The Summer

A lot has happened in the past three months...Kanye released his new album, to receive incredible peer reviews and totally flop in the public's eye. Kendrick Lamar proclaimed himself king. I'm certain something happened with Lady Gaga. Justin Vernon, after leaving Bon Iver behind, released a new album with yet another side project (look it up, he has like 5+ including a whole lotta cameos on Yeezus). Plus, Avicii got his shit together and released another song that literally grabs you by your bumping heart and pulls you to the dance floor (and he's featuring some R&B guy you've probably never heard of). And a whole hell of a lot went down on the other side of the world...after all, it only took a couple of weeks for Avicii's song to make it all the way to Hennesey's Club deep in the heart of UB.

Mongolia's a teenage boy going through puberty. A lot of stuff is changing how things function, new things are being produced, but the body hasn't learned how to respond to these new stimuli. So I often find myself confronted by people with exciting goals, but no realistic idea of how to achieve them. How do we start a night club in our soum? Well, we only have about 1000 people in the actual town... Ben, I want to build a man-made lake. A what?!!... Managing expectations is a bigger part of my job than I originally thought.
But the most rewarding part is planning something with Mongolians and seeing the twisted smirk of achievement on their faces. It's the most beautiful form of greed in the world, this greed to fulfill one's dreams. And I can see the mirror of their looks on my face as I witness their success. All of us sitting around, grinning like fools and smirking at one another. Like we've been in cahoots all along, bridging our fingers, and whispering in dark corners of a bar, obscured by a haze of smoke.

So yeah, the summer went pretty well. I got a break from being a part of Mongolian culture, and got to see it from the tourist side with the parents. It's funny seeing the other side of the coin, when Mongolians are outnumbered by foreigners and how they act. Where I'm normally forced to sit on the fringes of a conversation, eyes darting from one speaker to another, guessing at what's being said, I can see my Mongolian friends trying to guess at our conversation and trying to guess the appropriate response to any request. Most of all, I just appreciated how well they managed to navigate being with my parents. It makes me feel as though I might just have taught them something about being around people from another culture. Through experience, of course. I could never claim that I enlightened them to anything, unless by accident. It feels good nonetheless.

Now the second school year starts, and I'm already feeling more comfortable with my position in my school. What I do this year is more in my hands, which, in turn, puts more power in Peace Corps's hands. It's like any other job. The first year, you're the freshman. You're everybody's bitch, but you have no idea how to do anything anyone tells you. Then the second year rolls around and you know the ropes. You know the patterns of the rises and falls. You know what you're supposed to do.

Then again, winter is coming...