NYC-Feature Story

A Black Woman in Mongolia
Looking for adventure after college, a young New Yorker transformed her life

By Desiree Bailey

The thought of drinking spoiled horse’s milk makes me sick. I can’t imagine myself chewing on tough, old sheep meat. And I wonder what it would be like for a young black woman like me to live for two years in a frigid and isolated country far away from everything I know. But as difficult as this commitment seems to me, I recently met an adventurous soul who was able to thrive in such conditions.

Dara Ross, a former writer for New Youth Connections, spent two years working in Mongolia. When my editor told me about Dara, who is black, I wanted to meet her and hear how she transformed her life into an adventure.

I also wondered if she experienced any racism as a black woman in a foreign country, which is something I worry about for myself.

Dara agreed to meet me at the NYC office one day after getting off work from her job as an English teacher at Brooklyn International HS.

Choosing a Remote Land

After graduating from college, Dara didn’t know what to do with her life. So when she read about the Peace Corps in a magazine, it seemed like a perfect way to spend the next two years. The Peace Corps is a U.S. government agency that sends volunteers to work in other countries. “I was always interested in traveling,” Dara said. “I said, ‘Wow, the government’s going to pay for me to travel and live somewhere.’”

Dara attended Peace Corps events to learn more about the program and found that volunteers’ jobs depend on their skills and what people in a particular area need. Volunteers might teach English, work with farmers to increase their crop production, educate people about HIV or do other jobs to help local communities.

Dara decided to join, and like many other Peace Corps volunteers, she told the agency where she wanted to work for two years (although you aren’t guaranteed your first choice). Dara picked Mongolia, a remote country in Asia between Russia and China, because she wanted to go to a place that she knew almost nothing about. She figured since the government was paying for her trip, she could afford to be spontaneous.

Six Weeks of Training

Not too many people wanted to go to Mongolia, so Dara got her first choice. In exchange for the trip and experience, she’d teach English in the village of Bayandelger, a small village in central Mongolia. The landscape is called steppe, which is dry, cold, grasslands. It gets very hot in summer and very cold in winter.

When she first got to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, she had about six weeks of language training. While she didn’t think much of her Mongolian (which is part of the same family of languages as Turkish) at first, her ability to speak improved greatly while she was living there.

No One Was a Stranger

For a young black woman who grew up in Queens, living in Bayandelger was a completely different world. To fit in, Dara had to abandon her city upbringing and adjust to a slower pace. Much of the day was spent visiting friends and neighbors. No one was a stranger in Dara’s close-knit village. It was the norm to stop several times in the street just to chat with friends.

“Everyone knew everybody and what was going on with everyone,” she said.

Dara quickly realized that not everything could be done immediately. Sometimes she was forced to stop and simply wait—a concept that is alien to most Americans. When the woman in charge of the mail was visiting someone for the day, Dara would have to wait to get her mail. A four-hour Jeep ride to Ulaanbaatar often turned into an eight-hour trip because of stops at people’s houses along the way.

Her race wasn’t an issue for her new neighbors. When I asked Dara about the Mongolians’ reaction to her skin color, she said they didn’t seem to care about it. She thought maybe she didn’t have to deal with negative stereotypes associated with black people because her village didn’t have TVs or any other media. Her neighbors didn’t see negative images of black people on TV.

“It might’ve been more difficult for me to be in the city because people get television all the time and listen to rap music, but Mongolians in the countryside just saw me as an American,” she said.

Dara learned that family and friends are also extremely important to Mongolians, and that included Dara during her two-year stay. Many family members, including aunts and uncles, lived in one hut, called a gir. The Mongolians thought it was strange that Dara lived alone and one even offered to send her daughter to live with Dara and keep her company.

They also thought it was odd that Dara locked her door at night. They couldn’t understand why someone would need so much privacy. When Dara was sick and wanted to be alone, her gir was flooded with concerned neighbors who wanted to help her.

Welcoming Someone Different

It’s interesting that in a country that is dominated by age-old traditions, the people welcomed someone who appeared so different on the surface. They noticed that Dara’s skin tone was different from theirs (many Mongolians have Asian skin tone and straight black hair); and her short dreadlocks were unlike anything they’d ever seen. But people took the opportunity to learn about her and where she came from.

I wish that were true in the U.S. We have a diverse population and we boast of our large melting pot tradition. But as a young black woman from Trinidad, I often meet people in the U.S. who make assumptions about my culture rather than asking me questions about it.

I’ve worried about traveling. I wonder if people in other countries will treat me negatively because of my race. Before I visited Italy last year, I’d seen a few Italian and Spanish soccer games on TV where the fans made monkey sounds and threw bananas at the black players.

Traveling While Black

Despite my fear, I visited Italy and didn’t encounter any racism. But there are still places I’m hesitant to go, not only abroad, but also in the U.S. When deciding where to travel, I have to assess the danger and decide whether I’m willing to take the risk that people might not like black people visiting their area.

But Dara urged minorities to travel to other countries. “The more people who go abroad, the less racial intolerance there’s going to be,” she said. Instead of relying on movies and music to learn about other races, Dara said it’s better that people around the world get firsthand experiences with minorities, shattering stereotypes and clarifying misconceptions.

And you never know what could happen while you’re abroad. Dara also found her future during her time in the Peace Corps. During her volunteer service, she applied to the Peace Corps Fellows program at Teachers College, which is Columbia University’s Graduate School of Education. She earned a master’s degree there—and met her future husband, Tim, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador.