Yesterday was one of those days spent waiting around for people to call or ring and in the end, nothing actually happens. So frustrating! In the end, after dropping off stuff to people and so on, Mavis didn’t feel like going out for the ‘posh’ French dinner after all, so she cooked the last of the meat from her freezer and we chilled out with the inevitable vin rouge. Mavis then ‘caught up’ with all her telephone calls to family and friends, then we retired at around eleven o’clock.
This morning, she finished her packing and then we both visited a whole Ger complex of fantastic Buddhist temples, near to her flat, but only discovered this morning. It was an amazing colourful place and well-used judging by the queues of people waiting to hand their petitions to the llamas There was even one couple with their extended family receiving some kind of blessing, complete with incantations and bells.
Anyway, the air tickets have arrived safely this morning and have now been duly collected so huge sigh of relief about that. Exit visa also picked up this morning so things are beginning to happen. I may be able to leave the country without incident after all.
Tomorrow, I hope to take some more stuff to Sr Agnes who will find good homes for clothes, towels and shoes, which simply won’t fit into my one large suitcase. So today I shall try to do some laundry. Since Agnes is a nurse, I am also offloading some of the many medications prescribed by my lovely French doctor to take here with me, but which, thankfully, I have had no occasion to use (thus far!!) She will have the skills and ‘language’ to use them – Agnes is from Congo and her first language is French, so I needn’t carry the heavy bag of pills and bottles of Bethadene etc.
Other than that, I plan to go to Mass in the Ger on Sunday and meet again with Fr James as he is now back from his home visit to China. What better way to leave, Mongolia than to visit Ger temples and churches.
Fr James in the ger Church
