Quick, hide, the pigs are here!!

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. I know that I told you it would be, but at the time I really didn’t think it’d be this long. I know of at least a couple mothers and one grandmother out there that has been wondering what I’ve been up to. So, I hope you enjoy. I’ve been up to all kinds of crazy things in the last few months. Let me tell you of some of the most exciting.

I found some Mt. Dew at the store next to my buddy’s place in the city. I bought 10 of them and they lasted me several weeks as I savoured every last sip. It’s a really nice grocery store compared to most, and surprisingly, the prices are pretty cheap. I usually get cheese for my pizzas there. Since it is literally next door to my buddy’s place, we always go there for what we want. I swear I’ve been in there five times in one day. You’d think it’d be smarter and more efficient to go there just once, but for some reason or another, it never works out that way. I’ve gotten to know the guy that sits at the door and watches the cameras. He’s a nice guy and is always smiling. As is congenial in Mongolian culture, I greet him with a “Hello big brother, how are you?” while giving him a handshake. He always gets a kick out of me and takes care of me if I need anything. For example, beer, after they’re not supposed to be selling it anymore for the day.

For my own mama: I went to the dentist recently. It was a quick trip, in and out. No cavities. One of my friends had seven cavities when she went, and she brushes all the time. I just knew that I was going to have at least one, given all the candy that I eat. I was glad that I didn’t.

At the beginning of August, I went to see the trainees’ swearing-in ceremony. It was in a town right outside of UB and is the only place in Mongolia that I’ve seen that actually resembles American suburbs. I mean, there is even one house with a white picket fence and some of the nicest grass you could find. When I was walking by it, I had to stop to feel of it, cause it’s been so long since I’ve seen grass like that. Anyway. The trainees were all excited to finally be done with their training. I remember being like that myself last year. Ah, how much a person changes in one year. I got to visit with them a little bit that evening, but they were either tired or not quite as rowdy as some of the people in my group.

In the few months since then, though, I’ve gotten to know a few of them pretty good, and they seem alright. One of them is my new site-mate, named Josh. He’s 28, from the DC area, and is an English teacher. He’s alright. He comes over about once a week or so and we talk, have a few drinks, play Settlers (where I give him a good spankin’), and watch movies. Like everyone, he’s integrating and getting frustrated and learning how things work around here. I think he’ll be fine.

James left in September. There is no telling when I’ll see him again, so I went into the city and hung out with him for a few days. He’ll went back to New York and will take a few months to acculturate back into the life of an American, then start school next semester. I’ve talked to him a few times on email since he’s been back. He’s doing exactly what I’d expect him to do: being lazy, eating good food, drinking good beer, and hanging out with friends. I’ll miss him.

In late August, my group went to Terelj National Park for Peace Corps’ Mid-Service Training (MST). This time, it was only Volunteers, and the schedule was kind of relaxed. We spent time talking about projects that we’re working on so others could take notes for things they might like to do, and we took Mongolian language lessons. These days, the biggest thing I’m interested in is learning more Mongolian, so that was my favourite part. For every meal, we had really good food from the hotel’s restaurant. They serve a few courses for each meal, also, so I never walked away from the table hungry or wanting more. During breaks and after our day finished, we went outside. There is one of the few forests I’ve seen in Mongolia there, with a river running next to the hotel. All weekend, there were half-naked Volunteers jumping off the foot-bridge and into the freezing cold water. I knew I wanted to do it, but didn’t have the time until about midnight one night. A group of us went outside, screwed up our courage, and then jumped in. I barely hit the water before I was trying to get out. Luckily, only the water was cold and I was smart enough to bring a towel.

We also had a Settlers of Catan tournament one night. It’s become quite a cult favourite among PC/Mongolia Volunteers. If there’s a group of us and someone has the game, you can bet that someone will be playing it. One of the girls started about a month ahead of time and organised a tournament for everyone interested. After talking a few last minute players into joining us, we had a 16-person, single-elimination bracket. We started one night after dinner, two four-man games going at once. Each game takes 30 minutes to an hour. I made it to the second round and was then put out. I hung around til the end, around 1:00a.m., and had the pleasure of seeing Brandon win the whole thing. In true Mongolian style, he was awarded a certificate in front of everyone the following day. Some of the other people made fun of us when we first started talking about playing, but many of them were in and out to watch us, then cheered heartily when Brandon got his certificate. They appreciated the fact that, even though they weren’t interested, we were all able to get together to do something we enjoy.

My friend Mendee had a baby girl. I hadn’t seen him for a long time when I ran into him in the city. At the time, he had changed jobs and was working for the Scouts, but he’s told me that he’s changed jobs again, since then. As with any parent who has just had their second baby, when the first one is still a young toddler, he was as busy as could be. Coincidentally, after having talked to him for a bit, I met random Scouts in the street that were selling bars of soap. They showed me the small cube and told me in English that the price was $1. I looked at him, then I asked in Mongolian and he told me it was 500tg. That’s a big difference at about a 1/3 of a dollar. I got one and still haven’t used the whole thing yet. It’s just an awkward shape for my hands, and it doesn’t suds up well. I’m glad I got it, but I won’t get another one.

I went through a period where my water pressure was literally a drip. Some might say that at least I have water that comes into my apartment, but my rebuttal is that even though they have to go out for water, at least they get more at a time than I did. I might have gotten only 7 gallons of water a day, if I let the faucet run 24/7. Not to say that isn’t a lot of water, but at least if I was hauling it myself, I would be able to get more if I wanted it and be able to do everything I wanted all at once, instead of waiting for more to drip out. I know some volunteers who have 30+ gallon water containers in their gers.

After complaining however many times, some guys finally came to my apartment to check it out. As is their wont, the first thing they did was to get a hammer and bang on the pipes, hoping that would make it work right again. At first they were just using the small multi-tool hammer that I have. When that didn’t work, they got a bigger hammer. I never thought I would see the saying truly put to practice. “If it doesn’t go in, get a bigger hammer.” It would’ve been funny if they hadn’t messed up my multi-tool in the process by bending the piece of metal that keeps it closed. In the end, they got a pipe-wrench and took out the screen filter that was in one of the joints. Instead of just cleaning it good and putting it back, they threw the entire lot away. Now I can get 10 gallons of water in just a few minutes, but I have to be careful about small pieces of rust.

Then, right before I went to UB a few weeks ago, the faucet in the kitchen messed up. It’s always been tricky to get it to turn off. It finally gave up the good fight. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the faucet to close. All it needs is a little pressure to keep the handle down, but I didn’t know what. Finally, the idea struck: use a water bottle full of water. So, now I have a 1.5 litre bottle of water carefully balanced on the faucet handle to keep the water from running freely. There’s still a drip, though. I’ve already told people that need to know, but they just laughed. I’ll let the water drip for a while, then complain about it again. I’ll keep you posted on when it finally gets fixed properly.

Did I tell you about the cactus that I got last fall? I was with some people in the city when they stopped at a flower store and I thought I’d get something, too. I saw a neat little yellow cactus that was cheap, so I picked it up. Well, back in the spring, a new plant started sprouting out of the same pot. I don’t know where it came from, because all of the dirt that I have in that pot was gotten from the flower shop. The only thing I could imagine was that maybe one of the 14 million flies had brought it in somehow. As an experiment, I decided to make sure it had plenty of water and sun so I could see what it was. It grew, then after a week or so, another just like it sprouted. A few days later, I transplanted both of them into their own pot and continued the water and sun regimen. It grew, and more sprouts emerged and eventually it took over the whole pot. Before the cold weather hit and it died, it had started growing along my window ledge. As far as I could tell, it was just a wild flower like I might find outside when I’m walking out on the steppe. It was small, with little yellow flowers that bloomed for a few days at a time. I’m hoping it’ll come back next year.

Back in August, I walked into my buddy’s place in the city and met Stephen. He’s an American CouchSurfer who has been living in Russia for a few months and had to leave for a while because of his visa. He was our age and fit right in with our group, quickly catching on to our jokes and picking on us as much as we picked on him. He came with Evan to my town for a few days and we had a good time. Later, I walked into my buddy’s place in the city and met Dimitry. He’s Russian, and as it turns out, he is Stephen’s friend from the town he used to live in. What a crazy, coincidental world we live in. Dimitry was cool, though definitely Russian when he got a few drinks in him. He also came to my town for a couple days and stayed with me. We sat around watching movies and cooking lots of food and playing a Russian card game that translates as “fool.” He taught me how to make a really easy stew, also. That’ll be good, now that’s it’s f-ing cold outside.

Here are a couple of links to stories about Mongolia. I found out about them from another Volunteer. Hope you enjoy them.

Msnbc http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32736713#32736713

NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112466787

Back at the end of August, I went with six other Volunteers to Hovd and Bayan Olgii, way way way way way out in the far west of the country. Did I say it is way out there? OMG!!!

I went out there to visit with some friends and see the Eagle Festival that is held every year. That side of the country is only a short distance from Kazakhstan, so most of the people there are Kazakh. They are the only ones in the world that are legally permitted to possess eagles and train them for hunting, or so I’ve been told/read somewhere. Later, after however many years, they release them back into the wild with no worries that they will be able to fend for themselves.

There are two ways to get over there: bus and small plane. The plane is quite expensive not only for Volunteers, but for all foreigners with something like a 50% tax. The bus is a little less than half the size of a Greyhound bus (no bathroom), and designed for off-road. Just a few hours outside the capital, all roads become the bumpiest, most pot-hole filled dirt roads you could imagine. The bus is first crammed full of everyone's stuff, including people that only pay to have their stuff sent; then the 26-seat bus is filled with 35-40 people. It's one of the most uncomfortable things you could imagine. The first leg was 38 hours. I’d say I probably got a total of about 8 hours sleep, if that. We stayed in Hovd with a few friends for a couple days, then got on a small Russian van and went another 8 hours to the Kazakh town of Bayan Olgii, where the Eagle Festival is held.

The people there weren't very nice. They demanded $30US from every foreigner that tried to go in. Since most of them were just tourists, it was only a problem for me and my friends. Some sneaked in with a car of Mongolians, a few paid, and me and a buddy climbed a mountain to avoid the money guy. The mountain was a little steep going up, but it was terribly so on the down side. The first 20 minutes was really scary, but after that, we were able to kind of surf down the scree and made good timing.

The Eagle fest itself was kind of cool. People there speak Kazakh if given the choice, so I didn't understand most of what was going on, but they do speak Mongolian, so when I asked someone, they would explain it to me. They had games where men on horses would play tug of war with a goat carcass; women would ride a horse and chase men on horses, the whole time, beating them with sticks; eagles would fly from mountain crags to land on the arm of their master that is riding a horse; and there were foxes and wolves that were sacrificed to the eagles for the enjoyment of the crowd. And all around everywhere, there were men with eagles on their arms, enjoying all the attention they were getting. Whenever I get around to it, there are lots of pics. That stuff was pretty neat.

On the way back, the Russian van that we rode in from Hovd had three flat tires. There was a spare for the first, so that was a 10 minute stop. When the second tire went flat, the driver got out, ran off into the countryside, then came back 20 minutes later rolling a new tire. He put it on long enough to go to the house that he got it from. I have no idea how he knew exactly where it was. At the house, we all went inside to get warm. It was snowing, and there was no heat in the van. For some reason, the tires had inner-tubes, so we sat there for about an hour or so while it was repaired. An hour after getting back on the road, there was a third flat, and no nearby houses. We all stayed huddled together in the van as the driver got out to fix that inner-tube, taking about an hour and a half. The ride to Hovd was about 10 hours.

The next day, we got back on the bus to go back to the capital. It was packed full of more stuff and people than the ride in had been. We had three flat tires and ran out of gas three times. Luckily, there were plenty of spares, and we were never too far from a gas station. Once, the driver got out, grabbed a can, and took off running down the road for gas. Once, we were literally 100 feet from the pump. They surprisingly had enough spares for all the flats, so those only took about 10 minutes each and allowed us time to stretch our legs. Inside the bus, there was a passed-out drunk guy leaning back on my feet for most of the ride, and a guy that just didn’t care at all about me leaning on my legs. That ride took 45.5 hours. So, in the space of 9 days, I was on a bus for 5.5 of those days. The first things I did when I got back to the city were take a nap, eat good food, and get a massage. I felt much better after that.

Now that I'm back at my home, I don't plan on ever doing any kind of traveling like that again while I'm in this country. In the 101.5 hours that it took me to go from the middle of the country to the west, and back, I could've gone from NY to LA 2.3 times. Man, I wish this country had good roads.

Since the last time I’ve written, I’ve gotten about three boxes from my mom and sister. As always, that’s kept me in extra crunchy peanut butter. I haven’t gotten any Ranch packets in a while, so I’m down to two now. Yikes!!! I don’t know what I’ll do with out Ranch dressing.

Several months ago, H1N1 hit the world unawares and has caused people in the Asian world to bring out their ever-so-ready masks. When I first moved to my town last year, only one guy here wore a mask, and it was a black one that was worn to accentuate his rock-style image. A few months ago, the Mongolian government suggested people wear masks and the number has increased to at least half of the population here. In the city, it’s the same way. People everywhere are wearing masks. In true “screw you, I’m going to make money somehow” fashion, all the drug stores raised the price of their masks from about 100tg to about 700tg.

So, all of this was going on, and I was in the city discussing why we’d only HEARD of two foreigners to wear the mask (and one only because she thought it was cool), when I became quarantined in UB. “Pig sick” is how it directly translates from Mongolian, and it brought this country to a stand-still for a while. The reported number of “pig sick” cases had been rising dramatically, so the government shut down all schools for about four weeks, not even allowing the teachers to go; banned all public transportation in and out of the city; forced all restaurants, pubs, clubs, and bars to close at 9pm; and banned all alcohol sales after 9pm. As a result, Peace Corps Mongolia issued a “Stand fast” order, meaning that we were to go to our closest consolidation point and not leave until given further notice.

I was in the city for that whole time. Lucky me, so were three of my best friends here. We enjoyed the week and a half of lounging around with nothing to do but sleep late, enjoy each others company and conversation, eat good food, and not doing anything we didn’t want to. I spent that time meeting a lot of the Mongolian friends that I have in the city, also. The travel ban has finally been lifted, and high schools are back in session now, but kindergartens and some clubs are still canceled. I went last week and got my seasonal flu shot and also the H1N1 vaccine. Let’s hope they work.

I’m still studying the language as much as possible. I continue to take four classes each month, where I learn grammar and ask questions, and then I go out into the city and try to improve my vocabulary. At this point, my vocabulary is the only thing that ever trips me up in a conversation. I have gotten good enough to where something can be explained to me in Mongolian and I’ll understand it completely. That helps a lot. I always carry a pen and paper with me so I can write down new words and phrases. I’ve been getting a lot of my younger guy friends in UB to teach me a lot of slang. They are complete city boys, having been born and raised there, so they speak a lot of slang. Their English is almost perfect, so they can explain a lot, and I try to talk to them in Mongolian as much as possible. One day, one of the guys laughed and said, “It’s funny, you speak Mongolian, but it’s not Mongolian,” meaning that I speak Mongolian like the old woman that teaches me, not like the guys that are my same age. I thought it was pretty funny.

As always, I took my notes in for my teacher to check. When she was looking over the page that I’d learned from my buddies…oh man, you should’ve seen the look on her face. One of the phrases pertained to when you’re really hungry, sitting in front of some good food. Imagine a young fella talking to his buddy and saying, “Let’s F this food up!” Haha. My teacher, not truly understanding the word, looked at me and said in English, “Why would you do this to food?” I laughed then explained the slang to her. She told me that I should never say these things, because people might think less of me. I had quite a time assuring her that I only say those things to my young, guy friends. Then she proceeded to correct the spelling, cause someone has wrote it wrong. Good times.

Alright, that’s it for me, for now. Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I would venture to say that it might just be my favourite American holiday. In case you’re wondering, it’s because I get to eat so much food. I’ll miss being with my cousin, Chad. On Saturday, a lot of the Volunteers will meet in the city and have a potluck dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving. We’ll meet the new ambassador. After that, it’ll just be a few more weeks of pseudo-working, then the New Year planning will begin. Yep, that means there won’t be much work going on at all for a few months. So, I’ll be spending a lot of time trying to keep warm. It has become very cold here, and if I’m not careful, my apartment becomes an icebox. I do seem to be able to handle it better when I’m outside, though. I guess since I know what to expect, it doesn’t seem quite as bad.

Think warm thoughts for me and write when you can. Talk to you later.

he loves his momma....

Around the end of July, first of August, 2009

It’s right at the beginning of the 14th month of me being in Mongolia with the United States Peace Corps. If there weren’t PC Trainee’s in town with me, giving me something to compare my experiences to, the time that I’ve passed here might not be quite as noticeable lately. One way or another, I’ve seen the majority of them at least once a week since they’ve been here. It’s brought a few things to my attention that I might not have noticed otherwise.

Once, after a weekend in the city, I got off the mikre (micro bus) in their part of town. I met with a group of the Trainees and went to one of their host family’s home. I had expected the entire experience to be quite a different affair than what happened. At the first home, I repeated “Trip” enough times for the most inexperienced person with the English language to get it under their tongue, so I was sure everyone had it down.

I was wrong. No problem. Back since I went to the Khentii pig roast, I’ve had a Mongolian name. I can only begin to tell you how handy it has been for me. I don’t think I mentioned it before, so I will now. It’s what I cite when a particular Mongolian seems to have trouble with “Trip.” When I was at the pig roast, I talked to several Mongolians that continued asking me, in English, what my Mongolian name is. Their American had a Mongolian name and they couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have one. I told them no one had ever given me a Mongolian name, so they proceeded to think of one for me. After a random 15 to 20 minutes, someone decided on Sanchir, meaning “Saturday,” or “the planet Saturn.”

After I tell Mongolians my Mongolian name, followed by “Od shig” (like the star), they all seem to feel much more comfortable with me. I’ve noticed such a big difference with people since I’ve been able to give them a name they can pronounce with little cognizance. Just this evening, I hung out with a guy that just couldn’t get the “TR” to work for him. OH, wait! First, I have a funny story to tell about this person.

I had been helping the jijuur (building worker) today, so after we’d worked on several radiators, I followed him outside and sat down across from a guy that is 21 years older than me. The older fella asked my buddy “what kind of person is the guy with you?” not thinking about the possibility that I might understand Mongolian. My buddy mumbled something incoherent in reply, but I took control of the situation. I said, “Did you ask what kind of person I am? I’m a regular, plain ol’ person.” Counting him, there were five of us there; and all five of us laughed heartily. After that, we got along famously.

This old fella turned out to be a childhood friend of my buddy. We’d all done a bit of labour throughout the day, so we pooled our money from Lilliputia and bought some vodka. Seven of us were able to afford 1 ¼ litres of vodka. In case you were wondering, that works out to plenty of shots each. I was glad that the host kept offering a big pot of flour soup and plenty of water. I got my fill of each. They were sending someone after another bottle when I took my leave.

I told you a few weeks ago about the Trainees coming to my place for fajitas. They had such a good time that we scheduled a rendezvous for a later date. After I’d been to the city to pick up some cheese that was much cheaper than I’d expected, they came over one evening for beer and pizza. I don’t know if they’d ever had home-made, American-style pizza, but they professed “goodness” after every bite. That was enough to make them want to book a future date at the Sanchir Mansion. They even told me my pizza was better than what they had at the restaurant in UB. Sweet!!!

For their latest visit, they came over expecting desserts. I saw a couple of the girls the other day and they told me that when they all left last week, I had promised them that I would buy stuff to make brownies this evening. Since I’d (supposedly) said that very early in the morning, I had no recollection of those words coming out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure that I believed the girls, but I still felt bad, since I had nothing to do with brownies in my immediate possession.

As it turned out, my mother saved the day – once again. I’d found a few random, free postcards recently and I’d had them ready to send to a few select loved ones. I’d been asking the postal worker if a package has come for me for the last several weeks. Every time, she would smile and say, “Not here.” I wasn’t expecting anything when I took my three postcards in to get some stamps. As soon as I walked into the small room, my eye was drawn to the conspicuous white USPS box on the counter next to the wall. Without getting my hopes up, I went to pay for my postcards, not expecting anything else. Before she knew what I was doing, she was shoving the box in my arms and pointing at the line requiring my signature. I signed for the box, paid too much for my three postcards (going back later for the change), then smilingly carried my package all the way home.

Inside I found such things as tooth brushes, Ramen noodles (my lunch), pinto beans, garlic, peanuts, peanut butter, jelly beans, steak marinade, country ham, marshmallow treats (my lunchtime dessert), extra special cheese cake, shaving soap, magazines, a Bible, and a computer cord. I have to admit, the most notable thing I feel like I got was the computer cord. I’ve been without a computer for over five weeks now. I’ve been able to handle the times, but it took some getting used to. Thanks, mom.

One of my self-entertainment methods has been a lot of reading. As I said I would before, I’ve begun reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Along with that, I’ve been reading the Japanese classic Musashi. I first heard about a samurai named Musashi when, as a kiddo, I played a video game by the same name. After getting here, I found the almost 1000-page book in the Peace Corps library. I wasn’t sure how interested I’d be when I first picked it up, but since I’ve opened the book, I haven’t been able to put it down. It was written somewhere around the 1970’s, and is said to be the Gone With The Wind of Japan. I couldn’t tell you how many times my grandmother has read and endorsed Gone With The Wind, but I have to say, if Musashi is any indication of how good it might be, it is on my list of future reads.

Also, I’ve devoted a little more time to my Mongolian language studies. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my last post, but I have made a concrete step forward in my studies. There is a series of three books for learners of the Mongolian language and I have recently moved on to the third book. It was unexpected and it made me feel proud when my teacher announced my next lesson would be in the third book. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks now and I seem to be doing alright. My grammar and vocabulary is escalating with each successive lesson. I’m getting much closer to being able to sit down and write anything I want to say.

That means, with a little stumbling, I can usually get my point across with the smallest amount of confusion. Then, of course, just when I think I’m doing well, I’ll have a conversation with someone where I don’t understand one word the other person is saying. They’ll know that I understand fairly well, and then just go off speaking their normal 100km/h. After they get the idea that my soupcon of Mongolian is not going to be enough to survive the current conversation, they slow down to about 35km/h and I’ll finally get the point. I feel like a tar-tar at first, but I get over it.

The show is still going; slowly but surely, I suppose. We were originally told that filming would be finished before Naadam (the second weekend of July), and the show would air for the first time on July 20th. For some unexplained reason, things just dropped off for several weeks, with no word from the studio about what was going on. We finally received a call last week and were told to meet the next day at M Entertainment Club. It’s kind of like a posh, young professional hang-out, ran by the people that own the telecommunications company Mobicom. If you have the Mobicom contract where you pay at the end of each month, depending on the amount of calls and messages, then you can do things for free, or a greatly reduced price. They have a Play Station 3 game room, where you get your own flat screen, PS3, a comfortable chair, and your pick of dozens of games; a bar/restaurant area, where the food was wonderful; private, surround sound home studio rooms, where you can watch your choice of several movies; private karaoke rooms, where we sang several songs, terribly; a night club; and a small bowling lanes.

There were only six lanes, but the entire place was much nicer than any bowling alley I’ve ever been to in the US. All of their stuff was Brunswick, and it was well maintained. The shoes were practically brand-new, but the closest size for me was at least two sizes too small; and they didn’t slide, so they had powder to rub on the bottoms. The first thing we did was to throw a few practice balls, then bowl a game. We had all talked about whether we had played before and I mentioned how my grandmother used to be a manager at a bowling place, so I got to bowl a lot as a kiddo. With the camera on me, I threw my first ball and got a strike. Sweet! Unfortunately, my game didn’t proceed as it had started. For the first eight frames, the Japanese guy and the other American guy were winning. Then, on the tenth frame, I threw a strike and spared, giving me the win by three pins. Whoo-hoo! Haha. It was good fun. I’m glad it was free, cause when I looked at the prices, it seemed a bit pricey. A little more than $10 for one game, including shoe rental.

It had been bruited about amongst the Trainees that some of my buddies were coming to my place on the last weekend of July. Evan, Ridge, and Ben were dropped off out by the road, so I walked out and met them, taking the excursion through the middle of the military base. We weren’t awake too long Saturday morning before Trainees started showing up. We guys ate biscuits, gravy, and eggs while sharing stories and anecdotes with the Trainees. We played a few games of Settlers and drank a few beers.
It was a good time.

On the news channel that I have, they always show the current stock markets. I’m glad to see the Dow’s going up. Not to say that it won’t drop again tomorrow, but I’ve watched it go up over 3,000 in the last three or four months. That seems to be a portent of good things happening. I hope so. I had a bit of money in the stock markets when I came to Mongolia. That’s when the Dow was above 14,000. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when it dipped down below 6,000. I have faith in my broker that things always go up in the long run, so I’ve tried to not worry about it too much. Olly, I hope you know what you’re talking about, buddy.

Since I’ve moved here, I’ve wanted to just take off walking and see what I could see in yonder rolling hills. I finally got to do that this last weekend. The guys woke up and left for UB Sunday morning, leaving me alone to sleep a little more. After getting up and doing a bit of cleaning, I got music and books and took off walking in a direction that I hadn’t been yet. I walked to the top of the tallest hill, looked for the next tallest one, and then took off for it. I made it to the top of the third one after an hour and a half and found it to be the ideal place to stop. There was an outcropping of rocks at the very top, making a natural seat in one place; and there was nothing but rolling hills, gers, herds of mixed and various animals in the distance, and bright blue sky and far as I could see.

I took my shirt off, sat down, and opened a book to wile away the next couple of hours. It was so nice that I was distracted from my reading by looking and listening at everything around me. After less than 10 minutes, some old herder saw me and pointed his horse in my direction. At least, I assume he came there because he saw me. He might’ve known about the outcropping long before I ever even thought about walking in its direction. He got off his horse right next to me. I shook his hand and asked how he was doing, telling him where I’m from and where I live now. I offered him my water and we said about three more sentences each. After that, we both let our own minds wander and didn’t say anything else for the next hour or so. I went on reading my book while he napped a bit. I hardly looked up at all until the old fella got up, we both said “Be happy,” and he got on his horse and rode away.

It’s been nice having my computer back. I didn’t have internet at first, because I didn’t pay for it during the month of July. There is no contract, so if you don’t have the bill paid before the first of the month, they cut it off until you pay, at which time it will immediately work again. It’s kind of nice like that. I’ve been able to read and reply to all my emails, catch up with some friends on IM, and update my blog (as you see).

Oh yeah, before I forget. I got drunk-dialed the other day. My BFFE Matt had called me a couple weeks ago. He and my good buddy Chris were out together the other night and happened to think of calling me. Chris called me and we had a good two or three minutes’ talk before the battery on my phone died. Drat!! Oh well. It was better than nothing, and I appreciated the thought very much. And, just in case any of you were wondering, the cheapest way that I’ve heard about to call me is to get one of those international calling cards from Wal-Mart. I was told that they are a really good deal, and you can put more money on them if you want. (For those of you who boycott Wal-Mart, for whatever your reason might be: I don’t know where to tell you to go, but I know they have those cards in other places.) Don’t ever worry about what time it is: I’ll always appreciate the call.

Well, I think I’ve caught you up on most everything I’ve been up to since the last time I wrote. Now that I’ve gotten into the habit of writing less frequently, I think it will continue this way; at least for a while. I was getting to that point where I was doing so many of the same things all the time that it wasn’t really worth writing those things over and over. I’m sure you understand. I hope you are good. Write, send postcards from your own travels, call, or send packages, whenever you feel like it. I’ll appreciate all. Talk to you later.

a bit of reading about where I've been

July 14, 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Have any of you missed reading about my adventures and misadventures? There are a few reasons why it’s been so long. I’ll tell my story and you see if you can’t pick them out.

The power cord/adapter/converter for my computer messed up a few weeks ago, so I don’t even know what the last thing I wrote about was. Last month, after we’d been to the lower Gobi, James came to my home with me and stayed for a week. I went to work for a few hours in the morning and then spent the rest of the day hanging out. That week was the poorest that either of us has been since we’ve been in Mongolia. All we did was cook food, play Settlers (which I started winning more), and hang out with some of my friends. We had a good time, for the most part. One night, though, wasn’t such a good time. Moogie is one of the LCF’s (Language and Culture Facilitator) for the new Trainees that are here. She had just gotten back one day and she came to my place to hang out with James and me. We talked her into cooking tsuivan for us and we ate it all. Some of her teacher friends figured that she had money, so they kept calling her to go and hang out with them so she would buy the alcohol for them. After the fourth time they called, she turned her phone off. They just weren’t trying to hear that she didn’t have any money. After a while, four of them showed up at my apartment, already buzzed. Somewhere, somehow, they got enough money between all of them and went to the store for vodka. They were alright for a while, until one of them started touching my computer. It was my first time ever being around her, so apparently she didn’t know me very well. She knows me better now. I saw what she was doing the first time and told her not to, but she did it anyway. I cussed and left the room for a minute to calm down. An hour later, she did something else to my computer that I saw she was about to do and told her not to. I cussed again, in English, and she got pissed at me. We argued back and forth for a few minutes before she finally got the point to not touch my computer anymore, and just because I’m in Mongolia does not mean I’m Mongolian. I was quite upset. Things finally settled down, then the women got to singing and laughing. It wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door. It was a policeman, saying the neighbours had called them. Great. That’s all I need. The aftermath of that was that Moogie’s boss and mine told her that she can’t hang out at my place anymore. I don’t know why they think they can tell someone not to hang out with someone else, but they did.

During the same week that James was here, the new Trainees came. There are 10 of them, training to be TEFLers (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). I wasn’t in UB when they all first got to the country, so I didn’t go to the airport and meet them all like a lot of other Volunteers. They are actually in the other part of town, so James and I decided to walk over and meet them when they got here. I knew it was mostly to cure our curiosity, though, since they were busy meeting host families and such. A couple days later, James and I were bored, so we walked over to see if we could find some of them. After asking where the new Americans were, a little girl led us to a house and told us one of them was there. We got lucky and arrived right at dinner time, and they were having “boats”!! They were the best Mongolian-made boats that I’ve ever had, too. They put cabbage and green onions in them. I stuffed myself. The girl that was there was happy we came. She had been having a bit of anxiety about being away from her family.

A few weeks previous, I had randomly ran into one of my friends while walking down the street in UB. She told me that her sister is a model at a studio and they were looking for foreigners that speak Mongolian to be in a TV show. When she asked if I was interested, I told her I was. She gave them my phone number and they called me that evening. The Saturday that James and I went back to UB, I was picked up by a guy and was taken to a recording studio. The first thing we did was sing a song – which I’d never even heard before – while we were filmed. There are two Americans, a girl from Vietnam, a guy from Laos, a guy from Japan, and a guy from Pakistan. My singing was terrible, so I was glad to see the final product had been edited in such a way that my voice wasn’t very loud. I spent two weeks in the city doing a few hours of filming each day. We sang songs, recited poems, went to museums and natural parks, ate food, and met famous people. Filming was supposed to finish before Naadam, but for some reason, it didn’t. We didn’t go to the nice restaurant and night club that was planned. Also, there was supposed to be a trip to the countryside, and possibly to the famous lake that is out West. We were originally told it would be on TV and the internet on July 20, but I’m not sure about that now. I’ll let you know when it will be and you can watch me on the internet, speaking terrible Mongolian.

Have I mentioned how almost everyone in Mongolia knows someone that is famous? Especially in the city. If you know who you’re looking at, you could see someone famous all the time. After a day of filming, I had a sudden and unexpected encounter with a famous guy. One of the guys from the studio was giving a few of us a ride and after dropping everyone else off, I was the last one left. Traffic was heavy and he needed to turn left all on a sudden. When he tried to, a guy in a Land Rover dramatically slammed on his brakes. We had accidentally cut him off, but not as bad as he was making it out to be. He pulled along side us and started cussing, then angled his vehicle in front of ours until we were forced to the side of the road and stopped. The other driver got out, opened the driver’s door, and demanded to see his driver’s license. My driver apologised profusely, but the other guy wasn’t trying to hear it. He took the license, got back in his car, and drove away, heading to the police station. We followed him for a little while, thinking that he would stop soon, but the guy went clear across town and never stopped before my driver got tired of following him and took me to where I was going. Come to find out, the other driver was some famous dancer back in the day. Now, he’s old and everyone says he’s going crazy. Sheesh!

I’d spent 10 days in the guest house, at 6,000tg per night. That was a big chunk of my monthly allowance blown. I was lucky when I found out one of the Volunteers that is about to end his service just got a new apartment in the city, and he wants people to stay with him. I stayed with him a few nights and spent July 4th there with some buddies. They had a thing at the embassy for Americans to go to, but I decided not to. It costed 7,000tg to get in, and they had hotdogs and hamburgers. Last year, I would’ve been excited, but I knew better this year. I never like the hotdogs they have in this country. It might be different if they had chilli and all the fixin’s, but they never do. James and I went to the Mongolian barbeque buffet place and stuffed ourselves instead. By the way, it’s nothing like the stuff that you get at the Chinese buffet in America. Still, it was good.

I had more Mongolian lessons while I was in the city. I am progressing little by little every time. There is a set of three books that my teacher has been using. I was good enough when I first started with her to skip the first one. The other day, I finally finished the second one. Now I’ve started the third. This one has a lot more to do with working on sentences and reading and understanding entire passages. I’ve only done the first lesson so far, but I feel pretty good about it. I’ll let you know how it continues.

July 11-13 is Mongolia’s national holiday. It’s the one called Naadam, where they have the three manly games of Archery, Horse Racing, and Wrestling. Do you remember me writing about wrestling last year? I’d thought about going to the huge one in the city, but it’s really big and costs money to get into. Like last year, my town will have their Naadam in August. So, everyone went to the town that is down the road to enjoy their Naadam. I got there around 11 o’ clock Friday morning and was drinking airag and vodka by 11:30. Airag is the fermented mare’s milk that I wrote about before. I’ve gotten used to it and kind of like it now. I had some other stuff called neelmel that is Mongolian vodka made from milk somehow or another. It’s pretty good. When I asked, I was told the alcohol content is about the same as wine. A big part of Naadam is also eating hoshor. That is the fried pizza pocket like thing, though there is only meat inside. They are pretty good, but quite greasy. It rained most of the day, but I was lucky to have friends that own a meeker. I sat inside it most of the time while different people got in and out to socialise. One of the new Trainees wrestled, but like me last year, he didn’t last long. It didn’t help that he’d never wrestled before. When we heard that the horses were close to finishing their race, we hopped in the meeker and went about a kilometre out. When they got along side of us, we raced along side of them, hoopin’ and hollerin’. The driver was flying on the open steppe and wasn’t very careful of the ruts and holes. We were bounced and jounced all around the inside, giggling the whole time. Good fun.

I’d invited the Trainees to my place this last weekend. I knew they would enjoy getting away from all things Mongolian. It must be that time of year, cause it’s been raining a lot lately. They said they hadn’t been walking five minutes when it started to pour. They got to my place dripping wet. When they got semi-dried, we went shopping for stuff for fajitas. I’d cooked the beans earlier, so we just needed to cook the meat, veggies, and tortillas. Since there were so many to make, and they can only be done one at a time, the tortillas took the longest. They were all excited and we stuffed ourselves, and still had leftovers for me later. Yum! They were really excited about the Ranch. I’d been to someone’s ger for one day of Naadam. While I was there, I ate plenty of food and was given a big bag of candy and a big bottle of expensive vodka as a present. I decided to drink that with the Trainees. They were appreciative. As I’d expected, they asked me a million questions about the Peace Corps and Mongolia before we moved on to more general topics of conversation. They all seem to be a pretty good group of people that are excited to be here. Because of the economy, there have been budget cuts that have affected their training, but I think they’ll be alright. We’ll see.

Since I haven’t been on the internet as much as usual, I’ve been doing more reading. I’ve read Hard Times by Charles Dickens, and I’ve almost finished The World According to Garp by John Irving. They are both pretty good books. I’ve already got my next book lined up. In the one I’m reading now, it mentions Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I just so happen to have that book – and passed it up for the one I’m reading now – so it’s waiting for me.

I know this doesn’t do justice to almost a month’s worth of doings, but I hope it’ll satisfy you for a while. The package with the new power cord for my computer will be at least another week in getting here. Let’s hope that’s all it is. I still haven’t gotten that one package from my sister. It had a lot of stuff like Tylenol and Alka Seltzer and other over the counter meds. That sucks, cause I know that stuff, including shipping, isn’t cheap. Maybe it’ll come one day, but I’ve pretty much given up hope. I’ll write more when I can. My boss is trying to get the fast internet that is now in her office ran into my office, but they IT guy is clowning. What’s new, right? Oh well. Hope you are good. Talk to you later.

It's nice to be home.

June 17, 2009

Well, it’s been another while since I’ve written last. Since it has been, this particular post will be of a different format than usual; and much shorter than it might otherwise be.

I’ve finally returned to my home after a month and a half of traveling. As always, it’s so fun to travel and visit friends and see new places. But it’s almost just as nice to be back home and just relax in a comfortable place where you don’t have to worry about anything. That’s what I’ve been doing since I got here Saturday.

In the last month and a half, I’ve been to four different aimags (states). First was when I went down to Dondgovi (the upper Gobi) for a few weeks to help James with his health project. Next, I went to Khentii for the pig roast, immediately followed by a trip to Selenge to hang out with my host-family.

After coming home for just a few days, I returned to UB and met up with James again. He, Byron, and I tried to buy a bus ticket on the day before we’d originally planned to go on our trip, but all the seats were full. As always, there is a story involved. There are two different places that buses leave from UB. If you want to go East and South, you usually catch a bus on the east side of town. If you want to go West, you usually catch a bus on the west side of town. Since we were going south, we naturally assumed that we needed to go to the east side of town. When we got there, the lady told us that the tickets were all sold out. When we asked her if we could buy tickets for the following day, she asked another lady, then was told that the bus didn’t even leave from there, but from the other side of town. Dang it! The taxi driver said he didn’t know, and felt bad for us, but it was good for his business. Haha. After we got to the right place, they were sold out, too, so we had to leave and go back the next day, since they only sell tickets one day in advance.

The bus ride was a bumpy, uncomfortable, and long 13 ½ hours. That’s the longest trip I’ve ever been on in Mongolia, and I think it’s the longest trip I’ve ever taken. We stopped for an hour lunch break and several pee breaks, getting to Omnogovi (lower Gobi) around 10 o’ clock. We had been very fortunate by getting a recommendation for a guesthouse and went to bed soon after getting there. The ride was so bumpy that we were tensed up the entire ride, trying to hang on and not get bounced out of our seat, so we didn’t getting any kind of rest. We were exhausted by the time it stopped. The next day, all we did was find a driver to take us where we wanted to go the following day, then relaxed, watching several movies throughout the day.

When the driver got there at 8 the next morning, we were ready to go. Even though we were in the hottest part of Mongolia, the weather had turned a bit chilly, with cloud cover because of rain the previous night. I’d accidentally forgotten my jacket at the guesthouse in UB, so I wasn’t as comfortable as I’d liked to have been. The ride was about an hour long and took us to the mountains that we could see in the distance. There is a national park there that has several sights, but we were only going to see one. At the entrance, there was a small museum that was kind of neat. There were all kinds of fossils and stuff. Did you know that the Gobi desert is where a very large portion of dinosaur fossils have been found? Outside the museum and souvenir shops, there were all kinds of fossilised dinosaur eggs lying around. My mom, being a rock collector, would have loved to have one. If they weren’t several hundred pounds each, I might’ve thought about getting one for her. After paying the 3,000tg entrance fee, our driver drove us the remaining 10km.

We went to a place called Yoliin Am. It literally means “Mouth of Yol,” but in this case, it means “Valley of Yol.” When we stopped, the driver stayed with his jeep and we got out and set off walking. Up in the mountains, it was windy and colder than it was at the foot. I missed my jacket even more. After walking a few kilometres and taking many pictures, we came upon the small river. The river goes through a deep but narrow valley in the mountains. By some kind of natural wonder, it’s so cold there that there is ice almost year round. The ice was over five feet deep at most places. It was so deep that it was blue. How cool!! It was slippery, and very cold, but we walked for a while, just because we thought it was so neat. We stopped when we got to a crack in the ice. Byron jumped over it first, giving James and I pause. James jumped over, thinking that would be all the peer pressure I’d need to follow. It wasn’t. Nor was the expectant name calling. I didn’t care. The crack was only a couple feet across, but it was very deep, and the ice on both sides was slippery. I was scared. They finally gave up trying to talk me into jumping and we went back and found the least coldest place to have lunch. It was very neat to say that we ate lunch on five-plus feet of ice, in the Gobi desert, in the middle of June. The next day put us on the bus back to UB. Somehow, it wasn’t quite as bad as the one down there; and it was an hour quicker, too.

This last Friday, some other Volunteers and I met with the ambassador to get some ideas about the life of a Foreign Services Officer (FSO). They are the people that work in embassies around the world and could possibly go on to become ambassadors. There is an FSO exam that I want to take and he gave us a few pointers on how to study. Basically, I need to familiarise myself with the Constitution, Amendments, at least the top 20 landmark Supreme Court cases, and random things about American culture. The test is multiple choice, so I don’t think it will be as hard as I’d originally thought it would be. I’ll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck.

This past Saturday night, the new group of Americans came. Their class is M-20, meaning they are the 20th group of Volunteers to come to Mongolia since Peace Corps started their programme here. Most of us current Volunteers are excited to meet them and planned to go to meet them at the airport. James and I, however, were exhausted by our travels and decided to come to my home. Since getting here, we’ve done nothing but relax, eat a lot, watch movies, and play Settlers. By the way, I’m happy to report that I’ve actually started winning some games. We’ve hung out with some of my friends. We had a good time messing with some of them, making them think that James didn’t know any Mongolian. His is much better than mine, so there were a few times I would act like I was translating and he would tell me what was said, then I would say something in Mongolian. It was pretty funny. Tomorrow, the Trainees that will be in my town will come. Actually, they will be in the other part of town, but that’s still close. We will walk over and meet them when they come. I’m kind of excited that there will be Americans here this summer. And I’ve been told that a Volunteer will be placed here after they swear in. That will be awesome. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll let you know how everything turns out.

Alright, I hope you haven’t been waiting too expectantly on this. As always, the biggest reason is my laziness. I still haven’t gotten that second box that my sister sent over two months ago. I’ve been to the P.O. several times this week, but it’s always closed. There are some snacks in it that I really want. Hm, I think I’ll go and check on it now. Hope you’re good. Talk to you later.

I've been here for one year today. It doesn't seem like it.

May 18, 2009

The presidential campaign is in the last few days, so both candidates have been touring all the places they haven’t been yet. Yesterday, the Democratic Party’s candidate, Elbegdorj, was in the other part of town. Today, the People’s Party’s candidate, President Enkhbayar, came to my part of town. From somewhere, a huge truck with a side that opened up for a stage was pulled to the front of the government building, and there were chairs set up for a couple hundred people. I got there a few minutes before 9 and stood in the back with a few guys I know. After a while, a parade of police cars and SUVs came flying up and the president hopped out with a look on his face like he’d rather be somewhere else. I kept waiting for him to smile and finally saw a brief flash of it after he was well in the midst of the crowd of people offering their hand to him. When he and all the people he was with got to the stage, some other random guy got up and talked for about 10 minutes. When he finished, the president got up and talked for about 5 minutes. Everyone sat down on the stage, and then random people made their way to the microphone that was set up for the crowd. I was sure that it was so they could ask the president questions, but that never happened. Person after person got up and talked for a while, randomly eliciting applause from the crowd, then sat down. I asked Moogie why no one was asking questions and she said it was just so people could tell the president whatever it was they were telling him. When I found that out, after already having noticed that the president was talking to the people next to him and not paying the least bit of attention to the people that were talking, I decided to leave. To say that I was unimpressed would be an understatement.

There were several different news channels there. I had talked to my friend that works at TV5 and she told me that her cameraman would be there and that she’d told him about me. I didn’t think that much about it until I found out that I was on the news tonight. During the story, the camera scanned the crowd, and then stopped on me for several seconds. It’s neat to say that I was on TV, but I really hope that they don’t use my image in any kind of way to promote someone’s political interests.

“I have a chicken.” That’s what one of my friends said to me today. Her birthday is tomorrow, and as I’ve written before, Mongolians don’t like Tuesdays for some reasons. I was trying to ask her what it is about Tuesdays, but I never got an answer. She said that she wouldn’t go out with her friends because it was Tuesday, then told me that she had a chicken. I was being silly and asked her if she wanted me to cook it for her. As it turned out, she’d meant to say that she IS a chicken, and that’s why she wouldn’t go out tomorrow. That led to several minutes of non-stop laughter.

I knew that my sister had sent a couple of boxes to me several weeks ago, so I went to check the post office today. Sure enough, there was something for me, but only one of the two boxes. Before I could leave, though, I helped the postal workers with some English they were working on. I didn’t have anything else to do, so I stayed there for a few minutes. When I got home, the box from Ann had bacon, Circus Peanuts, salad and potato toppings, bacon bits, pinto beans, canned diced and whole tomatoes, strawberry jam, strawberry muffin mix, corn bread mix, hot sauce, 2% boxed milk, and fudge brownie mix. Thanks, sis. I really appreciate it.

Saturday night, I shared a cup with Julia and James. I got Julia’s cold. Dang it!!

May 19, 2009

I washed clothes today. After being gone for two weeks, it was sure time. While that was going, I finished The Count of Monte Cristo. I’ve seen the movie before, but it was nothing like that. You know how the movie focuses a good deal of time on his exploits in prison? There’s not that much focus in the book. And you know how there are several sword fights in the movie between the main character and others? The main character didn’t fight once in the book. The book was really good. I played Settlers with Ambaa and Tsegii this evening. I’m not sure if they didn’t understand or didn’t like the game, but they didn’t seem that into it. I won, but it was too easy to count as part of my record. For my dinner, I didn’t have quite enough flour to make the tortillas that I was trying to make. I used some biscuit mix and the tortillas turned out like flat biscuits. They were pretty good, though.

My camera works! While I was away, Yellow James plugged my camera’s memory card into his computer and made it where I could access all the pictures. This morning, I moved 420 pictures to my computer and uploaded them to the internet. To look at them, click on the link at the top right of my blog. Enjoy!

May 20, 2009

My cold has worsened. My head feels like it’s ready to implode. I finally looked through the med-kit that PC gave us and found some Sudafed. It worked wonders to help me breath better. Other than lie in the bed and watch movies, about all I’ve done today was pack for my trip to the pig roast and to see my host family.

May 21, 2009

I met Jason and a random American tourist named Kyle when I got to UB. We found a place that had nice tables and played billiards for a while, then met other Volunteers at Ikh Mongol and had a few drinks. Everyone is excited about the pig roast this weekend.

May 22, 2009

Woke up early and had breakfast at Amsterdam Cafe. I’ve never had a full English breakfast before, but the person I was with told me it wasn’t the real thing. Oh well, it was still pretty good. Around noon, I went to the market and secured a meeker for our trip. The guy was excited when I told him there were 10 of us. There ended up being 11 of us, and we were packed in. On the way, we saw a huge Chinggis statue made out of metal. It’s just out there in the middle of nowhere, next to the road. It’ll be in my next batch of pictures for you.

When we got to Khentii, we went to the wholesale store and bought lots of alcohol, since we won’t be able to for the next 5 days. Because of the election on Sunday, they are restricting sales. After the riots that burned down the People’s Party headquarters and saw five people shot by the police last year, they aren’t trying to take any chances this year. There are about 15 of us here now, having a good time, enjoying each other’s company.

May 23, 2009

When we got the invitation to go to the pig roast, we were told to bring some kind of side dish of our own. I brought Ranch dressing, pinto beans, Jell-O, macaroni and cheese, and Circus Peanuts. I spent the first part of the morning cooking, and then a group of us walked out and met the others that were already by the river. They’d found a nice spot amongst the small trees and made a camp. They already had an old bed frame converted to a barbecue pit going when I got there. We put our beers in the river to keep cold, stripped down to our bathing suit/underwear, and sat in the frigid water for a while. The water was so cold but the sun was bright and shiny. It wasn’t long before I could feel the sunburn on my back. That’ll be with me for a few days, I’m sure.

After a while, everyone else showed up. There ended up being about 20 or so Americans and about 10 Mongolians. There was all kinds of food and I tried some of every bit of it, dipping most of it in Ranch dressing. I was stuffed! We had lots of leftovers, but as always, there were lots of little kids there begging for some of it. A couple people gave some to the kids, then they told them to leave. The kids paid us no attention and just invaded our camp and took anything they could get away with. I was pretty upset about that. I hate living in a place where you try to be nice and give something to someone, then they continue to take more than they were offered. I know it’s a cultural thing, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.

We played I don’t know how many games of Settlers. It seems it doesn’t matter who I play with, other than Mongolians, cause I just don’t win. If I didn’t like the game so much, I would give up; but it’s addicting. I don’t mind. It’s fun.

May 24, 2009

We didn’t do much but sit around playing games today and cooking and eating more food. There are a couple women here that are very good at baking and we guys sure enjoyed that. Ha, especially when they brought it to us and we didn’t have to get up. That’s always nice. Though everyone is having one last hurrah before we leave in the morning, I’m in the bed early tonight.

May 25, 2009

We were up and met the meeker driver by 9 this morning. It was the same one who brought us, so he was expecting 11 of us again. He seemed a little disappointed when there were only seven of us. About half-way back to UB, we told him we wanted to stop and eat. He pulled in at a little place and we all got out wanting “boats.” They didn’t have them and we started to go somewhere else, but the driver told us no other place had them, either. We ordered something that is similar to boats, then went to the store to buy some drinks. We had to walk a long way to find a store that was open. On the way, we passed by several restaurants that were solely for boats. Drat!! I knew that driver had to be lying. I don’t know what his reason for that was.

When I got to UB, I hung out for a few hours, then got on the night train to visit my host family. I’ll get there early tomorrow morning.

We found out that Mongolia elected a new president. Considering all the crazy last minutes rule changes that have happened in the last couple of weeks, we’re all quite surprised. When we got to the city, we saw all kinds of people decked out in the Democratic Party’s gear. Of course, the knuckleheads were still out and about. We were crowded in the taxi, so one of the guys got out a few blocks early, by himself. As he was walking, a guy flicked his lit cigarette at his face. When he asked the guy what his problem was, the guy’s buddies came walking up. My friend said he had a hard time swallowing his pride and walking away, but he knew it was in his best interest to do so. Always a jackass to mess up something good.

May 26, 2009

I got to the station in Sukhbaatar at 6 this morning, then to my host-family’s house at 6:30. They were all up and expecting me. The sleeper on the train is way too short for me, so I didn’t sleep well. After a small breakfast, I went to bed for a couple hours. After I got up, I just sat around and visited for the rest of the day. I went to the store once and got caught in a dust storm. Those things suck. Not only does the dust get in my eyes, but also in and on absolutely everything else that is exposed. There’s no taking a bath til I get back to UB, so I’ll just be dirty til then.

This evening, after a good dinner of hoshor, one of the family friends came over with a small bottle of vodka. He said they weren’t selling alcohol today, and he didn’t know I was coming, so that’s all he had. The seven of us that were there made quick work of that, then my host-dad pulled out the litre bottle that I’d given to him as a gift. That took a while longer to finish.

May 27, 2009

The combination of greasy hoshor and vodka had my stomach upset all through the night. This morning, when I went to go to the outhouse, no one was around and the dogs were still off their chain. You remember those stupid dogs that I wrote about last summer, right? I thought I would chance going by the dog that was lying next to the front porch, but it raised its head and started growling as soon as I stepped out the door. I stepped back inside and grabbed the broom, thinking that would help. It didn’t. My host-mom came running from the outhouse, hollering. When I looked at her, the dog lunged toward me, stopping right before it got me. Man, I hate dogs. That thing scared me. I had a hard time waiting for her to get them tied up. I’ve had diarrhoea ever since then. I ate six Pepto tablets and decided to leave early today. I took a car to Darkhan, then another to UB. It snowed the whole time. Luckily, I was in and out of a tired stupor, so I didn’t have to worry about crazy driving. I got into the city right at 4. That’s much better than tomorrow morning. I’m sure glad I had taken those Peptos. This evening, I’m at the guesthouse and going to bed early.

May 28, 2009

I woke up and got ready to go to the meeker about the same time they were to get into UB. I dropped my bags off in the meeker, knowing the driver would watch them closely, then went to the market to do some shopping. I’ve been in there twice before, but this was my first time alone and with the intention of actually taking my time and buying some things. I wasn’t there 10 minutes when I found a booth selling Mongolian DVDs. I’ve written before how Mongolian movies are hard to come buy. As I was asking about different movies and such, the vendor walked away. Before I could finish the thought, “I could walk away with any of these and get away with it,” a guy came from my right, swiped a movie, and kept walking. Before he could get past the stand on my left, that vendor demanded the movie back, then punched the guy in the face for his efforts. I really and truly had no intentions of taking anything, but that made me sure of it. I took my time walking around and saw all kinds of things that I’d like. I knew that would be the case, so I made sure I only had a small amount of money when I went there. I bought a 10-movie DVD, a shot glass, metal chopsticks, a whet-stone, a large mixing bowl, some house slippers, and a broom with a handle on it; and I checked on the prices of bicycles and tents that I plan on buying when it gets warm enough to be outside overnight.

May 30, 2009

I’ve not done much more than watch movies and try to get rid of this diarrhoea for the last few days. As far as I’m concerned I don’t think it’s related, but I’ve heard that nine of us that were at the pig roast have gotten sick. While we were there, we all exchanged movies and TV shows, so that’s been my entertainment for these last few days. I used the last of my cheese and made pizza tonight. That was good stuff. I’ll have to get some more soon.

May 31, 2009

Moogie has been chosen to be one of the language teachers for the PC Trainees that will be here this summer. As a result, she will be in UB for the next couple of weeks to train, then live in the other part of town once they get here. Since we probably won’t hang out for a while because of that, she came over tonight and ate pizza and watched a movie with me. She was pretty good friends with the guy that was here before me, so she’s starting to understand some of the stupid and crude American humour. We watched a movie called College that was as bad as you might guess it to be. She kept asking if certain things were true and I was a bit embarrassed to say that most of it was.

June 1, 2009

Today is Child’s Day in Mongolia. It’s a day where the children are celebrated and spoiled even more than they already are by giving them gifts and candies and letting them do whatever they want. Drivers turn on the lights of their vehicles. That’s good, since the other 364 days they let it rain, snow, or be dark and don’t worry about lights, as long as they can see what they’re doing. My friend asked me when Child’s Day is in America and I told her they don’t have that day. She said, “Oh, it must just be every day in the U.S.” I laughed and said, “Uh, yeah.”

I tried to get on the internet this morning and found out that I’d forgotten to pay my bill. Drat! They don’t give any leeway when it comes to that. And, of course, Skytel is closed today, so there’s no way to pay before tomorrow.

June 2, 2009

Today, I have been in Mongolia for one year. Can you believe it? It doesn’t really feel like it’s been that long when I think back on it. Check out some of the other blogs I have links to and see what they’ve written about their last year.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post this for you. I’m about to go back to the city and then meet a friend and go to the lower Gobi this next week, then go and meet the new Americans when they come; so it might be a while before I post again. Know that I’m thinking about you and I’ll write something as soon as I get a chance. I hope you are good. Talk to you later.

P.S. Ann, that second box still hasn’t come yet. I don’t know what the problem is. That’s just Mongolia’s postal system, I guess. Maybe it’ll come eventually.

Ah, it's nice to finally be home.

May 9, 2009

We woke up at a decent hour and went to the school to do our project today. James – yellow and brown – and I printed out our materials and started cutting stuff out and figuring out the order we would teach. About half-way through cutting, we found a printer that actually had toner in it, so we reprinted the things and redid our cutting. The first thing we did was teach 8th graders about the hazards of smoking and drinking and ways they can avoid peer-pressure. It seemed to go alright. We were originally supposed to have a one hour break after that, but since the Mongolians that were using the class before us went way over their time, we went straight from one thing to the next. The next group was 9th graders, and we taught them about nutrition and hand foot and mouth disease. There was an outbreak of hand foot and mouth disease in Mongolia this time last year, and since all of these kids live in the countryside and have regular dealings with livestock, we thought it would be good for them to be aware of it.

When we finished, we decided that we would make pizzas. The dough had been sitting for about 20 minutes when we got a call saying that we would have a ride to the aimag centre in about two hours. Since that coincided with when the pizza dough was supposed to be finished, we sped things up by not letting the dough set so long. I didn’t think it would work, but James assured me it would. It did. We made the first pizza and scarfed it; made the second one and gave it to his hashaa family; made a third for his director; then made a fourth for us again. His director only ate a few pieces, so we ate the rest.

We were packed and ready to go by the time we were told the porogon was going to leave, but we seemed to be the only ones. Our ride was two hours late picking us up. When we got in, our first stop was at the only tree right at the edge of the soum, where we all got out to leave sacrifices and pray. When we loaded back in, we went to James’ manager’s ger and all the teachers and we got out and ate a quick bowl of food. After that, we stopped a little bit outside the soum and someone brought out a bottle of vodka. The first shot was given to God, then the teachers made short work of the rest. The last sip was finally taken and all 24 of us slowly crept toward the aimage centre. The ride was very cramped and uncomfortable. The three of us sat on a wooden bench facing the rear, right in front of another seat full of people. The other two were actually sitting on the metal that covers the engine, so they had a very hot butt by the time we got to where we were going. They squirmed a lot. Everyone’s knees were crammed together and it wasn’t long before we were all squirming.

At the centre, about two hours later, we dropped the kids off, dropped our clothes off, then met the teachers at the school where they were staying. The jijuur (building worker) was drunk and demanded to see our passports as soon as we went in, even though he’d previously seen us and knew who we were and what we were doing. We made a conscience effort to be nice and play along with his show of authority. In the room with the teachers, they were just finishing some really good noodle soup, so we forced a bowl down. Does anyone wonder why my stomach was hurting, after all the eating I’ve done today? Since we split two big bottles of vodka between us, it wasn’t really a bad thing that I ate as much as I did. The older women told me several times that I had a pretty smile. I’m not sure if I agree, but I thanked them anyway. As much as I was laughing, they had plenty of chances to see it. Surprisingly, we weren’t too late getting in the bed.

May 10, 2009

Happy Mother’s Day! If you are a mother, I hope you were treated in some kind of special way.

Yellow James and I woke up around 11:30 and went to the shower house this morning. The only thing I’ve washed since last Monday was my hair, so I was quite ready to bathe. It only cost 800tg for a shower, but the amount of time we had to wait raised the price really high. The building has about 8 different shower rooms in it, and each person gets a number when they pay. The good thing is that families tended to go in together. I’m sure that saved a little time. I had to wait almost two hours before it was my turn. Actually, I got lucky because a couple of girls told me it was my turn, though I knew it was theirs. I asked them if they were sure before I went in. There was a small room where you first walk in, then a bigger room where the shower is. The first thing I did was shave my week-old beard. Without my clippers, it took about 4 times as long as normal. In the shower, I washed everything twice, just to make sure it was good and clean. The way things keep getting delayed, there’s no telling when I’ll get to UB and be able to bathe again.

Feeling so fresh and so clean, we all went to a guanz (diner) where I got the last 10 “boats.” Turns out that my eyes were bigger than my belly, cause I could only eat eight. They were big! For the rest of the day, we just sat around, reading and hanging out. Yellow James has a board game called The Settlers of Catan that is very fun and addicting, so we played several games of that. It’s easy to learn, but hard to win. I didn’t win once. They have at least a year’s worth of experience on me, so I wasn’t too upset about it.

May 11, 2009

Yellow James went to work today, so the other James and I went in search of a bank or ATM that actually worked, striking out four times before we finally found one. For our lunch, we went to a guanz and ate soup. The bantan I got is my favourite that I’ve written about before, that tastes kind of like chicken and dumplings. I need to learn how to cook that. We checked out the market when we finished, then went back and played Settlers some more. I still haven’t won.

Unexpectedly, we found that we would have a ride to Katie’s soum and that they would be ready at 2:30. As usual, it was around 4:30 before the jeep showed up with 14 people in it already. That ride was about as uncomfortable as the one that took us to the aimag centre. I don’t know how many times we stopped for kids to get out and throw up, people to take pee breaks, or the driver to look under the hood and get back in. It took about two and a half hours to get to Katie’s ger. The first thing we did was to go and meet her hashaa family and eat a bowl of rice and meat. After that, we came back to her ger and make some tsuivan. It was pretty good, even if it was Americans that made it. It was more Settlers after that. I really like the game, but I still haven’t won, yet. Katie made the cake that James had brought, and the icing we put on it was really good. Yum!

May 12, 2009

I was awakened at 10 after 6 this morning by a call from my BFFE, Matt. He’d tried to call me a few days ago, but I didn’t hear the phone ring. It was good to hear from him. We exchange emails, but it different to actually hear his voice. I miss his big head. He told me that he’s trying to work it out where he can come and visit me in July, after he finishes his work in S. Korea. Pray for us that things will work out.

I stayed awake after that and did some writing, reading, and playing video games. When the others finally got up, we went to Katie’s school and talked to the manager about when we would do our project there. We decided on tomorrow. Since Skytel doesn’t work here, my internet doesn’t either, so I tried to use the school’s internet. After 5 minutes of waiting for one page to load, James and I came back to Katie’s ger and played more Settlers. Still no wins for me.

Katie had beans, so we put those on while we watched 30 Rock. That show is pretty funny. Her hashaa mom brought us all some soup that we devoured, then, when the beans finished, I mashed them for refried beans and made all the stuff for fajitas. We stuffed ourselves and enjoyed every bite. Since then, everyone has just been laying around, doing their own thing.

I have to tell you about something that I wasn’t expecting when I came down here. People in this part of the country have an accent that is noticeably different from where I live. At first, I thought that both Jameses were saying some of their words wrong, but then I noticed that the people they were talking to pronounced them the same way. Even worse, they don’t understand half of what I say. The few times that I’ve tried to say something significant, James had to translate for me. The Mongolians laughed at me when I teased them about talking weird down here.

May 13, 2009

We woke up this morning ready to finish the project that we are here to do, but wouldn’t you know it, there was no power. Why does this keep happening? I talked to a few different Volunteers in different parts of the country and they said they had been out of power, too. One difference, though, is that when the power goes out here, so does all cell-phone service. The other Volunteers had heard different reasons for their power outages. One had heard that they were preparing for winter. I don’t understand that, since it’s only spring. Another had heard that a certain city needed to borrow electricity, so it was shut down everywhere else. I’m not sure if I believe either of those reasons.

We went to the school and told them we would teach tomorrow, since we needed power, then went back to Katie’s ger and did very little. We read books, played handheld video games, and played Settlers. I finally won!! James had been teasing me about how good it felt to win and I found out that he was right. Especially since I beat him by a very big margin. When it was time for dinner, Katie’s hashaa mom brought a big pot of noodle soup. It was made with dried meat and was quite salty, but it was good. We have a little bit left over for tomorrow.

May 14, 2009

How coincidental. Last week, the day after the power was out and we did our lesson, it snowed. The rain that came last night turned to snow by the morning. There is a saying in Mongolia that “spring weather is like a moody person.” I can definitely see why they say that.

Katie had told us about some people that live near her that have camels that she has rode before, so we went there yesterday to see if we could ride them ourselves. We were told to go around 6, so we left her place and headed that way around 6:30. The guy was just coming from the field when we got there, but there were no camels. He told us to come today, at exactly 10 o’ clock. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard a Mongolian say that something was to be done at an exact time, so we were sure to be there a few minutes early. When we arrived, he had the two camels ready to go and we were excited. We were expecting to ride for at least an hour. In case you don’t know, Mongolian camels have two humps, instead of the one that you see on Middle Eastern camels. A saddle is lashed between the two humps and a piece of bone with a long strip of leather is pierced through the nose that is used to guide the camel. To get on, you have to make the camel lay down. I was the first to hop on. I’ve rode horses before so I expected some kind of similarity. Being on the back of an animal was the only similarity I found. When the camel gets up, it raises up its front legs, then its hind legs. I wasn’t ready for the see-saw motion and felt a slight tinge of nervousness about falling off. James snapped a few pictures of me, the guy walked the camel in a circle, and then I got off. I was ready for the see-saw motion again, but it was still weird. When the camel goes down, its front legs go down first, then its hind legs. After yellow and brown James had their pictures taken, the guy basically said, “Okay, I’m busy. Leave.” We might have been there 20 minutes. It was cool, though, so I don’t have anything to complain about.

We played Settlers again today. I was distracted by text messages at the same time I had enough points to win, so I didn’t claim victory. When James took his turn, he got enough points and quickly took the victory from me. I had 17 points and he had 15. He won by a technicality. Rats!!!

The only ride for yellow James to get back to his place for the next week left today at 1. We went to a guanz (diner) where I had some really good “boats,” and then he had to run the porogon down because he almost missed it. We didn’t realise until he was gone that between his computer and mine, his was the one that could read Cyrillic. We had planned to go to the school at 3, but that moved our plans up about an hour. We met with Katie’s manager and I was very surprised to learn that she is quite competent with computers. I’ve found that to be rare amongst Mongolians. She showed me a thing or two. First, she gave me the setup so my computer can read Cyrillic, then she helped me figure out how to make the projector work when I attached it to my computer. It was very easy to do, but I didn’t know. We spent about 30 minutes getting one of the school computers to recognise a printer they had, then we went to the cafeteria to set up for the kids. By the way, that is the first cafeteria that I’ve seen in a Mongolian school. In many (most?), the cook takes the food and dishes to the kids’ classrooms. There were about 35 8th and 9th graders that came for our lessons, and they seemed to absorb it pretty well.

Katie’s co-worker had helped us, so when we left, we asked her if she wanted to hang out and have a few drinks with us. She accepted, but told us that we should go to her home first and she would cook dinner for us. Never one to turn down free food, we accepted. She told us to be there at 7, so we left Katie’s at 7:30. She cooked some good vegetable soup and we ate some goat yoghurt that we put sugar in. We went back to Katie’s place and had some drinks and played Uno. Katie had bragged about always winning, so we ganged up on her to make sure she ate her words. It was pretty funny. Our ride leaves to UB in the morning, so we’ve not stayed awake too late.

May 15, 2009

Happy Birthday, baby sis! I hope you get all kinds of wonderful things today.

The porogon was to leave at 7 this morning. We sent Katie to reserve our seats yesterday, so they were waiting on us when we got there at 7:15. (Can you tell we’re getting accustomed to Mongolian time?) It was another 30 minutes before we left. There were only supposed to be nine people, but the driver crammed in five or six others. I attribute it to greediness and a lack of care about other people’s comfort level. But, we were getting the only ride of the week that goes to UB, so we tried to grin and bear it. James and I were actually glad to be leaving. Katie’s hashaa brother is quite dirty and has some kind of infection all the time, and she’s always getting sick. I was glad that I was on penicillin the whole time. Then, Katie found two ticks on her yesterday. The ride was a very long and uncomfortable six and a half hours.

The first thing I did when we got to the guesthouse was to shave my face. It felt nice. After that, I went to see the PC Medical Officer and he checked out my throat and told me it was all better. I’m glad of that. But, of course, being in UB has given me that all too familiar harrumph in my throat again. I hope it doesn’t stick around and give me an infection again. Cross your fingers for me.

When I met James, we decided that we had earned ourselves a massage, so we went to our favourite place. Ah, it was wonderful. I could stand to have one of those every day. When we left there, we went for Korean food. Man, that stuff is so good. Julia had just got into town today and was staying at our guesthouse, so we hung out with her tonight. She braided James’ hair and we talked about all kinds of random stupid things. Good times.

To Julia’s mom: Hi! There is a link on the upper-right of my blog that is for my pictures. I haven’t uploaded any new ones in quite a while, but you can see what I look like there. Yellow James put my camera’s memory card into his computer and tried to fix it so I can see the pictures when I connect it to my computer. I’ll check to see if it actually works when I get back to my home. I’m doing a lot of traveling this month, though, so it still might be a while before I upload more.

May 16, 2009

James and Julia left early this morning and I was the only one in the guesthouse. I checked emails and did a little bit of studying before I finally took a shower and went in search for food. I didn’t have anything in particular in mind, so when I saw a Vietnam place, I went to see what they had. I’m not sure why it’s called a Vietnam restaurant, cause when I looked at the menu, it had all the Mongolian usuals. I ordered tsuivan and had to wait about 30 minutes before it came out. I was starting to wonder what the cook was doing back there when it was finally brought to my table. When I got it, it turned out to be the best tsuivan that I think I’ve had. Fresh peppers, onions and garlic were used, then there was a strange black spice on the top called black pepper. What in the world is that doing on a dish made and served by Mongolians? It was really good.

At my Mongolian lesson, I did pretty well when talking about all the things that I’ve done in the last two weeks. There were a few suffixes that I messed up, but there wasn’t much more than that. When we got into the lesson, she started talking about something that she’d told me I’d already learned. I had no idea what she was saying. As it turns out, there is a different way to say the same thing that I learned last time, and of course, it’s the colloquial. There is a difference on what exactly is said when you are talking about 1st person or 3rd person, though. At this point, I wouldn’t expect anything different.

There is a German couple that is staying in the guesthouse. They said this is their first time in this part of the world. They had gone out today and when they stopped somewhere, the man set his bag down and walked away. He said he wasn’t 10 metres away when it was stolen. When he was telling me the story, he quickly flipped through his German-English dictionary and said that it was because he was “arrogant.” Yep, that’ll do it. He told me he’d paid for a lesson that he won’t soon forget.

May 17, 2009

Happy Birthday, Ann. I hope your day is good.

I woke up around 9:30 this morning and did some writing before it was time to start getting ready to leave. For only a very few minutes, I got to see a couple of friends that just got into town. They are on their way east to hang out with other friends. My lesson today was one of the hardest so far. It was about combining two different sentences that have different subjects. Also, it depends on a few different things on what kind of suffix is to be used. I got a few of them right after a while, but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the others. I’ll have to do a lot of studying to get that.

As soon as I finished, I hopped in a cab and made my way to the meeker. I was determined to not be late today. When I got there, there were about four seats left. I found the one that looked the most comfortable and settled in. At first, someone told me to go to the back, but I told them my legs were long and stayed where I was. Two or three different times people gave me a look saying they wanted me to move to the back so they could have my seat, but I didn’t budge other than to stand up and let them go by me. After the last two weeks of cramped rides, and being tired of being treated like a child and told where to sit, I wasn’t about to give in. For so long now, I’ve allowed myself to be put into uncomfortable situations so as to not make a fuss and be a nuisance to Mongolians. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I’m spoiled, or whatever else they might think. I’m starting to stand up for myself now and assert myself more. If they get mad, they’ll just have to get over it, like they would with any other person. I won’t intentionally make anyone mad, but I’m not going to just let myself be uncomfortable because someone else wants what I have. Oh, and this was the third ride in the last couple of weeks that at least one kid got car sick and threw up. I don’t know what’s going on with that.

When I got home this evening, I took the pizza dough that I’d made a few weeks ago and was waiting for it to reach room temperature. It wasn’t out 20 minutes when Moogie told me she was cooking “boats” and invited me over. She told me to bring a dessert, so I got the last boxed cheesecake and made it over there. Nomin was there, too. We ate one batch of boats and Moogie asked if I wanted more. I really did, but I knew that I would be the only one eating; and if I did, I would eat way too much. I told her not to cook more. They really enjoyed the cheesecake. We sat around joking with each other for a little while, and then I came home and watch The Princess Bride. I haven’t seen that movie since I was a kiddo. It was as good as I remember.

I hope you’re good. I’m going to be going to Khentii aimag at the end of this coming week. The Volunteers that live there will be hosting their annual pig-roast and lots of us will be there. I’m looking forward to the good times that I know will be had. When I leave there, I will go to Sukhbaatar and see my host family. It’ll be the first time I’ve seen them since I left their last August. I’ll tell you all about it later. Take care. Talk to you later.

Chillin' in the Gobi (literally)

May 1, 2009

I posted last week how Shuree and some of her students were going to come to my place for pizza. They showed up with a bottle of vodka, beer, and a cake that someone had made just for me. It had green icing like the kind you might buy to put on a cake in the U.S., and it was the best cake that I’ve had since being in Mongolia. The girls loved the pizza, saying that it was better than the pizza place in UB. That made me smile. They left after about two hours, leaving me with a kitchen full of dirty dishes. Maybe I’ll get them cleaned up when I get back on Sunday.

May 2, 2009

As usual, I went to UB for my Mongolian lessons. Today, I learned how to say that one think is like another. As always, there is more than one word to use, and depending on which two things you are comparing, there is a different way to say it. It was fairly easy, though.

This evening, I went to a birthday celebration for a girl that is a friend of a friend. She’s Mongolian, but she was raised in Germany. It’s kind of funny that Mongolian is her third language. While there, I met two American guys. They have been in the country for about four years working, and neither of them seemed to have anything nice to say about Mongolia, Mongolians, or the Peace Corps. One of them was just an idiot. When he started talking about how no one really cared about Mongolia, I wasn’t the only one who was offended. Instead of spending the rest of the night with them, I went to the guesthouse when they went to dance. That’s put me in the bed at a decent hour.

May 3, 2009

Today’s lesson consisted of the two ways to say “because” and the two ways to say “so.” That was pretty easy, so we moved on to different ways to say that I want something. I already knew one way, but the other is a stronger way to say it. I’m glad to learn it. It will be helpful. Right at the end of the lesson, I filled up my notebook. Since I can’t count the notebook that I’d had during training – that one was stolen from me, if you remember – this is the first one that I’ve filled up. That was a neat feeling of accomplishment.

On my way to catch the meeker, I met a cabbie that wanted to just sit and talk to me. He knew a little bit of English and wanted to practice with me. I told him I didn’t have time and left. It didn’t matter too much, though, cause I didn’t make it to meeker on time. Just like last week, it had already left. I don’t know what’s up with that lately. I was lucky enough that there were a couple of guys from my town with cars, so I got some tsuivan and got in one of them. I seemed to have picked the wrong one, though, since the driver crammed 5 people in the back seat and charged more than the meeker. I was really upset about being crammed in there. My legs were hurting and falling asleep until I finally put them across another guy’s lap. Since that was the only way for me to get home, all I could do was sit there and steam silently. I will not ride with that guy again, that’s for sure.

May 4, 2009

I went back to UB today. My friend James asked me last week if I wanted to help him with a health project, and since I’d only been waiting for an excuse to visit him, I figured this was a perfect opportunity. He lives in the Gobi desert, which is south of my town, but I had to go north to the city in order to get a ride. As you might imagine, you can find travel to anywhere in Mongolia, but it’s not always the most efficient. You often have to go to, or through, UB to get somewhere.

As soon as the meeker stopped in the city, I bought and ate some “boats” while sitting there. When I got to the PC office, I went looking in search of my favourite PC Medical Officer. He’s a really good guy and I always make a point to stop and say what’s up when I’m in town during the week. It was his lunch time, so I went with him to a Chinese restaurant. It’s the first time I’ve eaten Chinese since being here. Just like the last time we ate lunch together, he paid, saying that he knows he makes many times what I do. I was very appreciative. After that, I had him look at my throat. I’ve been having symptoms consistent with enlarged, swollen adenoids: mouth breathing, not resting well at night, constant build up of phlegm, etc. When he looked, he told me that I have an infection on one side of my tonsils and gave me a 10-day supply of penicillin VK. Let’s hope it helps.

At 3 o’ clock, I met James’ hashaa brother. Hashaa basically means fence/yard. Each Volunteer that lives in a wooden house or a ger lives in a hashaa with a Mongolian family that makes sure the Volunteer is taken care of. I was quite lucky that he was in town, so I didn’t have to pay the 11,000tg to ride the bus to the aimag (state) centre that is 70km away, then however much more to get to James’ place. His brother’s name is Shonkh and he has a paragon. It’s my first time riding in one. A porogon kind of looks like a Russian version of a Volkswagen van. It’s really basic, but tough cause it has a high clearance, off-road tires, and 4-wheel drive. When I opened the door to put my bags in, it was lined with all kinds of beer. Holey Smokes! His family owns a store, so that’s what it was for. Before we left the city, we made three or four more stops to get various things. On the way out, he was going kind of slow, but I figured he knew what he was doing, so I didn’t say anything. As we went through the gate going out, we stopped to wait on his friend that was to ride with us. We sat there for about 20 minutes then Shonkh suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten something. Dang! So, we turned around and went back into the city to get a bunch of oil.

When we picked his friend up on the way out, we started our five to six hour trip. For the first 30km, the road was paved, but we were only going between 30-40km/h (24-31mph). Again, I didn’t know why he was going slow, but I figured he had his reasons. After that first 30km, the road changed to dirt; and there wasn’t just one road, but three or four parallel roads, mostly going in the same direction. Occasionally, one of them would split off and run in perpendicular course. Shonkh never hesitated in his choice of which one we took, and his speed had suddenly increased to around 70km/h (43mph). Considering the poor condition of the road, it seemed like we were flying. It made me think of what my mom would say if she’d been in there with us: “You’re scaring the mommy!” It was obvious that he’d made the trip hundreds of times before, so I trusted him and enjoyed the ride. I saw my first ever eagle fly out of our path, innumerable mice scurry from the road to their holes, rabbits, and random birds. Other than the random birds, I haven’t seen any of those animals since I’ve been in Mongolia. It was cool.

About an hour before dark, Shonkh suddenly turned off the road and drove into the vast nothingness. Once we got over the hill there was a random ger. They were herders living there and they’d combed their goats for that most wonderful item we call cashmere. Shonkh would get out alone, go in and visit with the family for a few minutes, then come back and get us and his scales. We would drink a little tea, eat a traditional Mongolian pastry or harden milk curd, load up the cashmere, then get back in the porogon. We zig-zagged through the countryside, stopping at two or three more gers, repeating the above. When we got back on the road, it was dark, but Shonkh’s speed didn’t decrease at all. He seemed to have an internal GPS; his decisions seemed to be as infallible as if the sun was directly overhead. After a while, he suddenly turned off the road again, heading into the distance. Did I mention that there are absolutely no landmarks? I mean, nothing that my uneducated eye could discern anyway. But he never missed his mark. We went straight to a ger that would never be found if you didn’t know exactly where it is. When we left there, we headed out again, full speed. Our five to six hours had long been surpassed, so when he started looking around, I thought maybe he was looking for the soum (small village) that he lives in. He turned off his lights for a second and I was sure that’s what he was doing. Off to our right, we saw a signal light, and Shonkh immediately made for it. It was another random ger. Were they expecting us? How did they know we were there? There is absolutely no cell phone signal, so the rendezvous had to have been set up in advance. Shonkh traded some of his gas, which a couple of guys siphoned from the paragon, for a bag of meat.

It was another 2 hours before we finally got to James’ soum. I’d previously given up looking out for lights that would mean the distant sign of life and had let my heavy eye lids close their selves. My grip on the OH-CRAP! handle never loosened, though. Around 11:30, we pulled into their hashaa. James was waiting on me. We stayed up til almost 2, talking in his ger.

May 5, 2009

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

It’s really hot today. I guess that’s to be expected, since I am in the Gobi desert. Even worse, I had started making water during the day. I’d forgotten how quickly that will make a small, enclosed area heat up. James and I were sweating all day, wearing nothing but shorts. Speaking of, James had a pair of shorts that were way too big for him that he gave to me. They are a little big for me, but a belt takes care of that. I’d gotten some tequila in UB to celebrate today, so we drank that as we cooked fajitas for James’ hashaa family. I used to really dislike tequila in the U.S., but it doesn’t seem that bad now. After a year of drinking crappy vodka, almost anything is welcome. We invited his manager over, also. I don’t think they liked the fajitas as much as we did. No matter: I got my fill. I’m stuffed tonight.

May 6, 2009

Not long after I woke up today, the other James came. He lives in the aimag centre (capital) and has come to help us with the project that we will teach. Here’s a funny story about him. The James that lives here is Korean. The James that came here from the centre is white. The Mongolians were talking to us and said “Yellow James” to distinguish between the two. Going on how Americans often say that Asians are yellow, I figured that they were talking about the Korean James. Come to find out, they were calling the white James yellow. I thought that was pretty funny how white people call Asians yellow and Mongolians call white people yellow. We didn’t do much but hang out today. We had lots of leftovers from yesterday, so we ate fajitas again. Luckily, we didn’t have but a bit of flour, so I wasn’t able to stuff myself again.

May 7, 2009

We woke up to no power today. It seems like they don’t tell James about when the power will be out anymore than my town tells me. We found out it will be out tomorrow, also. We had originally planned on doing our project today, but Mongolian-itis kicked in and it was moved to tomorrow. Since there will be no power tomorrow, we’ve moved it to Saturday. Since we have no power, and there was nothing to do, we just hung out. Three guys sitting in a one room tent, about 12 feet in diameter has the potential of being kind of boring. Luckily, we all get along pretty well. Ha, that reminds me of the best knock-knock joke ever! I got Yellow James good.

Person 1: Knock knock.

Person 2: Who’s there?

Person 1: KGB.

Person 2: KGB…

Person 1 (Suddenly slapping Person 1 in the face and adopting a Russian accent): We ask the questions here!

Ah, good stuff. I hope my buddies back home use this one on each other and credit me. Somebody be sure to get Chubbo before he reads this!

When James talked to his manager today, she found out that we just ate some snacks for our lunch, since the power was off and we weren’t able to cook. She felt bad for us and invited us to her home for dinner. We got there at 6:30, and 10 minutes later, tsuivan was plated up. James had told her that tsuivan was my second favourite Mongolian food, so she piled my plate so high that it was spilling over the edge. For once, I had the sense to not eat it all, though I could’ve crammed it in. I knew that she would give me more if I finished, and I didn’t want to waste any more than the little I didn’t eat, so that was another reason to not eat it all. When we got home, we lounged around and watched movies. I’ve gotten lots of new music and movies from these guys since being here. You know I always enjoy that.

May 8, 2009

After that first day that was so hot, it turned cloudy and really windy. It was not very cold, so it was okay. That changed last night. I woke up around 6:30 this morning to use the outhouse and felt some moisture on the wind. When I got out of the bed a few hours later, the rain had come in earnest, and it was cold. By the time we went to the school, the rain had turned to sleet. Not long after getting there, there were big flakes of snow coming down. I was amazed at how much it was snowing in the middle of May, in the Gobi desert.

We had gone to the school to print out stuff for our project. I guess the rain had deterred whoever was going to turn off today’s power, so we decided to take advantage of it. The only thing was, James’ director had the printer we needed locked up in her office. We sat there for a couple of hours, waiting on her to return from the political meeting she was at. She never did. It was still good that we went, though, cause we were able to work out the bugs with the projector. So, if the power is on tomorrow, and we’re able to get to the printer, we’ll hopefully be able to do what we’ve come here to do. I’ll let you know.

Since things have been moved back a couple of days, I think that will put me back at my site sometime next week. Not a big deal, though, since I’m here to help, and I’m having a good time visiting while I’m at it.

I hope you are doing good. Write when you can. Talk to you later. See ya.