Sad Goodbyes and an American Detour

Spending time with my friend Bek and his family


Gifts, recognition, thanks and goodbyes with my coworkers

At the Olgii airport with Nurbol, Doman (my director), and Sabit

Enjoying the good life in UB with my friend Ridge

It's been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd try to get an update done before I leave for Cambodia. The week before I left Olgii was surprisingly emotional and tough. After I notified Peace Corps of my decision, I told my work and some friends and word spread pretty quickly. I found myself meeting teachers, students, all who I'd had good relationships with, having lunch and tea with friends, being invited to meetings and meals at friends' homes. It was very overwhelming and the reaction that I received from those who I'd come to know, was a lot of sadness and confusion. I was asked multiple times why I was leaving early, why I wasn't staying until July as everyone originally knew. It was difficult explaining my decision but after speaking with them, most seemed to understand and respect my decision. I guess until this week, I didn't realize how much of an impact I'd had on so many people in the community. Many of my students bought me gifts, some took me out to lunch and dinner, all asked for my email address and messenger ID, made comments about how much I'd helped them and thanked me countless times. The week leading up to my departure from Olgii was the most emotional week of my entire 22 months of Peace Corps service in Mongolia. I was also asked countless times when I'd be returning to Olgii.

I left from Olgii and headed into Ulaanbaatar to get all of my outprocessing done with Peace Corps and to figure out how I was going to make it to Cambodia. All of my Peace Corps related stuff went well, with minimal problems but a lot of paperwork and meetings. During these few days I attempted to get my Mongolian exit visa for my personal passport but ran into some problems. To make a long story short, it just worked out better that I took the Peace Corps flight home to Colorado and now I will end up going to Cambodia a bit later than planned. I flew to the U.S. and and after a long day, 23 hours or so of travel, arrived in the Denver airport, greeted by my dad and stepmom. It was really nice to see them and to be in Colorado, to be in the U.S., to be home. Over the past week I've been back and forth between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs, spending time with my family and most of my close friends. It's been really nice to see people I've missed for a while. Because the visit was so last minute, I haven't been able to see everyone I'd like to, but I'll be around longer the next time I come in and I should be able to spend more time with more people. :) I also have a few good friends going to school and working in other states or countries so I look forward to doing some traveling later this year and visiting them.

Anyways, I'll need to cut this short soon so just to let everyone know, I'm leaving Colorado for Cambodia this weekend. Sunday, April 18th I will fly from Denver to San Fransisco, San Fran to Taipei, Taipei to Phnom Penh and on Tuesday morning Hanna will (I hope :-P ) be meeting me at the airport for my first excursion into Cambodia. As I wrote before, Cambodia is a place that I have wanted to go for a long time and I'm really excited about this opportunity and of course to be reunited with Hanna.

I know that I had a lot of ups and downs, plenty of frustration and disappointment but I don't regret my decision to join Peace Corps and go to Mongolia. I don't regret it one bit. I learned so much during my time here, about Mongolia, about Mongolian and Kazakh culture, about the people, about teaching, about development work, about life in the developing world, and I learned so much about myself. I feel like I have grown in ways, over the past two years, that I never could have grown in had I stayed in the U.S. and worked some 'regular' job. I'm better for my decision to join Peace Corps and I feel with the knowledge, experience and humility that I learned in Mongolia, I can bring a lot more to Cambodia as a teacher and a development worker and to any other countries I head to in the future.

As soon as I get settled in Cambodia and start working, getting life there figured out, and have some time, I will start writing new posts about my experiences in another new country. In the meanwhile I'll see about posting up some pics from Colorado. Hope everyone is doing well. :)