Istanbul/Mongolia Trip - Thursday, March 14th, 2024 - Mongolia Day 3

Thursday morning, Trek got up early & ran 6 miles through Cadence’s last mission area including the countryside part of the area where all the gers (tents) were. He loved seeing the river completely frozen over, the interesting gers, & the church building she served in. While Trek ran, Cadence & I worked out at our apartment together which is always fun.

When we finished we all got ready for the day & set off on a long walk to another one of Cadence’s mission areas in the city. It was about 3-4 miles to the Narantuul Market. This is a HUGE indoor & outdoor market, similar to a bazaar. There were 4-5 stories of store after store after store inside & then rows & rows of outdoor marketplace stands as well. Every single morning, the vendors had to set up their shops by gathering & transporting their goods from their cars & storage sheds. At the end of the business day, they had to clean out their merchandise & store it for the night. Just watching them exhausted me. They are such hard working people. We started in the indoor market & the first thing we bought was a bag of “bread” from a vendor. Their bread “rolls” are similar to scones in the UK mixed with a German pretzel. They had the taste of sweet scones, but were hard & crunchy to eat. Cadence said they’d buy a bag & eat it for a month so by the end of the month these little rolls were hard as rocks. They like to dip them into their tea (consisting of hot water, milk [that tastes like grass], salt, & oil. . . yes we drank that too & it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either). Each shop was very small in size, but the vendors would stuff them as full as they possibly could with their goods. It was crazy tight inside them. We looked at breads, foods, Mongolian clothing, curtains, rugs, kitchenware, beads, & more. We didn’t have anything in particular in mind to buy, but we sure had fun. Outside it was pretty cold (about 15 degrees), but we still went up & down every aisle to see what they had. Cadence bought a beautiful green business coat to use back in the states. Trek bought a gorgeous teal colored deel shirt (traditional Mongolian celebration shirt) as well as a matching Mongolian men’s hat. Cadence had a fuschia deel custom made for me, & then we bought some beaded head jewelry to go with my deel & for each of the girls. Cadence also got some ties made from Mongolian fabric for each of the boys & her grandfathers. Trek also bought some fabric to add to his military mess dress shirt to brighten it up a bit. We had so much fun shopping. We spent over 3 hours at the marketplace.

When we started feeling hungry for lunch, Cadence decided to take us to the KFC next to the marketplace because KFC was her favorite restaurant while living there. We had passed the KFC as we walked to the marketplace, but it was GONE when we walked back to it. I’m not kidding. It was open that morning, & closed completely, sign taken off the restaurant, tables removed, etc. by the time we left the market. How bizarre was that? We decided to walk 3-4 miles back to our hotel to drop off everything we bought & then we walked another mile to the KFC that was closest to the hotel. Eating at KFC was quite an adventure as well. We ordered a “meal for 2” (& it cost about $5 – SUPER CHEAP). As we waited for our food, 3 random kids sat down next to us & started talking to us in Mongolian. Cadence struck up a conversation & learned that they came to KFC for some ice cream. They asked us if we got ice cream as well. We did. It was about 10 minutes into this conversation that a KFC employee came up to them & started pulling them out of the restaurant. I guess they didn’t have any money & were begging for money for ice cream off of people. Cadence told us that a lot of families can’t afford food for their families so they send their children out on the streets to beg for food. We immediately got up & took the kids some money so they could buy some food for themselves. It broke my heart to see kids who had to beg for daily food. Then after that, our food came & we brought it to our table to eat. Less than a minute after we sat down, a drunk man walked up to us & literally stole our food right off the table. Trek was hilarious. . . he followed the man, grabbed our food back & said “NO, NO, NO, NO!” as he pointed to our food. The guy yelled at us & tried to grab our food again. Trek had to forcefully put himself between us & the man because he was definitely drunk & not himself. The man started following other people around the restaurant trying to take their food as well. As we ate, he made his way back around to us & tried to take our food again. Trek put himself between us & the man again, & forced him out of the restaurant. We laughed about it afterward because it was such a bizarre situation, & deep down we would have been happy to share our food or even buy him his own food if he would have just asked instead of just taking it. The whole situation was just scary. Then, while we enjoyed our food, a cute little boy sat in the booth behind us & he was obsessed with Cadence & her blond hair. He kept touching her hair & just talked & talked & talked & talked to her. He was adorable. We enjoyed learning his name, favorite color, & that his favorite restaurant is KFC. He also called Trek & I “grandma & grandpa!” ha ha ha. His grandma had taken him there to have lunch with her & we all became fast friends. It was adorable.

After lunch, we walked to the Chinggis Khan museum. Along the way a stray dog decided he wanted to protect us the entire walk which was kind of hilarious. Wild dogs are everywhere in Mongolia. Most of them are HUGE. This guy was a medium sized dog & he walked right next to us the whole 2 miles to the museum. Mongolians are scared of dogs so it was interesting to see how they’d completely avoid the area where the dog was walking so they wouldn’t have to walk near it. A lot of them jumped & curled up when they noticed the dog near them. The Chinggis Khan museum was amazing. Cadence’s “mission dad” (a family that treated her like their own while she served her mission there) works at the museum & he gave us a personal tour. The museum has 9 floors of complete Mongolian History. Trek was loving it. Cadence translated for us quite a bit & we got to see so many interesting things. No pictures were allowed in the museum unfortunately (there were SO MANY cool things to take pictures of), but we loved every minute we spent there.

After the museum, the owner of Cadence’s favorite restaurant was at the museum ready to pick us up in his car. There were no seatbelts in his car which made me nervous, but that’s just how things are there. We drove through the crazy traffic to the outskirts of the city to the small home his family lived in. Going out the countryside was such a wonderful cultural experience for us. I always love seeing how other people & other cultures live & it fascinates me. This family lives in a humble 1 room home. They use this one room as a TV room, dining room, & bedroom to sleep 5 people. I asked Cadence about it & she said this was a typical home for most people. There was a small area used as a kitchen on the side & they usually sleep on the floor together as a family. Most homes do not have a bathroom, so they use an outhouse in their yard to do their business each day. It is typical to wash themselves every 2 weeks or so. It’s definitely different than what we are used to here in the states, but it works for them & they are happy. It was wonderful to be part of this with them. As we entered their home, we removed our shoes & their children gave us house slippers to wear. They sat us down on the table in the center of the room & on it they had a variety of bottled water & fruit (which is extremely expensive in Mongolia. 1 apple = $15 . . . a small bunch of grapes = $30). They invited us to eat the fruit as they brought us a salad. This was the point that Trek & I realized they were about to feed us dinner. (We thought it was just a visit to meet their kids). I think we both had a little bit of panic in our faces because we weren’t sure how our stomachs would handle the food. First the family brought out a beautiful lettuce/tomato/cucumber salad which was delicious. They sat in the one bed at the corner of the room while we ate (Cadence said that is typical as well. The family would eat beforehand so they could visit with us while we ate.). Next, they brought us Buuz. Buuz is what we feared most coming to Mongolia. Cadence has eaten SO MANY Buuz throughout her mission. Some are delicious & some absolutely scary for Americans. They are fist sized dumplings filled with mystery meat (it can range from sheep to beef to horse to straight fat, to intestines, to stomach lining, to feces. You just never know what you’re going to get.). Since this sweet family owned a restaurant, I was pretty confident these were going to be good. They gave us each a bowl of 12 fist sized dumplings, & then added more salad on top of them. All 3 of us probably could have eaten out of one bowl & been completely full. But, they were sweet & gifted each of us 12 of our own to enjoy. I put one in my mouth & to my surprise I loved it. It was big, there was quite a bit of grease/oil inside, & the meat was sheep with mostly fat on it, but I liked it a lot. Poor Trek took one bite & his eyes started to water. His stomach doesn’t do well with fatty pieces of meat so I knew it was going to be a tough night for him. He managed to eat 4 of them & 3 more with Cadence’s help. I ate 9 of my 12. The family chatted with us as we ate. After dinner, they asked us to do a tequila shot with them. We had to explain that we don’t drink alcohol, & they understood, but asked us to toast with them anyway, even if we didn’t drink it. So we made a toast to health & happiness & the father drank our shots for us. We visited a little longer, & then it was time to go. Before we left, each of the children brought us gifts: mugs & magnets of Mongolian queens. It was so precious & meant so much to us that this family we had never even met before could treat us like kings & queens. This was the highlight of my trip to Mongolia. I love people. I love culture. And I love being in the middle of it all. This family meant the world to me & I will never forget their love & generosity. After dinner, he drove us back to our apartment & we packed up our things & got ready for bed.