I'm online!

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

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

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

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

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!

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!!!

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?

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...

...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!

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.

1. Finished packing. What a bitch.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.