"the coffee isn't even bitter"

I have been missing my typewriter, my light-box, my paper cutter… my sewing machine. I have been sitting in my hostel bedroom sprawled out on the floor with my tiny mat cutter, my rulers, my glue and binding kit. I have been collecting colored bus tickets to make into books (the whole group has caught on and now I come home to gifts of found trash left on my bed). My roommates watch Japanese dramas as I sit on the floor bending over my work in a way Olivia always thought funny. I reference my sketchbook. I reference all the tiny drawings and tiny writings I have composed about rocks, and people, Ger’s, cell division and mutation, wind power, natural history, beets we put into soup, dreams and religion, interactions and language. It occurs to me that Mongolia is much like a light-box. It allows me to see things clearly, as lines and patterns that make up a whole.

We took buses into the Gobi. Our professor’s long time friend, who happened to be the Abbot of a well-known monastery, arranged this trip. I took a tiny bag, my sketchbook, and my camera on a ten day drive. Each day we would wake up in a new place with new people close to us (both physically and mentally). One day we set up our camp in a clearing surrounded by huge protective rocks. Allison and I put on our head-lamps to go relieve our bodies full of tea and purified water. We traveled out of our rock shelter and into the huge expanse of unknown field. In the dark Allison says that it looks like the seafloor, so we float across the desert as if we were scuba diving, challenging and discovering. In the morning we have class on a set of large flat rocks. I have one hand gloved and the other free to write and I think of my cold house of last year and it makes me smile about it, which I thought might never happen.

We spend hours a day on the bus watching the Gobi grow and reveal itself. At one point I look past my sleeping bus mate Todd, (his head rising and falling at each dip in the gravel road) and I see what Mongolia is well known for… uninhabited beauty. All around our buses there is nothing but land and sky. On the land there are horses, sheep, goats, camels… all seemingly left to their own devices. In the sky there are clouds and sunlight that filters through and shines off of Todd’s glasses. Every few hours we get off of the bus and drink tea, eat choco pies (yes kim, I get Mongolian moon pies by the dozen!) and find “bathrooms”. Sometimes these bathrooms are dips in the terrain. Sometimes these are areas shielded by rocks. If we were lucky we would get to stop in a tiny town and find a walled outhouse! Thus, jane and I coined the pacrim motto for Mongolia, “the world is our toilet”.

Our buses sometimes needed gas and we would wait by a gas station while the Abbot’s assistant or daughter would locate the attendant. Sometimes these attendants would live far away from the city and we would wait, and wait for the gas-man. This always gave us time to meet and interact with the residents of tiny towns across Mongolia. We would bring out frizbees and hacky sacks and use our universal language skills of body language to communicate. At one point we met a group of kids with play metal swords. They chased each other with the drama and sound effects of a western film. They played frizbee with us and we introduced the concept of a high five. Which they shouted as “HIGH TOW!”(five). The abbot came back after retrieving the gas-man who was picking grass in the country with his family. The bus was filled with gas and we waved and high tow’d our goodbyes.

One night after dinner and writing I fall asleep to the gypsy like music of Lisa on her fiddle, Norah on her clarinet, and Safa’s guitar. After awhile everyone else piles into the tent and we sleep like sardines. Sometime during the night the wind picks up and violently sweeps sand and plants across the Gobi and into the sides of our tent. At first it is comforting and sounds like rain pelting our tents. Our shelter begins to sag and cater to the winds demands, and as the wind turns into a full blown storm, rain seeps into our tent and it sways as stakes are ripped out and zippers fail. Allison and I get out of the tent and attempt to repair it… twice. At some point the Mongolian guides shuffle us all onto the buses and we sleep upright. Mama Khan (a name we gave the head cook) comes by and tucks us all in, making sure our sleeping bags are secure around us and that we can sleep for a few more hours. In the morning we survey the damage and pack up the drenched tents. We eat breakfast in a near by Ger that is full of splayed goats. The family there is curious at us, and us at them. We notice bladders that are full of butter and horns displayed like trophies. I eat my rice milk that is warm and pleasant as I try to avoid the smell of dead animals and dried cheese. The family lets us ride their camels for a bit before we leave. The woman who runs the family is patient and polite to her camels and she offers them like a mother coaxing her child to meet a friend. One of our guides named Donald (his western name), takes me around for a bit and the camel begins to jog. The sky is huge and open as I ride in the safe confines of the camel’s humps.

We arrive at our next stop, which because of our tent damage is a Ger camp not too far away. We have class and set up the tents so they can dry out. We find bedmates and file into our Gers. I finally get to take a shower and I catch up on reading and riding while sitting outside in the wind. Todd joins me, and then Rachel and Anna. We all let the wind whip through our hair (everyone except Todd) as we converse (my hair retains the smells of the wind and later in my bed I wrap it around me to remember). We study for our first test later that night in the warm pleasantry of our Gers. We tell Buddhist jokes and funny science jokes that make me remember I am in the Gobi going to school. Donald, the Abbots daughter, and some of the other Mongolians crew members invite us to drink vodka with them, so a few of us sit around a large table and talk as best we can. They teach us a Mongolian love song called “amrag min” and we practice and practice. We sing them “L-O-V-E” in our best Sinatra voices and we all drink tiny shots of vodka. One of the older Mongolian men who acts as our security guard stands up to give a speech. He clasps his hands and talks and smiles and laughs. The Abbots daughter, Erica, speaks very good English, so we all look at her for a translation. She relays that he is very happy we are there. He is very pleased about our interest in Mongolia and our interaction with him and the other Mongolians. Erica rolls her eyes at his sincerity and we tell her to tell him that we have enjoyed every moment. She does so and later as I fall asleep the image of his pride and happiness allow me a good nights sleep.

There is always more driving, more images, smells, sounds, and interactions. We visit monasteries high on hills and deep within cities. We stack rocks into piles and look at the felt arts and crafts of countryside artisans. I watch as a fly navigates the plaid of Todd’s shirt, as Jeff tries dried cheese, as we all politely try arahg (fermented mares milk). We sing Disney songs, show tunes, and Christmas songs on the bus. The Dramamine lulls us all to sleep and we dream simultaneously.

We arrive at a huge waterfall and its resemblance to my idea of middle earth is stunning. A few of us hike down to the rivers edge and I leave my camera behind. I notice tiny, elegant, black daddy long legs and startling clear water. That night as we serve dinner at our nearby Ger camp the sun begins to set over the most beautiful place I have ever been. Donald and I walk to the river to get water and he asks me what I write about in my black book. I tell him it is my sketchbook and my journal. He is curios about my home and my family. He asks where I live and assumes that I mean Washington DC. This is impressive to him. It is impressive to me that he only has one sibling, because most Mongolians have many. We carry water back to the camp and he points out a huge group of Yaks. He tells me which one is in charge and I ask him how he can tell. He is either bullshitting me, (which is likely, the Mongolian crew like to have fun and tease us) or he knows things like this innately, just as I know a good apple from a bad one.

Somehow someone finds out that I have a musical side project going on and everyone starts demanding to listen. Slowly epiphenomenon circulates within the group and I sit and read the Fountainhead while my ipod travels. I write. I write so much that I feel like I go to sota again, where everything was inspirational and interesting. I write about home and missing people there. I write about here and how many new people I am meeting and am going to meet. I write about smells, sounds, and dreams. I make notes about the quality and fertility of dirt, things that my parents would find interesting, memories I have of tea and meals with friends, things to do back in UB, and things to forget. We stop at a monastery and we hike up, up, up until we reach a spot that does not allow women. I have been obsessed with capturing panoramas of this country and this rule has disrupted my chance at attaining one from this very high altitude. Todd offers to take some pictures for me, but I decline. This is part of Asia, this is part of coming here. I listen to the birds banter and whip into each other. Their wings flap above me and I am satisfied.

On the bus we talk about Twin Peaks, arrested development, and Japanese and Chinese movies. We talk, sleep, and eat until our bus gets stuck in the sand and we all file out to gather rocks to place beneath the wheels. The bus starts and we push and push until we are free and proceed back onto the bus. Our last night in the desert we stay at a very nice Ger camp that has a main building with a restaurant. All of Gers are full so we stay in hotel rooms inside this main building. We find our rooms and the first thing I do is use the beautiful clean bathroom! The toilet will not flush so I do the logical thing that a mechanic would do and I remove the porcelain top to get a closer inspection. Allison comes in to consult and as we are talking and planning the top slides off of the seat and smashes into many small splinters. Needless to say I am the only pacrimmer ever to buy a toilet in Mongolia. After this is all squared away and I have paid ten dollars for a new toilet, some of us have a few beers and eat traditional mutton which is cooked over hot rocks. It tastes like a very great beef brisket and I am in heaven. After dinner we listen to some Mongolian music complete with a throat singer. He is so good and his voice sounds completely synthesized but it is real and happening right in front of me. Nat requests them to play “amrag min” and we all sing along with the chorus. Later that night, I sit in one of the hotel rooms lounges in my pajamas as the hot water for the shower heats up. Safa and Stephanie play music on their black market guitars and somehow we end up singing Dashboard Confessional songs and laughing at our playfulness and past ignorance’s.

We leave pretty early in the morning to start the long drive back to UB. Ulan Bator is a home away from home and as we pull into the familiar hectic streets and bright lights, it hits me that my home now is just me… I am like Chunky in Craig Thomson’s book… I am a turtle who takes my home with me. My shell just happens to be a really nice Gregory backpack with a wonderful storage system and secret pockets. As we drive through town back to our hostel we drive past “Metro Spresso” and I feel more at home here than ever before.