July 15, 2008

I forgot to write about something the other day. You know how you see French people on movies kissing each other on the cheek? Well, Mongolians have an equivalent. What they do is get really close like they are going to kiss you on the cheek, or forehead, and take a really big sniff of you. I first heard about this when we were still in San Francisco, before we got to the country. It was still a few weeks before I saw it happen. When I did, I saw my host-dad do it to the 1-year-old little girl that is somehow related. I still haven’t figured out all the exact relationships of people that are in and out of here all the time. My little brothers call everyone “older sister,” or “older brother,” even though they are usually aunts and uncles. There are specific words for aunts and uncles on the mom’s side and those on the dad’s side, but they aren’t used that much. Another thing that is weird to Americans is that there are not specific words for “little brother,” or “little sister.” There is only one word for both that means “younger sibling.” Also, that could refer to a cousin. To make it worse, these words could also be applied to any other random person. Say a middle-aged fella goes into a restaurant and he addresses his young server. He might call him, or her, his younger sibling and no one would think twice about it.

Anyway, I digress. When I went into the hoodoo (countryside) with my family the other day, my host-mom’s family was the host. I think it was her oldest sister’s place. She is 67. Of course, since she’s the oldest, she pretty much ran things. Here, once you become a grandmother, or the equivalent age, people defer to you in all social situations; even the old men. So, we were all sitting around, and I was just watching the interactions and trying to pickup on what was being said. At one point, I knew they were talking about me by the way they were looking at me and laughing. My family sure likes to laugh a lot. Many times, I’m not sure if it’s at me or with me. Either way, I don’t mind. After plenty of laughing, my host-mom’s oldest sister came over, grabbed me by the cheeks, and took a big ol’ sniff of my forehead, giggling the whole time; then she gave me the thumbs-up. The thumbs-up is more than it is in the U.S. All the fingers can be used as a scale of 1-5 on how good or bad a thing or a situation is. The thumb is the best; the pinky is the worst. If you get the myy (mow) finger (the pinky), then you know you’ve done something wrong and probably offended someone. Anyway, I felt honoured that she had sniffed me. It pretty much meant that I was accepted. Oh, then I proceeded to attempt to walk between the ger poles. There are two support poles inside a ger, and you are not supposed to walk between them: you are supposed to go around them; even if that means making someone else get up to get out of your way. Also, when you enter a ger, there is a men’s side and a woman’s side: the left is for men; the right for women. The very back – or north – is reserved for the eldest or most respected person that is in the ger. Oh, and all doors, of all buildings, usually face south. I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve been told that it’s from the days when Mongolians were in constant conflict with the Chinese, so they could see them coming.

Okay, I’m rambling a bit. I ran back from town, with a 10+ lb. pack on my back, so I’m a little bit tired. I thought it would be a good workout for my aching calf-muscle – and I guess it was – but it is even sorer now. Oh, and I’m out of water, so I think I’m going to have to go to the store and buy some. It takes hours for my water-filter to do its thing. I’d really like to be able to drink the water from the well, but I’ve been warned that all the water in Mongolia is infested with fecal matter, and drinking it would give me giardia. I don’t know exactly what that is, but it makes you vomit and diarrhea; so I definitely don’t want it.

July 16, 2008

Last night, a girl from our bagh went home to the U.S. As far as I know, she is the second of our group of 65 to go home. From what I understand, it had something to do with her family in the U.S. I hope she is doing alright. She was very cool, but I wasn’t particularly close to her. Oddly enough, she is from the same place and went to grade-school with a girl that I’m really good friends with back home. What a coincidence. Surprisingly, she left some things to be split between those of us remaining. The guy she left them with split everything up evenly and then made numbers for us to draw. I got number 1. I picked the Q-tips, floss, and lotion. The Q-tips was the thing that did it for me. I brought a travel pack with me, with plans for my mom to have more sent. They haven’t arrived before I’ve almost ran out, and I’m big on cleaning my ears. And just in case any of you don’t know: name brand Q-tips are much better than the generic kind: they have more cotton on the end. And I’m sure the floss and lotion will come in handy at some point. Just in case you’re wondering, the lotion is brown sugar and fig flavour. I know it’s girly, but I like scented lotions.

July 16, 2008

Before I joined the Peace Corps, I had a television, but I didn’t have cable. I didn’t even have an antenna. All I ever did with it was to watch the occasional movie and play the occasional video game. I remember many conversations amongst friends when they would say, “Hey, you know that one show, when such-and-such said so-and-so?” My response would always be, “Nope, I don’t watch T.V.” I would always get strange looks and questions about what was wrong with me. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the idea. There was a reason I didn’t have cable, though: I get addicted to T.V. I could waste hours sitting in front of a T.V., flipping through the channels, watching random shows. (National Geographic and the History Channel are my favourite.) I knew that it would totally ruin what little bit of studying that I did for school. Before I decided to apply for the Peace Corps, I made the decision that I would get cable and waste a whole summer doing nothing but watching T.V. Even after I applied, I had originally been told that I would be leaving in January of 2009, so I still planned on spending the summer of 2008 watching T.V. Those plans were changed when I got the call to leave in June of 2008. I don’t regret the decision to leave one bit. As it turned out, though, I’ve still been able to waste my free time “watching” T.V. this summer. Have you heard of the show The Office. Joley Moley, that show is freakin-A-awesome. I have watched the first four seasons in a matter of weeks and laughed my butt off. How about the show that comes on HBO called Rome? That is a good show, too. I’m about halfway through the first season now, and I have the whole second season left. Some of the other PCTs have entire T.V. shows on their external hard-drives, so I’ve gotten all that I’m interested in. At the same time, I’ve gotten several movies. I guess I don’t have to worry about entertainment for the next 26 months.

July 17, 2008

Imagine it’s 5 o’ clock in the morning and your neighbour begins to make the loudest, most obnoxious noise you can imagine. What would you do to make it stop? Well, as I see it, you have three options. First, you immediately – or at a later and equally inappropriate time – begin to make your own loud noise and hope that they get the hint to keep quiet when people are supposed to be. Second, you could call the cops and have them do something about it. Third, you could go over yourself and politely ask the offender to be quiet.

Now, imagine you’re in Mongolia, it’s 5 o’ clock in the morning, and your neighbour begins to make the loudest, most obnoxious noise you can imagine. What would you do to make it stop? Well, I don’t know the answer to that question, but I sure wish I did. This morning, at 5 o’ clock, our neighbour began beating on what I imagined to be a 50 gallon drum, with absolutely no kind of rhythm. The sound reverberated through the walls of my room and kept me awake for over 30 minutes, as whoever it was beat away, doing whatever it was they were doing. And there was nothing I could do but lay there and pray for patience. Here, people don’t have a sense of what “disturbing the peace” is. Back home, I had a buddy driving through campus of university with his windows down, playing a jazz song on his radio at normal levels, disturbing absolutely no one. He got a ticket because the cop could hear him 50 feet away, or something stupid like that. Here, even if you could find a cop, he would probably be louder than you, no matter the time of day. People just don’t care that there might be some person who isn’t planning to wake up until 8 o’ clock. They go about whatever it is that they want to do, no matter how much noise it makes and who it disturbs. Oddly enough, during the middle of the day, when you might think that people would be making all kinds of noise, taking care of all kinds of projects, there is seldom a sound to be heard. Oh, the strange and unexpected things a person has to get used to.

July 18, 2008

It’s Friday, and the end of another week. I was looking at the calendar this morning and saw that in about two weeks, we will practically be finished with our pre-service training. When is the last time you can remember going through job training? How did you feel about the experience? Was it fun? Was it horrible? Was it a little bit of both, and you could hardly wait for the whole thing to be over so you could begin the job you were hired for? Before I applied for the Peace Corps, I read over and over how it would be “the toughest job that you will ever love.” I’m quite sure that that will be the case, but dang, I’m tired of training. Everyone in my group feels the same way. We are so ready to find out where our site is going to be, get there, and begin the job we will have for the next two or three years. Luckily, there are at least a few people that make the whole experience pleasant, if not exactly fun.

Today, I got my first real package. I know I wrote that I got the converter that my mom had sent to me, but that was shipped from the factory, so I don’t really count it. The package was from my mom’s friend. I’ve only met her twice, but she is a really nice person. Ha, just to give my mom a hard time, her friend sent me a package before she did. In it, there was chewing gum, granola bars, peanut butter crackers, Lifesavers, Goldfish, Frosted Cheerios, and Wal-Mart bags. The Wal-Mart bags were only meant to be for stuffing, but you wouldn’t believe how useful they will be. They don’t have things like that here, so at the least, I will be able to carry home my groceries. And the snacks: yum! As soon as I got home, I ripped into the box and started munching. Oh, here in Mongolia, if you open a package of stuff in front of people, it is only polite that you share with whoever happens to be with you, even if that means it will all be gone in 5 minutes. I was sure to wait until I got home, inside my room, before I opened the box. I was even lucky enough to get in there before my family even saw that I had a box at all. Maybe it’s stingy, but all the PCVs suggested that we do just that if we wanted to have anything left for our self. The food here is wonderful, even if it is repetitive, but sometimes I get cravings for stuff from the U.S. It’s nice to have a taste from home. So, to you who sent the package (you know who you are) I would like to say a public thank you: “Thank you.”

I’ll try to go to town and post this in the morning. I hope everyone is doing well. Write me when you can. I’d love to hear from you.