I was standing at the river’s edge when she came up beside me, crouched, and splashed her face with icy water. She peeled off her stocking cap and ran a wet hand through her short white hair. Next, she dipped her pointer in the flowing creek, and massaged her single toothed gums. Just a little after six, her morning beauty routine complete, she turned to me.
We’d been talking for a few minutes when she asked if I knew her language. I was caught off guard since we’d been chatting in Mongolian already. She had to repeat that question three times, though, before I got it.
Then she asked if I would help her. “Sure!” I said, and followed her to a pile of collected branches. She took off her cotton sash, and spent ten minutes weaving it through her firewood to ensure the load would stay together.
I kept reaching out, wondering when I was to help, but she kept repeating, “not yet.” When she was finally satisfied that her knitted twigs were secure, she squatted down in front of them. After slipping her left arm through a make shift shoulder loop, she asked me to hand to her a walking stick that was on the ground behind me. Taking the staff from me, she adjusted the right loop onto the top end, and immediately leaned forward on the stick pulling the load behind her a bit up off the ground. I thought that I should carry her package for her, but frankly, I wasn’t sure I could. “Now, lift and give it to me,” she said. So I quickly moved behind the heavy load and helped to maneuver it onto her “c” shaped back. Then, off she went. I stood watching in amazement, as she toddled off toward home carrying two thirds of her weight in wood.
Convicted! I frequently complain about not having hot water, about icky tasting tooth paste, about my ‘so heavy’ six pound laptop and about feeling old. This woman was well into her 80’s and less than 90 pounds. No complaints from her. She simply wanted to know if I loved her beautiful Mongolia.
