White Month Part 1

1/29/11

Hey friends! Soon it will be the highly talked about Mongolian new year, Tsagan Sar which literally translates into “White Month”. I get the feeling that the color white symbolizes purity since they also eat a lot of dairy (white) food during the summer as a way to cleanse their bodies from the meat-eating winter days. This holiday is such a big deal that Peace Corps has given not one, but two classes on what to expect and how to behave during Tsagan Sar. Its times like this I wish I invested in a Mongolian deel which is their traditional clothing, mostly worn by the older generation although there are few younger ones who sport it. During important holidays or ceremonies I always get nervous about saying, doing, and wearing the wrong thing. One of the things that I find the most interesting about Mongolia is that there is many, many social rules. For example, you shouldn't whistle or hum in doors, you shouldn't shake someone's hand with your glove still on, you shouldn't step on the threshold of a ger,if you accidentally tap someone's foot you have to immediately shake their hand and say your sorry, and the list goes on. When a holiday comes around, the stakes go hirer thus my nervousness. I know what your thinking, “hey Ellie, your a foreigner and everyone who sees you will know that! No one expects you to know all these hidden rules.” FALSE. I actually truly don't mind the rules, I find them extremely fascinating and I want to impress/respect the Mongolians who are kind enough to take me in during a holiday.

I remember reading an M20's blog about celebrating Tsagan Sar before leaving for Mongolia, and its strange that now I will be celebrating (and later blogging about) it.

How is Tsagan Sar Celebrated you ask?

Well, from what I understand, its 3 days long and the younger generation visits the older generation. Each house has a table that is set-up with these huge bread/cook things that are stacked up very nicely, and tons of candy, vodka, juice, fruits and a full goat. When you visit a house/ger, you must greet you host by putting your arms underneath theirs and give them a sniffing kiss on each side. A sniffing kiss? Hm, sound strange, you say. But its not! They believe that when they do this, they take in a bit of your essence (beautiful, isn't it?). So after the greeting, I am not sure what happens but I know that you must take at least one shot of vodka and at least 3 bootz. This may not sound too bad, but after visiting 5 houses or so, those all start to add up.

So I have had the excellent idea of leaving my soum, a place of 10,000 people, and head over to my host family's house in Erdene; a soum of 2,000 people. Why, you ask? Simply because I wanted to experience Tsagan Sar in a more traditional setting and it will be awesome to see my host family again as well as some of my fellow PST training group who have also decided to venture over to our small summer training site. It should be interesting since my old ger, which I stayed in during the summer, was taken down so chances are I will sleep with my host family in their one room house and their family of 6. However, if there is no room , I will stay in my friend's ger who happens to live in Erdene. I am extremely excited to see what this holiday will bring and how the adventures will unfold.

Until next time!

Ellie the Great