How Much do I Miss Mongolia?

You may have heard me say, or read somewhere, that I miss Mongolia... I really do, I miss the people mostly but also the simplicity of life in the Countryside and the animals.

Apparently I don't have to miss the animals to much because I managed to bring one home with me-meet Giardia (pictured right) who (or some other similar protozoan) is currently having a party inside my intestines.

I had been really proud of the fact that I didn't get sick while I was away... Oh well...

Someone I really do miss is Zula (pronounced Zola), she is a 19year old Mongolian student who spent her summer teaching English with VETNet in Ulziit. She also looked after us very well during the 2 weeks that we stayed with her.

Zula has an amazing story, her father died when she was young and her family moved in with her Uncle who is very opposed to Christianity. I don't want to say too much online but through some hard times Zula came to know Jesus and finds her family relationships very hard at times. This is something that is very common for Mongolian Christians, opposition from, usually Buddhist, family members.

Please pray for Zula that she will remain strong in her faith and deal with her family wisely, also that I and the others who met her can be a good support network for her even though we are so far away.

Mongolian Pinnochio

I've been back in Australia for 4 weeks and I guess it's about time I wrote something about Mongolia.

Above is a video of the Ulziit Children's Intermediate English class performing their version of Pinnochio at our English Party. I asked them to write a play about English class and this is what they came up with. Stu says this task was too post modern for high school students, let alone high school students who speak english as a second language, perhaps he was right...

I miss my Ulziit class, we spent 2 weeks together, which really wasn't enough time to get to know them all. I hope and pray the time I spent with helps them to understand how much Jesus loves them.

Update

Thanks to everyone who has commented, both in cyberspace and face to face, on the loss of my wallet etc. I'm amazed at how generous people have been.

Just so you know we are not starving and so far have enough money to survive, even though it takes 21 days for the bank to process the form I filled in to tell them that they gave my money to a complete stranger :-)

The Case of the Unknown Gym Member - Part 2

Ok, so now I'm really grumpy... The person who stole my purse withdrew all the money in our bank account, over the counter which means she had to show photo ID, which means the person at the bank has very bad eyesight.

And I can't do anything about it until Monday when I have to prove that I didn't withdraw the money myself...

The Case of the Unknown Gym Member

While I was in Mongolia I was very security conscious, we were all warned about making sure we kept our belongings close to us and not leaving anything valuable in our pockets etc etc. I caught myself in Eastgardens last week making sure my bag was close by and really safe (a good thing to do I know but generally there aren't so many bag thieves in Australia).

But sometimes no matter what you do your things will stolen!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the gym a bit earlier than usual so that I could get a lift home with Stu. I got changed and locked my bag in my locker, after my workout (I ran on the treadmill which is very exciting as I was a bit scared of running on a fast moving machine) I went back to the locker to get my bag. The locker was open, which was a bit strange but as the lock mechanism was still locked I thought perhaps I'd not closed it properly. Then I realised that my bag was not in the same position I'd left it in, I had a minor panic and checked to see if anything was missing.

Thank God my laptop, pda and phone were still in my bag, my purse however was not. I went to reception and told them what had happened, all the Fernwood girls were very shocked! They phoned security and the police, and I phoned Stu who was waiting for me outside.

It turns out that a women had signed in with someone else's membership card and broke into at least 2 lockers (another girl's purse was stolen as well). She ran out of the gym but no one really thought much of it at the time.

While I was waiting for the police to arrive I rang to cancel my credit card and discovered that the unknown woman had used it! I also went to check the time and remembered I wasn't wearing my watch but had in fact put it in the locker and it was also missing.

It's kind of ironic that I travelled through Mongolia and China for 4 weeks and managed not to have anything stolen but when I get home...

I'm Back!!!

It's been almost a week! What can I say? It's almost impossible to describe four weeks in one blog post and I haven't quite worked out how to communicate everything to you, or even if I should ;-)

For now here are a few links to some photo albums I've created - enjoy!

General photos of Mongolia
Ulziit - the first place we taught English
Naadam - The yearly festival of "Manly Sports"
Burd - The second town we stayed in
How to Build a Ger - the tentlike structure many people in the countryside live in
Making Buzz - very yummy dumplings

The photos have fairly detailed comments and give a good idea of what we did, hopefully I'll get around to posting some reflections of what I learnt.