I’ve begun to accept the fact that with my limited language knowledge, cultural know-how and unfamiliarity of the town, I am essentially a 24 year old toddler.  This has created some very interesting situations.  For starters a lot of things are too dangerous for me to be around or associated with horses, dogs, knives, certain plants, going too close to the river, motorcycles, scrap metal, apparently these could all put a swift end to the naïve volunteer.  I’ve kept my sense of humor and have even reveled in some of the humorous antic dotes my situation has produced.   One of my favorites is during meal time, my family will be joyously bantering away to one another in rapid speed Mongolian, I’ll be sitting quietly forking through my cycling variation of meat and vegetables and just to assert my position in the room I’ll usually just quietly say a random vocab word I know usually pertaining to my meal.  “Tomiss (potatoes)”.  The Mongolian banter will suddenly stop and I’ll be praised with “San ban!” (very good!).  Then the banter will quickly resume.  The Peace Corps has also issued the same pocket dictionary and phrasal book to my family that they gave to me.  So whenever there is a confusing interaction in my house they’ll quickly scurry around looking for either the dictionary or the phrase book, I like to think of it as the instruction manual I came with.

            Yesterday as I was in my room getting some language homework finished Jarra lightly knocked on my door.  He had someone with him, Jarra stepped in said hello then pushed forward a 15 year old boy in a soccer jersey and shorts.  “Hello, I am Mogi.”  Before I could even respond my host mom began calling for us to come outside to help herd the cattle.  As we all stumbled out of the house Jarra gestured that he wanted me and Mogi to go around the opposite side of the herd and get them moving towards the side of the hashaa (yard) with the gate.  So as I was walking in the direction he pointed Mogi materialized along side of me “Justin Brother, race!”  He finished this three-word request with a little mock start Olympic sprint.  I took off  after him racing up along the hill.  We weaved inside and out of cows and calves jumping over ditches and cow pies.  I don’t know if my side hurt from the sprint up the hill or from laughing so hard and we both reached the far side of the heard panting and laughing.  That’s how I met Mogi.