Day #80: Staying with a Kazakh family

---

Kazakh families mostly live in the west of Mongolia, but some moved east in order to work in the coal mines here. When we arrived they had just slaughtered a goat and were in the process of cutting it up with a blow torch-type instrument. I later saw the entrails in one bowl and the head on a separate plate, everything ready to be used (in fact the head, according to our guide, is a delicacy).

Kazakh families are usually Muslim, so their gers do not contain the usual Buddhist shrine or ornaments that I had seen in the gers belonging to ethnic Mongolians, but instead the walls are decorated with wall coverings decorated with traditional Kazakh embroidery. Other than this there are no obvious differences in lifestyle, although we were told they use almost no salt in food, in contrast to the ethnic Mongolians. We were exceptionally well-fed by the family: when we arrived the laid on a huge spread featuring many types of dairy produce, milk tea and two types of bread, followed by a platter of rice with meat and carrot, and then in the morning we were given the same for breakfast.

Dairy products make up a significant part of the Mongolian diet and over the course of this tour we have tried a wide range, including yogurt (my favourite), cream (Mongolians were surprised when I explained that we often put this on fruit), milk tea, butter, various types of cheese, a sort of sour cream/cottage cheese dip, and a type of hard snack made from milk boiled several times until it turns brown and hard, and another made from hardened curds. The cheese and curds snack are an acquired taste, but overall I look forward to the dairy products.

---