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.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
That Piece of Shit John Russell
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
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
Saturday, July 24, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
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!
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!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
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.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
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.
Friday, June 25, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, June 14, 2010
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!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
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.
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.
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