Jargalnokhoi, 2010-2011

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

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

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

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

Deadbeat

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


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

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

Нэг жилийн дараа

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

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

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

The Whole Family

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


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


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


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

Birthday Snow

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

Хөөрхий нохой...

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Spring Fever

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

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

Is it summer yet?

A chance to help

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

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

I survived a Mongolian winter!

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

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


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

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


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