You had to know that three Fridays in a row was too good to be true.

January 17, 2009

I woke up and came to UB today. I didn’t have anything that I especially needed to do other than have a break from countryside life. After living in an affluent place like Huntsville, where I had pretty much anything I wanted at my fingertips, whenever I wanted it, living in the countryside away from most all modern conveniences is a big change. When I got here, the smog was as bad as ever. So bad, in fact, that I couldn’t see the mountains that surround the city; and their really close. I knew the filter in my nose was going to have its work cut out for it. Sure enough, I was blowing snot, dirt, grit, and blood this evening. Yuck! My first stop was at the P.O., since it was closed in my town yesterday. I’d finally written a reply to the kids I write to in the U.S. I’ve heard that they’ve written to me again, too. Maybe the teacher will send them soon. (hint, hint) After that, I went to Big Burger. I was a little bit hungry, and I had to have my fast food fix, so I had a grilled chicken sandwich. That was the first time they’ve actually had that sandwich when I’ve been there, and it was pretty good. I think it took me about five minutes to chow it down and be on my way.

When I left there, I went to the Peace Corps office for a few minutes, saw a few friends, and then went to Shuree’s. She wanted to go to lunch, so we went to Marco Polo’s. It’s a really ritzy Italian restaurant, with matching prices, but I found it to be wanting. The pasta I ordered was supposed to be in a white wine sauce, but it was just a white sauce; and it was extremely bland. Shuree said her pasta with Bolognese sauce wasn’t as good as it usually is, also. It had grren peas in it! When I looked around, I noticed that every table but ours had salt, pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar on them. When we swiped some and added it to our meals, it helped a little bit. If I go there again, I’ll be sure to order something different. There were flyers on the table advertising the club that they have on the second floor. It didn’t say anything about it on the flyer, but I heard from people who’ve been there that it is a strip club. Nice.

Back at Shuree’s training centre, there was a class going on. It was actually for Mongolians who are trying to learn English so they can be tour guides, but I sat in on it anyway. I taught them a few words and learned a few in Mongolian while I was at it. When that finished, I went to Mendee’s place. It was good to see him. He was excited to tell me about his new job, too. He now works for the government, working on Population and Family Development. He said that it’s a new position, so the first little while will be him working on defining exactly what they will be doing. I’m happy for him. He’s been out of a job for a couple months now and it’s been getting to him. I think he enjoyed spending more time with his son, but he somehow felt less of a man because he didn’t have a job so as to be able to add to their family’s income.

This evening, there was a surprise party for Cass, a PCV who just got back from the U.S. Her brother had died, so she went there to be with her family, and was gone for about a month. She told me that she’d gained about 7 pounds during that time. I told her I would probably gain more than that, since I’d have unlimited access to places like Taco Bell and momma’s cooking. The party was basically Cass and I and a bunch of Mongolians sitting around a circle, eating snacks and cake and drinking beer and vodka. We decided to teach them how to play American drinking games. Do you know about “Never Have I Ever” and “Circle of Death?” The first one is where you go around the circle and each person says something that they have never done. If anyone else has done it before, then they have to drink. For example: “Never have I ever crapped on a dog before.” That made Cass have to drink, cause she has done that. If you haven’t already, and would like to read the story, check it out here http://cassandraw.blogspot.com/2008/09/dont-read-this-it-hilairbut-really-dont.html. It’s an extremely funny story. If you have read it before, it’s worth a reread. After we finished everything and cleaned our fingers with our tongues, we decided to go to Oasis. As always, it was a cool place and I met some crazy international people. I met a deaf guy from America that I conversed with via pen and paper. He seemed pretty cool. I met a lot of random people, too, and was being my usual social butterfly-self by talking to them all and enjoying it. I really like meeting new people.

January 18, 2009

I didn’t want to be, but I was up really early for water this morning. Being that I don’t take my water distiller to UB with me, that means that I actually had to get dressed and walk down the street to the kiosk and buy water. I still can’t figure out why those kiosks sell water for 500tg when the stores in the town I was in for training sold them for almost 3000tg. I think they were just enjoying ripping off the Americans. After I’d been up for a while, I went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. I didn’t eat dinner last night and was still hungry when I finished my lunch, so I ordered another meal. I ate more than half of it before I decided that I’d better stop before I just made myself miserable. I brought the rest home for my dinner.

While I was sitting in the meeker, waiting for it to fill up so we could leave, a couple of drunk guys walked by, opened the door, and tried to do something. Luckily, the driver was Johnny on the Spot and didn’t let them in. The door was open while he was talking to them and I was watching the conversation. The drunkest of the two decided that he didn’t like me and spat at me. That came really close to making me mad, but I just looked at him as he sneered and gave me the Mongolian equivalent of the middle finger. They stick their thumb between their pointer and middle finger. You’d better be ready to fight if you do that to a Mongolian. Needless to say, Mongolians don’t play the “I got your nose” game with their babies. The driver shut the door, but the drunk guy kept cussing at me and trying to get in. I smiled really big at him as I held the door shut and the lady next to me fussed at him. You can always count on an older lady that you’ve made friends with to help you out when drunk people are involved. He was finally pulled away by his buddy.

When I got home this evening, I was really tired. I tried to go to bed earlier, but my new clock is one of those that only has a twelve-hour alarm. Since I wanted to wake up at 7:30 a.m., I had to wait til after 7:30 p.m. to go to sleep. I finally got it to work right around 8 o’ clock.

January 19, 2009

Not much was going on at work today, so I did some Mongolian studying. I’ve got to where I’ll think of a word that I want to know how to say, then I’ll look it up and copy all the different phrases in the dictionary using that word. After lunch, I went with Oko and Javkhaa and hung out at the social workers’ office. They got a lot of new things for their Women’s and Children’s place and they wanted me to take pictures for them. I don’t know why, but they seem to think I’m their personal photographer or something. I know all these people have their own employees with cameras, so I don’t know why they always want me to do it.

This morning, I saw the lady from the Post Office and she told me I had some packages. Since I was busy at the time, I told her I would get them later. When I got there, there were two packages from my sister, Ann. I had been told that they’d been sent, but I was still surprised to get them. I haven’t talked to her in years. Like always, I brought them straight home to see what kind of treasure was inside. I found Pop-tarts, hot chocolate, dry milk, kidney beans, mixed beans, ready-to-eat bacon, peanut butter, fudge grahams, fudge rounds, fudge brownies, corn muffin mix, no bake cheesecake, garlic pepper, garlic salt, poultry seasoning, Mrs. Dash, Big Red, strawberry spread, country gravy mix, hot sauce, Vienna sausages, and Beanie Weenies. I always find something that I eat right away and this time was no different. I opened a can of Vienna sausages, poured some hot sauce on them, and chowed down. They are never good, but they were a nice reminder of home. After that, I ate one of the smashed fudge rounds. I was really glad to get the peanut butter and hot sauce, since I was literally on the last couple of spoonfuls of each. I think the cheesecake is my favourite, though. Cheesecake and German chocolate cakes are my favourite desserts. By the way, do you know why a German chocolate cake is named that? See if you can find the answer. It’s just one of those tidbits of random info that I’m full of. Thanks, Ann, for the stuff. I appreciate it.

I had put some beans on earlier in the day, to make refried beans. When Tsegii came over this evening, I walked her through all the steps of how to make the fajitas. The dough for the tortillas is much different than dough that Mongolians usually make for anything. Since Mongolians have all kinds of practice rolling dough into perfect circles, I thought she’d be able to make them rounder and prettier than I can, but she couldn’t. She tended to make them too thin, which would make tears in them when they were put in the skillet. After showing her how to do it, she got the hang of it. Oh, and as usual, she cleaned dishes before, during, and after.

January 20, 2009

Tonight, I stayed up late to watch Obama take is oath of office. The whole thing started around midnight, my time. I’m never a huge fan of any politician (though I really enjoy studying politics), but this was quite an historic moment that I wanted to experience in the only way that I could. I mean, really, did anyone who reads this think there would ever be a black U.S. president? I’ve lived through three or four other presidential election campaigns involving black guys who were all defeated soundly. It says a lot about the changing beliefs of Americans that are of voting age now. I really hope that everyone gets the “change” that they “hope” for. On a lighter note, did you see Chief Justice Roberts flub the oath? I wonder if he was thinking about Obama not voting for him to be approved to his judgeship. That’s what he gets for trying to be cool and do it by memory. Haha. Pretty funny.

January 21, 2009

Surprisingly, I wasn’t tired today. My day at the office was as boring as ever as I worked on editing the language book. Around 4 o’ clock, I made my way down to the military commander’s office. I talked to him last week and found out that his rank is somewhere between a Colonel and a Major. I’m not up on my military rankings, so I couldn’t figure out what his exact rank is, and a search on Wikipedia about Mongolia’s ranking system yielded no results. One of his friends was there and after a while, they asked if I wanted to drink vodka with them. After figuring that I had nothing better to do, I decided I would. I had a few shots with them while the friend talked to me about Mongolian shamanism. It was really quite interesting. Most of you know this about me, but for those of you that don’t, I’m really interested in learning about religions; especially those of the East. He told me a very interesting story about his father having died 28 years earlier when his younger sister had some kind of ritual. During the ritual, his father came down and took over his sister. Her eyes were covered, but “he” was still able to point out things asked for. Also, he told them about where he had hidden some money in the home he’d shared with his wife, when he was still alive. Sure enough, when they checked it out later, they found a lot of money hidden in one of the walls. I also found out that there is no hell in Mongolian shamanism. When I was talking to one of my friends later, I was asked if I believed it. I told them that it sounds a little odd to me, being from the background that I’m from, but I had no personal experience in it, so I would not discount someone’s experiences. On top of all that, I learned a few new Mongolian words. I always enjoy that, no matter what language it’s in.

This evening, Tsegii came over again and we made more fajitas. We were both hungry but didn’t want to put much effort into cooking, so we decided on that. Her cooking language is getting better every time she comes here. I think she likes fajitas about as much as I do; and she adds as much Ranch as I do, too. I think I’ve got her hooked on it. After she left, I went to Moogie’s and met new people. They were all teachers, and since this week is some kind of break from school, they were enjoying it. Odno is the only one’s name that I remember. They had been drinking for several hours, and it was quite evident. Once, they collected money from everyone and went on an alcohol run. Two of them went and when they returned, we noticed that they had the beer but not the vodka. We found out that the one lady had dropped it right outside the building, busting it on the ground. Drat! Coincidentally, she is the one that we had to support to walk home. When we got her there, she just fell into the bed. I bet she’ll feel like crap in the morning.

January 22, 2009

This morning, Densmaa and Oko went to UB, leaving me at the office by myself with absolutely nothing to do. So, I decided to come home. It was early, but I decided to cook a big lunch for myself. I made some good tomato-based pasta sauce and put it over some noodles. It was pretty good, leaving me with some leftovers. During cleanup, I saw some horses in the far distance, grazing. I’ve decided that I want to buy a horse when it warms up, so I thought about going out to talk to the herder. I practiced some language to talk to herders (How many head of horses do you have? What kind of fodder do you feed them? How do you prepare for a hard winter?, etc.); put an extra layer of clothes on top of the two that I already wear; made some hot chocolate and put it in a thermos; and took off walking, looking for the herder. When I got out there, there was nothing but horses to be found. I was determined not to waste my adventure into the cold, so I went to the ger that is on the military base; the one that I visited before. There was a big pond in my path that was frozen solid, but I was afraid to walk across it. I felt sure that I’d be able to, but I didn’t want to risk it. When I got to the barbed-wire fence surrounding the base, I found a place that I should have been able to fit through. I wasn’t careful enough, though. I ripped my best pair of jeans and had a time getting them off of the barb that got me. Now I’m going to have to buy another pair. I’ll try to sew that up, and I have another pair, but I don’t have any that I can wear out to a decent place now. Ah, soog!

At the ger, they served me two bowls of tea that I drank pretty quickly. The lady fussed at me for being out in the cold. Also, the soup she was cooking finished within a few minutes of my arrival, so she gave me some of that. I was really full, but when she offered me seconds, it was so good that I couldn’t refuse. While eating, I noticed that I could see my breath. It was that cold in there, but it felt hot compared to outside. It was the ladies birthday I found out, so the guy gave me a shot of vodka out of a really cool glass container. It looked like a tall round tube with rocks, sand, trees, and a snake in it. The vodka tasted different than regular, making me think it might be homemade. He didn’t expound, and I didn’t ask.

On my way home, I had an experience I never wanted, but I’m glad I had: frozen eyelashes, with ice on the inside and outside of my scarf and hat from my breath. Yesterday and today has been extremely cold, with winds reaching really high speeds. On the way to the ger, it felt like someone was pushing me in the back. On the way back, I had to lean forward in order to proceed. I was worn out from the triple workout of walking, freezing, and walking against the wind, so I took a nap when I got home. As always, it was nice.

January 23, 2009

After a boring day at work, I got a call that I didn’t understand at first. Eventually, I understood “package,” and I knew that it was from the Post Office and what they were calling about. I quickly bundled up and went to get the package from Myra, my mom’s friend. I brought it straight home and tore into it, curious about what kind of bounty this box would produce. When I opened it, I found an array of things that I really appreciate. The first thing I opened was something wrapped in Christmas paper. Cool, a late Christmas present! It was a multi-tool that will definitely come in handy. Other than the Swiss Army knife that I have, I don’t have any tools. The first thing I did was try to turn on the hot water in my bathroom. The faucet turned, but no water came out. Drat! I guess I’ll have to do without a warm shower – or a shower of any kind – for a while longer. Also in the box was a wall calendar, personal calendar, magazines, bacon bits, soul seasoning, packs of meal seasoning, ham flavoured bouillon cubes, Crystal Light, fruit salad, garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chick peas), black beans, beef jerky, and plastics bags. After the multi-tool, the first thing I ripped into was the beef jerky. Thanks Myra. I really appreciate you thinking about and taking care of me. I don’t know why your package got here after the one that I got earlier in the week, since yours was sent first. That’s Mongolia’s mail system for you, though, I guess.

January 24, 2009

I had a lazy day reading Maxim, watching TV, and playing on the internet. Odnoo came over this evening, then Moogie came over later, bearing boats and something like boats, but with fruit in it instead. She wouldn’t tell me the name of the other thing, but it was good. I teased her and asked her why she hadn’t cooked that for me before. We sat around talking and watching TV and had a few drinks.

While sitting there, I noticed that some of the nails that hold my bed together were coming out. I went for my new handy-dandy multi-tool and used the hammer to nail them back to where they belong. While doing that, I noticed something on the inside of my bed. When I said something and started pulling out a blanket, Moogie pulled up the front of the couch and I found blankets, sheets, and pillows under there. Holey guacamole! This is life changing. Moogie laughed at me. I told her I had no idea about that, since American beds aren’t like that. She told me I should have asked her. My reply: how in the heck am to be expected to ask about something that I have absolutely no idea about? She got a big kick out of it. Tonight, I’ll sleep with blankets, instead of sleeping bags.

January 25, 2009

I woke up late today, looking forward to the Sunday ahead that I could waste away being lazy. When I finally went to cook something, I decided that I wanted biscuits and gravy. In the U.S., I always bought those frozen biscuits that you just have to put in the oven. I’d tried to make biscuits a few times, but they just never turned out good. Since I didn’t have anything pre-made, I looked in the cook book we got from PC. I found an easy looking recipe. Since there isn’t any self-rising flour in Mongolia, I had to add some baking powder. Luckily, the guy that was here before me left a lot. Otherwise, I would’ve been out of luck. The recipe made 11 biscuits. I had room for nine in my small oven, so I cooked the other two in the skillet, on the stove. When they were all finished, they were a little heavy, but really good. I ate the two from the stove straight away, putting strawberry jelly on one and Ranch on the other. I used one of the gravy packets I have and warmed up some of the bacon my sister sent, adding a big glass of milk, and had a good meal. Next, I’ll have to learn how to make gravy from scratch. No matter how many times I’ve helped my mom make it before, I just can’t seem to get it right when I try it alone.

Since then, the only productive thing that I’ve done is wash dishes, do laundry, and write this. I hope that you are doing well. I have my first life-skills lesson tomorrow. Shuree is translating it as I write this and will email it to me tonight. Pray for me to do well. I’m a little bit nervous about it. Write when you can.