.

The final product and an accompanying beer for good measure

Leaving Mongolia

As I mentioned at the start of this blog, I recently departed Mongolia after nearly 3-months living and working there.  I’m now in Kiev (Kyiv, really).  There’s more snow on the ground here and the wind blows harder than in UB, but the weather is still much more tolerable.  And hints of spring are in the air, so before too long I expect flowers will begin to bloom and the city will emerge from the doldrums of a long, gray winter.  My final days in Mongolia offered hints of spring, too.  For the first time since my arrival in mid-December, temperatures were above freezing.  It’s strange how warm 35 degrees can feel after months when the high temperature for the day rarely reached 15 and the lows fell far below zero. 

So as I settle into a new routine in a new apartment and new city I find myself reflecting on what is new and what is old; where the boundary lies between safety and harm; what is important and meaningful and what is distraction.  And how to reconcile that in life the unfamiliar can be refreshing and at the same time somehow familiar. 

In front of a Buddhist monument

Chinggis Khan still looms large in Mongolia

High above the Ulaanbaatar skyline