A Yurt of Her Own
For the past several years, Middle School teacher Laura Brewer has enthusiastically embraced Rivers’ yurt as the perfect place to teach the seventh grade Humanities curriculum entitled “The World Through Story.” As students explore the power of stories to define both individuals and cultures, the yurt has been an off-stage character, drawing students out of their bricks-and-mortar Western world and into a setting half a world away. This summer Ms. Brewer experienced first-hand the role of the yurt in Mongolian life as she spent two weeks traveling a country that she found to be “wonderful, friendly, and much more interesting than I had even imagined.” Her trip was funded by a Rivers Faculty Enrichment Grant.
“I have always been fascinated by Mongolia’s geography, and my interest in Mongolian culture increased through teaching in the ‘yurt’ (which I learned is the Russian word for the Mongolian word ‘ger’),” said Ms. Brewer. “The itinerary I selected allowed me to meet various groups of people who live in Mongolia, including nomads, city dwellers, villagers, Buddhists, shamanistic herders, Muslims, Kazakhs, and so on.”
“I expected to be overwhelmed by the vastness the land. I did not expect its astonishing beauty, or the consistent kind, openhearted welcome of the people.”
Her experiences during the trip ranged from spending the afternoon with a Mongolian woman who herded yaks and cows and taught her how to make yogurt, to interviewing and giving feedback to university students in the capital city of Ulanbataar who were developing phone apps to improve communication and services.
“We interacted with a small group of the “reindeer people,” or Dukha, who herd reindeer in the mountains near Lake Khovsgul, and visited them in their teepee type home. In the western province of Bayan Ulgii, we stayed in a Kazakh town and met a nomadic family that hunts using eagles to protect their flocks from wolves and foxes. There, we sang with them, watched the mother weave the traditional Kazakh wall hangings, held the trained eagle, churned butter, and even watched their favorite Indian soap opera with them.
“Finally, we traveled to the Gobi Desert, which we were surprised to find was beautiful, green, and hosting innumerable herds of goats, camels, horses and sheep. Nothing is fenced and there are no paved roads. There we saw ancient petroglyphs, the Flaming Sands—where dinosaur eggs were first discovered, the sand dunes of Khongor Els, as well as the Yol Valley where we traveled on horseback and saw the ibex grazing up in its natural cliff habitat.
“I learned a lot about Mongolia’s culture, and the culture of transition in a developing nation,” concluded Ms. Brewer. “I brought back many artifacts, which will live in our yurt, and have a much deeper understanding of the symbolic meanings of what I already knew about the structure. I now also have good contacts in Mongolia, as our guide is an English teacher there and can help me and my students to communicate with students there during the coming years.”
In addition to Ms. Brewer, several other Rivers teachers received Faculty Enrichment Grants for summer travel and study. Assistant Head of School Jim Long undertook the Year of Mercy Pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi, while Middle School Humanities teacher Steve Paluseo spent three weeks visiting Civil Rights sites in eight different US cities.
A number of faculty pursued artistic and musical interests, both professional and personal. Ceramics teacher Tim Clark enrolled in a program at the deCordova Museum entitled “Engaging Vessels and Designing Environments in Clay.” David Tierney attended a retreat for organists at the Portageville Chapel in New York, Director of Scheduling and history teacher Carol Davidson participated in the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, and choral director Susan Emmanouilidis attended the Choral Singers Program with Chanticleer at Sonoma State University.
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