Reader Report: Newport Beach woman completes two-year stint in Mongolia

The adage “getting there is half the fun” undoubtedly did not apply to the 40-hour journey aboard a rickety bus across the barren and forbidding Gobi Desert taken by a Newport Beach woman to reach her Peace Corps posting in Mongolia.

“Our bus stopped several times to allow us to take bathroom breaks,” said Shelby Searles in describing her arduous trip on unpaved and rutted roads from Ulan Bator, the nation’s capital in the east, to Khoud in Mongolia’s far-west. “But there are virtually no public restrooms in Mongolia, so passengers had to crouch behind bushes.

“And we had to bring our own food on the bus, as there were no restaurants or markets along the route,” added Searles, 25, a graduate of Harbor Day School, Newport Harbor High School (she was the 2009 senior class valedictorian) and the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in art history.

Along the way, Searles saw plodding caravans of camels, goats and sheep led by nomadic Mongolians who, at the end of the day, erected portable tents called “gers” that were carried on the backs of the camels and massive, long-haired yaks that resemble the American buffalo. When darkness fell, the nomads retreated into their gers to cook dinner and sleep huddled together on thin mats.

Life in Mongolia, a land of mountains, grasslands and deserts in east-central Asia that is bordered by Russia on the north and China on the east, west and south, is harsh, and living conditions in the nation of 3 million people would be inconceivable to Americans, according to Searles, who recently returned home from her two-year Peace Corps stint.

The weather can reach 120 degrees in the summer and plunge to minus-40 in wintertime, and air conditioning, central heating and indoor plumbing are found only in the larger cities, added Searles, whose parents, Suzanne and Bob, and sisters Isabelle, 14, and Jamie, 22, are friends of this writer and his family.

When her bus finally reached Khoud, a small provincial center where Searles took up her Peace Corps responsibilities, she was assigned a one-room, fifth-floor walk-up “apartment” in a gloomy, shabby cement building with dank, unlighted corridors.

Built by the Soviets in the late 1950s or early 1960s, it reflected the dull, unimaginative architecture of the Soviet Union, which had ruthlessly ruled Mongolia for more than 70 years until the end of the Cold War, when Mongolia achieved independence and established a democracy.

“Fortunately, my building had electricity, steam heat and indoor plumbing,” she said. “There was a flush toilet in my room, but there was no stove, so I cooked my meals on a one-burner electric hot plate. There also was no bathtub, shower or hot water, so to bathe I stood on a small indentation in the toilet room that had a drain in the floor and poured water over my head that I had heated on the hot plate.

“And I had no refrigerator. In the winter, this was not much of a problem as I put my food out on the balcony where it stayed cold or froze. In summer, though, the temperature could rise to 100, and I had to purchase my food daily at a nearby market. Swarms of mosquitoes arrived during the summer, and I still have scars on my legs to prove it.”

What did she eat in Mongolia?

“Horse meat, root vegetables, rice and potatoes,” she said. “I rarely found anything sweet in the stores except Mongolian candy, which doesn’t taste all that great.

“I had an Internet connection in my room, and via Skype, I was able to see and speak with my family and friends in Newport Beach,” she said. “There were four other Peace Corps volunteers living in my building, and they were all young men. We’d often get together to watch movies on our laptops. We also went out on weekends to restaurants and karaoke bars, played volleyball and rode horses.”

One of approximately 100 Peace Corps volunteers serving throughout Mongolia, Searles was assigned to the government-run Progress School in Khoud to teach English to students 18 and younger with disabilities and special needs. Additionally, she taught adult classes in American history and government at the local U.S-sponsored public library, where she could check-out books in English.

Teaching special needs students in Mongolia is a “real challenge,” according to Searles, because the disabled are discriminated against by the rest of the population.

Those with disabilities are hidden from view and “locked up” by their families, and she and the other Peace Corps teachers at the school told everyone they met that this practice is inhumane and should be abolished. Corporal punishment is rife in Mongolian schools, and Searles said she informed the principal and her staff that the beating of children is “strictly against Peace Corps policy.”

Searles also established a regional Special Olympics, which she hopes will be continued with her departure from Khove, and learned to speak Mongolian, passing a test in the language that earned her the ranking of “conversationally fluent.”

Not only is Mongolian much more difficult to learn than the Romance languages, but it is written with the Cyrillic alphabet.

Mongolians are a friendly, outgoing people curious of Western ways who went through frightening times when the Soviet Union ruled the land. Most Mongolians are Buddhists, many are Muslims, and during the Soviet reign uncounted religious leaders were murdered, temples and mosques were turned into warehouses, demolished or burned down and people had to worship in secret.

Today, new temples and mosques are being built, religion is making a comeback and the country has become a Western-style democracy.

Searles, who arrived home three weeks ago, will leave next week for Stanford University to pursue a master’s degree in international educational policy. She won’t be the only member of her family studying at Stanford. Her sister, Jamie, will be a senior there. When she receives her master’s, Searles says she will consider overseas careers with a non-governmental aid or educational agency or the U.S. Foreign Service.

What did she miss most during her two-year Peace Corps assignment in Mongolia?

“My family, friends, hot showers, the beach, fresh fruit, fish from the ocean and Mexican food,” she said. “My mother mailed me taco seasoning several times, but each time it took a month or more for the packages to arrive. When they did, I mixed the seasoning with cooked horse meat. It tasted great!”

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DAVID C. HENLEY, a Newport Beach resident, is a long-time foreign correspondent and a member of the Board of Trustees of Chapman University.