4/11/2015
18 hours in Arkhangai. I took the 9 hour drive to Arkhangai
with a Peace Corps driver to say goodbye to my counterparts and to pack up my
apartment. At 1030 am I received a test from my counterpart, saying that Peace
Corps just met with them and told them that my work at the Health Department
was finished. I quickly texted him back, yes it was true and I am on my way
back to Tsetserleg to say goodbye. As soon as the car pulled into Tsetserleg, I
power walked over to my Health Department, making sure I would get there before
everyone left. At 4:15pm I was in my office in the arms of my counterpart and
best friend, crying. He was hugging me and telling me not to cry because it was
making him cry. I couldn’t stop the tears, so there we both stood crying and
staring at each other, willing ourselves to stop. I knew it was going to be
hard, but I had no idea that the minute I tried to speak, I wouldn’t be able
to. Every time I looked up to say something to him, my eyes filled up. He told
me that he was going to arrange for all the doctors to go to the meeting room,
so I could tell them all that I would be leaving the next morning and no longer
working at the Health Department.
While he gathered the other doctors, I went
up to see the HD Director. I walked into her room and tried to make small chat
and not address the fact that I was leaving, but once again in the middle of a
sentence I started crying and then she did. Her assistant gave us tissues and
we just sat there holding hands crying. She kept telling me that she loved me
and things were going to be okay. I kept thanking her for allowing me to be a
part of her work and for sharing her amazing village with me. Once we composed
ourselves, the other doctors came into the room. I was sitting at the head of
the meeting table, eyes swollen, with all the doctors staring at me. They had
no idea that I was not coming back. The whole car ride from UB I had been
preparing a speech in my head that I would say to them, to let them know how
much they meant to me. But at that moment, sitting in front of them, all I
could say was “ Today will be my last day working at the HD because of safety
problems. Thank you so much. Thank you for being such amazing friends and for
being so kind to me. You are all so amazing and I had so much fun working with
you.” Then the tears came again and I couldn’t speak, so I just blew them a
kiss and said I love you. They all then laughed and blew me a kiss back and
thanked me for all my work and asked if they could all take me out to dinner
that night. So I went back to my apartment to finish packing and then headed
over to a local restaurant for dinner.
Every single doctor showed up to my dinner. I have never
felt so much love in my life. They gave me beautiful gifts and my counterpart
and another HD doctor sang to me. The name of the song roughly translates to
“The most beautiful woman in Mongolia”. After they sang, my coworkers chanted
my name and asked me to sing a Mongolian song to them. I only know one and was
still crying from watching my counterpart sing to me, so I asked him to sing
with me. I sang the opening line and then all the other doctors chimed in and
began singing. Which of course made me lose it, here I am standing at the head
of the table, looking at all these beautiful faces of people who became my
family singing to me. We sat and chatted and ate for a few hours. At the end of
the night, I took pictures with everyone and all my close doctor friends said
how much they are going to miss me and how sad they were. I told them that if
they are in UB in the next few months to call me, so we can meet up. I will be
here until at least May 3. My counterpart already called me and told me that he
and his wife will be coming to UB at the end of April to see me. I can not
wait.
The next morning, it was time for me to hop back in the car
and drive back to UB. My counterpart showed up at my door in the morning with a
gift from his 6 year old daughter. She had drawn me a picture of her family,
which included me. Above the drawing she wrote “I love you.” Ariuk had is
beautifully framed for me. The best gift I could have received. Peace Corps came and picked me up in the car
and off we were, on the road again. The Peace Corps drivers are amazing and my
country director also was in the car with us. We ended up stopping a lot to see
different landmarks and monasteries. We stopped at the large lake in my
province and at a special Monastery, that used to be the capital of Mongolia.
Here we went inside and the monks said a blessing for us and gave us gifts. It
was so wonderful. I love listening to the groups of monks chanting, the ringing
of the bells and the smell of the incense. It is so peaceful.
The driver was such a funny man. He loves to talk about
fishing, hunting and drinking. He was cracking us up so badly the entire way.
At one point, he could not think of an English word he wanted to say, so he
kept giving me examples, but for the life of me, I could not come up with the word.
He just looked over at me and said “You are American, how do you not know the
word?”. I busted out laughing. Finally after about 200km of driving, the word
came to me. “Believe” I shouted it out and he laughed. Throughout the next
couple hours he kept using it in sentences to help himself memorize it. We
talked a lot about Shamanism and how it has changed over the years in Mongolia.
In the capital many people are saying that they are Shamans in order to make
money from desperate families with sick children or tourists who don’t know any
better. It was really interesting to hear his point of view on the matter.
4/15/2015
This week I have been working at the Peace Corps office, helping staff with their work. Mostly, jazzing up power points they made for my groups Close of Service (COS) conference and writing post cards, welcoming the newly accepted volunteers who will arrive in Mongolia in the beginning of June. I have met with several of the staff and at this point it seems like they are leaning towards early COS-ing me, but we are waiting for the regional manager to get back to the office and to hear from head quarters. The most important thing is that I am here long enough for it to be considered a full service, so that I do not loose my fellowship for grad school. I should know what is happening within the next two weeks.
A pretty cool thing happened to me today... I was interviewed by my country director about a domestic violence project I have been working on with my counterpart. Michelle Obama teamed up with Peace Corps on a project called "Let Girls Learn". It is being implemented in 11 countries, Mongolia being one of them. Although female attendance in schools is not a problem in Mongolia, finding jobs and domestic violence is a huge problem for girls in the country. Every week the country director from each of the 11 countries with the program must directly send the First Lady one story of a volunteer and counterpart working towards the betterment of women in their host countries. My country director chose my story to be sent to the White House. This means that Michelle Obama herself will be reading about me and my counterpart and the work we have done in our community!! So cool.
Sunday I leave for the Gobi Desert with some friends. We will be traveling by bus down to the Gobi and then stay in gers with nomadic families and tour the Gobi on camels. I am so excited!
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