The summer has come and gone in the blink of an eye. In one week, I will be posted at site, alone really for the first time in my life. I still don't know where that is. The summer was rough, intense at times but rewarding. I'd bumped my head a few times real good, sliced open my hand enough to peer into it, suffered the worst hangover of my life to a day of vomiting my heart out as a consequence of eating bad buuz (I filled up like three plastic grocery bags). I did survive consumption of marmot (the Black Death carrying rodent) though! We'd had an incident where the Mikr' axle caught fire, leaving us stranded well into the night, in the middle of nowhere with thousands of mosquitoes attacking us. I had 16 bites on one hand alone. It was like something out of Greek mythology, definitely on par with Tantalus or that guy who was fated to forever push the boulder up the hill. Then the wolves began howling, but we made it fine in the end. It is amazing how the natives can fix things here, very efficient. What would have cost hundreds if not thousands in the States and taken days cost peanuts here and done within a 1/3 of a day. This is Mongolia man, you don't ask questions, you just roll with the punches.
Spent a few days in Ulaanbaatar, a nice little place. Coming from big cities the likes of Chicago and having spent time in places like Rome or Toronto, UB isn't that big a place. The women are good looking. Some of the customs are difficult to live with, such as the eating of one "meal" a day (dinner), or at least that's how my nutty host family does it. I also dislike the vodka, but I sometimes drink a little when invited to do so. There is also a huge lack of privacy, everything is social. These definitely may not apply all across the board, but just things I've witnessed. From people changing clothes in front of people they barely know to never enjoying alcohol by yourself (as in some wine or beer complimenting your dinner).
This really is a place where the streets have no name. Sometimes there are no streets. Even if there are, nobody knows their names. I'll put a few photos up later, I don't know how often I'll have Internet access where I'm headed. It's been good times here in Mongolia, in a foreign land. I keep thinking about the future and if I'll stay in Mongolia after service or not but I realize you have to take it day by day. I'm also afraid I'd lose my sense of self and identity if I stayed here too long. I'll tell you though, I'm not missing much in the States. You could live an excellent and healthy life here a lot easier than you could in the U.S. Less stress, less unimportant things to think about, healthier landscape and the food is naturally organic.
