Where the Pavement Ends: One Women's Bicycle Trip Through Mongolia, China and Vietnam by Warmbrunn Erika

Author:Warmbrunn, Erika [Warmbrunn, Erika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2012-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

Buyanjargal looked at my vegetables and shook her head. She reached for the knife: “Smaller, you have to cut them smaller.” Turnip, potato, and cabbage weren’t exactly broccoli, shiitake mushrooms, and red bell peppers, but I was about to attempt a vegetarian stir-fry. “No,” I told her, holding on to the knife, “you don’t have to cut them smaller.” In Buyanjargal’s world, of course, vegetables weren’t really food. At best they were garnish, and all across her vast country they were chopped into the same diminutive sizes. “I know this is bigger than you have ever seen them chopped,” I added, “but I promise they can be cooked like this.”

She had dropped by when I was making my lunch the day before, too, and witnessed something even more upsetting than the oversize vegetables: a packet of freeze-dried chili and beans dumped into a small pot of boiling water. I had been avidly looking forward to the insta-food—carried across an ocean because I had been told there was no food in Mongolia—because while there was plenty of food, there was little variety and absolutely no spice. I warned Buyanjargal that she probably wouldn’t like the chili. I looked up the word “spicy.” I told her she didn’t have to finish it. Then I gave her a small bowlful, just as Lkhamsüren had once given me, sure I wouldn’t like guriltai shöl. Buyanjargal sniffed at it and glanced up at me, a little concerned. Then she slipped a spoonful into her mouth. Her eyes went wide and she reached for the bread I was holding ready. With her mouth full of bread, she looked at me again, her eyebrows high on her forehead. Was it really supposed to taste like this? She had braved her way through half the bowl before giving up. Now she threw her hands up in despair and left, shaking her head at me and my incomprehensible food.

That evening, just as I settled in to prepare the next day’s classes, Buyanjargal’s little brothers burst through the door. She had told her mother about my inedibly hot, strange food out of a packet. She had told her about my huge vegetables. And her mother, sure I was starving, had sent the boys to save me. “Come to our house!” they chirped. I was annoyed. I was touched. I put away my notebooks and went with them. Their father was playing cards with a few friends when we walked in, and their mother was scrubbing clothes on a rough washboard. She had clearly not been expecting me. It turned out that Battur just wanted to play chess, and Buyanjargal wanted to know if I would take a picture of her family.

As word had spread through the village that I had a camera, kids had begun crowding into my ger to ask for photographs of themselves and their friends. People I didn’t know approached me: “Hello, will you take my picture?” Families wanted to pose in many different combinations. I had learned to say, “I don’t have enough film.

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