Ger Living

(Typed Sept 3, 2010)

You know, living in a ger isn’t that bad. I was really bummed when I found out that Justin and I were going to be spending the remainder of our 2 years in a small, round, one room tent.

Before coming to Mongolia I knew that a great percentage of its population lived in gers. I was excited once I found out that I would be living in a ger during our 2 month long summer training (because I knew that living in a ger during the summer is rather easy). I didn’t have a great experience with it (my ger was a really old ger, leaked everywhere, infested with hundreds of spiders, things like that), but I was happy that I could say “yeah, I lived in a ger for a summer”-- and be done with it. I also knew that since I am married PC will not put married couples in gers for their two year duration. So once summer training was over I was confident that Justin and I would be moving into an apartment (with plumbing! I was so excited about having running water and a toilet!).

No. We received our site announcement and our housing agreement (or should I say ger agreement). A ger?! For two years?! Living in one of the coldest countries, in a tent, for two years?! I was only mad at myself for not expressing this dislike for gers to my training staff, so they could pass it onto the housing staff and we *might* have been set up in a concrete box known as an apartment (but remember, having running water and toilet is magical here).

Instead on dwelling on the negatives (well, I shouldn’t say “instead” because I still continued very much to dwell on the negatives-- maybe I should say “in addition to dwelling on the negatives…”) I started to see some positives. 1) not only are we getting ‘bad-ass’ credit for living in the Gobi Desert for 2 years, but we are now (to everyone’s knowledge here) the 1st married couple in Mongolia to be placed in a ger. Major bad-ass points. 2) I will be major skilled in making fires, preserving water, fetching water, knowing where to put things so they don’t freeze during the night (ie computers and all electronics need to be put inside of our sleeping bag with us while we sleep, because we could be waking up to a ger that is 30 degrees inside-- or colder), and don’t forget how skilled I will be at crapping over a hole in our very own outhouse (that we share with at least 2 other people).

Justin and I are already growing closer through this experience. We are constantly only about 6 feet away from each other. Maybe by the time our 2 years is up and we arrive in the beautiful US of A, we will have separation anxiety. Who knows?