The Nine Nines

Welp, even though I've been freezing my butt off for two or three months now, winter only officially starts on Tuesday, when the sun is going to set at about 4:20, and with that begins the Nine Nines. The Nine Nines refer to the way Mongolians traditionally measure winter. They believe it lasts eighty-one days, which breaks down into nine sets of nines. This is how they classify them:

1. The First Nine- Milk vodka congeals.
2. The Second Nine- Russian vodka congeals.
3. The Third Nine- The tail of a three-year-old ox freezes.
4. The Fourth Nine- The horns of a four-year-old ox freeze.
5. The Fifth Nine- Boiled rice will thaw.
6. The Sixth Nine- Roads (where they exist) blacken, as in the snow melts off of them.
7. The Seventh Nine- Hilltops blacken.
8. The Eighth Nine- The ground becomes damp.
9. The Ninth Nine- Warm days set in.

The Ninth Nine will end sometime in Mid-March. Even back in Maine you'd be lucky if that were truly when "warm days set in," so I'm not holding out too much hope, especially since Zoloo's father claims that this is going to be the coldest winter in one thousand years. "The coldest winter since before Chinggis???" I asked incredulously. "I guess so," came the response. Ө янаа! At least it's been relatively warm the last few days.

So what else is new? Well last week there was a ginormous teacher's sports competition. Each department formed its own team and vied for the title of most athletic. Four different games were played: ping pong, tug-of-war, basketball, and volleyball. It was actually pretty fun (even though I hate basketball), but I was a bit shocked by how seriously a lot of the teachers took it, as well as the school administration. Classes ended hours early two days in a row for the sake of this event. That's cultural differences for ya. We actually fared pretty well. All my teammates expected me to be awesome at every sport for some reason, so I participated in all four. I completely let them down in ping pong, getting eliminated in the first round, but Muugii, another English teacher, took third in the women's section. I sucked pretty bad in volleyball too, and we didn't win a single match. I did much better than I expected in basketball, however, where we also took third (see our exhausted line-up above). Where I really shone, however, was tug-of-war. We came in second, only losing to a team with twice as many men as we had. It would be cool if American teachers did stuff like that, as long as they could keep from getting so intense about it. There was a lot of foul play in many of the events, especially basketball, away from which many of us walked with bloody scratches.

Not much else going on. Christmas is next week, so we're all figuring out what we're gonna cook for that. I'm planning on doing some more mac n cheese as well as a pumpkin pie, thanks to some key ingredients sent over by Mummuh LaMarche (velveeta and canned pumpkin... mmmboy). Jagaa is doing pretty well. She's slowly getting the idea that I don't like it when she poops or pees on the carpet. I also managed to find her a collar and a leash this weekend. She's been reacting to both of them surprisingly well. This raising a puppy stuff sure is a lot of work, though I've heard it gets easier. As for now, it just adds to the ever-growing list of reasons I wish Kaede and I lived together already. We'd make a pretty good team with the little rascal.

Hope you're all done your shopping! Stay warm!

John Russell owns a dog???

Yup! And her name is Jargalnokhoi! Look at her!

Or Jagaa for short. Or Puppy Khan as my family has dubbed her. I decided a real Mongolian name would be nice for a real Mongolian dog. Mongolians tend to get their (people) names by taking two words and sticking them together. My main counterpart is named Zolzaya, which means "Luckdestiny." My male counterpart's name is Altansukh, or "Goldenaxe." Pretty badass huh? My mother's name is Shinekhuu, or "New Son," even though she's a daughter. My teacher from this summer is named Bolortuya, or "Crystalbeam." So what does Jargalnokhoi mean, you ask? Why, Happinessdog, of course!

Here's the story. On Thursday night Bob was walking home from work when he saw the most adorable little puppy shivering and getting teased by children. The helpless lil gal wandered out into the road, right in the line of traffic. As a car came speeding down the icy street, Bob found himself running out and snatching her up. Once he'd saved her from getting run over, he was unable to set her back down, feeling the way she shivered in his arms. So he took her home, cleaned her up, gave her some food, and set about figuring out how to find her a nice home. At school the next day, he showed his fellow teachers and all his students pictures of how cute little Jagaa is. Everyone really wanted her... until they found out she was a girl. You see the concept of veterinarians, let alone that of spaying, doesn't really exist in this country, especially outside of UB. Therefore, a female dog basically equals puppies. Lots and lots of puppies. Puppy after unwanted puppy. Even with Bob offering to pay for the spaying, no one would bite (ha!). Until he ran into this sap that night at our weekly dinner. He showed me some pics (including the one above), and there was already something about Jagaa I really liked. Afterwards we went back to Bob's and I met the little critter. She's got a lot of energy, but you play with her for a while and she'll chill right out and fall asleep on your lap (see pic below... though that's actually Bob's lap). Something in me decided, what the hay, you're here for a year and a half, you've got a good support network at your site to take care of her whenever you have to leave town, and you can figure out what to do with her when you leave once you reach that point. So I brought her home that very night!

Having a puppy has been... interesting so far. You don't have to know me very well to know that I'm more of a cat person. So in addition to training Jagaa to be a good dog, I'm trying to train her to be a good cat. The biggest difficulty, you might guess, is getting the girl to pee outside. I guess it's more than I really ought to expect, what with the poor bladder control puppies have. I'm gonna designate a place in the house where I'll set down newspapers and hope that, if she can't hold it until I bring her out, she'll at least do it there. I tell ya, winter in Mongolia is a rough setting in which to raise a puppy. Standing outside for twenty minutes or half an hour waiting for Jagaa to pee would not rank among the most enjoyable parts of my day. Actually, what with my new wondercoat and other warm accessories, it's not so bad for me. I just start to feel bad for her. It's been between fifteen and thirty below all weekend, and after a minute or two in that, she starts to look pretty miserable. She hops around from foot to foot so she doesn't have to touch them any one of them to the frigid ground for too long, and she spends a lot of time searching for a way to sit down without having to put her ass on the snow (she has yet to find it). Anyway, we've been making some breakthroughs recently, and I figure once she starts to get the idea, getting out of the cold will help motivate her to do her business more quickly.

Needless to say I don't really know what I'm doing (thank god for the internet, as well as Kaede, who has a great deal of dog-rearing expertise), so if you have any experience training puppies, especially in a third world country, holla at me. Also, Choibalsan ain't exactly teeming with PetSmarts, so if you feel like sending a package, please include some fun puppy treats and toys and whatnot for Jagaa! She'd really appreciate it. One thing that might be especially useful is that bitter spray you can use to help teach her what not to chew on. Cuz right now, she chews on EVERYTHING.

Blue Christmas

So Kaede and I received some bad news yesterday. Apparently her school decided to postpone her winter break by three weeks, which means she won't get here until mid-January. We were really looking forward to being able to spend Christmas with each other (even though she was actually gonna get here two days after Christmas... close enough), but now I guess we'll just have to start planning for a Martin Luther King Day celebration. She will get here in time for January 22, which, hard as it is to believe, marks six months that we've been together, so that's something. I'm pretty bummed though. Coming back to site after the fun-and-fancy-free atmosphere that ruled in UB for two weeks has been quite difficult, and so this is just adding insult to injury. Oh well. My counterpart Zoloo just gave me some nice pics her brother-in-law took when Kaede and I went to have dinner with her family in UB recently, so at least I can look at those for the next six weeks. The one above is the two of us with Ochka, Zoloo's adorably sassy niece.

And of course, when it rains, it pours. Another sad thing happened this week. Franz, one of our VSO volunteers, left Choibalsan for good yesterday. He was supposed to be here for the whole two years I am, but a variety of forces conspired to keep that from happening. It's a real shame, since he was one of my favorite people here at site. It was very sudden too, so we barely had a chance to give him a proper goodbye. We did get to go out for dinner and sing some karaoke one last time. That was nice.

On a slightly more neutral note, yesterday I got to help the students from my school shovel the roads of the city. There aren't very many plow trucks round these here parts, so apparently that's a task that gets delegated to students and workers. It was kinda nice to do some manual labor, even if it was in the freezing cold, but I mostly enjoyed it just to see how much fun the students were having. I have a feeling if American students were asked to do a similar task, they wouldn't be quite so peachy about it. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but, seeing as its only December 9, I'm sure it'll happen again.

Here's a pic of me and Pookie (as we all affectionately call Franz) on his last night in town. We'll miss ya buddy!

Хагас жил

That's "khagas jil," which means "half a year," which is how long I've been in Mongolia now. Six months. Holy eff. And since it's looking like Peace Corps Mongolia is becoming a twenty-five month program, that means that in a week or two, I'll be a quarter of the way done my service. A QUARTER!!!!! Not to rehash the same wow-time-is-crazy-in-Peace-Corps litany that I've expressed a million times on this blog, but I simultaneously can't believe I've completed such a significant fraction of my service and yet haven't been here the whole two years already. Absolute insanity.

I flew back to Choibalsan from Ulaanbaatar today. How perfect that the first time I return to Chinggis Khaan International Airport is exactly six months to the day after flying into the country. The flight was short and pretty, and it made me wish I was a millionaire so I could fly myself back and forth whenever I wanted. It was unbelievably easier than that damned interminable bus ride. An hour and a half with an inflight meal versus fifteen hours with no leg room? Not even a fair fight. They should slow the plane down just to keep it from being so ridiculous.

So I was in (and around) UB for over two weeks, which makes it really weird to be back in Dornod, especially considering I spent pretty much that entire time with Kaede (see pic above... she's so happy she can't even keep her eyes open!). Oo yanaa, it's rough being here without her now. We had a really great time after having gone so long without each other. We watched Hitchcock films and cooked delicious meals and walked around town and ate soup at 24-hour soup restaurants (gotta love Mongolian fast food). Lots of good times were had in general, and my adoration for the girl was only reaffirmed, which makes it all the harder to be away once more. Fortunately, if everything goes as planned, it'll be barely three weeks til we see each other again. As a university teacher, she gets pretty much the entire month of January off, and she's looking to spend it here with me in sunny Dornod aimag! I'm the luckiest guy in Mongolia!

In addition to Kaede, I got to see all the rest of my friends from the summer. The majority of volunteers come in for PC's mammoth Thanksgiving celebration (which was delicious and coma-inducing), and those from my group who wouldn't have made it in normally came in anyway, for the week that followed was In-Service Training, or IST. The seminar itself was fairly helpful, if also quite demanding and mind-numbing at times, but it was definitely worth it for the chance to catch up with everyone who comprised my life this summer. Of course, our lives are radically different at this point, but everyone seems to be hanging in there. It's sad that we aren't guaranteed to see one another again until MST (Mid-Service Training) which will be in August. A lot of people head into UB for spring break, and most whom you don't run into then pop up at some point in the summer, but still, it's a bit sad.

The tough part is ahead; basically that's what this all means. For Mongolian volunteers, getting through the first winter is often the biggest hurdle of one's entire service. You're far, far away from the overwhelming majority of the people you love, you're still probably settling into work, cultural and linguistic difficulties continue to abound, and you're colder than you've ever been before in your life. It's only December 5, but the days are already dipping below zero with mustache-freezing regularity. Fortunately my new coat could protect me in even the most nuclear of winters, and my apartment is still plenty warm, so I'm not too worried about the weather stuff.

I probably ought to have more to say. I'm sure I do. But the thought of it is kinda exhausting to me right now. So I'm just gonna go ahead and sign off. Love you all, miss you all. Hope your holiday season is gearing up jollily. As you can see below, it is in Ulaanbaatar.