Genghis Jhan

Pig Cancer

2012-03-09T07:00:00.000+07:00

Happy spring! It's just about upon us out here. In the afternoon, snow and ice are beginning to melt, though they freeze again the minute the sun goes down. Nature is a cruel zamboni.

As I mentioned before, we're in the thick of the holiday season. Last month was Valentine's Day back home, and that day is beginning to take hold here, but of course it was a week later that the mother of all Mongol holidays hit: Tsagaan Sar. Fortunately, we were only invited to a few homes. I say fortunately because of the amount of drinking and gorging that is expected of us everywhere we go during Tsagaan Sar. However, we managed to have a pretty nice time. In truth, Tsagaan Sar is a massive headache for most Mongolians. You can't control how big or small you want it to be, let alone opt out of it, as some Americans do at Christmas, which would be our most analogous holiday. Every home has to be ready for people, anyone really, to just show up. Ready means filled to the gills with food, vodka, and even a personal present for each person who visits you. It's tough not to feel a little bad, especially as foreigners, when we show up to an elaborate event that has taken more than a week to prepare (and often a bank loan to finance), eat and drink to a sinful degree, and then receive a little present on top of it all! Oh well, as the French would say, тэр амьдрал байна.

When we aren't celebrating holidays, we're preparing for exams. Just before Tsagaan Sar, the director and managers told me to stop my team-teaching and observations and focus 100% on preparing students and teachers for the Olympics and Concourse. I'm sure I've explained what both of these are before. If you've forgotten, just know that they're ridiculous and poorly made tests that are absolutely critical to the success of students, teachers, administration... well, just about every facet of the Mongolian education system. Which is a real shame.

Unfortunately, everything is so crazy that the students and teachers barely have time to meet with me, which wasn't such a bad thing, since last week my jugulodigrastic lymph nodes swelled up to a degree more disgusting than alarming. It all started when I shaved my beard for the first time since autumn. That afternoon, I was caressing my newly shorn neck when I noticed the little guys weren't so little anymore. I thought nothing of it, but the next morning, they were so big that swallowing was just a tad uncomfortable. On top of that, I looked like that sex offender from It's Always Sunny. Within an hour their size had reduced almost to that of the previous day, but all week this pattern was repeated. Super swollen in the morning, less so in the evening. I talked to Peace Corps Medical and my lovely/brilliant aunt and uncle. No one was very concerned. I was just to wait it out. So by the time we saw all our sitemates that weekend, we'd turned it into a big joke. That evening at dinner, we were trying to explain just what was going on to some Mongolians, and they started chattering away in their own language about it, trying to reach a diagnosis. I became alarmed when I heard the word "gakhai," which means pig. I asked them to confirm this is what they'd said, and they nodded, adding that the proper Mongolian name for swollen lymph nodes is "pig cancer." How quaint.

Anyway, they're nearly back to normal now. Must've been some kind of divine retribution for being too lazy to shave all winter.

That's about all for now. We're really enjoying the end of the season. Every day without long underwear is a happy day for me. We've already begun preparations for the most kickass St. Patty's Day party ever to hit Mongolia. We started corning our own beef a couple nights ago (Baagii helped by eating all the skin), and we're gonna go all out and buy some Jameson's and Bailey's. If you're in the neighborhood on March 17, stop by!

John the Red-Nosed Volunteer

2012-02-07T10:00:00.004+07:00

...had a very frostbitten nose
and if you ever poked it
he'd swat your hand and whimper quietly...

Actually it's technically just frostnipped. And it's pretty much gone. I lost my scarf a month ago or so and decided it wasn't worth buying a new one. Last year, the coldest month was December, so I figured it was all downhill from there anyway. Well, this year January was a lot colder, and one day last week while walking to school, my face getting colder and colder, I felt an abrupt pain in my nose, like someone had just punched me with a very hot fist. By the time I got inside, I'd forgotten about it, but a day or two later, that spot had turned bright red. Fortunately things are warming up around here, and Merrie lent me a scarf just in case.

The school year has progressed out of the first semester, when it's possible to get some work done, and into the second, where there are holidays and concerts and standardized tests every two minutes which make it nearly impossible to do anything except get stressed and frustrated, or, as I prefer, just stay home and watch movies with the wife and cat. In the last two weeks, we've had six performances, five of which were on the same day. We're raising money for new chairs and audio equipment to put in our auditorium. I have to bite my tongue whenever they tell me this, as I feel there are many more obvious places any money we raise ought to go. For instance, it would be nice to have classrooms warm enough that students didn't need to wear their jackets inside, but I suppose it's hard to argue with a killer stereo system.

Lucky for me, I have my lovely wife to come home to, as well as her inimitable cooking. Mongolia has made us both better chefs, but she's the true master around here. Our friend Pico was visiting from the countryside again, and on his birthday, Kaede made bacon and ricotta ravioli, squash soup, a fresh garden salad, garlic bread, and red velvet cake from real beets. I was supposed to help with all this, but his birthday happened to fall on the day we had to perform that same damned concert five times.

We're glad February is here. While things at school can be difficult, a lot of our other projects are going well. We launch a new group of Access students this week, we just gave a practice TOEFL exam, and the International Creative Writing Contest is only a few weeks away. Perhaps most exciting is Tsagaan Sar, the lunar new year and biggest holiday of the year, which will happen at the end of the month. Last year, we didn't get much of a chance to celebrate it, so we're looking forward to round two. Kaede and I are having some nice new Mongolian jackets tailored just for the occasion. Very exciting.

In other holiday news, last Friday was Teacher's Day. Every school has a huge party and every teacher gets hilariously wasted, and of course we offered the TOEFL exam the next morning, much to the groggy, hungover dismay of many of our particpants. At our celebration, I was unexpectedly given an award for using good methodology over the three to five years I've been working. Doesn't really make sense, but oh well. Can't complain about a nifty medal!

Birthdays for Baagii, Bullets for the Rest

2012-01-16T12:22:00.004+07:00

Kaede was walking to school this week when she heard a bang. A moment later, a whimpering dog ran out from between two nearby buildings, slipped on the ice, and collapsed. Blood filled his mouth and flowed from a fresh bullet wound. Soon thereafter, I received a call from my very upset wife. I did my best to console her, but what can you really say in that sort of situation? On her way home a few hours later, the corpse was still there, as well as those of other dogs. I'm sure Kaede would not classify this as one of her better days in Peace Corps.

The dog shootings were among the first things veteran volunteers told us about when we arrived in Mongolia nineteen months ago. Once a year, the police walk around town and shoot all the stray dogs they find. In smaller communities with no real police force, teachers and other employees of the state are fined a nominal amount if they do not kill a dog, although I should add that I've only heard this latter anecdote secondhand. Either way, in a poor country where spaying and neutering are virtually unheard of and often, ironically, viewed as cruel, this is how you control the dog population.

And there's no doubt that the dog population needs controlling. Strays are everywhere in this country, and while most would not harm a human, rabies is also a problem. When they start roaming in packs, even the heartiest of volunteers can't help but get a little nervous. Most Mongolians are downright terrified of dogs, and considering how many stories I've heard of people, natives and foreigners alike, getting bitten, it's not surprising.

Still, it's easy to judge Mongolia for this, and it got even easier this week. What could be more cruel than shooting an innocent dog in broad daylight? Often with children or the elderly right there? Nonetheless, I never stay long in my ivory tower before I recall that at least as many pets are killed every day in America. A lot more, actually: one every eight seconds according to the Humane Society's website. We just have the luxury of shelters and needles so that this can be done behind closed doors in a manner we deem humane. I wonder, if it got to a point where our communities couldn't afford these sorts of services anymore, how long we'd let strays roam our streets before we started tolerating, or even calling for, their destruction, public or otherwise.

And of course, Mongolians don't relish these dog-killing days. Most find it very disturbing, but few would call it unnecessary. They wish it were carried out better, sure, but in general, these people are much more comfortable facing death than we are. Considering nearly half of the population still herds, most Mongolians begin witnessing animal slaughter from a young age. In a country where vegetables are still a bit of a novelty, eating meat is all but compulsory, and Mongolians have come to terms with that, in spite of the bloodshed it requires. Most of these people cannot afford to ignore this reality, and perhaps that's not such a bad thing.

In America, we eat meat and exterminate strays, but we never have to face it. We get clean cities with empty streets and restaurants that sell juicy hamburgers, and we never even have to think about what our lifestyle requires. Of course, nowadays many Americans are turning their attention to just that, and some of our practices are improving as a result, but I think we could learn a lot from Mongolia. Perhaps Michael Pollan should take a vacation here.

On a brighter subject, it was Baagii's birthday recently! Happy birthday Baagii! Well, it wasn't technically his birthday (that's probably sometime in the late summer), but it was a year from the day the little guy followed us into our apartment. For his special day, he got some extra delicious food (see below), a new toy, and continued status as one of the luckiest pets around, whether in Mongolia, the states, or anywhere else in this dog-fearing world.

Y2K12

2012-01-02T20:41:00.006+07:00

Happy New Year! We had a wonderful time seeing it in here in Choibalsan. It's a humble little city with nowhere near the organization required to have an official fireworks display, but with China barely fifty miles away, there's plenty of supplies for amateurs to set them off. Our apartment has a pretty decent view of downtown, so all the sitemates plus Zoloo came over and we had quite an hors-d'oeuvre potluck/game night while waiting for the display. I actually think I prefer the haphazard, mostly premature show as opposed to the absurdly overblown and money-wasting jamborees they throw in pretty much every American city.

I wish I had a picture or two to show you (there's one from last year at the bottom of this post), buuuut, well, as the title of this post suggests, there's been a bit of a technological meltdown around here. It was hinted at around the time we got back to Mongolia after our leave when my camera stopped working. Sometimes I can get it to take pictures, but it was getting too frustrating, so I started using Kaede's. Then, last Wednesday, our friend Pico came in from the countryside demanding karaoke, and who was I to say no to a Hudoo Rat? I brought the camera and got a little drunk, and the next day I couldn't find it anywhere. I feel really bad, but luckily Kaede didn't care too much for it. It certainly affects me more, since, as you are probably aware, I'm rather fond of taking pictures. Furthermore, there were some photos from various Christmas festivities which I stupidly had not transferred onto my computer yet, so I guess they're gone (Krista took the one up top, which features Kaede and me having made allowances for some gastrointestinal expansion following our Xmas piglet roast).

Around the same time, this old Acer laptop, which has given me enough trouble already over the last three-and-a-half years, started randomly turning off or giving me the blue screen of death whenever it got jostled even a tad. It's not quite the end of the road yet, but, just to illustrate, I'm stretched out in an extremely uncomfortable position from the couch to reach the keyboard and type this entry so that I don't have to move it from the position in which it was situated on the couch when Kaede and I recently watched Scrooged, which was a major disappointment, incidentally. C'mon Bill Murray. You can do better than that.

I keep telling myself there are much bigger things to worry about in life than computers and cameras, but it's hard not to be bummed when you're living such an exciting chapter of your life, and entering 2012 only amplifies that sensation. Last year was the only full year of our lives during which we'll have been Peace Corps volunteers, and this year is the one in which we'll finish and figure out what's next. Unbelievable.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you have high hopes for this next year. Шинэ жилийн баярын мэнд хүргэе!

Remembering Jagaa

2011-12-18T23:00:00.000+07:00

It's particularly coincidental that we should be dogsitting right now, since it was almost exactly a year ago that we took Jagaa in. There's been no follow-up since she ran away. Although Sarah has seen a dog around town that looks like Jagaa, she's convinced it's not she, mostly on the basis of it being larger in size and having less wonky eyes. We of course continue to hope that she's found a nice new Mongolian family who are super impressed by her knowledge of many commands in their own language, but we're aware that it's far more likely she's, well, returned to the steppe. To be honest, I don't find myself thinking about her all that much anymore, though it is not exactly rare that something happens which makes me miss her. Taking care of Bambuul evoked a mixture of sentimental reminiscences and overwhelming relief that I no longer have to stand outside in the freezing weather waiting for a yipping puppy to defecate. Either way, she was a lovely dog in her own way, and I feel it's fitting to take this chance to remember her. So here's some highlights from her life, at least that part of it which was known to my friends, to Kaede, and to me.

New Year's Tree

2011-12-16T23:13:00.003+07:00

Well it's time for my monthly blog post. A bit sad to admit that's the interval between posts now, but what can ya do?

We're back in Mongolia. Our time at home was lovely. It was great to be with family, especially in light of the circumstances. We even got a real American Thanksgiving! It was delicious, though we were a bit sad to miss out on Peace Corps Thanksgiving, which, as you may remember from last year, is quite the shindig.

Coming back was, of course, bittersweet, but Peace Corps is continuing to be incredibly supportive, so we're fairly confident that they'll be there for us should events take a turn for the worst and we need to return home again. Just to reiterate, we're really lucky to be working for an organization that values us so highly. This is even more poignant for me in light of the government's increasingly disturbing lack of fiscal responsibility.

When we got back to Choibalsan, we were quick to put up the Christmas tree that former sitemate Bob left us. You might wonder how one would find such a lovely fake tree in a completely un-Christian country like Mongolia. Well, the truth is they don't call it a Christmas tree. Around here, a pine-like tree decorated with tassel and lights is a Shine Jil, or New Year's, tree. Shine Jil is celebrated in a manner fairly analogous to our own New Year's, except that they've lumped a decent share of Christmas traditions in as well. I figure this happened during communism, when the Russians wanted to celebrate Christmas but weren't allowed to due to its religious connotations. It can be slightly infuriating for volunteers to see these trees, such profoundly important symbols to us Americans, and hear them called New Year's trees, but then again, we're all probably way oversensitive and just a bit irritable because of the endless subzero temperatures. Which are quite unpleasant, might I add for the zillionth time.

Preparations for Shine Jil parties and the like have things beginning to fall apart at school. This marks the beginning of the holiday season, AKA the time when anything and everything take precedence over work. Like most volunteers, I found this rather frustrating last year. This time around, I think I'll just sit back and soak up the extra reading opportunities. Or maybe try to work on other projects, which is what I ought to be doing. We'll see.

To top all this madness off, teachers around the country are going on strike to protest their meager wages and demand better pay. Kaede's school is a go, while mine hasn't decided yet whether or not to join in, but as more and more teachers stop teaching, it seems to be only a matter of time.

In spite of all this, we've kept fairly busy the last week. Our M22 sitemates are in UB for IST, the same training we attended this time last year. Two of them have pets; Koty has a kitten named Pumpkin Spice Latte, or Spicy for short, and Krista has a puppy named Bambuul, or Bambi as I like to call her, since she looks like a miniature deer. They've both been living with us the past few days. It's been a mixture of exhausting, amusing, adorable, and terrifying, that last one primarily for Baagii. Although to be fair, he's actually taking it surprisingly well. Both of the cats are fairly weary around Bambi, though they're even warming up to her. But when the dog is away, the cats will play. And play they do. I think it's really good for our little Baagii. If only we had the time and resources and insanity to get him a full-time feline playmate.

We wish you all a Bayar Shine Jil, er... a Merry Christmas. Oo yanaa.

Pie's in the oven

2011-11-19T06:03:00.003+07:00

It's pumpkin too. The billionth pie we've had in our few weeks back in the states. And I could eat a billion more. Also, this makes the second post in a row with dessert in the title. I think that warrants some sort of online blog prize.

So not too much to say. We've been in the states, with family, alternatively getting lots of work done and just relaxing. It's been nice. Between the smell of cloves and the snow gently falling outside, this is my idea of a good time. A week from Monday we head back to Mongolia. While we've been enjoying our time here, we look forward to getting back home. It's funny we refer to a place so foreign in that way.

Happy thanksgiving!

Having our кекс and eating it

2011-10-28T00:31:00.003+07:00

These last few entries always seem to have me apologizing for how rarely I post nowadays. I'm gonna take this opportunity to stop saying sorry and instead admit that I don't have as much time for this blog as I used to. Which makes me kinda sad, cause I like marking all this stuff down and letting the interested parties back home keep up to date. I'll try to post more often, but we'll see.

The other thing I've been tending to do is give the excuse that we've been so super busy, and I'm gonna keep right on doing that one, as the last month has been no exception. Of course there's been all the craziness of work and secondary activities (there we are with our ACCESS students above) and what-have-you, but then, starting a couple weeks ago, it went to a new level when we realized there was a family medical situation back home that needed our immediate attention. We'd known about it for a while and had always viewed it quite seriously, but we were sticking it out until the last minute, since we thought we would have to quit Peace Corps in order to be there for the people we love. So we called PC and told them we were going to have to head home, but Ellen, our country director, recommended that we apply for emergency leave instead. If granted, this would allow us two to four weeks to be home with family in this time of need, as well as give us the option to return to our service if we felt comfortable doing so, and all on PC's bill! We decided to go for it. Unfortunately we were denied, so we started packing up and transferring our projects and saying goodbyes (see our aimagmates rocking out at our going-away karaoke sing-off below). Then, the day before we were to leave Choibalsan, Ellen called us back. At the behest of our ill family member, PC had reconsidered the case and changed their minds! We're not 100% sure that we'll return, but we're incredibly happy to be able to have the chance to do so, and so is everyone else, both here and at home.

So now we're in Ulaanbaatar. We got here yesterday. It's the middle of the night, but, in an attempt to get a head start on the jet lag, I'm not sleeping. In five hours, we fly out. It's crazy to be headed back to the states so soon, especially without having to fork out any dough for the trip, but we feel very blessed. We're lucky to be part of an organization that values its volunteers so highly. Sure, we've had our issues with Peace Corps, but I think this experience has once and for all affirmed that they do indeed care about us. Quite a lot. We were in the office today signing paperwork and tying up other loose ends, and everyone we saw was overwhelmingly supportive. Our friends, Mongolian and American alike, have been wonderful as well. Back when we thought we were leaving for good, many volunteers went out of their way to let us know how sad they were we were going and how much they would miss us. The people we work with, while very upset to be losing us, were completely understanding and wished us the best of luck, even going so far as to take up collections for our family back stateside. If there's one thing that can be said for these people, it's that they care an enormous amount for their loved ones, and they understand that nothing under the Great Blue Sky is more important.

I'll try to keep posting from America, but hopefully we'll be back in Choibalsan before long to finish our service (barely half a year left!). If not, well that's how it goes, and we won't regret that decision for a minute. You gotta admit, the Mongolians are right about this one.

Married Life

2011-09-25T20:48:00.003+07:00

Howdy ho. How's life back home? Life in Mongolia has been a mix of nice and frustrating. Nice at home. Frustrating at work. Though the latter is getting better. The Gordian knot that is the September schedule is slowly giving way to the... well, the slightly less Gordian knot that is the rest of the year's schedule. I'll finally begin team-teaching tomorrow, inshallah. Secondary projects have been slowly taking form as well. ACCESS got off to a shaky start last week, and we also taught our first TOEFL course to teachers from all around Choibalsan. I get to work on that with Kaede and Zoloo, and I can see it turning into my favorite project this year. Kaede got the ball rolling on the Creative Writing Olympics, and quite well too. We've already found an M22 willing to take over next year. Last Monday we headed downtown to see off our sitemate Deb, a VSO volunteer who is now on a three-week horse trek to UB to raise awareness for the problems disabled children face in Mongolia. It's an incredible project, and I'm proud to be helping out with the blog while she's en route. You can see it here. The week before that we took a ride out to Diviz to check in and see how we can keep helping out this year. While we were there, I snapped the picture below of Tsogtsolmaa, one of the unofficial community leaders using the well Marg and Bob helped them build.

This next week will also see the first class of the non-English teachers' English course which Kaede and I are teaching at my school. Apparently, Khan-Uul was selected as Dornod's guinea pig in attaining the "Cambridge Standard," as everyone's calling it. I have yet to see any official document explaining what exactly the Cambridge Standard is, but, from what I've gathered, it's an international standard which, if reached, yields its school equal footing on the world academic stage. That is, a student who graduates from a school that has met the Cambridge Standard has, for all intents and purposes, received the same level of education he would have received in a developed nation. This program has just been introduced to Mongolia, so the Ministry of Education has chosen one school in every aimag to blaze the trail. One of the requirements is that all fifth and tenth grade classes have to be taught entirely in English. That's where I come in. I'm now expected to get all of those teachers to a level where they're competent enough to teach their subject in English. By next year. Even if they weren't working at least forty hours a week and were devoting all of their time to studying the language, this would be a stretch. But of course, they're all expected to maintain their normal schedule and only take two classes a week. And on top of that, most of them don't speak a word of English to begin with. Some of them can't even read the Roman alphabet. Thankfully, Kaede has volunteered to help me out, since she isn't getting a ton of work at her school, and she thinks this program sounds interesting, unattainable though it may be, especially in the given time frame. The most ridiculous part has to be that, even if we somehow managed to teach these teachers enough English, the overwhelming majority of their students, tenth and fifth graders alike, would be completely lost in a class taught entirely in English. Nevertheless, everyone's super excited about it, and they all seem quite surprised that I find it to be such an incredible task.

Sorry for the rant. A nice counterpoint to the craziness of work is the pleasantness of home. Kaede and I, thanks to the advice of some famous food critic on a podcast of NPR's Fresh Air, have begun planning out the week's meals and taking turns cooking, which has only made our delicious home life all the more delicious. Besides cooking, we watch lots of movies and plan lots of lessons and make lots of chit chat. It's a lot nicer than last year, when almost all of our interaction was via a crappy internet connection. All those fun activities aside, it's just nice to have someone to come home to, someone who always looks nice and gives me hugs and kisses and asks me how my day is. And it really is amazing to have her helping me with all these projects. She's a much better, more motivated volunteer than I am, and by golly it spurs me on!

Oh, it was also Zoloo's birthday a few weeks ago! Happy birthday! Here's a pic of her and Krista looking silly playing the air accordion (at my behest).

Hope the foliage is nice wherever you are. It's pretty here, but it ain't Maine.

15 Dead Bats

2011-09-14T18:40:00.004+07:00

And we didn't take a picture of any of them! Biggest photofail of my time in Mongolia.

To explain, we arrived back in Choibalsan a few weeks ago, walked into the apartment, and found fifteen dead, dehydrated bats strewn about the place. One of them lay right on our pillow. It was if Dracula had been taking a nap and forgot to pull the shades before sunrise. Fortunately, they were so dehydrated that there wasn't any real odor. Just batdust. Lots and lots of batdust.

To add insult to injury, shortly thereafter we found out that our landlady wanted her apartment back and we had to pack up all our batdust and move. The next three days were a frenzy of apartment-searching, packing, cleaning, and preparing for/attending the first day of school. It was very unpleasant, but I'm relieved to say that we're now all moved into a new place. It's a bit farther away from downtown, but it's bigger, nicer, and just as close to school. We even have a TV that gets BBC World News, which means I get to listen to my favorite apocalyptic rave whenever I want! God I love that booping noise.

Baagii seems happy here, and if Baagii's happy, we're happy. We were so stoked to get him back. The summer seems to have done nothing to stop his progression into the best goddamned cat that ever lived. He's such a sweet little guy. You can see him below getting ready to pounce on me from the bathtub. Strategic genius.

Before coming home to bats, we of course arrived back in Ulaanbaatar safely from America. We spent a week in and around the big city, getting medical and dental check-ups and attending Mid Service Training. It was ostensibly a time to reflect on our first year of service and prepare for our second, but it was actually a chance to see all our friends again, which was really nice. It was held in Terelj, a gorgeous national park northeast of UB. Always nice to see another part of Mongolia.

The last few weeks have seen a lot of cooking, cleaning, movie-watching, etc. School has been... unreliable to say the least. The first month or so is crazy with schedule changes and the like, so it's tough to get any real work done. We've also met the new sitemates! Krista, Koty, and John arrived in Choibalsan a week before we did after training for the summer outside of Darkhan. We don't know them all that well yet, but they seem nice and hard-working, and all three of them joined us for the long walk out to the Pilot's Monument, as pictured below. Tomorrow, John is coming with Kaede and me on the year's first trip out to Division 5. Hopefully he'll fall so in love with those adorable little kindergartners that he'll be begging to take over after we leave.

It's definitely a different atmosphere around here this year. I'd be lying if I said I don't miss all my buds who've moved on from Choibalsan, but it's tough to complain when I have my lovely wife here with me (below you can see the adorable effects of the squid ink pasta Kaede's mom sent us for her birthday... thanks Kayoko!). Between Kaede and Baagii, I've gotta have one of the bestest homes in all of Central Asia!

Two Lovers & An Acorn

2011-08-19T11:41:00.003+07:00

Guess who's married! Me!!! Also my wife, Kaede. The wedding went off splendidly. Lots of friends and family came out and it was a simple but fun ceremony/reception. There was a ger-shaped cake and Mongolian-style party games and even a performance by Lord Gaga and his Luscious Ladies, AKA four of my best buds from high school. It was awesome. The folks at Trezzi Farm were absolutely wonderful. After that, we got a little honeymoon out at Mt. Spokane, which was too brief but really relaxing just the same. After that we got in a bit more quality family time. Curt, Kaede's dad, took a good-sized crew of Kaede's and my people to one of his favorite places in the world, Steptoe Butte. It was gorgeous and it became a wonderful night. It was a shame how little time everyone had to get to know one another, but I was amazed by how well everyone got along. It seems that our families and friends are extremely compatible. There are already plans for more reunions, some potentially sans Kaede and me even! So that's great.

On Sunday, Kaede, my old pal Peter, and I got in the car and headed back to California. We caught up to my aunt and uncle Ron and Claire who are in the midst of a mammoth RV trip around the country and spent two wonderful nights with them by Mt. St. Helens and on the Oregon coast. We made it to Monterey on Tuesday. Kaede has been busy tying up some loose ends around the house, so Peter and I did a drive down Big Sur, which was gorgeous. He headed to San Fran today, and now we only have one more full day to get everything together before we return to Mongolia. It's been a crazy month, but we've had a wonderful time. We're definitely glad we got to spend it here, though we do miss a lot of stuff about Mongolia. It'll be nice to return to the Land of the Blue Sky. Until then...

Uncle John & Other Family Members

2011-08-09T02:42:00.003+07:00

Clearly I've had trouble finding time for blogging since we got to the states. If you actually care, you're certainly well aware that we made it safe and sound. It's been a lot of fun since then. A lot of meeting new people and eating good foods and relaxing/preparing in the summer sun. We arrived in San Francisco and were greeted by Kayoko, Kaede's delightful mother. She took us to see Kaede's sister Ariel, her brother-in-law Zach, and their two lovely children, Addie and Louie. Although they won't technically be my niece and nephew until Thursday, Uncle John has become my title around here. After a few days in California, we drove up to eastern Washington, stopping in the other Portland to see Rachel and Nick, some grand old Obiefriends, on the way. Up here, I've met just about everyone on her father's side of the family. Curt, her dad, and Aoi, her stepmom, are both wonderful. We've been staying with them for the last two weeks and having lots of fun. Except for six days or so during which I flew back to the East Coast and spent some time with my mother and sister. That was a blast as well, although I don't think I've ever eaten so much in my life. I got to see my good pal Eric as well, also an Obie. It was great to catch up. Upon returning, Ariel and the kiddies had arrived, so we've spent the last week helping take care of them: reading books, going to the pool, cooking food, etc etc. They're adorable little things, and it's been really nice to interact with some toddlers for an extended period of time. Don't get much of that in the Peace Corps.

Now we're immersed in preparations for the big day. Just about everyone rolls/flies into town today. Aunt Claire and Uncle Ron are just a few miles away at this point. It's wicked exciting, but also somewhat overwhelming. I wish I were getting more time to spend with everyone, but oh well. We'll make the most of it. I hope you're all having a lovely summer. Next time I post, I'll be a married man!

Jargalnokhoi, 2010-2011

2011-07-16T04:30:00.003+07:00

Okay so that title is a bit melodramatic, since we don't know for sure whether she's dead. But yeah, Jagaa, our beloved dog, is gone. We went to the summer camp in Dariganga that I'd mentioned, and we brought Jagaa along. We figured she'd benefit from the chance to run around and play with other dogs, since our friend Sarah had her puppy Lloyd there as well. And benefit she did. Well actually, she was off leash for about seven minutes before she found the hole into which all the waste from the camp kitchen was poured. Trash, soap, dirt, rotten meat, what smelled like feces. For some reason she jumped in. Eventually she got exhausted of having so much fun and climbed out, only to run around and terrify the campers with what had to be one of the worst odors any of us have ever smelled. We took her down to the lake and shampooed her three times, as you can see above. Even then, the smell remained, though greatly subdued. But in spite of that blip, Jagaa was doing very well. And then one day, when it was time to give her dinner, she was nowhere to be found. A small search party was organized, but to no avail. So we went to bed and hoped the next day she'd show up. She didn't. Kaede and I took a couple hours and walked all around the camp and the town and the areas in between, but, well, how to put it. This is a great big enormous open country, and a dog could wind up just about anywhere. Especially one as lacking in survival skills as Jagaa.

Unfortunately we had to leave camp that day. It was pretty sad. That was about two weeks ago now. I'm pretty much over it, but sometimes something reminds me of her and I get a little upset. She was a lot of work, but she'd come a long way too, and I do miss her. Of course, since we don't know what happened to her, there's always the chance she'll turn back up in Dariganga. Sarah lives there, so she's got her eye out. We may not have seen the last of Jargalnohoi. Either way, at least we still have Baagii!

After that, we swung back by Dornod to pick up our stuff and then headed west to Arkhangai for Naadam, the festival of the three manly sports. That was pretty nice. Our good friends Andrew and Pico came along, so it was nice to show off Kaede's beautiful former home. The last day we went to some hot springs, which was simply divine, in spite of the nasty sunburn I got.

Now we're sitting in the Chinggis Khaan International Airport, awaiting our flight to Beijing. There we'll sit around for about four hours and then hop on a plane to San Francisco. I can't believe we're going back. It's gonna be weird. It seems even weirder than the fact that we'll be married in a month, although perhaps that'll hit me harder as it approaches. Anyway, I hope you're all having a wonderful summer! I'll try to keep blogging from the states.

Deadbeat

2011-06-29T17:15:00.004+07:00

Yeah, sorry, I've been pretty remiss on posting recently. But that is of course because a lot has been happening! First off, I believe when last I posted, it was just prior to the English for Tourism course we'd been working on. Seems like ancient history now, but I do recall that it went pretty well, in spite of the entire city of Tsetserleg losing power for four days straight at the end of the week. Made printing materials and playing the dialogues we'd recorded somewhat challenging, but whatever. We managed. The students' levels weren't quite as advanced as we'd planned for, so only about a third of them wound up passing, but that's the way lots of English courses turn out around here. Although in school settings, failing students looks bad, so even if a kid doesn't speak a word of English, he'll likely pass every course he ever takes. It's the single most devastating challenge TEFL volunteers face. Anyway, that pic above is Kaede and me with the whole class in front of the Arkhangai Museum, which we got to see for free after having the curator come give a guest speech to the group. It was pretty neat. I especially liked this painting on the wall which glorifies the Stalinist purges of the Buddhist monks which occurred in the 1930s and which, as I may or may not have mentioned, were perpetrated by the man after whom my humble city of Choibalsan is named.

After the class, we took a few days to relax, first by hanging out around the apartment and then by going for a lovely overnight camping trip! We hiked three miles through a painful hailstorm to the river south of town, set up camp, did some fishing, built a big fire, and had a wonderful time. That's when the picture at the bottom was taken. Dornod is nice and all, but it's kind of a shame that I couldn't move to Arkhangai. It's honestly one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been in my life. Following the camping trip, we got to cleaning and packing, which was quite an endeavor. It took a few days, but as stressful as it was, actually getting all her stuff (as well as two pets) a thousand kilometers across Mongolia was even moreso. We broke it up with a few days in UB, which took a bit of the load off, but when we'd made it to Choibalsan last week and hauled all her stuff into the apartment, it was quite a relief. The next week was spent moving Kaede into the apartment and setting everything up in the homiest way possible. Peace Corps wound up setting her up at a school right near my place, so moving is somewhat unnecessary, although my apartment is a bit small for two humans, a cat, and a dog. Whatever. We can deal. Especially seeing as this is a country where a family of six will live in a single ger ten feet in diameter.

Yesterday we took a five hour ride south to Sukhbaatar province. Tomorrow, we'll go with our friend Sarah to her small town, Dariganga, which is right on the Chinese border, to help with an English summer camp she's organizing. A lot of our other friends from last summer will be there, so it should be nice. We're packing a lot in, however, as next week we'll return to Choibalsan for all of a day to pack for the states and tie up our loose ends. Then we'll head back to Arkhangai for Naadam, the festival of the Three Manly Sports. Following Naadam, it's UB for a couple days and then, on July 16, AMERICA! Total craziness.

Нэг жилийн дараа

2011-06-06T21:57:00.003+07:00

Well, believe it or not, one year ago today, I was touching down on Monglian soil for the first time (there I am saying goodbye to the fam), along with all the other M21s. And perfectly enough, the M22s, Peace Corps Mongolia's next generation, have just arrived themselves. A lot of volunteers go in to UB to welcome them, but unfortunately Kaede and I are much too busy with our English for Tourism project. So busy, in fact, that that first sentence is actually a lie. I meant to get this post out yesterday, but the class has officially started, and now we barely have time to sleep, let alone blog. It's worth it though, as already, in spite of the challenges and setbacks we've faced, this feels like one of the most useful things I've done in my service. How appropriate for it to begin in earnest exactly a year to the day after I arrived in country.

I've mused enough on this blog about the nature of time and how it flies and yet barely seems to crawl along at all and all the things that have happened and changed in the past year, so I'll spare you all of that (partially because I just don't have the time to get into it), but suffice to say, it's been a hell of a year, and I can't believe we're halfway done.

Anyway, it's late over here, so I gotta try and get some shuteye. I will, however, share with you Baagii's one-year-in-country present to Kaede and me: his stunning impersonation of a pie.

The Whole Family

2011-05-22T18:11:00.004+07:00

Heya. It's been a little while, which as usual means I've been busy. Actually, I'm not even in Choibalsan right now. I was back less than a week before I decided to head to Arkhangai a bit early. Pretty much nothing was going on at my school because of tests and graduation preparations and whatnot, whereas Kaede needs help with the English for Tourism seminar we're teaching together in a few weeks. I felt a bit bad leaving my HCA early, and it was sad to say goodbye to my sitemates, most of whom won't be there when I come back, but it wound up being a question of getting work done versus not getting work done. Believe it or not, I chose the former. Of course, there were other motivations as well.

Before I headed out on Tuesday, there had been some excitements back in Dornod. We had a big end-of-the-year picnic for ACCESS (see above), complete with silly games and spelling bees and lots of food. That was a good time. We also hosted a mighty Mexican night in celebration of Geoff's last weekend in town as well as Bob and Susanne having received, well, a lot of Mexican ingredients in the mail. It was delicious. Perhaps the most entertaining event, however, was a music video that Bob, Joel, and I were asked to appear in. Some woman had written new lyrics to a song to honor this year's graduates from Dornod Institute, and she wanted to record a badass video for it, complete with foreigners pretending to play instruments. Ariukaa, the music teacher at my school, whom you may remember from my entry on Men's Day, provided the vocals, as well as the white-guy hookup. So Bob, Joel, and I showed up on Sunday morning in our finest suits and proceeded to pantomime accompaniment on piano, bass, and guitar, respectively. It was kinda ridiculous, but lots of fun. I was promised a copy of the video. I've yet to get it, but as soon as I do, I'll be sure to upload it.

Also, the day before I left, Danny, Bob, and I headed out to Diviz to have the families who are to receive sheep sign their contracts (see adorable children below). We'd finally reached our goal a few days prior, and they should be getting the livestock right around now, so thanks so much to everyone who helped out! I was glad I got to make it out there, as next year, I'm the new liaison for all Diviz-related projects. It's a bit intimidating since Danny, Bob, and especially Marg have done the large majority of the work so far, but I'm sure they'll help me out.

On Tuesday morning, after a night of frantic and confused packing, Jagaa and I set off for the transportation center. Since I'm gonna be in Arkhangai for a month, I figured it made more sense to bring the dog than to find someone to take her. I was worried about whether or not I'd be able to find a ride that would allow me to take a dog, but it proved to be little trouble. I just had to pay some extra money. After the long trip in and a cold, restless night in UB, we found a ride to Arkhangai the next day. Jagaa did wonderfully in transit. She must have felt a little uncomfortable, because she mostly just laid on my lap and slept. Needless to say, once we arrived and she saw Kaede and Baagii again, all the energy she'd been storing up exploded outward, but we've been taking her for nice long walks every day, and I think she really likes the more interesting terrain that Arkhangai has to offer. It's been nice to have our little interspecies Mongolian family all together, and while the weather has been quite chilly for late May, I am of course glad to be here. In addition to doing some work on the tourism project and walking the dog, we've been cooking a lot, watching Blackadder, and yesterday, I even ran in a 5k! Kaede's sitemates put together a health fair, and I found out last minute that there was a race involved. I decided to sign up. And, I came in first place among the foreigners! Unfortunately I was the only foreigner participating, and I came in last place overall. It wasn't even a full 5k, I don't think, but I'm just pretty out of shape I guess. It's kind of amazing to think that about a year ago I ran a 9k almost effortlessly. Such is the atrophying power of a Mongol winter.

Birthday Snow

2011-05-11T09:09:00.003+07:00

I've had many birthdays in my life, but last week was the first time I'd ever seen snow on May 5. This picture didn't capture it falling as well as I'd hoped, but if you look at the cars and whatnot outside, you get the idea.

Oh, and I stole that Happy Birthday. If I'd taken the pic from farther away, you'd see that it actually says "Happy Birthday, Terrence," in honor of another PCV who apparently had a birthday in the same guesthouse that Kaede and I were staying in a few days prior. They didn't clean the window after his celebrations, so I stole it!

Other than petty theft, my birthday was very nice and laid back. Kaede and I had been in UB a couple days already, so my best present came a bit early, but on the day itself, we laid in bed all morning, got burgers for lunch with some friends, bought a bunch of ingredients, and used said ingredients to make...

BUFFALO WINGS!!! And they turned out pretty damned good, too. Kaede made some blue cheese dressing from scratch which was phenomenal, and we even picked up a couple Dos Equis, which is what the guys and I normally wash our wings down with at the Fajita Grill, our weekly wings haunt back home. I got to speak with lots of friends and family from back home, and we topped it off with an old Clint Eastwood western, which is just what I was craving for some reason. I wouldn't even have changed the snow if I could have. Since we didn't really have to go out much, it just made for something pretty to look at.

Unfortunately, some of the joy of my lovely birthday was shattered the next day, when I got pickpocketed on a public bus. We've been warned numerous times to be vigilant in the big city, as UB is becoming notorious for it's pickpocketers. I thought I was being vigilant by keeping my wallet in an inside pocket of my coat, but the bus was very crowded and super hot, so I didn't want to zip my coat up. I guess it was hanging open enough for some little twerp to reach his hand in, unzip it, and nab the wallet. To make things worse, it was a brand new wallet Zoloo had given me the day prior as a birthday present. However, I was quite lucky in that my camera, which is a lot more valuable than the wallet and its contents, was in the same pocket, and he didn't take that. When we got off the bus, I noticed it was gone, and a woman came up to us to say that she'd seen the crime take place. It had been a boy in his mid-teens with a medical face-mask. People wear those a lot around here when they have a cold to keep from spreading it. Kaede and I wanted to know why she hadn't said something at the time. Turns out, these thieves have spread a vicious rumor that people who interfere with their work are followed home and killed. It's probably quite far from the truth, but it's enough to get people scared. Oh well.

Because of that whole incident, I had to stay in UB an extra day so I could go to Peace Corps on Monday to get a new ID. It meant more time with Kaede though, so I wasn't too upset. As for the reason I was in UB, helping Zoloo with the Olympics, she was so busy seeing her family and I was so busy seeing Kaede, we only met a few times, but she did decently in the Olympics just the same. She's more concerned about the TOEFL, which she signed up to take in early June. If she does well enough, she has a decent shot at winning a scholarship to teach in the states next year, which would be pretty cool.

So yeah, I came back yesterday. My VSO friend Easterlina, who was back home in Kenya for the last couple months, had just returned, and she got me a ride with her in a private car. It cost a bit more than the bus, but I'm never traveling overland any other way again. The bus usually leaves around 8 or 9 and gets in between 11 and midnight. This guy left closer to 9:30, and we arrived in Choibalsan just after 7 PM! I was flabbergasted. I honestly couldn't believe my eyes when we saw the city growing larger in the distance. I realized I'd never come into Choibalsan during the day time. Plus, the ride was much more comfortable than the bus, and he went a different route, which proved to be more beautiful as well. I'm still kind of in shock about the whole thing. UB suddenly seems so much closer. If only I'd figured this out eight months ago.

So now I'm back, with three weeks left of school. Then I head to Arkhangai to help Kaede with the English for Tourism seminar she's putting on. After that, we're not entirely sure what we'll do before we go back to America. As I may have mentioned, we were hoping to take part in this technical training Peace Corps was putting together. However, yesterday we found out that they'd screwed up the schedule for that, and now it's mandatory that you work all summer long to be part of it, so that doesn't really work for us. However, it doesn't really work for any other PCVs, so maybe they'll adjust it a bit. If not, we might try and help out with our friend Sarah's English summer camp down in Sukhbaatar aimag. It'd be nice to get Kaede moved out to Choibalsan at some point before we head back as well, so perhaps we can squeeze that in somewhere. All this stuff should work itself out in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

A quick one, cause I'm sleepy...

2011-05-01T22:20:00.004+07:00

Hey everybody. So, the last week was pretty uneventful. It can be pretty much entirely summed up with this one picture.

TOEFL/Olympics prep with Zoloo and taking care of Pity Cat, neither of which required much energy anyway. I'd pretty much just give Zoloo a few questions to answer in a certain amount of time and then we'd go over her mistakes. As for the cat, well, he's a sleeper.

Jagaa flew back with the M20s today. Since I'm going to UB tomorrow, she went straight to Danny's, as he'll be taking care of her for the week. I went over this afternoon to bring her food for the week and see how she was doing. She seems to be back to her old self, although she lost a lot of weight, as you can see below. When they opened her up on Monday, they noticed the beginning signs of an infection developing on her intestines, so it's definitely a good thing she went in. Unfortunately, her recovery was not as smooth as we'd hoped, or as I'd promised Angie, my saintly friend who agreed to take care of her for the week. She had trouble with her food and antibiotics and spent the first few days throwing up a lot, which explains the weight loss. Additionally, the stress of the operations compounded with all the traveling and transitioning she was doing made her forget all her housebreaking. She pooped and peed a lot on Angie's nice carpet. Furthermore, her poop was black at first, indicating internal bleeding. Add to all that stress the fact that Angie is allergic to dogs and she happened to come down with an ear infection the night Jagaa showed up, and it sounds to me like a recipe for a week from hell. Angie, however, was a real doll about it and took it all in stride. You better believe that Kaede and I will be taking her out to dinner while we're in town this week.

Anyway, gotta get up early and take that godawful bus to UB. Have a good week!

P.S. If you haven't donated yet to our friends at Diviz and you've got some dough to spare, please take a moment and do so now. Donations of any size are accepted, and you should be able to do it with a credit card now, in case the PayPal thing scared you off. Just over two grand is all we have left to get these people the help they so desperately need!

Хөөрхий нохой...

2011-04-25T08:55:00.004+07:00

For some reason Blogger is having trouble with Cyrillic text right now, but that's supposed to say "Хөөрхий нохой," and it's pronounced "khoorkhii nokhoi" which means "poor dog," an understatement for what Jagaa has become over the last week. Here's the story.

As I said in my last entry, Jagaa was scheduled to get spayed on Tuesday, which is exactly what happened. She stayed out of the buckwheat and Bob, Geoff, Zoloo, and I brought her into the veterinary clinic at Merrie's school that morning. The operation was also an opportunity for studying vet students to practice this sort of thing, so they did it for free. Things went off pretty well, even if the general anesthesia didn't completely knock Jagaa out. She spent the next few days wandering around in apparent confusion, being generally sore. I felt bad, so I got a painkilling suppository recommended by Enkhjargal, the vet who oversaw the procedure, which did a lot to lift her spirits, in spite of the fact that I had to shove it up her butt. Overall she was in pretty good spirits, except when we had to change her bandages. She really hated that. Let's just say I have lots of nice bite marks on my hands now. Thankfully Susanne was happy to help me. And on Thursday I bought her a muzzle, which proved to be an invaluable investment. Best five thousand tugriks I ever spent.

So this is where the story gets pretty... upsetting, shall we say. If you have a weak stomach, you may want to stop reading. Either way, rest assured that Jagaa is fine now.

On Friday night, I brought Jagaa over to Danny's house where everyone was hanging out so that I could have some help changing her bandages. This proved to be an excellent decision. Changing her bandages involves drizzling iodine over the stitches to keep them clean, and I find the easiest way to do this is holding her in my lap. I didn't want to get any iodine on my dress pants, so I took those off first. That also proved to be an excellent decision. Bob, Geoff, and I took her into the kitchen, strapped on the muzzle, and removed her bandages. I put her in between my legs on my lap. She started renching back and forth trying to get free, and while we were calming her, we noticed that there was a surprising amount of blood. Almost immediately after that, about five inches worth of her intestines popped through her skin. Her stitches had burst. The three of us exchanged expletives and, not knowing how serious this might be, I went into a kind of adrenaline-soaked shock, quickly swallowing the realization that this dog might die in my arms tonight. Just like that awful eighties song. Except much much worse.

Of course, this development only made Jagaa more upset. Fortunately she couldn't quite see what was going on because of the way I was holding her, but she knew something was up. Geoff and I did our best to hold her steady. We didn't want her intestines to slide off her stomach and touch the floor. Meanwhile, Bob, who is a wilderness first responder and did a great job taking charge of the situation, began trying to get a hold of Enkhjargal. But it was Friday night, so this was no easy task. After getting no answer for several minutes, we realized we'd need to try other avenues. Right around this time, the shock of the whole situation coupled with the big dinner she'd recently eaten caused Jagaa to vomit. A lot. With the muzzle on. We wrestled it off as quickly as we could, and so of course as soon as she finished, she started biting again. Furthermore, the stomach convulsions caused another five inches of intestine or so to pop through her skin. There was now less than an inch between the floor and her innards. Jason, a volunteer and former premed major who lives in a soum four hours northwest of the city, happened to be in for the weekend, and he also proved himself to be a great hero that night. He got a pair of latex gloves out of the medkit and disinfected some gauze to lay over the intestines. His job then became holding Jagaa's intestines, which he did admirably.

Bob called Karen, the vet in UB, to see what she might recommend. She was extremely helpful and assured us that, even if we couldn't get in touch with the local vet, this was not a life-threatening situation until the next morning, so long as we could press her intestines back into her stomach and wrap her up tight until she could get sewn back up. Fortunately, soon thereafter, we did get through to the vet, and Bob, Merrie, and our Mongolian friend Monkhtuya rushed out to pick her up, get her operating materials, and bring her back to Danny's. I'm kind of a wussy with this kind of stuff, and between the vomit and the visible intestines, I began feeling super light-headed. Danny was good enough to take over for me while I got some fresh hour and called Kaede for a little emotional support.

Things were stable in the kitchen. Danny had her head, Joel had her hind legs, and Jason had her intestines. They sat there like saints in piles of dog puke while we waited about forty-five minutes for the others to show back up with Enkhjargal and one of her students. Once they did, we transferred Jagaa onto the table and Enkhjargal gave her a couple of shots of local anesthesia. Because of the potential for there being more food in her stomach, general anesthesia was not an option. This proved to be a major bummer. Speaking of food left in her stomach, Jagaa vomited another two or three times over the course of the evening. These times we just turned her head and let it drain out of the holes in her muzzle. It was not worth dealing with trying to get it on and off of her each time.

Enkhjargal washed off Jagaa's intestines and began carefully pressing them back inside. It was a slow process, but eventually she got it done. Fortunately, this part didn't seem to bother Jagaa too much. The next part did. They splashed the opening with disinfectant, which must have stung like crazy, because Jagaa started bucking and screaming with everything she had. The poor dog probably thought we were slowly killing her. At this point, I was on her head, Danny had her forearms and upper body, and Jason was holding her hindlegs. By the time they finished stitching her back up, all three of us were sweating from the effort of holding her down. Strong dog. It took around forty-five minutes because she was fighting so much, and consequently the student had a lot of difficulty being precise.

So they wrapped her back up and gave her a shot of antibiotics, and I cleaned the vomit off of her as best I could. Then we carefully lifted her off the table and brought her to a little bed in the other room. She looked terrified and it took her a while to nod off, but she didn't move much. She must have been incredibly exhausted. Enkhjargal recommended that I feed her a lot less, try to keep her from moving around, and stop the painkillers, as they'd given her a false sense of security and allowed her to jump around more. I spent the night at Danny's so I could keep an eye on her, as we didn't want to deal with getting her back to my apartment. It was a restless night for both of us. I was worried about her wandering around, and she probably had a lot of trouble getting comfortable.

After the whole procedure had finished, Bob offered to bring Jagaa in with him to UB. All the M20s are heading in for their Close of Service conference this week. So the next morning, I called Karen again and asked her what she thought of that idea. She said bringing her into would be best. That way, if something did happen, they could stitch her up properly, and while they were in there, give the intestines a good cleaning as well as do a complete spay. Mongolians only tie the tubes, while Americans generally remove the uterus and ovaries to avoid future complications. Kaede and I were planning to have that done if we decided to bring her back to the states anyway, and after her guts fell out in my arms, the likelihood of me bringing her back shot way up. I told Karen all this, and she said we may as well just do it now and get it over with.

So that's where Jagaa is right now, at the vet in UB, undergoing her third surgery of the week. At least this time she's completely anesthetized, and we know the stitches are going to be top-notch, if you'll excuse the pun. Thank god I just got my federal tax return, because all of this is gonna cost more than I make in a month. My friend Angie has been gracious enough to agree to take care of her for the rest of the week, since Bob will be too busy with the conference. She'll fly back next Sunday and go straight to Danny's house, since I'm heading to UB the next morning. I'll of course go see her that night. It's so weird after having stressed out so much over her health the last week for it to be so suddenly out of my hands. By the time I have her back, two weeks from now, she'll probably be right as rain.

Anyway, Friday was probably the hardest night of my life. It certainly was for Jagaa. And the rest of the weekend wasn't much better, since I spent it scrambling around trying to prepare all the paperwork and whatnot that is necessary to put a dog on a plane around here, worrying about her all the while. But yeah, it's over now. And it's barely a week til I'm in UB with Kaede again! You can imagine I'm pretty pumped about that.

Also on the bright side, Susanne left me with this adorably meek little creature while she's in UB for the conference. His name is Pity Cat, and he makes me smile.

Spring Fever

2011-04-18T22:34:00.003+07:00

AKA I'm feeling lazy so this isn't gonna be much of a blog post. The last week was actually quite busy, but somehow it took forever to go by. Which is the opposite of normal life around here. Anyway, here's a quick look at some of the things that happened.

Some folks from Peace Corps came out to do site visits. No problems there. They looked into potential places for Kaede to work next year but have yet to make any final decisions.
Bob had some friends from the states in town. They were cool, and I was filled with questions, as it's been a while since I got to hear a perspective on Mongolia from people who aren't living here.
Some people from the US Embassy visited, including some Fulbrighters working in UB. Most interesting however was a visually-impaired Mongolian woman who studied in Baton Rouge and now works for the embassy. She is in possession of Mongolia's only seeing-eye dog. Fascinating conversations were had.
The weather's been fantastic. And it rained this weekend. For the first time in seven months. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it until I walked out of Bob's apartment on Saturday night and got a whiff. It was incredible. Like being born again. Or something.
Jagaa was supposed to get spayed today, but she got into a bag of raw buckwheat while I was at school. She threw it all up before the operation would have happened, so there were no anesthesia worries, but I talked to the vet in UB and she said it wouldn't be good to have the stomach acid sitting in her esophagus for that long. The appointment's been rescheduled to tomorrow morning, so wish her luck.

Is it summer yet?

A chance to help

2011-04-14T22:12:00.004+07:00

Calling all philanthropists! If you've been reading this blog, you may remember me mentioning Division 5, or Diviz as the locals call it, the area outside Choibalsan proper which is now home to many families who lost their livelihood after the devastating zud of 2009-2010. They were living with little access to food or fresh water and miles from the nearest schools. Enter Marg Chamberlain, a VSO volunteer who recently returned to her home country of Australia. Marg took it upon herself to start giving these people the help they need. Thanks to her, there is now a kindergarten (see above), greenhouse, a well (Danny and Marg, Diviz' heroes, are posing with it below), a chicken coop, and many other wonderful improvements at Diviz, but while things are looking up, there's still a long way to go until they reach the sort of self-sufficiency they enjoyed before that awful winter. Now that Marg is gone, Diviz has fallen primarily into the hands of my sitemate Danny Wolf, but Bob, Geoff, and I are doing what we can to help out as well. We've been working on a pay-it-forward project which will buy ten of the Diviz families twenty sheep each. After two years, they will repay those twenty sheep with twenty of the offspring they've borne, which will then be given to new families to continue the cycle. But we still need more funding to make this project a reality. If you'd like to chip in, any amount would be appreciated, and it's a wonderful opportunity to make a sustainable investment in people who've been dealt a pretty unfortunate hand.

If you'd like to donate, you can do so at the wonderful site Danny built, which can be found here. And here is a link to the Diviz homepage. Please peruse it and read more about the people we are helping and the ways we are doing so. Thanks so much!

I survived a Mongolian winter!

2011-04-12T12:31:00.004+07:00

Proof of which would be the fact that I'm actually considering going for a run after this. I guess it wasn't so bad after all, the winter that is, but believe you me, I've never been happier to see a lake thaw or a river run again, or to be able to walk outside without a jacket. It's some nice.

If you've been reading this blog, you're probably well aware by this point that I like to measure my life in meaningless milestones, so here's another one! I have now been out of America for the longest amount of time in my life. April 5 marked ten months since we arrived in Mongolia, and my previous record was the time I spent in Holland, just shy of ten months.

Hope you enjoyed those useless facts. In terms of more important goings-on, I recently returned from my twelve-day trip to UB and Arkhangai, the ostensible purposes of which were the VAC meeting and the final stages of the Creative Writing Olympics, but the main motivation of course being Kaede. I was with her the whole time, which was wonderful. Unfortunately, when we went back to Arkhangai together, she had a lot of work to do, but we still got a lot of time in relaxing and cooking and playing makeshift cribbage (I forgot the board) and all those other things we love to do together. We also watched all three original Indiana Jones films with her sitemate Tim, as, believe it or not, I'd never seen any of them before, and one day we made a delicious comfort food dinner (see picture at bottom) consisting of baked mac n cheese, fried chicken, and watermelon. Mmmmboy. It was a nice hot spring day too, so everything was just perfect. When we were in UB, we picked up the Mongol jacket I'm going to wear at the wedding, as well as some beautiful material that Kaede will have made into her wedding deel. It's exciting to have this material proof of the upcoming ceremony. And, if you'll excuse the gushing, I can't wait to see how beautiful she's gonna look. As usual, it sucked saying goodbye, but we're on the homestretch now... less than two months til we're together for good!

So now I'm back at site. I can't believe the school year is almost over! The next month will be spent doing a lot of my normal work plus prepping Zoloo for national olympics, as, just before I left for UB, she won for the entire aimag! Which is pretty freaking super! It sounds like I'll be accompanying her to UB in early May for the national competition, which sounds fun, and if Kaede manages to make it in as well, it means that I'll get to spend my birthday with her! First I got Christmas with her, now potentially my birthday... I'm a pretty lucky guy when it comes down to it.

I hope you're all enjoying the coming warmth as well. Send your motivation my way for this run!

Sarah & Carolyn bring Puppy Season to Lenintown!

2011-03-27T09:49:00.005+07:00

Clearly this is a three-part entry, so I'll write it as such. In spite of the catchy title, they actually have little to do with one another.

Sarah & Carolyn

You may remember these two from the summer. They lived in Bayandelger with Kaede and me, and they were two of our best buds. Well, they're also quite close with Bob and some of my other sitemates, so they decided to use the beginning of their spring breaks to come see the glory that is Choibalsan! It was really nice to have them visit for a few days. It felt like I was seeing old friends for the first time in a long while, and so I was repeatedly shocked to remember that I'd known these people less than ten months, that it had been barely three since I'd seen Carolyn and less than two since I'd seen Sarah. Weird. Fortunately, I was on my break for the greater part of their time here as well, so we spent most of our days laying around Bob's apartment, eating food, and going on long walks around the city and surrounding areas, as you can see in the picture above. Sarah's all the way on the left, and Carolyn is next to her. It was sad to say goodbye. Kaede and I might see Carolyn next week in UB, but the next time I see Sarah, I might well be a married man!

Puppy Season

As you may be aware, dogs go into heat twice a year, which means that, in countries where strays aren't packed off to the pound, there are two times a year when the city is suddenly full of adorable, starving, unwanted puppies. This is one of them. It didn't affect me as much the last time it happened, which was right around when we got here in the fall. That was probably due to how busy and overwhelmed I was as well as the fact that I still wasn't much of a dog person. But now that I've grown to love Jagaa and am a little more used to this place, it's nigh on unbearable. Every puppy I see is so adorable and sad and I just want to take them all in and bathe them and feed them and NURTURE THEM!!! Alas, that is totally unfeasible, so I have to settle for playing with them and encouraging Jagaa not to be terrified of them, a hefty endeavor indeed. Oh well, if I can just hold out a month or so, they'll all be dead or grown up, and I'll be able to go back to walking this town guiltlessly.

In other (former) puppy related news, Jagaa had quite a traumatizing week. If you've seen my new Facebook picture, you might already have the gist of it, but here's the story in full. When Sarah and Carolyn were here, the two of them, Bob, and I went for a sunset stroll down to the river, a place I often take Jagaa. We were walking on the river, which has been frozen solid for months, when Bob expressed concern over the apparent thinness of the ice ahead. I stubbornly insisted it was fine and trekked onward, only to hear it start to give under my feet and immediately retreat. The four of us ran up onto the bank and were collecting ourselves when we suddenly realized we'd lost the dog. "Where's Jagaa?" I asked. "Where is Jagaa?" Sarah emphasized. Just then, a herder who'd been sitting with his friend on the opposite bank leaped to his feet, bounded down onto the river, and ran out to the middle of the ice. He dropped to his knees, reached into a hole we had not noticed, and when he pulled his hand back, he had Jagaa by her leg. She was screaming and dripping with dirty ice water. The herder dropped her and of course she booked it. We shook off our absolutely flabbergasted shock, I ran after Jagaa so I could shove her in my coat and get her warm, and the other three profusely thanked the herder for his heroic deed and gave him their cigarettes as compensation. He returned to his perch and laughed his ass off about it with his friend. We headed back to my place to give Jagaa a bath and warm her up. She was pretty quiet the rest of the day, but I'm happy to announce that she seems to have made a full psychological recovery, and the cold has not affected her physically in any noticeable way. Here's a picture we snapped of her and me next to the hole she fell in just after the incident. I figured I'd juxtapose it with the picture of me next to the hole I fell in nearly ten months ago when I was drunk during orientation. Just a chip off the old block, right? Kaede's response when I told her this story was, "well this bodes well for our offspring." Actually it was uncontrollable laughter followed by that comment. Haha, she's probably right.

Lenintown

On the long road that heads west out of town to UB, I always notice a field right on the edge of the city limits but long past anything that really resembles a city. I notice it because there are three prominent standing structures surrounded on all sides by rubble. Two of them are statues, one of which is a large upright Lenin, the other a man on his knees lifting a gun into the air. The third structure is a large hollowed-out building that looks like it could have been a reconstruction of the Parthenon. I've always wanted to walk out to this area and explore it and take some semblance of interesting, thought-provoking pictures. Well yesterday, Bob, Susanne, and I did just that. Unfortunately we underestimated the distance a bit and got there just as the sun was setting, which made for prettier pictures but allowed less time to explore. I had heard that this area had been the Soviet center of Choibalsan before communism fell and the Russians got the hell out of Dodge twenty years back, but I was skeptical because, other than those three structures, there was pretty much nothing else remaining in that area at all. But as we approached Lenintown, as I've affectionately dubbed it, the ground became positively covered in the debris of fallen buildings. By the time we actually made it to the statues, it was clear that they were on either side of what had once been a large city square, and everywhere we looked were the crumbling foundations of what once must have been very impressive buildings. The population of Choibalsan before the Russians left was about sixty thousand. Now it's forty thousand. That's how many Russians got out of here, and this is where a great many of them surely lived. I was bummed that we didn't have enough time to rummage around more, but even in the few moments we spent out there, it was one of the most mind-blowing experiences I've had in this country. It felt like I was exploring the ruins of an ancient Roman city, and yet only twenty years ago this place was bustling with Russians at the end, both geographically and chronologically, of their empire. I can't wait to get out there again a bit earlier in the day and learn more.

Epilogue

Mongolia continues its slow march (no pun intended!) toward warmth. It's almost t-shirt weather! Which really means it's almost to the point where I'm so fed up that I refuse to wear a coat outside anymore. But really, it's supposed to be in the 50s this week! Even better news is that on Tuesday, after the aimag olympics, I fly to UB for the VAC meeting, where Kaede will meet me! I'm using a few of my vacation days, so after the meeting on Friday, Kaede and I will head out to Tsetserleg and spend a week together. We're gonna make BLTs!

That's all. Stay classy, Planet Earth.

Happy Birthday, Genghis Jhan!

2011-03-19T00:58:00.002+07:00

Out here in Mongolia, it has just become March 19, which as I'm sure you all know, is this blog's birthday! I can't believe it's been a year since I made my first post (I also can't believe I didn't know that "sain baina uu?" is a question, let alone what it means). It's pretty funny to go back and read those first entries. I'm sure you all have big celebrations planned for this momentous occasion. I hope you guys made your own Genghis Jhan costumes and cakes. Those store-bought ones they've probably had in stock since Valentine's Day are never any good.

Alright, I'm done talking crazy. On a more serious note, there was a real reason to celebrate today, or yesterday I suppose. It was Soldier's Day. I would have expected this to be a lot like Memorial Day or Veteran's Day, but actually it doesn't matter whether you've served in the army or not; if you have male genitalia, you get honored. Which is probably the reason people also refer to it as Men's Day. In my last post, I forgot to mention that, last week, on March 8th, we celebrated Women's Day. You might know about that one, since it's an international holiday (although America is one of the countries that does not observe it). In a lot of ways it was similar to Mother's Day, although there was a lot more drinking involved. Soldier's Day/Men's Day then is a bit more like Father's Day then those other ones I mentioned, except for three things. First, as I said, all men are celebrated, not just fathers. Second, again, there's a lot more drinking. And finally, people play a lot, and I do mean a lot, of ridiculous games. Which is exactly what we did at my school. This morning, seeing as how I'm a soldier, er... man, and all, I was given an invitation to our school's celebration that afternoon. When I showed up, some of the school's female teachers showed me to a seat at a table covered in different sorts of food, and soon thereafter, we began the first of sixteen games. After each one, the loser was eliminated from the tournament, so that we began with seventeen teachers playing and ended with just one champion. I made it about halfway through, but I'm glad I got out when I did, as the games just kept getting more ridiculous. Here are a bunch of pictures that Zoloo and other teachers took. I usually don't post so many at once, but there's just no better way to relate the hilarity of this event.

One of the many winners of the first game: stack the bottle caps using chopsticks. I think this guy is some sort of science teacher. I have trouble keeping them all straight.

Lining up for the second game: carry the tennis ball using the centrifugal force caused by spinning it around in a jar.

Easy peasy.

We each had to race to a balloon and pop it by sitting on it. Of course, one of them was secretly filled with water. Mongolian roulette.

A toast from the hardest working director in Dornod!

Ariuka, the music teacher, readies himself for the next game: move the box of matches across the floor using the tennis ball suspended from your ass. This guy is a real hoot, by the way. One of my favorite teachers outside the English department.

This was my losing game: move as many of the candied peanuts as you can from one dish to another using a spoon in your mouth. It's just as tough as it sounds.

Some of the games were dripping with sexual tension, like this one: hold a woman on your knees for as long as you can.

One of my favorites: make yourself up to look like a beautiful woman!

I think you'll agree that I had no choice but to include all of these.

It's important to look manly on Soldier's Day.

Eat the apple off the string without your hands!

The final contest: try to eat a slice of cake off a table without using your hands while tied to another guy who's trying to do the same thing with another piece of cake on another table on the opposite side of the room. It was a bitter struggle, but my friend the music teacher won.

I won a tea thermos with Chinggis Khaan on it in the lottery! Oddly enough, it was the only one of the many prizes that I had any real use for, so that was convenient.

Group shot of all the men with their prizes, plus our director.

So yeah, a pretty good time overall. I had been worried that I'd be pressured into drinking a lot of vodka, but thankfully our director takes a somewhat harder line about alcohol in school than do most around here, so the only thing we had was a glass of wine each, although I'm pretty sure it was actually cranberry juice. Also, I'm sad to say we didn't get a good picture of what was certainly my favorite game, wherein each contestant spun around in a circle fifteen times, and then, having gotten good and dizzy, had to spoon-feed an entire bowl of yogurt to a tremendously unfortunate woman. Phenomenal.

In other news, olympics season chugs on. This week we had round one of our school's primary olympics, which is taking place for the first time ever this year. I got to administer the listening and speaking portions of the exam, which was quite enjoyable. I love working with those little kids. They alway cheer me up. Particularly the little boy in the picture above. He had to tell me all about food. It was adorable. I have to admit that sometimes I have trouble not laughing at the cuteness of their word choice when speaking. Plus, they get so stressed about the whole thing, which only adds to the hilarity. And they always state the name of the subject about which they're speaking before they begin, like it were a title. As a result, many of their responses sounded almost like a modern poetry reading. For example:

my body.
eyes
lips
arms
[child looks down, distraught]
nose, nose, nose
[child bites lip, gazes up in despair]
nose

Absolutely brilliant. That kid would fit right in at Oberlin.

The weather continues to zig-zag its way toward warmth. Today was pretty nice. I had a long break around lunch time, so I walked Jagaa down to the river and let her frolic among some grazing cows, which was pretty funny. She's terrified of every living creature that isn't a human, but the cows were so slow and uninterested in her that she could hop around them barking and whatnot without any recourse. She felt pretty good about herself, as you can see at the bottom.

The nicest thing about today's weather happened later, however. Bob and I were walking home tonight when we happened to run into Geoff. We got into a conversation, and something about it just felt great. The topic was not particularly interesting, but for some reason I was absolutely loving it. About five minutes in, I realized that this was the first extended conversation I'd had outside in nearly half a year without wanting to kill myself. It was so refreshing! Just standing there and chatting as if it were the middle of summer and the sun were shining and we were in shorts and t-shirts. When I got home I checked the temperature, and it turns out it was still only 15°, but whatever. It was incredible.

Next week will be a welcome change from the bump and grind. Wednesday is the first day of our two-week long spring break. Also, on Sunday and/or Monday, Carolyn and Sarah, two of my friends from summer training in Bayandelger, will be coming for a week or so! They were both really close with Kaede this summer, and with me to a slightly lesser extent, so it'll be great to see them. Speaking of Kaede, I fly to UB the next Tuesday, and she's meeting me there! It still seems a long way away, but it's getting closer, and needless to say, I can't wait.

What a difference a year makes...

2011-03-13T00:02:00.004+07:00

Story time. Tonight I was hanging out with the sitemates at Bob's place. Susanne was cooking us a delicious dinner of barbecue chicken, naan, sautéed green peppers, and onion rings. I had about ten minutes until it was ready, so I decided to run Jagaa out for a pee first. When I got outside, I found myself in the midst of what might have been the biggest snowstorm we've had all season. While Mongolia is quite cold, it is equally dry, so we get very little snowfall throughout the winter. Not only was this storm unusually heavy; it was also exceptionally beautiful. The sun had set a while earlier, but something about the way the apartment lights shone on the windy scene was quite breathtaking. Standing outside with Jagaa gets to be quite tiring, but sometimes I'm grateful that I get to be outside to appreciate something I would have otherwise missed. This was one of those times.

After a few minutes, Jagaa had done nothing but sniff around, but I continued to wait. Just then, from opposite directions, two young girls came skipping toward each other, screaming "goy yumaa!" and "yamar goy yum be!" among other exclamations, all of which basically translate to "this is so beautiful!" When they'd reached each other, they embraced with great affection, as Mongolians love to do, and they proceeded to dance and cheer and continue their litany of praise for the beauty of the night. Normally when I bring Jagaa out and she doesn't do her business right away, I begin counting to some arbitrary number in my head, after reaching which I will go back inside. Sixty or one hundred or occasionally two hundred. I was doing just that as this scene unfolded, but I became so caught up in the euphoria these girls were expressing that I completely lost count. Soon, two very young boys ran out and joined them. They all held hands and danced in a circle for some time. I tried to capture the scene with my camera, but the results of course did little justice.

Eventually, one of them noticed the foreigner with the little dog standing off to the side. Without exchanging any words, they ran over to me and grew captivated by Jagaa. As I've mentioned before, pets are a rarity in Mongolia, so I draw even more attention than usual when I have a leashed dog with me. However, because dogs are basically security guards in this country, most Mongolians are very frightened of them. The children, in spite of their fascination, were no exception. They'd move closer and whistle at Jagaa, which invariably caused her to bark, which in turn made them recoil and cry "eejee!" That's Mongolian for "my mother!" but it's basically used where we would say "oh my god!" Eventually, through my broken Mongolian, I convinced them that Jagaa was harmless, and it became clear that she was much more afraid of them than the other way around. I picked her up and calmed her down, and she allowed them to pet her. I decided to take some more pictures, and they were elated to pose for me. After each one I took, they demanded to have a look, to which they'd again say "goy yumaa!" and "yamar goy yum be!" They then requested to take a picture of Jagaa and me. It was pretty adorable. So adorable in fact, that I forgot all about dinner. Soon Trinh stuck his head out the window and called me in. While I was getting my food, I heard them saying my name, pleading that Jagaa and I come back outside and play with them again. Those of us inside laughed it off, and I told them I was eating. "Afterwards!" they insisted.

We sat down to dinner, but soon they'd discovered which door was Bob's and so of course they got to a-knocking. It was still cute, but we were eating, so Zoloo went over to try and avert the problem. She pretended to be the only person living in the apartment, claiming that she didn't know anyone named John and had no dog. All the while, Jagaa was of course barking in the background. She shut the door, but they did not relent. Trinh went to the door next and spoke to them in English, asserting that he knew no Mongolian. Then he switched into Cambodian, his mother tongue, which astounded them even further. Finally, he switched into Mongolian, which he's pretty good at. After shutting the door, they still weren't placated, so Bob went over and tried some Spanish on them. They were loving this multilinguistic assault, but of course they remained unappeased. Finally we shut off all the lights and laughed to ourselves until they went away.

I feel a bit overly sentimental posting this story here in its entirety, but for some reason, it feels very important to me. When it was happening, somewhere pretty early on I realized that I was experiencing what would become one of my most enduring and cherished memories from my time in this country, that the image of those children dancing in the windy snowscape was one that would stay with me the rest of my life. How appropriate that almost exactly one-year prior, I had been visiting Oberlin with some friends, and my mom had called me to tell me a large packet had arrived from the Peace Corps. She'd asked me if I'd wanted her to open it for me. I had. Inside was my invitation to serve for two years as an English teacher trainer in Mongolia. In the three hundred and sixty five days that have followed that moment, this country has consumed my life. Even before I arrived in June, perhaps especially before then, it was all I could think about. Since I've gotten here, it has grown into a complete and total reality, the norm, that to which everything else is compared. When I really think about life in the place I was born, America seems the foreign country. Of course, I miss my family and friends back home, but it's amazing how used to things you can get. I've built a life over here now as well, complete with great friends and a full-time job and routines and goals and thrills and sadnesses and a woman so wonderful I'm going to make her my wife. It's amazing to think that all of this has happened in so short a time, but it's even more amazing to think that after not so much more than another year, it will all have finished.

Suit Day!

2011-03-06T16:47:00.005+07:00

Check us out! Lookin' pretty fly if I do say so myself. Us guys here in Dornod all got suits made (actually I just got an old one tailored) since they're pretty inexpensive around here, and then yesterday we went out to eat a fancy lunch together dressed in them. And then we came back to Bob's place and played ridiculous drinking games dressed in them. And then I got too drunk and now I feel awful today, though it's getting better. I'm pretty sure I ate a lot of raw brownie batter, which may or may not have contributed. Ah the stupid things one does when drunk. I think I'll lay off the stuff for a while now. I'm kind of a chameleon when it comes to drinking. If the people I'm around never imbibe, neither will I. If they enjoy getting nice and tipsy every weekend, as they do around here, I'll be right there with them. It's so easy to fall into that pattern out here. I love Dornod and I love Choibalsan and I love my friends, but unfortunately there's only so much to do for fun, especially in the bitter, dark cold of winter. So we drink. But it's getting to be a bit much for me. I'm gonna try and take it easy for a while. I never really loved the stuff to begin with. One or two beers is nice on a summer afternoon, and wine can be great with dinner, but that's all I need. I oughtta save a little more money now too.

Anyway, enough about that. What else is new? Perhaps my greatest joy this week has been Jagaa's continued development from a little brat into a good dog. At long last, she's on the verge of being completely housebroken! In the last six days or so, she's only pooped and peed inside a couple times. Some credit is due to my mom and sister here and their aforementioned mammoth Christmas package. It included a bag of treats which are easy to break into tiny pieces. I carry a bunch of them in my coat pocket and whenever she pees or poops outside, she gets one. At long last she's getting the picture. Additionally, I found out this week that a place in Dornod is equipped to spay her! I was getting anxious about trying to bring her into UB and figuring out where I could put her up while there. And, as if that weren't good news enough, they're not charging me! The woman who is going to do it teaches veterinary studies at the confoundingly named Technical Technological College in town, which is where Merrie works. She wants to do it as part of a lesson for her students. It sounds too good to be true, and I'm a bit concerned because of how few pets there are out here, which would imply that she probably doesn't do to many of these procedures, but I called the vet in UB, which is definitely reliable, and they said they come out here and do trainings for the local vets, and the local vets go into UB as well. They're gonna call her on Monday and make sure everything is going to be sterilized and the anesthesia will be properly administered, etc etc, but I think it's gonna work out!

In other news, the city olympics happened at my school this weekend. Ninth graders, eleventh graders, and teachers from around Choibalsan took the tests. I helped out with reading the listening sections and grading, and Zoloo took first prize of all the teachers in the city! She's pretty excited about that, and it means she gets to participate in the aimag olympics in a few weeks. It's gonna be study study study until then. But hopefully she'll win that one too and then go on to nationals! Also, the creative writing competition Kaede and I are working on is coming together nicely. Students will write their essays next week. Hopefully as many of them will show up as have said they would. It'll be nice to get past that step, but there still remains a lot to be done before we're finished in April. Kaede's been doing most of it so far, so she's getting pretty exhausted, but I hope to pull more of my own weight in these upcoming weeks. Fortunately, we get to be together for a lot of that last part. I go into UB at the end of March for another VAC meeting. As you may remember, VAC is like the student council of Peace Corps. That'll be during our spring break, so I hope to get out to Arkhangai and stay with her for a week or so afterwards. It's still a few weeks away, but we're of course quite excited about it.

Kaede and I have also been hammering out a lot of our summer plans, or trying to. We'd like to participate in some sort of project for the first half. Right now we're hoping to get selected to teach English for three weeks to various tradespeople. That could take place in one of several cities around the country, but we (or I, I should say... Kaede's fairly indifferent) would like to be placed in Uvs aimag, way in the mountainous lake-ridden northwest part of the country, so we can get a chance to see some place new. We'll probably find out in a few weeks. If that doesn't work out, we might do a summer camp down in our friend Sarah's town in Sukhbaatar. Either way, after we're finished, we're gonna head back to the states for our wedding! We'll probably spend the majority of our time in Washington state, where Kaede's dad lives, but I'm hoping to pop home to the east coast for a week at some point. It's pretty crazy... neither of us expected to go back during our time here, but I'm sure you know how plans change, and we're getting excited about it now that it's happening. Hopefully I'll see as many of your smiling faces as possible while we're there!

One more video!

2011-03-02T00:28:00.000+07:00

...seeing as it actually is Peace Corps's birthday today. Well, not in Mongolia anymore, as you can see from the date above, but it still is back in America. Anyway here's a neat video made by Peace Corps itself about the 50th anniversary. Somewhat cheesy, but all in all a good summary of the program and its progress over the last half a century. Peace Corps Mongolia even makes an appearance at around 3:20! Watch for the old woman spinning the Buddhist prayer wheels.

Peace Corps is turning 50!

2011-02-27T16:32:00.002+07:00

Fifty years ago on Tuesday, then president John F. Kennedy announced the creation of the Peace Corps. Don't believe me? Well maybe you'll listen to our mutual friend YouTube:

Pretty crazy. Especially when you think about how much has changed. Volunteers in the sixties legitimately had to say goodbye to their lives and families and pretty much go without contact for two full years. Meanwhile, here I am blogging for all of you while listening to an album that was released a couple months ago and snacking on pretzels dipped in Gulden's honey mustard, both of which I purchased in Choibalsan. Sheesh, when I put it like that I really sound like a cop-out.

Anyway, here's another interesting video about it:

"Backwards and depressed areas..." Ha!

On top of that, 2011 marks the twenty year anniversary of Peace Corps Mongolia. Pretty exciting time to be a Peace Corps volunteer anywhere, especially here. Although I'm a bit surprised by how little seems to be going on to celebrate these milestones. I guess all of us volunteers are all pretty far flung, so the summer would be the most practical time for Peace Corps Mongolia to celebrate, in which case such an event, were it to happen, probably hasn't been planned yet. I'll keep you all posted.

The last week has been fine, I suppose. Our heat wave came to an end, though the Eternal Blue Sky was merciful enough not to drop temps too far below zero, and it's supposed to get above freezing again toward the end of this week. I went to work and fed Jagaa and cleaned up her poo and skyped with Kaede and ate tuna melts and played DDR, believe it or not. I also worked on the creative writing competition I'm helping Kaede with. I'm surprised and pleased by how much interest it's generating here in Dornod. Let's hope we can keep it up.

Anyway, I guess that about does it. Don't forget to have a drink to JFK and Peace Corps on Tuesday! They're the reason I'm not unemployed or falling deeper and deeper into academic-related debt back in the states right now.

Liquid water!!!

2011-02-20T18:41:00.003+07:00

And not even inside! Today the mercury rose above freezing for the first time since early November, and boy oh boy weren't we glad to see it. The whole town came alive: children playing in the street, grandmas chatting on their stoops, dogs frolicking in puddles, you get the idea. Yesterday it was almost as warm as it was today, so Bob, Geoff, Trinh, Susanne, Jagaa, and I made the most of it and went on a three-hour long expedition to the Khalkh Gol Pilot's Monument on the east side of town to watch the sunset. It was so liberating to be comfortable outside for such a long time. You can see all of them enjoying the weather as the sun went down in the above picture. I only wore one layer of socks and no long underwear at all! I'd heard PCVs talk about how they'd swear off layering as soon as the first vaguely warm days arrived, no matter how cold it might get afterwards. This seemed silly to me, but now that I've had to spend hours upon hours out of the last few months getting ready to go outside even for the shortest amount of time, I understand entirely. To be honest, getting dressed was the worst part of the winter for me. Once you're out there, assuming you put enough on, the cold really wasn't that bad. What sucked was the five to ten minutes you had to spend getting ready in order to be even remotely comfortable. So yeah, the walk was very welcome indeed. And it was nice for once to be able to give Jagaa the kind of physical stimulation she really needs. If only I had time to make a nice big walk like that every day.

I've spent the last week and a half gearing up for the Olympics, which, after living in Mongolia for two years, will always mean nationwide secondary school competition to me before worldwide athletic games. Every spring, students across Mongolia compete in a variety of subjects to determine who is the best. There are comparable events in the states, such as Academic Decathlon, but none of them bear nearly the level of significance for our education system as the Olympics do around here. Normal classes are rearranged or even missed entirely to allow the best students to prepare for the Olympics. Needless to say, I'm pretty busy helping our best students with their English from this point on. TEFL volunteers are worth having if only for this one time of the year. As ridiculous as this whole brouhaha may seem, tutoring is a welcome change of pace from my normal work, especially since I get to work with the best and most motivated students. The competition occurs on three levels. The school's will be the first week in March, the aimag's will be the last, and the nation's will be some time after that.

On Friday, I picked up from the post office what may well have been the largest package ever to be delivered to this remote corner of the world from America. It was a Christmas package from my mom and sister, a bit behind schedule, but still very much welcome. After getting a good workout carrying it home, I tore the thing open and reveled in the glory of board games, candy, a lunch box, magazines, dish rags, socks, dog treats, scented candles, a guitar humidifier, Rudolph boxers, Christmas lights, a mini-Christmas tree, horseradish mustard, and FIVE different kinds of peanut butter. It was quite nice. Unfortunately, I had to leave my apartment soon thereafter, and I failed to hide everything adequately. I got home that night, tipsy from singing karaoke with the gang, to puddles of chocolatey brown puke all over the carpet. Jagaa had gotten a hold of a pound of chocolate chips, and she'd eaten the whole bag. Fortunately, she was fine, which is more than could have been said for me. I couldn't really be angry at her, though. Of course she was gonna eat a bag of chocolate chips if I left it in reach. I grumpily cleaned it up and went to bed. Since then I've spent a lot of time getting this dump in order. That little turd is getting bigger and more capable of pulling stuff off tables and eating or attempting to eat it, which means I have to stop leaving stuff on tables. Ah the woes of becoming responsible.

!تحيا مصر

2011-02-12T00:03:00.002+07:00

This isn't a political blog by any stretch, but I'm just so filled with joy at what has happened in Egypt today that I had to express it in every way I could. It's amazing that I was there only three years ago, and that, in spite of the occasional bread riot, it felt like things were never gonna change, as much as everyone hoped they would. I'm so happy for the wonderful people of Egypt and all that their bravery has accomplished. May the sun rise on a functional, representative government as (relatively) smoothly as it has set on Mubarak. Long live Egypt!

John Johnson

2011-02-10T10:45:00.000+07:00

Holy guacamole! It's been nearly a month since I posted! Apologies for having been so remiss. I wasn't all that busy in any usual sense of the word, but I suppose I was trying to enjoy my time with Kaede as much as possible. In case you're still worried, my pink eye cleared up no problem. I wound up in UB for just a few days and then got flown back to Kaede. School and work get all but canceled this time of year. There's a ton of holidays, it's really cold outside, and everything just kinda falls apart. A week after I returned, the city's foreign language methodologist hosted a two-day seminar on a variety of subjects. Kaede, Zoloo, and I were given half of one of the days to inform the teachers about creative writing and its benefits in the foreign language classroom. Because of my conjunctivitis and the resulting trip to UB, we didn't have quite as much time to plan as we might have liked, but overall it went really well. Everyone seemed to feel it was a useful and important topic, though we're a bit skeptical that many of them will wind up implementing it in the classroom. Oh well, at the very least we're hoping to get some of them to motivate their students to participate in the International Writing Olympics, a competition started a few years ago by a Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia wherein students from PC countries around the globe have one hour to respond to one of three creative writing prompts. Essays are judged on ideas, not grammar and spelling. Mongolians love competitions and prizes, so hopefully this will be a good way to get them interested in creative writing. I should note that this whole thing was Kaede's idea. Thank god I have such a motivated girlfriend.

Or should I say, fiancée! Certainly the biggest news of the last month is that Kaede and I are now engaged! It's pretty crazy, I know. A year ago, I didn't even know I was coming to Mongolia, and if you'd told me I'd be engaged by now, I probably would've hit you. Shows what I know. But yeah, Kaede and I have been talking about it for a while. I definitely feel like I would be very happy for the rest of my life with her, and she seems to feel the same way about me. So it had been something we sort of expected to happen at some point from pretty early on. Then, back in October, our good friend and fellow PCV Tim, who sensed our potential, alerted us to the PC policy that says that volunteers who marry each other during service can be moved to the same site. Being away from each other is so difficult, not to mention distracting, that we knew we'd be happier and more effective as volunteers if we were together. But, as sure as we were, we figured we ought to give it a bit more time before we put the wheels in motion. Fortunately, we knew Kaede was going to have this month-long break in January, and we figured that would be the closest thing to a test run we would get. Needless to say, it went really well, so when I was in UB, I picked up a ring.

Kaede of course guessed I would do just that, and as soon as I got back, she was all over me, helping me "unpack." I hadn't expected her to be so aggressive about it, and somehow clutching my backpack and refusing to let her see anything inside it kind of gave me away. Just my luck that I couldn't remember which pocket I'd put the ring in, so that the little golden box holding it flew right out as I was fumbling around trying to find it. I snatched it and hid it behind my back, locked a very excited Kaede in the bathroom, and hid it away until the proper time. The next week it seemed every other minute she was asking me when "Box Day" would come. The following Saturday marked six months since we'd gotten together, so she pretty quickly divined that that would be the day. And it was. The surprise was kind of ruined, but what can ya do? At least this makes a better story.

So we're going to get married this summer! Hence the title of this post: if I took Kaede's last name, that'd make me John Johnson. Amusing as that is, I'm pretty sure I won't. We talked to Ellen, the country director, about it, and she's pretty much on board. It sounds like it's more likely that Kaede will move to Choibalsan rather than the other way around. Fortunately we're fairly ambivalent as to who goes where. Tsetserleg is super beautiful, but Choibalsan seems to have better community-volunteer relations, and my school also works with me a lot better than Kaede's does. We'll see. Apparently quite soon too. We were worried we wouldn't know who was going where until as late as the summer, but Ellen says we'll probably know by the end of the month!

I spent the last two weeks in Ulaanbaatar and Arkhangai, Kaede's site. We had a week-long break for Tsagaan Sar, the biggest holiday of the year. Kaede and I headed to UB with Baagii to get his ears taken care of. The picture above is him sleeping under my hat on the long bus ride in. As you may or may not be aware, the poor little guy had pretty bad frostbite and ear mites which culminated in the tips of his ears falling off. Originally Kaede was going to take Jagaa back to her site, but when Baagii's ears got bad, we realized he needed to see a vet, so she wound up with him instead. Anyway, the vet looked at his ears and told us they needed to be trimmed down to the living flesh, but that they couldn't operate until he'd been dewormed, or the anesthesia could be deadly. So after a few days of hanging out in UB with our friend Sarah, which included lots of good food and a trip to the national opera (which is where we are in the pic below), we headed to Arkhangai for what we'd hoped was just a few days so that Kaede could meet with her counterparts and start planning the new semester. Unfortunately, they were all too busy preparing for Tsagaan Sar to see her. We wanted to go back to Bayandelger to spend the holiday with our host families, but the buses were all shut down, so we got stranded in Arkhangai. Tsagaan Sar is the celebration of the lunar new year. Families visit one another and eat and drink and give small presents. We wound up only visiting one family, but after hearing about the experiences of others, I'm not too sad about it. At each house, you're expected to eat at least three buuz and drink three shots of vodka. Many of my friends visited dozens of houses over the three days. They were drunk, overstuffed, and exhausted. Anyway, we still have one more year to do it "right."

So instead of all that, we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (one day it was in the 40s!!!), went hiking, and played a lot of Monopoly with the aforementioned Tim, as well as Mark and Kara, Kaede's sitemates. It was quite nice actually. She lives in a really beautiful place, and it was nice to relax there for a while.

On Sunday we headed back to UB for Baagii's surgery. It went off the next day without a hitch. It turned out his ears were healing so well that they decided chopping them off was unnecessary. They did however take his balls and the tip of his tail, which had also gotten frostbitten as well as slightly broken. He was a bit off for the rest of the day, though it was mostly the anesthetic, which apparently was also a hallucinogen. He kept stumbling over himself and looking around at things that weren't there. It was a little bit cute, a little bit sad, and a lot of funny.

Now both Kaede and I are back at our respective sites, which is a real bummer. I miss her a lot, though I probably shouldn't complain. We were some lucky to get to spend a month and a half together during the school year. Hopefully I'll stay busy and get a lot of work done, and before long it'll be late March/early April, the next time we get to see each other. And then we'll only have another month or two apart before it's summer and we're together for good!

I hope you're all well, and that your Groundhog Day was unforgettable. I was not a little amused by the fact that the most important holiday of the year over here is at the same time as the most ridiculous one back in the states. Here's a pic of Kaede, Tim, Mark, Kara, and their Mongolian friend Ochka all decked out for the holiday.

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

2011-01-11T22:37:00.003+07:00

...so I can, so I can
hide my nasty pink eye from the worrrrrld...

That's right, I got the stink eye. You can see it ruining a perfectly nice picture of Kaede, Jagaa, and me on a frigid walk down to the river above. In spite of the fact that Kaede had it and I've been spending a heck of a lot of time with her, it seems like it may have come from a different source, as she had bacterial conjunctivitis, and mine is viral. She claims it's because I keep rubbing Jagaa's poop in my eye, in spite of my repeated assertion that I do no such thing. Other than the unsightliness (no pun intended!), it hasn't been that hard on me. Actually, the worst part has been that, since it's pretty contagious, it's kept me from working. Oh, and now Peace Corps is a bit worried about it so they've flown me into UB to do some tests or something. I'm not entirely sure. That's a major bummer though, since that means Kaede is now alone in Choibalsan. Hopefully they won't keep me here long, but they've yet to give me an estimate. Ideally I'll be heading back to Choibalsan on the Friday flight, but I fear that's a bit unrealistic.

How bout a story! So at 6 or so tonight, I left the apartment and went to the road to grab a cab to the airport, which is a good ten miles or so out of town. The first cab I stopped told me he couldn't take me because his car was too small. I needed to find a big car, he said. Considering the one other time I'd been there it had been in a small car, I thought this odd, and I flagged down the next sedan to come by. This guy wasn't such a wussy, and off we went toward the airport. Or so I hoped. He was going a different way from how I'd gone the other time, but I figured, hey, it's the airport for the fourth biggest city in Mongolia... there's probably more than one road to get there. Well, that's probably true in the summer, but this is the winter, when, as is the case with many places in this country, there's only one road to get there, and then there's lots of would-be roads that are covered in snow. It soon became evident we were on one of the latter. At first the snow drifts were small enough for the Hyundai to overcome, but as we got farther from town, they got bigger, and it wasn't long before I was standing behind the car, pushing with all my might and regretting my earlier wussy accusation. To no avail, of course. After fifteen minutes or so, the driver got out, scratched his head, and walked over to take a leak. When he came back, he told me I could walk to the airport if I wanted. I saw a set of four lights on the horizon. Pretty humble, but so is the Choibalsan airport. I asked him if they were in fact the airport. They are, he said, and they're only a kilometer away. I mulled it over. Compared to recent nights, this one was relatively warm (about -10). Also, I was pretty warmly dressed, and I didn't have too much luggage (just a backpack and my laptop bag). Who knows how soon he'd dig himself out, or how accurately we'd be able to give a rescue vehicle directions to come pick me up, so I decided to go for it. I asked him how much I owed. At first he said 8000 tugriks, the standard rate for a ride to the airport. I was a little peeved at that, considering I definitely wasn't at the airport, but I didn't feel like arguing. As I was getting the money out, he changed his fee to 10000 tugriks, citing the fact that his car was now stuck in the snow and he was going to have to spend a lot of time and energy digging it out. This was a bit ridiculous, as it was his fault he took a bad road, but I did feel sorry for him, and I really didn't want to argue. I forked it over and headed for the lights.

His distance estimate was pretty accurate, but it was soon apparent that this was no airport. Rather it was a large remote dwelling with lots of angry barking dogs that added to my slowly building sense of impending doom. An image of freezing to death on the steppe flashed through my head, and I couldn't stop thinking of "To Build a Fire" by Jack London (at least that guy had his dog with him, as well as the means to make a fire, whether he screwed it up or not), but I snapped out of it and told myself I had to press on, and that, worse come to worst, I could always see the smoke stack of the coal plant at the edge of town, even if it was ten miles away, and I knew I could make it there if I had to. And part of me kinda hoped I'd die anyway, so that that lying driver could hear about it and feel like a jerk.

I left the "road" and started to hike overland along a set of power lines which I assumed led to the airport. It wasn't long before I crested a tiny hill and was rewarded with a view of the airport's squat little control tower in the distance. Distances are notoriously hard to eyeball in Mongolia in the daytime, to say nothing of the night. It looked far, but I figured no more than half an hour or so. I struck out, occasionally breaking through the snow to my crotch, occasionally catching my foot and falling on my face. I walked and walked and walked and the airport didn't seem to be getting much closer. I began to think I was losing my mind. Meanwhile, I was losing feeling in my feet. If you ever plan on doing some winter hiking in Mongolia, wear at least three layers of socks. On the bright side, the rest of me wasn't that cold at all. There was no wind, so my face was pretty much fine. I was wearing US military long underwear (thanks Uncle Phil!) under my jeans, which kept my legs plenty warm. And thanks to that goddamned coat, my torso was actually sweating profusely.

So I trudged on and on, and of course, eventually the airport did in fact get closer. After an hour and a half, I made it. And I didn't even miss the plane, as it had been delayed, though to be honest I was hoping I would so I could go back home to Kaede. I was quite a site when I finally arrived. First of all, there's not much of a parking lot, so people could tell I hadn't gotten out of a car. Here comes a crazy American, walking in from the darkness of the empty steppe covered in snow, his beard a big hairy icicle, one eye beet red. And when I took off my coat, my shirt was completely soaked from the sweat. It's a wonder they didn't have me arrested.

Anyway, I hope that's the most grueling physical challenge I have to face during my time in the Peace Corps. I'd been hoping for a story like that one, though it was a bit harrowing to live. But as unpleasant as it may have been, it's not a fraction as bad as knowing that Kaede is back in my apartment, the one place I've wanted her to be for months, the one place where I've dreamt awake and asleep of her magically appearing, and I'm six hundred kilometers away in stupid UB. But I guess that's just the way things go.

On a more uplifting note, we got a kitten! His name is Muurbaatar, which means "Cat-hero"! You can call him Baagii. Here's a picture of him after his first bath, and from the looks of it his last if he has anything to say about it!

He's a stray too. It's probably a little crazy to have two animals while serving in Peace Corps, but Kaede is gonna take one of 'em back with her to Tsetserleg when the time comes. Originally she was planning on bringing Jagaa, but she's beginning to take a real shine to Baagii, especially after he put the dog to shame by peeing in his litter (read: dirt) box the minute we brought it in the house. Jagaa still can't manage to do anything but eat the newspaper we lay down for her. Hopefully she'll learn a thing or two from the little kitten. As for now, she alternates between irrational fear of Baagii and terrifying excitement. Kaede, Baagii, and I are eagerly awaiting the middle ground. Here's a peek at what it might look like when it comes. And a shot of Baagii looking less emaciated and terrifying. As well as a nice view of my crotch.

Surprise Attack!!!!!!!!

2011-01-01T12:00:00.000+07:00

So my Christmas wasn't so blue after all. As you may be aware, my lovely girlfriend Kaede rode for two days on dismal buses halfway across the country to surprise me on Christmas Eve! She had told me she wouldn't make it out here until mid-January, but she had been LYING! Anyway, it was just about the best Christmas present of all time, especially seeing as she's going to be here until mid-January, and then I'm probably gonna go with her to UB and then Tsetserleg, where she lives until the end of the month. That's a hell of a lot of time together for star-crossed lovers like us. We'll have to find someone to take care of Jagaa while we're there. I think Kaede's gonna miss her more than I will. They're becoming fast friends. Above is a pic of my two girls having a doze. Ain't they the cutest?

Christmas itself was a lot of fun, especially if you like eating. Which I DO. We had a big potluck at Bob's. There was turkey and steak rolls and mac & cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry (actually lingonberry) sauce and pumpkin pie and apple pie and eggnog and Kenyan food from our friend Easterlina and a bunch of other stuff and even GUACAMOLE!!! That's right! Merrie had just returned from a brief check-up in Thailand, and she smuggled a bunch of avocados back with her. My god I'd forgotten how delicious they were. So we all stuffed ourselves and laid around under the Christmas lights and talked about a variety of things, and even though it felt nothing like Christmas, it was all very nice.

Over the last week Kaede and I have just been hanging out, doing crosswords and cooking good food and meeting and greeting the Choibalsan community. She's quite popular with all my counterparts and the like (just as I expected). Last night we went to my school's New Year's party (below is a picture of Zoloo dancing with Kaede, who is clearly pumped for me to be taking her picture... as usual). There was a lot of heavy drinking, which my counterparts told me was mandated by the administration... so much heavy drinking in fact that school was preemptively canceled for today. It was fun though. The highlight may have been when Kaede and I were forced to go up on stage and compete in a competition wherein each couple were given an animal and then made to impersonate two of said animal in love. And guess who won? Me and Kaede! Or should I say, Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel! We squeaked at each other lovingly and then Kaede pretended she was hungry, so I ran up to a pole which was clearly a tree in our little pantomime and I found her a nut. She ate it and we won! I think perhaps only because we were the sole couple whose performance wasn't totally perverted. You should've seen the bears.

Happy New Year!

ADDENDUM: I didn't manage to get this post out last night before we left to celebrate the holiday, so I may as well add in what we did. It was fellow volunteer Susanne's birthday, so we all went out to dinner and then back to her place to cook onion rings and french fries and generally be as ridiculous as possible in the last few hours of 2010. It was a good time. At midnight fireworks went off all over the city. Here's a pic I took of one from Susanne's chilly balcony. Hope you all had/are having a great time too!

The Nine Nines

2010-12-19T13:24:00.005+07:00

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:

The First Nine- Milk vodka congeals.
The Second Nine- Russian vodka congeals.
The Third Nine- The tail of a three-year-old ox freezes.
The Fourth Nine- The horns of a four-year-old ox freeze.
The Fifth Nine- Boiled rice will thaw.
The Sixth Nine- Roads (where they exist) blacken, as in the snow melts off of them.
The Seventh Nine- Hilltops blacken.
The Eighth Nine- The ground becomes damp.
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???

2010-12-12T22:44:00.004+07:00

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

2010-12-09T10:43:00.003+07:00

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

2010-12-05T19:38:00.004+07:00

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.

Баяр Баярлалаа-Өгижийн мэнд!

2010-11-25T09:50:00.003+07:00

That's my crappy attempt to say Happy Thanksgiving in Mongolian. Probably makes no sense, mostly because I never really figured out how to make a gerund, but it'll just have to do.

So whoa, it's been a while since I posted. I'm becoming quite the deadbeat blogger. And actually a fair amount of interesting stuff has been happening these past few weeks, at least comparatively. Let's see if I can list 'em out real quick.

I went with Marg (an Australian VSO volunteer/all-around Wonder Woman) to a place the locals call Diviiz, which is their way of saying Division 5. It's an abandoned Soviet base of sorts about 10 km out of town which many of Dornod's poorest citizens now call home. After millions of livestock died in last year's devastating winter, many Mongolians lost their means of survival, so they moved into derelict buildings like the ones at Diviiz. When they arrived, there was no water nearby, no school for miles, no food to be easily accessed. With the help of people like Marg, they now have a kindergarten for the younguns (it's adorable! made of two gers!), a well, a greenhouse, a chicken coop, and many other awesome necessities. It was pretty inspiring to a lazy volunteer like myself.
I traveled with some friends to a place about 90 km west of Choibalsan where there used to be a city which was built by the Khitan Empire. Nowadays all that's left is a single tower, maybe sixty feet high, and the foundations of a few walls. After living in a place like Egypt, this ruin was not all that impressive, but it was neat to see something a thousand years old in a country whose inhabitants barely built permanent structures until the last hundred years.
We visited the local power plant, which provides electricity for three aimags!!! It was built by the Soviets and was actually quite interesting. We didn't know if we'd be able to get a tour, so we just showed up and asked. A moment later, we were donning hard hats and walking through crazy big boiler rooms and whatnot. I felt like I was in an episode of The Simpsons (even if it wasn't a nuclear plant), which, if you know anything about me, you'll know was a very exciting way to feel.
I came to UB (in spite of some crazy Peace Corps flight arrangement mishaps... I had to take the bus instead of getting to fly... UGH!). Next week, we have a week long training seminar, as I may have mentioned before, but thanks to some very light work I've been assigned here for my school, I got to come in a week early. As luck would have it, Kaede found some similar work in the city, so we've been hanging out and cooking lots of delicious food together, which has been wonderful.
I bought the warmest coat in Mongolia's largest black market, which is one of the largest markets in Asia. At least they told me it's the warmest. And since, standing around in single digits temperatures I find myself sweating even if I don't zip the thing up, I'm inclined to believe them.

I probably missed some stuff, although I'm sure it was on the boring side. Sorry I don't have any pics of any of this stuff with me. I didn't bring my computer to UB, so I'm at an internet cafe right now. Anyway, I should get going, but I hope you all have a very happy thanksgiving!!!

I don't like making blog posts without pictures, so here's what I found when I did a google image search for "Mongolian Thanksgiving." As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with the holiday, but I think you'll agree with me when I say it's a pretty sweet pic.

There is now a thirteen hour difference between Mongolia and America!

2010-11-08T11:00:00.002+07:00

This post is copied nearly verbatim (with a few obvious changes) from one I made two-and-a-half years ago on the Pete and John in Cairo blog. I'm just that lazy.

The East coast, that is. Which is the way it's supposed to be. You guys just stopped observing Daylight Saving Time, and us Mongolians never observe it, so it actually is a thirteen hour difference between these two places. And while that makes it sound like we're farther away than we thought, it actually means we're closer, since in fact there's only an eleven hour difference in where the sun is relative to us. It's just eleven hours in the wrong direction, so says the man.

So yeah... just thought you all should know. Here are ten other quick fun facts about Daylight Saving Time.

While Benjamin Franklin didn't invent it, he was the first to propose anything similar, albeit sarcastically. In 1784 he anonymously published a pamphlet in France which suggested that shutters be taxed, candles be rationed, and cannons be fired at sunrise in Paris to encourage people to get up earlier and take advantage of the daylight hours.
William Willett was the first to develop the idea. He came up with it in 1905 on one of his daily pre-breakfast horseback rides. It made him sad to see how many of his fellow Londoners slept through the best part of an English summer's day. Additionally, he was a little miffed to have his golf game cut short at dusk each evening. He never saw his plan come to fruition during his lifetime, but one year after he died in 1914, the Central Powers became the first nations to implement DST. By 1918, it had taken much of the world by storm, and Willett is aptly remembered by a memorial sundial which is permanently set to DST.
Contrary to popular belief, DST actually increases energy use! While it is true that there is a decrease in energy costs used for lights, there is a much greater increase due to the greater amount of cooling required when awake during those hotter parts of the day.
DST hurts primetime broadcast ratings.
One of the biggest negative impacts of DST involves its effects on the body's circadian rhythms, which can be quite severe and last for weeks. Kazakhstan cited such complications as a primary reason for abolishing DST in 2005.
The esteemed Canadian writer Robertson Davies said of DST, "[I detect] the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, to get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves."
To combat some of these difficulties, some parts of the world skew their timezones westward, effectively establishing permanent DST. That is, their clocks always read ahead of mean solar time.
Most countries near the equator don't observe DST, for the obvious reason that the sun's cycle doesn't vary all that noticeably. Countries like Brazil, however, where the Equator runs through part of the country but a sizeable portion is far enough from it that the sun's cycle changes significantly, the farther parts observe it while the nearer parts do not.
I don't like Daylight Saving Time.
Perhaps most interestingly, and here I must quote the Wikipedia article to which I am fully indebted for this entire post, since it is described almost too well there, "In the normative form, daylight saving time uses the present participle saving as an adjective, as in labor saving device; the first two words are sometimes hyphenated. Daylight savings time and daylight time are common variants, the former by analogy to savings account. Willett's original proposal used the term daylight saving, but by 1911 the term summer time replaced daylight saving time in British English." Wow. Fascinating!

"I like to kill somebody in my free time."

2010-11-04T22:40:00.004+07:00

The past week has been dominated by a series of various vaguely Halloween related activities. They've been far more amusing than authentic, but whatever. It's pretty neat to see people so far from America getting excited about our most bizarre of holidays. Excluding, perhaps, Groundhog Day. We'll see how they deal with that one come February 2. Anyway, I kicked the whole thing off by judging another school's Halloween competition on Saturday morning. It was very long and drawn out, and by the time I'd been there for four hours, I really wished I'd grabbed some breakfast first, but it was nice just the same. There were some particularly interesting performances, the highlight of which was definitely a zombie séance set to some weird spooky new age music. The zombies gathered in a circle around a silver coffin and a pile of flowers, the latter of which soon birthed a nun carrying a giant cross. She used this to bless each of the zombies, ending by waving it at the coffin and saying something like "Jesus is loving you!" What happened next you ask? Why a flowery zombie Jesus erupted from the coffin, of course! And what did the other zombies do? Why they lifted him onto their shoulders from where he emitted perfectly timed spirit fingers in a most demonstrative way. And how did he bring this all to an appropriate close? BY LEADING THEM ALL IN A SLOW MOTION NEW AGE ZOMBIE MACARENA! As the MC said afterwards, it was truly terrible (the title of this post is another hilarious construction made during the performance). I felt like I was on some kind of hallucinogen. Bob took a video. Hopefully I'll get it up here at some point.

On Halloween proper, Geoff and I taught a special holiday lesson to our ACCESS class (the one from which last post's picture comes), and then we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas in the film club, which everyone loved (how could they not?). That was about it. Also, I ate lots of chocolate chip pumpkin cookies (see below), which I made with the canned pumpkin my mummuh sent me and with mummuh's famous recipe. They turned out amazingly well. It was almost like I was home. Almost.

The last event in the Halloween festival came on Tuesday when we celebrated it at my school. The party was pretty haphazardly thrown together, but it managed to be a success just the same. Almost entirely as a result of bobbing-for-apples, most likely. When people asked me what games Americans play on Halloween, that's the one that jumped immediately to mind. Funny thing is, I'd never played it before that night. But thanks to all sorts of blindfolding and hand-tying and other trickery, the kids loved it (see pic below of Aagii and I fighting for the only apple in a big ole bucket).

In other news, next week we have a one-week vacation to mark the end of the first quarter. I wish I could go west to see Kaede, but apparently there's some work to be done around here, and anyway I'm gonna see her the next weekend! The week after Thanksgiving we have Inter-Service Training (IST), which is when we get to choose a counterpart to bring into UB (no easy matter, which is the understatement of the year... ask me directly for more details on THAT fiasco) for a seminar on English teaching methodology and grant work, but Kaede and I both are going in a week early for other work-related reasons. That means we get two weeks together! Needless to say, I'm very excited.

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween back stateside, and that the election results haven't spooked you too badly. Bwahahahaha...

Exquisite Corpse

2010-11-01T18:04:00.003+07:00

I just had my ACCESS course. Every Monday night, I teach English to a small group of motivated students from some of the poorer families in town. It's arranged by a program called ACCESS, which was started by the American government. I don't know a lot of the details of how or why or when though. Anyway, it's pretty much my favorite part of the week. The kids are so motivated, and it's nice to have something I get to plan on my own. Above you can see a picture of me teaching them. It was Halloween, and I went as a lumberjack. I normally dress much more professionally. Tonight we played exquisite corpse, which is a game with which I'm sure you're all familiar. It's when everyone take turns writing a story, one line at a time, and you wind up with something really disjointed and ridiculous and funny. I thought I'd share a few of the cuter ones with you all.

1. There once was a little boy named Danny. Danny really wanted to get a puppy. He was always thinking about it. Once a day his father said if you study good, I will buy puppy. But he doesn't agree. She is crying for 3 days because. So she wanted happy. But she thought it is not possible. She just wanted to stay at home and never go out. So she did, but she ate all the food in her house, and then she died of starvation.

2. Bob & Mike are very best friends. They live in Dornod. One night they go to the river. They saw very beauty girl. They fall in love. So Tom wanted to marry her. But she didn't agree to marry him. And she run away to another country. The first country she came to was called China. In China, every man wanted to marry her. And they all smelled so good. Suddenly she become monster... She is very sad because she become monster. She looks like witch... Suddenly her mom saw she. She surprised & afraid.

3. Rabbit is cooking a pie just now and decorate home because tomorrow will be Halloween. She decide to collect all animals at home and celebrate Halloween with animals. But animals don't like to celebrate Halloween. Because Halloween is very scary they scared so they went to at home. When they were going suddenly one man came and told that there was a ghost on their way. "I'm not afraid of ghosts!" I told them. "Ghosts aren't real. I'm not afraid of things that aren't real." He think I am grave person? Because he is a man.

4. Not once upon the time now one dog lived. The dog named Jack. He lived with a small family with people. But one of family member hates Jack. "Why do they all hate me?" Jack cried. "I'm a really friendly person! And I love everyone!" But... He doesn't want to do it. His opinion it's so very bad thing. And he cried and his soul is broken.

Classics.

"John is sissy. Wussy John."

2010-10-28T21:09:00.004+07:00

Something my lovely counterpart Zoloo said about me today. But to be fair, I asked for it. Two nights ago I was making dinner and inadvertently stabbed myself right smack dab in the middle of my hand, stigmata style. I was showing the other teachers my wound and telling them about how it had been a challenge to bandage it before I passed out, so woozy do I get in such situations. They seemed a bit shocked and asked me what someone like me was called in English. "A wussy," I said. "Or a sissy, though some people think that's sexist." It caught on.

Halloween draws near, and it's a slightly bigger deal around here than I would've expected. Except for Christmas (which everyone kinda thinks is a synonym for New Year's), it's the only American holiday Mongolians really know anything about, even if there's a lot of confusion as to what actually takes place. We were supposed to have a little Halloween party this afternoon at school, complete with a costume contest, bobbing for apples, and Halloween bingo, but it was decided last minute to postpone it until Tuesday. That sort of thing happens a lot around here. I'm just glad I didn't wear my cowboy outfit to work!

The biggest thing on my mind recently is that, as of a week or so ago, I've been here longer than I spent in Cairo, which was my last major experience abroad. That's pretty amazing, especially considering what a tiny fraction of my Peace Corps service I've completed. What is slightly more impressive to me is the fact that I've now been in Mongolia longer than I've ever been in one country without leaving before. By a long shot. I was in Egypt less than two months before I went to Europe for Easter vacation, and my remaining two-and-a-half months there were split pretty neatly in half by a trip around the Middle East. As for my time in Holland, we were fortunate enough to hit up a new country every couple months or so. It'll be five months in Mongolia on November 5, a week from tomorrow. Craziness.

To celebrate this milestone, here's a pic from my time in Egypt. Keep your eyes peeled in early April, which is when I'll break my record for longest time out of America, surpassing the ten months I lived in Holland.

Stripsearched! Cleansed with vodka!

2010-10-22T15:13:00.004+07:00

Hey pals. So I went to UB last week for the VAC conference, which was pretty cool I guess. It definitely was a lot like a student council meeting, which had me hearkening back to my high school days. There were some interesting issues on the docket however, chief amongst which were why Peace Corps can't give lady volunteers extra money to pay for feminine hygiene products (equal rights?), details of taking days off during the school year if you're TEFL (no more than five), and potentially changing from a 27-month Peace Corps country to a 25-month one, though this too was TEFL specific. It looks quite likely, that last one. You see, since school ends in late May, many TEFLs have to make up bogus projects to hang around Mongolia for their last summer until they COS in late August. So we're probably gonna change that. Which means there's a good chance I'll finish up in late June 2012 instead of late August. Cool?

The most interesting part of the trip, however, came during the mind-numbingly long ride out. About an hour or so in, the bus came to this enormous tent with a bunch of medical vehicles parked next to it. We were unloaded, divided by gender, and shuffled into tents where we were handed a coat hanger each. A little confused, I watched as all the Mongolian men started taking off their clothes. I tried not to let my shock get the best of me and quickly began removing mine as well. We didn't have to strip naked (nor were we searched... it just made for a flashy title), but most of our clothes were taken away from us and, well, I don't know what they did to them. Sprayed them for foot and mouth disease I presume, though they smelled the same when I got them back. While we waited, a woman came in and gave us cotton swabs with which to wash our hands. Said swabs reeked of vodka. Too perfect. Finally, she came in with a spray bottle and sprayed some mediciny fluid into our mouths which we were then instructed to spit into a cardboard box in the middle of the room. All the while, the Mongolian guys are talking a lot about the gadaad khun ("foreign person") and laughing themselves silly, perhaps partially because I was just about the only guy who'd neglected to wear long underwear, so while they were all sitting there mostly covered up, I had my hairy, pasty whites exposed to the cold, breezy tent, as well as to all of them. Amazing.

Because of the delays associated with the quarantine, it was looking like I wasn't going to make it into UB until nearly midnight, so I decided to hop off the bus at Bayandelger and surprise my host family for the night. They were so pleased. They lit a big fire in my old ger, made me some meat soup, and put me to bed. The next day my mom and I walked around the town and saw all the people from the summer. It was great to be back, though nearly impossible to believe that only eight weeks had passed. It was especially strange to be there without all my American buds, most of all Kaede. Everyone asked me about her and smiled to hear that we are still together.

Friday in UB happened to be consolidation, which is when Peace Corps tests its emergency evacuation policies. As a result all the people from the towns surrounding the capital had to come in for the weekend, which was really nice, as I got to see even more friendly faces than I'd anticipated. We had a jolly good time, as the pic above demonstrates.

"Mongolia is a very poor country and is relatively far away from everything."

2010-10-11T20:11:00.003+07:00

That quotation comes from a newspaper article that was brought to my attention by fellow M21s Ryan McGibony and his lovely wife Katie Leitch. The article is pretty amusing on its own, but that line is just priceless.

Oh, and here's a pic of Aagii with one of our very silly seventh grade classes.

So it's been slightly longer than average since last I posted, and if anyone besides me noticed that, you probably didn't care. Which is a good thing. I suppose the main reason for that is that not much of interest has happened recently. The biggest deal was, last weekend, I had my first CouchSurfers here in Mongolia! It was pretty awesome. Their names are Valérie and Stéphane, and they're a really interesting and lovely couple from France who are in the midst of a one-year trip around Asia. They drove from southern France to Finland, left their van there, hopped the train out here, will head down through China and southeast Asia, come back through China, hit up all those 'Stans, and then return to their van and, eventually, la France. When I wasn't fuming with jealousy, I got the opportunity to bone up on my French, which was awesome, though it was simultaneously frustrating, amazing, and hilarious how impossible it was to sift out the Mongolian words. I had a whole conversation with them about Mongolian houses without realizing I was using the Mongolian word for house instead of the French one. No wonder they seemed so confused.

Having them here gave me a good excuse to see a lot of the city which I hadn't had the motivation to on my own just yet. We walked down to some crazy cool old Soviet monuments (see below), chilled by the river, and even saw a little theater. Unfortunately, the theater was freezing cold and filled with loud, whistling, inattentive children, rendering an already unintelligible play all but enraging. Another bummer was that I got somewhat sick during their stay. However, they were totally wonderful and it was actually quite nice to have them here taking care of me. They even cooked me delicious French meals that were easy on my stomach. They left on Wednesday, but I hope to see them again, perhaps at their pad next time. I'm gonna have to hear the stories that come out of this trip of theirs. Hopefully I'll have a few more of my own to share as well.

Well, as I said, not too much to share. I'm headed to UB on Wednesday for a seminar. It'll be nice to go back to the big city, eat a burger, see some fresh faces. And it'll probably spice up the blog a bit too!

The British are coming!

2010-09-30T15:53:00.000+07:00

Saturday night I went out to dinner with my counterparts. One of them, Moogii, had just gotten a one million tugrik bonus (about $750, five times my monthly wage) for being with the school for five years, so she treated us all to quite the feast at a local Chinese restaurant. Aside: pretty much all the nice restaurants in this town are Chinese, and many of them are really freaking good, though quite different from what you'd find stateside. Saturday was a cold, bitter day, but nevertheless I was totally unprepared for what we saw when we left the place...

SNOW!

On September 25! Definitely the earliest I've ever witnessed it in my life. They were big, wet, heavy flakes, and they didn't even make it through the night, but we certainly hadn't seen the last of the stuff. On Monday morning, I woke up and looked out my window to this:

That day was bitterly cold. Literally one week prior it had been in the seventies. I figured we were in for the long haul at this point, that it was already time to start asking people if they were wintering beautifully, only for every subsequent day to be remarkably warm and comfortable. I guess the lesson here is: Mongolian weather is insane.

In other news, a couple days ago, several English people came into town. They're part of an exchange program that sent my counterpart Munguu and half a dozen or so other Choibalsanites to the UK this summer. These folks will be here for a couple weeks, learning all about life in Dornod, ostensibly. I get to meet them tomorrow at our library English club. It's always exciting to talk to other foreigners in this place. I'm certainly not the only one pumped for this experience. Zoloo has been talking about it a lot. A few days ago we were discussing it and somewhere in the conversation she said "the British are coming." I couldn't control my laughter, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy, so then I had to explain all about the Revolutionary War and Paul Revere and Longfellow's poem and how it sounded like Choibalsan was being invaded. A good excuse for an American history lesson, I suppose.

Tuesday night was the opening "ceremony" of Choibalsan's brand new fountain. They threw this bad boy up in a couple weeks, and it's quite the spectacle. Color-coordinated lights and all sorts of crazy cool jets. They were all lighting up and shooting out, vaguely in rhythm with Mongolian and Russian songs booming out of some terrible quality speakers, a standby of any large Mongolian gathering. Townsfolk were gathered all around, but no one looked all that impressed. Bob and I stood around for a little while, marveling as much at the technology of the fountain as at the countless other more useful ways the money might have been spent. If the fountain is like any other in this country, it'll probably be in disrepair by this time next year, which means this may be one of the only times we see it running, being as we are on the verge of freezing temperatures. Oh well... it was still mighty purty.

Just about this time last year, I was waiting patiently to hear where the Peace Corps would be sending me, finishing a long summer of working at Handy Boat, and gearing up for my ten-week roadtrip around the country. I simultaneously can't believe that was only a year ago nor that a year has already passed. I feel like I've lived at least that long since I came to Mongolia, when in reality it hasn't even been a third of that time. Absolute craziness. Here's a picture of me from the beginning of that unspeakably awesome trip, about to engage in a round of fisticuffs with a Québecois lighthouse keeper who rubbed me the wrong way. Clearly a lot has changed, mostly with regards to hair.

"Are you falling beautifully?"

2010-09-22T16:54:00.008+07:00

"Beautifully. And you?"

"Beautifully falling."

This is a translation of a common interchange in Mongolia at this time of year. Falling in this case means passing your fall. I suppose autumning would be a less ambiguous term, but I kinda liked the poetry of my translation. The only response anyone ever gives is saikhan (сайхан), which means "beautiful" or "beautifully." Fortunately, when I say it, I mean it. This has always been my favorite season, and while the foliage here leaves much to be desired (and really makes me miss Maine), it's still quite pleasant.

But as much as people are saying this to each other, I fear we're not far from wintering, and our saikhans will probably be a little less genuine then, as if such a thing as beautifully wintering is even possible in a country this cold. Autumn arrived out of nowhere a week ago. Temperatures had been in the 70s and 80s pretty consistently, when one morning I woke up and... BOOM! FORTY DEGREES AND WINDY AS ALL HELL. Since then it's been downright chilly, dropping below freezing at night, or so the weathermen say. Many of my friends in other parts of Mongolia have already seen snow. Although here in Choibtown, it's actually quite nice right now. I just got back from a run, which was a pretty good time, although it was also one of the more eventful of my life. Children have a tendency to barrage foreigners like myself with "Hi!"s and "Hello!"s when we walk by. Most of the time I go running, they just stare at me dumbstruck. But this time, they went the other direction. For a good half a kilometer, I had a dozen or so adorable Mongolian children chasing me, smiling and laughing and shouting "Hi! Hello! What is your name!?" Then, when I got to the little wooden bridge leading out of town, I noticed a new ger had been erected on the far side, and there were several official looking cars and men wearing those white full-body suits for dealing with diseases and toxins. At first I was all, "whaaaaa???" But then I remembered this whole foot-and-mouth disease deal. If you're big on Facebook, you may have already found out that it has escalated somewhat since last I wrote. My aimag as well as Sukhbaatar, the next one south, have been fully quarantined now. All travel into, out of, and within the two provinces has been restricted for an unspecified amount of time. These men at the other side of the bridge were enforcing said quarantine. Turning people away and spraying the feet of those they let in. Thankfully that's the point in my run where I normally turn around anyway, so it was no problem for me. I hope this quarantine ends fairly soon, as I am supposed to go to Ulaanbaatar in mid-October for my first VAC meeting. Peace Corps seems pretty confident it will. And no one around here seems too phased either. Though people don't really leave that often anyway, and air traffic is still open, so I guess there's not much reason to be.

In other news, in spite of my wonderful counterparts, school continues to be somewhat frustrating. After having three classes I was supposed to team-teach fall through today, I realized something had to change. Currently I'm supposed to team-teach once a week with each of my nine counterparts. It's a scheduling nightmare. Beyond that, they cover the entire range of English lessons at my school, which means one period I'm teaching upper intermediate English to eleventh graders while the next it's basic greetings to eleven-year-olds. And only showing up in each of these classes once a week, I feel more like a guest star than an English teacher. It's not very conducive to, well, anything really. So I've come up with what I feel is a much better plan. Instead of working for one class with every teacher each week, I'll team-teach many classes with just one teacher for three weeks at a time, and then switch to a new counterpart after that for the next three weeks, etc etc etc until the end of the school year. This way I won't get so confused with logistics, and I'll also get a better feel for how each teacher is working, thereby allowing me to give more useful feedback and help them improve their skills more fully. That's the hope, anyway.

Also, I won't feel quite so transient and useless and INSANE.

So that's most of what's up. Spent the weekend with the sitemates again, as usual. Sang some mean karaoke on Friday. Took another nice walk to watch the sunset on Saturday. That same day, Merrie ripped her Achilles' tendon, so she had to go to UB on Sunday, and she's probably gonna be sent to Thailand for a few weeks to get surgery (all Peace Corps Mongolia surgeries are done in Thailand... facilities aren't up to par around here I guess). Hopefully it'll go smoothly and she'll be back in Choibtown with the gang before long. On Monday, Bob and I bottled the first homemade beer we've brewed since I've been here. Looking forward to having a taste of that in a few weeks, once it's finished carbonating and fermenting and all that good stuff. Below, you can see Bob posing with a traditional Mongolian energy drink by the name of Sex Drive, which claims to "enhance blood flow to vital organs" and is infused with "horny goat weed" (you ought to be able to read all that on the can if you click on the pic and zoom in). I wish we'd brewed that stuff.

Finally, if you've been video chatting with me on Skype or Gchat much recently, or if you've been planning to do so in the near future, you're gonna have to wait until October 1. When my fried Danny picked up my modem for me (you can only get the fastest modems in UB, and he happened to be there a few weeks ago), he had to sign me up for a plan. He couldn't get a hold of me at the time, so he just signed me up for the smallest one, which only allows 4.5 GB of data transfer over the month. I'm currently at like 4.1 GB, so I gotta ration the crap out of the next eight days. But I've signed up for 10 GB for all subsequent months, which should be plenty, so I guess I'll see you then!

I've had a few requests for more pics of Choibalsan, so here's a view of the center of town at sunset. Behind the trees and cows, there's some restaurants and shops and hotels on the left. On the right is the wrestling palace. A pretty squat affair, as you can see. But it's home!

All in a day's work for... FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE!!!

2010-09-16T11:08:00.003+07:00

First, a light-hearted, poop-related story. So if this sort of thing grosses you out, maybe you should skip ahead a paragraph. Yesterday was movie prep day at my apartment, so a few teachers came over to watch Big Fish, which went over really well. Now my toilet hasn't been working for a few days, but this is the first time I've had guests since it broke. It's nothing too serious; the handle has just come detached from the actual flushing mechanism, so you have to reach into the tank and pull up the plunger to release the water. I forgot to warn them about this, and several of them used the bathroom over the course of the evening. After they left, I went in to have a pee... AND THERE WAS A HUGE TURD SITTING THERE! A BIG OLE PILE OF IT! IT LOOKED LIKE A FREAKING COW HAD BEEN THERE! As I shut the lid and pulled up the plunger to force the thing to flush,I gagged and groaned in shock and disgust that they would be so embarrassed as to leave their poo there rather than ask me what to do about the situation. When the toilet had finished flushing, I lifted the lid to go ahead with my own business... AND IT WAS STILL THERE! You see I have one of those nasty European style dealies that is more like a platter with a puddle than an actual toilet. Amidst more moans and groans, I began to repeat the process, when suddenly something dawned on me. Something terrifying. Something debilitating. Something unfortunate. Most of all, something humiliating. I recalled that I'd taken quite a large dump just before they'd all arrived, and that the smell had lingered in a rather unusual manner, even by the standards of this unfortunate style of toilet. I recalled that, what with the need to reach into the tank to flush, it was necessary to put the lid down, and that I could not remember having pulled it back up to see if I'd been successful. It occurred to me that, while most of the time the water pressure is more than enough to take down even the mightiest of turds, on occasion this country has caused me to have some extremely massive bowel movements which require flush after flush after flush, and as I did just that, it was becoming apparent that this was just such a bowel movement. And so I went from being positively disturbed by the indiscretion of my counterparts, to being more embarrassed than I've ever been in my life. Four incredibly sweet and proper Mongolian ladies had to see my nasty old poop, and to add insult to injury, they couldn't even operate the toilet to flush it down. Worst of all, these are the people to whom I must turn when I have problems at my apartment, so now when, in a few days, after some of the embarrassment has subsided, I tell them I need to get my toilet fixed, they're gonna be like, "Yeah, we know." Sigh.

Besides that, life has been generally not so embarrassing. This weekend I basically just hung out with my sitemates (see picture above). I've been getting more and more settled into my new life here, and I'm enjoying teaching some classes. Two days ago I offered my first English course for the other teachers at the school, and that was fun. I played "Hello, Goodbye" again. That song is just too perfect. Yesterday, I signed up for Access, a program at the local library that offers English courses to the poorest students in the area for free. I did it mostly to keep me from being bored and missing Kaede, if only one night out of the week, but also largely because I'll be glad to have a class that is truly my own, that I get to plan and teach on my terms. Team-teaching is great, but I also want to develop my solo skills.

The biggest event of the week came on Monday, when I found out Aagii had been fired for not having a teaching certificate. I was shocked and saddened, especially when I heard that normally that's not a big deal; many teachers begin their careers without a certificate and then get one later. It only matters this year because some inspectors from UB are coming, basically to size the school up and make sure everything is in compliance with national requirements. I saw Aagii later that day, and (understandably) he looked incredibly upset. The unemployment rate is enormous in Dornod, and finding another job would not be easy. Plus, he really loves to teach, and now this excellent opportunity to begin living his dream had been torn out from under his feet.

And then, the next day, he was back at school! There's been a minor break-out of foot and mouth disease in Dornod, which has made travel a little more difficult. The police have set up checkpoints coming in and out of the aimag where they spray the soles of your shoes to keep you from trekking the disease in (don't worry... it's really only dangerous to animals). Doesn't sound like much of an inconvenience to me, but apparently it was enough for the inspectors to cancel their visit. The third year in a row they've done so. I guess that's how stuff works around here. Whatever, I'm just glad Aagii got his job back!

So life goes on. No big plans in the near future. As usual, love you all, miss you all. Hope your autumn is coming on nicely. Here's a pic of a sunset/moonrise I watched over the steppe this weekend.

The Posh Corps

2010-09-08T20:29:00.006+07:00

Aagii, one of my counterparts, the one whom I helped get the job as a matter of fact, came over to my place tonight to watch Toy Story (I forgot how awesome that movie is). A couple of us teachers were preparing a list of vocab words to go with it when we show it in our new English Language Film Club this weekend. Last week we watched Grease, which was much more sexual than I'd remembered, although it was a hit nevertheless. But film isn't the point of this story. The point is, Aagii got here early, and he brought along a photo album. Honestly, after eating mutton and drinking vodka, showing people family photos is your average Mongolian's favorite pastime. A lot of Aagii's photos were of his college friends. As I mentioned in my last post, he graduated quite recently. I asked him where they were living now. "Most of them are in UB," he said. "So why did you decide to come back to Choibalsan?" I said. This is the story he told me:

"Well this friend," he said, pointing at one of the men in the photos, "one night we were very drunk, and he..." Aagii didn't know the word, so he made a fist and abruptly shoved it toward his knee, where I noticed a sizable scar for the first time. "With a knife," he said, smiling. "He stabbed you?!?" I was incredulous. I'd heard that Mongolian friends will rough-house when drinking, but I'd thought it was limited to (relatively) harmless wrestling. "What is word? 'Stab'?" "Yes." "Ah yes, he stab me." Shocked, I asked if they were still friends. "Yes of course," Aagii replied, as if I'd been crazy to ask. Anyway, he concluded by saying that, since he did not have health insurance that was good in UB, he was forced to return to Choibalsan to have his wound treated. Fortunately he doesn't seem too unhappy about it. I said to him, "Aagii, if we ever get drunk together, you aren't allowed to stab me in the leg." He laughed, and I added, "although I do have insurance." "Ah yes, I have insurance too!" "Does that mean I can stab you if we're drunk?" He chuckled and told me I could, but I doubt I'll take him up on it.

The last week here has been okay. The highlight was definitely this weekend, when I went with most of the teachers from my school to the countryside for a retreat. We talked and ate and drank and played cards. Saturday afternoon was beautiful and hot, so we went down to the river and swam around. Well I swam. As I may have mentioned before, very few Mongolians know how to swim, and most fear water that rises above their waist. On the other side of the river, however, there was a mountain. Not a big one, but the first one I'd seen since coming to Choibalsan. Obviously I wanted to swim across and hike it. I was not alone in this desire. Aagii was also interested, and he even suggested that we strip our clothes off on the far bank and climb the thing naked! I would've done it, but a few of my female counterparts got up the nerve to join us. We waded across the river, which is very shallow, and in spite of the terrible mosquitoes and rocky ground, hiked barefoot all the way to the top. It was majestic and primal and awesome. The picture above is from the summit.

School is going okay. I realize it's only been a week, but I've been getting a little frustrated by how little work I have and how expendable I feel. But in the last few days I've taught a few classes and my schedule is beginning to fill out, so I'm doing better in that regard. And it's hard to get too annoyed with so many wonderful people to work with, as well as such attentive and motivated students (especially compared to some of the brats I had during training this summer!). One interesting cultural difference I found in my workplace: today I went to the primary school for the first time to observe the fourth and fifth grade English classes. I was sitting in the fourth grade English classroom when I noticed something conspicuous sitting in the bookshelf. I went to have a closer look and was shocked to find... a Mongolian nudie magazine! Many pictures had been cut out, but I'm pretty sure they were all of people who were dressed, probably to teach clothing vocab. There were naked women everywhere, including one softcore picture of two couples copulating on the same mattress under an overpass. Could you imagine the parental backlash if something like that popped up in an American classroom, fourth grade or otherwise??? The magazine's greatest transgression, however, was a picture of some random woman who was labeled as Pierce Brosnan. How dare they!

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been struggling recently with the realization that I'm living a pretty damned easy life here in the Peace Corps. I've got lots of sitemates to keep me company, I've got a nice job with motivated students and teachers who speak excellent English, I've got running hot water and a refrigerator and access to peanut butter and brown sugar and Bailey's Irish Cream and all sorts of fruits. And now I have internet too! My life is so cushy, some people deem this type of service as "the Posh Corps," and I think that's pretty fair. Especially when I remember that some of the people I trained with are living hours from the nearest native-English speaker in gers in tiny towns with no running water and difficult jobs and the knowledge that in a few months they'll be chopping wood every day to keep from freezing to death and waking up every morning to frozen toothpaste! What enormously different experiences we'll have. I just finished washing my clothes in the bathtub, an activity I relish because it is the one remnant I have of how difficult some chores were this summer. But even that is a hell of a lot easier now that I have a big tub to do it in rather than a little bucket, with hot water at the twist of a wrist and a sink for rinsing. Oh well, as I said last time, I'm not taking it too much to heart. It's just kind of... funny.

You'll notice I've made a few changes to the blog. Mostly the picture above (it's finally one I took), some of the colors, and a new tab, geared toward people who are interested in visiting me out here. Which if you like awesome, totally unique places, should include you.

So there's one major detail that I've been omitting in this blog for the last couple months, at first because it wasn't quite so major and I was uncertain about which way things would go, and more recently because I just felt it was private I suppose. But now it's become such an enormous force in my life, probably the most enormous in fact, that this blog just seems like a big lie without including it. And that detail is... I have a girlfriend! If you remember from that long post a while back, I mentioned a girl named Kaede with whom I was playing a lot of cribbage and who was with me when we were nearly dismembered by that goddamned dog. Well, somewhere between card games and animal attacks, we got to really liking each other. It was kind of an unfortunate time for that to happen since we only had a month left at our training site. Kaede is also a teacher trainer, so we knew that there was zero chance we'd be placed together, and in a country this enormous and poorly connected, very little probability that we'd be anywhere reasonably close. As a result of those and other variables, we originally planned to play things by ear once we went to our new sites. But as that date drew closer, we fell more and more for each other, and the whole idea began to seem absolutely ridiculous. I really did not come to Mongolia to be in a long distance relationship, but in the end it just felt right.

It's been rough since we got to site. Kaede is ten hours west of Ulaanbaatar, which makes her about twenty-four hours away from me (which believe it or not, is not even half as far as she could be). Additionally, we're forbidden from leaving our sites except on work-related business for the first three months of service, making any chance of seeing her all but impossible. We talk every day, but the minutes for our phones are kind of pricey. We both got internet at our places so we could Skype, though it only works some of the time.

Anyway, point is, in spite of all that, she's totally worth it. Kaede is smart and funny and gorgeous and talented and interesting and adventurous and good at cribbage and I haven't felt this way about someone in a really long time, if ever. Maybe it's the altitude or all the fermented mare's milk, but I'm pretty sure it's her. Alright I've probably said way more than I need to about this, but the point is, I really like her, and I miss her like crazy, and for some ridiculous reason, she seems to feel the same way about me. It's nice. Really nice. If you've got any long distance pointers, holler at me, cause I'm pretty inexperienced with this sort of thing.

And because I know everyone's gonna beg me, here's a picture of Kaede, the only way I've seen her for the last few weeks... over a webcam. Oh, and by the way, her name is pronounced KAH-eh-deh.

Ойлгохгүй, мэдэхгүй, хамаагүй

2010-09-02T18:11:00.004+07:00

So I've been here a week, which is remarkable considering how relatively little I've done. After the frenzy of the end of PST and then Final Center Days, it has been nice to relax a little before the start of the new school year. After I arrived, I spent the first few days setting up my apartment and exploring the city. It's totally unlike any place I've ever been. Choibalsan basically consists of apartment building after identical apartment building, occasionally broken up by something vaguely resembling a town square (the picture above is one of the biggest exceptions... an artificial lake right near my apartment building). Every few blocks or so there's a restaurant and a supermarket and an internet cafe, etc etc etc, so that it actually has the feel of some sort of a dusty, less crowded Manhattan on the steppe. It's growing on me quite nicely, although every time I read about the mountainous parts of this country, it makes me sad.

My apartment is small but quite nice. I think I hallucinated the fleas, which is a very good sign, for my physical if not for my mental health. I've got a pretty nice set-up at this point. The school has provided me with everything from a refrigerator to a rice cooker. Sometimes I lounge on my comfy couch while listening to the music coming out of my Bose speakers (brought from home) and gazing out the window at the beautiful sunset and wonder if I'm totally missing the Peace Corps experience. Then I forget about it over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a hot shower, though usually not at the same time. Usually.

I did do a few interesting things before school started. First off, on Friday, I met the VSO volunteers in Choibalsan. It should come as no surprise that Peace Corps is far from the only organization to send volunteers to Mongolia. VSO, which stands for Voluntary Service Overseas, is a British-run organization that recruits from all over the world to send volunteers to many of the same countries PCVs go to. The main differences from Peace Corps are that VSO volunteers tend to be more experienced in their field, they don't do a homestay or learn much of the language (in fact they usually have a full-time interpreter to take care of those sorts of difficulties), and the length of their stay is variable, rather than having the required two years like us. Anyway, Choibalsan currently has two of them, Velan, an older gentleman from India, and Easterlina, a woman in her twenties from Kenya. They both seem really cool, and it's nice to have the extra English-speaking company around, although our site is probably the least in need of it.

A couple days later, Velan and I went with my counterpart Zoloo out to the countryside. Velan, who knows Zoloo because he also works at my school, had told her that he wanted to ride a horse. The people we were originally going to see were unavailable for some reason, so we started heading toward a place where our driver knew some people. On the way, we saw a man riding a horse and herding sheep. Zoloo told us that sheep horse are very calm and so this one would be good to ride. We pulled over and asked this man that none of us knew from a hole in the wall if we could ride his horse. He was extremely obliging, and even gave Velan and me some pointers. Afterwards, we went to the driver's friends' place, and they fed us and gave us tea and treated us like family. Mongolia is a wonderfully hospitable country. It was also amazing to see people living so close to the land, so close to the way Mongolians have been living for thousands of years. They were totally off the grid. They had a little electricity from a solar panel, just enough to run a weak lightbulb and a small black and white television. And still they seemed exuberantly happy with life.

School started yesterday. The first day of classes in this country could not be more different from the way it happens stateside. To start off with, there was a big ceremony with speeches and songs, including one of each by me. I mustered up enough Mongolian to say something meager about why I was there, and then I treated them all to a stuffy-nosed rendition of "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. Y'know, the one that goes, "Don't know much about history, don't know much biology." Vaguely relevant, just how I like it. After the ceremony, students got a class about Chinggis Khaan and the history of Mongolia, followed by a live broadcast from the president of Mongolia. Then, there were a few "normal" classes, but no real work was done. People all got to go home early. It literally is treated as a holiday around here, to the point where people go around saying "Happy Holiday!" all day long. It's kinda nice. I probably would've liked it more if I hadn't had to perform.

Today, I went into school expecting to teach some more classes, but apparently Thursday is the day the school gives the English department (the picture below includes all of us plus a few stragglers... oh, and Velan's in there too) off to regroup and plan things for the rest of the week. I'm sure it'll be nice to have in the future, but today we just worked out every painstaking detail we possibly could of the rest of the year. We were all understandably tired by the end of the day, but there was a meeting all the teachers had to go to. Our director was pretty angry because several teachers had gotten quite drunk during the celebrations yesterday, and while that's fairly common around here, it would seem our school takes a hard line on it. The director said that she wanted to fire those people right then and there, but she put it to the floor to see what the teachers thought of it. No one really voiced an opinion, big surprise, so she decided to call on one of us individually. Guess who it was! ME!!! I was pretty taken aback, so I just responded that I didn't understand, a stock retort in an awkward situation around here. But clearly I did, and she called me out on that, so I said that I didn't know. She demanded I not give such an answer, so I said I didn't care, which made all the teachers as well as her burst into hysterics (the three of them sound somewhat parallel in Mongolian: oilgokhgui, medekhgui, khamaagui... they also form the title of this post). I felt too uncomfortable to find it that funny, but I was relieved that I'd derailed the situation. In the end she decided just to dock their pay for three months, which was kind of nice, I suppose.

Oh, one more thing. While I haven't felt like I've made much of a difference in my classes yet, I did manage to be at the right place at the right time and give my altruistic motivation a good jump start. One day last week while exploring town, a Mongolian man about my age came up to me and asked me if he could speak English with me. I said of course, and we launched into conversation. He told me he'd recently graduated from university and was having a lot of trouble finding a job, but that he really wanted to teach English. I told him that that was a shame because his English was excellent (it truly is, some of the best I've heard in this country), but that my school was hiring and he ought to come apply. He did, and he blew the competition out of the water. And the school hired him! So really all I was in this story was a liaison, but it felt really great to help a nice guy get a job. Y'know, all warm and fuzzy. Hopefully it won't be the last time I get that feeling around here.

"You are like a child."

2010-08-26T12:47:00.005+07:00

Welp, here I am, sitting in an internet cafe in my new city. Choibalsan seems pleasant enough so far. My apartment is on the fourth story, and I have a pretty good view south. This is literally the flattest, emptiest place I've ever been in my life. It's kinda beautiful in a way. The ride yesterday (see the post office bus which brought us above) was exceptionally long, and my ass was aching by the time we finally got in at 11 PM, fourteen hours after we left Ulaanbaatar. I sat facing backwards, which afforded me the opportunity to watch the mountains get smaller and slowly recede in the distance. It was almost as sad as it was gorgeous. Nevertheless, I think there is a certain charm in this landscape, and at least I'm only a kilometer or so from the Kherlen Gol, a very pleasant river, and the same one I visited back during training. It's Mongolia's second longest.

In spite of the length, I didn't mind the ride so much. Probably as a result of my iPod, the views, the amount of stuff I had to think about, and Munguu, my fellow teacher who accompanied me. We had all sorts of good conversations, about everything from god to alcoholism to special education to American music. Apparently I'm far more inquisitive than your average Mongolian, as at one point she said to me, "You are like a child. You ask so many questions!"

Also, my Mongolian mom has been texting me like crazy since we got our new phones, and she wanted to know when I'd be rolling through our old training site. I told her, expecting she just wanted to be aware. But when we were driving through, she called me. Unable to understand what she was saying, I handed the phone off to Munguu, who had the driver stop the bus. Realizing what was happening, I apologized to the thirty plus other passengers and told them that my mother was "too good." I don't know if they knew what I meant. A few minutes later, my sister, some other relatives, and my mom come rolling up. She runs out, a thermos of hot milk tea in one hand, a bag of fresh-made cookies in the other, all the while apologizing that she didn't have time to make me a real meal. It was amazingly sweet, and it was great to see her. About a minute later we were back on the road.

In other incredible kindness related news, once Munguu and I got to my new apartment, five of the other English teachers with whom I'll be working were waiting there (below you can see Zola, one of them, presenting me with airag to welcome me), having cleaned it and set it all up for me, as well as made me buuz (steamed dumplings) for dinner. It was very sweet, and they all seem quite friendly. After that I pretty much went to bed, which was nice except I think I might have fleas. This morning I got up and started unpacking and setting up. My apartment is small, but I like it. I have a stove and an oven and a shower, and allegedly I'm getting a TV, a fridge, and a washing machine sometime today.

Well anyway, just wanted to update and let everyone who cares know I'm safe. I go into work tomorrow to get acquainted, and classes start on Wednesday. I can't believe this is all really happening.

Oh, and here's a video of Andrew and I (with some help from Sarah) playing our milk tea song at swearing in. Enjoy!

Ice Cream Dump Trucks

2010-08-24T22:14:00.003+07:00

Well, tomorrow morning bright and early I leave for my new home. I've spent the last week in Ulaanbaatar, swearing in as an official volunteer (see above picture), saying goodbye to friends, and getting to know the city. I'm surprised by how much it's grown on me. It's definitely dirty and run-down, and pickpocketing is rampant to say the least (a friend of mine nearly got his money stolen right in front of me!), but it has a certain charm that's hard to define. It's also been very nice to eat cheeseburgers and pizza and Mexican food and all sorts of other things I haven't had in a while. A couple days ago, I ate probably the closest thing Mongolia has to a Buffalo wing... these breadstick type things stuffed with Buffalo chicken served with a side of bleu cheese dressing. It wasn't the same, but I'll be damned if it didn't taste good. One of the really unique things about this city is that, every now and then, you'll hear what sounds exactly like an ice cream truck melody. Your inner monologue will immediately stop whatever it was rambling on about and scream "ICE CREAM!" You'll follow the noise like a moth to a flame, only to find... A GARBAGE TRUCK. That's right, to alert people to put out their trash, the garbage trucks play very pleasant little diddies of the exact same style as American ice cream trucks. It's cruelly hilarious, or hilariously cruel. Fortunately, I'm not much of an ice cream person, so it doesn't irk me as much as some.

It's been very, very sad to say goodbye to all the friends I made this summer (see pic below for the last gathering of my fellow trainees, plus one of our language teachers), but I can't wait to get settled in my new apartment. I'll write something when I get there. With my new home, I also have a new address and a new phone number, but Peace Corps prefers us not to post those on our blogs. Most of you who read this have probably received an email with those items included. If you haven't and you want them, send me a request, and if you're cool enough, I'll forward it along.

Oh, and here's Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers," cause it's just appropriate.

That is soooooo cool.

2010-08-18T17:25:00.003+07:00

This is legit a video of one of the Mongolians that trained me to teach English here this summer. As many of us found out recently, he used to be Mongolia's first Elvis impersonator! Anyway, you should check this out. It's kinda long, but it's fucking great, and it'll give you some insight into Nargie, one of the badassest trainers in the history of the Peace Corps. I'm gonna miss the crap out of that guy.

Oh, and the story behind the title of this post: I was so glad to see in the interview portion of the video that Nargie uses his trademark term, "sooooo cool." He literally says this all the time, and it's fucking awesome.

"Please don't send me to Choibalsan."

2010-08-15T19:09:00.003+07:00

That is a direct quotation from my site placement form which I filled out for the Peace Corps two or three weeks ago. It probably comes as little surprise then that, as I was informed today, my new home is...

CHOIBALSAN!!!

Yeah, so apparently they didn't listen. The main reason I didn't want to go to Choibalsan, which is Mongolia's fourth-largest city, is that there are absolutely zero mountains. And I really like to hike. Won't be doing that for a while. Dornod, waaaaaaaaaay in the East, the aimag of which Choibalsan is capital, is the flattest part of Mongolia. Oh well, I have a good attitude about the whole thing. I'm sure I'll make the best of it. And hardship is a key part of the Peace Corps experience. So they say. Here are the ups and downs of my new home...

Pros:

GREAT SITEMATES... both the people from my group going with me and those who have already been there a year are AWESOME. From my group, there's Merrie, an older woman who is a university trainer. She's really fun and funny and kind and I'm sure will be an excellent person to have around. There's also Danny from Nevada. I believe he's a health volunteer. I don't know him all that well, but every interaction I've had with him has been pretty swell. Outside of the city, in smaller towns in the same aimag, there's Pico and Jason. Pico is one of the funniest people I've ever met, and Jason is also a really cool guy. I hope they both get to come into the city fairly regularly. As for older volunteers, there's Jeff, Bob, and Amanda, all of whom were trainers for us this summer, and all of whom are really fucking cool. I might be in a geographically uninteresting location, but we have arguably the best group of volunteers in the whole country.
Because there are no mountains, it's a region I probably wouldn't have visited otherwise. So it'll be nice to get to know it as my home. And while it's pretty flat, it's got some other very interesting characteristics. It's in the middle of one of the largest pristine grasslands in the world, and it's got a shit-ton of gazelles as a result. Apparently sometimes you'll look over and thousands of gazelles will be running by. Coolness. Also, there's some sort of lava tubes somewhere nearby? Maybe?
I'm living in an apartment! With a bathroom and running water and central heating and a refrigerator!!! I admit, I feel like a little bit of a sissy for not living in a ger for the next two years, but at least I got that experience this summer. And it'll be nice not to have to worry about freezing my ass off all the time.
Choibalsan is a winter fly site. Which means that from November to March, Peace Corps will pay for us to fly into UB for any required events. It would be kinda nice to be a fly site year round, but this means that I don't have to deal with getting all my shit on an airplane on the way to site next week, and I still don't have to sit through the twelve to sixteen hour bus ride in the winter. However, if I do want to go into UB on my own, twelve to sixteen hours isn't the end of the world, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper than flying myself.
Being the fourth biggest city in Mongolia means that Choibalsan has access to all sorts of nice comforts and amenities. It's also on a railroad spur that the Soviets built straight into Russia (apparently they laid the tracks down to exploit a local uranium deposit). As a result of these two things, delicious items like peanut butter are not tough to come by. Also, apparently there are lots of good restaurants, including a huge concentration of Chinese places, which is rare for Mongolia, a country that almost universally hates the Chinese.

Surely there's lot of other pros, about which I'll update you in the next two years. Here are the cons:

NO FUCKING MOUNTAINS. UGH.
Because I have so many sitemates, and also because I won't be living in a ger with a khashaa family, Mongolian cultural immersion is going to take a lot more effort. It would be very easy to fall into a comfortable life of working with Mongolians and spending all my free time with Americans, but I'd prefer to avoid that if at all possible. I have to remember that I came here to discover something different, not to relax with the known.
I'm really far from all my Bayandelger friends. There's only one other east of Ulaanbaatar (my friend Sarah), and she's still six to ten hours away.

When I put it like that, the pros clearly outweigh the cons. That's nice. I'm sure I'll be swearing by Choibalsan before long. It was just a big shock. At least I can visit all my other friends at their beautiful sites.

In other news, said goodbye to my host family this morning. That was quite sad. Both of my parents cried. I'm going to miss that family a lot. But one more bright side is that they're on the way to Choibalsan, even though I'll rarely get a chance to stop in and say hi on that trip. But y'know, it's better than nothing. I can wave at least.

Also, today my fellow M21s elected me to represent them as a VAC. Embarrassingly enough, I don't remember what exactly my new acronym stands for, but basically I'll be a liaison between my cohort and the Peace Corps. I get to travel to Ulaanbaatar one in the fall and once in the spring to carry out this task. I'm looking forward to the opportunities being a VAC will afford me, and to getting to give something back to my friends.

Anyway, mixed feelings or not, it's really nice to have a new home. Now I just gotta make the most of this last week with all my buds. We officially swear in as volunteers on Friday, and I'll probably head to my new site a day or two later. We go to UB this Tuesday, and they give us our cell phones, so stay tuned if you feel like giving me a call sometime!

Oh, the picture at the top is me in my new deel, drinking milk tea of course. The one below is my mom, some cousins, and I in front of the parliament building in UB. These are the pics I meant to put up with the last post but the internet was too slow.

They know where I'm going!

2010-08-12T08:46:00.002+07:00

Unfortunately, however, they won't tell me. Not yet anyway. Yesterday we had a session and I asked Lisa, a head honcho in Peace Corps Mongolia, whether or not they'd figured out our site placements yet. She said that they'd just finished hammering them out that very day. A friend said, "so you're looking at us right now, knowing where each of us is headed?" She was.

It's crazy that we actually have a new home now, even if they won't tell us just yet. However, the wait is quite short now. This Sunday afternoon, August 15, a mere three days away, we'll find out. I'm so pumped, even though that means that less than three days from now, we'll have left our town and our families. That reality has yet to set in.

The last week has been spent finishing up projects, preparing for our language test, and doing various things around here for the last time. On Saturday, the day after I returned from Nalaikh, my mom took me to Ulaanbaatar for the first time. THAT was crazy. Let me tell you, after living in a tiny town of barely a thousand for two months, a place with no running water and no paved roads, a place which barely has internet, it's quite a culture shock to head to a city of over a million people, a city with high rise buildings and designer clothing stores and real American Heinz ketchup. Oh, and escalators too! I think it was my mom's first time on an escalator, as she kept almost tripping and smashing her face every time we got on and off one, and then she'd laugh hysterically. It was great. Probably no place in my life has ever been built up to the degree that Ulaanbaatar has. It seems like a pretty interesting place, and I look forward to spending more time there in the future. The reason we went was to get me a Mongol deel. A deel is the traditional dress of Mongolia, and as you can see, it's pretty freaking cool. It's basically an excuse to wear a big, comfy, badass bathrobe out in public.

A deel is something pretty much every Peace Corps volunteer winds up getting in this country, but I needed one ASAP for our community appreciation event. To show the town our thanks, we organized a concert and a dance on Sunday night. The girls out here performed two traditional Mongolian dances which were really beautiful (on a side note, the traditional dance of Mongolia is probably my favorite form of dancing I've ever witnessed... it has all the nuance and precision of southeast Asian dancing coupled with the energy and fervor of central Asian and Russian styles; you could probably find some on YouTube). Additionally, my friend Andrew and I performed a song called "Eejiin Chanasan Tsai," which translates to "Mother's Boiled Tea." It's a very slow-moving, epic song with a soaring melody all about how there's nothing as beautiful as a mother's milk tea. It's currently one of the most popular songs in Mongolia, which just goes to show you how different this culture is from ours. Could you imagine if Kanye released a song about his mother's milky tea? Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, we had our friend Sarah play "the mom" and feed us tea as we performed. It was a huge hit. We're going to perform it again at the swearing in ceremony. Also, all of us Americans sang a song called "Ayani Shuwuu," which means "Traveling Bird." This is a love song which is one of Mongolia's perennial classics. It's quite beautiful, and people really love it when we sing it. Finally, they requested that we perform an English song as well, so I played "Two of Us" by the Beatles. I even translated one verse (incredibly poorly I'm sure) into Mongolian.

Afterwards, the dance came. We had to have it in the atrium outside the auditorium because of recent repainting, but it went okay just the same. It was really nice to give a little back to this community that has taken us in and treated us so well. A dance and a concert aren't enough, but they're something.

So anyway, the next few days will see us taking our language and training tests (that's tomorrow actually), having one last big party with our families (for which Brian and Adi get to return!), and then heading out Sunday morning. We'll spend a couple days in Zuunmod, meet our new supervisors, and then head to Ulaanbaatar for several days to get officially acquainted with the nation's only real metropolis. A week from tomorrow, we swear in. I know I've said this a million times, but I just can't believe it's over. Tempus fugit.

In other news, the internet has sort of returned to our town, but not enough to allow me to post any pics today, so you'll all just have to wait.

Difficult Class

2010-08-06T14:49:00.001+07:00

Hey pals. While I've got internet, I figured I'd post a little media from my life. Here's the coolest Mongolian song I've heard so far. It's the closing theme to this really popular Mongolian TV show called Khetsuu Ang, which means difficult class. It's basically the OC of Mongolia. I'm kind of obsessed. The video includes some amusingly intense scenes from the show. Make sure you get to the chorus. It's so badass.

That Piece of Shit John Russell

2010-08-05T19:43:00.003+07:00

Alright, so it's been a ridiculously long time since I've made a real post. When we came back from Mid-Center Days in Zuunmod, the internet had disappeared, and it just never came back. Anyway, this post is pretty much a full summation of what's happened since then, so it's fucking long. If you're interested in details, read on. Otherwise, know that life is good, and while I'm excited for the next step of Peace Corps service, I've grown to really love it here, and I'm gonna be pretty bummed to leave.

Okay, here's a post I'd written before I knew the internet was gone. It covers Mid-Center Days and the week or so that's followed. At the end I've tacked on what happened since, in much less detail.

"What a week! Between Mid-Center Days in Zuunmod and the long weekend we got for Naadam, there've been some pretty exciting goings-on. We'll start from the top.

Mid-Center Days was wicked fun, just as I expected. It was absolutely lovely to get out of town for a couple days and to see all the other M21s and find out how they've been doing at their respective sites. Sessions were a bit boring, but each of the two nights bore witness to some supremely entertaining debauchery. Not much from the first evening bears repeating. We had some drinks and caught up, etc etc etc. The more noteworthy happening that day came earlier, when we got to check out Zuunmod's Buddhist monastery. It was the first I'd ever been to, and it was really cool. I feel very fortunate to be in a country that doesn't follow any of those God-Allah-Yahweh doctrines and to get to see how a totally different system of belief works.

The next day, however, was just action-packed. Or the night was at any rate. It actually started out on a somewhat sour note. I was feeling a little queasy, and after the previous night I was planning to take it easy, in spite of the festivities Peace Corps had planned for us. First off, they'd organized a delish Mongolian BBQ, minus the animal slaughter. Instead they just cooked a ton of wicked tasty kebabs. Following that, we had the DODGEBALL TOURNAMENT! It was all the sites versus one another, and there were also two teams for our trainers and one team for the language teachers. Needless to say, I'd been talking nothing but shit to all the other sites for the two days prior about how we were going to destroy them. All the while I was fairly convinced that we'd be eliminated in the first round. Our site isn't unathletic by any means, but some of the other sites are pretty freaking competitive. Nevertheless, somehow we pulled it together and took first prize! It was so awesome (see victory picture above). Actually, it wasn't even that close; we beat every team but one by a sound margin. And the final game had the most perfect ending possible. We'd eliminated all but one of the other team's players. One of the balls started rolling toward the center line, and Brian, definitely our MVP, ran up and kneeled down to retrieve it. The opposing team's sole remaining player got ready to peg him, and in that position, I was convinced Brian was a goner. But then, just as our opponent lobbed the ball at him, Brian ducked out of the way and lightly tossed the ball he'd just grabbed, tagging the other guy and winning the game! My description is certainly lacking, but rest assured, it was unbe-fucking-lievable. We all rushed to the center and hugged one another and, after that sort of a win, how could I help but party!?!?!

We went back to the dorms and started drinking, and that's when I received my new Peace Corps nickname. This one guy, Eric, has a penchant for giving pretty unsavory nicknames that somehow catch on. The aforementioned Brian is now universally known as "Fat Fuck" thanks to Eric (Brian has barely any fat on his body, which is why it's so amusing). Andrew, another guy at my site, we call "Khashaa Mom." Khashaa is the Mongolian term for "yard," and our host families are often referred to as "khashaa families" because we live in the same yard as them. Khashaa Mom then makes fun of Andrew's penchant for being (comparatively) responsible. Anyway, probably for talking trash to Eric about how we were gonna kick his ass and similar tendencies, he dubbed me "That Piece of Shit John Russell." Perhaps others would be unhappy with this sobriquet, but I actually kind of like it. It rolls off the tongue quite elegantly. And hey, at least I'm not Fat Fuck.

After some substantial pregaming, I was more than ready to go break it down at the dance party PC was throwing for us. It was hot as hell, but the music was loud, the company was good, and the ladies were lovely. All in all it turned out to be a great night.

After some more sessions the next day, we came back to our little town. I got home around 7:30, and my family had khosher (really tasty fried mutton pastries) waiting for me from Naadam, which, as I said before, we unfortunately missed in our own town. Afterwards, I presented them with a whole slew of gifts comliments of my Aunt Claire and Uncle Ron, who had shipped them to me in a care package. There was a lot of candy, which I've already established Mongolians love, some balsa wood toy airplanes, a Red Sox plush doll for baby Monkhtolga, and a card which I struggled to translate into Mongolian for them. They loved it all, and after eating a shit ton of candy, we went outside and played with the airplanes for a while, which was a blast. Thanks Claire and Ron! You can see a pic of them flying the gliders below.

The next day, they took me to Baganuur to get some Korean food and go shopping, and then we went to my aunt and uncle's house for the night. On the way, my cousin showed me an aerosol bottle of some sort. To explain what it was, he pantomimed throwing it at the ground and an explosion resulting. I laughed, somewhat confusedly, and assumed its use would have nothing to do with me. How wrong I was. At my aunt and uncle's khashaa, I got sleepy and took a nap. When they woke me up, they told me to come outside, for dinner was cooking. And can you guess what it was???

BOODOG! TARWAG! BLOWTORCHED MARMOT! I don't know if you remember my entry a while back about this, but boodog is a summer treat for Mongolians, and while I was sure I'd get to have a taste eventually, I didn't think it would be so soon. I shoulda paid a little more attention to my cousin's aerosol can, I suppose. There she lay, the little rodent's head cut off and her neck sinched up, hot rocks inside, and my uncle blowtorching the hair right off, stopping every now and then so he or my aunt could scrape the char (see pic below). It took about a half hour or so (I kicked myself for napping through the earlier stages of the process). When they were done, they washed the little guy down, sliced him open, and we dug in. The meat was nothing special; it tasted pretty similar to beef or mutton, but it was such a unique experience that I quite enjoyed myself. I even kept one of the rocks as a souvenir.

We spent the rest of the evening playing some volleyball and frisbee, sitting around drinking and talking, and looking through family photo albums. The next morning, after breakfast, we headed to Kherlen Gol, a river that rises in Khentii Aimag, Genghis Khan's homeland, and flows many miles east through Mongolia and into a lake in China, which eventually drains in the Pacific Ocean (I believe... perhaps a wiki search is in order once more?). For such a mighty river, it was pretty narrow where we were, and shallow enough to walk across the whole thing without getting your shorts wet. We waded around and washed up a bit, and then sat on the bank and had lunch. A couple days of total Mongolian immersion following so quickly on the heels of partying with lots of English-speaking friends in Zuunmod had put me into something of a funk, and my family could tell. I sat there, sipping milk tea, staring at the gently rolling water and the ripples brought by light rain. I said very little. It was too bad, because, pensive though I may have been, I was really enjoying myself. Before leaving, we played some more volleyball and frisbee, and my involvement made them happier.

The next day, us Americans went for the biggest hike I've been on so far (seven hours, or twelve to fourteen miles we estimated), and that was quite the mood ameliorator. Our elation is apparent in the above picture. In case you haven't gathered already, this country is fucking beautiful, and infinitely hikable, so we couldn't help but have a wonderful time. That night was our final evening of real vacation, so we went to Carolyn's ger and passed around the vodka and talked about our feelings, which are, surprise surprise, quite complex following five weeks in Mongolia. Or however long we've been here. Long enough for me to finally stop dreaming about America. I may have mentioned this in a prior entry, but literally every dream I had for several weeks was about leaving for PC, and how I in one way or another didn't have enough time to say goodbye to everyone I needed to, or to do all the things I wanted to do before I left. Something about Mid-Center Days finally displaced my subconscious into Mongolia, and since then I've been dreaming about more pertinent topics, mostly final site placement. So far they've still been somewhat unsatisfactory... in one I got placed in Darkhan, Mongolia's third largest city and a place I'd really rather not be. In another, I went to the Gobi, and I've met very few people who actually desire to head there.

Oh well. We'll see how the next few weeks, the last month of PST, affect my psyche. I'm going to be pretty busy. Aside from more language classes, we're starting full blown practice teaching, which basically takes the form of a mini-semester, and whose planning will consume the rest of this week. We'll also be involved in a fairly extensive community assessment project. Two weeks from now, I believe my family is headed back to Baganuur for their Naadam. Then, in August, we have both a community and a host family appreciation day. Us teacher trainers will also head west to Nalaikh for a couple days for some sort of seminar on our specific duties, which seems to be a bit short of what is needed there, but what do I know. There's probably several other legit activities I'm forgetting as well. Point is, if I thought I was busy in June, I ain't seen nothing yet. B-b-b-baby I just ain't seen nothing yet."

Alright so that was what I'd written around July 13 or so. Then, on July 19, I added this:

"Okay, that's what I had... since then, I've basically been doing all that stuff I mentioned, as well as playing a lot of cribbage with my friend Kaede, which helps to keep me sane, even if she beats me the large majority of the time. Not much of consequence happened last week after I wrote. I spent a lot of my afternoons sitting in the internet cafe praying for enough connection to check my email and make this post. All in vain. Then, this last weekend, we had registration for our new classes. The picture below is pretty representative of what that process was like. It was basically two afternoons of interviewing anyone in town who's interested in learning English so as to assign him or her a level. We got about seventy people, which was a lot fewer than we'd anticipated, but it went pretty well just the same. Other than that, on Friday we had a pretty silly karaoke down at the 'cultural center.' All the songs were Mongolian, so eventually we just found a bunch of non-karaoke American tunes (Michael Jackson, Lady GaGa, Black-Eyed Peas, Shaggy, JLo, among others) and turned it into a dance party. It was definitely the most I've ever broken it down before dinner without drinking. Pretty hysterical.

Later that night, I went over to Andrew's ger for his brother Oogie's birthday. As tends to happen in this country, we drank more than we'd expected and bonded with Oogie over all sorts of different things. He wants to come to America for his doctorate in a few years. We told him we'd take him on a big road trip together. Awesome.

On Monday (today, as I write this), we had our first class of the new session. My group and I are teaching two courses: beginner adult and beginner child. It went pretty well, although some of those preteens are real hellraisers. Even though I'm less likely to be teaching children, it's good to get the practice. After that, I made everyone else really jealous, as I received three packages, two letters, and a postcard. Although the postcard was from Peter while he was in Scotland, and it depicted a very hunky looking Scot wearing just a kilt and looking quite prevocative. Thanks Pete. Unfortunately, two of the boxes contained items that exploded. One box from Aunt Claire and Uncle Ron had some honey in it which got everywhere, and another from my mom had a bunch of individual peanut butter containers, pretty much all of which popped. Still, the packages were really really nice, and the peanut butter is DELISH (my friends were so desperate for the stuff they scooped it off the inside of the box and ate it). Oh, and thanks to everyone from my cousin Kiernan's wedding who wrote a message in the little notebook for me! That was super nice to read. Although it made me miss all of you a lot.

Hmm... anything else at this point? Well I was walking my aforementioned friend Kaede home an hour or so ago, and we had our first run-in with Mongolia's notoriously ill-tempered dogs. PC nonstop warns us about how dogs are not pets here and are mainly used to defend their owners' khashaas. As a result, they're often treated poorly and can be quite aggressive. All the dogs I'd run into, however, had been pretty freaking docile, except for some barking here and there. UNTIL TONIGHT. As Kaede and I were walking down the hill toward town, a dog came leaping out of his khashaa, snarling and barking and probably drooling all over himself, though it was too dark to see. I shined my light on his eyes, which usually is sufficient to make them back off, but it only delayed this guy a little. He kept advancing on us, so I yelled "JO," which is also supposed to work, but it didn't. Then I faked throwing a rock at him, which they say is good, and might have worked in the daytime, but at night he probably couldn't even perceive the motion, especially with my flashlight hat shining in his eyes. By this point he was only a few feet away and still going fucking nuts. I knelt down to find a real rock to throw at him, but he managed to catch me at the one spot in this incredibly rock-ridden nation where there were none. Finally I spotted a pebble big enough to do some damage, and I whipped it right at him. I barely missed, but it was enough to get him to back off, and to give Kaede and me a window to back out. Haha, it was a little intimidating, but I'm pretty sure that even if the rock hadn't worked, I coulda kicked his yapping fucking head in. Hopefully I'll never have to find that one out for sure.

Okay, it's 11:30, and my ger is quickly filling with tiny obnoxious beetles that love my bright lightbulb. If I don't turn it off soon, they'll be crawling on me all night, which makes falling asleep pretty unpleasant. Sometimes when it's real bad, I have to turn on my booklight and throw it across the room so they'll flock to it and leave me the fuck alone. Good times.

Hopefully I'll be able to post this tomorrow! Love you all! Miss you all!"

Clearly that didn't work. Finally, I'd written this:

"Okay, I wasn't, so here's Tuesday night's brief addendum. First off, I cleaned all the honey and peanut butter off the other stuff Claire, Ron, and my mom sent me. Unfortunately, Claire had written me a nice long letter which had been rendered illegible by all the honey. I was about to throw it away, and then I thought, what the hell, I'll drop it in the water and see if I can't read it. Surprisingly enough, her handwriting became crystal clear, and I read the whole thing! Afterwards, I hung the paper up to dry, hoping I can add it to all the other correspondence I've received, which I hope to collect while here. The whole process made me feel like some sort of a crappy amateur archaeologist. So thanks for that unexpected pleasure as well, Auntie!"

So in the two weeks or so since then, I've been incredibly fucking busy, just as I'd predicted. Classes have been going well. At first, we had no idea how to deal with the children's group. It was difficult to keep them entertained and engaged, but we learned quickly, and through a mix of games, candy-based motivation, and more Beatles songs, teaching them has become nearly pleasant. In addition to that class, Kaede and Kevin, the two other teacher trainers, and I headed to Nalaikh last Thursday to meet with all the other trainers to plan our English methodology seminar. We're here for the night, which is the reason I'm able to post this. Today, we finished our lesson planning. Tomorrow, six groups will present fifty-five minute seminars on various topics. My group is discussing the challenges of adapting a textbook lesson to fit a forty minute class, the standard here in Mongolia. While I don't feel entirely qualified, we're working with Mongolian English teacher counterparts, so I think we've managed to put together something useful, if not authoritative.

Considering how busy we've been, not that much else of interest has happened. The weekend before last, most of us went to Baganuur to see their Naadam (see above picture of a baby dressed up in a wrestler's outfit). Although I didn't actually get to check out many of the three manly sports, it was a pretty nice time all the same. A lot of the festivities were actually quite similar to what you might see at an American celebration. There was a parade of sorts, some dancing, even a fireman's muster. The highlight must have been a drug bust the police department staged, complete with blank-loaded guns and everything. It was pretty hilarious. Other than that, we got to see a little concert, had a few drinks, used the internet, as you know. I also took a shower, which was fantastic. The next day, we headed back in the afternoon, and on the way, we stopped at the big sign that tells eastbound travelers they've arrived in Baganuur. There, we pulled over and out came a bottle of vodka. My extended family and I spent the next half an hour or so destroying it. Drunk, nationalistic, and happy as clams at high tide, we poured out of the car and took a bunch of silly pics on and around the Baganuur sign (an example of which is below), and then my little brother Gan-Ochir, who was fortunately sober, drove us home. My mom and I sat in the backseat and drunkenly bonded, in spite of my crappy Mongolian. I told her, my father, and my brother they were the best family in the world, and she told me whom I should marry. Good times.

On Tuesday, Peace Corps shocked our little site to its core when they told us that two of our sitemates, Brian and Adi, would be going to Bayan-Olgii for their permanent placement. Bayan-Olgii is Mongolia's westernmost aimag (province). It's sandwiched right between Russia and China, and it's home to the nation's largest mountains (some tower above 14,000 ft!). No one finds out their site placement until the very end of PST unless they're headed to BO, the reason being that BO is the one aimag where Mongolians do not comprise a majority. BO is predominantly Kazakh, and while the people and culture are somewhat similar to Mongolia's, there are several major differences, the two most significant being that they are Muslim and they speak Kazakh. This second fact is the cause for informing Brian and Adi early. Tomorrow, the two of them will move to Nalaikh for the remainder of PST. There, they will live with Kazakh host families and have intensive Kazakh language courses. It's only for one week, but hopefully it'll go a long way toward preparing them for the next two years.

Going to BO, like going to the Gobi, is not something many volunteers pine for. While BO is commonly considered one of the most beautiful aimags, learning another language and culture is a lot of work, especially after spending two months preparing for something else entirely. Also, it's the most remote part of the country. To get from BO to Ulaanbaatar requires either an expensive plane ticket or a forty-eight hour (minimum) bus ride, neither of which is very appealing. Peace Corps will fly them in now and then for seminars and the like, but for the most part, they're stuck out there. Furthermore, and this is related to the first point, we've spent half a year or so prepping ourselves to serve in Mongolia. Getting assigned to Bayan-Olgii is akin to being reassigned to Kazakhstan (a feeling with which my fellow PCV friends Rebecca in Mozambique and Sharif in Azerbaijan are not unfamiliar), to finding out that the next two years will be absolutely nothing like you'd expected.

All that said, both Brian and Adi (especially Adi) seem pretty pumped. And to be honest, I'm kinda jealous. The natural beauty of the region is truly breathtaking, and after living in Egypt for five months, I've become quite a fan of Muslim culture. I'd love to see how it plays out in somewhere as far from Mecca as Mongolia. Oh well, I guess I get the best of both worlds, for now I have two good friends to stay with when I visit!

The main reason I bring this up relates to the feelings we Americans experienced when we found out. It was an enormous reality check. Peace Corps informed Adi and Brian during language classes this morning, and when Brian came in to tell us, we were incredulous. It literally took about five minutes for us to believe he was telling the truth. He insisted he wasn't lying, but we were still doubtful. Finally he left the room, and it wasn't until I saw him in the hallway, standing by the window and gazing out at our town, a place that had become his home and which he was about to leave with only a few days notice, barely the time it would take to ride a bus to his new site, an absolutely unidentifiable emotion on his face, it wasn't until then that I realized he was telling the truth. Pretty soon we all did, and even though it was more than two hours before schedule, language class was killed for the day. None of us could've even imagined trying to learn at that point. Several of us cried, including Bolortoya, our language teacher, but mostly we just sat in silence, reiterating our shock in meaningless declaratives. "I can't believe it." "That's fucking ridiculous." "They're leaving." It's hard to say exactly why it hit us so hard. We've known all along that we'd have to say goodbye to this town. Indeed, most of us have been fairly excited about it. Sure, going to BO is a little more intense, and it's a real bummer that Brian and Adi have to leave a week early, but it is only a week, and we will see them again at Final Center Days. I suppose we just didn't want to believe that we were going to have to leave each other, that we wouldn't always have a support base as strong as our host families, our language teachers, and the ten other Americans who have so comprehensively become our lives over these last two months.

Two months exactly, in fact. Two months ago today our plane touched down and we set foot on Mongolian soil for the first time. I can't believe how much has changed

I'm online!

2010-07-24T13:50:00.002+07:00

Hey everybody! As Peter said, internet has been absent from my little town for the last few weeks, which is why there've been so few posts. But I'm in Baganuur for the weekend, and while I don't have much time on the net, I figured I'd put something up. Unfortunately I couldn't find my data stick before we left this morning. I'd written up a pretty detailed post about how life has been over the last few weeks. It's probably for the better. My posts are getting too long anyway. In short, since Mid-Center days, I've been really busy with teaching and whatnot, but I'm loving life, and I'm really gonna miss it here after we leave in a few weeks. I've made a lot of great friends.

One image for you lovely readers: walking home from school, seeing my younger brother with the family tractor fetching water... he offers me a ride home, and we bump up the hill both of us squeezed into the driver's seat, grinning like idiots on a beautiful Mongolian summer day.

No Internet

2010-07-21T10:58:00.006+07:00

Hi Everyone! This is Peter - a friend of John's from home.

I just got a call from him and he's doing great. Unfortunately, the internet's been out for a few weeks in his little town who's name I can't pronounce. Otherwise, he would've posted by now. He's not sure when they'll have it fixed, but he may get a chance to update us when he goes into town this weekend for that big manly festival.

We didn't get to chat for long, but he's in great spirits and it sounds like he's having a blast. How could you not when goat head's for dinner and no one speaks your language?

So stay tuned. There's way more fun, interesting, and culturally sensitive news on the way!

One down, twenty-six to go

2010-07-06T09:55:00.004+07:00

Time is a befuddling taskmaster. Yesterday marked one month since we arrived in Mongolia. In some ways that feels absolutely mammoth... perhaps the most impressive month of my life. On the other hand, I can't believe thirty days have already passed, that a legitimate fraction of my Peace Corps service is gone. Mostly I feel pretty accomplished. It's been a hell of a month. I've learned more than I ever thought I could in such a small amount of time, and I've probably changed more than I ever have in such a small amount of time as well, except perhaps for a few of those really intense growth spurts during puberty. Different kinds of change, of course.

Anyway, it's cool. For one of the first times in my life, I'm unabashedly proud of myself, and, deadly sin or not, that's just swell.

So what's up? Diarrhea/vomiting-wise, I'm feeling much better, thank you very much. The last week has been fairly uneventful, until the good days rolled around that is. The good days is what Mongolians call the weekend. Saturday is khagas sain odor, which means "half good day," since they traditionally get half of it off. Sunday is buten sain odor, or "full good day." Like Americans, they tend to have no work at all on that one. So on this "half good day," my PCT pal Brian and I went with Bolortoya, our Mongolian language teacher, to Baganuur to get some supplies for our Fourth of July bash. Baganuur is the nearest city, and I was pretty shocked by just how big a town it is. It really feels like the middle of nowhere out here. We're two hours from Ulaanbaatar, which, as you may be aware, is by far the largest city in this country, and I guess I just assumed that if you didn't head that way, there was nothing. But a mere twenty minutes in the other direction, Baganuur is quite the town. According to one Mongolian woman, thirty thousand people live there, which is quite a few for this place. I'm a little skeptical. Anyone care to find out what wikipedia has to say about the matter? Thirty thousand or not, there are high rise apartment buildings, supermarkets, ATMs, night clubs, etc etc etc. They had everything we needed, from bananas and jellatin to cheap beer and electronic razors to BBQ sauce and peanut M&Ms! It was nice to get out of Small Town Mongolia for a bit, and we even went to a Korean restaurant for lunch and had a few beers with Bolortoya. I really love that woman... one of the most happy-go-lucky teachers I've ever had.

After we got back, Pucha, my sister, helped me make a shit-ton of mashed potatoes for the Fourth of July. None of my family members totally understood why I'd be cooking so many potatoes without adding some sort of meat, but it went well nevertheless. By nightfall we had more than five kilos of pretty darned good smashed potatoes (leaving the skins on may have been the most counfounding aspect of the whole ordeal for them). Then, on "full good day," after quite a few transportation related delays, the eleven of us PCTs and our families managed to get to the countryside for our party. And what a great party it was! Aside from my potatoes, us Americans also managed to cook up some french fries, potato salad, deviled eggs (which unfortunately went bad in the July heat before they could be enjoyed), fruit salad, and even banana pudding! The gathering was held right by a little lake, and although none of the Mongolians could swim and consequently were quite afraid of our wading out beyond where we could stand, we had a great time splashing around... especially considering how hot it's been. We even slaughtered and barbecued our own sheep just for the occasion, and we smothered it in BBQ sauce, sang the Star Spangled Banner, and had what was bar none the best Independence Day of my life. Sans fireworks! There was a fair amount of decent Mongolian beer, and they kept presenting us with bottles of vodka as vestations of their appreciation of our decision to come live in their town for ten weeks. Needless to say, by the end of the night, I was fairly tipsy and had no problem at all dancing in the headlights on the lakeshore to Michael Jackson. Earlier in the day, some of the men had carried Bolortoya kicking and screaming into the lake, and since that point she'd been wandering around without any pants on, which was quite amusing, and certainly my first experience of that sort with a teacher. I tell ya, there are few things quite as debilitatingly hysterical as drunkenly doing the Mongolian waltz with your pantsless teacher on a beach at sunset. As lovely as that was, perhaps the most touching part of the whole night was when my dad decided he was going to sing a song, just for me. It bears noting that we sing and play guitar a lot in my house, and my dad never so much as joins in during the big group singalongs. He's a fairly reticent guy. But this night, he chose to serenade me, and he was really good! The song was one of the coolest I've heard so far, too, and while my Mongolian is far from good enough to understand lyrics on the first run-through, I did pick up a few mentions of family and welcoming and all that jazz, so it seems to have been a very heartfelt choice on his part.

Point is, it was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time, and if I can have even one day half as good as this one every now and then, these twenty-six remaining months are going to be an absolute breeze. And with a people and culture as fantastic, welcoming, and fun-loving as Mongolia's, I think that's fairly likely.

Oh, there was one other thing last week, on Wednesday I believe... a few of the other PCTs, Bolortoya, and I went to a mini-Naadam out in the countryside. I mentioned Naadam in my last post, but in case you've forgotten, it's the festival of the three manly sports (horseback riding, wrestling, and archery), and it's one of the two biggest Mongolian celebrations (Tsagaan Sar, the lunar New Year, being the other). Our town will be having one this week, but unfortunately we're scheduled to be in Zuunmod the whole time. Thus, this mini-Naadam was one of our only chances to see this incredibly important event before 2011. While there was no archery, at least not that day, it was still pretty cool. The wrestling was quite unlike any kind I'd seen before (see the pic above of several of us with a couple wrestlers... I'm doing my best to look strong next to those titans), and watching those horses come barrelling across the steppe, leaving enormous clouds of dust in their wake, was an incredibly romantic image. Just to imagine that these creatures are the descendants of those that carried Genghis and his hordes to conquer half the world eight hundred years ago was pretty mind-blowing. Fortunately, if I understand my family right, I think we'll be going to Baganuur's Naadam next week, after I get back from Zuunmod, so hopefully I'll get a chance to see all this stuff again and in a little more detail.

In other news, the three other PCT men living at this site and I have just embarked upon what will certainly rank among the most challenging and harrowing segments of our Peace Corps service... A MOUSTACHE COMPETITION. We all shaved our upper lips, and the contest is to see who can cultivate the finest moustache before swearing in, which will take place in mid-August. No beards allowed... we have to suffer the humiliation of growing a moustache all on its own. The ladies here at site will be the judges, and the losers have to buy drinks for the winner one night when we're in Ulaanbaatar next month. While I hold out very little hope for my chances of taking the blue ribbon (Kevin, one of the other participants, is forty years old, and Andrew, another, while the same age as me, regularly grows a fine one), I'm pretty excited for the sheer absurdity anyway. Life is a little slow out here in east-central Mongolia.

Finally, yesterday I had my Trainee Assessment Packet interview and this morning was my LPI (Language Proficiency Interview), and I'm pleased to say that PC is pretty happy with my progress. Bolortoya had nothing but good things to say about me, and the TEFL team were also full of compliments. The one caveat they did give me was that I make sure to keep my sarcastic sense of humor in check. While I've had no embarassing incidents so far, they reminded me that often those sorts of jokes have a real hard time getting across a language barrier. Good advice.

Welp, tomorrow morning we get up bright and early to head back to Zuunmod for Mid-Center Days, and as I said in the last post, I'm super-pumped! Apparently there's going to be a dodgeball tournament between all the sites. Fuckin a! The internet is much faster there, so I'm going to try to get a sizable album of pics up on Facebook, as well as log onto Skype and/or Gchat and/or FB chat a little. If anyone is online around 6-8 AM Eastern standard time on Wednesday and Thursday morning as well as 8-10 PM EST Wednesday and Thursday night, keep an eye out for me. I won't be on all that time by any stretch, but those are my most likely windows. I'd love to chat!

I'll leave you with this pic of Bolortoya and me the night of the Fourth. What a night.

Genghis Khan's Revenge

2010-06-29T17:01:00.003+07:00

Of course no one actually calls it that around here, but yeah, I got some intense fucking food poisoning this week. It actually had begun before I made my last post, but I was feeling okay at that point. An hour or two later, however, I had to leave class early, and I didn't even make it all the way home before keeling over and puking pretty much in the middle of town. Classy, right? Miraculously I don't think anyone saw. God save small towns. Anyway, I got home and went right to bed, only to stagger out to the outhouse a little while later, not quite make it, and boot right in the middle of the yard. Of course, my family was very caring and compassionate. I lay there the rest of the day, dozens of random Mongolian phrases cycling through my head like I was sharing my ger with a sadistic study buddy. It did not help that Friday was probably the hottest day we've had here so far (in general it's been shockingly sweltering in this place). According to my thermometer, it was 96° in my ger, which means it probably hit at least one hundred outside. Thus I had the extremely difficult task of trying to remain hydrated without upsetting the exceedingly fragile equilibrium in my stomach. I prayed for rain, and believe it or not, my prayers were answered. It only came down for a half hour or so, and the temperature dropped a mere five degrees, but it was better than nothing. I tossed and turned until nightfall, and then when I finally got to sleep, I had some pretty weird dreams in which I'd developed the power (as a birthday present, it seemed?) to rearrange the fundamental particles of my body into whatever form need be, as well as appopriate the particles from other things for my use. I basically turned myself into a big mountain. It was all very strange, and left me quite disconcerted when I awoke, but at least my stomach felt better.

I'm pretty much back to normal now, but it did linger over the next few days. One major advantage of getting sick was that my family changed up the menu a bit to accomodate me. I ate chicken for the first time in nearly a month, and I'm not gonna lie: I sized the wings up with Buffalo sauce in mind, and I'm VERY pleased to say... I think hot wings are a distinct possibility, so long as I make them myself of course. Once I get to site this fall, I'll have my two big ole bottles of Crystal hot sauce, and with the chicken, butter, and garlic all readily available, all I'll need is some bleu cheese and a good recipe! So I may be begging some of you to send me both of those in the next couple months.

Aside from chicken, one of the other biggest holes in my diet was filled this very morning... CHEESE! This being a big dairy culture, you might be surprised that I'd be lacking that one, but believe it or not, I've seen very little of the stuff so far, and what I have seen is quite different from what we eat in America. I hadn't really noticed its absence for a while, but then a week or two ago, I started craving a grilled cheese sandwich like whoa. I was quite pleased, then, when my mom pulled out a package of the Mongolian equivalent of Kraft singles this morning. Obviously some aged cheddar would've been preferable, but beggars can't be choosers. She then proceeded to fry up a couple eggs, and with the wicked good sourdough bread they eat out here, I made myself quite the egg sandwich. It was wonderful.

These developments were especially refreshing after the way this ailment turned me off to a lot of the Mongolian staples. It was hard to tell at the time whether it was all food I was finding disgusting or just the Mongolian cuisine, but thinking about my culinary options this weekend was an unappetizing endeavor. I just hope what happened to me with koshari while in Egypt doesn't happen again here. For those of you unfamiliar with that story, this one night, about a month into my time in Cairo, I ate a bunch of koshari (a mix of pasta, rice, fried onions, chickpeas, lentils, all topped with a spicy tomato sauce that is pretty much the Egyptian national dish) and then later that evening puked for, shall we say, less innocent reasons than this time around. After that, I could never eat koshari again, which was a shame for two big reasons. One, it literally comprises at least a third of the average Cairene's diet, and two, I had fucking loved it. However, as I've recovered, while I may not be enjoying Mongolian food quite as much as I had been, I haven't been having any real issues either. Although I don't think I ever want to eat another mayonnaise salad. Ugh.

What else is new? Classes are going well. My progress in Mongolian is slowing now that I'm able to get across a lot of my fundamental thoughts and needs, but I'm still learning a lot. Just got to stay motivated. Talking to some of the volunteers who've been here a while, it's astounding to see how greatly their skills vary. Some of them are pretty much fluent after just a year; others are nearing close of service and aren't a whole lot better than I am. They say it depends a lot on where you get sent. If you have a lot of other volunteers nearby whom you see and speak English with a lot, that'll impede your progress. If the people at your workplace speak English well, that'll hurt too. Of course, the biggest factor is oneself. If you make it a priority to keep getting better and to keep putting yourself in situations where you're practicing and improving your abilities, it'll make a big difference. I hope I can maintain that level of devotion. Although it is a bummer that we're learning a language that is spoken almost nowhere but here, and that I'll very likely never use again after August 2012. Oh well.

Overall, life is still pretty good, in spite of my ailment. I've discovered the key to enjoying myself out here is trying to move away from contextualizing everything in American terms. It's tough, since I've spent about twenty-three years of my life in the U.S. and only three weeks in Mongolia. When I was in Egypt, it wasn't such a big deal, since even at the beginning I knew I'd be back in less than five months... not that long a time. So when I thought things like, "Oh I can't wait to tell my friends back home about this!" or "I wonder what so-and-so is up to?" or "God I wish I could just sit down to take a crap," they didn't drive me crazy. But now, with more than two years until those thoughts can be satisfied, it's a little less comfortable to keep thinking them. I've been pleased, however, with my ability to let go and just dive into this life, and I'm having a great time because of it.

Some exciting stuff is coming up in the next few weeks. As you probably know, Sunday is the 4th of July, and we're trying to pull together some sort of a barbeque out here as a community. We even have some barbeque sauce! The concept of a barbeque is actually pretty popular in Mongolia, although it manifests itself somewhat differently. It probably won't surprise you to learn that they don't fire up the ole propane grill. Rather, from what I understand, they use some kind of a metal container with hot rocks to make a pressure cooker of sorts. Hopefully we'll get this all pulled together and have quite the Independence Day.

Then, this upcoming Monday we have our first TAP (of two), or Trainee Assessment Packet. It's basically an examination of the development of our Mongolian language skills, our TEFL progress, and our cultural immersion. I guess that's not that exciting, but at least I'm not concerned about it. While I still have a long way to go, I feel pretty good about my progress so far. After that, on Wednesday, we head back to Zuunmod for Mid-Center Days. I don't know why we have Mid-Center Days, but it's really an excuse to see the whole gang again, and that is exciting. We'll return for the weekend, and we have the beginning of the next week off for Naadam, the celebration of the Three Manly Games (wrestling, archery, and horseback riding). Unfortunately our town celebrates Naadam while we're in Zuunmod, but apparently they're having some kind of secondary celebration for us when we get back, which seems kind of unnecessary, but I'm sure it'll be fun.

The next week it's back to school. I can't believe we're almost halfway done training!

Oh, and here's a picture of my emee (grandmother) rocking out on my guitar. So great. And that picture up top is what a typical sunset looks like from my ger.

Toilet Hero

2010-06-25T10:41:00.006+07:00

Okay, here's the entry I had prepared. Enjoy!

New mama's got the sun in her eyes.
No clouds are in my changing skies.
Each morning when I wake up to rise,
I'm living in a dreamland.

That Neil Young chorus has been stuck in my head for the last week or so, mostly because of the last three lines (although my sister is a new mama). So much of my life nowadays feels like something out of a fairy tale. How to describe it... well for starters, mint grows naturally all over this place, and its ethereal aroma follows you everywhere. The geology of this region is some of the oldest in the world, which makes for mountains so smooth and rolling you could sled all the way down them in the winter. This weekend, several of us hiked a peak (see picture above) about two miles north of town. At the summit, it occurred to me that we were quite possibly the first Americans who'd ever been there. The others agreed. This town is tiny, and there's no real reason to stop here. This is the first year PC has done training in this spot, and most Americans who do wind up here probably don't get the time to hike. Even if they did, the town is surrounded by mountains. What are the chances they'd summit that one? I could of course be wrong, but it's a pretty crazy thought.

Also, it may be cliché, but the sky really is somehow different in Mongolia. They call Montana "Big Sky Country," but it's got nothing on this place. And that's saying a lot, since I fucking love Montana. Roy Chapman Andrews, the American explorer who went on to become the president of the Museum of Natural History and served as the inspiration for Indiana Jones, had this to say about it: "Before us lay Mongolia, a land of painted deserts dancing in mirage, of limitless grassy plains and nameless snow-capped peaks, of untracked forests and roaring streams! Mongolia, land of mystery, of paradox and promise! The hills swept away in the far-flung, graceful lines of panorama so endless that we seemed to have reached the very summit of the earth." That last part is about as close as one can get to describing the uniquely invigorating feeling I get every morning when I open my door.

In other news, I've really been enjoying myself in the days since my last entry. Not that I wasn't enjoying myself then, but it's amazing how much I've adjusted to life here, and how quickly my Mongolian is improving. I've been here less than three weeks, and already I speak this language nearly as well as I spoke Arabic after five months living in Egypt. I guess that's what necessity'll do for ya.

Obviously, a large part of what is making this experience so pleasant is the people, particularly my family. They're absolutely wonderful. I'll give you a little rundown on the gang.

Minii aaw (my father), Gankhuyag- My dad is quite an amusing character. At first he strikes you as reticent and rather stern, but he's incredibly generous and he opens up pretty quickly once you get to know him. Also, once he gets ahold of the baby, it's all goo-goos and ga-gas (or the Mongolian equivalent). In the picture from a previous post, he's sitting right in front of me.

Minii eej (my mother), Shinekhuu- My mom is such a sweetheart. She's always making me good food and keeping me stocked up on tea and water and dung for the fire. She works at the town hall as some sort of a secretary. I'm not exactly sure in what capacity. She's trying to learn some English while I'm around, which is really cute, because she pronounces all her Rs as Ws and all her Fs as Ps. According to her, apple is a pwuit. In the pic, she's just to the left of me, wearing the maroon button-up sweater. The woman to my other side is her friend. No relation.

Minii egch (my older sister), Purevsuren- I'm actually not 100% sure that Pucha (that's her nickname) is older than me. The sheet I got before I arrived said that she's 24, but my bro wrote down all their birthdays the other day and according to the date he gave, she turns 23 in a couple weeks. Either way, Pucha is wonderful. She's got a little baby who is absolutely adorable, and she's almost as caring to me as she is to her own son. Her husband, Gantulga (I think that's his name), was around for the first week. He's a real nice guy too, and a loving father to boot, but as I understand it, he's gone to Erdenet, which is quite far away, to work for the rest of the summer, so I won't be seeing any more of him. Unfortunately neither Pucha nor Gantulga are in the picture. I'm not really sure why Pucha isn't, but Gantulga is the one who took it.

Minii duu (my younger sibling), Nyamsuren- In the picture, Nyamka is the only one besides me who is really smiling. That's fitting, since he and I have become pretty great buds in the last two weeks. At 18 years old, he's just finished high school I believe. I'm not sure if he'll be going on to college. It's a topic I hope to broach in the near future, when my Mongolian's a little better. He loves to play sports and all sorts of games, including Texas Hold 'Em, believe it or not. He's also a big music fan, and I've been teaching him to play guitar. This weekend, while I was studying in the living room, he came in and told me that I needed a Mongolian name. He liked Baatar, which means "hero." You might recognize it from the capital, Ulaanbaatar, or "Red Hero" (a leftover from communism). I was a little uneasy about being called Baatar, since I've done absolutely nothing heroic since I've been here (unless eating intestines qualifies me... and maybe it should; that was pretty nasty), so I suggested my name be Jorlonbaatar, which means "Toilet Hero." The family found that pretty funny, but ultimately settled on "Batbaatar," which means "Strong Hero." That's what I get for complaining.

Minii oor duu (my other younger sibling), Gan-Ochir- In the beginning, Gan-Ochir was overshadowed by Nyamka just by virtue of having a slightly more reserved personality, but he's proved himself to be quite an engaging and fun guy to have around as well. He's 16, which means he's still in school, but everyone's out for the summer, so he's always around. He likes to do all the same things Nyamka does (I'm teaching him guitar as well). It's fun to have such an active family. He's also got a great sense of humor. The other night, we were playing poker, and I placed a big bet and then joked "rich American!" to which Nyamka pointed at himself and responded "rich Mongol!" Gan-Ochir then broke into English to add, "Fuck you! Motherfucker!" Maybe you had to be there. Perfect comic timing. In the picture, Gan-ochir is on the far right.

Minii ach duu (my nephew), Monkhtolga- Considering he's only three months old, there's not a whole lot I can say about this little guy, except that he's THE CUTEST BABY ON EARTH (in general Mongolia has a hugely disproportionate amount of cute children). He's always giggling and sticking his tongue out at me and peeing on Nyamka. I haven't gotten the nerve up to ask if I can hold him yet, but I think it's only a matter of time (editor's note: I held him for the first time two days ago! EEEE!!!). If you need help finding him in the pic, I don't know what to tell you.

Well that's probably plenty for now. There are of course lots of things I miss about America, but fortunately I don't miss any of them too much. Not yet anyway.

OH! One last story! I wish I could say this happened to me, but it'd be a lie. Still, it's such an hilarious event that I have to share it. To preface, it's important to note the role of candy in this society. Hospitality is a big deal in Mongolia, and candy, along with tea and bortsog, a kind of fried bread, is one of the default things one is offered upon entering anybody's house. Ever. So my friend Brian, who's from Cincinnati, was across town at his host grandma's place, and he was using the jorlon (bathroom, in case you've forgotten), which is of course just a tiny wooden shack over an unappealing hole in the ground, and it was time to disperse the candy. Rather than wait for Brian to finish up, or heaven forbid have him miss out on the treat, his little niece came running over, yanked open the jorlon door, and handed him a piece of candy. Brian accepted, said thank you, and she stood there until he'd finished eating it. All the while Brian was of course squatting a few inches off the ground with his pants around his legs. Classic.

Oh, and here's a pic of me with an enormous eagle. A Kazakh let me hold and pose with it for only 1000 tugriks (the equivalent of about 65 cents)! What a deal! Also, it attacked my friend Andrew (not too seriously). Hilarious pictures of that to come at some point.

Oopslarai!

2010-06-24T17:30:00.002+07:00

That's my favorite Monglish (Mongolian-English) creation so far. "Oochlarai" (it's actually pronounced more like "ochlarai," but that kinda ruins the pun) is the Mongolian word for "sorry." But I like to say OOPSlarai, cause I'm funny like that.

The reason I'm saying oopslarai is that I had a whole nice blog entry written out that I'd put on my flash drive to bring in and just post (the internet is so slow here that I'd rather not waste my time typing and editing), and then I forgot the flash drive at home. I don't live that far away, but it's about ninety-five degrees out today, and I didn't feel like walking there and then all the way back just to get it. So I'll try and get 'er done tomorrow.

That entry includes, among other things, a pretty comprensive description of my family, some details about how things have been going (the answer is pretty well), hopefully a few pics, and a great story at the end.

I actually came to post it yesterday, but after a few minutes on the internet, the whole town lost power for several hours, effectively putting the kabosh on that plan. Such is life in rural Mongolia.

But anyway, I wrote that entry last weekend, and a few things have happened since then that I wanted to add anyway, so I may as well write them here!

The main thing is... I've started teaching! During training we have a couple classes a week to start putting the skills we're learning into practice. Monday was my first, and I basically taught them how to say "Hello" and "My name is/What is your name?" It turned out the kids were a little more advanced than we'd expected, so that wasn't the best class ever. But I had my second today, and we were supposed to focus on listening and reading, so I brought in my old git-fiddle (such a lifesaver out here) and performed "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles for them. I gave them a lyric sheet with some of the words missing and had them fill it in. It's a trick I employed while teaching in Cairo as well, and it's a great one. I mean, I doubt Paul McCartney had this in mind when writing it, but it's pretty much the perfect song for people learning English. You say yes, I say no. You say stop, and I say go, go, go. You say goodbye, and I say hello. Etc etc etc I'm sure you all know it. The kids loved it; it was a great lesson. So that's good.

In other news, the first member of our group early terminated a few days ago. That's a Peace Corps euphemism for "went home." He was at another training site, so we don't know the details, but it's just weird (and pretty intimidating), especially considering he was one of the last people we all expected to. He was actually one of my roommates in Zuunmod, and he seemed like he was just so into the experience. I wonder what happened. So you know, on average about 30-40% of PCVs don't make it through the whole twenty-seven months for one reason or another. So that means, out of our group of seventy-five, more than twenty or so will probably go home. I hope I'm not one of them.

Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon!

Би монгол хэл сурч байна!!!

2010-06-14T17:04:00.003+07:00

That's pronounced "bee mongolh khailh surch bane" and it means "I'm learning Mongolian!" It's true, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Host family life has been quite the reality check after the relative ease of living with a bunch of other PCTs in Zuunmod for five days. But my family is really wonderful (that's them up top... they're much more cheerful than they look), even if I can't communicate with them, and there are ten other PCTs here in town that I get to see pretty often. Nevertheless, I've done several things for the first time in the last few days which have all been quite... interesting, to say the least. I've...

pooped in a nasty outhouse, although actually it smelled better than some that I've used in the states
washed my clothes by hand... and that's a lot of work!
seen my host sister breastfeed about twenty-five times a day
bathed my entire body while standing in a tiny bucket... I got water EVERYWHERE
heated my ger with dried dung
eaten a fucking goat's head!

Actually none of these experiences have been that unpleasant. And this town is so beautiful. I admit that there are moments when I retire to my ger and stare off into the vast emptiness and wonder what the hell I'm doing, but as soon as my sister (Purevesuren) or father (Gankhuyag) come and ask me "tsai oh?" which means "do you want some tea," I remember all the good will around me and the struggle becomes totally worth it.

Also, clearly there is internet here. It's incredibly slow however. I'll try to post once a week just to let you know I'm alive and how things are going. When I get to Zuunmod in July for Mid-Summer Days, you can expect a longer, more comprehensive description of what I've been up to. Maybe some pictures too!

Biggest surprise so far? Burning animal poop doesn't smell bad. In fact, it really smells quite nice. You probably won't believe it, but maybe I wouldn't have ten days ago either. Holy argalin it's only been ten days!

Goodbye for a bit?

2010-06-09T13:06:00.002+07:00

Hey faithful readers. So since last I wrote I've mostly been having A GREAT TIME. Everyone here is so cool, I'm starting to learn some Mongolian, and each day is filled with exciting new mountains to climb, people to meet, words to learn, foods to eat, etc etc etc. But as much as things have been changing, that's all about to look like diddlysquat. For tomorrow afternoon, we all leave for our host families. Mine is in a very small town about two hours east of Zuunmod. I'm mostly excited to meet them (all the M20s and M19s seem to have really treasured their host family experiences), but I am a bit worried about the fact that I can pretty much only say three things to them: "Hello," "What is your name?", and "I like apples." I'm sure my vocabulary will be increasing greatly in the weeks to come.

Although I'm supermegapumped for the next stage, our group of seventy-five volunteers is going to be dividing into six parts, so I'll be saying goodbye to a lot of the friends I've made. That's kinda sad. I'll see them again of course, but not so much, and never again so easily. We've been having a lot of fun. Last night we climbed up on one of the hills near town to play frisbee, drink beer, and watch the sunset. It was indescribable. Afterwards, on our way back down, we were throwing the disc around and half a dozen little kids ran over to play with us. They were so cute and they went wild whenever we tossed it to them. Most eventually wound up tackling fellow PCT Brian, and he had quite a time extricating himself from their tiny hands. They grow 'em tough out here on the steppes.

A few summations. Classes have been a little overwhelming but very helpful. The food is still pretty good, but it is a lot of the same basic ingredients recycled into different forms, so I can see myself getting tired of it before long. The weather has been surprisingly rainy this week, but that's okay. When that blue sky comes out, it's all worth it, and the landscape still possesses a striking beauty in the low-hanging clouds.

So originally it sounded like internet would be hard to come by in my host community, but today one of the teachers implied that I might have some access. If I do, I'm sure I'll be posting here and there, depending on how busy I am. If not, this'll probably be the last post until July! Maybe. It's hard to say.

Well I guess I won't be playing the "got your nose!" game for a while...

2010-06-07T07:30:00.000+07:00

...that's apparently one of the things that some volunteers do with their host families as an ice breaker, and Mongolians find it quite offensive. Haha.

In other news, I MADE IT! It's been wicked fun so far. I slept like a baby on the flight to Ulaanbaatar. When we got there it was quite rainy. We got off the plane and thankfully no bags were lost NOR did my hot sauce explode. Good news, amirite? When we exited into the main terminal, there were soooo many current PCVs and they were screaming and cheering and welcoming us to Mongolia and it was such a wonderful feeling. We loaded our bags onto a truck and stood around talking in the rain for an hour or so. We got to ask the current volunteers all sorts of questions about service and how their experiences have been. When we finally arrived around midnight at the dorm where we're staying in Zuunmod, we were pretty beat. I took a freezing shower, the first of many unpleasant bathing experiences in the years to come, and then I crashed. Although the beds weren't really the most comfortable, we were all so exhausted that I slept quite soundly. Nevertheless, jet lag had just about everyone up and kicking around 5 AM.. Hopefully that won't last too long.

After getting my bearings and arranging my belongings, we had a surprisingly tasty breakfast in the dorms. It was some sort of sausage and toast and mashed potatoes and, believe it or not, buckwheat. Then we went outside and played some frisbee, the perfect sport for a country this open. It's a beautiful day here, and this is a fucking gorgeous country. You can see for miles all around, and there are hills and mountains lining the horizon. The sky is enormous and blue, just like they said. It's supposed to rain sometime today, but it's almost 5:30 now and there's still no sign of it.

After frisbee, we had an orientation session and then were issued our water filters (so necessary), our mega-intense sleeping bags, and our first couple weeks of walk around allowance. We get a budget of about 2000 tugriks per day, which converts to about a buck and a half. Meals are taken care of, so there's nothing we really have to buy, but it's still pretty amazing to think that we can live comfortably with only that much to spend. Afterwards we played some more frisbee and then had lunch, which was also surprisingly delicious. It was a burger-like patty with an egg on top, as well as some rice, carrots, and cabbage. Oh, and there was a fatoush-like salad to start. Apparently we've been eating stuff on the higher end of the culinary spectrum here so far, but still, I'm glad to be enjoying the food so much. After lunch we went for a tour of Zuunmod. It's a pretty quaint little town, and it's filled with the cutest children on earth. They smile to excess and strike sassy poses when we walk by.

Anyway, that's pretty much what's up so far. My anxieties about this whole experience have all but disappeared, and I'm pretty much just having a blast at this point.

Bayartai!

Greetings from Sunny South Korea!

2010-06-06T06:22:00.000+07:00

Hey everybody. So I guess I lied when I said my next post would be from Mongolia, because here I am sitting on the floor in Incheon International Airport in South Korea, making a post, waiting for the final leg of this four-part plane trip, the one that will take me to the Land of the Blue Sky. I figured I ought to take advantage of internet while I have it, since I'm not sure quite what the next few days are going to be like.

Since I last posted I've done several things.

Finished packing. What a bitch.
Went to Denny's in Portland with my mom, my sister, Renee, Peter, Jake, and Ted Gill for my last Maine meal. I got chicken fried steak and eggs. It was delicious.
Said goodbye to all those people. I have to admit I got a bit choked up at the airport, and walking through security all on my own, I suddenly realized just how daunting this adventure could be.
Flew across the fucking country. In case you didn't realize, it's really big. Oh, and when we got to the jetport, we found out that my original flight to DC had been canceled due to fog. Fortunately they stuck me on a couple Continental flights that got me to San Fran via Newark only half an hour behind schedule.
Met a ton of the other PCTs (but not all of them... there's seventy of us!) and did the whole staging thing. Training was kinda boring at times, since it rehashed a lot of the stuff I've already read in the literature the PC sent me, but it's been reaaaaaaaaally nice to meet all my fellow M21s and to see that they're going through the same things I am, that they have the same anxieties, and that we're all gonna be jusssssst fine.
Partied like a rockstar in San Fran. Well, not quite, but we got some dinner and beers and hit up a nice little hookah bar. As a result of said debauchery, I only got three hours of sleep, but it was a fun way to spend my last night in America for twenty-seven months.
Sat through a twelve hour flight to Korea. It actually was much better than I feared it would be. I managed to get a couple well-placed naps in, and I was talking so much with fellow PCTs that I never got all that bored.

So yeah, that's what's new. I'll try to post as soon as I can once I'm in Mongolia. It's coming right up! Love you all. Miss you all.

Jumping out of planes

2010-06-03T05:09:00.000+07:00

In just ten hours, I'll be on an airplane to DC, and then forty minutes later I'll be on an airplane to San Francisco, and then the next day I'll be on an airplane to Seoul, and then three hours later I'll be on a plane to FUCKING MONGOLIA WHERE I'LL BE LIVING IN THAT YURT OMGEEEE IM FREEEAAAKING OUT!!!!!!

Actually I'm not really stressing all that bad. The last month has been awesome. I'm pretty sure I've managed to tie up all my loose ends, I've done all the stuff I wanted to do, and I've seen most of the people I wanted to see. I did my 9K two weekends ago (it went great!), I went skydiving (UNBELIEVABLE), I did some great hikes in and around my home state (always lovely), and I went camping with friends and family for a weekend at Moosehead Lake (my favorite place on earth, so that obviously rocked). My mom and sister came up for that last one and will be here through my departure tonight, so it's been great to be surrounded by the people I love.

My last few hours at home will be filled with eating and packing. I've got everything I need; I just have to figure out how to put it into my bags in the best way. My mom is currently cooking my favorite food on earth, fried haddock. She's also making her famous mac & cheese, which is probably my second favorite food on earth. Needless to say I'm in heaven. I have to be at the airport at 4 AM, so we decided to have a little gathering at Denny's beforehand, seeing as it's the only place open 24 hours around here. How better to remember Maine?

I'll get into San Fran at 11:20 AM, and then it's staging orientation until the evening. I'm excited to meet everyone and for the adventure ahead, but it's still pretty surreal. I don't have any idea what I'm getting into, but I'm pumped anyway. Good news for you guys though... this blog is probably going to get a lot more interesting. See you guys later! The next time I post, I'll be in MONGOLIA!!!!! LOVE YA!

Mmmmmmmboy

2010-05-21T00:08:00.000+07:00

Here's a few little videos pertaining to Mongolia which may interest you. The first two are from Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, a show from the Travel Channel. The second video paints a very, shall we say, earnest portrayal of the kind of stuff Mongolians eat, whereas the first one is a little more appetizing.

Mongolian Dumplings

Top 5 moments in Mongolia (not for the weak-stomached)

And this last one is a little sadder. It's about the ongoing famine in Mongolia which is getting more devastating by the day. I hope it rains soon! Props to Sari Gardner for finding it (and once again to Jason Patrick Douglas for the first two vids).

A Bitter Spring for Mongolia's Nomads (this one's a wee bit unappe- tizing as well...)

OMG it's really happening!

2010-05-18T20:26:00.000+07:00

So us soon-to-be trainees all received quite the email from headquarters a few days ago. In it we were given our first glimpse at the details of the next few months of our lives, and let me tell you, it's a bit intimidating. After getting over the initial shock a few months ago, I've felt very little anxiety about this whole Peace Corps dilio. But now that departure is less than three weeks away and I'm starting to get a better idea of the reality of my impending life in Mongolia, I'm pretty much crapping my pants.

So here's a few things I've found out.

We'll arrive in Ulaanbaatar late at night on Saturday, June 5, (though it'll be early morning back in America!), and then we'll hop on a bus to Zuunmod, a small city of about fifteen thousand people. Zuunmod is about fifteen miles south of UB as the crow flies but nearly thirty miles by car. The road is so much longer because it has to wind around Bogd Khan Uul, the three thousand foot mountain that sits between the two cities (click the map above for a larger image; UB, Bogd Khan Uul, and Zuunmod are just to the lower left of center).
In Zuunmod, we'll be given the first fourteen days of our walk-around allowance as well as a -40° sleeping bag. We'll be there for at least the next five days for orientation, living in dorms.
After that, we'll be sent off to our host families, where we'll be for all of Pre-Service Training, which will take up the next ten weeks. I'll be in a community with between eight and twelve other trainees, but we'll each be living with a different family. I still don't know where I'll be for this portion of service, but I doubt it will be Zuunmod or Ulaanbaatar.
Training for Mongolian PC service follows the Community Based Model. Rather than sitting in classrooms and studying in the more traditional way, we'll be doing much of our learning experientially, through engaging with the community in which we live. Apparently this is a relatively new thing for the Peace Corps, and many nations still use the older style. However, it sounds like a more efficient method to me, so I'm excited about that.
Apparently while being trained, we'll also be responsible for conducting a community service activity in our area. Just to keep the stress level maxed out.
Assuming I survive training and am chosen to become a Volunteer, I will be sworn in back in Zuunmod on Friday, August 20.
While in Zuunmod, it will be fairly easy to stay connected via the telephones at the post office and the city's two internet cafes. However, the email says that communication will be much more difficult once we're living with our host families. We are told to "be prepared for this limited communication and prepare your family [back home] for the fact that you probably will be able to call or email them only rarely after you head out to your host community."

So yeah, pretty intense. But already a lot of the anxiety has dissipated and I'm getting excited again.

My time in Maine has been nice so far, although I wish I were getting more hours at work. I've been spending too much money, but at least I've been doing a lot of the things I'm gonna miss a lot: going to my favorite restaurants, eating lots of seafood, seeing my buds, going bowling. Jonny Hyman, one of Peter's best friends from college and a very good friend of mine as well, was in town all last week, and then this weekend Eric Gibbs, one of my best buds from Oberlin, came to town. He and I went hiking in northern Maine (see pic below) with Erin Child, another Obie, and generally had a great time. Saying all these goodbyes is getting rough, but I guess that's just the way it goes.

I've also been studying a little Mongolian. I'm focusing on the alphabet, but I've got some words down too. Here's how you say goodbye: bayartai!

Crying in the Aisle

2010-05-09T04:56:00.000+07:00

Wowie wow wow. A month from now I'll have been in Mongolia for three days already. Yesterday I called the Peace Corps travel agency and booked my flight to staging in San Francisco. I have to leave at the fucking crack of dawn from Portland on June 3, but my travel agent was so charming that I barely noticed. He had a very endearing Indian accent and he told me that I should not worry but the Peace Corps would not be mailing me a paper ticket because they have no money, and neither would the airlines because they have no money either. And then he said he liked my state because it's abbreviation sounds like "me." Finally, he asked, "would you prefer a window seat so you can wave goodbye to mom and dad since you won't see them for three years, or would you rather sit in the aisle and cry?"

Staging sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'll get into San Fran at 11:20 or so, and then we have some preliminary training until 7 at night. After that I'm pretty sure we're given some money to go out and get trashed on our last night in the country. But the shuttle takes us to the airport at 6 AM the next morning to leave for Mongolia (layover in South Korea!), so I doubt there'll be much sleeping.

In other news, I'm back in Maine. On my birthday I drove to Boston to go see a Red Sox game and celebrate with my friends. It was a lot of fun. Then I came the rest of the way so I could start work at Handy Boat yesterday. I was supposed to work today and tomorrow too, but there are only a dozen boats in the water, so they told me I didn't need to come in. Which totally sucks because, after I finish buying all the crap I need for the PC, I'm gonna have no money in the bank for the next two years. Oh well. At least I have some sweet dancing to look forward to (props to fellow M21 Jason Patrick Douglas for finding the video).

Get ready, cuz here I come!

2010-04-27T19:21:00.001+07:00

I never met a country that makes me feel the way Mongolia do,
YOU'RE ALL RIGHT!
Whenever I'm asked who makes my dreams real, I say Mongolia do,
YOU'RE OUT OF SIGHT!
So fee, fi, fo fum,
Look out Mongolia, cuz here I come.

Alright so the song doesn't work perfectly, but whenever I'm getting ready for anything, I can't help but think of that Temptations tune. And that's pretty much all I've been doing in my spare moments the past few weeks. You may or may not have noticed the page I put up on this here blog about the things I need to get between now and departure, and I've been spending a lot of my time trying to figure out just how I'm gonna get them, and which ones I can do without. I received my sweet hiking backpack from Eagle Creek yesterday. As mentioned on that page, lots of places give us PCVs a discount, so I got that $230 bag for only $115! Awesome.

I've also been reading Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. It's really interesting and is only furthering my opinion that GK was fucking awesome and has been mistreated by the history books ever since. Highly recommended.

In other non-Mongolia news, I'm now in my last week of work in Central PA. I'm training my sister to replace me, so it's nice to be a little family for a while out here in Carlisle. This weekend I'm making one last trip to Baltimore and DC to say some goodbyes, and then I'll head up to Maine to work at Handy Boat! Very excited about that, even though I just got back from six days up there on Sunday. Aside from the run (for which I finally raised my $1000; thanks to everyone who donated!!!), I've also planned some camping and even a day of skydiving in the next month. May as well leave the US with a (hopefully non-literal) bang, amirite?

Mongolia on My Mind

2010-04-15T05:32:00.000+07:00

Mongolia Mongolia Mongolia. Such is the litany which now comprises the majority of my thoughts. As you can see in the picture above, I couldn't even go to the Museum of Natural History in DC without pointing out Ulaanbaatar on every map I came across. I guess it'd probably be a little strange if I weren't thinking nonstop about the totally foreign land where I'll be spending the next two years of my life, but I'm a little surprised by just how infatuated I've become. I guess it makes more sense when coupled with the mundaneness of life in Central PA.

Needless to say, I've been reading everything about the Land of the Blue Sky that I can get my hands on. I tore through what documents the PC sent me. I've even watched a couple excellent Mongolian films (The Story of the Weeping Camel, a documentary about a nomadic family living in the Gobi Desert, and Mongol, the first part of an epic trilogy telling the story of Genghis Khan's life; both were nominated for Academy Awards and can be found on Netflix). It's been really fun, and I'm pumped that I'll soon be living in such an awesome place. Here's ten of my favorite facts I've recently learned, in no particular order:

Mongolia has one of the highest average elevations (about 5100 ft) of any country!
In Mongolia, if you accidentally step on someone or kick their feet, you must shake his hand immediately!
John Wayne once starred as Genghis Khan in Howard Hughes' 1956 film, The Conqueror. It is considered one of the worst movies ever made, and because it was shot downwind from a nuclear test site in Nevada, nearly half of the cast and crew (including John Wayne and Agnes Moorehead) developed cancer!
Peljidiin Genden, Mongolia's ninth Prime Minister, disagreed with Stalin over how to deal with the Buddhist monks in his nation (Stalin wanted to purge them; Genden didn't), and he even charged the Soviet leader with "Red Imperialism." In response, Stalin kicked Genden's walking stick! Right out from under him! What an asshole! So Genden slapped Stalin across the face, breaking his pipe and yelling "You bloody Georgian, you have become a virtual Russian czar!" Can you guess how Stalin reacted to that? If you guessed that Crazy Old Joe had Genden killed, you're correct!
The common English term "hurray" originated as the Mongol battle cry. Doesn't seem to mean the same thing to us, does it? Personally, if I saw a whole bunch of people running at me with swords yelling "hurray!!!" I probably would think they were just being silly. But then they'd kill me. Just like every other chump in their path!
Genghis Khan wasn't a total dick after all! Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a saint exactly, but he was no bloodthirsty mindless sociopath either. History textbooks fail again!
For every one Mongolian, there are THIRTEEN HORSES! WTF!?!
One delicacy of Mongolia's oh-so-unappetizing cuisine is known as boodog, which is really just a euphemism for blowtorched marmot. That's right. You heard me. Blowtorched. Marmot. I don't think anyone needs to hear more about this particular oddity, but it's just too bizarre not to go on. Anyway I'm the one who's potentially going to have to eat this stuff. Quoting from Lonely Planet's guide to Mongolia:
This summer delight first involves pulling the innards out of the neck of a marmot. The carcass is then stuffed full of scalding rocks and the neck cinched up with wire. The bloated animal is then thrown upon a fire (or blowtorched) to burn the fur off the outside while the meat is cooked from within. The finished product vaguely resembles a balloon with paws.
As a bonus, apparently handling the dead animals is the number one cause of Bubonic Plague in Mongolia. Hurray!
Khövsgöl Nuur, while not the largest lake in Mongolia, is the second oldest lake in the world and contains sixty-five percent of the nation's fresh water, and two percent of the world's!
It is estimated that about one in every twelve men living in the former Mongolian empire (one-fifth of the world's land area) is descended from Genghis Khan, for a total of about sixteen million great-great-great-great-etc. grandsons! And that's just the men! The moral of the story? GK was a ho. Fo sho.

In a recent comment, the lovely Anna Santo requested more details about what exactly I'll be doing in Mongolia. I don't know how much anyone else cares, but I'd do anything for Anna, so here goes.

I don't know that many specifics, but my job description is English teacher trainer. For the first ten weeks, however, I'll be in intensive pre-service training with all the other PCVs in my cohort. I'm not positive where it will be, but I think I read somewhere that it'll be in the town of Darkhan, Mongolia's third largest city, which is in the north, not far from the Russian border. While there, I'll be living with a host family, which ought to expedite learning of the language and culture. After PST ends, we'll all be sent to our permanent sites, the places where we'll live for the next two years. These will have been determined a few weeks prior. I have no idea where I'll be sent, but it will most likely be a city of moderate size, which for Mongolia means fifteen to forty thousand people. There are three kinds of sites at which I could be placed:

Foreign Language Institutes (FLI)—These are basically colleges. Should I get sent to an FLI, I'd be leading classes of fifteen to twenty prospective teachers aged seventeen to twenty-two.
Provincial Education Departments—There is an Education Department in every aimag which oversees the administration of education for the whole province. If I were placed at one of these, I'd be aiding the officials in improving the quality of English instruction in that aimag. Apparently this job includes some traveling into the countryside, which makes it sound like the best possibility to me!
Secondary school complexes—In a secondary school complex, which is a fancy term for a high school, I'd be working with current English teachers to help them improve their own skills. I'd also be doing some private tutoring on the side. Judging from the description alone, I'm least excited about this one.

As in my initial country placement, I will have some say on where in Mongolia I get to go, but it's not their first concern. Based on what I've read so far, I'd like to be placed somewhere in the central to western part of the country. That way I could be in the mountains, which I so love, and yet not too far from Ulaanbaatar. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Two Months!!!

2010-04-03T22:02:00.000+07:00

That pic would probably be more appropriate if I weren't holding the fish skeletons, but it was the closest thing I could find to a photo of me looking excited and terrified... which are the two emotions I'm feeling right now since, two months from today, I'LL BE ON MY WAY TO MONGOLIA!!! Well, more or less... I'll be on my way to stateside staging. I technically won't leave for Mongolia until two months from tomorrow.

Anyway, this isn't much of a real post; I just wanted to mention that. And also this: ever since I began considering the Peace Corps in earnest, which was right around the beginning of my frosh year at Oberlin, I've tried to get a grasp on just how long twenty-seven months is. My main strategy has been to consider what I was doing twenty-seven months prior, and what had happened in the meantime. Back at the beginning of my college career, that interval seemed absolutely, unbelievably, nigh-on-insurmountably enormous. In the two and a quarter years that passed between July 2003 and September 2005, I'd gotten my first job, learned to drive a car, traveled to France and Spain for a two-week exchange program, gotten my first girlfriend, applied to college, graduated from high school, said good-bye to old friends, and made new ones at Oberlin, where I was now a student. I couldn't imagine spending that much time in a place about which I knew nothing. If such a huge amount had changed about me in that time, all while basically living at home, would I even be able to survive the same interval in a foreign country, living a life without many of the comforts and conveniences, not to mention people, I take for granted back home?

Those questions are still valid, but at least now the amount of time seems less daunting. In the twenty-seven months between January 2007 and now, I spent a semester living in Egypt and studying at the American University in Cairo, made some new friends there, saw a lot of awesome new places in the Middle East, lived in Boston for a summer, finished out my time at Oberlin, had a six-month relationship begin and end... and then there was graduation. Since then, besides the road trip, not all that much has happened in my life (as the previous post will tell you). Plus, there's that whole phenomenon where, as you age, the same amount of time (one year, two years, twenty-seven months...) comprises a lesser portion of your life as a whole. As a child, a year seems like a whole lifetime. Nowadays, it feels like it was just yesterday I was leaving for Cairo.

Point is, the mix of excitement and nervous terror has changed quite a bit in the last five years. I still feel both knowing that I'll be leaving in two months, but (thankfully), I feel a lot more of the former.

Where are you going? Where have you been?

2010-03-30T07:31:00.000+07:00

So how bout a little summary of what my recent life has been like as well as a rundown of what's in store for me between now and my departure for Mongolia? Mmm, that sounds good. I'll have that.

Where to start? Well the picture above is of my family (plus Peter) and me just after my graduation from Oberlin. Following that bizarre ritual, I spent the summer living it up in a sweet apartment right on the Eastern Promenade in Portland, Maine. I was working at my favorite job, driving the launch boat for Handy Boat Services in Falmouth, only a few miles down the road. Besides working, drinking too much, and eating Buffalo wings (which, if you know me at all, you'll know that wings are perhaps my greatest passion), I did little of substance all summer long. I was living with my good pal, the aforementioned Peter Lord (once again, if you know me at all, you know Peter), and it was with him that I did the one real thing of note: we formed an all-male Indigo Girls cover band. We called ourselves the Indigo Guys. Somehow we went on to win the annual Yarmouth Clam Festival Battle of the Cover Bands, as well as five hundred bucks. Not too shabby for a couple guys making total asses of themselves. If you didn't make it to the performance, you can watch the videos on YouTube. Just search for "Indigo Guys." Actually I'll just embed the best one here. I mean, we're gonna go viral soon anyway.

At the end of the summer, Peter went back to Boston for his last year of college at Northeastern, and I moved in with my wonderful Aunt Claire and my equally wonderful Uncle Ron for a month to finish out the season at Handy Boat. It was a somewhat boring beginning to the fall, though I did get some good hiking in. Anyway, I could deal with a little ennui, since as soon as my job finished in early October, my sister Becky and I went on an epic road trip all around the country which lasted until Christmas. Although I've traveled quite a bit for a guy my age, I'd been very few places in America prior to that, so it was nice to make it out to the West Coast at last, and to see lots of national parks, as well as meet up with a ton of my more far-flung friends before leaving for the Peace Corps. Here is a map of the route we took.

Although the road trip basically ended when Becky and I made it to my mom's place in Pennsylvania for the holidays, I continued to live out of my car for the next month, traveling back up to Maine and meandering down via Boston and NYC, y'know, until the money ran out. Once that happened, I did what so many hip young college grads are doing nowadays and moved in with mom. Fortunately she got me a job right away working with her at Safe Harbour, a homeless shelter only a couple blocks away. So I've been in Carlisle, PA, for more than two months now, and while I wish I knew more people around here, it hasn't been so bad. I've appreciated the opportunity to chill out a little, especially after the frenzy of that road trip. And now that the Peace Corps has become a tangible, imminent reality, I'm enjoying it all the more. And while my job is really boring (I'm a file clerk... *shudder*), having some money has been nice. I've managed to make it to NYC a couple times, as well as down to DC and Baltimore, and even back to Ohio to see my old school. Wicked fun.

So what's next? Well I'll be in Carlisle until early May. I hope to squeeze a couple more trips in before I head out, one to Charlottesville, VA, to see some pals and check out Shenandoah National Park, one to Kentucky to check out Mammoth Cave and see that state for once (never really been before), and one more down to DC and Baltimore to see some buds before I head back up to Maine, which is where I'll be until I leave for the PC. I'm gonna help them start up the season at Handy Boat, but the biggest reason I'm returning is to soak in my home state as much as possible before I leave it for more than two years. I really love Maine, and being away even for a few months is obnoxiously tough for me, so twenty-seven should be... interesting.

Besides working and doing my favorite Mainey things, the only other event I've planned for May is the charity 9K which is described in the sidebar. I've been fortunate to get a lot of time to work out while living in PA, and I figured I could use that for good, so I've decided to attempt this 5.4 mile run. The farthest I've ever run before is about 3.5 miles, so I've got some training to do, but I think I ought to be able to pull it off. I'm trying to raise $2500 for the cause, so any donations would be greatly appreciated. For more information on the event and how to donate, check out the blurb on the right.

Anyway, that's my pre-Peace Corps life. More later!