Wood supply, broken chainsaw and donation

Day: 143-148

Sunrise:
09:19/09:23

Sunset:
17:14/17:15

Total kilometers:
1141

Temperature – Day (maximum):
minus 25°C

Temperature – day (minimum):
minus 30°C

Temperature – Night:
minus 45°C

Latitude:
51°21’785”

Longitude:
099°21’046”

Maximum height:
1475 m above sea level

For a few days now, I have been working around the poor charging situation by charging two notebook batteries from the Ayush mains plug. Since he grumbles something incomprehensible to himself every day when I plug my batteries into his socket, I give him 1,000 Tugrik today. (€0.57) “For electricity,” I say to him in appreciation. “Bairlalaa,” he thanks with a smile, pressing the banknote to his forehead and then letting it disappear into a drawer. To maintain his happiness, I would have to hand him one of these bills every day, which is of course utopian. At Saraa, we would have paid 5,000 tugrik (€2.85) for a whole month’s electricity consumption. Of course, I don’t want to denigrate Ayush by mocking his permanent bad mood. We are grateful to him for taking us in. Even if we know that the reason for this is purely business-related. However, every day makes it a little more difficult to live with him.

Today is the day when our wood supplies have dwindled to just a few hours. As Jock is still repairing the old truck, he rumbles into our yurt, examines one or two objects, drinks a cup of tea, eats some cookies, pokes his ear with a match and explains that we can use wood from Ayush’s supplies. “Oh Bairlalaa (thank you), I’m glad. However, it turns out that there are tree trunks lying in front of Ayush’s estate. They first have to be cut up with the chainsaw. As my new Chinese chainsaw won’t start, Jock borrows some petrol from me to cut them up with his Russian chainsaw. But how could it be otherwise, his saw won’t start either. “The spark plug. Comes from China. It’s muu (bad),” he says and gets another one. At minus 32 °C, with ice-cold fingers, we struggle to get the thing running. 30 minutes later, the machine spits and sputters until we can finally saw the logs. When we start on the second log, Jock’s Russian chainsaw fails completely.

I desperately try to start my saw until the starter cable breaks. “What a shitty thing!” I curse and vow never to buy a Chinese product again in future.

The next day we actually get the load of wood we paid for and promised a long time ago. This time it is actually quite good wood. But as I can’t do anything with large tree trunks without a chainsaw, I spend half the day walking through Tsagaan Nuur to buy the cracked starter motor. Without success. On the way back I meet a Mongolian whose daughter Ayush has adopted because his wife died a few years ago. As the man has no job and is struggling to support his daughter, this is a good solution. He has to help out with Ayush from time to time.

I approach the friendly man and show him the defective part of the chainsaw. He smiles and gestures for me to follow him into his log cabin. A friend of his and he immediately make over my saw. They quickly dismantled the machine and conjured up the right spare part from a cupboard. “Sit down,” the man offers me a seat on a worn sofa. Fascinated, I let my eyes glide around the room. It is simple but spotlessly clean. The kitchen cutlery hangs neatly on hooks. A television, which he immediately switches on, begins to flicker and play music. At the front of the room is the usual ancestral table on which stands a picture of his deceased wife. She must have been young when she left this earth. She looks at me with a wistful smile while her husband and his friend struggle to get the new used part into my saw. But it doesn’t take long and they are successful. Then they tighten the chain, not without oiling it. “Come with me,” the widower asks me to follow him outside. The two men start the saw and chop up a few of the logs lying around as a test. “Tschin setgeleesee bajrlalaa”, (“Thank you very much”) I say, happy about the perfect and unexpected repair. “What do you get for it?” I ask. “A bottle of vodka,” says the friend. I immediately go to Ayush to buy a bottle of vodka from him, despite the inflated price. “Oh, you drink vodka?” he says happily. “No, no, it’s a gift,” I reply.

Require a sum of 15 to 20 million

As we will soon be leaving for the taiga and there is no lake water there, we take the opportunity to wash ourselves again in the evening. Tanja has heated water in our wok. I stand in a metal bowl with barely enough room for a baby and try to clean myself from the bottom up. Not without changing the water a few times, of course. A very time-consuming and laborious procedure. After two hours I feel reasonably clean. I get out of my bowl and dry myself off when my cell phone rings. “It’s Saraa. Did you finally get your firewood?” “Yes, all right. Thank you very much for your help,” I reply. “How are you?” I continue the conversation. “Oh, not so good. Went to the market with my son today. Had to get something. When we got there, he jumped out of the minivan. I ran after him so he wouldn’t run into a car and must have lost my wallet in the process.” “Your wallet?” “Yes.” “So, is the loss big?” “Yes. The entire monthly salary of Gonschig. So 180,000 tugrik, (€103) two passports and four credit cards.” “Oh man. That’s terrible. Maybe the finder will give them back,” I try to comfort Saraa. “I don’t think so. There are hardly any good people in Mongolia,” she replies dejectedly.

“But I still have something on my mind. My best friend’s two-year-old daughter has lung cancer. She has already undergone surgery without success. The only chance she has is an operation in a specialized Chinese clinic. But that costs between 15 and 20 million Tugrik (8,571 € to 11,428 €). We have been collecting money for some time but it is difficult because it is very urgent. The cancer is growing again,” I hear the sad story. “How much money do you already have together?” I ask. “About three million.” (€1,714) “Oh, you still have a lot to do. Do you think there’s any chance of raising the money?” “I don’t know. I can only hope,” she replies.

Because there is no ATM in Tsagaan Nuur from which we can withdraw money and we only have a limited amount of Tugrik with us for the winter, our hands are tied to help Saraa’s friend. Nevertheless, we transfer 20,000 Tugrik from the small local bank. (11,42 €) Saraa is very happy about this as most people and companies are often unable to give more than 5,000 Tugrik. (2,85 €).

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