If you can call living and working in playing in Mongolia the "real world".
So, camp is over for reals this time. I ended up missing four days of the last week of camp which was a pretty big bummer. Not only did I have to put up with swollen, red, itchy eye, but I had to miss out on the last week with my kids to do it. Suck.
We had class for half a day yesterday, and then played games, hung out, and went wild strawberry hunting in the mountains behind the camp in the afternoon. There are mountains all around the camp and a pine forest right behind the camp boundaries. So, a group of us went traipsing through the woods to hunt for strawberries. They were super tiny, but oh so delicious. And, of course the kids took tons of pictures with their super hip camera phones - I am so last generation with a separate camera and phone. We finished off the day with a goodnight song and camp stories (none of which I understood because it was all in Mongolian). They have been trying to teach me some words and my repertoire is up to 10 or 12 words on a good day. My favorite words so far are pronounced (I have no idea how they're spelled because their in cyrillic) "Yahwee" which means let's go, "Bicham hayartay" which means I love you, and "Yahsembeh" which means what's happening or what's going on. And, every time I use a Mongolian word they would be surprised and occasionally clap for me. It was fun.
Then today we packed up, and left, and that's that.
There were a lot of ups and downs with dreading going in the first place, hating my boss for making me do it, missing everyone at home like crazy, and then finally enjoying the kids as people and as students. The whole experience was way more emotionally interesting and personally fulfilling than I thought possible. They really were fantastic kids. I really enjoyed being Bridged Bagsh, and the younger of the two teachers. So, I got to be teacher Bridged during class and just Bridged after class for games and football and water fights and strawberry hunting. I will miss them a lot. But, it was good - no, it was freaking awesome.
Now, onto the next adventure.
