Thank You, Peace Corps

It's been an honor serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer and Peace Corps Volunteer Leader here in Mongolia over the past three years.

I feel very grateful and to the many people who have made it an incredible experience, I really can't thank you all enough. Our amazing Peace Corps Mongolia staff and my fellow Volunteers in Mongolia and around the world have always supported me and humbled me. The Peace Corps really is a huge family that wraps all around the world.

My wonderful friends and family in Sukhbaatar Province and my equally amazing family and friends at home in America have always been there for me, even though "there" has been thousands of miles away.

And of course my wife Tunga who has been my wonderful friend and partner in this amazing adventure, thank you so much.

I've always wanted to be a part of Peace Corps and been amazed by the quality of people I have met in the organization and around the world. I wrote this in my book and I'll keep saying it, I think Peace Corps is a story that all of us have a chance to be a part of. It's up to us how long and how amazing the story is. I hope to make it great, with your help, and to make it last as long as possible. Thank you all so much.





You can follow me on Twitter here

You can join Advance Humanity on Facebook here

The End of My Time in Peace Corps

After 3 years and 3 months of service, this week signals the end of my time in the Peace Corps. Today Tunga and I finished the lengthy visa process of registering me as a resident in Mongolia and tomorrow night we will be celebrating with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Leader Kyle and the rest of our Peace Corps staff during our Farewell Dinner.

To say that Peace Corps has changed my life forever would be an understatement. Since applying to Peace Corps I completed a silent retreat that I never thought I'd finish, created dozens of awesome projects with my amazing Mongolian counterparts and fellow Volunteers, I lost over 60 pounds, wrote a book, designed a ton of websites, made my own merit badges, created an iPhone app, organized the first TEDx event in Mongolia and was married to my amazing wife. Peace Corps has exceeded my expectations in every way and allowed me to enjoy things I never imagined.

How do you share such an amazing experience with others? When someone says, "Wow, Peace Corps huh? So, what did you do?" how do I begin to answer?

Well, apparently I wrote a lot about it. Looking back, I've written over 300 articles on my blog and fit a bunch of those experiences into my first book. And I have more to write. Over the next 8 months, during my Peace Corps retirement & wannabe literary sabbatical, I plan to launch Advance Humanity and work on my two new book projects: Life is Volunteer and Modern Enlightenment.

I couldn't be more proud of being a Peace Corps Volunteer over the past three years and I am very excited about what lies ahead. Thank you for being here with me and joining me on my next adventure!



To join me, please join all of us at Advance Humanity on Facebook!

The Three Year Pizza

The other night Tunga and I were able to order a pizza and have it delivered to our home, pick up a bottle of water from the store, and play basketball with a dozen of the kids from the neighborhood at the park. A normal night it would seem, but actually it's the culmination of years and years of hard work by hundreds of people. There was no pizza delivery a few months ago (and no one in the city knew how to make pizza two years ago), the store we got water from wasn't around a year ago, and the neighborhood park was just an idea and architectural drawings when Alex and I began our service three years ago. "I bet Sukhbaatar has changed a lot since you first got here…" said my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Kate, who now serves in the hospital where I volunteered for two years, "What's it feel like to be back?"

Humbling. Wonderful. Inspiring. Hard to explain. Things change so quickly and I feel very lucky to have been here long enough to see just a few of those changes that I've been able to be a part of.

The Pizza
My first year in Sukhbaatar, starting in 2008, Alex, LP and I helped teach merit badge classes with the local Mongolian Scouts. We taught our Cooking Merit Badge at the local university with cafeteria chefs and taught them what they asked us: how to make pizza, hamburgers and hamburger buns. Everyone loved it, especially the chefs apparently, as one of them now makes pizzas at a new restaurant called Miss Pizza. They are amazing really, much healthier than what we taught them how to make, and since they take about 40 minutes to make they will deliver the pizza to your house for free. Incredible.

The Bottle of Water
My second year in Sukhbaatar, after being together with Tunga for a year, I had a long conversation with Tunga's father about communism, Mongolia's 20-year-old market economy and democracy, and the future of our province. Together with donors from around the world, we began what would become the Sukhbaatar Social Business Community Fund. It's only a few months old now, but the store has been built and it's amazing to watch the ripple effect it is having in the community. As the community fund replenishes itself with money from the store, we are very excited to think about where its impact will go.

The Neighborhood Park
Throughout our second year, Alex worked with the Provincial Children's Center for months creating the designs and researching the procurement, development, and construction of what would become the largest outdoor community park in our province. It had been a dream of many people for years, so when we approached the Children's Center with the idea they jumped on it immediately. With the support of Mike and JRC Sports for Peace, the leaders of the Children's Center approached thousands of people in our city over several months, getting thousands of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations. Alex wasn't able to see the construction finished, but it's wonderful. Amazing really. From my apartment window, from 6am until midnight every day I see dozens and dozens of people using the equipment, playing on the basketball court and sitting with their families and friends.

I think it's rare for Peace Corps Volunteers, or maybe volunteers of any kind, to be able to see the lasting changes their efforts make on a community. Two years seems like a long time until you live somewhere, just start getting the hang of something, and then your time is up. Two years, really? I stayed for a third, and now for a fourth, and I still can't believe how fast time has gone.

My point of course isn't the pizza, the water bottle or the park. Those things are great, and tasty, but the impact we all have on people and the communities we live in usually go far deeper than what we can see. The kids we smile with in the streets, the people we give a helping hand, and the people's lives we try to help make a little easier, those actions, no matter how small, are important ripples in a very big pond. My point is that those things matter, they go far deeper than you realize, and we all do things like that every day.

As I finish my Peace Corps service, I've started the Life is Volunteer project to keep these stories going. I want to hear from you, from people who are doing what they can to change themselves and change the world. I've already heard dozens of amazing stories from people all over and I'm very excited to share them with you. I've love to hear yours too. Please comment on this post or join us on Facebook or Google Plus to share your story. What kinds of things keep you excited to change yourself and change the world?

Our Mongolian Wedding

I've been gone from the digital world for a few weeks, and for good reason. On June 29th, Tunga and I were married here in Mongolia. We celebrated with family and friends in Tunga's hometown of Baruun Urt, Sukhbaatar where we met when I was serving for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I would like to say thank you, so much, to all of you who helped make our special day so wonderful. Your kind words, your smiles and hugs, your generosity and love and support literally came to us from around the world. It's not easy to be so far away from family and friends on such a special day, but thanks to your efforts all of you were very close to our hearts. Not a moment passed when I didn't think about you and remember that without you I wouldn't be where I am today. Our world is growing smaller every day, which allowed Michael and Jonathan, my two best friends, to be with us all the way from America. It helped me receive an email from my mom which brought tears to my eyes and it allowed us to share pictures with all of you around the world within days of our the event in one of the most remote places on our planet. The idea of family reaches around the world and it includes all of us. For Tunga and I the idea family will always include different cultures, different views and traditions, but a common compassion, love and kindness that is shared in every corner of the world.

On our wedding day my mother wrote to us saying, "Today is a beautiful day. You will never have another one that takes its place... I am dreaming about an extraordinary love story that is about to let the rest of the world share a glimpse of its beauty and commitment to love... forever." I am dreaming of the same thing.

If you would like to see photography of the event, taken by the wonderful PCV Katie Borkowski, you can see the photos here anytime. Also, please let us know if you would like to celebrate with us next year in America! We have a guestbook that you can sign to hear about updates as the events next summer get closer. We would love to see you! Thank you all again so much.

Would you like to share your thoughts? Please join our growing community on Facebook!

Three Lessons from a Gobi Desert Train Ride

Last weekend I was able to travel to the Gobi Desert with Jonathan and Tunga so that Jonathan could renew his visa and continue working here in Mongolia. On our way down there were a couple wonderful things that we were able to experience beyond the beautiful Mongolian landscape and the fact that, after my first train ride ever, this is definitely my new favorite form of transportation.

Friends Are The Best Company

Trips are always more fun when you're travel with people you love. On the train ride we were in a small cabin and since it only fit four people we almost had the whole thing to ourselves. With one new friend each way, the four of us stayed up late playing cards, games, talking, laughing, shooting video and eating tons of random snacks we had gathered for the 17-hour trip. What could've been a very long ride seemed to fly by and it was one of the best trips I have ever had.

We Are All Part of A Legacy

This trip reminded me that all of us are part of a legacy (several usually). When we arrived at the station, at the border town of Zamin Uud between Mongolian and China, we were greeted by my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Cameron who was kind enough to meet us at seven o'clock in the morning when we arrived. He took us to a wonderful little hotel that we never would've found on our own, which was the perfect price for three of us, very comfortable and very close to the small ger that he lives in next to his host family. Later in the day after lunch he showed us around his ger, a traditional Mongolian home, introduced us to some of his Mongolian friends and really made us feel at home. Being part of the Peace Corps legacy allowed all of this to happen - connecting us together even at the edge of the Gobi Desert. But then an unexpected legacy connected us together while we were visiting Cameron's ger. Looking around I noticed several Boy Scout books that he had on his shelf and asked if he was a Boy Scout back in America. Not only was Cameron involved but so was Ben, another Volunteer who happened to be visiting. Boy Scouts has made a huge impact on my life and it turns out it was a big part of their lives too. After some great conversations, a few days later we were all back in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, meeting with my friends at the National Mongolian Scouting Association. We have already gotten several other Peace Corps Volunteers involved in the past week and it looks like it's going to be a great year helping a great organization. You never know how you'll connect to others, how the legacies of organizations you are part of interweave and link you to your past, present and future.

We Shall Not Pass This Way Again

Legacy is a very interesting word in English. It means looking back to where we come from and honoring the traditions that have brought us to where we are, and it also means looking at what we're doing now and how that is going to impact us later in our lives. I love that Chris uses the words legacy project to refer to what he does at The Art of Non-Conformity. I feel similarly that Advance Humanity is my legacy project, the thing that I want to define in my lifetime and then have continue after I'm gone. That's the third thing this trip helped me remember - trips go by quickly. Great memories, videos, pictures and writings help us remember wonderful times, but whether it's a trip into the Gobi Desert or a journey anywhere else on the planet, our time is short. As Stephen Grellet famously said, "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."

I hope you're having a wonderful time on your journey right now, wherever you are.

Have you checked out our growing Advance Humanity community on Facebook?

Peace Corps 10 for 3 (10 Things for 3rd Goal)

My friend Erica Burman, who works with the National Peace Corps Association, shared this idea on Facebook. She hoped it would encourage other Peace Corps Volunteers, in honor of the Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary this year, to take a few minutes to reflect on their Peace Corps service and come up with 10 great memories to encourage the 3rd Goal of Peace Corps: to bring the world back home. Here are ten memories that came to my mind.

Country: Mongolia

Years: 2008-2011

Assignment: Health

1. Starting from day one, I swore we had the best training group. We were also the biggest, most diverse, intense and hilarious group ever. This included Matt bringing a three-man balloon launcher just because.
2. In our last week of training, our entire training site went out to a special camp to have a celebration. By the end of the night, a flash storm hit that was so bad it ripped apart what seemed like half the fences in our community, tore roofs off buildings and knocked power out for several days. That night was also one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.
3. Travis isn't very easy to say in Mongolian, so I have been called everything from Choibalsan (a city/former president's name) to Tarvis (watermelon). 
4. After losing sixty (unneeded) pounds in my first year, my hospital director saw a picture of my family before I left America and said, "Wow, your older brother looks just like you, just fatter!" I told her that was true, and that was me. That's the only time I've ever seen her cheeks red.
5. The worst day of my Peace Corps service involved stomach problems and an 11-hour bus ride that made three stops.
6. At the end of our first year, the idea for Peace Corps Merit Badges came up and in one year it was able to help a small group of elderly women earn two years' salary. This was very rewarding and cool.
7. At our COS conference we were lucky enough to have RPCV photographer Richard Sitler coming through Mongolia, so we got probably one of the best COS pictures ever. Everyone thinks it's fake.
8. It took four years to write, but when I finished my 27th month of Peace Corps service I finally self-published the Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook. It's sold hundreds of copies and raised hundreds of dollars for Peace Corps projects worldwide. This was also very rewarding and cool.
9. At the end of language training during PST, my language instruction said I was a very good student but I could have been better if I took notes. I just listened and stared at her every class. Today, three years later, my speaking and listening in Mongolian are pretty good, but my writing is terrible.
10. Connecting with the National Peace Corps Association while still serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer has been incredible. I know the world is different from what it used to be, but I feel lucky to be in this digital age where Skype, blogs, Facebook and everything else allows us to engage in the Third Goal every step of our Peace Corps journey. Thank you all!

Our Crazy Training Neighborhood Group (Summer 2009)

Our Sacred Mountain Altan Ovoo in Sukhbaatar (Summer 2009)

Home for My Sister's Wedding with Little Tunga (Summer 2009)

Close of Service Conference Photo (Summer 2010)

Tsagaan Sar Celebration with Tunga's Family (Spring 2011)

You can comment on Facebook here  

You can learn more about Advance Humanity here

Free Tax Refunds

I just filed my federal and state taxes for free with TurboTax again for the fifth year in a row. If you're a Peace Corps Volunteer like me, if you were in the Armed Forces, or if you earned less than $31,000 last year, you can use TurboTax Freedom Edition as well. Check it out!

Also, Peace Corps Volunteers, be sure to check out the Peace Corps website so you can follow instructions on how to claim your living allowance as well as your readjustment allowance. With this year's Making Work Pay Tax Credit you should be getting around $200 as a refund. Go get it!

You can comment on Facebook here  
You can learn more about Advance Humanity here

Peace Corps' Founding Father

Although from the outside it might seem like John F. Kennedy was the one man who made Peace Corps a reality, from the inside many people (including 200,000+ Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) attribute much of Peace Corps' success and longevity as an organization to our founding director, Sargent Shriver. He was a dedicated peacebuilder, activist and in many ways a renaissance man. He slept on airplanes (on the floor under his seat and the seat in front of him), felt at home as he traveled to the most remote corners of the world, and connected with millions of people during the 95 years of his exceptional life. In addition to his work with Peace Corps, he also founded VISTA, Job Corps, Head Start, and helped start the Special Olympics with his wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

"Sarge", as he is known by those close to him, is having a lot of wonderful things written about him this week after he passed away this Wednesday. I have read dozens of the articles and these are a few of my favorites:

• Sarge on Napping in the New Yorker
• News Release in the New York Times
  
• Bono in the New York Times 
• Colman McCarthy in the Washington Post 
• Erica Burman with the National Peace Corps Association,
• Peter Hessler in the New Yorker
• John Coyne in the Daily Beast

I'm sure there will continue to be great memories of Sarge written for some time to come. In fact, if you would like to share your own stories and send your thoughts to the Shriver Family, you can visit SargentShriver.org anytime.

Also to learn more about Sargent Shriver visit Shriver.PeaceCorps.gov, SargentShriver.org, Wikipedia.org, and check out the documentary American Idealist. This week, I will share some of my favorite quotes from Sargent Shriver online as people around the world remember him and continue to be inspired by his incredible example. Thank you, Sarge, for your incredible life of inspired service.

You can comment here on Facebook here

You can learn more about Advance Humanity here

Life, Death and Taxi Drivers

Travel, especially when I fly around the world, makes me really think about my life and possible death. Maybe it's shows like LOST where planes fall out of the sky, or how exact times and dates are when I travel, or the occasional erratic taxi driver that reminds me of my temporary stay here on this earth. Yes, my time here is limited. No, it's unlikely I will know when it will end. Yes, this taxi driver is a little crazy.

When we get that chance to remember our own temporary nature, it often calls us to act. We should do today what is truly important, what we really believe in. If we aren't sure how long we'll be here, let's assume not long and act accordingly. That way no matter how long we live, we can be proud of how we spent our time. The people we loved, the projects we worked on, the help we were able to give to those in need, and the things we have learned make life worth living.

Maybe that's one reason I love the Peace Corps so much, everything about it reminds me on a daily basis that I have today to do good work, be the person I know I should be, and do what I can to make a difference. That makes every smile on the street and every conversation I have a little more important, because when it comes down to it those might be the last things I ever do.

You can join Advance Humanity on Facebook here 

You can learn more about Advance Humanity here

From Home to Home

This trip home to America was very different from my first one. A year and a half ago I visited home to be in my wonderful sister’s wedding, back in May of 2009. That was one full year into my Peace Corps service, when I had an amazing woman I loved and a job that I loved awaiting me upon my return to Mongolia. Five weeks in America was wonderful then, I had incredible conversations with people that I love, great memories and long drives, short trips and even shorter visits with people I missed a great deal.

This trip home to America, which just ended yesterday, comes two and a half years into my Peace Corps service. As a third year Volunteer I’ve had the unique opportunity to watch my Peace Corps service end twice and the chance to visit America in between each one.

My first trip was filled with certain answers, how much longer I’d be gone, why I love Mongolia so much, what I do, what I hope to do, my five year plan. I was eager to return to Mongolia and continue building on an incredible adventure that had exceeded all of my expectations. This second trip had much more open-ended answers, I’m not quite sure, why don’t we ask Tunga, I do a lot of different things, I’ve got several plans, but a five year plan isn’t one of them. I’m much more comfortable with uncertainty now than I used to be, but it’s still a funny feeling. I think sometimes we prefer certain answers from ourselves and others, even if we know they aren’t completely true. Uncertainty can be hard, but it can also be very fun.

This second trip back home to America was Tunga’s first trip anywhere outside Mongolia. It was her first time in an airplane, over an ocean, through customs and onto interstates, into crazy restaurants, surrounded by English speakers, thousands of miles away from family, immersed in a new culture and hugged around every corner by my friends and family. Uncertainty surrounded our trip, how she would like it, how it would feel, what she would think, who we would see, what we would do, but throughout everything it was always very fun. A lot of my open-ended answers were finished by Tunga - my smile would give way to her smile, her laugh to my laugh, and her hugs to my hugs. America is a lot to take in all at once, but I think Tunga did wonderfully. She has shared lots of her favorite pictures (america + christmas + campbell + charlotte), talked with her family and friends back in Mongolia almost everyday during the trip, and now has weeks and months to share her experiences with people in-person now that we are back in Mongolia. Maybe that’s kind of like Goal 2½ of the Peace Corps: help the world’s people better understand each other by introducing them and helping them bring the world home themselves.

More than ever I feel like I have two homes - two places I love to be, filled with people that my heart aches for every time I leave them. Some people say the Third Goal of Peace Corps is “bringing the world home” and I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to do that with Tunga while still serving as a Volunteer. I feel very proud to be with Peace Corps, to be surrounded by incredible people who I love and love me back, and to be doing even the smallest things which help promote friendship and (I hope) world peace one person at a time. Thank you for being on this journey with me, as uncertain as it may be at times, because the very best journeys can always be judged by who you were able to share them with.

You can join Advance Humanity on Facebook here  

You can learn more about Advance Humanity here

Inside Worldview

This month, Worldview (the magazine of the National Peace Corps Association) came out with its 50th Anniversary Issue to honor the speech by John F. Kennedy which first mentioned the idea of our organization. Throughout this next year the Peace Corps worldwide community is celebrating 50 years of friendship and world peace, ending with big celebrations around the world next September.

This issue of Worldview includes great articles by Volunteers and Staff from the early days of Peace Corps all the way up until present day. I'm honored to say I got a small spot alongside other great stories as I was asked to write about what I think Peace Corps means to us today. I wrote about success and how we can make the Peace Corps experience last as long as we want it to. Thank you to Todd, Alex, Claire, Alison, Judy, and Erica for your help this summer as I tried to write something good enough to be read by 30,000+ RPCVs, PCVs, staff and people all over the world.

Anyway, here is a PDF of the actual printed article and I've also included the text below...

Peace Corps Volunteer, 2010 Edition

By: Travis Hellstrom

Sometimes a story is so good that I don’t want it to end. As the pages in my right hand get lighter, I might even flip back a few chapters to try and enjoy it again—to remember what just happened and maybe catch something I missed.

For whatever reason, I brought that blue invitation packet with me across the ocean, the same one every Volunteer gets in the mail with “Peace Corps invites you to serve” printed on the front. It’s been a long time since I opened it, more than two years. A couple papers fall out: a booklet entitled Your Assignment, a Staging Workbook, a Diarrhea Flow Chart from the PCMO (with “No pun intended” written below the title), maps and a few other handouts. It all feels like it happened yesterday, but strangely it feels like it happened to someone else. I open up the Staging Workbook to a page with the heading Personal Definition of Success. Ruled lines and blank space fill the page underneath the sentence, “I will know that I am a successful Volunteer when…”

A lot has changed since I wrote on that page. At some point during service my understanding of success and happiness (and which comes first) reversed. As my relationships grew, “being” with my counterparts, students, fellow volunteers, friends, and family became more important than “doing” and relationships became the end, not the means. It was simple but profound for me.

The point was driven home last week when I spoke with my host country counterpart and friend. I asked her what she liked about Peace Corps and she thought about it for a while. “Volunteers help people,” she said, “they’re kind and they listen, they’re talented in many areas and they stay with us for a long time.” I smiled and asked, “Don’t other organizations do that too?” I named a few organizations we were both familiar with, but she looked back at me a little surprised, “Those have people?”

In a world of budgets, deadlines and benchmarks it’s easy for me to forget about people, but a Volunteer should never do that. When someone smiles at the mention of Peace Corps they’re probably thinking beyond awesome projects. They are thinking about who they knew: the teacher who served in their village, the counterpart who became their friend, the Volunteer who became part of their community. More than what we do, people remember who we are. With that in mind, every interaction changes and so then does the end of the story.

When my Peace Corps story began, I thought there was a set number of pages to fill—twenty-seven months worth. However, more recently, I’ve noticed the story just keeps getting longer. Twenty-five months in I feel like I’m just now hitting my stride, I’m still at the beginning. We live in a changed and changing world with technology that allows us to communicate with people like never before. Now especially our service in the Peace Corps can be just the beginning of life-long and life-changing friendships, if we want it to be. It’s our choice.

Maybe that’s one of the best things about our Peace Corps stories and the relationships we form as Volunteers, they last as long as we want them to. We have our whole lifetime to finish the sentence, “I will know that I am a successful Volunteer when…” If the story is so good that you don’t want it to end, it doesn’t have to.

Travis Hellstrom is a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Mongolia. He is editor of the Unofficial Peace Corps Handbook. To learn more visit www.peacecorpshandbook.com.

Starting Our Unofficial Community

The Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook has been a long-running project that I began almost four years ago when I was applying to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. It is based on the idea that we (applicants, trainees, volunteers) all go through experiences that are shared around the world and make us part of the Peace Corps community. I kept track of my questions, as well as questions that other people have shared with me, and then wrote down answers to those questions a little bit every month. In August, the Unofficial Handbook was released as a paperback and hardcover book and there are already copies on several continents around the globe!

It took a lot of time and hard work, but it's been very rewarding and especially wonderful to connect with so many volunteers worldwide. We had an incredible team of people come together to share stories, advice and wisdom and we have received wonderful comments and support from dozens of readers. It's really been amazing to be in contact with so many great people all around the world including returned volunteers, experienced volunteers in the field, trainees leaving America, applicants getting their invitations in the mail from Peace Corps, and people just starting their applications. I feel very fortunate and humbled to have access to technology that allows us to share our experiences and reach out to help each other no matter where we are.

This really is only the beginning. We are raising hundreds of dollars for Peace Corps projects, starting great conversations about an incredible organization and sharing wonderful experiences with people all over the world.  I look forward to connecting more with incredible people in our Unofficial Peace Corps community for many months to come.

New Life In The City

Our new apartment has really been a blessing for Tunga and I, a wonderfully large place with room for many people to sit, talk, rest, eat and play together. It has a large living room, kitchen, separated shower and bathroom and large bedroom with a wonderfully large bed. I've never had anything larger than a twin sized bed, from childhood all the way through college, so it's pretty crazy to be able to roll around and not roll off the bed.

Tunga and I spent a lot of time our first few days cleaning, rearranging things and organizing the new place how we would like it the most. Now we spend most of our time just living and relaxing, which has been really nice. I can sit in the living room writing on the computer while Tunga and her friends enjoy a nice snack around the kitchen and a Peace Corps friend takes a hot shower. This is quite a change from our relaxed countryside life in Sukhbaatar but so far it's been really wonderful and fun to experience together.

The past three weeks have been full of Peace Corps training events for our first and second year Volunteers. I was able to participate in sessions that closed Pre-Service Training for our newest Volunteers before they swore in and left for their 70+ new homes all around Mongolia, as well as help lead Mid-Service Training for our wise group of 50+ Volunteers who have just finished up their first year. It was really great to see so many new people and get to know them over the course of these few weeks. As PCVL, I will have a chance to work with them all year which I think will be a blast.

Now that all our Peace Corps trainings are over for a few months, we have started to relax a little more in the headquarters office this past week. We have a lot of work to do, but it's all great work supporting Volunteers and thinking of ways to improve our country. The capital is a huge place, very different than what my last two years have been like, but I'm excited to explore the incredible opportunities being here offers me. I'm very humbled by being PCVL and I feel very fortunate to serve all of our volunteers, staff and host country friends this year. 

JRC Sports for Peace

JRC Sports for Peace, a non-profit charity founded by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers from Mongolia in honor of James Robert Campbell, has been an inspiration to us here in Mongolia over the past two years. They have helped with great projects including...

• Center for Disabled Children in Bayankhongor, Mongolia
• English Resource Center in Khovsgul, Mongolia
• Basketball Program in Hovd. Mongolia
• Scholarship Program for Students and
• Sports Complex in Suhkbaatar Aimag

It is currently being led by Mike Prelaske who is a great former Volunteer and a great friend. Thanks for all of your hard work Mike, you are doing great things and we really appreciate it!

Shipping Out

Two very exciting things are shipping out this week: the first orders of the Unofficial Peace Corps Volunteer Handbook and... me. We just launched the online ordering system for my first published book and several copies are already shipping around the country and even around world - one new Volunteer named April just left for her Peace Corps assignment on Saturday and had her handbook shipped all the way to Africa to meet her when she arrives. So cool!!

I myself will be shipping out on Thursday, leaving my comfy apartment here in the eastern steppe for a deluxe apartment in the blue Ulaanbaatar sky. In the capital I will be serving as Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) this upcoming year as well as working closely with the World Health Organization. I'm very excited and I will be sure to share more information soon. It will take me a week or two to set up internet in my new place, but once I'm all settled in I'll be sure to post some pictures, answer my emails and Skype like a madman!

Oh, also, if you order the Unofficial Handbook, please let me know what you think! I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas! Thanks!

Helping Aiman

This update comes from Matt Becker, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Mongolia, who has been working very hard to help his friend Agii whose sister Aiman is having a very difficult time....

As of today, we raised $1,030 dollars, which I just transferred to Travis Hellstrom. As soon as Travis is able to withdraw the funds, he should be able to start transferring them to Agii's bank account. Hopefully, this money will help out at least a bit, allowing Agii to not go bankrupt and/or sell everything in order to pay for his sister's medical care. I sent Agii an email a few days ago but haven't heard a response to I may try and call him soon. I heard through Scott Burt (my friend and former site mate), who is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bayan Olgii and works with Agii, that Aiman and their older sister had made it to Almaty, Kazakhstan, that she had to undergo a lot more evaluations, she will have the operation soon and that doctors seem optimistic. As soon as I hear back from either Scott or Agii, I'll post another update. I just wanted to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone that made a donation. Thank you to Jordan, Cathy, Eric and fam, Ryan, Sean, my mom, Nik, Andy and Debbie, Melissa, and my dad and stepmom. Also, a big thank you to Travis Hellstrom for being my 'man on the ground' in Mongolia, for being an awesome help and friend. Hope I didn't forget anyone! Thank you so much for your generosity and for recognizing that this is very important to me in so many ways.

Concerned Consumers

Something I have learned in Peace Corps, and had reinforced during many conversations with my family and close friends back in America, is that we have a huge impact as consumers. Beyond anything we could imagine. Action expresses priorities; purchases express priorities. Whether you buy from this store or that store, this brand or that brand, you are telling an organization that you support what they do - paying workers 10 cents an hour, paying executives 10 million a year, raising animals humanely or inhumanely, respecting or destroying the earth.

In my opinion one of the best things we can do to change our world is be informed and make wise decisions which express our priorities. Whether it’s by watching documentaries like The Corporation, Capitalism: A Love Story or Food, Inc. (all of which I highly recommend) or asking hard questions and searching for the answers, it has never been easier or more important to be a concerned consumer. Especially in America, where we hold a huge percent of the world’s wealth, we have a tremendous opportunity to make a difference every day.

New Address

Along with my exciting move next month comes a new address. If there is anything you would like to send to me here in Mongolia, like the occasionally postcard, birthday card or jar of peanut butter, here it is:

Travis Hellstrom (PCV)
Peace Corps Mongolia
Central Post Office
P.O. Box 1036
Ulaanbaatar 15160, Mongolia

Oh and just kidding about the peanut butter, I have plenty of that.

Living A Life of Service

I recently had the privilege of talking with Shannon Ryals from my alma mater Campbell University. She is Assistant Editor at Campbell Magazine and wrote a beautiful piece in the magazine highlighting Peace Corps here in Mongolia. I really hope it inspires others at Campbell to consider this amazing opportunity that our country offers us. It's really changed my life and I hope it changes many more for years to come.

Thank you Shannon for a great conversation and for writing such a nice piece.

Naadam

I just experienced my third Naadam celebration this past weekend, this time with just Tunga and her family which was a nice change of pace. It was very relaxing and tons of fun to spend time together. We watched horse races (with children wearing helmets thanks to Alex's hard work), national wrestling, archery and thousands of people from the community getting together to celebrate, wear traditional clothes, eat their favorite foods, and have a wonderful time.

Naadam festival is an annual summer celebration in Mongolia which is like March Madness, the Super Bowl, and the World Series wrapped into one big celebration every year. It features wrestling, horse racing, archery and ankle-bones, with some basketball and volleyball thrown in there for fun. My first summer with my host family was great. They introduced me out to all the festivities, filled with Coca Cola, meat pastries called huushuur and even a little ice cream or two. We sat in the stands to watch wrestling, stood beside the archers as they shot their arrows and talked with our family and friends while all the horses raced around the countryside. Once the official events had passed, we went to our uncle’s house and ate an entire goat during what was pretty much a family reunion. Every part of the goat was eaten...every part. I mostly hung out with the little kids and played games, while avoiding the popular intestines as long as I could. If you can imagine what intestines filled with fried blood would taste like...it tasted worse than you think, I promise. Two years later, I'm still playing with kids and avoiding the intestines...

Here are some long lost videos from my first year in case you want to check them out!