We went to the Middle-Gobi Desert this week to investigate a well.
The Gobi is the third largest desert in the world behind Sahara and the
Arabian. The landscape was much like Wyoming, high desert rolling
hills and plains without trees, and lots of wind. They tell us it gets a
lot drier and more sandy as you go farther South toward China. We
learned about how they live without refrigerators. They butcher an
animal and use part of it for food and they cut the rest up in small
pieces and put it on top of their geirs to dry. They then sack it up and
use it to make soup later in the year. We had some soup at a geir.
They put some dried meat in boiling water along with noodles and a
little onion. It tasted pretty good except the meat was rather tough.
We asked, "How often do you eat this dish?" Response, "At least once a
day, everyday all year." Also we learned about their geirs (yurts).
It take 3 people 1 hour to take down and pack up their geir. Three
camels will haul a geir to a new location. It then takes 2 hours to put
their geir back up. A geir costs about $1000.00. Many of their geirs
will last 20-30 years if they are taken care of. A geir is usually
about 15 feet in diameter and 6-7 feet high on the perimeter sloping to
9-10 feet in the middle. The door has a door frame with a door opening 3
feet by 5 feet. We are attaching some pictures. We have been in lots
of geirs now. They burn coal in their stoves in the winter to keep warm
and they burn dung in their stoves to cook with in the summer, so we ate
Dung cooked Dried Meat Soup! Oh, and we saw someone selling milk on
the street this week. They had 5 gallons of milk and would pour out
some into a plastic bag for someone to buy. We think it was horse
milk. Things are interesting to say the least.
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