Our first full day in Mongolia took us to visit a nomadic family to spend the day helping with, and participating, in their normal daily life. This meant leaving site at 0700 so we wouldn’t miss too much. Our “Aravt” (group) were dropped off with a young family in the middle of nowhere. We were introduced and offered milk tea. Obviously not something Rosie was too taken with, but I really enjoyed it. In the morning a few of us spent a couple of hours helping to herd the animals on horseback, and the girls helped to make curd, cookies and cream from the mornings milkings.
During the course of the day, we all had a go at collecting cow pats and laying them out to dry ready for use in the stove. Apparently it takes about 3 days to dry dung sufficiently to burn. Just before lunch, Chris gave the nomad children some tennis balls to play with, and we subsequently spent the next hour or 2 playing catch.
In the afternoon we walked over to another family who kept horses. It was milking time (as it is every hour) so we watched them milking their mare’s and we then invited in to their ger to try some “Airag”, otherwise known as fermented mare’s milk. Everyone tried it, but in the politest way we could, refused seconds - it was absolutely disgusting! We were very grateful to get back to the family we spent the morning with, and to have some milk tea to wash away the taste.
After visiting the other family the girls were then taken out to ride in groups and we made twists ready for after dinner. Once everone had had their turn on the horses, it was time for the evening milking of the cows, so we were all invited to have a go. Percy and I actually managed to get milk from them, while Orgi (our Mongolian Rover Scout) nearly pulled to cows teets off!! We finished the day off with some dinner and taking some photos from the hill above the nomads home. We were then picked up just before sunset.
