The long journey home

I've returned from a week+ long road trip.  Along the way I forgot my phone in a city that is 300kms away, I grew a beard, my bank card decided to stop working...ok, let's go back to the beginning.

I left my town under the impression that we were going to have a week off.  I went to the closest town to me and visited some friends there for a night.  I helped with a English Teachers club, etc.  The next day I went to the gas station and waited for someone to come by who was going to Bayankhongor.  I didn't wait too long before a post office bus from the capital came by and I paid the driver to give me a lift.  The ride was 6 hours and at night.  Buses can get very cold at night, but luckily just my feet turned to icicles.  I was met by some friends when I arrived.  Bayankhongor is really pretty.  It's an up and coming place that has been working hard the last few years to improve roads, parks, etc.  They are building a dinosaur park there.  We made some awesome calzones with the limited resources we had.

I stayed there for a couple days, but some of us decided to head to Arkhangai for a tiny get together in order to celebrate the inauguration.  This is the part where I lost my phone.  I left it at my friend's place.  He is sending it to me right now.  I got to Arkhangai and we had some amazing cheeseburgers followed by pot pie and tacos in the coming days.  At some point I realized that my bank card wasn't going to work anymore, and I didn't have my account number at the bank.  Thankfully, I had my brother's money that he sent me for Christmas on me.  If I hadn't, my whole trip would have been extremely difficult.

I tried to leave on Friday for home.  There were some snags.  I finally arrived in a town near mine Saturday evening.  From there I couldn't find a car until Monday afternoon.  I got home to find out that my community decided to have classes all week and didn't tell me because they wanted me to rest. 

All in all it was a ton of fun.  I love to travel here.  It's a guaranteed adventure every time.  You really never know what you’re going to get. It’s most assuredly going to cause a bit of strife, but every time I get though another journey, I feel even more confident in my ability to do anything. At one point on my way home, I was held up in this lady’s house of which I knew nothing while a complete stranger tried to find me a taxi. I spent 4 hours sitting there, playing with her children. 

My emotions are rollercoastering. I’m reminded right now of how difficult training was. I think I had forgotten how much stress had actually been placed on me then. Usually when I think back to training, I think about how great it was to have people around all the time, but that’s not really how I felt. If I’m honest, I remember not wanting to be around people all the time in training. I remember telling the people in my permanent site request that living by myself would be just fine. I wanted to get away. I hope to really improve my attitude. I don’t have a particularly bad disposition now, but more and more I begin to focus on what I don’t have in my town: other Americans, certain foods, etc. 

The one thing that the journey definitely made me realize is how much my town is home to me. It’s home for many reasons: the faces, the students, my job, and the mere fact that I sleep so much better in my own ger than anywhere else. Travelling is great at first, but after a few days I really start to miss Khujirt. It’s really got a hold on me. Being away has refocused me on how much I love being here and how bad I want to work. My whole purpose in life right now is to get these teachers to a standard with their language that I’m happy with and to get some of these kids gold medals in the English Olympics (coming up in a little over a month). 

Sometimes it takes being away to recharge my batteries. I really can’t describe how important it is to me to do a good job here, but it dawns on me that I’m not gonna get a whole lot done if I’m always talking about how hard it is to get my teachers to come to meetings or how behind the vast majority of my students are. I also need to come out of this shell that I’ve built up. It’s the shell of saying that the work is too much and the task too difficult. I question who I am to think I can have much of an impact here. The truth is that the volunteer before me set me up perfectly. She took control of her situation, and I think the people here are just waiting for me to do the same. The main point here is that I have to stop complaining, even in joking form with the other volunteers going through the same thing. 

Typically, when I first get a job, my mind starts to formulate how I am going to take over the operation. Every class I took in college, my first thought was, “How will I get an A?” Every job, “How will I become invaluable to this company?” It’s been a long time coming for this awakening here. Part of me never felt like I belonged, really, but I recognize that most of the volunteers felt that as well. I’m ready to take hold of my destiny here in my cozy Mongolian soum. I’m ready to step up and do my job. And as I realize this about myself, I also realize that it’s been there the whole time. My attitude hadn’t been the best, but I set myself up for success from the beginning. 

I want to take just a moment, here at the end, to thank Northlake church of Christ. They’ve, believe it or not, put me on their mailing list for Northlake updates and the like here in Mongolia. I just started receiving bulletins. It made my day.

That’s it for now. Peace and love everyone.