Intro to me

Hello everyone. My name is Grace Phillips. I’ll just start with explaining who I am and why I’m in Mongolia, tagging along with Sue!

So, I am from Bozeman and I am going to be starting my studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I graduated from Bozeman High School last spring but was given the opportunity to take a year off before starting at Carolina with significant funding from the university. The catch was, I had to go travel the world and do things to explore my interests and passions and bring my knowledge with me when I start there in the fall. Well THAT was clearly not going to be a tough requirement to fill, so I set out on this year with an outline of worthwhile stuff to do, including coming to Mongolia with The Tributary Fund to be of any assistance that I can!

My year up until now has consisted of a few parts. I took a semester long Wilderness EMT course at University of Montana in Missoula for the fall and got certified in January. Then I spent a few months at home, helping out with my new baby sister (now almost 6 months old). In March I spent a month down in Guatemala doing volunteer work with severely handicapped children. I came home for 4 days and then set off to visit family in San Francisco for a bit. Late April I headed to Europe, without much of a plan except to visit some friends studying abroad in Brussels and Ireland and some family in London. Finally, I flew from Frankfurt to Ulaanbaatar on May 22nd!

Phewf, so I’m here finally. My purpose in coming is multi-dimensional. First, I know the work of The Tributary fund and am very excited about what they do. When I initially talked to Betsy and Sue about coming along, I imagined doing whatever they needed help with and learning as much as I could, not only about their work and the culture here, but about the struggles of being socially and environmentally responsible and trying to put your ideals into practice. It was a unique opportunity for them as well, as I was a flexible volunteer that could pay my own way. I am also very interested in Asian culture and the Buddhism that is practiced here in Mongolia. Additionally, since having decided to come to Mongolia, I have been accepted to live in Sustainability Housing at UNC. Basically, it’s themed housing that works to make UNC campus more green and provides its participants with lots of education and work in sustainability and environmental awareness. This just so happens to tie in PERFECTLY with some work Sue has been doing concerning composting toilets (I’ll get into the details in the next blog). I’m thinking it could be really cool to take some of the things I learn about composting toilets and start work with that idea at Carolina through my sustainable living situation. I’m not entirely sure HOW yet, but I’m confident I’ll think of something. This really is a unique opportunity for me.

Besides that, I like to play soccer and the violin/fiddle. I brought a harmonica on my travels to attempt to learn, but turns out I’m really awful at that. In the winter I snowboard and try to telemark. I love to read (problematic as my pack has been quite overweight at airports) and just be outside in general, fly fishing, camping, etc. I’m 19 and my middle name is Stevens. When I do attend school (eventually), I’m interested in trying to combine Environmental Studies, Social Anthropology and International Relations with a focus on Peace and Conflict Resolution into some sort of super-major. Or two. I don’t really know yet. But that could easily change between now and then. Overall, I’m just very excited to be in Mongolia!

More soon,
Grace