Not for home, of course, but for Bali. Me and eM will be spending the next undisclosed number of days on vacation to escape the kind of winter blues that my friends wrote about this year, and which I wrote about last year. To say that we are excited for this would be understatement at its finest, but that excitement comes with, at least for me, a certain amount of anxiety.
Without sounding too defeatist, disappointment has become part and parcel to our time in Mongolia. You set something up and have a lot of enthusiasm for it, only for it to fall victim to any number of peculiarly Mongolian vagaries (peculiar only in that these sorts of things rarely happen in the US, though they likely do elsewhere). Someone forgets that you asked them to help with a camp, or just drops out a few days ahead of time because they are "busy", a government official decides day-of that a competition cannot happen for whatever reason, or a club or lesson you worked meticulously to craft nets zero attendees.
So it was with the credulous shock of inevitability that I checked my bank account to see that two transactions which I had not authorized had taken place over the course of the previous month. The card which is linked to that account was our only access to cash for the duration of our trip, and it now seemed likely the bank would have to cancel the card and issue a new one. Knowing Mongolia's postal system as I do, I feared for the worst.
Several emails and skype calls later, the situation had been blessedly ironed out. One of the transactions had indeed been in error; an automated clearing house that somehow got linked to my account. That has since been refunded, and did not involve the card in question. The other, a small charge to Amazon, was apparently the result of my nephew buying a copy of Minecraft on a kindle fire I left in the States. I'm posting this mostly to embarrass him later in life, as I doubt he had any real concept of what he was doing.
In the end, though, it all worked out, which one would think might assuage some of my consuming worry. It did to a certain extent, but the message we got from the airline telling us our flight had been delayed by two hours did not help. Then again, a flight that arrives and departs on time would be a heart-attack-inducing surprise.
To put it mildly, Mongolia is a land of contradictions.
Anyway: the past month and a half have been consumed by thoughts of vacation, despite the fact of a tremendously successful (in the end) creative writing competition, and the simple fact of a much milder winter than we had anticipated. To that second point: there was a prediction back in October that this might be the worst winter in Mongolia in 100 years. In reality, it has been significantly less extreme than last year; we saw -40C for about a week or so, contrasting to last year's -50C. This gives me the (irrational) hope that Spring will have Sprung to some degree by the time we get back from our vacation. Really, I just want it to be warm enough that I can leave the apartment without risking frostbite.
In the in-between: a city-wide festival of sorts that was termed a "snow day" (held, on a Saturday), ten thousand different sports competitions, dinner with friends, a language training that Em and mE decided to forgo, several bouts of sickness, thick clouds of coal ash, and -- oh yeah -- thinking about Bali.
Here's a few more pictures. Expect the next post when the date reads 10
Another view from the balcony.
In our friend's soum (smaller village) for her birthday.
"gents"
Walking to certain death in the mountains
Certain death in the mountains.
Tomato.
Took these to show a transition: this is the before.
This is the during (smooooke)
This is the after.
I know I'm presenting an image as if this happened one time, but this happens just about every day.
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And lastly: sidewalks are fair game for parking 'round these parts.
