13 Pictures of the Kazhak Family’s Home

1. They welcomed us into their home

2. with cheese, fry bread, and butter.

3. We brought some meat and veggies with us. Our tour guide gave these to the wife. They already had a stew pot on their little stove. Except for the Gobi Desert, every ger we visited had one of these little stoves in the middle. They serve as kitchen and general heating. The family set up a couple of folding tables for us.

4.Some of us cut the meat into little pieces, which went into the stew pot first.

5. Others pealed and cut potatoes.

6. Still others made noodles.

7. The noodles took a while, While they were being made and the other ingredients cooked, the rest of us got a chance to look around. The husband and wife are grandparents. They have one of their kids and grandkids staying on the property in a separate building.

8. The husband hunts with a golden eagle, much the way a falconer hunts.

9.The wife does a strange kind of embroidery that uses a hooked needle. It’s like crochet on cloth. Right before it was time for us to go, she brought out a laundry basket full of her work. We eagerly bought most of it.

10. As we were to learn later in the trip, most gers aren’t as nice as theirs. Besides having a little decoration on the outside, they were a little bit larger than most with lots of tapestries hung on the inside. Unluckily I didn’t take note at the time, but I’m fairly sure they said they never move it.

11. Finally the noodles were all cut and ready to go.

12. We all ate soup we had helped to make. It was pretty tasty. This served as the first course of our lunch.

13. The rest of lunch came in boxes from a restaurant which we picked up on the way.