yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Living With Mongolian Nomads | Best Job Ever


less than 1m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[Music] I'm in Mongolia to discover what it means to be a modern-day nomad. Wrestling is traditional in Mongolia. You know, was it physically difficult? Yes. Was I scared? Yes. Did I lose? I was slaughtered.

What made it special was, at the end of that whole day, I had this man speaking to me in Mongolian and sharing his philosophies of life. You need to be able to ride on horseback to be a nomad. Children learn to do this, literally, in many cases, before they even learn to walk.

I've never been on a horse in my life. There were no instructions; it was get on your horses and go. In that moment, it felt like there was no separation between myself, the horse, the Earth, the land, the culture. It all blended into one, and I will remember that for the rest of my life.

Mongolian life is extremely difficult, but you don't hear a lot of complaining. I don't even think they would define it in those terms as hard or difficult. It was just life.

Could I survive as a nomad for more than a month? Pull definitely not. Come on. But just a glimpse into their experience will help to dissolve the wall between ourself and others. We can walk away feeling that this Mongolian wrestler, this Mongolian herdsman, or nomad is just like us.

Marty and I set out on an expedition to make the first print and interactive maps of Patagonia National Park to give people an on-the-ground perspective of what it's like to stand in the park itself.

More Articles

View All
Why Do People Act Badly? | The Story of God
In small-scale societies and ancestral communities, there were only a couple of hundred individuals. It was relatively easy to keep tabs on one another, and that was really important because social reputation matters. The problem is that the larger the s…
Cattoos: How This Tattoo Artist Helps to Immortalize Beloved Pets | Short Film Showcase
[Music] My first cat tattoo was on my 18th birthday. Then came Patches, and then came a lot. [Music] More like a lot of teenagers, I suffered from depression. The best part about being a teenager, uh, was Patches because she was always there. I would wal…
Holy Cats! Jerusalem's Strays and Their Unsung Guardian | National Geographic
It’s so sad to see kitten suffering and dying in the streets that I cannot stand it. It will affect my mental health. I can’t pass by a kitten on the street and not rescue it because I know it’s going to have a horrible life until it dies. Holyland cats …
A Smarter Path | Chasing Genius | National Geographic
I was about six. My favorite toy was my slot car track, and what that really is, is little electric cars on an electric road. That electric road, the thing stuck with me. I am an engineer. Rather than to make a better mousetrap, I chose to make the world…
Who Owns The Statue of Liberty?
Who owns the Statue of Liberty? New York or New Jersey? It should be straightforward, but the island upon which the statue stands, Liberty Island, has been part of a long fight between the states over their river border and the islands between them, with …
Escobar's Teenage Assassins | Facing Escobar
When I arrived in Colombia, it didn’t take me very long to realize that I didn’t know a thing about Colombia. Bombs were going off everywhere, people getting killed left and right. By the time I was there, maybe a year, I was obsessed with Pablo. I mean, …