Kneading Dough, Kneading Seeds Into Hearts

Javkah and Byermaa make pizza in our kitchen for the first time.

I recently met a Mongolian woman who teaches at a university here in town.  We met at a "Monglish Club".  This is held at a restaurant and is open to the public, encouraging Mongolians to speak English with English speakers.  The English speakers we met were mostly from the Peace Corp, and some were from other English teaching organizations.  Not all were Americans.  Some were Australian, British, and Euoropean.  Since being introduced to this club, I've made a new word for whenever I say Mongolian words wrong..."Manglish"...meaning I've mangled their language. 

Anyway, back to the Mongolian woman I met!  Her name is Amraa, which means "rest".  Most Mongolians will automatically tell you what their name means, which is quite helpful since we've been learning vocabulary.  So, if I wish you a good rest tonight, I say, "Saihan Amrarai" which I actually do say quite often when friends leave the apartment at night.  It means, "Please have a good rest."

Again, I diverge! 

So, the night I met Amraa, I found out that she had learned her first English from the son of the president of the organization we teach with, several years ago in Western Mongolia (we are directly east of that location by a 20-ish hour drive!).  She raved about how she was so thankful that she was taught English and she is forever grateful to our organization.  It was quite a wonderful meeting.  I also found out she makes beautiful Kazak bag designs. I ordered one from her that night, guaranteeing we'd see one another again to make the purchase.  As it turned out, I ordered three more after that for gifts.

During the exchange of the three gifts, Amraa reminded me that we had talked about how her hobby was this Kazak craft and my hobby was cooking.  Would I like to teach her and a few friends how to make pizza?  Yes!  We decided on a date, and this past week the date came, and so did they. 

Amraa brought four friends with her, two of them teaching colleagues.  Kevin joined in with us and one of her friends was a man who actually wrestled at the stadium at Naadam this past summer.  Only the best of the best get to wrestle at the capital city's Naadam. 

All five of the visitors had varying English abilities, but all could speak and understand a good amount.  Amraa and the man were most fluent.  They ended up rolling out dough with me and the lowest English speaker, while the other two played Yahtzee with Kevin at the table 10 feet away.  The man looked at a poster in the kitchen which had a verse on it.  "Are you both Christians?"  The conversation continued and seeds were planted.  Questions were asked.  Some by me.  Some by them.  There was interest and consideration for one another.  It was a conversation which I sometimes didn't know which way it would go next, but I kept asking for advice from Him as I listened and before I spoke.  He gave me direction.




We took this picture before adding cheese so we could see the fancy design created by Amraa (left).  The yellow and red are thinly sliced peppers.

 We ate pizza and shared more of our lives with one another. Before leaving, Amraa suggested that Kevin and I come to her house to learn to make buuz some time. I think it will happen.
These are friends to remember as we interact with them.



Hot out of the oven...the pizza is ready to eat!

Oh, by the way, the pizza was made from browned ground beef and onion as well as a sausage which looks like our summer sausage, but is made with beef and mutton.  It's not bad, but it still has the after taste of mutton.  The Mongolians love mutton like we love beef...because that's what they were raised on.  A couple flavors that some Mongolians don't like: tomato sauce and cinnamon...and we've decided again, that it's because they weren't raised on those flavors.  The pizzas which were topped by the Mongolians had half the sauce that I would normally use...ahhh, something for me to note for future pizza meals with them, right?