The Wonder of a Mongolian Ger — Matt Flavin

Where do I begin? The people here are so friendly. Often while riding on our local tour bus, I will stick my head out the window and wave or smile. I am not surprised if a smile is shared back or followed by a hearty wave. Mongolia has soul, and so do Mongolian gers. A ger is similar to a Native American tepee but larger, and a modern gers generally has a solid floor with some sort of vinyl flooring or carpeting. The heat source is a wood burning stove that heats up well, leaving you sweating near bedtime and shivering in the morning long after the fire has died out in the late night. Usually, a staff member would come around and light the fires an hour or so before bed time. We would then fill the stoves full of wood or dung before falling asleep. If we were lucky, the staff would come in throughout the night to keep the fire stoked; otherwise, we would freeze by the wee hours of the morning when they came again to relight the fire.

The southern Gobi was very warm during the day and often windy, but, once the sun sets behind the mountains in the far horizon, a great chill sweeps across the plains and it feels good to throw the covers on and sleep like a rock till morning.

The construction of a ger is near genius. There are two seven-foot support beams in the middle and rods that pose as roof trusses on the sides of four-foot walls. The walls are collapsible and structured like a child's safety gate at the top of stairs. The walls are two heavy duty canvas sheets that are the main shell of the ger with a waterproof felt substance that is between the heavy canvas. There is a small opening at the top for ventilation and for the stove stack. There are no windows and the door is about four feet high. A ger is designed to allow nomads to move as they wish. A family can take down a ger, move to a new location, and set the ger back up all in one day. They generally move to follow the herds into better grazing areas.

During our stay in the Gobi, there was a heavy dust storm which brought a raging wind and heavy rain. The gers withstood the short beating and were quite cozy inside. Inside the gers are painted in red or orange paint highly decorated with traditional designs. Today, they generally have a light bulb in them. The group enjoyed staying the gers. We enjoyed singing, playing guitar, or playing mad card games in our "party hutong gers".. It is a structure that has withstood many centuries and an experience that will be with all of us for many years to come.