‘Hawk’ (how his name translates into English), a decorated photojournalist/social crusader, and a wiry, bug-eyed ball of energy, was our inside man who hooked us up with the Camerton interview, and concert photo coverage. We did not know who Camerton was about three days before the concert, despite having seen their posters and billboards plastered all over UB. They looked more like the Mongolian Rat Pack, than a ‘boy band‘, with their slick tuxedos, sunglasses, and middle-age. Furthermore, we were only supposed to shoot Camerton’s concert footage, until the day before the event, when Hawk casually told us we had the ‘green light’ to interview the band for the UB Post. We didn’t even know the interview was on the table, never mind having the ‘green light’!

We trotted on over to the mega-music store Hi-Fi, and closed them out ‘researching‘ Camerton from their stock. We also drilled our landlord, Ugi, a hardcore Camerton fan since her early teens, for the band’s impact on her generation, and Mongolian music in general, AND persuaded her to come along, as an ‘interpreter‘.

The day of the concert, we strategically placed Ugi between us, the two fumbling Americans with press passes, to sneak her into the ‘red zone’, or way up in the nosebleed section of the stadium, behind the stage, for the interview. We were told to meet Camerton’s manager when we got inside, but we had to poke around security, until one of the sound guys led us straight to their perch. We were warmly greeted by three of the four members; Ganaa, the chunky one, wasn’t there. After light pleasantries, Mede was left behind to take our questions. He was very warm and gracious, and we never felt rushed.

After the interview, we got escorted out of the area right next to the stage. Apparently, Hero Production Company had exclusive rights to that area, because they were making a DVD of the event. Our ‘Ignorant Americans With Legit Press Passes Act’ did not wash with the 300+ pound security, who spoke perfect English! So we packed in with the ‘groundlings’ and stewed. We got our interview in, but how are we going to get exceptional shots? We despised the Hero-lackeys, with their impotent foot-long lenses!

There were several other bands opening for Camerton. We would be delighted at this extra treat if it wasn’t freezing outside, and if we weren’t pressed into the rope barrier, by overeager 30-somethings, at the sidelines! And of course there were the Hero-stooges strutting around with their evil cyclopean eyes!

It was then that Night unfurled her velvet wings, and delivered us… under the rope! Just like that we transformed into glorious Mongolian Heros, equipped with the Canon of Truth! It was on, and we did the foursome like two starving lions, do an obese zebra with a limp!

The next day we went in and found out we were the only ones to interview Camerton before the concert. Hawk gushed, we logged our first story, and photo for the UB Post!

The above photos I took of Camerton’s 15th Anniversary Concert made it in one form or another into ‘Weekend Magazine’, out this Friday, September 3rd. I think I’m supposed to get some money for them, but I’ll believe after I spend it!

Camerton Reunites for 15th Anniversary Extravaganza!

Interview by Courtney Niday-Nyan

Photography by Thantcyn Nyan

If you are a 30-something Mongolian, growing up in Ulaanbaatar, chances are the soundtrack of your youth was sung by Camerton. The vastly popular ‘boy band’ transcends the moniker, by paving the way for future Mongolian musicians soon after the fall of communism. They were the right sound, at the right time to help usher Mongolian music to the modern era.

Camerton reunited on August 28, after five years of pursuing individual projects, at the Tsengeldeh Hureelen Stadium, for their 15th anniversary extravaganza. It was a spectacular night of song, dance, acrobatics, pyrotechnics and nostalgia, for all who were present. Even stone-faced security guards couldn’t help singing along!

Courtney Niday-Nyan, of www.OurTravelingCircus.com, had the rare honor of interviewing Mede, before the festivities, about Camerton’s past, present, and future.

Courtney: Please introduce yourself, and the other members of Camerton, for your English-speaking fans.

Mede: My nickname is ‘Mede’, like, ‘mayday, mayday, SOS, SOS’, but my full name is Mend-Amar, which means ‘peaceful’. The second member is ‘Eba’, whose full name is Erdenebat, which means ‘precious strength’. Our third member is Bold, whose name has the same meaning in English. Camerton’s last member is ‘Ganaa’, whose full name is Gan-Erdene, which means ‘precious steel’.

Courtney: I love how Mongolian names have meanings. In America, we don’t have meanings to our names, so most people don’t know the meaning of their names.

Mede: Actually, some Mongolians have Tibetan names. Tibetan names have such beautiful and interesting meanings!

Courtney: Speaking of names, what does ‘Camerton’ mean, and how did you guys come up with that name?

Mede: ‘Camerton’ means tuning fork. Actually, ‘Camerton’ is an old Russian name, but the whole world’s musicians use tuning forks.

Courtney: How did you guys first get into music? Did you study music in school?

Mede: We all went to the same classical music college. We started 1995, in 9th and 10th class in college. The school required all students to learn how to sing, and play the piano. All four of us were in the school’s choir. Students also had to choose a musical speciality, so two of us studied cello, and two of us studied violin. We loved to listen to Boyz II Men and Take 6. We practiced really hard in our free time so we could be like them. We love the pureness of the ‘a cappella‘ style of singing.

Courtney: How did you guys get your ‘big break’? What shot you into, fame, fortune, and stardom in Mongolia?

Mede: (Laughs) We did not think we would be famous. We just loved to sing! Fifteen years ago, when we first started, ‘show-business’ was very different, in Mongolia. At that time, we didn’t have so many ‘modern’ bands, just traditional music. We performed for the students at our college. Time was very good to us. Our ‘a cappella’ style was a fresh new sound, in Mongolian music, and people accepted us quickly.

Courtney: That’s why your music has stayed around so long. You have the heart and love for music. You didn’t know you would become famous, now look at you… Camerton is a legend in Mongolia!

Mede: God gave us all the opportunities! Our parents and college also helped!

Courtney: Camerton won the Pentatonic award for the best debut band in 1995. Was it hard to stay focused and deal with fame so early in your careers?

Mede: We had only one wish, to be professional singers, so we worked very hard to achieve our dream.

Courtney: Were there other musicians, or people in your lives that shaped the direction of your music?

Mede: We met an American journalist, in 1995, when we were just starting out. He told us he could put us in contact with Boyz II Men. (Laughs) We really did not believe him, until two months later, when he came back with many Boyz II Men CD’s, and signed memorabilia! Boyz II Men is our favorite band, because they have a very precious sound. We still follow them today.

Courtney: How has your music changed over the years? How would you describe your music now?

Mede: We changed our style. Mongolia has become more open as a country, and we are able to freely choose the direction our music will take. We have more access to global information, and the freedom to choose our musical direction. Our style is changing with the times. Our first two albums were very near the ‘classical’ Mongolian style. For our latest albums, we followed R&B and pop/ soul style. Until today, we were looking only forward, but now we want to revisit our past. We are thinking we must blend traditional Mongolian music, with our modern sound. We want make new music using traditional Mongolian instruments and love songs. But how?

Courtney: I enjoy music that combines the traditional with the modern. So who do you guys listen to? Can you name some musicians that you constantly play on your iPods?

Mede: Many! We each have thirty days of music on our iPods!

Courtney: That’s cool! Sounds like a good party! Thirty days of partying to music…YEH! Are there any American or ‘western’ musicians you would love to perform with?

Mede: Music is a very, very huge language! Maybe we can join with musicians from other countries, and make beautiful music together! We went to Japan three times. Our first time was in 1999. That’s just fun and cool!

Courtney: So, what is in the future for Camerton? Will you guys work as a group, or work on your individual projects?

Mede: We will be working together, but we also will be working on our own projects.

Courtney: I know some of the members have been in movies…

Mede: (Laughs) Bold… only Mr. Bold.

Courtney: Well, you all are stars in your videos, so would you like to be in movies in the future?

Mede: (Laughs) I don’t know, but if I make movies, and am successful making money, then that’s good!

Courtney: Do you get stopped on the streets a lot, and get asked for autographs?

Mede: (Laughs) Sometimes, they stop me and say, ‘I know you, are you my boss’s friend’? Some people say, ‘I know your face, who are you? Maybe we are cousins’?

Courtney: Do you have any crazy fans?

Mede: We had crazy fans, maybe ten years ago. Now, we aren’t as young anymore. We are adults. We are all fathers, and our fans are also the same.

Courtney: Finally, tell us something about yourself that even your biggest fans might not know about.

Mede: (Laughs) I can’t sleep the night before the concert. Ten seconds before the concert starts, I feel like running to the toilet! It’s the same for every member! I start feeling something special, thinking, ‘Maybe, I need the toilet’! Talking, talking to yourself,  until you hear the 10,9,8… countdown. It’s a very special feeling; nervous, happy, I can’t explain that feeling.

Courtney: Must be amazing to perform in front of so many people! Everyone we spoke to about Camerton’s concert was so excited! Everyone here knows your name, and loves your songs! Thank-you so much for the interview…bayarlaa!

Mede: Bayarlaa.

*Portions of this interview were translated into English from Mongolian, by O. Uyangaa.

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 hold it any longer. Otherwise we wait to use the sit-down toilet at the school.

8:00   Hopefully, our director, Lhagvaa, picks us up for a shower at the public bathhouse to wash ourselves and our dust-covered clothes. Without easy access to coffee, Thantcyn NEEDS a shower every morning!

8:30 We call Lhagvaa’s friend, Munho, to tell him his buddy’s late! Lhagvaa’s mobile is ALWAYS off!  One of them arrives ten minutes later, with rap/ techno/ trance music blasting from his car.

8:40 We arrive at the public bathhouse. The wait room is full of grubby, sleepy, mostly sober Mongolians. We catch-up on week-old news from UB, while we wait our turn. Wait time at the bathhouse increases approaching Naadam, as locals start cleaning up for company. After about twenty minutes, we get locked in our own private cell, for a nice sometimes warm shower!

9:30   We walk to school, located around the corner from the bathhouse. Everything’s around the corner in Altai City, EXCEPT for the Birj, which is hanging off the edge of town. We greet students that have been eagerly waiting for us outside, before making our way upstairs to our respective classes. Thantcyn and I split a breakfast of eggs & rice from Lhagvaa’s mom, and hang our laundry to dry on a pipe in my homeroom.

10:00-11:40 ‘Homeroom Class’- Advanced High School/ Adults: Thantcyn and I are the first native-speaking English teachers they’ve had out in Altai City! We see the same pool of students at different points in the day. Students are only charged 1400 tugriks(a little over $1 US) for ten days of English instruction, IF they can afford to pay. Despite what we think of Lhagvaa’s crooked ways, we really respect how he is trying to improve his community, by bringing English instruction to the masses, way out in the middle of nowhere! We teach for ten days straight, with no rest on the weekend!

11:50- 13:30 2nd Class – Intermediate High School/ Adults: Mongolia has an astounding literacy rate of 98%, and our students are wonderful, hardworking, and eager. They also know how to read and write English fairly well. However, they are very shy to speak in class, so their conversational English is lacking, compared to their reading comprehension, and writing skills.

13:30- 14:30 Lunch at Lhagvaa’s! More eggs and rice for me, and mutton for Thantcyn and the others. Lhagvaa’s mom is a kind, sweet lady, and a great cook. She’s a proud winner of the coveted ‘Chinngis Khaan Best Cook Medal’ for Altai City! She   cooked a different traditional Mongolian dish for every meal, for Thantcyn and the others, and made my meals a bit more exciting by cleverly arranging sliced fruit around the eggs and rice. After the first week of instruction, Thantcyn started practicing with local wrestlers training for Naadam, after lunch.

14:30-16:00 3rd class – Beginner and Intermediate Elementary and Junior High Students: The teaching resources Lhagvaa expects us to use in class are HORRIBLE! Students get a stapled xerox copy of an English workbook, made in China, with random tidbits of instruction.

16:00- 18:00 ‘English Speaking Club’: We meet in the gym, gather in a huge happy circle, and talk about ANYTHING in English! Many of our students want to come study in the United States, and are really curious about American holidays, lifestyles, and celebrities. We practiced some ‘worldly’ songs in English, like ‘Waving Flag’ , ‘Waka, Waka’, and of course, ‘We Are the World’.

18:00- 20:00 Break: Thantcyn stumbles back after wrestling practice, and we play basketball or volleyball, with our students, on most days. We take another shower after playing, if we are feeling extra-crunchy. Sometimes, if we are REALLY worn out, we stagger back to the Birj for a quick nap.

20:00- 21:30 4th class – Beginner Adult Professionals: This small class consists of doctors, nurses, and policemen, who can’t come to morning classes because of work. Doctors are really busy delivering cute, chubby Mongolian babies. Altai City averages three new citizens per day! WAAAAA!!!

21:30 Dinner: Back to Lhagvaa’s mom for more eggs, rice, and mutton! We take pictures of Lhagvaa’s adorable nieces and nephew, while we wait for dinner.

22:30 Back to the Birj: We converge in our friends’ (Ugi, Nara, Tsagaanaa, & Usukh) room across the hall for some well deserved r & r! We compare Mongolian and American customs, exchange language lessons, and ALWAYS complain about Lhagvaa’s latest lies and antics. We count down how many days we have left at the Birj, by peeling a row of stickers off the wall.

11:30 Sleep: We hit the bed snoring!

3:00 We wake to an interesting, albeit VERY ANNOYING, combo of the following EVERY SINGLE NIGHT: cursing, screaming, shouting, wailing (No, they are not the same! There’s a distinct unpleasantness to each, especially in the dead of night.), shattering vodka bottles, cars swerving in the ‘parking lot’, someone pounding on our door, someone pounding on our neighbors’ doors, and endless doors SLAMMING SUPER HARD! It seems, at least in the countryside, Mongolians take great pride in SLAMMING doors shut!

3:10 Fall back asleep after complaining about Birj and Lhagvaa.

7:30 Phone alarm goes off!

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 cloud! Smoothing my dust-caked, brittle straw hair, we strode over to meet the grinning twenty-something director Lhagvaa Dorj, and two Mongolian English teachers from Ulaanbaatar (UB), Ugi and Usukh, all glossy in sharply pressed suits and heels. Our boisterous bus mates gaped as our slick, sunglass wearing escorts whisked us away in the booming, fancy ‘machine’.

Our first destination was Lhagvaa’s family home, to eat a mound of eggs and rice, which would be my standard meal for the next three weeks. We met two more Mongolian English teachers from UB, Nara and Tsagannaa, who arrived a day earlier, in between mouthfuls. In the feeding frenzy, we caught that our private dorm room at the university was not available due to water and electricity shortages. Lhagvaa then told us we would enjoy sleeping on the ‘more comfortable’ floor of his walk-in closet-sized room, just as the four Mongolian teachers had the day before!

ABSOLUTELY NOT! We traversed the sea of shrubs and dust for 28 hours on the basis of a few thoroughly promised beliefs which included: we would be driven to Altai City in a private car, we would get either a private dorm room or a private hotel room, we would teach only four hours a day, and I would be paid 50,000 T (Tugrik)/ day, while Thantcyn came as a volunteer, for his room and board. The first promise was shot to hell since we were informed 30 minutes before departure, that our ‘private car’ was unavailable, and we were to be crammed into a very public minivan-bus with 16 other warm bodies!  Promise number two was now not going to be a “private room”, but rather a small floor space to be shared by six teachers !?!?

We endured the trip, but demanded for all of us what was promised! Lhagvaa  was a slick talker, but when the six of us stood firmly against him on his false promises, he eventually broke, and scurried around to locate a hotel. The offer to shower at the public bathhouse was turned down since we figured a shower could be had at the hotel if the need for sleep didn’t take us first. We chugged to the Birj (pronounced Bilsch), at the fringe of town, which our great leader insisted was the only hotel in town. The decor hovered between ‘dilapidated crack house’ and ‘Siberian asylum’, minus the running water usually found in those institutions!

Our room contained two creaky rusted spring contraptions scooted together with a sagging sliver mattress for a bed. The walls were laced with punched-out holes and juvenile graffiti, and a stubborn boulder resembling a TV, sat mutely at a corner. We fared better then the four other teachers, who ended up sharing an equally appealing room, across the dark hall. We were on our last weary legs, hungry for as much sleep as possible before our early morning wake-up call, so we accepted our lot in life and crashed into two hibernating heaps.

Night brought a thirty degree drop in temperature, which I was ill prepared for in my tank-top, and my warm fleece buried beneath a ton of luggage. Courtney fared not much better, with a light pashmina wrapped around her cotton T. We sat facing each other, daypacks on our laps and tight against our chests for warmth. With our legs puzzled into place, and a sliver of night separating alternating knees, we telegraphed our misery, with every jolt and rattle. We started appreciating the warm, purring bodies pressing against us.

We frequently came upon more unfortunate travelers broken-down on the side of ‘the road’; they materialize into our intermittent consciousness like a family of stunned raccoons, bundled against their wreckages. We stopped every time, and ‘unfolded’ into the cutting wind, to help; we fiddled under steaming hoods, changed tires, and pushed fully loaded vans awake in coughing fits. It is commendable, although not at all prudent in the oblivious Gobi night, that our driver even gave up our only spare tire, to a stranded vehicle. These small victories punctuated by hoots and hollers, coupled with  peeing in pitch-black privacy, heightened our spirits for the next round!

Somewhere in the middle of all this restorative good-willed delirium, we got lost! We kept dead-ending at a river and couldn’t find a way across. Reality hinted by our headlights, it felt as if the river changed its course, and slithered to encircle us, like a great gurgling snake. Recent rains had spawned new rivers, and made old ones rougher to cross, so our driver wisely chose not to plunge in. Our benevolence recruited two more van-loads to share our dilemma, and the three drivers deliberated to pick up the trail on foot. It was a bit comical to watch the three drivers pull out their cell phones, and attempt to find a route across, using their display lights. After discovering no one in our collective packed a decent portable light source, we volunteered our headlamps, and watched the three stooges shuffle away in halos of white.

We spent the next few hours oscillating between the frigid freedom of the Gobi and the smothering warmth of our minivan. Airag, or fermented mare’s milk was passed around in a dented 2L Coke bottle, no doubt stashed away for such emergencies. After Courtney’s refusal, I was bound to take a polite sip. It tasted like what I expected fermented mare’s milk, along with the backwash of a dozen jolly Mongols, to taste: suspiciously sour and filmy. More and more headlights bobbed into our predicament, and after a quick exchange, elected to wait for our triumvirate to return. Small foul campfires started with twigs and mysterious kindling, and folk songs were belted out into the night. Courtney and I leaned into each other, still blanketed by our daypacks, as the drone of song and river washed over fluttering consciousness. Perhaps we drifted off…

Dawn was pink as our drivers bloomed out of the horizon, trailed by yet another fully packed suv. We quickly mobilized our collective into a train and followed the newcomer, to another narrower, but equally vigorous river. A small girl, no older than ten, jumped out from the lead vehicle, and shuffled down a steep incline towards the bank. Our driver casually told us to get out and follow suit, then drove on towards a giant yellow tractor waiting about a kilometer away. The little girl deftly led us across on a land bridge, immersed in ankle deep muddy torrents, virtually invisible to clueless passer-by’s, while our minivan waited to be towed across. We gradually reunited with our respective vehicles on the other side, shook farewells, and scattered into a new day in an explosion of dust.

I woke up a couple of hours later, which was a major achievement, and found my glasses missing. The rest of the minivan, including Courtney, was entranced in a boisterous ‘poker’ game, using someone’s luggage on a row of laps, as a makeshift table. Luckily this was the highlight of the rest of our journey; we sang more songs, refused more offers of airag, stopped again for bland mutton bowls, fertilized and watered the semi-desert flora, and chased around dirt laced children with our camera. I never found out what happened to my glasses; it hopefully restored the sight of a desert crone, that found it on the side of ‘the road’.

Our little minivan FINALLY pulled into Altai City’s ‘Dragon Center’, late in the afternoon, battered and coated with desert, after twenty-eight hours and a thousand kilometers. I don’t know how our driver did this on no sleep twice a week. I was on autopilot, I stunk, and could care less; with our odyssey seemingly over, I just needed to be horizontal, and my head against something soft!

At least Ulysses left on a high note! We had to wait three hours for our 8-seater Korean clunker mini-van-bus, to get choke-filled with 16 adults, one girl, and a baby, at the appropriately named Dragon Center: a mosaic of belching buses, broken concrete framed pools of mud and oil, sprinkled with shards of vodka bottles. Javkhaa dropped us off at noon, which according to him was the scheduled departure time. We paid for our spot, quickly loaded our backpacks, huddled into our seats, and watched our van fill up and empty several times with our would-be companions, their relatives, and friends. The locals did not mind the wait; they seemed to count on it, to bid proper farewells to old friends, while starting new bonds with fellow passengers. We were quite a novelty for them, and somehow ended up in the middle of every exchange. No one can nail down the actual departure time; the driver would mumble something in Mongolian, when I jabbed at my watch, and  disappear into the maze of idle hulls, leaving us to shrug our shoulders, and continue on with our motley of Mongols. After stuffing the van well past capacity, the last surge of Mongols shouldered in with their bundles; we all inhaled and jigsawed our elbows, shoulders, and knees into place, as our sardine can FINALLY lurched!

We were treated to a paved pathway, riddled with potholes, for the first hour of our odyssey, then we plunged into the dirt roller-coaster, following deep tire grooved trails that spiderwebbed out in all directions. Exhausted from prepping for our short-noticed adventure the night before, I prayed for sleep, which came in short 5-minute bursts, interrupted by the rugged Mongolian landscape, dribbling my head off the van’s flaking hull. Soon green rolling plains, gave way to an arid semi-desert, sparsely laced with shabby stubborn shrubs, sprouting out of hard packed sand. I soon gave up on sleep, as our driver popped in a cassette of classical Mongolian ballads, which growled from static-ridden speakers, and clapped along with my jolly companions.

After some hours of dirt laced delirium, we pulled into a ger camp for dinner. The group of white felt tents bloomed like a cluster of white mushrooms, from the chapped Gobi.  Sprinkled like trails of bread crumbs between major cities, they are a stark reminder of Mongolia’s still-present nomadic culture, and serve as all purpose rest stops, meeting basic needs: food, auto repair, even solar powered internet, for weary travelers. The menu is pretty standard, at least in our experience: a hearty heaping bowl of noodles mixed with strips of mutton. A steaming cup of salted milk tea is part of Mongolian hospitality, and comes free for every visitor. With the contents of our stomachs jostled about, Courtney and I elected to split a Clif Bar instead, with the milk tea. After ‘watering’ the local shrubbery, we shrugged back into our metal shoebox, and nosedived into the ever-present dust-cloud trail produced by vehicles ahead. Fluid pale blue skies burned into orange, red, then deep purple of twilight.

It all started when I sneaked onto the wrestling field, where only ‘press-passed’ photographers were allowed, in the Tsengeldeh Hureelen Wrestling Stadium, during Naadam, in Ulanbaatar. Courtney and I tried sweet-talking some Mongolian newspapers into giving us press passes, during the week leading up to the annual national sporting extravaganza, but our collective charm got lost in translation, and none of them bit. They were very receptive to using our pictures in their papers, but suggested that we approach the Naadam council, and shell out $100 each for minty laminated foreign journalists‘ passes. Traveling around the world on a beggar’s budget sometimes means being scrappy like a cornered wolverine, and testing the local waters to see how deep you really can get immersed before getting a good foreign-tongue lashing, so I put on my clueless foreigner mask, and fumbled my way into the ‘wrestlers only’ section, and started snapping some behind the scenes shots. Following them around through my eyepiece, in their various states of undress, I quickly found out that besides being hulking gargantuas, Mongolian wrestlers are some of the most genuine, uncomplicated people on the face of the planet, and felt a special kinship with them. Most are very shy for being towering athletic icons, parading around in vivid skimpy superhero costumes, and often look away when they find themselves under focus. After spending an hour or so in the mix, some wrestlers warmed up to me, and started sizing me up, squeezing my arms, slapping my chest. Luckily, after pigging out for a month back in Texas, I ballooned up to a mid-sized Mongolian wrestler, and further distinguished myself from all the other pale spindly-limbed photographers, with foot-long lenses. I took the opportunity to walk onto the field with a group of wrestlers, past several security guards, my heart pounding with trepidation and excitement, Mongolian throat singing growling in my ears. I was finally on the field, and I took full advantage, snapping over a thousand photos, before it was all was over.

Our adventure into the Gobi started when a wrestler named Javkhaa, approached me when I first got onto the field, and asked me if I could take his photo. With the excitement of bypassing security, and the prospect of a looming photo feast, it did not register to me that Javkhaa was speaking to me in English, until he asked me for my contact information. This was great because the second part of my plan was to befriend a Mongolian wrestler, so I can hit him up for some free lessons! I motioned to Courtney, mingling with locals in the stands, to exchange contact information with Javkhaa, while I plunge into sport photographers’ nirvana.

Courtney and I went out to a rather pricy Indian restaurant later that night to celebrate our good fortune, when we got an unexpected call from Javkhaa. Courtney told him that we were English teachers earlier, and we found out over the phone that in addition to being a Naadam wrestling stud, Javkhaa was also a professor at a university in Ulaanbaatar. Everything came at us quickly, in broken-English over the phone: one of Javkhaa’s ‘disciples’ was in urgent need of a native-speaking English teacher 1000 km away, for a ten day public service program, in the Govi-Altai province, and we must leave the next day! We originally planned on heading due west, so we accepted the position over the phone, not knowing what we were in for…

We zipped into Ulaanbaatar chasing a wailing ambulance, on the wrong side of the road! Our opportunistic driver latched on, taking full advantage of the city’s lax traffic rules. As we bounced and weaved through pock-marked streets, in stuttering cacophonous columns of traffic, we couldn’t help but think of Ulaanbaatar as a concrete thorn of industry, thrusting out of the pristine Mongolian landscape.

We lucked in on a small private room, the size of a walk-in closet, at the Khongor Guesthouse, smack in the heart of town. A double bed filled the width of our room, and left barely enough space for our backpacks at its foot. A small window opens to the busy Peace Avenue, letting in a crisp welcome breeze, along with the elegant growls of locals, and telegraphic honks of their vehicles. We plopped down, amidst snow white sheets, and drifted off, letting the energy of the bustling city invade our dreams.

You don’t appreciate what you take for granted ‘til you go without for awhile. For Texas, we’ll miss the  friendliness of  its people, their willingness to help others, and the diversity of landscapes and cultures. It’s the easy ‘howdy’ from complete strangers, the roll of blooming bluebonnet hills, white-washed weather-worn towns, and country cookin’ joints that won’t leave you wanting. Throw in a healthy dose of cowboy hats, lovely languishing longhorns, rural festivals, and you have a snapshot of what we miss. Good-bye Texas, our Lone Star State… we will certainly return!