Some Free Time

The end of my first year is approaching.  My first year of school here is also coming to a close.  It's a pretty emotional time.  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by.  I can't believe how much AND how little I've gotten done.  I can't believe it's almost half way over.  This ride has been like nothing I've ever done before.  It's hard to see, day by day, the little changes that go into the making of a tried and true PCV.  Winter is now totally over and we are beginning to have days that are so hot I don't want to go outside at all.  Yeah.  I've also seen in the last month 3 blizzards.  The spring Mongolian sky is like a moody person.  You never know exactly what you are going to get from hour to hour.  My total person from flesh to mind to soul is feeling better.  Sure I've been sick lately, but the bright shining sun makes all the difference.  It doesn't get dark until about  9:00, and soon it'll stay light until after 10.  It's so much eaisier to wake up when the sunlight breaks through the top of my ger before my alarm goes off.  Spring is not only for the grass and livestock.  It's also for our spirits.

My Mongolian family has been very busy taking care of their new lambs and kids.  We now have over 100 in our livestock, and everyday they take them all out to pasture and every evening they bring them all back in to my front yard.  One of my teaching counterparts is off at a month long seminar where they can only speak English, good for him, but this doubles the work for me.  Also, one of my other English teachers is in the hospital.  There are only 3 weeks left to teach, but this is turning out to be my busiest month yet. 

I've decided that I'm going to go with one of my friends here to Cambodia for a month during our summer break.  I'm so excited.  I really need a break.  Mongolians ask me all the time if I miss my family or if living in Mongolia is difficult for me. They really can't imagine.  I couldn't have imagined it before I came either.  Some days it seems that nothing is the same.  Some days, everything I have to do is seasoned with that special Mongolia salt that makes things difficult, confusing, and insanely backward.  I've met Mongolians that have gone to Korea for only 2 or 3 weeks and they come back saying that all they wanted was to get back to Mongolia where everything makes sense.  The thing about living continually in a different place is that every little thing builds up...all the time, all day long...and never seems to let up.  The solitude is the worst really.  When I visit friends in some other place, everything is so much easier to deal with.  I can talk to someone who not only knows where I am coming from but is also going through the same thing.  I can finally talk to someone in English without having to talk 30 words per minute.

Not that I'm all down, quite the opposite.  I'm so up right now that I feel confident taking about how rough it is sometimes.  When I'm feeling really down I always question my right to feel so.  It's hard to remember that the stresses that are laid on me right now are very much real stuggles.  My friend Dwan recently reminded me that people tend to forget how sad or frusterated or burnt out or on edge they are until it's pointed out or until that stress is relieved.  That's so true for me.  I forget the burden I carry just living here and then I'm suprised when I flip out for something really small.  Lately I've been accutely aware of how stressed I am and it's helping me to be less suprised when I break down or something.  It happens.  I love my job.  I love where I am.  I wouldn't trade it for nothing, but the Monglolians I work with cannot possibly know who badly I need this vacation. 

I love you all and I'm really happy that I'll be coming home in just over a year....15 or so months.  Until then, know that I'm doing exactly what I believe I need to be doing, and I appriciate every little morsel of support you send my way everyday.

Thanks so much

God bless you all.