at less than 60 F, I've been really hot this week.

March 31, 2009

I must retract a statement that I posted back in October of last year. In it, I said that Carl likes fatties. Truthfully, I have never seen him with a fatty, nor have I ever heard him express any wishes to be with one. So, let it be known that the Crizzle Crazzle does not like fatties. Now, uglies are a different story. Hahaha.

This morning, I helped Moogie with her CV and cover letter. My town has been chosen to be one of the training sites for the next group of Trainees, and the Peace Corps is going to hire a couple of Mongolian teachers at each site. Everyone in town that knows about it is excited about the Trainees coming here. It will bring a little bit of money to the town and get their name out there. While she was working on that, I fixed all the computers in her lab. The students keep downloading games and other things, and getting viruses on the computers, and keep doing it, no matter how they are threatened. I made it to where they couldn’t download anything without administrative privileges. Maybe that will keep some viruses out of town and away from my computer, too. Let’s hope so.

This afternoon, I went up next to the school to play footbag. The kids are on the second week of a two week vacation, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone interrupting me. I had a good workout and got 180 kicks. Not bad. I’m going to see what I can do about beating my record of 1,040. I’ll keep you posted.

This evening, I returned home one minute before Ambaa showed up. After washing our hands, I took him into the kitchen where we washed dishes and made pizza. He had never eaten pizza before, so it was cool that I could introduce him to it. When we were putting the toppings on, I gave him a piece of bell pepper and told him to dip it in Ranch and eat it. He raised his eyebrows and exclaimed, “No!” I laughed and told him it was okay before dipping a piece and eating it myself. He hesitatingly dipped his and ate it but didn’t like it at all. Mongolians do not eat raw vegetables like Americans often do. He barely swallowed that bite and wouldn’t eat anymore. He kept going on about how it was raw. I just laughed and told him that it was good. He said he liked the pizza.

April 1, 2009

A while back, I was talking to some Volunteers from the group before mine. They told how they had discussed with the medical team what would be the smallest injury to earn a trip to Thailand. Mongolia doesn’t have all of the medical services that are available in today’s world, so if something really bad happens to us, we are sent to a place that has what we need. The closest place is Thailand. From their discussions, they deduced that the smallest injury they could “accidentally” inflict upon themselves to earn a free trip to Thailand was to chop off a thumb. Today, I found out how true that is. As I was cooking my dinner, I was trying really hard to cut through a frozen chunk of meat. I was listening to music and not paying attention to much else when there was a loud bang on the door. My attention was diverted and was quickly followed by the knife. As a result, I no longer have a thumb on my left hand. It was cut off right below the joint by the palm of my hand. As I type this now, I’m sitting in the airport, waiting for the flight to Thailand. It’s hard to type, and it hurts, but the pain medicine I was given is working wonders. Have you ever tried to type when your brain is totally relaxed? It makes for lots of mistakes and backspacing. They said there might be a chance that it can be sewn back on. Cross your fingers for me.

Just kidding. April fools!!!

Today has been eventful, but not quite that much. As I was walking through my building, a couple of the guys were doing something, so I decided to help them. I carried a projector to the car outside, and then rode to other part of town with them, just because. We just dropped the stuff off and came right back. When I went for my lunch break, a guy that I see around town told me to follow him. I had no idea what he wanted, but I followed. He took me to his place and told me that I’d be eating lunch with him. Sweet! I met his niece, Bormaa, and in so doing, found a fourth person here that speaks good English. She cooked tsuivan for us and I enjoyed it. When we left, I was invited to dinner and I promptly accepted.

I went for more footbag today. I got a good workout, getting 307 kicks. At this rate, I’m right on track to set a new record this summer.

Back at the place I had lunch, it wasn’t long after I got there before the “boats” were ready. Unfortunately, some of them were made with innards and they kept finding their way onto my plate. I reached for the regular ones when I could, but I usually didn’t get a chance before the others were put in front of me. Densmaa came right as we finished eating, then they pulled out the alcohol. First was a bottle of 10% cocktail mix that was quite sweet. Beer was introduced later, around about the same time as the vodka. I was glad that I had a full belly of food. The women wouldn’t drink but a sip of the vodka, so that left me and the only other man there to drink the bottle ourselves. Luckily, it was a small one.

April 2, 2009

I woke up with a cold and have sneezed a lot today. I don’t know where it came from, but I think my immune system took a beating yesterday, with the exercise and subsequent drinking. I persevered with my footbag, though, and got outside. It was way too windy to do much more than jump around, flailing arms and legs, looking like a fool. That’s all I need for a good exercise session, so I wasn’t too worried about it. I played with two different groups of kids that came along. The first was a group of girls that have probably never done anything like that before. The second group was some teenaged boys who have obviously played the Mongolian version. A couple of them were quite good.

April 3, 2009

I guess I was out of it when I went to bed last night, cause I forgot to make some water. And, of course, I only had a small bottle left. After I took an expectorant, the lack of water really did a number on my head. It felt extra fuzzy all day and I was out of it. I left work early.

When I left, I went to pray and meditate at the OBOO. The wind is just a little bit chilly, but the weather is getting to be really nice. I was there for a while before I was interrupted by some rude kids. I heard them coming way before they got there, but chose to ignore them. When they got there, I could hear them whispering about what I was doing. After a few minutes, one of them yelled, “SAN OH!” HELLO! I thought my persistence would deter them and they’d leave me alone, but I was wrong. After the second, “SAN OH!” I opened my eyes and told them they were being rude and asked what they wanted. They just gave me the thumbs up and told me what I was doing was good. I nodded and went back to it. Just a minute later, another boy yelled curses at someone in the distance. I opened my eyes again and chided them for using foul language. It wasn’t long before they wandered off into the distance. I could hear them singing as they walked shoulder to shoulder, to a different OBOO. I finished a while later and they came running toward me when they saw me stand up. They just wanted to talk to me. I didn’t have any hard feelings, so I joked with them a bit before coming home.

This evening, I’m totally worn out and feel like crap. I hope going to bed early will help my cold.

April 4, 2009

My cold was practically gone when I woke up this morning. I was glad of that as I got on the meeker to come to UB. I slowly made my way into the centre of town and saw an advertisement for a freestyle wrestling tournament. I walked right in the building and sat in the stands and got to watch for a while. The wrestling was a little sloppy, but I was glad to see it. I really wanted to jump down on the mat and see how I’d fare.

My reason for coming into the city was for Mongolian lessons. I can’t find anyone where I live that is willing to teach me, no matter how much I offer to pay. When I asked the PC Language Coordinator to recommend someone in UB, she told me about Tsetsgee. She runs classes for English, mostly, out of the Stuppa Café. In the two hours that I spent with her today, I felt like I learned more than I have in the last several months. She charges 5,000tg/hour, which is a bit steep, but I think it’ll be worth it in the long run. Let’s hope so. I don’t really need to know more Mongolian than I do now, but it’d be really nice to make myself understood.

Since I had a cold and didn’t want to pass it on to Mendee or his family, I decided to stay at a guesthouse. As another Volunteer said, “You won’t give it to someone you know, but strangers are okay.” Haha. I didn’t think of it like that at first. I stayed at the Golden Gobi. I think that is my favourite guesthouse. It’s quite large and really nice. This was the first time I’ve ever seen that many people there. It’s getting warm, which means it’s tourism time in Mongolia. I met several cool people. As you know, I really enjoy that. I met Raphael, from Canada. This is his second trip to Mongolia. He was here about 15 years ago and learned how to make gers. This time, he came back to visit the same people who taught him before, and to perfect his skills a bit. When I asked, he told me that he can’t sell a ger for less than $15,000. Holey smokes! They don’t cost any where near that here. I also met Anna, Claire, and Amanda; two Americans and a Swiss girl. They were here for a school break, from their studies in Russia. Since I had nothing better to do, I offered to go with them to take care of some errands. Their first stop was at a pharmacy, where they bought anti-diarrhoea medicine. They had been on some excursions into the countryside, and apparently the food didn’t agree with them. One of the girls was in bad shape. After we went to a café for their dinner, I took them to the train station. They had told me how they’d had terrible experiences with cabbies (no surprise there), so I made sure they got to where they were going without incident. They even paid for my cab ride back. That was cool, cause I’d planned to walk.

April 5, 2009

I slept horribly in a room full of strangers. I think I was the only American. None of them seemed particularly concerned with being quite when they went to bed. This morning, I woke up and studied before going to my lesson. Here’s another example of how hard Mongolian can sometimes be. In two different questions, the only difference is one letter. One question asks what time I went to sleep and the other asks how long I slept. It’s crazy the difference that one letter makes.

I hadn’t had much to eat by the time I made my way to the market to go home, so I waved down the first vendor that walked by and bought some “boats” to eat at the meeker station. I’m glad I ate, cause I waited an hour and a half before we left; then we made another stop for about 30 minutes before we left the city. Right before the turn to my town, I got off and got in another meeker with Bormaa. Her aunt and uncle – the people who gave me lunch and dinner last week – were there, visiting with someone else. They had both just pulled to the side of the road and were hanging out. When I got in with them, I was promptly given two 1/3 cup shots of vodka and a shot of 10% cocktail mix. Needless to say, I had a bit of a buzz when I got home. I was sure to drink lots of water.

I found this story online. I’m not sure where. I thought you might like to read it.

http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2446&Itemid=42

“While the swastika, as numerous historians and authors note, has its origins in a Buddhist tradition and was bastardised by Germany’s National Socialists in the early twentieth century…”

I have one thing to say about the above quote. It says that the swastika came from Buddhist tradition. While most people in Mongolia will tell you that is so – and it kind of is – the swastika actually pre-dates Buddhism by a millennium or two. Buddhism branched off from Hinduism, from which the symbol was borrowed. Hinduism, however, inherited the symbol from the Aryans, before Hinduism became what it did. The Aryans had invaded and took over their culture a really really really long time ago. The Aryans used the swastika as a symbol to represent the sun they worshiped.

April 7, 2009

I was quite busy today with the social workers, visiting poor families. Three university students from the city are here for a three week internship, studying to be social workers. We walked around to the two different ger districts on this side of town and asked the poor families all kinds of questions. In a few of the gers, I saw the dirtiest homes I’ve ever seen here. Mongolians, for the most part, keep very clean homes. In one of the gers, everyone had a layer of crusty dirt on their bodies and clothes; not to mention the furniture and floor. There was more dirt in the air inside the ger than there was outside. We went to five or six different ger families, and after lunch, we went to several families living in apartments. You’d be surprised how small of a space an entire family can crowd into. The six of us made it that much more crowded.

My footbagging earned me 898 kicks this evening. I thought I was going to be able to get more, but as always, one slightly miscalculated kick sent that awry. Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.

After Ambaa left this evening, Tsegmid brought a couple of beers. We drank those while I cooked dinner, then we started watching a movie. It wasn’t long til he started nodding off and decided to leave.

Oh yeah. I found out that I will not be a trainer this year. Maybe next year. All’s good. That just gives me lots of free time this summer. I see some short-distance traveling in my future.

April 8, 2009

It’s Wednesday morning. I’m finally posting this for you. I hope you are well.

If you know Matt Rhodes, tell him I said he has a big head and he should keep his helmet on. Something that big is bound to get knocked around, and that can’t be good.