red light, green light

After we had completed the four walls of the house, our last day of build was notable for a hammer shortage and therefore, a lot of standing around and fidgeting. Cassandra, Jennifer, and I wanted to get in a few last interactions with the locals so we tried to chat up the little herd of baby cows lounging around our site. Like most Mongolians, they are of keen senses and could sniff out that we were a different breed of humans. The calves walked away everytime they spotted us approaching and we girls had to resort to playing red light, green light.

While four of them sat together staring into the horizon/construction site, we took silent, exaggerated steps toward them, freezing in mid-stride whenever one of them turned their eyes in our direction. My stomach ached from holding the giggles in. From across the field, a little shepard boy watched us and laughed. No doubt one of the most ridiculous sights he had yet to come across while chaperoning his sheep.

We got within 20 meters of the little cows and felt very clever until they suddenly decided they had had enough. One after the other, they pressed up onto their knees and onto their feet (hooves). We watched them strolling away, shaking their heads in disgust at our juvenile games.

This entry was posted on October 8, 2008 at 5:15 am and is filed under Mongolia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.