The first day of the last week of training!! And I've learned what my new job will be!! So excited!!!

July 31, 2008

This morning, on the way to school, I saw a guy on a motorcycle herding horses down the road. That’s among the many crazy things that happen here that you don’t even think twice about. Hm, well, I guess I did think twice about it, since I am writing to tell you about it.

August 1, 2008

There is an eclipse going on right now. As I was walking home from school this evening, I noticed that there was something different about the light, but I didn’t really give it much thought. When I got home, my host-dad told me something about the moon and the sun. I remembered the news article that my mom had forwarded to me and I knew what was going on. Of course, what did I do? Exactly what you are not supposed to do: I looked directly at the sun. I could see that the moon was only covering the bottom portion of the sun, for a second. After that, I couldn’t really tell much of anything. I am in the middle of Mongolia. I think, over in the western part, people can see more of the full eclipse. It’s pretty cool that I got to see it. I think the last time I got to see an eclipse was when I was a little kiddo.

Sweet! I just finished writing the above when my host-dad yelled for me to come outside. He had gotten a welder’s mask and was looking at the eclipse. I could see that about three-fourths of the sun was covered now. How cool.

This evening, some of us got together to celebrate brother Baasan’s birthday. As we were walking each other home, we began looking up at the stars. Have you ever been anywhere where it is completely dark at night? I thought I had, but being here, I’ve realised that I have not. The stars are absolutely amazing. One can actually see why our galaxy is called the Milky Way. And to further our astrological amazement of the day, we got to witness a shooting star. Of course, I stopped to make a wish. I won’t tell what my wish was, but it is the same wish that I always make whenever I wish anything. Maybe one day it will come true. I have faith that it will.

August 2, 2008

Joley Moley, what a day! It started out with me being a full-fledged, unwilling participant of Mongolian time. When we were first told about Mongolian time, it was presented in a joking manner. I knew there had to be some kind of truth to it, though. In my studies, I had learned about African time. Have you ever heard of it? Basically, it’s got to do with people showing up whenever they’re ready to show up; not necessarily when the appointment was made. There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s all I’ll write here. Research it a bit if you want to know more. Before, I’d only experienced Mongolian time slightly, when waiting on someone else. This morning, we and our families were supposed to meet at 10, and then we were all to go to a day-long picnic. At 10 til 10, I was ready, waiting on the porch for my host-parents to come on. We didn’t have any electricity this morning, so they had had to go down the street to our cousin’s house to cook our food for the day. At 10 after 10, we finally left. I don’t know what any of you know about me, but I absolutely hate being late. I get all antsy and irritated, and feel selfish. As much as I dislike waiting on someone else, I dislike making them wait on me even more.

Finally, we got to where we were going. There is a particularly auspicious tree that is about a 20 minute ride from here called the Mother Tree. Rumour has it that before, there was a different one that died, so now there is another very near it. Unfortunately, I was in the vehicle with the five people who did not get to stop and get out. Everyone else did. A little way past it, but too far to walk back, there was a sort of camp ground with some cabins, two gers, a picnic table area, a billiard table area, a volleyball net, and a basketball court. When everyone got there, all the moms prepared our lunch and we ate it buffet style. It was good. The hoshor remains my favourite. For the rest of the day, we just sat around and enjoyed everyone’s company. I took a nap in one of the gers. Oh, and the gers were bright orange, like a traffic cone’s colour. I don’t know the reason, but that is very untraditional: most all of them are white. For dinner, we had a traditional Mongolian meal whose name sounds like “whore hog.” What you do is take a big tub, put some hot water in the bottom, put some fire-hot rocks in that, put some salt, meat, potatoes, and vegetables in, and then cover it and put in on the fire for about 20-30 minutes. It turned out pretty good. To “wash” our hands, we passed the hot rocks between our hands. I guess that is supposed to kill all the germs. Oh, and we had a few bottles of vodka throughout the day, also, but not enough for anyone to even get a buzz. Mongolians like their vodka.

As soon as we finished eating, we played a Mongolian game that is like tag. Everyone gets in a circle with a partner standing in front of them. Two extra people stand outside the circle; one person is it, and the other person runs around the circle, trying to not get tagged. In order to not be it, the person running away has to jump in front of a pair, making it a set of three. The person who is farthest back is then the person who has to run away from the person who is it. If you are it, and you tag someone before they get to a safe place, you have to get in front of a pair in order to be safe. It’s pretty fun. If you play with kids, you should try this game out.

Right as we finished and were getting ready to leave, a wind storm came. It had been windy all day, and I loved it. I really like the wind. It got ridiculously crazy, though. There were some small shade tents that totally got blown over within just a few minutes. One guy got all three of them in the face. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt at all. There was a split-second where I had thought to step in front of them, so as to stop them from being blown away, but when I saw the metal legs coming at me, I realised that would be a mistake and stepped back. Some people thought to hide in a ger, but I knew that wasn’t a good place, so some of us went into one of the cabins. That’s when things got really crazy. One of the two gers was blown down and people were scrambling to take it apart. I wasn’t having anything to do with that. It was just way too dangerous. After they’d done what they thought they wanted to do, they decided to pile everyone into the microbus. We fit 23 people in there. That’s the most I’ve ridden with so far. Those things are about the same size as a VW van. I wonder what the record is for stuffing it full of people. Why don’t one of you who has all kinds of free internet time look it up and let me know. I tried to warn people that it was not safe for us to be in there, with the wind blowing like it was, but they weren’t trying to listen to me. I’m an American, what do I know? The ride was very very uncomfortable. When we got back into town, there were several fences that had been blown down. Some were completely down, and others only had a little bit. There was a corner of our fence down, but the boys and their uncle have already put it back up. It has finally started raining with earnest. Earlier, it rained hard for about 2 minutes, and then stopped. I don’t think it will stop for a while, now. Since we still don’t have any electricity for me to make hot water, I had thought about taking a bar of soap out there and showering, but it’s just drizzling now. The wind has been blowing all day and I feel a gritty layer of dirt all over me. It’s kind of nasty feeling.

August 3, 2008

I woke up this morning to sounds of construction going on everywhere. It looked as if everyone’s property had sustained some kind of damage, and they were intent on taking care of it today. This morning, I saw that part of our back fence had been blown down, also. For some reason, no one in my family seemed to be concerned. The neighbours were the ones taking care of it. Another family down the street a bit had most of their fence blown down. When they finally got around to putting it back up, they decided to make theirs much bigger than it was previously. Here, there are no property laws, so if you build a fence around it, it’s yours. I guess that’s one of the advantages of living in the least populated country in the world. There yard is now about three times bigger than it was.

I got out of the bed around 11:30 today. It felt so nice to sleep late. My little brother tried to tell me that I was bad because of it. I told him that it was good. When he asked why, I told him it’s because today is Sunday. In Mongolian, the name for Sunday translates as “full good day.” Surely he can understand why it’s good for me to be lazy on a day with a name like that.

Our electricity was still out today, so my host-mom had gotten a wood stove from somewhere and had it out in the yard to cook our meals for the day. She seemed to be as adept at that as she is cooking with electricity. I doubt this is her first time doing it. We finally got power back at around 8:15 this evening. I’m glad we did. It doesn’t get completely dark until about 10:30, but when you are inside, you can’t really see anything beginning around 8:30. I still have some things I need to take care of tonight, before bed. Last night, as much as I liked getting in the bed by 10, I felt like I was wasting a lot of time. It is work and school related stuff, so I don’t want to do it, but I have to. Oh well. I guess I’ll get to it now.

August 4, 2008

Today, we were told that Mongolians had never seen winds as strong as the ones the other day. To us, they were really strong, but I would not have thought them to be that big to them. Two days later, people are still working on their fences, though. Maybe it is true.

I do have a funny story about that evening. In my group, there is a married woman. All the married couples are separated during training, but she’s lucky because her husband is in the bagh that is on the other side of the city. For the picnic, he went with us. At the end of the day, when everyone was piling into the microbus, she and her husband decided to not get in. So, they stayed there and no one knew it. They stayed there, singing karaoke and hanging out with the people who ran the ger camp, until almost 10:30. Her host-mom finally realised that she didn’t come back with us and began calling people and asking after her whereabouts. Well, Mongolians have this belief that you have to turn your cell phone off when it is lightning; else you take the risk of drawing it to you. Silly, I know, but they genuinely believe that. When people finally turned their phones back on, they had missed messages about the whereabouts of “my babies!” Pretty funny, I thought.

Since we had been without power for almost two full days, everything in our freezer had thawed out. To keep from wasting it, we ate all the meat that we had. That meant that when I awoke, there was a lone goat in the pen, bleating mournfully for its life, to no avail. As I walked to school, I told it that I wouldn’t help it; in fact, I was looking forward to eating it. So, you know what I had for my dinner, right? Yep, innards. I think that I don’t really like them. Every time, I have to mentally force myself to put it in my mouth. Luckily, this is my last week here, so I won’t have to eat them anymore. Where ever I go next, I’ll be sure to let them know that I don’t want to eat any. I’m glad I tried them, though.

August 5, 2008

Today, we had two lasts: cross-culture and CYD. We don’t mind either one, but we are glad that things are finally coming to an end. In cross-culture, we learned how to do the Western waltz and the Mongolian waltz. They are a bit different. This is the first of any kind of dance that I’ve officially been taught. The only kind of dancing that I’ve done before is some booty dancing; and that’s mostly at home, by myself, in front of the mirror. Yeah, can you imagine that? Funny, huh? I’m just too self-conscious to feel comfortable doing it in public. We were told that we would most likely be compelled to do these waltzes when we get to our sites, for various gatherings and parties for our workplaces. Drat! Well, at least they will have some alcohol there. Nothing like some liquid courage to get a fella out on the dance floor.

August 6, 2008

Today, we found out that another person from our bagh is going home. He’s married, so his wife will leave with him. That makes two that have left from here, so far; six from our entire class. That is right at the usual 10% that statistics say quit before the end of their 27 months of service. That puts us on track to fulfill one of the auguries of a guy here who says we will have record numbers quit. We have our theories as to why this will happen, but I won’t write them here. If you want to know, email me personally and I’ll tell you all about it. As for me, there have been a few times that I’ve wondered exactly what the heck it is that I’m doing here, but there hasn’t been anything to make me ready to quit. I hate quitting. I don’t like the stigma that goes with it. So, pray for me that I won’t have anything happen to make me want to quit.

We’re out of electricity again this evening. I don’t know what the problem is. I think that I read in something that as PCVs, we are supposed to have at least 4 hours of electricity per day. If that’s all we will have, that would be hard to get used to. I hope that I have much more electricity than that; or else none at all. If I had none, then I could at least get used to it quicker, and learn how to live without it. We’ll see how it turns out. I really don’t think I’ll have to worry about it, though.

I’ve had a few new kinds of food lately. One is called “bing.” It’s fried dough that’s eaten like bread. I don’t know why my host-mom hasn’t made it all along. I like it a lot. The other new food is called “bantan.” It runs a very close second to hoshor for being my favourite. It is literally meat broth with some bit of meat chuncks, thickened with flour. It tastes just like chicken and dumplings; and I love chicken and dumplings. I think my host-dad told me that it won some kind of medal or something like that. I could eat that stuff all the time. It’s really easy to make – as is hoshor – so I’m sure I’ll be eating a lot of it in the future.

On the way home today, I found an old Russian coin lying in the road. There is no telling how long it’s been there, since it was in the middle of our bagh, and none of the roads are paved. It is a 20 Kopeek piece, made in 1961. I wonder what it was worth in U.S. money at the time. I wonder what it might be worth now.

August 7, 2008

We had our last language lesson today. Yay! Well, actually, we will meet next Monday and learn some technical jargon, but we won’t be tested on it. So today was the last one! We are all so excited.

August 8, 2008

It was nice to sleep late today. Our Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) was today, and I didn’t have to go until 2 o’ clock. So, I slept late and studied until it was time to go. Have I mentioned how much I hate to study? Bleh! But, it will be the last time that I have to worry about it for a while. Wish me luck. We will find out our grades once we get to Darkhaan next week.

I began my pre-partying around 6. Everyone had planned to meet at one of the PCT’s place at 7:30, so a couple of us started to make our way there at 7. As we passed the school, some Mongolians asked if we had a lighter. The guy I was with did, and when he let them use it, they invited us to drink beers with them. Okay, sure, we’ll drink your beer for free. After the first one, we tried to leave but couldn’t; after the second, we tried to leave but couldn’t; and after the third, they decided that it was our turn to buy the next beer. They were determined to keep us there, drinking with them. Luckily, one of the PCTs was on his way to find us and walked by. He made his voice sound urgent so we could extract ourselves from the situation.

At our celebration party, we had all chipped in and bought a cloth of respect and a framed picture for both of our teachers. They gave us a cake and a bottle of champagne for everyone, and a card and a Chengis Khan keychain for each of us. Then we started drinking for real. It was a good time.

August 9, 2008

I woke up after 1 today and felt like crap. After some lunch, I went into town with my host-parents to hang out with their friends. I really didn’t feel like going, but I did. I didn’t do much at all while I was there, other than eat and watch some Olympics. I don’t know why, but Mongolians think that a shot of vodka will fix whatever illness that you might have. They badgered me to take a shot for a while before I finally gave in. One of their ploys was to show me the label and point out that it was 38% alcohol. I don’t know why they thought that would lure me into it quicker. It was all I could do to keep it down. We finally came home and I came straight to my room. They wanted to take me to the Mother Tree today, but I begged off, telling them I didn’t feel good. They said they would take me tomorrow. I hope so. It will be my last chance to go: we leave on Tuesday morning. I really want to see it.

August 10, 2008

I got a first hand look at how they kill goats here. Have I written about this before? I don’t think I have. They get two people to hold the goat on its back, one holding its legs, the other holding its mouth and the knife. The person with the knife cuts it open right below its breast bone, then reaches in and unplugs the aorta from the heart. That way they don’t waste any of the blood. They use the blood later when they cook the innards. They take the stomach, pour it full of blood, and then boil it until it’s done. They consider that to be one of the best parts. I disagree. I guess that means more innards for me today. Drat! I was really hoping to not have anymore. I’m going to see if they will fix something else for me. My stomach is still a little queasy and I don’t think I can handle it.

When they had finished gutting the goat, one of their friends brought a blow-torch over and they proceeded to cook the goat with it. At least, I thought they were cooking it. They kept at it for about 30 minutes. When they were done doing that, they cut it up and made “whore hog.” While it was cooking, we went to the Mother Tree. As I said before, it’s an auspicious tree that is out in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know how they chose that one. There were all kinds of hadags tied to the trees. A hadag is the cloth of respect like what I said we gave to our teachers. There are different colours to represent different things. At the Mother Tree, there were all the colours. It kind of smelled like spoiled milk there, because people would throw milk everywhere as an offering. People would touch their head to the tree as they prayed. It was a neat experience. I think most of you know how interested I am in religion. I’m sure the Buddhists would claim this, too, but it has too much influence from shamanism to be purely Buddhist. I’m glad I got to experience it. I think that I can add video to my blog. If I can, I’ll do it one day so you can see some of the things I see.

Back at home, the “whore hog” was ready and we dug right in. I was extra hungry, and extra glad that I wasn’t having innards. They cooked an entire goat. People at on that thing for over two and a half hours and still didn’t eat it all. This time, they put some turnips in the mix. I tried to tell them that people eat the turnip greens in the U.S. It took a bit to get them to believe me. They didn’t seem like they were interested in me showing them how it’s done. Oh well.

August 11, 2008

Today was our for real last language lesson. We spent about an hour going over some technical language. The list of words was much longer than an hour’s worth, so we just asked for some words that we thought we might need to know. As soon as I got home from class, I went into town to print out some pictures. These days, I only think about the price of things in U.S. money when I’m writing for you. When you are paid less than most Mongolians, you tend to pinch every tugrik you have – which is worth less than 1/10 of a penny. By the way, I’ve never seen any denomination less than 10tg – and they don’t have coins at all. The pictures, about 3x5, cost approximately $0.15. I got most of them for my host-family and a few for other friends. They really appreciated them.

I pulled my bags out last night, but I really started packing today. I didn’t do a good job of dividing up the weight evenly. I have two big bags and I put all but one book in one of them. They said that we could take our bags to the school today so we wouldn’t have to carry them all in the morning. The walk that usually takes me about 5 minutes took almost 15. Whew! Now I get to carry that all the way to the top floor of the hotel tomorrow (they don’t have a working elevator), then when I get to my site, I’ll get to carry that however far again. Oh, and like I said, I have another bag; plus two back packs, a sleeping bag, and a water distiller. I hope I’ll have some help when I get to my site.

Today, my host-mom cooked my three favourite foods. Breakfast was bantan, lunch was hoshor, and dinner was boats. You’d better believe that I ate the heck out of all of them, too. Here, no matter how full you tell them you are, they still try to get you to eat more. And there are some things that they don’t really consider to be food. Some examples of this might be bread, sausage, pastries, and candy. So, even though you may have finished your meal, they still offer you more of those kinds of things. If it is candy, it’s easier to just go ahead and take it, then put it in your pocket.

I’m really appreciative of my time with my host-family, and all the training that I’ve received, but like everyone else, I’m so ready to get started on what I came here to do. We will be in Darkhaan tomorrow morning by 9, then spend five days there doing end of training stuff. I don’t know what it will be, but I’m sure those five days will pass by fairly quickly. Oh, and tomorrow, we will find out where our sites are!! We are all anxious about that. I’ve sure that most everyone will swarm the internet place, so I will wait until Wednesday evening to make my way there. I’ll have emails prepared for everyone by then with my new address. So, if you’re reading this, you probably have an email from me. If you don’t, and you want my address, you can do one of two things. Either email me, or ask someone you know that you are sure I gave it to. I don’t mind anyone having it. I’ll appreciate any mail or visits that I might get as a result of you knowing my address.

August 12, 2008

Joley Moley, what a day!! I woke up at 6 and was in Darkhaan by 8:30. They didn’t have all of the hotel rooms ready, so everyone piled their bags into two rooms. Unfortunately, one of those rooms was the one I am assigned to. That means that, though it is now after 5 p.m., there are still other people’s things in here, crowding our space. I’m sharing the room with one other person. I plan on finding everyone who still has stuff in here and making them come and get it before tonight. At least I’m on the second floor, and not the top floor.

The first part of our day consisted of a few welcoming remarks, our very last technical session, and some medical knowledge. Also, we found out our grades on our language test. I got Intermediate Low. Yay! I was so worried that I hadn’t improved, but I did. I just didn’t feel that good about my test. But, I didn’t realise until later that I didn’t have to do a scenario. Maybe the tester thought I was good enough without it.

Before we went to lunch, we got some packages. I had two! How cool. One was from my old work-place, MCG, and it had almost everything that I had put on my wants list. Thank you all so very much. It was heavy, and I was worn out by the time I carried it back to my hotel, but it is definitely worth it. They spoiled me while I worked there, and they continue to spoil me while I’m on the other side of the world. The other package is from another of my mom’s friends. I’ve actually never met her before, and have only talked to her through email, but she seems to be a genuinely nice person. Oh, and she is applying for the Peace Corps, also. Wish her luck. I’ve said this a million times and will say it again: people like me for some reason, but I don’t know what it is. I’m thankful that they do, though.

After lunch, we all went over to the kids’ park. There is a humongous map of Mongolia there, and we were about to learn where our site placement is going to be. Usually, they use a big printed out map and everyone stands in their area. This time, there are so many of us that they had to have something bigger. They had everyone’s name folded up in a box and they drew them out at random. They would draw a paper, read the aimag (state), soum (city), job description, and name. About three-fourths of the names had been called before they called mine. Every time they would call out a job description that sounded like something someone from my group would do, I would tense up. Finally, they called my name. I got almost exactly everything that I wanted! Actually, there is nothing about what I got that I don’t like. I am going to be in a small soum that is about a four hour train ride from the capital, Ulaanbaatar (costing about 1500tg), working for the government in the Social Policy Department, living in an apartment. Holy smokes! I’m so excited. I know that I told several of you that I would ask to live in a ger, but after being here for about a month and finding out what kind of work it is and how hard it is in the winter, I changed my mind and asked for an apartment. I’m glad I had the experience of a squat toilet this summer, but I did not want to have to deal with that in the middle of winter, when it gets down to -50 degrees Celsius.

In my packet describing my job, it says I will be working in the governor’s office. I’m especially excited to be working for the government. That is something that I want to do when I go back to the U.S. Under the section that gives a brief introduction, it says, “Governor’s office works in accordance with Mongolian laws to implement and monitor programs, evaluates education activities and determines the district development policies. It organises trainings and workshops on laws, English languages, life skills and health. The office has 4 main departments with 34 officers.” The development needs of the organisation are to “develop the district; decrease poverty; improve the relationship between government and non-government organisations; and provide workers with apartments.” There are many other things that I will be doing, and I don’t know what all they are going to be yet, so I’ll write about them when I learn what they are. For now, I just ask that you say a prayer of thanks for me.

I know that I wrote that I would send emails with my new address once I get it, but I will have to wait. It is in Cyrillic. I know how to read it, but I don’t know how to get it in typed form so I can email it to you. I’ll figure that out soon.

Also, I said that I would wait until tomorrow before I go to the internet, but I think I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to go now. I still have many hours to waste this evening, so I might as well start there. I hope that you all are doing well. I miss and think of you all; some especially so. I think you know who you are. If not, you should.

Also, I'm uploading some pictures. Check them out when you have time.