Happy Holidays from Mongolia.

December 19, 2008

I’ve already told you how I didn’t do much at work and how I went to lunch at the guanz (diner). Since it is Friday, I went to the Labour and Social Welfare office to teach English at 3 o’ clock. For whatever reason, none of my regular students were there. Oh well. I was served tea and wrote a few things out about the New Year’s celebration. They were all busy, so I went to the school for my usual Friday conversation with the students. About the same time that I was to begin, my boss called and asked where I was. I told her I was at the school and she asked me to come to her office. When I got there, she said, “We just wondered where our Trip was.” That was a little funny.

While I was there, I learned something that you definitely should not do in Mongolian culture. Many times, when I am with my friends, I will give them a piece of trash while making them think that it is something more. Often, I will give someone an empty candy wrapper or something like that. Today, I gave a piece of trash paper to Javkhaa, my co-worker who is pregnant. As soon as I gave it to her, her face changed, she handed it to Densmaa, my boss, and told her what I did. Densmaa told me how bad that was and that I should never do that to a pregnant woman because it will make her breasts hurt and make her sick. The way to make this egregious act better is to immediately give the pregnant woman a real gift. I was freaking out and had no idea what to do. When I asked Densmaa what to do, she ran into her office, saying she would help me. She gave me a piece of candy that I gave to Javkhaa. That, apparently, took care of things. Later, I found out that you are really supposed to give a fake gift first, endure some crying and cursing, then give a real gift. Either way, I felt like a total fool. I apologised profusely. As I’ve said before, I’m lucky that I make all these cultural mistakes amongst friends.

While I was at their office, I noticed that they had an obnoxious virus on their computer. There was a Christmasy box floating around the screen that said, “This computer is being attacked.” I was just watching and I was getting annoyed. They were working on end of the year reports that will go to the Mongolian government that had many pictures of stuff from our town. I asked if there was any pictures of me and they said no, then asked me for some pictures from IST. I took their flash drive and got some pictures from my computer. Well, I still haven’t gotten the virus protection that I purchased to work right, so this evening, the same stupid box is floating across my screen. Grr! I’m so mad about that. If I don’t get this taken care of in the next couple of days, I’m going to ask for my money back. At this point, I can’t even get some basic websites to open right.

December 20, 2008

This evening, three couch surfers came on the meeker. Do you remember me telling you about CouchSurfing.com? I’d been talking to them independently for a couple of weeks and they finally arrived. Manu and Simon are from France and Chris is from Canada. Simon (pronounced “see-mone”) speaks very little English, so Manu had to translate almost everything that was said to him, or that he said to us. After a little more exploration in Mongolia, the two of them will go to Beijing, China and study kung-fu for several months, or until they run out of money, whichever happens first. Chris graduated from university a few years ago and other than a few breaks of going home to work odd jobs for more money, he has been traveling ever since. On this trip, he started over in Europe and has slowly made his way here, then will continue to Beijing and on to parts of Southeast Asia. Someone on his profile said he was shy, but I didn’t see much of that. Maybe his travels have fixed that. For dinner, we went to store and bought some meat and vegetables, cooked them all together, then put it all on top of some pasta. That’s one of the easiest Mongolian meals that I know how to cook. I don’t have anything to do tomorrow, so we are to bed a bit late.

December 21, 2008

The guys slept much later than I thought they might. Of course, I don’t mind, so I slept as long as they did. When we got up and got ready, we walked to the old military base, freezing the whole way. The wind was blowing something fierce, subtracting precious degrees from the already negative temperatures. Brrr!!! The base was neat. There were old Communist stars and propaganda painted and written on walls. Some of the buildings looked like they had simply been locked and left one day while some of them looked like they had suffered the effects of a bomb explosion. Looking inside all the old hangars, we could tell that someone was using them for barns. In one of them, we found some old Russian passport documents and mechanical drawings. I kept them and will give them to the governor to see if he thinks they might be important. If not, I’ll keep a couple as souvenirs. While on top of one of the hangars, we spotted a couple of gers that must be the home of whoever owns the animals that had left the prints and droppings we came across. Just to show the guys that it was socially acceptable, I poked my head in one, without knocking, and asked if we could come in. Of course, they said we could and found us all stools to sit on and served us tea. Surprisingly, I’d seen the family before. They sat and stared at us and asked the occasional question. I bet the proverbial fly on the wall was getting a kick out of seeing me talk to them in Mongolian and translate to English, then Manu translating to French for Simon. Since Mongolians will never ask a visitor to leave, and I didn’t want to impose on their forced hospitality, we left after that one cup of tea. It helped enormously to warm us a little before we had to make the trek back to my apartment.

When we got back, we bought some bread and sausage for our lunch and chowed down. We weren’t quite finished when Densmaa came and took us to a ger. Friday, I asked her if she would set up a visit for us. I don’t know the lady’s name, but she works at the Social Insurance Dept. I’m always surprised to find out who lives in gers. I always wonder if it's by choice or necessity. As soon as we got there, we were sat down and given tea, then she started pulling out all kinds of food. The main thing was a big pot of meat. Ha, I cut off a piece of something and gave it to the guys with a sly smile on my face. When they asked me what it was, I told them I would tell them after they ate it. It was innards. Somehow, those weren’t as bad as some I’ve had before. The guys made a face at the thought of what they’d just eaten, but they said it tasted alright. It was also their first time eating horse meat. The lady kept telling us to eat all of the food, but we just couldn’t. We didn’t expect to be fed and were regretting eating what we had before we got there. When we left there, we went to Densmaa’s place and she immediately started cooking. We had visions of being in Rome and needing to visit the vomitorium before we continued to gorge ourselves. While there, I totally embarrassed myself. I was reaching for some sugar for my tea and knocked the whole thing on the floor. Doh! Densmaa would not let me clean it, even though I got the broom and dustpan and asserted that it was my fault and I should clean it. People are very nice to their visitors here. Oh, and her apartment was awesome. It’s more than twice the size of mine and has all kinds of nice furnishings and decorations.

December 22, 2008

We were up much later than I wanted to be last night. The French guys found the French station on my TV and since it had English subtitles, we all watched the movie that was on. It wasn't very good. I woke up and went to work late today since I knew there was nothing pressing for me to do. For lunch I got the guys and went to the guanz, but no one was there. That sucked. I was kind of looking forward to it. Since we were kind of close, we walked to the top of yonder hill and I showed the guys the OBOO. That’s how it’s written in Mongolian. It sounds like “ah-wah.” That is the thing that I told you about before that looks like a pile of rocks, bones, and trash and is the place where you go to pray to the local god that watches over the town. There’s always a good view of the surrounding area up there, where ever you might be. The guys were freezing, so we didn’t stay long.

After going to work for a short while, I was told there would be another kindergarten play at the Culture Centre. I knew that most everyone in my building would be there, so got the guys and we all went to the play. They seemed to get as big a kick out of it as I did. I can’t really put into words the seeming lack of organisation there. It’s a frequent sight for a teacher to go on stage to move a kid around to the place where they should be; or to pull one off stage when they’re not supposed to be there; or the sound guy to have to stop the cassette and rewind it because he didn’t record the whole song and the dancers are standing on stage wondering what’s going on.

This evening, Moogie finally came over to cook the boats she said she would two days ago. This was the guys' lesson in Mongolian time. They didn’t quite understand at first. Two days later, they had a better idea. Moogie had to bring her steamer cause mine isn’t as big as hers. She made almost 90 boats!!! We ate every bit of them, too. I was helping cook, so I didn’t get but a couple of the first round. The guys were worried that we wouldn’t get any. I told them to eat as much as they could and we would have plenty. Sure enough, by the time we were finished cooking, they were finished eating. I don’t know how many I ate, but when everyone else was finished, there were still about 10 more. I ate them, too. I love those things. I think you’ll really like them, too. I’ll cook them for you when I see you next. Now, my kitchen is an absolute mess. I’m not going to worry about it tonight. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.

December 23, 2008

I woke up at my normal time and woke the guys up, too. They decided that they would leave this morning and I was kind of glad. They were alright guys, but I’ve been around people for the last three weeks. I need some time to myself, just to chill. Also, thought I still make all kinds of mistakes, I’d forgotten how much of the Mongolian culture I now take for granted. I felt like a parent with kids who keep doing things to embarrass them. Whenever we would be out it public, it seemed like I was always telling them to do something or not do something. At one point, one of them said, “We just can’t win, can we?” I told them that, no, they couldn’t. One of my Mongolian friends told me that if you were to not do everything that the Mongolian culture says you shouldn’t, you would never do anything. That’s almost true. I notice that younger people tend to be a little more lenient on the way they interpret the culture, though. That’s good for me.

I went to Water Company today for my regular lesson. They are the class that is the furthest ahead. They were supposed to have a test today, but when I got there, no one was there. Everyone is busy with end of the year stuff, so I guess they have better things to do. Oh well. It seems like I’m going to be doing my own thing until after the New Year. Not a problem with me.

I hung out at the social worker’s office for the rest of the day, doing a little bit of studying for my life-skills lessons and my language. I was totally ready to leave before I did. I still came home a little early. After cleaning my kitchen, which wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, I started watching Weeds. Have you ever heard of that show? It comes (came) on Showtime. It’s about a family where the dad died and the mom turns to selling marihuana in order to pay the bills. I know your first reaction might be, “Oh, what a terrible thing!” but the show is pretty good. It’s pretty funny at times. Check it out, if you have Showtime and it still comes on.

December 24, 2008

My BFFE Matt called first thing this morning!! I was sitting here, just about to get dressed for work when the phone rang. Whenever I get an international call, it only shows four random numbers, and I always forget that, so I had no idea who it was. I was happy to hear him and his family on the other end. They have unofficially adopted me. They like me for some reason. I bet if they knew all the trouble that Matt and I have been into together, they wouldn’t like me quite as much. So, don’t tell them!! When I was talking to his sister about her flight troubles on the way home, I was reminded of this time last year when I was having the same troubles. I was supposed to get back from Amsterdam on the 23rd, but something stupid happened and I was stuck overnight in Washington, D.C. I tried all kinds of stories to try to get them to put me on a different flight, even another carrier. I think one lady was about to do it for me, but when she saw that another guy had my ticket and was doing “something” she refused to even look at it. So, they put me up in a hotel room for the night and rescheduled my flight for the next day. Luckily, there were four other people in the same situation, and they were all cool. We had dinner together that night and sat on the plane the next day. I’ve not heard from any of them since then, but I think of them randomly.

This morning, when I was getting ready to go to the other part of town, I saw the people from over there were here. I took that to mean that there wasn’t any sense in my going over there. I just sat in my office working on some language stuff. I came home after lunch and haven’t done much. One of my Mongolian friends in UB that I talk to tells me that she likes my job. I do, too, but sometimes, it’s frustrating. I really enjoy being lazy, but I’d kind of like to have something to do.

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!! I hope you have an awesome day.

This morning, I sent about 25 messages to various people across the country. The responses randomly came throughout the day. Once, I got five messages all at the same time. When I checked them, they were from MobiCom, saying that I’d gotten a free 5,050 units. Coincidence? I don’t really know why I got them, but I don’t turn away too many free things. Especially when I can put them to use.

My mom called this morning. It was good to hear from her. She had gotten a phone card that was either 350 state-to-state minutes, or 20 international minutes. That doesn’t really sound equivalent to me. Luckily, someone else gave it to her. Man, I need to start a phone company of my own. As soon as I got off the phone with her, it died. I knew that people would be messaging me for the rest of the day, so I came home for my charger. As I was walking out the door of my office building, the P.O. lady chased after me and said I had a package. I followed her to the P.O. and got the package my mom had sent about three weeks ago. Sweet! What good timing. In it were peanuts, sunflower seeds, Ranch, dry gravy mix, dry milk, couscous, dry buttermilk, garbanzo beans, red beans, lima beans, black beans, split peas, ham pieces, garlic powder, duct tape, my old phone with a QWERTY keyboard, and a new 150 GB flash drive. The first thing I did was try to get my old phone to work. I send a lot of text messages and I hate the way that the regular number pad works for texts. I was looking forward to not having to deal with that anymore. I got the SIM card switched over, typed in all the codes that AT&T said I would need to unlock my phone, and then didn’t have any signal. Drat!! I’ll take it to UB with me next week and see if MobiCom has any solutions for me. I sure hope so.

After that, I put everything from my laptop onto my new drive, and then proceeded to format my computer, AGAIN. It only took a few hours. As soon as I got things back to half-way normal, I re-downloaded the StopSign anti-virus software and got it to work. That made me happy. I’ve been dealing with them online for several weeks now and nothing they offer as a solution has helped. To make it worse, they have been experiencing bad weather and haven’t been able to get to work, so I haven’t heard anything from them. Now I don’t have to worry about that. My computer is like new again. I’m glad to be rid of that obnoxious virus that was floating around my screen.

This evening, I cooked and ate some good ol’ American food: biscuits, gravy, ham, and peanut butter cookies, and a few glasses of milk to wash it all down. Just like the last time I made a similar meal, I ate everything. It was so good. I wanted to continue my usual Christmas tradition and watch a new movie. Maybe I'll go to the theatre next week. Since I didn’t have any movies that I haven’t seen already, I watched Weeds some more. I really like that show. I’m almost finished with it. Good thing I have a few more shows to watch. I have almost every episode of Southpark. I don’t recommend that one, though. It’s got a crude sense of humour sometimes. If you think you can handle it, check it out. Otherwise, I advise you to stay away. It’ll corrupt you.

December 26, 2008

It’s Friday – my free day – so I’ve taken advantage of it. I woke up late and haven’t done much yet. At 1 o’ clock, there is supposed to be a New Year’s play put on by the high school students. I’ll go over there around 1:30 and hope that I’m not too early. Tonight, there will be a party for the government workers. That will be the first party of a week’s worth. Oh, the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia. Maybe I’ll survive it. I’ll keep you posted.

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and that your New Years will be awesome. Try not to make any resolutions that you know you can’t keep; and try to stick to the ones you do make. I miss you. Talk to you later.