Milk tea and progression

10-10-08 (i think)


(this picture was taken from the internet)













I was in the countryside with my director and her family, visiting some good friends of theirs. After going through many of the usual rituals of drinking tea, airag, and vodka and after the usual discussion about how good I am because I drink Mongol tea, eat Mongol food, and drink Mongol airag; the Mother of the household went outside to get some milk so she could make a fresh batch of milk tea. She milked a few goats and came back with a tin pail full of milk. She lit the fire, poured water into the large wok, along with the green Mongol tea leaves, and when the tea was brewing to her liking, she added the milk she had just retrieved. She proceeded to churn the tea with a large deep spoon, filling it with liquid, lifting it above the wok and pouring it back in, in a series of fluid motions that she had done millions of times throughout her life, probably beginning around the age of 4 or 5. She then added some salt and sifted a little while longer; all the while the rest of the people gathered in the ger, (around 8 or so) talked, drank airag, and played the finger game around her. I sat there, participating in the finger game, airag drinking, and conversation where I could… all the while my eyes kept returning to the woman making milk tea. It was nothing I hadn’t seen a million times before, and it seems everyone makes milk tea the same way, but the motions of her weather worn hands caught my eye each time I found myself in between conversation opportunities. In these situations, I either leave the Mongolian that is too fast for me to understand as background noise to my thoughts and my body simply feeling the experience, or occasionally I test myself to see how much I can understand. As the woman put the strainer over the tea pot and poured the freshly made milk tea through it, leaving the tea leaves behind, my thoughts returned to the woman making tea and I watched her serve each person in the ger, beginning with the oldest male of the household, proceeding to the oldest woman, and so forth. I sat with my tea, allowing the Mongolian words to swirl around the room with the steam rising above my hands. I began to think of the entire tea making process that I had just witnessed. It was at this very moment that I realized how far I have come in my cultural development, for this woman had just milked a goat for our milk tea, and I sat there and drank it without a second thought. In fact, I didn’t even blink twice when she went outside and came back with a tin full of milk. In the past year, I have been exposed to many different situations that I would NEVER experience in America, and it is interesting to think what kinds of things I have gotten so used to in my time in Mongolia, for this is a truly amazing country with a beautiful culture.

I sit here writing this, burning hot in my ger, almost exactly 24 hours from our first snow of the year. I have kept my fire relatively lit throughout the night, and it is like a furnace in here. Every so often, I step outside to feel the brisk “winter” air on my open skin. I put winter in quotes simply because this is not even close to what the winter will get to… this is just the beginning.