10/3/2013
My family members
should be immortal. We should all live on forever together. It's hard
to wrap my head around losing my Uncle Tim last week. This was not
the order, something that I would have never imagined hearing during
my 27 months here. He was to young. It doesn't feel like real life. I
think that the hardest part about losing someone you love, is waking
up in the mornings. Every morning you wake up and have to relive the
fact that that person is gone, it was not a terrible dream. Every
morning is a reminder to me and that's when it is the hardest. I find
myself talking myself into staying in Mongolia every morning, instead
of jumping on the next plane to the States to be with my family. I
don't want to dwell on the tragedy or make my family relive all the
pain as they read this, but I do want to take a little time to
write down my thoughts on living through it thousands of miles away
from my family and what an important role my family has played in my
life. I have reserved all the details for my journal.
I have never had to
deal with loss or pain alone before and it has definitely been the
hardest thing I have ever done in my life. My coworkers have been
amazing throughout the last week. They let me cry in the office
(which happens every morning and every time I skype with anyone) and
have come to my house to talk about my uncle and taken me out to eat;
which is really special, because in Mongolia it is bad luck to talk
about death, granted they never say the word and just refer to my
Uncle as badly injured, but its the thought that counts, right? My
site mates have been just as equally supportive, cooking me dinner
and letting me cry on their shoulders. But the hard things is, none
of these people really understand the love I had of my uncle and what
a truly wonderful human being he was. They can't reminisce about
memories or feel the great loss that is now in our family. They can
tell me how sorry they are, but they don't have that connection that
you feel with family. I just want to lay and cuddle with my sister in
her bed. I want to sit with my mom and dad and talk to my cousins,
and hug all my aunts and uncles and tell them how much I truly love
them and how much each one of them have effected me and made me into
the person I am right now.
For those of you who
don't know my family, you should know that they are the most caring,
supportive, loving, close family I think in the entire world. I was
so lucky to grow up with an extremely close family. I had lunch every
Sunday with them, in the summers we had swim days on wednesdays at my
aunt's, me and the rest of the “younger” cousins had breakfast
club on Thursday mornings with my grandpa, we celebrated every
holiday and birthday together, there were numerous sleepovers,
celebrations and vacations. Every single person was a piece of a big
puzzle, each family member played a vital role and when we lose one,
the puzzle is not complete. The first time I felt real grief and pain
was the death of my Dziadzi (polish for grandpa). To this day talking
about him brings tears to my eyes and now with the death of my Uncle
its even worse. These two men were so strong, smart, loving and
caring. My uncle loved adventure and I loved talking to him about it.
I had some of the best conversations with him about traveling and the
Peace Corps. I had dinner with him, my aunt and cousin's right before
I left and I remember sitting on the deck with him talking about what
an amazing experience this was going to be for me. He pulled out his
phone and showed me a quote that summed up his view on life perfectly
and we sat their and just talked about it. I wish I could remember
the quote now, but I remember at that time thinking that is was
perfect and it just summed up everything I was feeling. My uncle got
it. I remember the amazing banana shakes/smoothies he would make for
Jade, Ash and me spent the night at their house. They were so
delicious. All the times he helped me with my computer and the advice
he gave me throughout college. When my uncle loved, he really loved.
He beamed whenever he talked about Jade, Ry and Zach and I don't even
know what you would call his love for his grandson Lukas. Whenever
Lukas was around, a smile was plastered on his face. I am going to
miss him so much. I can't even begin to imagine what it is going to
be like when I return to the states after the peace corps. I wish my
family strength and courage through out the coming months. And I wish
I was home to hug them all, I hate that I have to communicate via
Facebook or Skype. My heart aches for my aunt and cousins. It is not
fair to them. I feel selfish for not being home. I know that if I did
go home, I would never come back to Mongolia and finish my service.
It would be so difficult to leave my family again. And I know that my
uncle would have wanted me to stay and finish what I have started. In
his words “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it”. I
remember using that exact statement in my college personal statement
essays and in high school when I applied to the New Visions program
my senior year.
Every afternoon last
week I went on a hike after work to help clear my head and take time
to journal. Every time I have reflected on my family and wonder why
it was my uncles time but I also think how lucky I was to have him in
my life and how truly blessed I am to have such amazing people in my
life. Hiking here has been such a great tool in dealing with my
stress here. In the beginning of service we had to fill out an
emotional health questionnaire about how we would deal with the
stress of being abroad. I had put hiking on my list of ways to deal
with emotional stress, but up until last last week have never used
it. I usually just resorted to turning up my music in my apartment,
dancing around and organizing and reorganizing my closet (which was
what I always did in the states when under stress since there is no
gym here to go work out in), but the organizing and cleaning was not
working here, so I decided to go for runs whenever I was stressed,
which then turned into full blown run-hiking trips up the mountains
in six hundred layers of clothes. Every day that I am in Mongolia, I
realize how much I took for granted in the US. Growing up I was
always a “wanter”.I always
wanted more clothes, more things, and more this and that. I still do,
but being here has really reminded me things that are important to
me: family, adventure, learning, traveling, clean air, sunrises and
sunsets, stars at night, mountains, kind people. Clothes, shoes,
makeup, magazines, parties, these things that occupied my time and
money in the states, are of no real value. I have a limited amount of
clothes, 4 pairs of shoes and no makeup (except mascara, mascara is a
necessity) here in Mongolia and I am so happy. It takes less time in
the morning to get ready and I am able to appreciate going for a run
in the mornings through the mountains, reading books atop the
mountains, talking to people about a culture I once knew nothing
about, laying out at night and just looking at the all stars and
truly being thankful for everyone in my life and for the life that I
am living. I have learned so much about myself in the past 4 months,
its shocking. I know what things I will never settle for and what it
truly takes to make myself happy. I feel like I am going to go back
to the States with a whole new perspective on life. Its amazing and I
am so blessed to have had this chance in life. “Traveling is a
brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all
that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off
balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep,
dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal
or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare
Pavese
10/7/2013
This
past weekend, one of the M23 volunteers came to stay and take part in
our site visits. Site visits are when the Peace Corps staff comes to
check in on us. They inspect our housing and agencies we work for to
make sure we have no safety and security concerns and to help us
communicate with our agencies. If there are things we would like them
to do or things that would help us adjust better, we can tell the
staff who then translates it to our directors. My site visit
accomplished a lot. We went over all of my housing problems and my
director has been told she has 2 weeks to have them fixed/ prove they
are making the fixes to my apartment and be looking for a new one for
me to move into. Also, Peace Corps will be putting metal bars on my
windows for added safety and security because of some the issues I
have had. I should have a working toilet soon and they have even
agreed to taking a look into getting my hot water box in my shower
fixed! The broken windows will be replaced and my kitchen ceiling
will be repaired and they will be “winterizing” my doors and
windows so that the drafts will be gone. They also went over how I am
doing at the Health Department. All my counterparts and coworkers
said that I have a great attitude and I am so cute. Haha. They are
all excited to start learning English and begin working on projects
with me as soon as they are done with all the fiscal year reports. PC
staff talked to them about not being shy, and to come to me with
questions and ideas that they want help on, because up until today,
they have really been afraid to talk to me I think, because they do
not know English. But he explained that I do know a lot of Mongolian
medical terms and I can understand a lot more Mongolian than I can
speak. I also have dictionaries and phrase books in Mongolian and
English that help a lot in communicating ideas. I hope that this week
they start coming to me and asking for help. I am still continuing on
making trainings that I think the community could benefit from,
working with World Visions on Reproductive Health and helping them
translate letters from the Koreans who support Mongolian children and
working with social workers and school doctors at the local schools.
I think that today is a turning point in my service and that things
are going to start picking up here at the Health Department. It seems
like everyone is now back from their summer vacations and are
starting to start up projects in the community. PC staff also told
them that I am allowed to travel with them to other aimags, soums and
countries for trainings and evaluations. They did not know I was
allowed to, so now that they know I am hoping to start traveling more
with them!
Yesterday,
Will and I made caramel apples. It took us a few batches of caramel
to get it right, but now I think we got it down and know the proper
amount of sugar, butter and milk to add. We then made Alfredo pasta
and watched movies with Darren and Lore. We watched Argo, which I
thought was really good (the parts that I was awake for, I still
can't watch a whole movie without sleeping). It has been really fun
having Darren here, and I know that Will really appreciates the extra
testosterone.
Last
weekend, Will, Jen and I went to the hot springs! It was amazing! We
camped on top of a mountain near the hot springs. We built a fire and
made mac and cheese on it. The tent we rented was so tiny and flimsy.
Luckily, we have super warm -30 sleeping bags and like each other
enough to spoon all night. The hot springs were on the property of a
tourist resort, so we paid to use them for the day. It was so
relaxing and all the trees were bright yellow against the dark green
grass. It was picturesque. I unfortunately cracked my head open after
I was overly enthusiastic about winning a game we were playing near
the fire. I flew my body backwards ungracefully and smashed my head
on a tree stump. Luckily, Jen was able to get the blood gushing out
of head under control and it eventually stopped. No stitches needed.
There was a brief period where we had to think about how I would get
down the mountain and how we would get a hold of someone to bring me
to the hospital. We were about an hour away from civilization. Thank
god my head stopped bleeding. What a kill joy that would have been.
We had at first planned on biking to the hot springs. We had been
told it was a great place to mountain bike and we could rent bikes
from one of the guest houses. But then decided since we had so much
stuff that we needed to hire a car to bring us there. And what a
great decision that was because as we drove to the springs we
realized there is no way we would have made it up and over the
mountain passes. It would have taken us an entire day and at least
one of us would have been critically injured on the journey.
At
work I have been working on Dental Hygiene packets that will be
distributed to schools and parents and have been also designing a
training on cardiovascular disease and how to prevent it/ keeping it
under control. Today, I will start to work on my reproductive health
trainings and seminars for the dormitories and schools and also
lesson plan for my English classes. Tonight, I think that we are all
going on a sunset trip to the Buddha and monastery.
I
am on day 3 of no electricity. Which was apparently turned off
because I did not pay the rent on time. I was told I was moving out
at the end of last month so I only signed a 1 month lease. But now
that I am staying I have to have a new lease drawn up and it hasn't
happened yet, so I didn't want to pay yet in case things changed. Now
I know that if you do not pay by the 3rd
of the month they shut your electricity off immediately. They do not
mess around here. Hopefully, now that everything is all figured out
and they are writing up a new lease agreement my electricity will be
turned back on soon. I have no way of cooking or having hot water
without it. Luckily, Will lives near me and I bring my thermos over
and boil water at his house to use for my morning coffee and to help
lesson the sting of taking a freezing cold tumpin in 30 degree
weather.
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