Brother Baasan's Birthday (aka Friday)

September 27, 2008

Yesterday, my boss told me there would be some kind of something today, and that I should go with her. Of course, I would. I’m always down to be involved in what’s going on, to experience something new. She had told me that there was some kind of “car performance” going on. I don’t really care about stuff like that, but I was interested to see what it was all about. When I woke up this morning, I asked her what time we would get started and she told me around 2 o’ clock. About 30 minutes later, she told me that we would leave at 12. Twelve o’ clock came and went, and I still hadn’t heard anything from her, so I decided to take a nap. Around 1:30, she told me to meet her at 1:50. A few minutes after 2, I finally saw her. We were in a hurry, waiting on the governor to come and pick us up so we could go to some kind of celebration in the other part of our town. When he got here, it was another 30 minutes before we left.

When we finally got over there, we walked into a room full of elderly Mongolians, all waiting on us. There were a couple of guys there each with snuff bottles, in a seeming competition to see who could offer us theirs the most. I’ve learned the polite way to decline (accept it, sniff the top, then give it back) so I didn’t have to worry about that too much. We sat down and started eating right away. Wouldn’t you know it, the first thing that was placed in front of us was a big plate of innards. Bleh! I thought that I was finished with those, now that I live on my own. As my friend told me, though, only in Mongolia can you go to a nice event and be served innards. Luckily, I only ate a few bites of that before it was replaced with something much better. I stuffed myself. It was all so good. And the airag was flowing freely. I think I’m beginning to get used to it. As I’ve said before, it’s alcoholic, but only very slightly. I had about five or six glasses of it and never felt any effects. Sad. After drinking that much fermented horse’s milk, you’d want something. After everyone had sated themselves, the governor stood up and gave some kind of speech about something; then another lady did the same. A couple of medals and plaques were given out to some people. For some reason, they had me give a couple of awards to two older ladies. I don’t even know what they were for, but they seemed very happy to receive them from me. When everyone was done talking, we passed out gifts to all the people there. The men got some kind of nice little tea set and a bottle of oil. The women got a nice candy bowl with a bottle of oil.

When we left there, we passed by the place where the car show was supposed to be and saw that it was over. Oh well. It would’ve been fun, but I’m glad I got free food. We came back to my part of town and did the exact same thing all over again. I ate even more, totally making myself full. Also, at both events, there was a half of a cooked sheep. I don’t know how they picked the person to do it, but some random guy came out of the crowd and cut it up into pieces, giving some to every person in there to take home with them. That gave me two: one from each place. That will give me some food for a day or two at least. I’ll put the big hunks of fat in a pot of beans. That will be good.

Today, I put on my thermal underwear for the first time. Not because it was any colder than it has been (it was actually just a few degrees warmer, since the wind wasn’t as much today), but because I’m tired of being cold. They have helped a lot. There was once when I even noticed myself quite warm, but I was inside at that point. I guess I will start wearing them from now on. I have another pair, too. I figure when it gets even colder, I’ll double up. I hope that will work. I’ll let you know.

Oh, and I was very glad when I woke up this morning and found that the water was on. I had prepared for it to be out for the entire weekend. Now I have all kinds of extra water here. I won’t get rid of it, though, in case something unexpected happens. The pipes are still laid bare in the streets, so I’ll wait until they are at least covered again.

September 28, 2008

Today, I woke up with the resolve to format my computer. This took lots longer than I’d wanted: pretty much all day. The biggest problem was backing up all my files first. My external hard drive doesn’t have enough room for everything that is on my computer, so I had to use my work computer to store some extra files. That required a trip to my office and some time waiting on the transfer. I don’t know what the problem was, but it took me forever to figure out how to get my computer to format. Before, when I did it on other computers, I just put the disc in the drive and it did its thing. I had to go through many more steps before I finally got it right. It was right at my bed time when I finally finished.

I made a trip to the store to get a few groceries. While there, the owner asked me if I wanted to drink some airag. Sure, why not. It’s always nice to make friends with new people. She ushered me into the back room where several of her friends had already been at it, with the addition of vodka. They were all eager to shake my hand and say hi. Most Mongolians are very congenial when meeting strangers, especially after a few drinks. After a glass of airag and a shot of vodka, everyone jumped up to leave. I followed suit and was right behind them. That was fun.

Tsegii came over for more tutoring tonight. I think I’ve written this before, but I have no idea about what to do when it comes to teaching someone English. Usually, we just talk about whatever comes to mind. As I’ve said before, her English is horrendous – as is my Mongolian – so we keep the dictionaries between us, referring to them often. Tomorrow, at work, I will teach my first English class to my co-workers. I hope it goes a little bit better. The PCV that was here before me was an English teacher, and he worked with them a little. I hope they don’t expect me to be as good as him. We’ll see how it goes.

September 29, 2008

Today was my first English lesson. My co-workers had gone around and asked how many people wanted to attend. She had first asked me how many I was willing to teach and I told her 10-15 people would be plenty. She came back with a list of 20. Okay, I can make that work, I guess. The lesson was to be at 3 o’ clock, and I dreaded it all day. I just don’t like teaching. One of my many majors at university (I had 5 different ones by the time I finally graduated with a double-degree in Psychology and Sociology) was education. After substituting a few times, I decided that teaching wasn’t for me. Granted, I substituted for elementary kids who can be the worst little brats to put up with at times; but still, I didn’t like it. (To my favourite elementary teacher, as I’ve always told you, I envy your patience to put up with them.)

Anyway, 3 o’ clock finally rolled around and four people showed up. Whew! That wasn’t quite as daunting as the 20 that I’d not been looking forward to. I kept the lesson very simple. First, we went through the English alphabet, making sure that their pronunciation was correct. There are several letters in the Cyrillic alphabet that looks like those in the English alphabet, but they are said totally different. A “C” in Mongolian is pronounced like an “S” in English; a “B” can be either a “V” or a “W” sound; a “P” makes a sound like an “R;” the English “F” is usually said like a “P,” though in all actuality, it is supposed to sound like an “F;” an English “Q” is just hard for them to say; and the English “Z” is usually said more like the British say it (zed), instead of how most Americans say it (zee). After we went through the alphabet, I had them come up with several words for each letter. I was actually surprised at some of the words they came up with. As to be expected, there were only two words for “X.” There are about eight in my dictionary, and how do you explain what “xenophobia” means when you have only a slight grasp of what it means yourself? There were more challenges. The “th” sound is very hard for them, often coming out like a “t.” The sounds for “W” and “V” were often reversed. I never understand that. “Wine” is usually pronounced like “Vine,” and vice versa. Officially, the Mongolian “B” is supposed to sound like a “V,” but local dialect (and maybe lazy speakers) makes it more like a “W;” kind of like the “lower class” Brits in the classical books that I’ve read. You know, like that one Charles Dickens book that I just can not think of the name right now, where the boy is an orphan? What is the name of that book? Drat! That will drive me nuts for the rest of the day now. After the alphabet, we went over numbers. Numbers like 15 and 50 usually cause trouble for them. Ha, once, I was talking to a lady about her mother and asked how old she was, in English. She said, “My mother is 15.” In Mongolian, I said, “Really! Your mom is 15?” It was pretty funny to watch her flush with embarrassment. From numbers, we moved on to time. There weren’t too many problems there; or with the subsequent days of the week, other than the “th” in Thursday.

I’m still working on fixing my computer. I had no idea how many different utilities and applications there were to make that thing work as smoothly and seamlessly as it did. To make it even worse, I can’t connect it to the internet to get all the updates I need, so that is a hindrance, also. I think I will go into the city this weekend and take care of that.

During my lunch break, I put a pot of water on to boil, so I could soak some dishes while I was at work. Wouldn’t you know it, I forgot all about it by the time I left. When I got home this evening, I could smell something wasn’t right. Luckily it was just water, so there was nothing in the pot to catch fire. I’m lucky the whole place didn’t go up in flames. Dang, what a moron!

Late in the evening, my Mongolian friend that is the English teacher here asked for my help. She has some CDs with a bunch of English children’s songs on it, and she wanted me to help her transcribe them. Wow, what a bunch of memories to hear some of those songs again. And for many of them, I didn’t know there were as many lyrics and verses as there are. I was so surprised to hear them. There were many more that I had never even heard before, at all. And did you realise how old some of those songs are? Some of them seem to date back to the colonial period. Oh, and there was the ever-classic School House Rock songs on there, like “Conjunction Junction,” and other silly songs that came on during Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kiddo. It had me cracking up to hear some of them. It was worth staying up late to help her do that.

September 30, 2008

Today, I worked with the social workers in this part of town. I got there around 10 o’ clock and everyone (5, including the janitor) came into the conference room, where they showed me all their pictures and awards. By the time they were finished with that, the boss said, “Do you like beer?” “Sure I do,” I said, as they pulled out a big bottle of it. So, everyone sat around sipping on beer and talking. That is, until they thought someone important was coming. Then, everyone went into a frenzy to get rid of all the evidence, chugging their glasses and hiding the bottle. It turned out to be a false alarm, so we all returned to the conference room for more chatting. It was close to lunch time, so they had made hoshor for everyone’s lunch. Along with that, they brought out the vodka. OMG! I was glad that there wasn’t anything going on today where I really had to use my brain. There was another scare or two, where they thought someone was coming in that shouldn’t see what we were doing, and everyone jerked the bottle under the table. I laughed at them pretty hard when they saw that it was no one to be concerned about. For the rest of the day, I sat with two of the women and went over some English. They already had a notebook full of phrases, but the grammar was bad, so I corrected that, teaching them a few new words while I was at it.

As I said last night, I need some updates for my computer to be back to where it should be. I can’t get Word to open without validating it on the internet, so I’m doing all my blog typing at work this week. I really hope that everything will be fine after this weekend.

October 1, 2008

Before I had been in my office an hour this morning, the people who live below me came to find my boss and me. This is at least the fourth time that the lady has banged on my door, insisting that something of mine is leaking through the floor and into her apartment. Each time, I let her in to show her that nothing of the sort is happening. This time, a plumber went with us. Maybe he got her to understand that whatever is going on isn’t coming from my apartment, but maybe between my floor and her ceiling. I hope she understands. I understand her worry, really I do, but I dislike her banging on my door at all hours of the evening, thinking that I’m doing something wrong.

Today, I went to work with the social workers in the other part of town. It was a much different experience than yesterday’s. Soon after arriving, I was shown around to the school, kindergartens, banks, police station, train station, and maybe something else that I can’t remember. Seeing the inside workings of the train station was really neat. Too bad I can’t speak good enough Mongolian to ask all the questions that I had. I felt like a kid, wanting to know what everything did, can I push that button, and can I talk to one of the engineers over the radio.

For lunch, I went with one of my co-workers to her place. While she cooked lunch, I sat in the living room with her husband and 1-year-old baby girl. It was fun playing with the baby. Babies like me for some reason. I guess because they are easy to please if you know how to play with them. And with my kiddo-like imagination, playing with a baby is…child’s work. There was one thing that I saw while there that really confused me. The dad smoked cigs, and after lighting his cig, he let the baby suck on the burnt match. He burnt another match or two and let her do the same. WTF? When I asked why they did that, all I could understand was that it was good for the baby. I don’t know in what way it could be good for a baby to suck on a burnt match. Will someone out there with internet and some free time please try to find out some kind of answer for me?

Another interesting thing was when the husband decided to clean his fish tank. First of all, it was very surprising to find a fish tank in a Mongolian’s home. That was the first one I’d ever seen. And I’ve only even heard of one Mongolian eating fish. I guess, in a land-locked country, it’s not something you have on a regular basis. The tank had the bare minimums in it: fish, a snail, water, a thermometer, and an air filter. There were no brightly coloured rocks, no plants, no little hidey-holes for the fish to play peek-a-boo in. So, why is it that I was surprised when the guy brought out a jar and a small siphon tube to clean the crap from the bottom of the tank? Most of you know, I’m sure, what a siphon is, but for those of you who might not, I’ll tell you. You take a tube, put it into whatever liquid you want to move into another container, and then exert some kind of pressure on the tube to make the liquid flow through the tube. Usually, the pressure is in the form of sucking on one end of the tube with your mouth, until the liquid begins to flow. Usually, this results in the person doing the siphoning to get a mouth-full of whatever liquid it is they are fooling with. This fella did exactly that. Bleh! He got a mouth full of fish crap and didn’t seem to think anything wrong with it as he spat it into the jar. Gross!!! Just another aspect of Mongolian “toughness,” I guess. And I bet his wife kisses him with that mouth and doesn’t think twice about it. Haha.

Back at the office, we went over all the social statistics of that part of town: how many people between what ages; how many single-parent families; how many disabled people; how many orphans; gex met (Mongolian for etcetera). According to their records, there are 1904 people in that part of town. That is around 600 more people than how many live in my part of town, but that part of town seems much bigger. I guess because people over there mostly live in houses that are spread out, whereas, in my part of town, people mostly live in apartments.

When I got back to my office, I had two packages waiting on me: one from my mom, and another from her friend. Thank you so much!! One of the first things that I searched for, before even checking out anything else, was a box of pens that I’d been promised. As I’ve written before, I’m a pen snob. There is a particular kind of pen that I like to keep in my pocket at all times, and the very last one that I’d had messed up only yesterday. There were two boxes in there, way down in the bottom! Yay! Also, there was candy, chewing gum, Ranch mix, oatmeal, Crystal Light, hot chocolate, Kool-Aid, spices, beans of all sorts, pencils, markers, some magazines, and probably another thing or two that I can’t think of right now. I had lots of fun going through everything and finding a new home for it in my small apartment. Now, if only you guys could send me some cabinets….

October 2, 2008

During the night, my radiator came on. Yay! I’m so glad of that. When I was in one of the offices in the other part of town, yesterday, I was almost hot, because their heat worked so well. I hope my apartment gets to be like that. I’m one of those people who likes to wear as little as possible when I’m at home, alone. I hate being fully dressed in my own home. I don’t necessarily walk around naked, but if I decide to, I don’t want to be frozen just from the idea of it. A friend who lives in a ger texted me and mentioned how cold it was this morning. I bragged a bit about my radiator, then told her I wished I could put it in my pocket for when I go outside. My warm apartment doesn’t help me at all once I step out the front door. Really, though, since buying my winter coat, and putting on my long underwear, the only part of me that gets too cold is my hands and face. I haven’t brought out my gloves and scarf yet. I’ll wait until it gets colder for that. It is something that I’m not looking forward to. I do look forward to walking into a warm apartment, though.

This morning, at work, the jeejors (building workers) came around and unscrewed the valve on all the radiators in the building, so as to relieve all the built up pressure. Of course, when that happened, there was some of the old, rusty, built up, stinky water that came out with it. Wouldn’t you know it, at every radiator, some of it leaked onto the floor. Man, oh man oh man, that stuff stinks. I had to burn an incense to get rid of the funk. No big deal. The little bit of funk smell is totally worth the warmth. Now I can sit in my office without wearing my big, heavy winter coat.

I think that I’ve written before about how local elections are coming up. Since I work in the governor’s office, there has been plenty of action going on because of it, with all the campaigning and such. There was actually some kind of political rally going on at the exact same time that I was to give my English lesson. I didn’t mind a bit that no one was there for my lesson. I did regret not being at the rally, though. I wish that I could help with all the political stuff, but the Peace Corps is very strict on not involving yourself with anything political. Besides, how would it look for my own political career if I was a known supporter of the Mongolian Communist Party? Of course, they call it the Revolutionary Party, but it’s still communist. It doesn’t matter to me, either way. I just want to be involved in all the goings-on. I’m really interested in the people that are involved in politics.

October 3, 2008

It’s Friday!! The end of another week for me. I had thought about waiting until I get into the city, tomorrow, to post this; but I don’t know if my computer will be working as I hope it will. So, I will post it now.

I hope everyone is good. Please pray for me. Send emails, letters, and texts, and call whenever you can. I enjoy them all.