Spring has come

Spring arrived on March 15, five days ahead of schedule.

By Tsagaan Sar our yard was mostly free of snow, which I attributed to prolonged trampling, but aside from that the temperature was rising subtly, and then suddenly. The bare ground grew until it opened wide the week before the above date. Then I saw the thermometer in my ger get above 0 degrees during the day a few times. I thought it was the lingering warmth of the fire. When I came back from work one day I found a bag of fish hanging frozen in my ping ripped open, with half a fish on the floor. It turned out the cats had scented the thawing fish and jumped up to get it. Then I realized that the temperature was getting above 0 outside my ger too.

At the same time that it caused this problem, it solved another one: stuff freezing overnight. Stuff in my ger no longer freezes overnight. I also noticed that starting a fire no longer seemed as urgent; that I can see outside at 7 AM; and that I've sweated in my sleeping bag.

On Tuesday, March 13, it got up to 15 degrees. Just like October, now there was only snow remaining in sheltered spots. There were patches of slush and mud here and there, but the ground was mostly bare and dry. Frost came back though.

On March 15 while in my ping I felt warmth by my head and realized that the ping's metal roof had been warmed by the sun. Stepping outside, the sun felt warm on my face. In fact it was warmer outside than inside my ger.

"Spring is here," I said.

Of course, the next day it snowed. But it disappeared quickly. No snow is left in the open. I've discovered ice persisting in the hole beneath my outhouse, and under the blanket of sawdust by my woodpile.

We're now where we were in early September. Looking backing, it took much less time to warm back up than it did to cool down for winter. Cooling down took 2 1/2 months, but the transition to spring happened all within the month of March.

March 22: first day of vacation, third day of spring. Can you believe I've already been in Mongolia longer than I was in Japan? When I awoke about 9:00 the temperature was already above 0. For the first time in months, it wasn't necessary to make a fire. I ran outside to open my ger flap.

But if spring promised longer, sunny days, it also brought wind. After my rush outside to absorb the morning, the wind came, and then it was as chilly as winter. My bare hands became cold and stiff in a few minutes. Walking to school with air blasting in my face, unprotected skin became numb as easily as when walking in -20 degree stillness. Approaching the school the steppe was filled with a hollow roar like a ghost. Spring seemed as if it was not merely content that winter should go; it had to drive winter out.

On March 23 the atmosphere continued its war on the earth, beating it and ripping up layers of it in dust devils. The coal smoke from the school shot out at a 90-degree angle - no wait, now an 80-degree angle. The wind is even pushing the smoke against its natural tendency to rise. Avoiding the main blast, I walked in the narrow alleys among the houses. Nevertheless the wind, frustrated by the buildings, would send tendrils of air curling around the block and down the alley in the opposite direction. These played with the dirt, shaping it into the waves of a parched sea.

On March 25, the wind died down and stayed down, but for brief bursts.

The sun is always up before me now. 3 months ago, it would be rising as I walked to work. It sets at 7:10 now - an increase of 2 hours from midwinter. (I wanted to observe the sunrise and sunset on the solstices and equinoxes, but alas I've missed 3 already! The summer solstice happened soon after I arrived and I hadn't thought of it yet. And the winter solstice and spring equinox, of all the days in Mongolia, were overcast.) Furthermore it's moved farther north. It now sets next to a hill slightly behind my ger. It used to set in front of my ger next to a distant moutain range. In conjunction with this, the light coming in the top of my ger shines on my bed. On the other hand, my counterpart's classroom, which was warm in winter, is now colder. It faces the south and got ample sunshine in December and January. Now that the sun is much higher in the sky, it overshoots the windows.

On March 25, I also saw a fly in my ger for the first time in months. On March 26, it was dead in the water left in my tumpen. Despite not starting a fire that day, the temperature in my ger reached a sweltering 20 degrees (68 degrees F) by late afternoon!