Author Archives: Courtney Niday-Nyan
Narantuul: UB’s Not-So-Black Market
Narantuul is a sprawling labyrinth bazaar that promises deals and danger. Our Mongolian friends, and more experienced expats, filled our ears with stories of tourists getting hassled and robbed, by gangs of men! Steeling ourselves for a daring encounter with … Continue reading
Bactrian Camel Love
Being a westerner, I originally believed camels were stubborn, charmless creatures that spit at you. That was before I was lucky enough to be forced to ride a Bactrian Camel. On a 28 hour ride back from the countryside, after … Continue reading
Alice In Ger-Land
Living in a ger is like being Alice standing under the caterpillar on his fleshy mushroom. The wood burning stove vents plumes of white smoke out of a rusty iron pipe just like the chain smoking caterpillar. An umbrella of … Continue reading
National Center Against Violence (NCAV)
We have been helping the National Center Against Violence (NCAV), a wonderful NGO, and the first women’s and children’s shelter in Mongolia. They are in dire need of public funding, since the Mongolian government and businesses, contribute very little to … Continue reading
First Day of Mongolian Kindergarten
The Today Newspaper needed first day of school photos so I recruited my friend, Ugi’s niece and nephew, to lead me to the promised land: Kindergarten! Chubby little Mongols, puffed and pressed into picture perfectness, bobbled around with armfuls of … Continue reading
Our Typical Altai City School Day
7:45 Our phone alarm goes off a second time! We grumpily dress, brush our teeth, and wash our face with bottled water. There’s no running water at the Birj. We attempt to approach the squat toilet, IF we can’t … Continue reading
Teaching Altai City: Broken Promises
After unloading at Altai’s remote ‘Dragon Center’ we worried how we would find our employer when our call went directly to his voicemail. However, our slack-jawed annoyance was soon interrupted by a shining white sedan in a thundering hip-hop dust … Continue reading
Tiny Tales of Cuenca
Swelling eight thousand feet in the Andes, slick blue tiled basillica domes gleam under Cuenca’s cyclopean morn. Flowers and ancient iron crosses sprout from antique tiled roofs. Crude cinderblock casas chop Spanish Colonial flow. Girls swish down sidewalks in pleated plaid, … Continue reading
The Road to Cuenca
After adopting Fabris, our Belgium shipmate on the Encantata, we became a group of five stepping off the plane from the Galapagos. Shoving our bags and ourselves in the first taxi we saw at the Guayaquil airport, we had the … Continue reading
Odes to Galapagos Critters!
The Land Turtles You, lovely grizzled antique, languish in the Galapagos sun. A meal of green leaves drops you flat, limbs thrown out like a tripped toddler. Consumed in rest, your life simplifies, until the desire for exploration wells inside. … Continue reading