way to get to my heart

i haven't talked about the impending leaving-of-Mongolia I'll be doing here on the blog yet. because frankly, I haven't wanted to and I haven't been ready to and because avoidance is a better means of dealing with the rawness of my current emotions.

but for today, I will make a brief exception.

***

Dishke and I have talked a lot about the fact that I'm leaving. Almost every time I see him it comes up.

He's six. He's also a huge part of my life here and one of my absolutely favorite people in the whole wide world. We play together. We laugh together. We cook together. We chase each other. We listen to each other. We tickle each other. We play jokes on each other. We love each other.

So it makes sense to me that he would want to know about this whole leaving thing. He gets it in some sense- I've left before when I went to Cambodia this time last year and more recently, when I went to the States for Thanksgiving.

He's asked enough that now, when other people ask me and he's around, he answers for me.

"When are you leaving?"
"March 5th" he yells from the background.

But today...today our conversation made my heart weep.

"Erin baghsaw, when are you coming back to Mongolia?"

"I don't know, Dishke."

"You are leaving March 5th, right?"

"Right."

"So....March 10th you can come back, ok?"

"I can't."

"March 11th?"

"I can't"

"12th? 13th? 14th? 15th?........." ("I can't" "I can't" "I can't")

"Za, March 31st you can come back."

"Dishke, I can't."

"Ok then. March 32nd."

"I can't."

"Then when? When are you coming back?"

"I don't know exactly."

(he's quiet for a minute)

"Ok, well you just have to come back, ok?"

***

it's hard not having any answer to those questions. it's hard not knowing when or God forbid, if I will come back. it's even harder knowing that it's not going to be March 32nd (if that were a day) or April 1st or anytime that's going to satisfy Dishke.

and no matter how many words of solace there are meant to be had during this time, i'm not really interested in hearing about timing or knowing what I signed up for or the fact that seasons can't last forever. and i'm not really sorry that I'm not in a place for those things right now. i'm not, and that's the way it is. I'm ok with that.

all i want is to hang out with dishke and my kindergartners and my friends and soak in all of the moments that I do have. so that's what I'll do.

my vs. our

in English, there is "my" and there is "our."

my house. my work. my life.

"our" is for the things we share.

we might live with our family, our friends, our roommates, but we would still invite someone to "my" house.

in Mongolian, there is "my." there is "our." and there is a "my" that is used to signify things that are mutually shared.

It is this last "my" (shared) that would be used to talk about a house, a school, a family.

***

last week, a dear friend's mom passed away.

I took this news in as we sat in the early morning cold of a Saturday teacher's seminar. My heart hurt for her as we prayed and then moved our attention to the topic at hand. We could shift focus, but she could not.

the next day we went to her house for the traditional funeral visitation.

quietly, silently we slipped into the one room as night came upon the city.

it was crowded and solemn and all I really wanted to do was hug my friend and make sure she was o.k.

but instead I sat and I drank the tea and I ate the soup and I accepted the food offered to me.

none of us knew what to do. none of us knew what to say. none of us knew how to break the silence as we watched our friend, our sister, silently ladle soup and wash bowls and start the process over again.

a few men came in who I didn't recognize.

they glanced at our group and asked who we were.

a church member who was there helping spoke up and said, "They are from my church."

"My" (shared) church.

tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about the reality of her words, the beauty of being able to express that we are tied up in this messy life together, that even though we were currently sitting in this room heavy with grief and despair and no idea what to do, that we were in it together. that our connections were not for any one of us to own. that we sat there because we cared, because we loved, because our hearts hurt.

it is there that the story of this journey lies.

that for me it has never really been about "my" work here.

that it has always been about the ties that knit us together, that weave themselves around us, spinning webs of love and connection and care that are difficult and precarious and hard and beautiful and easy to mangle.

so grief pours forth from the roots of those precious threads and we sit together and we say "my" in a way that can never really be said at all.

when illness strikes

illness has a way of searing memories into your brain, the pain and suffering of being sick making those moments unforgettable, no matter how much you might prefer otherwise.

it also has a way of being intertwined with travel, a curious and unwelcome extra piece of luggage that seems to always inevitably get tucked in at the most inconvenient of times.

like the time Katie and I landed in the darkness of night in La Paz, Bolivia, scared and nervous and thinking WHAT THE HECK have we just gotten ourselves into (or was what just me?) and we made our way to our tiny hostel room for the night and then promptly...didn't sleep a wink.

Altitude sickness struck majorly in those first hours in Bolivia. Swiftly and stealthily the country greeted me with the need to throw up, to pass out (not once, but twice) and to lay in bed really doubting our decision to embark upon that particular adventure. I distinctly remember laying in that hostel bed, nauseous and woozy, listening to Katie try to eat a granola bar and thinking, "Oh dear goodness this is not going to end well."

Or the time when, two months after that initial visit to La Paz, we took a brief trip to Copacabana and I once again was struck down by the altitude sickness gods. As we wandered the little streets of the town and my head pounded, we eventually sat down in a tiny little cafe for dinner. I was so nauseous and so convinced I was going to DIE that I couldn't even bring myself to eat more than one spoonful of the chicken soup that the restaurant owner kept swearing was the best chicken soup in town. For all I know, it probably was. But I felt so voraciously ill at that moment that there wasn't a chance in the world that any kind of soup was making it down my throat.

Perhaps even worse was our return from Bolivia, which found both Katie and I sick out of our minds. We were sick before we even got on the plane and the long flight didn't do either of us any favors. I was so desperate that by the time we got off the plane in Miami I was the girl ripping open her suitcase in the middle of baggage claim, hastily gulping down pills as I sat on the floor of the terminal. Not at all suspicious behavior, right? Sickness while traveling makes all things justifiable, people. Including the fact that about 10 hours after the pill gulping I may or may not have burst into tears while pleading my case to a ticket agent.

There has also been a incident of food poisoning in Cambodia that left me convinced that I am a pretty poor house guest when my stomach is spasming in all sorts of horribly painful ways.

Or the time when my allergies got so bad last spring that I literally couldn't see out of my eyes. I spent two days miserable in bed, convinced something was seriously wrong with my eyesight and imagining all kinds of WebMD fueled theories about impending blindness when in fact all it was a serious allergic reaction to living in the same country as the Gobi Desert (thanks dust allergies!)

And then there has been the past two days...which started with me taking a nap in the middle of the day while out in the countryside (sign #1), continued with me being unable to eat anything for dinner that night (sign #2), and ended in a night of throwing up every hour.

there's just something about sickness that makes you bemoan being able to feel.

I wish there were a way to claim that I handle being ill with grace and dignity, but let's be real. It makes all of us into five-year-olds who just want to cry and be able to eat solid food again.

and now that I'm on the mend again, it has me foolishly hoping it won't come again for a long, long time.

ykylimw #27

oh so it's been awhile...sorry 'bout that.

you know you live in mongolia when....

...fur coats are less of a fashion/political statement and more of a practical way to stay warm.

winter reads

after a summer and fall of hardly making it through a few books, I've finally hit the season that makes you want to stay inside, curl up under the blankets and read.

it also helps that I spent a bunch of hours in transit to and from America/Mongolia, which given the atrocious movie selection (come on, United), also provided me with plenty of time to read.

It feels good to be back to my bookworm self. All is right in the world once more :-)

What I've been reading lately...(that which is noteworthy and not embarrassing to confess to- I certainly read some mindless fiction as well)

Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Hot and Cold Climate Cultures, Sarah Lanier: I ordered this off Amazon because I was curious as to what characteristics she might ascribe to cold climate cultures (considering how cold Mongolia is and all). Interestingly, her explanations end up classifying Mongolia as more hot climate because it is nomadic and more agriculture based (and thus less "developed" in some senses).

The part that was most helpful to me was her chapter on high context vs. low context cultures. Basically, low context cultures make it easier for a foreigner to understand how to do things or how things work- paying at a restaurant would be self-explanatory thanks to signs or written explanations and a foreigner wouldn't need to understand the culture to know what to do. High context cultures are the opposite- they require a high knowledge of the culture (or context) in order to figure out how to do things within the culture. Reading her explanation of this dichotomy gave definition to what has been incredibly true of my acclimation to Mongolia and had me nodding my head over and over again.

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, Jillian Lauren: Now the wife of a member of the band Weezer, Lauren wrote this memoir about how she ended up a member of the harem of one of the princes of Brunei. It was interesting to read her reflections on how she felt like she ended up there and what made her go back a second time (the lure of the money mostly), as well as how she navigated the intensely bizarre and clandestine environment of living with almost no power over her days, choices or activities. It was a fast read and helped pass a few hours somewhere over the Pacific ocean.

Serving With Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Intelligence, David Livermore: If you have done, are doing or want to do short-term missions, you NEED to read this book. Hosting short-term teams in Mongolia has changed my understanding of short-term missions forever and this book does an excellent job of beginning a discussion about some of the basic problems, weaknesses and struggles that come with short-term missions both in our home cultures and overseas. Read it, discuss it, tell me what you think!

Icy Sparks, Gwyn Hyman Rubio: This was a part of a wonderful care package that a church from the U.S. sent me last month. It follows the story of Icy Sparks as she grows up in rural Appalachia with undiagnosed Tourette's Syndrome. It's a beautiful story of her struggle with not knowing what is wrong, of being sent briefly to a children's mental hospital, and of discovering who she is in spite of how the rest of her small town sees her.

The Help, Kathryn Stockett: Somehow The Help came up during our Thanksgiving celebration this year and at least four people gasped and exclaimed over how amazing it was when it did. I'll confess that I agree- I started it this past Sunday and stayed up late last night to finish it.

The story of two African-American women working as domestic help for white women during the 1960s in Mississippi unfolds and intertwines with that of a young white woman aspiring to be an author. As they begin a secret project to record their stories and shed light on the realities of race relations, I couldn't help but get drawn into their lives, the tension of what might happen and the raw ache of that history.

Why Korean American Churches Need a Makeover, Hyphen Magazine blog, Tammy Kim: Oh the things I have learned about Korea, the Korean church, the Korean American church and Korean culture since moving to Mongolia. Mongolia has a lot of Korean influences and there are a lot of Korean missionaries here- hence all of the learning. This blog post caught my eye and was quite an interesting read.

Welcome to Minegolia, Foriegnpolicy.com, Ron Gluckman: A friend sent me this link and while this feels the fifty-hundredth article I've read recently about Mongolia and its mining potential, it does do a fairly decent job of summarizing things. I'll be honest though, the whole mining thing frustrates me.

First, no one is talking about the environmental impact such mining will cause. And in a country where the capital city is plagued by horrible, terrible, no-good, very, very bad pollution with not much (from what I can tell) being done to quell it, I don't hold high hopes that there are going to be strict pro-environment standards when it comes down to the mining and the promise of money. Second, as the article mentions, the risk of the money being thrown down the hole of political corruption is huge and likely.

Third, perhaps the mining will bring jobs. I'm not an economist and I don't know the likelihood of such a thing. I do, however, suspect that it's not going to solve the unemployment issues, it's not going to help my friends and community here who struggle to buy food and pay basic bills and it's not going to drastically improve the education or health care systems. The people who can already afford to shop at the Louis Vuitton boutique are just going to be able to buy another purse, while the rest of the city keeps on in the same patterns and problems of yesterday.

Thoughts? Other books you can recommend for the rest of winter and traveling to come? Other interesting articles or blog posts to share?

icy eyelashes and other random things

who needs mascara when you have ice to thicken up your eyelashes when you walk out the door?

sadly, it melts when you walk indoors and is rather painful, but on the plus side of things it's free!

Apart from icy eyelashes and worrying that my contacts are going to freeze onto my eyes, winter is just going about it's business here in Mongolia.

I've once more forgotten what it's like to only wear one layer of clothing and I get cold watching movies with people wearing tank tops in them. Life is normal, whether my toes are numb or not.

We went from having zero New Years plans to hosting a party in about the span of 15 minutes (and 5 text messages) on New Years Eve.

A gallon of pasta salad and a hundred pizza bites later, we had a wonderful time hanging out with a bunch of our friends. We played games, almost killed each other playing spoons, ate until we couldn't eat anymore (and still had too many leftovers) and watched fireworks be set off in our parking lot.

Best of all, I managed to stay up until 2:30 a.m. Whew!

And even though we are still eating our way through the holiday leftovers, I am also managing to feel recovered from the craziness that was the past few months, ie: the stressful month of November, a trip to the US, Thanksgiving, traveling like a crazy person, Christmas and then New Years.

It feels good to have rest days that are filled with laundry, dishes, writing and snuggling with our cats.

It feels even better to be with the kiddos at the kindergarten, to play cards with the senior citizens, to teach English and to laugh myself silly with the teenagers.

And to end this random post with yet another completely useless anecdote...

Should you ever find yourself with the need to wash your down comforter, let it be known that it probably isn't the best idea to do so in the beginning of January in Mongolia when you don't have radiators big enough to dry it or any other sufficiently warm blankets to sleep under.

Aren't I just the source of useful information today?

the mess of sharing

this article has had me ruminating in the few days since I read it.

there are a variety of reasons for this-

for one, it's about a congregation in a neighborhood that I once lived and worked in for a summer. A part of Brooklyn that I love, that walking through (like I did when I returned to NY in April 2009) still causes memories and stories and emotions to rush forward into my present reality. It is a corner of the city that I fell obliviously in love with in spite of the fact that that summer was hard in a whew-I-just-had-my-world-turned-upside-down kind of way. The good kind of way that leaves you exhausted and broken but hopeful.

those sidewalks hold stories for me. those storefronts reflections of who I was, who I've become and who I hope to be. those avenues and traffic lights reminders of conversations, thoughts and long walks.

two, it's about two United Methodist congregations. My feelings about denominations and the larger church are for another post, but the fact remains that my membership is in the United Methodist Church and that I'm currently employed by an agency of the UMC.

third, it's about immigrants, changing neighborhoods and the conflicts that arise between groups dealing with these transitions, emotions and shifts.

It hurt my heart to read the article and to feel the anger and frustration in the words of the leaders, the church members and the pastors.

To mourn the fact that we struggle with sharing space. To mourn the reality that conflict among Christians is more present than it is absent. To mourn the fact that it appears they are more concerned with defending their opinions than truly hearing or listening to their brothers and sisters.

being a foreigner in a strange land is a disconcerting, difficult experience. Admittedly, my experience is limited and I bring with me the advantages of an education, a job, white privilege and a support system. but these past fifteen months have revealed to me some of that which comes with navigating a new country, culture, language and community.

a part of you longs for the safety and security of the familiar. for people who share similarities with you. for the chance to worship in your heart language. for the chance to speak without hesitation and clumsily conjugated verbs self-consciously pronounced with an accent.

i get that that is part of why congregations form based on race and ethnicity and background.

and yet it hurts to read this article about two congregations seeking to share space and wonder why they can't or won't or don't want to perhaps go beyond sharing space and seek to actually form a community together.

language is a barrier. arguments and fighting and frustration are barriers. traditions and routines and money are barriers.

and yet the only way I see for us to tear down those barriers is to start looking at the person standing in front of us and see a person.

and then to see that person become a friend.

and then, when things get messy and complicated and hard and you want to throw things....they are not a "they." They are a part of you, the little girl who sits next to you at the picnic and the man who also likes golf. The family who cooked you dinner one night and the fourth-grader who is best friends with your son.

a member of my church community in Dallas once preached a sermon about racism. he told us that we can sit back and be overwhelmed by its historical roots and vestiges and the attitudes that keep us afraid and separated, or we can realize that the starting point of ending it is friendship.

we're all foreigners and strangers somewhere.

may conflict not be the end. may the risk of conflict not be what stops us. may the difficulty of navigating the way not be what defeats us.

o, that we would risk.
o, that we would reach.
o, that we would share.
o, that we would step forward in faith into that which is neither comfortable or easy.

O Lord, that you would have mercy on us.