Mongolia
Life on the Mongolian Steppe
Name: Sharkhuukhen
Age: 86 |
Place: Saikhan Ovoo Som |
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Sharkhuukhen |
The most important resources for nomads are water and pasture. With water and pastures our animals will never die. That is why my husband and I chose to live here, beside the Ongi River . We have two sons and two daughters. Before the Soviet occupation we had over 500 head of cattle, but the Soviet reforms meant that we could have only 16 animals per family. Our family had animals up until about three years ago, but severe winters killed the remaining animals. Now I live off a pension and I live in the town.
Living beside the Ongi River meant life for our family. There were so many more animals roaming the pastures then; wild and farmed. There used to be Gobi Gazelles, wild chickens, goats and a lot of different water birds. You can't find these animals today, their life depended on the river and the pastures.
As a child I remember playing games on the banks of the river. We'd collect different coloured stones; white, brown and grey. The white stones would be the gers, the brown stones were cows and the grey stones were horses. We always played this game on the grass near the river. My grandkids can't play this game anymore as the stones are hard to find.
The Ongi hasn't flowed through this town for nearly ten years. This means that many nomadic people have had to move away. Some have moved to other regions of Mongolia , while some have moved to Ulaan Bator. The grass does not grow here anymore. It is too dry for both the people and for the animals. There is just not enough water.
Life here is much harder now. Even in the town, we have to dig wells five to ten meters deep to get drinking water. When I was a child the river was so wide that in summer we couldn't swim to the other side. I remember collecting drinking water for my parents, and I remember all the baby animals that would play on the banks during spring. I remember my parents getting angry with me because instead of taking the kids and lambs to the river to drink, I would swim. It was worth it though, as the water in summer was so tempting and I loved swimming.
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