Leaving Nasa behind

Today we dropped Nasa with her new family. They are wonderful people, strong, quiet and determined. Nasa will be surrounded by three generations; the grandfather, who watches the baby, while the mother is at work, and two girls, ages six and nine. These are perfect siblings for Nasa, who loves having younger friends and taking care of babies. The girls can help Nasa with her homework, since they are in similar grade levels.

The family takes care of Ayuraa’s summerhouse. It's an old tradition in Mongolia, stemming from their past as herder’s. In order to give the pasture time to recover for the next season, herders graze their animals in different places during the summer and winter. City people followed this tradition – if they can afford it – and built summerhouses out in the country, where they would spend their vacation.

The only drawback for Nasa is the one-hour bus ride, each way, to get to school. On her first morning, Selenge and I joined Nasa for her first bus ride. To my surprise, her foster mom Narangarel accompanied us, because she wanted to introduce herself to Nasa's teacher.

I love to take the bus in UB, but no one ever lets me. My friends are concerned that it would be too dangerous, which is almost cute - after all I am living in NYC! Riding the bus in UB is like any other public event. There are no physical boundaries. When the bus gets full, you find yourself squeezed with three people on a two-seat bench and an unknown baby or over sized bag on your lab. Nasa doesn’t like tight crowds; she was constantly trying to create space around her, in vain.

After school, I walked her to the stop, to make sure she takes the right bus home. I wrote down the number on a slip of paper for her to keep, so every time a bus came, she compared the numbers, happy to find them match after a while.

This was also our good bye.

Earlier in the morning Nasa and I were waiting in front of the classroom for the teacher’s arrival. Nasa was talkative, holding and squeezing my hand, not letting go of me for a second. In the afternoon, when we had the camera rolling, she was a cool cat, not flinching once when we had to part. She gave me a slight nod and climbed into the bus. I had to call her back to give her a hug, but then she quickly disappeared into the crowd.