Winter has Descended

Winter has descended upon UB. I believe that ice began to form on the Tuul River about two weeks ago. I shot this picture yesterday on my walk home after work. You can see the ice is inching it's way across the width of the channel. It won't be long before one can walk across it. It was about 18 degrees Fahrenheit for the walk. But I was in the mood for one. It occurred to me on that walk that I do feel comfortable and at home in this cold and sometimes brutal landscape. I have visited warm places and I do not feel similarly about them. I remember reading Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses a few years back--it was a book club selection--and I loved the sense of place in it. It took place in Norway. Even in books, the cold speaks to me. I did not know this about myself before living in Mongolia. 

On my previous post I forgot one very important habit--wearing clothes more than once before washing. In fact, I sometimes wear a pair of jeans or trousers for bits and parts of an entire week BEFORE sending it to the clothes hamper to be washed.

As I believe I have mentioned before, Mongolians have clothes washers, but very few have dryers. Here you hang your clean clothes on a rack to air dry. It's a dry climate and rarely takes more than half a day to dry most things. While I initially found this lifestyle habit to be odd (it was new to me!), it has become normal. I DO miss the feel of dryer-tightened jeans and SOFT fluffy towels. However, as a good friend told me, "A crunchy towel means you know it's clean!"

Yes, I've come to see that Americans are a little over-zealous with the cleaning habits. Both for clothing and for body. My guys are yet astonished that I shower EVERY day. This especially bothers my husband in the winter months and I have been repeatedly scolded for not allowing my bodily oils to congregate and protect me from infection and disease. I confess that every once in a while, I skip a day. This is always on a weekend. And I now generally wash my hair only every other day. And you know what, it's all very normal to me now. 

I wish I could say that I thought my clothing would last longer because they aren't being bumped around in a dryer. But the clothes washers here seem to be especially brutal on clothing!

I'll depart with this image, also taken on yesterday's sojourn, of a truck stacked high with hay which will help someone's herds makes it through the bitter months of cold that are imminent. I'm fairly confident that Mongolia does not have laws that stipulate the maximum height of stacking done on a truck!