Hair-cutting ceremony

Hair-cutting ceremony
Originally uploaded by jemacole2

One great tradition they have in Mongolia is the hair-cutting ceremony. I may have mentioned it earlier on this blog. I was able to go to a handful of these celebrations, and I loved them. Mongolian children don't cut their hair until the lamas tell the families which day is best. Boy's usually get their hair cut at the age of 3, and girls at 4 or 5. Friends and family are invited to the family's home for the celebration. Some families invite everyone they know and it lasts all day. Others have smaller parties or small groups that come by on different days. They serve the typical celebration foods: candies, milk curds, potato salads, and buuz. Oh yeah, and of course some vodka.

The top picture is from the last hair-cutting event I attended. Monkhoolei, the boy, is the grandson of the woman Iived next to. He was always at their ger playing with his cousin, Nyam-Ochir (the boy I lived next to). This celebration was in the countryside. My neighbors took him out to visit his father's parents who are herders. The other volunteers and I tagged along for the countryside experience. I added some pictures of the trip. It was a really nice, final countryside experience before coming home. It was always so relaxing for me to go out to the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and fields. This trip was especially nice because my Peace Corps buddies came along. It's definitely easier to deal with the awkward moments and the attention to foreigners if you're not the only one.

My second-year sitemate, Dylan, wrote a blog entry about this trip. It's really well written and a lot more complete than I could do months later. You should definitely check it out: Dylan's entry.