Curious to know what I’m doing riding that poor reindeer?
Well, first and foremost, that little deer took me 4 hours through sinking marshes,
rugged mountain passes, snow drifts, rivers and rocks, and didn’t falter once.
In fact, my little guy was always booking it to be leader of the pack and I
barely had to do a thing but sit back and hold on.
This reindeer is one of only 600ish left herded by Mongolia’s
smallest ethnic group called the Tsaatan (Reindeer Herders) in Northern Khovsgol
Aimag, Mongolia. This remote area, the world’s largest biome (FACT; National
Geographic), is called The Taiga. The communities, The Tsaatan, are a tough but
dwindling population due to children leaving their families for higher
education, short life spans, and disease and injury due to the hardships of
nomadic lifestyle. Total people currently hovers around 260. Their reindeer
herds are also endangered due to parasites, wolves, climate change, loss of
habitat due to unregulated mining and climate change, and inbreeding.
EXCERPT (this is the point in the infomercial when the music
turns from dreary to cheery, and us Peace Corps volunteers come in to save the day….)
A fellow volunteer mentioned to me last year a summer English
project he did with this community. I was immediately intrigued and sought him
out to get involved. He put me in contact with a Mongolian English teacher in Khovsgol
who works closely with the Tsaatan. With the help of Serdamba, the English
teacher, and phrase master of “In this case”, and “oh, my god” (Which is
adorable until your trying to get something done), we assessed the health needs
of the Tsaatan and wrote a small grant together to print health education
materials for classes and donate some oral hygiene supplies, with the goal of
creating some sustainable health improvement practices. Friends of Mongolia
funded our project, an organization comprised of mostly returned Mongolia Peace
Corps Volunteers.
Me and Serdamba
As popularity in the project grew exponentially in the Peace
Corps Mongolia community we soon had a group of about 22 volunteers and the
Peace Corps office on our back to get this project in motion. There are two
main communities in the Taiga where the Tsaatan live, East and West, so we
split the group in two, equally dividing English Teachers, Youth Development
Volunteers, Health Volunteers and for my lucky group, one Business Volunteer to
implement it.
With the goals to teach English, hold health and environment
classes and have some basic health screenings for adults, and for an unique cultural
adventure, our groups were loaded with books, teaching materials, health
equipment, and teepee material, for us to make a place for this to all go down.
I’d like to say we packed lightly but with our food and belongings, my group had
5 packhorses overloaded. For 11 people and for 10 days, that might not be too
bad.
To backtrack a bit, you may notice this isn’t any ol’
project. One committed implied that they were down for traveling a minimum of
30 hours on an unpaved mountainous road from Ulaanbaatar to Tsaagaanuur, and another
4-8 hours by horseback depending on trail conditions. It also guaranteed that
you wouldn’t know when your next shower would be and that you are a fine
adapter to B.O.
Our groups traveled together until Tsaagaanuur, the
northernmost town in the Taiga, and where we had planned to pick up our
Mongolian steeds, and head in our respective directions. With the typical late
arrival of our horse guides (and mounts), they came at 12pm instead of 8am, we
opted to drive as far as our poragons (Russian vans) could go to save daylight,
and let the guides gallop the horses.
I convinced the guides to let me join the gallop, which was
surreal. I’ve had my fair share of galloping, but in a group of 24 half-wild
endurance horses (not our typical slender bluegrass beauties, but real stocky,
solid, and hardy guys) that vibe is taken to the next level. It was
exhilarating, and even more surreal was passing other wild herds who would race
past us whinnying and bucking freely, just staying far enough to not
intermingle. These horses have an amazing endurance capacity, and when we would
slow to a walk to let them rest, they would be pulling to run again a few
minutes later.
When we caught up to the van 2 hours later, our guides began
alternating vodka shots while packing our horses, and when all was packed and
mounted the only sober guide, this young boy, took the lead while the four
others wavering in their saddles, hung in the back with the packhorses. Someone
had suggested that a nice gesture before our trip is to give the guides a
bottle of vodka. As seasoned volunteers, we should have seen that as a road to
trouble. They individually purchased three more bottles, which we found later
at our camp.
Afraid that we were going to leave our guides in the dust,
and being new buddy-buddies with the guys now that they had seen me ride, I
joined them in the back offering nuts and water. Chatting friendly for while,
we kept moving, losing a packhorse every now and then. When one guy took a face
plant off his horse to the ground, they passed me his packhorse and shooed me
up ahead.
The main troublemaker out of our guides...
To sum it up, it was a slow going 4 hours, not only did we
have some faulty guides but the trail was sloppy and the horses were exhausted.
When we arrived at a small Tsaatan camp, what we later learned to be the spring
camp, we were told this is where we would stop and camp for the night, and ride
again in the morning. When morning came we were informed that the summer camp,
where the majority of the West Taiga Tsaatan were heading was another 2 -day
ride from where we were, and the guides wouldn’t take us. We chatted briefly
with some of the Tsaatan and they said more families would come back to the
spring camp for our lessons and that we should just sit tight.
After the guides left, the Tsaatan families at our camp,
about 4 at that point, came over and graciously helped us find branches and set
up our Teepee, they even gave us some extra material and a stove to cook on. We
soon started playing games with the children and trying to set up times for the
health and English classes.
On the second day our main Tsaatan family contact came over
to our camp for health screenings and told us they would be leaving the next day
for the summer camp. They invited 4 of us to ride with them if we wanted,
saying it’s only a day trek. Slightly confused, since we thought that family
would be staying, we asked some more clarifying questions (with our limited
Mongolian, and their accents it made it difficult to communicate, but with no
translator, we worked with what we had). Communication within the Tsaatan is
mainly through word of mouth when passing others on a trail (phone service is
limited to the top of a few mountains) and since all families were supposedly heading
to the summer camp, we figured we should go there if we wanted to access the
majority of the community, and the kids to teach English. 6 us jumped on the
opportunity and we left that afternoon with minimal supplies, two walking and 4
on reindeer.
The trail to the West Taiga summer camp was tough, but
beautiful, and the “two-day” trek turned out to be 4 hours. Riding the
reindeers was cool, it took a bit to balance since they’re so skinny, but they’re
most definitely built for their environment and are extremely surefooted. They
don't spook, and only offered a fight when trying to keep them from grazing.
The “bridles” are tied just around they’re antlers, and you only have one rope
to steer from, but with their herd instinct they follow in line pretty easily. I also have always imagined reindeer as
majestic, but they snort like pigs, and pant like a dog when their hot. Our
guides, a young couple, were adorable, Huyaga was riding a
beautiful, but spooky light bay stallion that tripped, stumbled and jumped at every stone,
and his wife rode a reindeer with four trailing pack reindeers. She sat basically bareback
and would swing her legs around like a child, right at home, loving
the ride.
We were warmly greeted at the summer camp early evening with
fresh homemade sourdough bread and Reindeer Milk (quite fatty but rich and
tasty). After riding in wind and rain and alternating the 2 walkers, we all had
soaked feet, and it was a welcomed relief. They set up a Teepee for us and gave
us a solar panel for a light. We made dinner and headed to bed.
The next morning I met with the Emee (grandmother) of the
West Taiga, and took blood pressures and BMI of some of the adults and talked
briefly about their diet, health concerns and questions. Since I’m no doctor,
and conversation was basic, I mainly shared the information I brought
concerning their needs and suggested they try to cut down on their salt and fat
intake and do some stretching to ease their back pains. The men of the
community were all out on a trek to find wood, so I just screened the women and
found that most have borderline to high BP’s and are typically a little
overweight (surprisingly, with all the manual labor). They have little to cook
with; flour, dried meat, reindeer milk, which they make into cheese and other
hard dairy products. They use salt to season everything, with a little wild onion in
the spring in summer. With little access to anything else, and as nomads, with
little income, getting fruits and veggies into their diet is near impossible.
The Tsaatan children had runny noses, coughs and bumps and
bruises from handling the reindeer, BUT are happy, lively and tough. We only
stayed two nights and had one full day, but during our time we played games,
had health and English lessons, and hung out with the kids as they did their
work milking or taking the reindeer out to pasture.
We headed back to the spring camp the next afternoon, with
our same adopted parents, all on reindeer and took a more
direct trail straight up a mountain. We had to hike down most of it due to
steepness, loose rocks, and snow banks. When we arrived back at there were
only two families left, but the volunteers who had stayed back had created
close bonds with those children and families.
With few kids to teach, our last few days were spent
relaxing in the woods, fishing with our Shaman neighbor (but only he caught
anything), hanging out and practicing English, and teaching how to play Frisbee
and hacky sack to the older kids and adults. Overall, I felt our project went well
despite the setback of being at the wrong camp, and having fewer kids/adult to
work with. But, the Tsaatan welcome us back and with our new connections, we
hope planning for next year will work out better!
It’s Naadam time again in Mongolia, so I get a three day holiday off to enjoy wrestling, Archery, Horse racing and lots of huushur eating!
Sending my best to everyone!
-Gracie
