going to the monastery

July 31^st

Everything has been pretty easy to deal with, but it is often unpredictable. I think language has a lot to do with it, but I still think that things happen more spontaneously here. One of the biggest events here was taking a trip to the monastery. If you know me, that is a subject that I'm really interested in, so I was really curious about what it would be like.

Each person had about two family members along, and since there are 10 trainees here, that adds up to 30 plus people. We ended up leaving really early and then packed into 3 vehicles. I don't have photos, so I'll leave that up to your imagination. There was a stretch of paved road, but most of the trip was very bumpy and sometimes watery. One of the cars got a flat tire, but that seems to be a regular occurrence because they always have an extra tire handy. After a couple poddy breaks and a couple people puking, we were there in no time.

Most of us though that we were going straight to the monastery, but after circling around a couple times, we all stopped by a small creek. They started to get out some food for us and we started eating. I heard that we were all going to share a goat and they told us to gather some wood. They have a curious way of cooking large amounts. They put the food in a large container and then put really hot rocks inside to cook the food. While we were waiting for the second meal to cook, some of the American guys started to do Mongolian wrestling. Everyone was really excited to watch, and it was kind of funny because we don't know all the rules. Somehow I managed to win a match, but the next ones I didn't do so well and I got pretty tired. So then we had our second meal. Each of us got a huge bone with meat on it along with a small a little bit of vegetables. When I was biting some meat off the bone, I chipped a tooth : (

Anyways, everyone started to get restless again because not much was happening, and I saw someone going around with a squirt bottle spraying people. It was kind of humorous so someone got a bowl full of water and started splashing people. Eventually people got more bottles and containers filled with water until most everyone was soaked. Some people were hiding in the car, but they ended up getting dragged out and soaked. No one was spared, but everyone was a pretty good sport about it. Just when I though it was about over, somebody picked up one of the smaller kids and put them into the creek. It was pretty funny, but that added an entirely new dimension to the insanity. One of the Mongolian dads was strong enough to pick up just about anyone. I'm pretty sure all of the Americans got thrown into the creek by the time it was all over. I inadvertently packed an extra shirt and some shorts in my bag, and I was very happy to put them on later.

Okay, so we got back into our vehicles and went to this place that had holy water and everyone loaded up there water bottles to bring home. I tasted some and it was very fresh (no, I didn't get sick from it either). Near the monastery there were a couple of shrines on top of a large set of steps. Someone told me that one of them had exactly 108 steps. Apparently that is an important number. I tried to keep track, but I lost count. I walked with my family as we went around the shrine and spun the prayer wheels. It was all very strange and beautiful. Some people spread rice, lit incense, and gave money. When we got to the monastery we did not spend a whole lot of time inside. It was not huge, but very ornate. My camera couldn't really capture all of it, but there were many gods everywhere. One of the walls had 1,000 Buddhas. I happened to learn a phrase in Mongolian to ask someone if I can take their picture. I said the phrase to one of the monks, but they did not want their picture taken. When exiting, I guess you are supposed to go backwards. I didn't know that, but they stopped me in time before I went out the wrong way. There was this bizarre thing outside that you were supposed to go inside of and turn around three times in to get reborn, but I'll explain it more when I learn more about it. There was also a circle that you were supposed to stand in and pray with your eyes closed while going towards a wall in the distance, but I didn't do it right. There's a lot of cool things to learn about, and hope that I'll understand them better while I'm here.