Mostly Stories of Going to the Bathroom

During breakfast at the hotel, I met one half of the owners, a Christian woman from Australia who, with her husband, wanted to serve God overseas but didn't know what they were qualified to do.  Through a missions organization, they decided to buy this hotel, hire Mongolian workers, and encourage the local church.  Needless to say, I immediately fell in love with her and took heart from her story.

After we had packed up and were waiting outside for Gunee to pick us up (he is from Tsetserleg, so he stayed with his family, and in fact brought his younger brother along for the rest of our adventure), I chatted with two guys from Germany.  At first I liked them, because they said, "We decided to go to Mongolia while we are young.  When we are old, then we can go to easy places like Spain.". But then they started complaining about the Mongolian roads and how the Roman empire had made a great road system in a thousand years, so why hadn't Mongolians?  I tried suggesting a few reasons, but they waved them off, and I was highly disgusted by their Western pride and superiority.

We set off a little before noon, and spent nearly all of our driving time on dirt roads and dirt ruts, with three foot deep craters and water that had to be forded.  I also had an even more interesting bathroom experience.  The thing about Mongolia is, even though there are mountains, the huge stretches of land between them are incredibly flat, with no rocks or trees to hide behind.  So when we took our bathroom break in the middle of nowhere, the guys went to one side of the car, and Gany and I took a handful of toilet paper and headed off to the other side.  We walked about 100 yards away, but the thing about grassy plains is that distance only makes your bare ass smaller, not invisible.  We could only rely on Boy Scout promises that no one would look at you as you dropped trou.  

After five hours of bouncily driving through the countryside (how do they know where they are or where they're going? It's amazing!), we arrived at a little town where the first Samaritan's Purse family lived.  Their little girl, around five or six, had heart surgery in Ulaanbaatar last September, and now she is jumping around with her brother, showing off her dance moves, and hamming it up for Gany's camera.  

Mongolian people are extremely generous to their guests.  We were given milk tea in bowls (which I have since come to really like) and a cookie bowl was passed around.  I took a whole one, then realized everyone else had just taken the broken off pieces.  Oops.  The cookie was filling, but then they passed around a candy bowl, a bread bowl, and finally, individual bowls of stew.  And we had just stopped to eat lunch a little over an hour earlier!

I find that I very much prefer Mongolian visiting to Senegalese.  As I expected, I feel more comfortable in Asian/Mongolian culture.  While it's acceptable to be a little loud and crazy, that is not the norm.  It's totally okay to sit in silence.  People don't clamor to talk to you, and the whole event is far more peaceful.  

Before we left, Gany and I went to the bathroom (anywhere with walls is my new  preference).  Except when we went in the outhouse, it is made for multiple people at the same time.  Not wanting to look rude by spinning around and walking out on Gany, we squattie pottied together.  I am learning new levels of non-privacy.

We arrived at our one-room-hotel's town around 8:00, but the owners were at a special picnic indefinitely (HAHAHA what!?) so we decided to find the second Samaritan's Purse family.  This led to a wild goose chase in which we picked up random people, found empty houses and gers, and drove all over the place into the dark. It would have been an adventure, except I was always one and a half steps behind on our plan. I learned that adventures are only fun when you are aware of what adventure you are on.

At 11:00, the last guy to jump into our truck offered to let us sleep at his house.  We sat in his family's living room/bedroom/dining room until Gunee asked if I was tired.  I accidentally said yes, and a rug was rolled out in the center of the floor.  I was completely mortified by the idea of curling up to sleep in the middle of the room while everyone else continued to watch TV and chat.  Gany must have sensed my discomfort (my keening "I don't know what to do!" probably helped) because she unrolled both our sleeping bags, and we both crawled in.  It was awkward enough, but it was made worse by Gany psyching me out.  After a few minutes, when she thought I was asleep, she got back out of her sleeping bag and continued talking with everyone.

And that's how I slept in a stranger's house, ten in one room, without a pillow, in my clothes and contacts, dreaming of a gorilla chasing me through a grocery store.

Question: was anyone offended when I said "ass" earlier?  I thought about using "bare bottom" or "naked behind" but neither of those seemed to convey the awkwardness and crudeness of the situation.  I hope no one thinks I am a heathen; I just believe in words being symbols of meaning, and I wanted to crudely symbolize an awkward piece of anatomy.