Little Things, Long Walks

The summer of 2020 presented challenges, not only was traveling around the world difficult, but so was getting around the block. The arrival of COVID 19 meant lockdowns and social distancing, with many public places closed. I am an avid traveler (more than 100 countries and territories) and besides missing trips to the airport - my happy place - in the summer of 2020 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. All went well and I am still cancer free. Though the pandemic was an obstacle, it also turned out to be a 'gift.' 

I have always liked to walk, anywhere. I find it relaxing. After my surgery in 2020, I walked around my neighborhood - very slowly - as part of my recovery. I got stronger and moved on to a small hilly park near my home, a 2 1/2 mile hike with a 300 to 500 foot elevation gain completed in a hour. A nice little workout. But even a pretty forest  can get a bit boring. I started timing myself, seeing if I could go a little faster, or at least not any slower, as I completed my circuit. Then, as I was walking this same route throughout 2020 and into 2021, I started to notice things. At first it was the obvious. The change of seasons from summer to autumn was colorful. Winter brought better views. In spring, the frogs mated in the vernal ponds, their 'peeping' like a heart beat echoing in the trees. There were the spring ephemerals and flowering trees like Mountain Laurel and Serviceberry. By summer, the oaks and maples and birch presented a roof of green blocking the sky, and after the rains colorful fungi hid among the roots and rocks on the trail. I found the walk was no longer boring. And I was getting slower, very much slower, as I hiked through the woods.

I started to learn about the various flora and fauna of 'my' forest. I became very interested in finding the little things, hidden gems, of nature. It makes my walk - any walk, anywhere - much more interesting. It means I do a lot of squats as I investigate and take photos. While I have an app, I like to check identifications of species against other sources for accuracy (but still I can make mistakes). I think this is healthy not just for my body, but my brain as well. It doesn't matter really, but I hope so.

So what do I see? Tiny fungi, slime mold, bits of bone from animal droppings (whose poop is that?), insects, feathers. I find big things too, but here I would like to share some photos of small things, particularly slime mold. It is not a fungi, but according to AI, a "brainless organism that acts like a single amoeba or joins together into a moving, creeping mass of protoplasm to find food" (like the creature in the 1958 film, "The Blob"). I take pictures only with my phone and depicting scale is sometimes difficult, but some of the things seen here are really, really small. 

Yes, 2020 was challenging, but the upshot is I think I am more fit in mind and body than before. Recent research shows that it is not how many steps you take, but how long you are out walking that keeps you healthy. Good news. I also learned that, if I can't go abroad, traveling around my neighborhood can still be pretty fascinating. 

Tubifera ferruginosa (red raspberry slime mold)

Arcyria cinerea

Fuligo septica (Dog Vomit Slime Mold) 

Stemoitis splendens (Chocolate Slime Mold)

Probably frog bones from owl droppings

Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa (Coral Slime Mold)

Hygrocybe miniata (vermillion wax cap)

Marasmius capillaris

Xylobolus frustulatus (ceramic parchment, a crust fungus)

When you Dine with Reindeer Herders in Mongolia: Bread, Meat and Milk

Beer and dried meat on a platform beside an urts (teepee) in an east taiga spring camp. 

“To remain who we are, we must continue to eat what we do.”

Indigenous Youth, Arctic Change & Food Culture.  

Thrived on the Margins

Eating is more than sustenance, with the very definition of food rooted in cultural knowledge. One person’s delicacy is another’s forbidden fruit.  As a Baltimorean, I was raised on steamed blue crabs flavored with the ubiquitous Old Bay Seasoning original to Maryland. These crustaceans would never find their way onto a table hosted by observant Muslims or Jews. Personal preference means I shy away from my friend’s favorite soup made with sheep’s heads, while in restaurants my children pass me the anchovies from their Caesar Salads. Encompassing religion, availability, personal experience, even income and education, the collection, preparation, and sharing of food involves specific skills and the enactment of rituals learned from one’s family. This includes special recipes handed down through generations, particular foods found only in our home regions, and the language used to name our favorite dish. Everyone, too, can he relate to the feeling of contentment experienced when encountering a familiar aroma as it wafts from the oven or pot creating an immediate visceral link to childhood. What we choose to put in our bodies is a reinforcement of who we are and where we came from. When we lose the connection to our foods, we lose our collective past. 
        Most people in the industrial world today do not raise their own animals, grow vegetables, forage or hunt, but buy their food preselected at the supermarket. Much of what we consume is prepackaged, dehydrated or frozen, ready to be baked, reconstituted, or microwaved for a ready-made meal. Not just family traditions, and hunger, but time, money, supply chains, and marketing strategies play a role in what we eat every day.

Naadam in the West Taiga, Mongolia

Getting ready for the children's reindeer race.

"Naadam" or "eriin gurvan naadam" or "the three games of men" is a major national holiday held every July in Mongolia. The three games are archery, wrestling and horse racing. A huge event attracting tourists from around the world, it is held in the national Sports Stadium in Ulaanbaatar. The horse racing occurs a bit outside the city. If you cannot attend this three-day event in the capital, smaller Naadams are held during the summer in the countryside.

Also visit: Summer Migration in the Taiga

This past June we were visited the Dukha reindeer herders at their summer camp in the west taiga of northern Mongolia. Upon arrival at our camp we learned that a group of tourists from the USA were staying nearby on their annual visit and that the next day there would be a small Naadam for guests and hosts to enjoy. By the afternoon of the next day, reindeer herders and their families had arrived for the festival. In addition, foreign tourists from Europe staying with herders elsewhere in the west taiga arrived in different groups with their guides. Besides the locals, our Mongolian horse guide and the other USA tourists participated in the wrestling event. 

There was no archery competition and instead of horses there were reindeer races. The first race was for children. Boys and girls from the age of three (a little boy tied in to his reindeer saddle) to ages 11 or 12 participated. A small six year-old girl I knew from previous years was a fierce competitor. She did not win, but she finished ahead of our 11 year-old horse guide. Her mother rode in the adult race. For the spectators, some enterprising locals were selling khuushuur (a meat pastry) and small packaged snacks. For tourists, there were carved reindeer antler pieces and reindeer antler accessories.

Though small, the gathering was colorful and the children's race especially was very exciting and intense. It was a nice way for families to have an afternoon visiting friends and family before heading off again to their separate camps in the west taiga.

Taiga Kindergarten

The kindergarten urts, west taiga, northern Mongolia.

Transition to kindergarten is an exciting time for any child, but even more so for the Dukha reindeer herding children of northern Mongolia. Throughout the year, families migrate four to six, even ten times to new pastures for their animals. They move back and forth seasonally from the forests to Tsaagannuur sum (the government center) where the schools, two banks, a hospital and a few local shops are located. In the taiga forests where the reindeer graze families stay in a birch and canvas urts (teepee) that is heated by a wood burning stove. When staying in town most families have a small wooden house. No one has indoor plumbing.

This past summer, to prepare them for entering school for the first time in the fall, five-year olds in the west taiga attended a 21-day pre-kindergarten class. There were two specially erected urts for the occasion, one a dedicated classroom and the other a temporary home for the instructors. Toys, games, floor coverings, and all of the necessary materials were transported to the countryside from Tsaagannuur by horse or reindeer. Thirty children registered for the class. Two teachers stayed from the end of June until mid-August teaching the children not just ‘academics,’ but reinforcing good hand-washing and teeth brushing habits as well. There was also lots of time for outdoor play and storytelling. Our small NGO Corawill donated some notebooks, workbooks, markers, pens and games for the children. 

In the taiga, weather delays and school closings do not exist. It snowed lightly the first day of school as the kids arrived by foot, horse and reindeer. On opening day parents came too and tied up their 'transportation' as they visited the school. What a beautiful setting for their new learning experiences.

Summer Migration in the Taiga

Urts (teepee) poles left after the migration, after a storm.The Dukha east taiga summer camp in northern Mongolia.

Reindeer are the only semi-domesticated animal native to the north. Reindeer herding is believed to have originated around two to three thousand years ago in the Sayan Mountains, located between Russia and Mongolia. Today, 24 different indigenous groups in nine circumpolar countries herd reindeer, or rangifer tarandas. The smallest of these groups are the Dukha of northern Mongolia. Today, about 58 families herd roughly 2700 reindeer in the east and west taiga (boreal forest) located on Mongolia's border with Russia. Unlike other reindeer herders, the Dukha do not regularly slaughter their animals for food. Instead, they are milked and used as pack animals.

Also visit: Views from the Taiga with Nomadicare

The Dukha say that the reindeer let them know when it is time to migrate, roughly four to six times a year. Every June, a few weeks after school has ended, families migrate from the spring camp to the summer camp high in the Sayan mountains. They stay until mid August when it is time to pack up and migrate back to the winter camp near the town. While some families and young people will remain at the winter camp, children, their mothers and the elderly will return to the nearby town for the beginning of the school year on September 1. Older students will stay in a newly built dorm while those younger than third grade will commute from their homes. Most Dukha have a small winter house or a ger (yurt) in town.

Taking down an urts (a birch pole and canvas tepee) and packing up for migration, then traveling from the spring to summer camp is accomplished in one day, regardless of the weather. In 2016 when I visited, the days were dry and beautiful, the sky a clear deep blue. This past year, there were freezing rain storms in the east and snow in the west during the days we traveled with the herders to their summer camps. We learned that intense weather is no match for a warm deel (Mongolian traditional robe), a durable rubber Russian raincoat and a sturdy taiga horse.

Also read: Life and Art: young reindeer herders in Mongolia

Charlie Creates a Movement in the Caucasus Mountains

Charlie, enjoying a quiet moment in our hotel, Shatili Tower.

In his excellent TedTalk, Derek Sivers illustrates how a crazy dancing guy at an outdoor concert creates a movement, inspiring followers by example. In the video, a 'lone nut' starts out dancing wildly on his own, but soon finds himself in the middle of an ecstatic crowd mimicking his moves. 

On a hiking holiday in the Republic of Georgia, I got to see this process unfold in real time.  I watched my friend Charlie, a community newspaper writer and editor from a small town in New Hampshire, become a lone nut and create a movement.  

Up Close and Personal with Ancient Mongolia

Above, petroglyphs at Nukhen Utug, Mankhan soum, Khovd province. 

When traveling through historical sights in the US, we are accustomed to being fenced off, roped off and warned ('don't touch!') lest we break, ruin or somehow deface places and things of value. Rightly so, the past can at times be fragile and should be protected. That being said, it is somewhat thrilling to encounter ancient rock art and hand-carved monuments bereft of fences, ropes and signs. Indeed, they are just out there in the open, available for photos and moments of quiet contemplation about how these thousands years old objects came to be.