Nostalgia...

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I think I have told you before that a few of my friends I made last summer when I was abroad in Mongolia never ended up leaving and are still living in Mongolia. Originally three girls stayed behind - Alyssa, Erika, and Linnea. The three all made Mongolian boyfriends and had a desire to learn more about the culture and remain behind with their men to see what the future has in store for them.

Well, Alyssa is pretty much fluent in Mongolian from her studies 2 years ago when she lived in Mongolia for a period of time. Last summer when I lived in Mongolian when ever needed she served as our translator to the Cooks and to the workers who didn't have good enough English. She's a very pretty girl and also speaks Mongolian so naturally the guys all fell in love with her instantly. The guys ranged from the strong and dumb to one of the boys who was pretty Americanized, but small and dorky. He spoke good English so I think that made her comfortable dating him. To this day she is still living in Ulaanbaatar the capitol and probably still dating Nassaa, the dorky, but intelligent Mongolian.

Erika enjoys archeology that deals with the excavation of 2000 year old horses. Her interest level is at a point I didn't think one was able to reach, but she has done it. She was strictly business for the duration of the trip until everyone seemed to get a variation of spring fever during the last few weeks in the valley. She ended up hooking up with one of our drivers, Pujey, who was amazing at fixing cars in unorthodoxcal ways with whatever means available. He was also very strong - we wrestled a few times, with my losing every match. Unfortunately due to sickness Erika had to leave Mongolia to return to the states and seek appropriate care. However, from this next summer she has successfully raised enough money to make it back to her Mongolia. Maybe she will still be dating with Pujey...

Linnea is the youngest of these 3 girls; currently 20 or 21 I think. She was Anthropology major at IUP, so she joined the trip out of her own interests. She was sort of the different, but very interesting girl out of our group. She always maintained a level of mystery, but in a way that you had on idea what way she was heading towards - is she more evil or nicer than she appears? I never quite figured it out, but I often read her journals to these days. Though her journal I am able to keep a part of my heart in Mongolia. I'd be happy with always having a part of my heart in that country.

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Photos

Family
Americans, Mongolians, boy, girl, strong, weak, sunburned, brown, dirty, very dirty, drunk, sick, good at wrestling or not. We made up a very happy family. I'll never forget any of these people.

Yeah...I learned a few things
We were lucky to have neighbors that were quite fine with letting even the least skilled people ride their horses. I still have a scar to this day from one special horse riding moment...

Camp
Closer view to our own little civilization. My tent is the closest grey-blue colored tent. The 2 huge gers in the background were used for office space and the other one was used to house the Mongolian students who didn't own tents. These were often used to escape the sever heat, or sever cold. We also had a few drinking parties in these gers.

Camp
Our home for 6 weeks. We were placed in a valley 5-6 hours by car from the nearest 'city'. We didn't see electricty or hear news of the outside world for the duration. We had no toilets or showers except for whatever nature gave to us.

Sun Setting
View of the Sun setting over the mountains of our backyard. In the horizon is the river we used to bath. The sun wouldn't set until around a little after midnight so we could enjoy some amazing soccer games well into the night.

Mutton Meals
3 times a day we had our food prepared for us by two different Mongolian women. Every meal included sheep meat which was boiled to perfection (please note intense sarcasm). The Sheep would be bought from one of the locals and sometimes even brought to our neighborhood for the execution, which I once watched while eating some mutton dumplings. It was amazing how numb we came to watching a sheep be completely torn apart.

Camp Toilet
During our 6 weeks in the Valley we dug two different toilets. I was given the duty along with several others on our day of arrival to dig our first toilet. It took us only 3 hours to complete while the others set up camp or gathered fire wood. For the time we weren't at camp working it was fair game when it came to the bathroom. Please note that the Steeps of Mongolia don't come equipped with many trees.

Welcome to Mongolia
Our first week in the Valley we learned some basic tips on orienteering from our own Francis (the professor.). This was the spot he decided to teach us at. It was only a few minutes from our tents.

Where is your Nomad?
The first spot I was set out to work at was about 5 minutes walk from this little river. Well, the river looks small, but it was actually the best spot I was able to have a 'bath' in during the 6 weeks.

Midnight Sky
So not only does Mongolia have such an amazing blue sky and a sun that is able to keep it light until almost 1am in the summer time sometimes, but it also does things like this for you on a regular evening basis.

Erika
As I wrote in the body of this post Erika was the one who maintained a level of interest in excavating horses that I didn't think was possible. She was very patient, which is a desired trait for excavating, and also very good at her work.

Hinbe
Our adopted camp dog, Hinbe. Hinbe in Mongolian translates as 'what is it' mostly a picked name because Mongolian's do not actually give human names to animals much like western people tend to. Hinbe was unfortunatelt turned into a very spoiled dog by the students who all missed their own dogs back home.

Hiking
One evening after our delicious aforementioned dinner Kyle, Leah, and I decided to head hiking to the mountains that appeared to be right in front of our faces. We learned a valuable lesson about judging distance this night when the Mountains ended up being around 2 hours away from camp.

Caveman Games
Boredom after working became a huge problem for everyone at the camp. All we had was ourselves and our surroundings. We came up with our own Mongolian Olympics called Caveman Games. Within these Olympics consisted the event of "Who can touch a cow the fastest foot race'. This race started from my own tent door.

Bryan, Braiden, Me
This picture was taken shortly after the women at camp tried to get us to take off our pants and continue working in our underwear. We were building this sign and using hammers and such so it wouldn't have been that nice...Oh, Bryan was the 2nd in charge on the American side of the trip and spoke fluent Chinese for us while in Beijing. Braiden was the ultra-male of the group so I was just trying to join in on the good times.

Mongolian Wrestling
Mongolian wrestling is a simple sort of wrestling. The first one to touch the ground loses. End of story. This is me wrestling Jagaa, who won the camp tournament later in our 6 week stay on Mongolian Independence day, Nadam.

Excavation
The farthest spot we worked away from camp was at the GolMod (River Mouth) cemetery. After shoveling down around 2 meters of sand we often bumped into coffins where we excavated further. We ended up finding some Jade and a bronze mirror among many other smaller things.

Neighbor Goats
One day along with Hinbe's company I climbed the hill behind camp and decided to lay on the ground for a half hour. After some time I noticed a herd of goats had taken an interest in me and moved very very close. Luckily I was carrying my camera!

Kyle & Empty Vodka Bottles
Most nights ended with everyone gathering by the warm fire and warming up more by drinking 1$ bottle's of vodka. Sometimes Kyle did make it to his tent...

Pride
The annual tournaments held for Nadam (Independence Day) is an event held in high regard by every Mongolian. Parents enter their children in competitions involving horse racing and archery and the older Mongolian men compete in wrestling. Everyone carries an amount of pride.

Pride
One thing that held constant between all of the Nomad's we were able to meet was that they were all photogenic and enjoyed it greatly to have their own photo taken.