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It all started when I sneaked onto the wrestling field, where only ‘press-passed’ photographers were allowed, in the Tsengeldeh Hureelen Wrestling Stadium, during Naadam, in Ulanbaatar. Courtney and I tried sweet-talking some Mongolian newspapers into giving us press passes, during the week leading up to the annual national sporting extravaganza, but our collective charm got lost in translation, and none of them bit. They were very receptive to using our pictures in their papers, but suggested that we approach the Naadam council, and shell out $100 each for minty laminated foreign journalists‘ passes. Traveling around the world on a beggar’s budget sometimes means being scrappy like a cornered wolverine, and testing the local waters to see how deep you really can get immersed before getting a good foreign-tongue lashing, so I put on my clueless foreigner mask, and fumbled my way into the ‘wrestlers only’ section, and started snapping some behind the scenes shots. Following them around through my eyepiece, in their various states of undress, I quickly found out that besides being hulking gargantuas, Mongolian wrestlers are some of the most genuine, uncomplicated people on the face of the planet, and felt a special kinship with them. Most are very shy for being towering athletic icons, parading around in vivid skimpy superhero costumes, and often look away when they find themselves under focus. After spending an hour or so in the mix, some wrestlers warmed up to me, and started sizing me up, squeezing my arms, slapping my chest. Luckily, after pigging out for a month back in Texas, I ballooned up to a mid-sized Mongolian wrestler, and further distinguished myself from all the other pale spindly-limbed photographers, with foot-long lenses. I took the opportunity to walk onto the field with a group of wrestlers, past several security guards, my heart pounding with trepidation and excitement, Mongolian throat singing growling in my ears. I was finally on the field, and I took full advantage, snapping over a thousand photos, before it was all was over.
Our adventure into the Gobi started when a wrestler named Javkhaa, approached me when I first got onto the field, and asked me if I could take his photo. With the excitement of bypassing security, and the prospect of a looming photo feast, it did not register to me that Javkhaa was speaking to me in English, until he asked me for my contact information. This was great because the second part of my plan was to befriend a Mongolian wrestler, so I can hit him up for some free lessons! I motioned to Courtney, mingling with locals in the stands, to exchange contact information with Javkhaa, while I plunge into sport photographers’ nirvana.
Courtney and I went out to a rather pricy Indian restaurant later that night to celebrate our good fortune, when we got an unexpected call from Javkhaa. Courtney told him that we were English teachers earlier, and we found out over the phone that in addition to being a Naadam wrestling stud, Javkhaa was also a professor at a university in Ulaanbaatar. Everything came at us quickly, in broken-English over the phone: one of Javkhaa’s ‘disciples’ was in urgent need of a native-speaking English teacher 1000 km away, for a ten day public service program, in the Govi-Altai province, and we must leave the next day! We originally planned on heading due west, so we accepted the position over the phone, not knowing what we were in for…
