a warmer day...

2.18.08
I have thought before about the effects of weather on people, and today this was brought to my mind, as I noticed the significantly warmer air, the sun out, and a women standing outside praying. I have seen women throwing milk on the ground and praying before, but while watching this women, I realized I hadn’t seen this since fall. As I walked through the still Tsagaan Sar deserted market yesterday, I notice that though many of the shops were still closed, there were more young people hanging out in the market. It is the change in weather lately that brings people back out of their houses and gers to enjoy the feeling of the sun and their hands and ears not freezing. I was walking to work, when I first noticed this praying women and as I proceeded across the street, I continued to notice the changes in the physical conditions outside and in the change in the atmosphere. Today is an abnormally warm day, compared to the past few months, and I am pretty sure it will be very cold once again. So, in the midst of the knowledge this warmth is not going to stick around, I take my time on my walk to work. I notice the ice that has been on the road since the first snow is slowly turning to slush, the people walking around town are walking slower, and are more lively. It is possible that it is just my own change in energy due to this warmer weather, but I think it has affected everyone around me. I continue to work contemplating the effects of weather, referring to past thoughts of the effects of weather on crime in the United States, something I have always silently wondered about, but really don’t know the answer to. As I always do, I walk in the street in the best position for absorbing the sun’s warmth, I finally cross and my thoughts are interrupted by “meow…meow…meow”. I turned looking for what could be only the 3rd cat that I know of in my town. I didn’t see anything and was about to continue my walk when I heard it again. This time I look up in the direction of the sound, only to find a furry and dirty orange, white, and brown cat sitting on the tree branch. I look up at him wondering if he is stuck or just enjoying the weather, as I am. I stand there watching the cat as he stands up, looks down, turns around, turns back, sits down and meows again. I want to help him, but there is really nothing I can do. I look around to see if anyone has noticed this cat stuck in a tree, thinking to myself, ‘this is something you only see in story books. At this point in the story, the firemen would come with their big ladder” but I am not in a story book, there are no firemen and no one around seems to care that this cat is stuck. I look to my right to find two men fiddling with their motorcycles, and to my left, I am surprised to see a couple goats walking. Whenever I see animals walking through the town, I can’t help but let out a gentle laugh at the difference between here and “home”. Of course I keep watching the goats, only to realize there are not just a few, just as I turned to finish my walk to work, I notice more goats coming around the corner. I smile to myself and stand there watching as about fifty goats and sheep cross my path with their herder walking behind them with a small whip in his right hand. After they pass, I take one more look at the cat, and continue my walk, smiling inside at the random things that happen on a daily basis. It is not normal for a herd of goats to walk through this part of the town, at the same time it is not that unordinary. There are times when I am crossing the street, where we recently got a traffic light, (we now have 2 in our town) only to find a few cows in the center divider. Sometimes I forget that I live in the countryside, then these moments bring me back. Things here became normal really quickly, but it will be interesting to see what I think when I go back to concrete California.