Foreign Perspectives

One of the best ways to make European friends is to go to a non-European country and find a hostel. Europeans will be everywhere. And if you happen to be in Ulaanbaatar around Thanksgiving, you will discover a multitude of Peace Corps volunteers, drawn from the crooks and crannies of the steppe, deserts, and forests. Coincidentally, I happen to be staying at a hostel in UB, and coincidentally, I happen to have met lots of Europeans and Peace Corps volunteers in the past few weeks. Coincidentally, this has been a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I have a 30 to 50 page research project to write, but in between trips to the library, I have met some very interesting people.  Everyone here has an interesting story; I think it takes a very special type of person who would choose to take the Trans-Siberian Railway during the winter or agree to spend two years living in a ger.
Peace Corps volunteers offer an interesting perspective on living in foreign countries and serving foreign communities.  Some are disillusioned, some are frustrated, some are invigorated, and some feel like they are making a real difference in the lives of the Mongolians they work with.  Most are weary with experience; Mongolia is real life to them.  Mongolia is most definitely not real life to the travelers passing through.  Everything is awesome or horrible, inspiring or unbelievable.  Everything is an adventure.  They relish the few nights they spent in a ger with a Mongolian family, the few hours they spent trying to control their Mongolian horse on a horseback ride through the steppe.  They live on a different scale than the Peace Corps. They are sprinters and marathon runners.
I think I must be running a 10 kilometer course that has little information stops at particular points of interest along the course, and I think these little educational detours are what have set my experience apart from other Westerners I’ve met in Mongolia.  I do not live here as long as Peace Corps volunteers so I lack the very personal insight of local communities, but I have gained an overarching knowledge and framework about the issues influencing those communities.  I haven’t gone to all of the tourist sites in UB, but I have learned about the history which have erected those walls and monuments.  Every day is an adventure, but I have also adjusted to aspects of the Mongolian culture.  I can read most of a menu and take a taxi.  I can eat relatively large pieces of fat.
This convergence of three Mongolian perspectives makes day to day life fun.  The travelers contribute a sense of adventure and wonder, the Peace Corps contribute cultural understanding, and I act perhaps as the bridge in between.  I eat breakfast sandwiched between Danes and Finns, I go out with Canadians and Irishmen, I stay in with Englishmen and Americans.   Occasionally I even talk with Mongolians. Life is one multicultural party sandwiched between some large helpings of knowledge over here in Mongolia, and it’s not even tourist season.

Two views of Selenge Aimag