Since Khovd Aimag borders my old Peace Corps site of Gobi-Altai, I thought it would be a great opportunity to return home and see some old friends. But traveling between Aimags is quite tricky. First, you need to convince a driver to be included in his van, and then there is the endurance of being cramped next to twenty people for hours on end. But leaving Khovd was very smooth and after dozing through night, I awoke at sunrise to the familiar Gobi Desert. As we started our descent up the plateau into Altai, I could not contain my excitement, until I noticed a Russian Jeep driving slowly in the middle of the road. We honked our horn and attempted to pass the vehicle, but he moved closer to the left and we brushed his side, which caused our driver to lose control of the van and drive into a guard rail of a bridge. Luckily, we did not go over the bridge, but instead veered into a ditch. While the driver and some other passengers claimed the jeep driver was drunk, I didn't stay to confirm or deny the sobriety, as I grabbed my backpack and walked the last two kilometers into town, which was a surreal dawn return.
Leaving a place, we often imagine that things will remain as they once were. I was surprised that many of my friends, who were of similar age, had gotten married or had children over the past year. While these changes are welcomed, I was saddened to see that my landlord and neighbor for two years was bedridden and would soon die and that a good friend's husband was permanently paralyzed from a spring car accident. With my accident, the sight of my friend's paralysis, and this week's news that Elbegdorj, the former Prime Minister and current leader of the Democratic Party, was in coma due to a vehicular accident that also killed his driver, caused me to be frightened by the risk we put ourselves in when we travel throughout Mongolia. Our American instincts tell us that we can simply jump into a car and travel anywhere we desire, but this often causes extreme danger.
Contrary to most Peace Corps volunteers, I have intense cravings for Mongolian meat. Whenever hunger strikes, I cannot get my mind off greasy meat dumpling or fried meat pancakes. Especially delicious is the Mongolian bbq, which is prepared with fire heated rocks that are thrown into a milk pale with a sheep, some water, salt, and onions. After sealing the pale, the contraption works very similar to a pressure cooker, and 45 minutes later the most tender and delicious meat is ready to be devoured. With my love for meat, I was ecstatic when my former work colleagues prepared the BBQ delicacy for me. As a sheep is a large amount of food, we could not finish the meat during our picnic, so we put the meat into a cardboard box and threw it into the back of the Russian Jeep. Over the next few days, we would drive to the horse races or wrestling matches, which are held for the national Naadam festival, and we would invariably be too late or early for the event. With little else to do, we would lay a mat on the ground and munch on the leftover meat and fat, which by this time had been joined by hundreds of curious flies. Needless to say, my last day in Altai and the subsequent four days back in UB have been dominated by frequent trips to the toilet and diarrhea.
