I'm off to the Gobi!

January 31, 2009

I forgot to write about something last week. I had a little bit of vengeance about my “may” and “might” pet peeve. During tutoring with Ambaa and Khishge, I corrected their usage and made sure they understood that one expressed permission and the other expressed possibility. Also, I taught them English directions. They seemed to be as mind-boggled as I was when I learned Mongolian directions. I tried to tell them the story of me learning Mongolian directions, but they didn’t understand.

I woke up and came to UB today. I needed a break from the small town that I now call home. My first stop was to buy electrical strips. Last week, I plugged something into the one I had and it blew. Dang it, man. I never understand why they will work just fine for a few months, then just blow like that. That makes the third one that has blown since I’ve been here. This time, I bought two so I’d be sure to have a backup the next time it happens.

Teachers’ Day was yesterday, but teachers everywhere were still celebrating today. I met with Shuree and several of her friends and we all went to a club called Amrita. It was quite posh, and really cool. There were four big, slightly abstract statues of naked women, surrounded by big half-circle booths with white leather seats. I was the only guy with nine women. I got several looks as other guys walked in later. We all sat around having a few drinks, and then did a bit of dancing when the music started. There was a DJ and a band. Later in the night, there were performances. The first consisted of some people doing acrobatics and the like. The second was a guy spitting fire and swallowing swords, having bricks broken on his head, and breaking and lying down on glass. It was fairly entertaining. I didn’t even notice how late it was until I got in the bed and saw that it was 4 in the morning.

February 1, 2009

I woke up at a decent time to hang out with a friend that had just got into town. He was staying at a guesthouse, so I went there. The ladies there know me, so we teased them a little bit, teaching them a few new English phrases. My friend and I had planned to go for lunch, but he had given them his pants to wash, and it was taking forever them to dry. I waited with him for a couple of hours, but when I saw the pants were a long way from drying, I told him I’d see him later: I was hungry, and I had to get ready to go home. I went to Cola & Kebab and slammed a shish kabob. When I got to the market, to get on the meeker, I saw friend that has a car. I decided to ride with him. It costed just a little bit more, but the comfort was worth it.

February 3, 2009

First thing at work this morning, I got a call from Moogie. She told me that we were both wanted at the police station at 10 o’ clock. We met right before walking in and neither of us knew what was going on. We got there and had to wait a few minutes for the guy that had told us to come there. When we went into his office, he pulled out a file from his desk, asked me if I spoke Mongolian, and then told us that he’s the so-called secret police. As soon as I heard this, I was reminded of a couple of friends in another part of the country who had a run in with the secret police. In their experience, they came into their apartment and demanded to see all kinds of documents. I’m not sure what they wanted, but nothing bad came of it.

After he’d introduced himself, he jumped right into why we were there. He told me that he had a secret file on me that says I have been hanging out and drinking with underage students; I’m always drunk; I always have people over to my place to drink and party; I always have women over to my place and have sex with them; and I meet people on the internet and get them to come and visit me. I asked him where he got his information from and he said that he had done a secret investigation himself. I asked him if I could see the file and what’s in it and he told me no, it’s a secret file. I denied all the things that he was accusing me of and he kept calling me a liar and telling me that he knew I was a drunkard and that I always have people over and stay up late partying; and he was going to write a letter to the Peace Corps to tell them to kick me out and send me back to America. He told me that I had broke the law, but when I asked him which law, he told me that I could look it up on the internet. I told him that it was in Mongolian, and I can’t understand it. His response? “Maybe it’s in English.” I just laughed. He kept saying that I always drink and I always have people over to my place to drink with me. I asked him if he had talked to any of the people that have supposedly been over to my place to drink with me and he ignored the question. I asked him if he had talked to any of the store owners to see how often I buy alcohol from them. Again, he ignored the question. I asked once more if I could look at the file. He said no, it’s secret. He told me that he monitors all of my internet activity, here and in UB, and he knows everything that I do on there. I laughed and told Moogie that I knew better; that he didn’t have the capabilities to do that. (I think I’m literally the only person in town that has internet, so there’s no way he can monitor my internet if he doesn’t have internet himself.) He asked what I said and Moogie made up something. I told him that I’ve only had people over to my place a few times to drink, and we were only loud once. I told him that any other time that I drink at my place, I do it alone. I told him that the only time anyone underage has been to my place was on Halloween, and every Tuesday and Thursday when Khishge comes and leaves with Ambaa for English. I told him that my friends come over to hang out with me sometimes, but we never drink. He kept calling me a liar, then told me that he would see if I was telling the truth. If I told him all the people that come to my place, and it matched the names in his file, then he would believe me. I told him everyone’s name, and exactly how many times they come over, and he continued to call me a liar and said that he was trying to protect me. I just laughed at him and told him I appreciate his protection, but whoever has told him all this is lying. He told me again that it was from his own private investigation. I left him to his own suppositions about me thinking that he was the liar.

He finally told me to go and get my passport from my home and bring it back to him. I had absolutely no intentions of giving him my passport, but I left his office with a big smile and assured him that I would be right back. As soon as I walked outside, I called the Peace Corps. They had never heard of the secret police before my friends had a run-in with them, and this seemed even fishier than their story, so the first person I talked to told me not to go back. Next, I talked to our Safety and Security officer. She got the guys phone number and told me to not go back until she called me back. After that, I talked to the Peace Corps country director. He told me that it sounded like someone had it out for me and to only give him copies of my passport and visa, not the real thing. (My Peace Corps passport is the property of the U.S. government.) He told me that unless the officer had some kind of evidence about all the things he’s accusing me of, the letter that he threatened to write to PC wouldn’t do anything to get me kicked out. The country director told me that if something does happen, and the guy has some kind of connections high up in the government – which he doubted – he might be able to get my visa revoked, which would make me have to leave the country. I was assured that if that happens, I will most likely be able to go to another country to be a Volunteer.

Before I got a call back from the Safety and Security officer, Moogie told me that the officer said to bring my passport tomorrow, cause he had stuff to do. When I met her, she told me that he kept calling her a liar when I left and told her that he knew she had been drinking with students, also. The Safety and Security officer finally called me back. She told me how she had tried to call the officer from the PC landline several times and the he kept denying her call. Finally, she called on her cellphone and he answered. Whenever she asked him questions, he told her that it was all secret. She got the chief’s number and called him. I’m not sure if the chief was in the loop or not, but she basically told him that I’m an adult and they’d better quit paying attention to the moves that I make everyday. She told him that he’d better tell the so-called secret police to leave me alone. I knew the Peace Corps would get up in that ---. They don’t play no games when it comes to people messing with Volunteers.

Still, that totally pissed me off. It’s bad enough that everyday people gossip and spread rumours as much as they do, but when some kind of police that thinks they have special authority starts believing them and messing with me…. The whole time he was accusing me of everything he was, I kept thinking, “Man, I wish I knew how to tell you that I studied police interrogation tactics in university, and there ain’t nothing you can do to make me say something that isn’t true, or do something that I shouldn’t or don’t want to do.” I think I was a little bit lucky that Moogie’s English isn’t any better than it is. There were several things that I wanted to say to him, several cross-examination questions that I wanted to ask him, but I knew she wouldn’t understand. She was visibly upset. I felt bad for her. I tried my best to exude an outward calm by taking my coat off, getting comfortable in my chair, looking him in the eyes, smiling as much as possible, and keeping open body language. Her lip was trembling from trying to hold back her anger. The guy told me that he was a criminologist, and I couldn’t help but think he’s a bad one. Grr. That ruined the next several hours for me.

Around 4:30, though, I saw something to raise my spirits and set off to pursue it. Looking out my office window, I saw a bunch of kids playing in a place that is usually just an empty space. I had seen them there earlier in the day and didn’t think much of it. I really paid attention this time and saw that there must be something going on. The place where they were is the floor area of a building that is no longer there. All that’s left is two parallel walls. When I got there, I saw that someone had put enough water there to make it one big smooth sheet of ice. I found out later that it was the Water Company that had done it. All the kids were having a good ol’ time, running and seeing how far they could slide, and playing some kind of ice soccer. I got a big smile on my face as I joined them. As always, I was swarmed by kids wanting to play with me. The sliding was really fun. I went the furthest several times. A lot of the kids wanted me to pull them across the ice, but I couldn’t get good footing. From that, we somehow got to playing another game they liked: trying to sweep each others feet and making the other person fall. I fended off about seven of them for a long time, sweeping several of them right onto their butts or back, but they finally got me. I wore myself out playing with them, and I’m a bit sore tonight; but I was very glad to have the fun.

February 4, 2009

Today, I spent the first hour of work making a written report about my yesterday and all the events leading up to it, and then emailed it to the Peace Corps. A few hours later, I talked to the Safety and Security officer again. She told me that she talked to the police chief again and grilled him some more. She told me that the so-called “secret” police officer was only a regular officer; there is no secret file about me; no one has made any complaints about me at all; and I will not be bothered again. She said all of that was just done to scare me, and warn me. I still don’t know what kind of warning it was supposed to be. I think I would respond much better to a different kind of warning. With my personality, that is the kind of warning that makes me want to rebel.

This afternoon, I was trying to work on the StopSign antivirus programme that I have. I paid for it about two months ago, and it has only worked for two weeks. I sent them an email today, requesting that I get a full refund. My recommendation to you is to not buy or use StopSign. Not only does it not work like they say it should, but their support is slow and not good. I kept telling them that what they were telling me to do was not working, but they kept telling me to do the exact same thing. Uh, duh, if it didn’t work the first 10 times, what makes you think it’s going to work the 90th time?

While I was fooling with all this, I started hearing a Windows error sound every couple of seconds. I rebooted my computer, thinking that might help. When it came back on, I had that stupid virus that I wrote about a few months ago; the one where the box with a wand floats around my screen saying, “This computer is being attacked.” Not only does that happen, but I can’t access the Control Panel, and I can’t open several of the better known antivirus websites like Kaspersky, McAfee, and Norton. This means that, once again, I will have to format my computer. Argh! That is so frustrating. Does anyone know of a good antivirus programme that will block and get rid of viruses? I’m thinking about buying AVG. If you have any suggestions on which one you think is the best, please tell me and give me some reasons why you think so. I’d really appreciate it.

I went out to play with the kids on the ice again today. I’ve told you before how tough kids’ games are here, and when they’re on the ice, nothing changes. Everyone was sliding around, having a good ol’ time, and then some mean-spirited boy would skate up behind someone and kick their feet out from under them, giggle, and scurry away before they could face any repercussions. Girls were not excepted from this treatment. It seemed that every few minutes, I would look over and see another kid lying on the ice, crying and screaming at the offender. One boy was constantly doing this to the girls, but he was always quick enough to get away from them. I finally got a couple of them to gang up and give him some pay back. Once, I even held him until they could get their hands on him. He didn’t seem to appreciate that too much. It was kind of funny.

February 5, 2009

When I got up this morning and did my usual email check, I saw that I had an email from StopSign. It said that my refund was approved and I should see the full amount reimbursed to my account within four to five days. Wow, that was the fastest they’ve ever responded to me and I’m quite surprised. I’d imagine that dealing with them, and having them deal with me, was ending up costing more than the price of my subscription. So, have any of you got any ideas on another virus protection and removal software programme for me yet? I’ll be buying it after the weekend, when I format my computer.

At work, my boss had asked if we could use my computer for the Child Labour seminar that we were hosting. I told her sure, but there was a virus that she might not want to deal with. She didn’t. There was another computer brought in and I hooked it up to the projector and tried to make it work. Something was wrong with that computer, so I brought the one from my office and got everything working. When my boss put her flash drive in and tried to access a PowerPoint presentation that she’d prepared, it wouldn’t work. She said that my computer had too new of a version. Does it really work like that? Next, they went and got a neat looking Sony laptop and brought it in from somewhere. I got it hooked up, but no matter where we looked, or which button we pushed, we couldn’t figure out how to turn the thing on. How weird. We ended up just using the computer from my office and skipping her presentation. The seminar was about two and a half hours long, but it wasn’t too bad. We had coffee and snacks in the middle. Toward the end, I was handed 5,000tg. When I asked what it was for, I was told that it was for “helping to put on the seminar.” Ha, I told my boss that we should have more seminars. When we finished, we went to her office and ate the boats that had been made for us. Yum!

I appreciate the 5,000tg. That will pay for my train ticket this evening. I am going to the Gobi desert! Some PCVs down there are hosting a big basketball tournament this weekend, and I will go to watch, hang out, and see the desert. It will be the first time I’ve ever seen a desert. I’m excited about it. The train is to leave around 7 o’ clock and will arrive in Sainshand around 2 o’ clock in the morning. I will leave work early and finish packing.

I’m going to post this today, so I won’t have to worry about taking my computer with me this weekend. I’d thought about taking it, but I don’t want to have to keep up with it. I hope you are good. Talk to you later. See ya.

P.S. Right after I posted this, I went into the conference room where there was a big retirement ceremony going on for the assistant governor. All the directors from the local organisations were there. One by one, they took some papers, a pen, and a stamp up to the front table where the governor was sitting. They would exchange papers and stamp and sign each set, then get up and make way for the next person. After that was finished, the governor made a short speech. When he sat at the conference table with the rest of us, he gave another short speech, then passed around a bowl of traditional Mongolian candy and a bowl of regular candy. Then, everyone was given a shot of vodka and we toasted the new retiree. It was kind of neat to witness it all. Especially since all I had to do was sit there and watch.