The Move

I have finished my first Rural Homestay. For the past 12 days, I have been living in Delgerkhaan Soum, Hentii Aimag, which is a bumpy five hour drive away from Ulaanbaatar. Mongolia is divided into 21 Aimags, or proviences, which are then divided into Soums. Since there is so much I want to share about this experience, I thought it best to break it down into topical categories, rather than try to make a chronological account of the past two weeks.

Two days after I moved in, it was time for the family (both GERs) to move to follow the heard to better pasture land. I was a little confused as to why they didn't try to tell me it was happening, but as the roof started coming down, I figured it out pretty quickly; I need to pack my things!

I cannot properly describe the moving process, so I will try to post as many pictures as I can. The tear-down process took thirty minutes, that's including loading the truck with one GER. We moved less than 5 KM, but that was enough for even me to tell a difference in the quality of pasture.

As I said, I won't even waste time describing this move - but I do want to comment on the lack of attachment to a specific spot. To me, it was a beautiful, but sad moment when we moved. The whole house was packed up on a truck. I had become attached to the GER, so much had happened to me in it - but there it was, all loaded up on the truck ready to go away. That GER, that spot, meant so much to me, but everyone was just packing it up without giving it a moments pause for reflection on "all of the good times in that home" before moving on! Then, there was even less pause in picking out the new spot for the GER. Not a sigh as the door went up, not a smile as the new home appeared.

To me - this was a process that required closure and acknowledgement of a new beginning, both of which were lacking.

And then I got it.

As all of the furniture was moved back in, as the same items hung from the same sports, as the same wood-chips were used to support the same leaning stove, I realized this was the exact same house. This was the same family, the same positioning (GER doors always face south), the same stuff - this was the same house!
Clearly a Herder feels a strong connection to the land, but on this day I realized that connection was not to a specific plot of land, but rather to the whole of 'mother earth'. Perhaps this is a comment on the left-over socialist policy of government ownership of land. Perhaps as the country shifts to land privatization, this feeling will change and attachment will coincide with ownership, stewardship with self-benefit.