Lester & Laura in Mongolia

Friday, September 30, 2011

"Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. I am the......"

My door buckles on its hinges as Tuya, my hashaa neighbor and Dakraa's wife bursts into my ger.  She gives me a cheerful hello, and as I go to return the greeting I trail off as I notice her head swinging from right to left, her eyes scanning my little round room.  She's looking for something.  I ask her whats the matter, and it takes me a moment to piece together her reply in my head.  "I heard you went to the store today, you bought eggs?"  I got up and pointed out a bag of five eggs I purchased earlier at the local market.  She eyed them then held them aloft.  "These eggs are bad, eggs from the city are bad."  In my head I tried to decipher what that meant, Would I get sick if I ate them?  Could there have been some kind of egg recall? (As if such a thing existed in Mongolia).  "Come" she said "We'll get you some good eggs." Deciding that the egg recall scenario didn't make much sense I tried to object.  "No, its ok, I'll eat these eggs."  She glared at me, "No, those eggs are garbage, come."  So we hopped in her white van and drove about five minutes down the road.  We pulled into a hashaa that contained a wooden house, a ger, and a large pen that housed many chickens and a couple turkeys.  We got out and she brought me over to the pen.  "These eggs are the best!"  She exclaimed.  An old man exited the house and strolled over to where we were standing.  He greeted me and shook my hand.  Tuya turned to me, "This is Dakraa's father, you will buy your eggs from him now."
So I would.
I had found the "Eggman".

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