New friends

Late on Friday afternoon we took the girls to the indoor play centre near our apartment. There were two other boys there (English speaking boys Mummy!!!! said Alesia). Within five minutes the kids were joined at the hip and were were making small talk with their Mother. They work for Blue Sky Aviation, which is the representative of Mission Aviation Fellowship in Mongolia. They have been here for three years, and have just agreed to another four (and here we are agonising over another 12 months). They own an apartment in UB and the husband was doing rennovations, so the boys needed to be out of the house (hence at the play centre). Within an hour we had made plans to drive out to Terelj National Park on Saturday.

Our new friends lease a ger at a camp in Terelj, so we went out with them for the day. No, that is not the ger above, but the lodge at the ger camp. It felt great to be out of UB, as I had not left UB since we got back from Australia. The sky was blue, the sun lovely, and the wind fierce.

Above is Alesia with Joshua (orange) and Daniel (blue). Daniel is 6 and Joshua is 4, but Alesia demonstrated the higher social skills of girls and played all day with Daniel, leaving Joshua and Keira to make friends.

Chris climbed the hill behind the camp and came down hungry - proving that Mongolian men can survive on meat and pastry alone (just ignore the purple cabbage there, Chris did). It was great to spontaneously go out for the day, skipping church and getting some very fresh air. It was also great to make some new friends.