We were fluent in a silent speech

The day I reached Tsendsuren's family compound near the village of Ulaan Uulin in northern Outer Mongolia, I was surrounded by a kaleidoscope of color. The family's gers (yurts) dotted the meadow like giant marshmallows. Lime-green grasses – sprinkled with purple gentian, yellow Shasta daisies, and edelweiss – rippled in the breeze. Pinkish-orange rays of sun shimmered across the Hordil Saridag mountains, providing a backdrop for baby cashmere goats frolicking across log piles. Dappled gray horses, black yaks, and sheep grazed nearby. The scene soothed this travel-weary tourist.

A tiny, middle-aged woman wearing a purple dress, black rubber boots, and a flowered head scarf stood in front of a ger. Her arms were wrapped around two small children. Her warm smile welcomed me. Her name was Tsendsuren.

My husband and I and three other Americans would spend the next month traveling with her and her husband, Huhkhuu (pronounced "hoo-hoo"), seven grown children and their spouses, 13 grandchildren, and 200-plus assorted animals. As I gazed across the silent steppes, I wondered: How would we converse? We shared no common words.

Guiding our group to a nearby knoll, Huhkhuu, a slim man with rounded shoulders, pointed to where we should pitch our tents.

The next morning, he handed me the reins of a sullen gray mare. She didn't look like a descendant of the Takhi, the last true wild ones of Mongolia. Where was my galloping steed of the steppes? I smiled approvingly, hoping my disappointment didn't show.

Soon I slipped into the rhythm of nomadic life, surrounded by soft winds and gentle morning light. I watched the grandchildren herd yaks into milking pens and collect buckets of water from a distant, stagnant pool. Tsendsuren often invited us to her ger for a cup of hot milky tea which she served with cubes of hard and soft cheese. We brought popcorn. Tsendsuren ate one kernel at a time, turning it over in her fingers like a child expecting something to pop out. She only needed her hands and her smile to tell me how she felt. Was I doing the same for her?

She reminded me of my great-grandmother, who raised her children on the open Iowa prairies in the mid-1800s, living off the land without running water or electricity, indoor plumbing or central heating. Tsendsuren and her family ate what they herded – goats, sheep, yaks – and their byproducts – cheese, yogurt, butter, mutton fat. I ate freeze-dried beef and chicken dinners, peanut butter, and instant oatmeal.

Most afternoons, Tsendsuren carried a pot full of fresh, lukewarm yogurt across the pasture to our camp, her thin frame listing to the left. She would wiggle a wooden ladle around the edges, watching it gradually sink beneath the rich, vanilla-colored crusty rim. I knew I could not say no, anymore than I could reject the sad mare I'd been given to ride.

These gentle people of the north are a blend of Turks, Uighars, and Chinese. Their high cheekbones, long noses, and weathered skin reminded me of American Plains Indians. In a land larger than most of Western Europe, they can ride from one end of their country to the other without encountering a fence.

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