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As the department head of Mongolia's Ministry of Justice, upon her visit to Choibalsan's border police compound Altangerel was treated to a full day of military formation demonstrations and, of course, lots of good food and a concert filled with soldiers performing Mongolia's favorite songs on Mongolia's favorite instruments. Here is one of the more surreal moments of that day--children in uniform running into the theater, where, as you'll see, a young man does a beautiful job on the Morin Khuur, or horsehead fiddle.


Back in her office in Ulaanbaatar, Altai said my name on the phone and I didn't know why and then her coworker came in with a tall bottle of water and gummy chews. I clapped with delight and she clapped that I was clapping.

It's routine now for Altai to go upstairs for meetings and me to sit quietly in her spacious office, editing her stories with my laptop on my knees. When Ministry officials poke their heads in and look questioningly at me, I wordlessly point up. The official invariably nods and closes the door. “Tell them in Mongolian that you are the new boss,” she said today, smiling as she left.

The door guards know me by now and when I arrive at the Ministry around 3pm I just say "Altangerel!" and proceed upstairs. Her door was locked today, which hadn't happened before. Two women in the hallway pointed up and said "305" in Mongolian and I went upstairs, wandering the hall for a moment. I asked a woman in the hallway who saw me looking daunted if it was all right to enter 305 even though the door was closed. She made a little fun of me. “I think it's ok,” she whispered.

When I finally got the courage to open the door to the conference room, where she sat with several suited men, she handed me the keys wordlessly and I scuttled out. A guard appeared (perhaps he had through some security camera seen me taking footage of the 3rd floor hallway, with all the certificates on the wall) with an antagonistic expression, sure I was in the wrong place. I held up the keys in defense.

Sometimes I hum, which Altai likes. At the end of a long day sometimes we listen to a little Mariah Carey on her computer. (Tumen Ulzii also quite likes Mariah.)
"Your family seems to fit the liberal portrait we get in Monoglia of America through all the movies," she says when I talk about the singing that goes on in my household.

Today she has a tummyache.
"I ate something in the night I think."
She grates an apple after first cutting pieces for me.
"I like eating like this. It tastes, I think, differently. My main recipe for stomach."
She eats the little pieces of apple like cole slaw. She looks adorable.
"Baby Altai!" I say.
"My husband says when I eat I resemble a small bear," she says.

The night we all went dancing in Choibalsan (and not only is Altai a 31-yr-old who studied law in England and Germany, heads a firm outside of her job as Department Head of the Ministry of Justice--a firm that takes on the biggest international cases from Russia to Germany--and has written four books of fiction and poetry as well as acclaimed political essays in Europe, the woman can also DANCE, man) I told her she was my mother hen because with all the big soldiers around I tended to stick close by her and flap after her wherever she went. "My baby chicken" is one of the things she calls me now.