just filling this line with nothing clever

August 20, 2008

Another story from yesterday:

When my director didn’t show up and I decided to walk around, my first stop was at the store that is in my apartment building. I got a few small things like tea, sugar, and laundry detergent. I tried to pay with a 5,000tg bill and was told that they didn’t have enough change for me. I had no idea what to do. There was a boy in the store and after the proprietor said something to him, he grabbed the bill and ran out the door. I knew he was going to go somewhere else to get change, but I thought, “Well, if he wanted my money, he’s got it.” He came back with the same bill. I ended up buying more stuff, just so they could make change. I got almost 2,000tg in 50tg bills. I felt like a balla, walking around with my money in a rubber band.

Today was my first day of work. I felt like a secretary today. For the first hour, I worked on writing an introduction for myself. My director will use it when she introduces me at various, up-coming functions. Basically, I wrote my resume in paragraph form, trying to use simple language that she can understand. For the next couple of hours, all I did was reproduce two forms that my director and I filled out when we first met. She wanted an electronic form, and, of course, there is nothing like a scanner in our office. At the least, it was good practice with Word. I now know how to make a table, with however many rows and columns. When I finished that, she said, “Now do that same thing in Mongolian.” Yeah, that was much easier said that done. She had her own copy, in Mongolian, but lost it somewhere. I, literally, spent the rest of the day working on it and only got one of them done. I’m hoping that I can get the PC office to email me copies. That will make my life much easier. Not like I have much else to do at work yet.

My back is sore from hunching over the computer all day. There is a short computer chair and the desk doesn’t have a place for me to put my legs under it. It’s a very uncomfortable position. I am lucky to have internet at work, though. I was able to update my blog and exchange some emails with people back home. To my favourite story teller: thank you. I can never get enough of your stories. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of mine as I do yours.

One good thing about work is that my lunch break came earlier than I expected. I get an hour and a half. Sweet! That gave me plenty of time for one of my beloved naps.

The last couple of evenings, I haven’t done much at all. I’m so mentally exhausted that I just come in, eat dinner, and zone out in front of the TV. I began a new book tonight, though. The guy that was here before me left about 20. I love reading. Originally, when I thought that I was going to be leaving in January, I had planned to waste the entire summer reading all kinds of books. Now that I’m in one place for a while, I’ll have time to do more reading. There are several that I’m not interested in, but the others look alright. I should have enough books to last me a few months at least. I will have a hard time finding time to read them until I figure out some kind of routine. I’m all thrown off.

It was raining this morning when I went to work. Of course, I don’t have an umbrella or a rain jacket. It’s a good thing that I live right across a park from my office. This afternoon, after lunch, it was really pouring. Needless to say, I got wet. I was the first one back to the office, too. I guess I’ll do like my director next time and just wait until the rain dies down. She came in as dry as can be.

Oh, I almost forgot something very, very, very, extremely important. On the ride here, my director remembered me talking about how I was a mosquito’s favourite flavour in my speech. She turned to me, smiled real big, and told me that there are no mosquitoes where I live. I didn’t believe her, but I was excited about the possibility. Come to find out, she wasn’t kidding. I don’t know how, but there are no mosquitoes here! I can’t tell you how happy I am about this. Flies, now, that’s another story.

August 21, 2008

It seems to be my lot in Mongolia to have to deal with people beating on my door late at night when I get to a new place. Around 10 after 1 last night, some drunken guy woke me from a dead sleep. When I finally got the doors figured out (there are two doors and I have a hard time getting the locks to work right) the guy was saying something about a phone. I told him I don’t know what he wants and shut the door. After I’d been back in the bed for 10 minutes or so, he banged on the door again. I have no idea what he was talking about that time. When I closed the door, I watched him through the peep-hole. He proceeded to pee in the stairwell. Nice. He banged on the door again, but I just ignored him. I hope this isn’t a regular thing around here.

When I got to work at 9, my director told me that the power would be turned off at 10 and wouldn’t come back on until tonight, at 11. It didn’t go off until 10:45. When it did, she took me to the police station and introduced me, then told them about the drunken guy from last night. We’ll see what comes of it. There was no water when I woke up this morning, so our next stop was at the water facility. They said they would be by sometime today to fix it. After we’d checked out the new sports facility, I asked what was next. She told me that since the power is out, I had the rest of the day off. Awesome!

Sometime in the afternoon, plumbers showed up with some new piping. They spent a couple of hours in the bathroom, doing their thing. When they left, they told me they would be back tonight to check on things, after the power and water came back. I spent the rest of the day being lazy, finishing a book that I’d started last night. It was around 9:45 when the plumbers showed up, almost an hour or so after they’d said they would. The water had already come on and was leaking in two or three places, so I had had to turn it off. They spent a good 15 minutes looking at what was going on, then they told me they would be back in a little bit with new stuff. The water facility is only a two minute walk, but it took them over an hour to get back. It was after midnight before they finished. I was glad they were done. Now, I have more than just a trickle of water. Still no hot water, but I’m thankful that water comes into my apartment and I don’t have to go to the well to get it.

Ash called me tonight. While the plumbers were working, I passed out. When the phone rang, it took me a few minutes to realise that I had been asleep. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, where you answer the phone and your first instinct is to lie to the person on the other end because you feel embarrassed that you were actually asleep when they called. What is that all about, anyway? I wonder why people feel compelled to do that. I know I’m not the only one to do it. It’s not like they can’t tell, because your sentences are fragmented and don’t make any kind of sense at all. It was good to hear a good friend’s voice. Thanks for the call, buddy. Matt, where you at?

August 22, 2008

Not long after getting to work, my director showed up and told me that she was going to UB; the power was going to be cut off again for the day; and I could go home if I wanted. I stuck around doing a little bit of work and played on the internet until the power went off, then went home and had another lazy day. Apparently, the water facility here runs off electricity, cause when the power goes out, so does the water. Luckily, I had enough sense to make some extra water last night so I would have plenty to drink. I’ve been extra thankful for the peanut butter that I got in my last package. Since I couldn’t cook anything, it has been the staple of my meals while the power is out.

I’ve watched some more Olympics this evening. Has anyone been watching boxing? The two Mongolians made it through their semi-final matches tonight. If one, or especially both of them, wins the gold, I think this whole country might shut down. Three golds in one Games? Cross your fingers and wish them luck.

August 24, 2008

More than a week ago, when I was sitting with my director and working out the details of my schedule, I was bothered that I wasn’t going to have some time to just relax when I got to my new place. Well, things have worked out to where I have had time to do absolutely nothing. This weekend, I’ve hardly done anything other than watch TV and eat. Have you heard of the show Dexter? It’s about a serial killer that kills other serial killers. It’s really good. I think it comes on Showtime. Check it out.

After it rained the other day, the wind blew really hard for a day or two, and it’s been cool ever since then. It’s only the end of August, but I think it’s time for the weather to start changing in Mongolia. Man, I’m not looking forward to the winter. In Alabama, whenever it would get down to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, I would curse the cold and hate life. I think that is right at -1 degrees Celsius. Mongolia has been down to a record -58 or so degrees Celsius. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but -40 F and -40 C convert to the same temperature. That’s just way too f-ing cold for me. Mongolians have been living here for thousands of years, though, so I’m sure I can handle it. I guarantee that I will be going on a tropical vacation when I leave the country, probably somewhere in South East Asia. Anyone want to join me?

One of my friends asked me what I’m going to do for my birthday. I knew it was coming up, but hadn’t thought of it much. Until she asked today, I hadn’t realised that it’s tomorrow. So, what will I do? I have no idea. I think I told you that my town is split into two parts. Well, in my part, they don’t sell beer in any of the stores. I talked to the guy that lived here before me and he told me that they do sell it in the other part, 6.5km (4.04 miles) away. A round trip of 8.08 miles is a really long way to walk for beer. I’m afraid to tell my director and coworkers that it is my birthday. I’m afraid that they will pull out the vodka and pressure me to drink way more than I can handle. After the last bout that I had with vodka, it’s going to be a very long time before I’m willing to drink anymore. Another question my friend asked is if I feel old. I told her that sometimes I do, when I think about the fact that most of my friends are more than a few years younger than me; but in my mind I don’t feel old, and I hardly ever think about it. And being in a country where you are still considered a youth until you are 35 years old, I still have a few years to go. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I’ve watched some more boxing this weekend. One of the boxers that I wrote about before won the gold today. I’m sure that in the next couple of days, there will be as big a craze for him as there is for the judo guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if those two guys have schools and towns named after them.

I attempted to make my first Mongolian dish today. My tsuivan was, to say the least, lacking. Next time, I’ll have to make lots more noodles. For food, it wasn’t that bad, but it would not be recognised as tsuivan.

It’s back to work for me, tomorrow. It will be a short week, though, so I’m looking forward to it. Thursday and Friday will be Naadam. The first day will be for kids; the second will be the usual wrestling, horse racing, and archery. As before, I’ll take plenty of pics and let you know how it turns out. I’ll post this in the morning. I know how some of you (mom) like to read my updates as much as possible, so I’ll see what I can do about posting more often. I hope everyone is good. Say prayers for me.

P.S. I added some links to blogs that are written by people that are in my group. They are to the right of the page. Check them out if you want to see another point of view about things over here. On Leslie and Nathan's blog, there is a video of me wrestling at Naadam. You will have to scroll down to see it.