First Night

Astounding. That is the only word that comes to mind as I walked out of my gur and saw the beauty that is Mongolia this morning. We traveled from Atlanta to Seoul to Ulaanbaatar. At the airport in Ulaanbaatar, we walked outside only to be greeted by current volunteers. It was quite the wake up call after much jet lag. The jim beam and vodka were clearly flowing and the Mongolian people must have thought we were insane. The volunteers had come from all their different sites just to lift us up and encourage us. This of course included them drawing pen mustaches on each other, making signs, wishing us a Merry Hippie Christmas, and banging on the windows to our bus. It was hilarious. We were so shocked that most didn’t know how to react except with open mouths and laughter. I naturally embraced it. I will probably have to greet the group next year and who knows what we might do.

So from the airport, we loaded up our things into the back of these trucks and drove in the dark of night to our gur camp in the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. We arrived, dragged our things to the top of this hill, found our gur, (I nearly gave myself a concussion because I forgot to duck as you walk in), and began to settle in for the night. It’s funny how Peace Corps is slowing breaking us in. We went from a fancy hotel in Atlanta, to a nice Korean hotel, to a upper-class gur camp/hotel. We stepped outside to try and get acquainted with our surroundings but it was impossible to see past 3 feet in front of you. I turned my eyes upward only to see the most wonderful night scene. The moon hung what looked like a few inches from the peak of a mountain straight ahead. The luminosity that it and the stars gave off took my breath away. I took a deep breath of clean air and nodded to myself. This is a site. I starred at the beautiful creation and the power of God’s hand, took it in for a bit longer, then went inside, anxious to see this place in the morning’s light.

I awoke a few short hours ago to what had to be the most wonderful sight. The sun was rising over the green, rich soil mountains. The hills were large enough to swallow the rest of the world. A pack of wild horses were grazing right outside my front door. Little prairie dogs were sitting by the bottom of the staircase leading to the next gur’s front door. I stood, literally with an open mouth, wided-eyed and bushy tailed. Another volunteer was watching from the gur next to me and began to chuckle. She said I looked like a child on Christmas morning. Ironically, that is exactly how I felt.

I quickly threw on a sports bra, grabbed my pumas, and ran out into the new land with my fellow volunteers Jess and Corina. We were estatic. I chased the horses but they did not like humans. I even tried to give them my apple but they looked at me like I was insane. I didn’t let it get my spirit down. We ran straight up to the top of the mountain. We were carefully examining rocks, wild flowers, and stopping to wheeze on occasion. It took us about an hour to get to the top. It was definitely the largest mountain I have ever stood on. At the top we could see the entire nation. We picked out the capital, the airport and gur camps everywhere. The horses were making their way across the land, our fellow volunteers were finally waking up, and the town was coming alive. It was glorious. I realized in that moment that nothing is quite like you imagine it. If this is desert/ tundra then sign me up. =) I never could have imagined the beauty that was in this developing unit. The land. The animals. The weather. At that moment, all was as it should be. And my heart was overjoyed.