Ger

My ger is definitely one of the more comfortable field accommodations I have had over the years. The basic frame is a collapsible wooden lattice which expands to form the walls. From there, many thin beams join the edge of the lattice to a round window with a wooden frame at the top. Two uprights support the roof inside. A heavy rock is suspended from the middle of the roof, to hold the whole thing together under tension. The frame is covered with heavy felt and canvas and weighed down with rocks and sandbags. The colorfully painted door is always about three inched lower than I think it is.

There is a charcoal burning woodstove in the middle, which is tended to by a fellow name Bockli. He stokes up the fire before bed, and again around 5:30 am so that it is warm in the morning. Occasionally Bockli goes overboard with the coal and turns the ger into a sauna.

Ger etiquette is interesting. Mongolians just walk right into other people’s ger without ever knocking (surprise!). Men sit on the right, women on the left. Seniority is correlated with position in the ger. Elder’s, bosses etc.. sit at the far side, opposite the door. The lower your rank, the closer you sit to the door.