Liz Welch - The Eagle Huntress: The True Story of the Girl Who Soared Beyond Expectations

N othing was familiar.

It was my second time in the United States and this time it was really hot. I started sweating before we even left the hotel room. The sun beat down in a way that felt totally unfamiliar. In Bayan-lgii (pronounced Ul-ghee), the northwestern corner of Mongolia where I am from, theres a long, very cold season and then a couple of not-as-cold seasons. Even in our summer, it never gets that hot.

Otto told me I should dress up, so I wore my best outfit: a gray suede embroidered suit that I had bought for special occasions and a white fur hat that I was given as a gift after I won the Golden Eagle Festival back home. Winning was a big deal because I was the first woman ever to win the contest, and at thirteen years old I was the youngest, too.

That was why I was here, in Los Angeles, California, sweating in my gray suede suit.

But I did not care about the heat or the crowd of people surrounding me. I was finally going to see The Eagle Huntress, the documentary film that the British director Otto Bell had made about me and my family, and our love of eagle hunting.

I could hardly wait!

Technically, I had seen it when I first came to the United Statesthat was eight months earlier, back in January, when the film premiered at a festival called Sundance. I was excited and a bit nervous. I did not know what to expect. At least there was snow at Sundance. That felt familiar. Otherwise, my parents and I stood out among the people that swarmed the town. They all had parkas and snow boots and wool hats. They reminded me of the tourists who came to visit us in Bayan-lgii. Only this time, we were the tourists.

Two years before, we had never even met Otto, who had traveled to Mongolia to meet me after seeing a photo of me with my brothers eagle. He wanted to make a film about me, he told us, and about eagle hunting. Now here we were, in this foreign country for a second time, because of him.

When we were at Sundance, so many tourists wanted to take a picture of me and my mom and dad, and so many journalists wanted to talk to us that by the time I made it to the theater, I was so overwhelmed and exhausted that I couldnt concentrate on the film! I would not let that happen this time. I knew at last that I would get the chance I had been waiting for since January: to truly see this story that people kept telling me was already inspiring the world. To take in every detail. I had already become famous in Mongolia as the first girl to win this famous contest. But for me, all the attention was still so strange. To have people from such faraway places so interested in my story did not feel real. It was like being in a dream. Everyone in Los Angeles was treating me like a celebrity, which I found so funny!

I am just Aisholpan. A sister, daughter, student, and best friend. A nomadic girl whose happiest moments are still the ones when Im on my pony, galloping across the steppes of Mongolia. A girl who just wanted to do what boys have always been allowed to do in my culture. I knew in my bones that I could do it better than mostboys or girls.

The crowd at the Hollywood theater was different from the one back at Sundance. The women wore dresses that looked more like underwear, showing so much skin. My mother and I were shocked. The shoes were even more alarmingmost of them had heels so high and pointy that I had no idea how these women could stand, let alone walk. The men, however, were mostly in suits, also sweating, like me.

Once again, people shouted my name as I walked down the red carpet with my dad. They wanted photos, so we stopped to let them take a few, but it was so hot and there were so many people that I started to feel dizzy. So I poked my father in his ribs after a few shots and pointed to the theater door. I could not wait to get inside, where it was dark, cool, and quiet.

Otto helped us find our seats, and once the theater was filled, he walked to the front of the room to introduce the film.

I heard him say my name, and the audience clapped. I got up and waved, along with my mom and dad, as Otto introduced them. It was so strange to be surrounded by so many strangers applauding for me. I looked at all these smiling faces, trying to understand why they were so excited to see a film about me. I knew why I was excited.

Then the lights dimmed to darkness, and the red velvet curtains parted.

The opening shot made my heart grow big in my chest: It was of the vast desert landscape of the Mongolian steppes, the grasslands interspersed with rocky mountains that I call home. I felt this bursting sense of joyand longing. Los Angeles felt so foreign to me, with its six-lane highways and mirrored buildings that reflected the sun. And it was so, so far away. Just to be sitting in this seat took four separate airplanesone from lgii, the city closest to my home, to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. Another to Seoul, South Korea, where we flew in at night, when the city looked like a bright, pulsing dream. From there, we flew eighteen hours to New York City. So many tall buildings pierced the sky, earning their nickname skyscraper. The fourth and final flight brought me here. It took twenty-eight hours in the sky for me to get to this seat in this theater to watch a movie about my life back home.