“Images from a single day” puzzled me a bit. I liked the way in which the author draws attention to how the same place changes – an imagined beautiful land “the foreigners want to write about” is in fact a hot, difficult (and perhaps confusing?) land for those who are active in it. And yet, the narrating voice is so concerned with how they would be perceived (“what did we look like, then, as we rode along on our horses under such conditions”, and again then, two paragraphs later there is a long description of Sambaa, his swat as well as his horse’s, a description that combines vision as well as taste and smell), as if someone were in fact observing to describe them.
It seems to me that the writer is writing with an audience in mind, perhaps someone acquainted with the environment central to the story. It is introduced with a simple “we arrived at the milking division”. What is special about it, in Mongolia? I think I miss the referents here to flesh out the narrative that follows.
I was surprised by how emotional these three men are, given that this is their job. By which I mean that I would expect them to be more accustomed with the fact that sometimes, accidents happen, and that death follows from it. I did not expect cruelty, but I was surprised by the appearance of tears.
As for “The Shelducks”… written under censorship?!