Extract 5 - At Home with Davadorj

The ger bulged with all the necessities of daily life. Beds ran down both sides and across the far end. Garish cartoon characters frolicked across the brightly coloured spreads and hangings. On the right near the door was the kitchen, an area of shelving piled high with neatly stacked utensils. Pots and other implements hung from the roof poles. Near the centre stood a low table, behind an iron stove whose chimney pipe led out through the toono. An antique sewing machine was squeezed into a corner. It was a real family home. A big family at that, and swelled at present by visiting sisters and daughters from UB, fleeing the locker-room atmosphere and drinking sessions of Naadam for the chance of a female get-together, as women do the world over.

The floor was of beaten earth, and a rank smell of sheep filled the air. Its origin became apparent after a few moments when a nearly grown lamb scrambled from under a bed, forcing its way rudely between the elegantly stockinged and suited legs of a city relative then, alarmed at the influx of strangers, baaed loudly and galloped out of the door. A few minutes later a goat kid wandered in.

The arkhi flowed, and conversation inevitably centred on Davadorj's Naadam racehorses - he had entered five runners, ridden by his daughters, aged eight and six. Hans and Sukh began to challenge each other with drinking boasts, Sukh claiming that he could down ten litres of airag at one sitting... Someone had the impudence to joke that we would drink the place dry. No way, said Mrs. Davadorj, gesturing to the supply of airag. Besides the traditional goat-skin at the door, topped up at every milking, there were hefty reserves in the huge, open trough from which we had been served, and in which a large bluebottle was dog-paddling heroically.

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