"Your eyes alight with sun shot rays. A riot of color is a banquet for your name. The worlds alight with coals aflame."

Om mani padme hum

I remember the day I met Choijamts.  It was my first August in Omnodelger.  It was a hot summer day. Cloudless blue sky.  I remember it was sunny.  Really sunny.  I was bustling back and forth around my ger.  I had just received furniture.  I remember scurrying back and forth trying to organize my life into the small space I'd be calling home for the next two years.  Bluegrass music twanged from my laptop.  My ger door hung open.  The sun's rays bursting through to soak the vinyl floor in its brilliance.  I was so caught up in giving my Mongolian home some American flavor that I didn't even hear him come in.  "Oui!" My head shot up, startled.  I looked towards the doorway and squinted against the vibrant rays.  A hunched silhouette filled the entrance to my ger.  He shuffled out of the sun's grasp chuckling to himself having caught me by surprise.  Dressed in a dark purple deel, camouflage pants, and a tattered cabbie's hat the aged figure came towards me.  He grasped my hand introducing himself.  He gripped my palm and patted my wrist with his other weathered hand.  "My name is Choijamts," he said.  I remember it was hard to understand much after that.  My poor Mongolian mixed with his low mumbled voice caused me to strain to understand every word.  He said the weather was nice.  It was hot.  It was sunny.  He gestured towards the bright doorway slowly with a crooked finger.  Did I like the furniture?  Do I need more?  Is there anything else I needed?  Can I make a fire?  He said he'd come back when it got colder and teach me.  Just like that he was gone.  He shook my hand again.  Waved goodbye then moved at a snails pace onto the sun dried grass and back into the street.
I remember I stood in my sunny doorway and watched him go.

A creaking.  Plastic and wood stretching, then a clatter.  Metallic rustling of knives, spoons, forks and utensils tumbling down as the shelf of my food cabinet collapsed in on itself.  "Damn it, again?!?"  I shouted aloud.  My furniture had been on its last legs for months now.  It was the middle of winter and the Chinese furniture I inherited from my predecessor was worse for wear.  My kitchen cabinet's shelves continued to collapse and break apart on regular intervals.  The wood so full of holes from me poorly hammering it back together made it look like swiss cheese.  My clothes dresser was also in shambles with the doors detaching every time they swung on their hinges.  I decided to take action before I too started cursing China.  I stormed off to school.  I found Munkhkherlen.  Explained my predicament.  The American wanted furniture and he wanted it now.  She just shrugged at me.  "Lets go see Choijamts."  So we did.  Trudged from the school through the snow to the dormitories where we entered a tiny room upstairs.  I was met with the sound of a rasping cough as I entered.  Simple Mongolian furnishings lined the walls.  A painted chest, carved coffee table, a decorated mirror.  I passed an altar with piles of spent incense.  There in the back of the room on a wooden bed was Choijamts.  For the first time I noticed I could see my breath in his room.  It was freezing.  He was huddled on the bed clutching the purple deel up to his chin and stifling another cough.  I could see he was ill.  He reached up to shake my hand from the bed.  Suddenly my trivial problem of cheap furniture was forgotten.  Forget me, someone get him a blanket!  I screamed in my head.  But it was already too late.  Munkhkherlen without any introduction began rambling off my grievances.  I waved my arms behind her whispering under my breath for her to just forget it, it wasn't important.  The point had already come across though, he nodded from his bed.  "I'll find you good Mongolian furniture."  he said, coughing into his deel.  I remember being so grateful, I didn't know how to show my gratitude.  I don't know why but I said the first thing that popped into my head.  "Do you like to play Mongolian cards?"  I asked.  His eyes lit up.  "Of course!"  he exclaimed, "But I have no cards."  Fifteen minutes later I was back in his room, having fetched a deck of cards from my home.  He sat up on the bed and we played cards on the tiny coffee table.  I never won.
The next day.  I was in my ger grading papers.  When a knock resounded against my door.  Thats weird, I thought, no one knocks here.  No sooner had I opened the door then bursting through came a convoy of school workers all carrying beautiful pieces of Mongolian furniture.  Setting them down where I asked, they turned to leave.  As the last worker exited my ger he turned to me.  "Choijamts says if you need anything else please tell him."

Days went by.  Weeks went by.  A year and five months went by.  Every time I saw Choijamts he greeted me with that handshake.  Always sporting his signature purple deel and cabbie hat.  "Do you have enough wood?"  he'd ask.  "Do you need more coal?" he'd inquire.  "Lets play cards!"
When I encountered him on the street he'd greet me and walk with me to school.  He'd wrap one hand into the crook of my arm and I'd walk at a snails pace with him chatting the best I could while minding the ice.  As my second Mongolian winter set in he came with a bundle of cardboard, pulled up a stool next to my stove and proceeded to make a fire.  I remember between one of our frequent card games I paused to demonstrate a card trick to him.  I remember him cackling uncontrollably, rocking on his stool with laughter after the convoluted magic trick finished and I revealed the only remaining card on the table to be the one he had chosen.  Times beyond counting I remember being seated somewhere in our teacher's room.  Caught up in grading or lesson planning, mesmerized in some task, when I'd look up to see his hunched figure over me.  Hand extended.  Ready for that handshake.

This year I celebrated Christmas in the Gobi Desert with other volunteers.  After the interesting but joyous celebration was finished I made my trek back east alone.  A fifteen hour car trip, I sat on the bus and listened to music.  Snow drove out of the sky, whirling outside my window and beating against the road.  My daydreaming was interrupted when I pulled my phone from my pocket.  I had a text message.  It was from Tuya.  The first part of the message was standard.  My cat was fine and hadn't frozen while I was away, but he was low on food.  The second part of the message was what shook me.  It was about Choijamts.  Two words together stuck out to me.  The first being "nas".  The second being "barsan".  Separately I knew them both, (age) and (expired).  I didn't need a dictionary to understand that when you put them together in Mongolian it translates to "deceased".  Downcast after confirming my suspicions with Tuya.  I just rested my head on the window, let the music drone on, watched the snow drive on,  and let my thoughts carry me on to Omnodelger.

I dragged myself from my bed at seven in the morning.  Bundled up as warmly as I could.  I gave a quick hello to friends and family stateside via the internet then trudged out into the morning darkness.  I headed to meet at Munkhkherlen's home, not understanding why I was instructed to leave so early.  I only knew we would meet to say a last goodbye to Choijamts.  The morning was cold, the air crisp and frozen.  I walked across town and met Munkhkherlen outside her yard.  Together we walked to a relative of Choijamts' ger.  As we approached I saw how crowded it was.  People huddled in deels and winter jackets congregated outside of the hashaa fence.  Cars were parked at every which angle all throughout the street.  It seemed as though the whole town was here.  Either through tiredness or the somberness of the occasion people were quiet.  Hushed whispers and mumbled conversations.  We stood and waited with the crowd.  I bounced back and forth slowly on two feet to keep my blood moving.  "Whats happening?" I asked my counterpart Enkhtor, "What are we waiting for?"  She gestured with her hand towards the eastern horizon.  "We are waiting for the sun,"  she explained.  "Then we can say goodbye."  The beauty of what she said dazzled me.  I didn't know how to respond. I could only nod.  From the crowd my director's wife, Naranjargal took me and three other teachers by the arm.  "My home is right there,"  she said, pointing at the hashaa over.  "Lets have tea and wait inside, its warm."  We drank tea in her house in silence.  I sipped the white milk tea slowly letting the steam rise and warm my face.  Pulling back the curtain Naranjargal turned to us, "It's time, lets go."  When we got back outside everyone was lined up side by side flanking the entrance of the hashaa gate.  We stood in with the long rows of people and waited.  Everyone was quiet.  All eyes to the horizon.  At first just stains of pinks and oranges.  Long streaks of watercolor yellows and reds.  Then suddenly, a burst of illumination came from the peak of a distant mountaintop.  Then another.  And another.  Until the tell-tale rim of humanity's most precious star lit up the horizon.  As if on cue a chanting began sounding from inside the hashaa.  As the sun continued to rise a procession exited, men bore the simple wooden coffin on their shoulders as they made their way from the gers and into the street.  Behind them walked two monks, bareheaded and in simple red robes, chanting in Tibetan and ringing a bell.  Behind the monks walked two women in deels.  One carried a large platter of Mongolian boov, fried dough inlaid with designs and arranged on a dish in a symbolic way.  She held it out in front of her moving the plate in tiny circles.  The other woman carried a bowl of milk and as she followed the coffin she ladled little droplets out, tossing them up towards the sky.  The coffin was hoisted into the back of a waiting microbus, the men jumped in behind it to hold it in place, then the large van pulled away slowly at a crawl.  The crowd turned and followed.  The deel clad people of Omnodelger clutching their prayer beads and walking in silence, followed the procession towards the town's limits.  The monks chanted.  The bell rang.  The women offered their boov and milk.  When we reached the edge of town the microbus picked up speed and drove out towards the steppe.  No doubt silently giving one final goodbye to Choijamts, the crowd stopped and we all looked on.

I stood on the sunny street and watched him go.

"You'd think that I could muster up a little soft shoed gentle sway but I don't feel like dancin', no sir, no dancin' today."

"What country is that?"  I asked, pausing from painting the vast expanse of northern Canada.  I gestured towards Ulzii-Bayar as he colored a long peninsula forest green.  He stopped painting and pondered the landmass.  "Hmmm, I don't know," he admitted shrugging his shoulders.  I pointed to it with my brush handle.  "It's Thailand," I added.   "Ah, right," he smiled.  "It's warm there, I'll go there some day," he added this with an air suggesting that this had been determined for some time.

It has been over a year in the making.  The World Map Project.  I first got the idea browsing our Peace Corps resources website many many months ago.  After making multiple forays out to the city to get the appropriate supplies, helping another volunteer do the project in a neighboring town, and gathering support and interest in my school, my English Club and I were finally ready to tackle the task.  To my students it meant a really hands on English/Geography lesson.  As we painted I asked them personal questions about what we were creating.  What countries have you visited?  What countries do you want to visit?  What's this island?  What's that continent?  Do you think its as cold as Mongolia here?  After the three day project finally finished they ended with enthusiasm and I'm hoping further knowledge of our world.

To me the project meant all those things too.  Sharing two things I'm pretty good at English and geography, but it also meant something a little more.  Multiple volunteers have called Omnodelger home over the years.  A small handful of women, one man, and now me.  I am to be the last of Omnodelger's Peace Corps volunteers.  The town has met its cap.  Time for other places to get a turn.  As I roam the halls of our little school physical evidence of those past volunteers is almost nonexistent.  Every once and while whilst rummaging and searching for some forgotten resource I'll stumble upon an old photo or a lost lesson plan of one of my predecessors.  It is sobering to say the least.  For me the map project is something physical.  Something that will stand through time if appreciated.  It isn't a legacy or a testament to myself.  It simply echoes in a colorful way that the Peace Corps was here.  That a handful of foreigners were here.  That individuals wanted to help and came here.

That we were here.

Halfhearted

He came down the mountain,
Frosty beard and smokin' breath,
It was such a long road,
His shadow asked him for a lift,
It said, "I don't mean to be a trouble now."
"But, can you take me to where evening lasts?"
He said, "You know I'm here to help you."
"Just no ones had the sense to ask."

She came up the river,
Made her way on broken strings,
She had such long hair,
Smooth fingers and golden rings,
"We oughta live for tomorrow."
Catch the wind without a care,
She said, "You know I'm here to help you."
"But first meet me halfway there."

He walked into the country,
Worn boots and dirty nails,
Seems like he was running,
But from what, I can't tell,
A young mother, she's shivering,
Shakes her fists up to the sky,
They say, "You know we're here to help you."
She says, "Leave us be, we'll get by."

Halfway spent,
You know I'm halfway home,
Halfway frozen to the bone,
Halfway gone,
You know I'm halfway there,
Lord don't make me,
A halfhearted man.

"You can take a trip to China or take a boat to Spain. Take a blue canoe around the world and never come back again..."

We sat around a small table.  Crowded with food, tea, wine and vodka we chatted after a hearty meal.  A fire crackled in the small stove that heated the one room house.  The house belonged to Enkhtor, one of our school's newest English teachers.  Her, myself, Kherlen, Saruul, and Bolormaa spent an evening meal and drinks together, as fellow English teachers, colleagues, and above all, friends.  Conversation had lapsed into a now new but reoccurring topic, my inevitable departure from Mongolia.  Trying to convince me I should stay another year they playfully argued with one another.  "He can move his ger into my hashaa."  Kherlen suggested "Its the biggest!"  Bolormaa cut her off before she could continue, "Justinaa!  Move into my yard, it's closer to the school!"  Trying to remain neutral I laugh and give them an impossible task, "The first person to build me a house, I'll move into their hashaa."  The room erupts in laughter and Kherlen jokingly smacks me on the shoulder.  When quiet seizes our group again, Saruul looks at me and asks in all seriousness, "What will you do when you leave Omnodelger?"    Before I could even ponder this Kherlen interjects on my behalf.  "He'll go to America, he'll get a job, he'll find a wife."  She counted each task on her fingers, like each action was already preordained.  "Will you go to another country after Mongolia?"  Bolormaa enquired.  Kherlen once again acting like my press secretary intervened.  "No, he'll buy a home and live in America."  She looked at me expectantly as if to say, isn't that so?  Her words sent a pang of emotion through my chest, that pang of emotion you get when someone just told you bad news.  I gathered my thoughts as quickly as I could.  Took a breath and opened my mouth to speak.

There is a book out there.  Its by Ken Jennings.  You know, the Jeopardy guy.  Its called Maphead.  I gave it a try out of curiosity and my inherent love for geography.  This short well written book happens to be all about people just like me.  A curious if sometimes nerdy group of individuals who happen to take a keen interest, a slight obsession, a refined passion for maps, geography, places.  People who memorize the shapes of states and countries.  Who list capitals and cities.  Can ramble on about interesting factoids about the lesser known places of our world.  People who go beyond just memorizing locations on a map but sit and create geography of their own.   From the imagination of a child to the mind of J.R.R Tolkien.  When I finished the volume I certainly considered myself to be thrown in with the lot the book described but something inside me told me I took it further.  While sitting and memorizing places on a map is good fun, I wanted more.  I wanted to go to these places.

"But traveling don't change a thing, it only makes it worse.  Unless the trip you take is to change your cruel course..."  

There's an English word adapted from German.  Wanderlust.  The strong desire or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world.  Before I had crossed oceans.  Before I had known what it was like to be in places like Berlin, Galilee, Bayeux, or Jerusalem.  Before I floated in the Dead Sea, crossed the Danube or waded in the Jordan I traveled stateside.  Working in archaeology had me visiting a different town almost everyday.  Small farm towns, quiet New England villages, landscapes of backwoods Americana.  I took pleasure in traveling, living, and working in these lesser known nooks.  Brandon, VT, Frenchtown, NJ, Clark's Summit, PA, Delmar, MD.  Every town, no matter how small was special if only briefly adding to my nomadic pleasure.  The Ramat Rahels, Orkhons, and Omnodelgers of the world only broadened my knowledge further.  A whole new level outside my comfort zone, I was traveling, I was subconsciously checking these places off in the map in my head but at the same time I was learning.  Absorbing culture, religion, and language, I didn't just want to understand these places I wanted to be a part of them.   What I didn't count on was them becoming a part of me.

"Cause every town's got a mirror, and every mirror still shows me..."

Now sitting across from my co-workers and friends that pang of emotion tore at my chest.  I don't want this to be it.  The atlas in my mind spread out to show the possibilities were endless.  "I think I'll want to see more of the world."  I said in a low voice.  "I've learned so many things from Mongolia and all of you, I think I'd like to learn from other places too."  Bolormaa pondered this, "Where?  Africa?"  I couldn't help but smile at this knowing the reaction my answer would instigate.  "Wherever.   I would like to go to places in Africa."  Kherlen let out a little gasp, "Oui, Yanaa, who will you go with?"  I shrugged my shoulders in indifference, "I don't know, maybe I will go alone."  Another gasp.  "You can't go to those places alone, it's too dangerous."  I spread my arms out before myself, the gesture made words unnecessary.  Here I sat, the lone American in Omnodelger, as I have been for more than a year.  "Sometimes you learn more when you are alone."  I added.  They all seemed to nod in understanding.  "If I meet people in other places as kind as you have been to me I know I will be okay." I added for reassurance.  Bolormaa made a clucking sound with her tongue and said with a smile, "Other countries will be lucky to meet you."  Truth or not this made me smile right back.    

1. "I am my own ragged company."

     

"Been on the road 'till tomorrow. Been through the joys and the sorrow. Came through the flood and I pulled through the mud, but I still got a long way to go."

I have lived, dwelt, worked, and breathed Mongolia now for one year four months and eight days.  From the inspiringly uplifting to the teeth grindingly frustrating.  I've spent the majority of that time doing things I never imagined myself doing.  Living in ways I never imagined myself living and forging relationships with people I never imagined meeting.  I'm in my second year so when a member of the Peace Corps staff dropped by for a site visit he exclaimed that visiting second year volunteers was a lot easier.  We seem less stressed, more settled in, more savvy.  I'd like to think that true for the most part, fires start a little quicker, conversations are a little less confusing, goat innards are a little more tasty (not much), car rides are a little less frustrating.  For all Mongolia has given me it still tests me everyday.  Its one of the aspects of living here that makes it all so rewarding.

October in New Jersey was always mild.  Sporadic windy days that sent the golds, oranges, and browns swirling about.  As a kid I remember jumping in the leafy piles and flailing about spastically trying to pluck the colors from the air.  In Vermont it was even more spectacular, colors that painted landscapes and mountainsides.  I remember working on the ferry gazing out the window as we chugged across Lake Champlain, streaks of red and gold dripping down the Adirondacks.  I remember thumbing through a book about Aztec history as the tourists from down south, the "Leaf Peepers" fired off photographs.

Omnodelger doesn't have trees.  Well we do but there is like four, and they were planted, and all the same color.  So it isn't exactly the color show of rural Vermont.  October usually brings on the first of various snowfalls that would mark winters coming.  I awoke this morning, throat scatchy, body aching.  One of many imminent winter colds, my own personal mark that winter was coming.  I also awoke to a peculiar sound.  Like the tiniest most minuscule of pebbles being softly dropped on glass.  Frequent gusts rocked my ger and my stove pipe clanged.  I got up and dressed, warmer than usual.  I knew what the sound meant.  Mongolia couldn't pull a fast one on me this morning.  I exited through my ger door, then through the door of my wooden shed I use for storing wood in winter.  Outside the wind blew, snow fell in a swirling fury with each gust.  The wooden planks of our hashaa's fence swayed, snow caked in its weathered cracks.  I sighed into the snowy abyss.  Not yet!  I'm not ready!   It was warm and sunny only days ago.  Winter had come and snatched Omnodelger in its grip, I knew it would be a great long while before it let go.

I taught my classes.  Attendance was pitiful.  The further dwelling students not wanting to brave the trek.  Still feeling under the weather I immediately went home after teaching.  The blustery blizzard still raged on.  I made a fire.  I took a nap.  I awoke in the early evening.  Pulled on some boots and a jacket prepared to make my cross hashaa journey to the outhouse.  I exited my ger into my tiny supply shed.  Into almost a foot of snow.  The winds persistence had sent the tiny flakes blowing through every crack and crevice in the wood.  My wood was snowy and frosty, my ger door entombed in a white blanket.  I sighed and kicked through the powder to the sheds door.  Unlatched it.  Pushed.  Resistance.  I tried again.  The door opened a crack then stopped.  The wind had formed a snow bank outside my door, higher and deeper than my waist.  I was trapped in my own home.  Snowed in.  I stuck my head through the crack and saw movement in the yard.  Dawkraa was trudging to the family car in an old worn grey deel.  "Dawkraa, help!" I yelled sticking an arm through the crack to wave him over.  He trudged towards me chuckling at my predicament.  He started kicking at the snowy bank with his boots.  "Go get a shovel!"  I demanded.  He kept on kicking, "There is no shovel."  I laughed and rolled my eyes, "of course."  Finally freeing me from my house, he pried the door open and upon seeing the snow accumulation in my supply shed made a disapproving groan and went about kicking the snow from my wood back outside.  We both flailed about kicking snow and ice until the shed was as snow free as two men can make it using only their boots.  As Dawkraa turned back towards his own home he asked, "Are you okay?  Is your ger warm."  I thanked him and told him I'm fine.  "Good, come to my home tomorrow."  he added, "We'll eat marmot!"  I laughed as he walked back towards his house, of course we will.  Closing the door against the biting wind and snow,  I shook my head at the damp wood and icy door.  Man, I still got a long way to go. 

Now late in the evening the clock ticks towards midnight.
One year.
Four months.
Nine days.

I wouldn't give a single one back.

       

"This ain't no joke, the motor runs but the gears are broke. This ain't no lie, wheels won't turn, damn thing won't drive. This ain't no good, at all"

Flaskback: June, Election Day
Somewhere in Sukhbaatar Province, Mongolia

9:30pm

I could only blink at the two tires and clench my fists.  No need to ask questions.  No need to even speak.  I knew what it meant.  Staring at the two deflated tires I new it spelled doom for the rest of the evening.  The fact that all of the cars passengers were wandering aimlessly around the steppe, arms raised, cell phones pointed skyward, like technology obsessed zombies was no consolation.  It would have looked comical, if I didn't know what they were searching for.  A drop of service.  A bar of signal.  To call for help.

Earlier that day: Ondorkhaan, Mongolia

Me and Elliot stood at the bus station, waiting.  We had been waiting well past the time the bus was to arrive.  On its way from Ulaanbaatar we sought to hop aboard the bus and ride it a short five hours to Baruun-Urt, the capital of Sukhbaatar province to help out at a summer camp put on by one of our fellow volunteers.  Except the bus never came.  Contributing this to elections, we sat, half irritated, half unsurprised.  When up pulls a car.  "Going to Sukhbaatar?"  the driver asks.  We sure are, accepting his offer for a ride and thanking our good fortune.  After a handful of errands, packing the car to bursting with passengers, and a small intermission at the drivers home we set off for Sukhbaatar.  I turned to Elliot commenting how at this rate we'd be there while the sun was still up.  In a way I was right.

Afternoon: East of Ondorkhaan, Mongolia 

I saw it coming.  It came on almost in slow motion.  Out of all the rocks that I spied out the windshield this one seemed to glow.  Seemed to stand out amongst its stony brethren.  Perfectly positioned it sat, then it was upon us.  I cringed as it approached.  A sickening thud.  The sound of metal smacking against the resilience of stone.  We skidded to a halt.  Assessed the damage.  One tire deflated, the foreboding sound of hissing air could be heard before I even stepped from the car.  The driver set to work, taking tools out of the trunk.  The rear tire, also having not been spared the impact sat askew in its rim.  He gave it a short inspection, a little kick then moved on to the flat front tire.  After about half an hour the spare was on.  A spare that looked like it would be more at home on a ride around lawn mower than an automobile.  We continued our journey.  Each bump made me wince, always expecting our John Deere sized tire to explode upon the slightest disturbance.

The mountains that had always served as the backdrop to Khentii disappeared.  Now just horizon, blue sky over a sea of grass.  Flat expanse.  Nothing.  Sukhbaatar.  We hadn't been driving long when the driver suddenly made a hard right off the main road.  Instead of east towards Baruun-Urt we were now headed south.  The tall waves of grass, rippled in the wind as we left that main artery to our destination behind.  "Where are we going?", we asked.  "Don't worry my two friends," the driver exclaimed jovially, "I have to vote."  Not wanting to be one to withhold the man from his civic duties I sat back as we sped two hours out of our way to the nearest soum.  We arrived in a tiny town nestled between rare changes in elevation, but no one voted.  Instead we stopped to repair the damaged tire.  Elliot and I munched on a loaf of bread and watched. With new peace of mind and a full sized tire we set out the way we came.  This time veering off again into nothingness to stop at a lone building.  An island in a void of grass.  This is where our driver would vote.  In under thirty minutes he cast his ballot and we were off again.  It was after 9pm.  My head rested against the car window.  I no longer cringed with every bump.  The sun crept below the horizon.  Still far from the main road we had turned off of earlier I knew we'd never make Baruun-Urt before dark.  The bumpy road and soft radio began to lull me to sleep.  I started to doze.

I was jolted awake.  Familiar sound.  Metal against stone.  Skidding tires.  The hiss of rapid expelled air.  Next thing I know I'm standing aghast, blinking dumbfounded at our newly crippled vehicle.  Our pathetic spare could only remedy one of the lame tires.  We were stranded. It wasn't until after dark that we got the news.  The driver had found signal on his phone.  His friend would come get him.  He'd be back later with a new tire.  After midnight he was finally fetched by an old Russian truck.  We watched as it sped off into the night.  So with nothing to do but wait we sat in the car.  Hours crept by.  The other abandoned passengers slept.  Our minds raced.  Would he come back tonight?  Would we be stuck here until tomorrow?   We were truly deserted.  Lost in a sea of grass.  At least in the ocean you drift.  It was  after 3am when Elliot stirred me from attempted sleep.  "I think I see lights!"  I sat up.  Indeed two beams shown in the distance.  We watched in awe as a truck pulled up and out hopped our driver.  In no time they had two new tires attached, and after a cigarette and small talk with our rescuers he was ready to go again.  As we got back in the car to continue to our destination I saw the light of dawn begin to creep above the horizon.

6:00am: Baruun-Urt, Mongolia

Baruun-Urt was sleepy at 6am.  Streets were quiet.  No dogs barked.  No engines groaned.  We pulled into the bus station.  As we exited the car our tired looking friend came around the corner to meet us.  The driver handed me my bag and guitar and I took them greedily, fearing that a moment longer in the car's possession might trap me again with its next ailment.  Exhausted and frustrated I wanted to kiss the paved streets of Baruun-Urt and kick our unlucky instrument of transportation all at the same time.  As the car began to pull away, the driver stuck his head out the window.  "Call me when you want a ride back," he exclaims happily.

I could only fake a smile, blink, and clench my fists.  

"Father, whose arms extend eternity. A sky of blue above the human family. We gather now in circle ’round the foot of thee. You, the giving tree."

There is a place in Khentii.

A place Omnodelger claims as its own.  Its miles away though.  Over rough terrain, tall mountains, and through shallow rivers.  Wind through the valleys and rugged trails long enough and you'll find this place.

Its called Baldan Bereeven, and once upon a time it was the top religious center in eastern Mongolia.  It boasted as many as 3,000 monks and its population swelled further with frequent visiting pilgrims.  The small monastery, nestled in the mountains was a community in itself.  The monks and pilgrims lived and prayed together in this monastery by a lake.  That was so long ago.

Change swept through Russia, then through eastern Europe, then central Asia.  It wasn't long before the change came to Mongolia.  "No religion!"  So the change said.  The change found Baldan Bereeven, next to its mountains and little lake.  They came.  The pilgrims fled.  The monks, jailed and murdered.  The old stones of the monastery smashed and toppled to rubble.  That was all so long ago.

Today the central monastery has been restored, proving that tradition, religion, and customs can't be snuffed out so easily.  Though resilient, beautiful, and still alive, walking through Baldan Bereeven lets on a somber feeling.  Moving past the ghostly foundations of buildings that once housed dozens of monks one takes on the sense that Baldan Bereeven is now a shadow of its former self.  Though restored, it is a fraction of what it was, with only a hundred or so monks coming to pray in the monastery only in late summer.

The real magic of Baldan Bereeven lies in the things that could not be destroyed and toppled.  The shamanistic mixed with the Buddhist.  Things that withstood the test of time and the atrocities of man.  Walk around Baldan Bereeven and one will come across these sacred places.  Places that hold mystical wonder.  A rock when laid upon that cures a bad back.  A mediation place in a field that soaks energy from the sun.  A split boulder that when walked through restores health.  Stones carved with script, Buddhas, and symbols.  Faded paint and weathered edges.

At the base of Baldan Bereeven's mountains sits a tree.  A tree that grew through the ages.  Stretched skyward through decades.  Extended roots and branches through centuries.  Its called the Wishing Tree.  Be silent, stand close, make a wish and the tree will make it so.  I stood with my palms clasped and leaned into the ancient tree.  I could feel the cool bark against my forehead.  Eyes closed I could hear birds chirp.  A breeze rustled the wild flowers at my feet.    I strained, leaning in further for emphasis.

I made my wish.

Get well soon Dena.