July 20, 2008

This has been my first full weekend all to myself in a few weeks. Last week, we had language class on Saturday; the week before, we were at the orphanage. This weekend, I’ve been sure to get all my laziness in. About all I did yesterday was to go into town for the internet. Oh, and while I was there, I was entertained by watching the drunks. Maybe it’s just because I’m in a place where I notice absolutely everything that is different than in the U.S., but I seem to see more public drunkenness here than back home. And people get drunk early. I never see them drinking in public, though. As illegal as that is in the U.S., I think it is even more so here. But they sure make sure they get as much in them as possible before they go out. And they seem to have some good balance. I’ve watched guys stumble all over the road, but I haven’t seen any of them fall yet. When I notice them, I try to lower my eyes when they look my way. If they see me looking my way, it is inevitable that they will come over to shake my hand. It’s hard to get rid of them once they have your attention, too. They will pull your clothes to keep you near. I once had a store owner yell at a drunk, so as to get him to leave me alone.

When I got home yesterday, I had a long nap. Really, it was just sleep. Anything past 20-30 minutes is no longer a nap. I did a little bit of studying, but not as much as I watched movies. Today, I didn’t get out of the bed until 10:30. I bet my host-family thinks I’m a lazy bum, since I had heard them up and about by 5 a.m. I don’t care. I love sleeping late on Sundays. If I’d had an air-conditioner, or even a fan, I would probably have slept later.

I went to the river again today. I had just sat down to do some studying when some friends Hoy’d me, which is the equivalent to hey. We rounded up some others then made the trek. This time, the river wasn’t up so much, so we all went in. The water was the perfect temperature, but the current was very swift. Luckily, it wasn’t very deep. We had fun letting it carry us away, then starting all over again. After we had been in the water for a good 45 minutes or so, I had just stood up from being carried down stream and then stepped on some glass. Damnit! To make it worse, I was the one who, on the way, was saying how I hoped that there wasn’t any glass and how I would hate to be the one to step on it. Broken glass is ubiquitous in Mongolia. No matter where you go, you can’t get away from it. I felt it slice into my foot. When I reached down to pick it up, it was the top part of a vodka bottle. Luckily, it, like the water, wasn’t too deep. It cut more at an angle, rather than going straight in. One of my friends loaned me their handkerchief to tie some tissue paper to the bottom of my foot. The first thing I thought of was the PC Medical Officer warning us of cutting our feet, then getting water born viruses in the cut. It’s the kind that turns into worms coming out of your anus and making you itch in the middle of the night. It took another 45 minutes to get home, but the first thing I did was to clean it out with some antiseptic cream. Man, I hope that works. I actually heard about those worms years ago and had a few bad dreams about them. Dang, that would suck. Cross your fingers for me. One good thing to come of it: I’ve learned the word for the bottom of your foot, and how to say that it bled.

July 21, 2008

I went out to the Denj this evening to do some praying and studying. It was partly to get away from the stifling heat in my room. It seems to be the hottest part of the summer here, and of course, there are no air-conditioners or fans. The view was awesome and the breeze was nice. If there wasn’t such a bug problem around here, I would leave the door and window to my room open. My host-family doesn’t worry about the bugs and just leaves the house door open. I hear them every morning, beginning somewhere around 5:30, thwack-thwack-thwacking away at the scores of flies that have gotten into the house during the night. When I go in for breakfast, I dodge the dead bodies as if I were walking through a mine field. It’s kind of gross, actually. Ha, it reminds me of when I was a kiddo, visiting my grandfather in the summer. He would give my sister and me a nickel for every dead fly that we brought him. I would rake up the dough, here.

My host-family finally wised up, though. When I got home this evening, my host-dad was making a screen door. I had nothing better to do, so I decided to help him. I had seen him working on it yesterday, but I had no idea what he was doing; and company came over, so he stopped before I figured it out. Too bad I wasn’t there when he began, to know what he was doing then: I could’ve saved him some headache. If my grandfather would’ve seen his poor carpentry skills, I’m sure he would’ve had a few choice words for him about how he could have made things much easier for himself. I got here right as the last of the frame was being nailed together, so I held things for him as he hammered away, thinking that he knew what he was doing. When we stood the door up, it was too wide for the frame. Doh! He took that last part of the frame back off and proceeded to saw off some extra length on the brace-parts. I don’t know how to describe it in writing to where you would get an accurate picture, but it was quite awkward. When he finished, he began to nail the frame together again. That’s where I stepped in and told him to let’s see if it’s going to fit first. Good thing I did: there was some more that needed to come off. He fixed that, and then nailed it all together. I don’t know how many hours he spent on that thing altogether, but I know it’s more than he should have. Oh well. At least there will be fewer flies and less thwacking in the mornings.

July 22, 2008

This morning, there was a Kazakh language teacher in our class, just to observe. In the very west of Mongolia, there is an aimag (state) called Bayan-Olgiy. The population is mostly Kazakh, and that is the language they speak. Out of four people that will be placed there, one will be from our group. We had our site-placement interviews a couple of weeks ago and found out about it. A couple of people requested the area. I wasn’t one of them. Once you get there, you pretty much have to forget all the Mongolian you’ve learned and start a new language. When the teacher was there, we were all anxious to find out who is going to be the one going. But, just like most everything else in the Peace Corps, we won’t know for a while longer. We think we will be told in the next week or so. Cross your fingers for it not being me.

Today, we started TEFL training – Teaching English as a Foreign Language. There is a whole sector devoted to just that, but just about every PCV will be asked, and expected, to teach English once they get to their site. It is something that I am not looking forward to. Amongst my many majors in school, teaching was one of them; and I switched from that for a reason: I don’t like teaching. For my friends who are teachers, I am proud of you and what you do. For us non-TEFLers, we have a limit on how many hours we have to teach English, but we will still have to. I think the limit is six hours per week. Our training consists of 5 hours of instruction and about 2 hours of practice-teaching. For this, our bagh loaded into a microbus and went to the other bagh, so as to take care of more people with fewer trainers. Today’s lesson consisted of those small things that one might not think of. Instead of narrating what will happen, you should just do it. Give simple, clear instructions, only when needed, not ahead of time. When playing a game, show the game in play, rather than explaining it first. These things seem easy, but it was quickly evident that even when you are practicing with native English speakers, there’s always an idiot in the bunch. OMG! I’m sure you all know that person: the one who makes everything difficult, just because that’s their personality. Yeah, well, there is at least one, and possibly two, in my group. How much better that they showed themselves while with the other bagh. Embarrassing. If any of you pray, please pray for me to have patience. Those are the people who cause me look at my calendar and count down the days that we have left in training. As of today, there are 20 days left; 14, not counting weekends.

July 23, 2008

This morning, when the rest of the sheep and goats were let out to pasture, there was one goat kept behind, with its horns tied close to the fence. Starting around 6 o’ clock, the thing began its distressed bleating and hasn’t let up yet. I’m sure when I come home for lunch, that one won’t be alive anymore. It will taste especially good when I remember it waking me up.

Sure enough, when I came home for lunch, the goat had just been killed and was in the process of being skinned. It was so recently killed that its muscles were still twitching. Today was my host-dad’s birthday. In celebration, some family came over. We ate a big pot of the aforementioned goat’s innards, finished the scotch that I’d given to him for Naadam, and had some beer. They sell 2 litre beers here, so when people get together, that is the size they tend to buy. They pour cupfuls of it for each person until it’s all gone. When we finished the first one, I figured I would buy another. It was appreciated.

Somewhere during all that, a cousin that comes over randomly began to quiz me. There are all kinds of nouns that I know, but he always seems to find that ones that make me say, “I don’t know.” After a few of those, he laughed and said, “Always, you don’t know.” I laughed and agreed. His parents were here, also. His mom is a teacher at the local secondary school. She started asking conversational stuff. After some dumbing down and speaking “proper” Mongolian, I was able to understand and answer her. We did some of that, and then she asked me to sing a Mongolian song. We are working on learning one in class, so I brought that out and she helped me sing it. I think I’ve already mentioned how I have absolutely no musical ability whatsoever. This goes for knowing words to songs. Nothing has changed since I’ve come to Mongolia. If I read the words, and know the tune, I can hum along and not cause too much of a commotion. When I’d given a good attempt, I was deemed “good.” Oh, and one of the guys here has a girlfriend back home that reads my blog sometimes. I think she knows who she is. When my aunt told me that I was “good,” she told me that “that tall guy with the bald head knows very little.” If you’re reading this, give him a hard time. I try to give him a hard time as much as I can. He’s a good sport about it, and he gives me just as much of a hard time about other stuff, so I don’t mind making fun of him here.

After bathing this evening, I went to the restroom. There is a barrel that is in our yard for some reason. When I heard a noise and looked over, a cow had its head stuck in the barrel and was waving it around. Pretty funny.

July 24, 2008

Today, on our break from class, I went with some people to the store. Usually, there is some few that goes there everyday. I just go for the change of scenery. While there today, a buddy and I saw that there was a new beer on the shelf. The name of it is Hite. I think it’s Korean. This particular version is called a stout, and touts itself to be a black beer. We were both excited because we thought it would be something like Guiness. We made plans to meet after lunch and split one. When we got there, we decided to get two. When we poured it, it looked just like a Coke. Drinking it, you could hardly tell much difference from a regular beer. It was nothing like we were expecting. It was alright, though. Even better, it was 500tg cheaper than the other kinds of beer that are supposed to be better, but are not. Maybe one day we will actually find a good stout. For a beer connoisseur, it’s hard to find a nice variety here.

For dinner, I saw my host-mom put a big bowl of rice into the cooker. I paid no attention, expecting the same ol’ same ol’. When they called for me to come and eat, I was totally surprised. I went in to my host-dad rolling sushi! It wasn’t exactly what one might encounter at a Japanese restaurant, but it wasn’t too bad. It had the usual seaweed wraps and rice, and inside of that, they put catsup and yham. Yham is pretty much like a cheap summer sausage. It’s not bad, but it gives me bad smelling burps. Overall, I was surprised enough by the whole thing enough to like the meal. I took a picture, so when I get to upload them, you can check it out. I told them that if they fried some eggs and chopped them up and put them in there that would be good, too. I don’t know where they got the idea, but I like it.

Oh, I almost forgot a funny story. During our break today, one of the people in our group went to the rest room. When they came out, they said they’d dropped one of their sandals down the hole. We all hee-hawed, it was so funny. There was a bunch of women there with babies, and when they figured out what had happened, they laughed just as hard. Our teachers, too, laughed hysterically, when we were looking for something to fish it out with. Of course, this person is a princess, so they wouldn’t fish it out for their self, nor would they wash it off. Oh, I will get joy out of this story for some time to come.

July 25, 2008

Last night, I had a dream about my partner and me teaching today. I dreamed that it went horribly, with everyone knowing English already, which threw off our whole lesson plan. Luckily, it wasn’t that bad once it was time for the real thing. We taught a group of six women. A few work for phone companies, and a couple work for an insurance place. I didn’t understand where the others work. Most of them could everything that we were saying, but they couldn’t repeat it very well. Like many Mongolians, they could write English fairly well, but they can’t speak it very well. We taught them how to say, “Hi, how are you? What is your name? My name is…. Where do you work? I work at/for…. It was nice to meet you. It was nice to meet you, too. Good bye.” I’m glad to have it over with.

We are in town and have finished our day early, so I will get to post this in a little bit. I hope that you all are doing well. Talk to you later. See ya.