Tolbo Soum

The four of us Olgii PCVs finally made it out to the countryside to visit Adi in her little soum ("village") of Tolbo. In a nutshell it was 48 hours of bumpy roads, icy winds, inflated prices, complaints, laughter, over thirty hands of Monopoly Deal, delicious American food, and dozens of spilt beverages courtesy of Brian "Spilly 1" Morris and Justin "Spilly 2" Gallagher. Ah, the memories.

Under Adi's leadership, the 5 of us caught a ride to Tolbo in one Olgii's ubiquitous Russian jeep taxis. With 7 of us in the car (the driver brought his son along), we were cramped by American standards but riding in the lap of luxury by Mongolian ones. The two-hour ride was punctuated with numerous bathroom breaks, the driver's impromptu decision to switch out the carburetor, a photo opportunity, and a chance for Ashlee to take a break from Brian's "moldy brussel sprout" breath.

Justin, our driver, and our ride

Adi and her kitty, Tartepsis. Tartepsis is a Kazakh word meaning something like "bad one." She named it that because Kazakhs don't really like cats and whenever people see her cat they say "Tartepsis."

Bathroom break

Roadside maintenance

With around a thousand people, Tolbo is one of Olgii's smaller villages. It sits between a couple of mountain ranges really close to Tolbo Lake. Adi lives in a two-room house sandwiched between two other houses -- it's sort of like a triplex. Her living situation is much like ours was last year, with a few small changes. Her primary fuel source is animal dung (which she uses to burn coal), she has her own lockable outhouse, and her water-source is a good 10-minute walk from her house.

Adi's house. The white structure to the right is where she stores her dung and coal.

Adi headed out to fetch water accompanied by her two dogs. The brick structure in front of her is a standard countryside outhouse -- just a little 3 foot wall covering a pit with a couple of pieces of wood to stand on.

At the well

Justin struggling to funnel the water into the containers.

The small town that it is, Tolbo doesn't really offer much to do. We basically sat around Adi's house cooking, eating, playing games, and flipping through all the celebrity gossip magazines that Adi's family sends her. The magazines made us all realize how out of touch we are with American pop-culture because of our time here. Adi was a gracious host and she made sure we were all well-fed: amazing chicken burritos, equally amazing breakfast burritos, and turkey pepperoni pizza. Really, Brian was responsible for the pizza. Oh yeah, Ashlee also made some excellent hummus (all with ingredients bought in Olgii!).

Tolbo's main street

Poor Adi will probably be the source of town gossip over the fact that us three boys bought a large bag of beer and vodka. In Brian's words: "Hey, what else is there to do?" Actually, something that did keep us entertained was keeping track of the amount of times either Brian or Justin spilled something all over Adi's floor, rug, dresser, or bed. It must have happened at least 10 times, including the time when Brian laid back on the bed and right into the flour-covered cutting board that he was using to roll out the pizza dough.

To be fair, we did take a small sightseeing trip around town yesterday. Adi showed us the main sights of the "big store," her school, and the mosque. She also led us on a walk towards the nearby lake, although her sense of direction/distances is questionable. "Yeah, the lake is only a mile away so we should make it there within two or three hours." What? The walk did give us a chance to burn off breakfast, the scenery was beautiful, and walking on a frozen lake is always fun.

Tolbo's mosque

Looking back at Tolbo from the lake

That about wraps up our trip. We lucked out in securing practically our own car this morning for the drive back to Olgii, which we made in about 2 hours. I think it was a great bonding experience for our little Bayan-Olgii family, complete with a fair share of ribbing, eye-rolling, and tidbits of drama. It was also some great perspective for us city-dwellers. After walking the streets of Tolbo for a couple of days, Olgii is a booming metropolis.

So yeah, we're back in Olgii now looking to get on with April. School started back today so tomorrow will be my first day of classes in about a month. I've only got two weeks though because we're headed to UB on the 23rd for our "close-of-service" conference and we probably won't return to Olgii until May 7th. Also, our "close-of-service" date has officially been set as June 24th, which means that we will be back home in California either the last week of June or the first week of July. Hooray!

PS - Today I filed my statement-of-intent to register at UCLA so I am now officially a Bruin. I even have the fancy @ucla.edu email address to prove it. Actually, the address might not work until I pay tuition. Gulp.