Pizza 3 nights in a row!

April 18, 2009

I came to UB yesterday to hang out with friends. I knew that it was time for James and Evan to get back from Cambodia, so I wanted to be here to hang out with them. For lunch, I’d already eaten some good Korean food, but I went with some friends that were in town to Nayra’s café. It’s an “American” style place, so lots of PCVs like to go there. Their pizzas don’t have tomato sauce, and their burritos don’t have beans, so I consider it to be fake American. I just hung out and chatted, then when they left, I stayed with another friend that came later. I didn’t really have anything to do until time for my lesson, so I enjoyed the company of people that I don’t get to see that much.

We talked about verb tenses during my Mongolian lesson. When she first said what we were going to be talking about, I thought, “Oh, I know that stuff.” As it turns out, I only know about half of it. There is a past tense, past negative, unknown past, unknown past negative, known past, two known past question tenses, known past negative, present continuous, and present continuous negative. I struggled to say the least. I was glad to learn them, though, cause I see them in writing all the time and never understood them. Of course, writing and speaking are usually very different. Also, there is a “proper” and colloquial way to pronounce almost every word, too. There are even a few letters that can be pronounced a couple different ways. Crazy!

I hung out with Eegii for a while after that, just sitting outside. She’s a nice girl, but shy to talk. Her reading and writing are really good, but her listening and speaking are lacking. When she left, I met another friend and we went to a rock concert. We got there right on time, but we ended up sitting in the bar for over an hour, wasting time, cause they weren’t ready to let people in yet. We had free 10,000tg tickets from her rock-star boyfriend, though, so we weren’t complaining. I don’t really care for rock music, so I was glad that we actually had nice seats to sit in. The headline band actually had a lot of English songs that weren’t too bad. I might have even liked them if it wasn’t way too freaking loud, like any typical Mongolian performance where speakers are involved. We decided to leave early and went to the nicest restaurant I’ve been to in Mongolia. It was down some back alley that I never would have gone down myself. It was a little pricey, but it was worth it. I had had plenty to eat that day, so I just got an appetiser that was advertised as being hot. When I asked the server, he told me it was okay. I told him that I wanted it very very very hot and he just smiled at me. I guess that was the smile that means, “Yeah, sure buddy, I’ll tell you what you want to hear, then bring you what I want to bring you.” The food was really good, but I would’ve preferred it to have been about ten times hotter.

James and Evan got back from Cambodia around midnight. I’m staying in a guesthouse with some other PCVs and we were kinda-sorta celebrating one of the girl’s birthdays. Things were starting to wind down and I was starting to think about going to bed when James called me. Of course, they revived the party, and everyone ended up going to bed around 5:30. James had a bottle of Muscle Wine that he brought back with him. On the box, it actually said that it would help you get into shape and build muscle. We laughed and talked about how you will never see that on alcohol sold in the U.S. Have you ever had Mad Dog 20/20? The stuff kind of tasted like that. I’m sure it was that cheap, too.

That reminds me: I’ve been taking pictures for you, but I haven’t been able to put the pictures onto my computer. You see, that crazy virus that I had before got onto my camera. I don’t know if it’s just that memory card, or if it’s the camera, but when I connected it to my computer, my anti-virus thingy took care of it. Now I can’t upload the pictures. I’m trying to figure it out. I’ll let you know when I do. My memory card is almost full, so I hope I figure it out soon.

April 19, 2009

I practiced reading newspaper ads and reports at my lesson today. It built on what I did yesterday. Mostly, I learned a lot of new vocabulary. That’s always the hardest part for me. It seems like right when I get one word down, my teacher or someone else will use a different word that means the exact same thing. That confuses the heck out of me and they look at me like a fool.

I met the guys at Cola and Kabob for lunch. Since it’s getting warmer, the street kids are a lot more visible these days. One came in and started going to everyone’s table and asking for food. One guy gave him the rest of his kabob and he ran out. Another kid came in and stood around the counter until no one was watching him, then grabbed a cup of coffee and ran. Another came in and started trying to sell newspapers until one of the workers went to run him off. His first instinct was to cover his head with the newspapers to avoid the wallop that he knew was coming. Luckily, he only got some harsh words.

I decided to stay and hang out with James and Evan for another night. Of course, Donny is always in UB, so he was there, too. He’s a good guy. I like him a lot. We got some alcohol and went back to the guesthouse and didn’t leave until the next morning. It might have been better if we had left, though. We watched hilarious comedy shows and played cards, being our crazy guy selves until late into the night.

April 20, 2009

It rained last night and that turned to snow before morning. In the city, it didn’t take long for everything to melt and just make a wet mess. In the countryside, though, the snow cover was still there and it was nice looking. I’d gotten so used to what Mongolia looks like with a nice blanket of snow on everything. It’s taking me a bit to get used to the ugliness of bad roads, mud holes, and dead animal carcasses.

I feel terrible after three nights of little sleep. When I got on the meeker, all I wanted to do was not worry about anything on my way home. Two drunk guys that decided to get on the meeker changed those plans. I don’t know what they were doing, cause I’ve never seen either of them before; and no one on the meeker seemed to know them, either. It was like they were just rambling through the parking lot and decided to get in with us. They were talking loud and cussing and the women were trying to get them to shut up and go to sleep. (I’ve recently learned all the Mongolian bad words for a project that I’m working on, so I understood the ones that they kept shouting at each other.) At the place where we have to stop to give the cops our passport info, the drunk guys got out and bought another bottle of vodka. At first, the women told them to not drink it. After they saw they were having no effect, they seemed to adopt an “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude. The women that I was sitting next to pulled beers out of their bags and started passing them around. I just smiled, then refused all alcohol that came my way. My stomach was in no mood for that kind of stuff.

After making tortillas and eating the last of my fajita leftovers, I’m to bed before 8 tonight.

April 21, 2009

I think I’m officially getting old. My head was still feeling out of it at work today. The little girls that always come and ask me for candy, then put on a show like they’re crying, got on my nerves quicker than usual today. It really makes me mad when they come into my office and start going through all my things, begging me for candy, then tell me I’m bad when I don’t let them do absolutely whatever they want. I keep hearing that Mongolians still follow the idea that “It takes a village to raise a child,” but I’m yet to see that evidenced anywhere. I think I’ve written before how I will never think of an American kid as being spoiled again.

This afternoon, when I was on the way back to my office from lunch, I ran into Densmaa. She told me to go with her, then we went the school. There, she talked to kids and parents about colleges and vocational schools and gave them contact information. From there, we went to the other part of town and did the same thing. While there, we met people from Nalaikh, who were here to check out our school system. When we came back to my part of town, we went to the kindergarten. After the usual tour through all the classes, we were served dinner in the director’s office. I was glad when they brought in lots of “boats.” About the time we finished eating, two bottles of vodka were pulled out simultaneously. One person got each bottle and started dispensing shots. You’d be surprised how many times two litres of vodka will go around for about 10 people. I thought we were finished when the last was poured, but I was wrong. Densmaa said, “Now we will go to the natural bar.” There are no bars in my town, so I didn’t know what she was talking about. The two people that had been pouring the shots were the drivers, so it was good that they hadn’t drank anything. We piled into our respective vehicles and left town. We went down the road a little ways toward Nalaikh, then pulled over on the side of the road. We then all crammed into the meeker where they pulled out boxes of meat, bread, and fruit; then started passing around two more litres worth of vodka. I was sure to eat as much as I could. They got a kick out of me reaching for the fat when I was given a shot. That’s a Mongolian thing, and they know that most foreigners don’t usually like to eat hunks of fat at all, let alone chase their vodka with it. Anything to get the vodka taste out of my mouth.

April 22, 2009

Something to think about:

I used to have an African friend in the U.S. that was raised in Africa. She told me that she was a Christian, but she insisted on the reality of voodoo. She told me that if someone were to put a curse on a person, that person could literally die as a result. Here, I have a Mongolian friend who has told me of the reality of shamanistic curses. She’s Buddhist, but she claims that very bad things can happen to people because of curses put on them. Neither claim to follow these beliefs, but both are scared to death of them. I think it’s all in what you believe. I mean, if you believed it enough and someone put a death curse on you, I can see how that would put you in such a state of stress that you would die because of it. My friend here told me that her mom – who proclaims to be Buddhist – went to a “wise woman” to ask about my friend’s business and who she will marry. The wise woman told the mother that my friend already has someone that she plans to marry. When her mom saw her, she demanded to know who it was and got very angry when my friend insisted that she wasn’t even dating anyone, let alone planning to marry anyone. But, before you start to think about how crazy all of this sounds to your Western way of thinking, stop to think about how your ways of dealing with the unknown sounds to someone here. Just something to think about.

April 23, 2009

Today, I woke up and cooked biscuits, gravy, country ham, and eggs; then put a bunch of strawberry jam on top of all of it. I think that might be my favourite breakfast. I’m sure I’ve lamented about not having good ol’ American whole fat milk here before. I’ve totally gotten used to the powdered milk that I have (which is much better than Mongolian milk), but I still miss the whole fat stuff. I had leftovers, so that was my lunch, too. Yum!

Today, I worked on a joint consulting firm proposal for my friend Taivan. He asked for help, and I never mind, but I had a hard time, since I don’t know exactly what the guy wants. He told me to edit it and add some things, but since this is the first that I’ve heard about the whole thing, there was nothing I could add. I told him that would have to wait until this weekend so I can meet with him and ask lots of questions.

April 24, 2009

This evening, I’m cooking pizza for some of the teachers. Remember a couple weeks ago, when I said that the Peace Corps came here to check on stuff for PST? Well, the day before, I asked one of the teachers if she was ready. I don’t know how, but she misunderstood and thought that I was saying I was going to make pizza for them. It’s the same group that I cooked fajitas for before and they’d been wanting me to cook pizza for them. Instead of clarifying what I was talking about, she told the group that I was going to cook for them. They were disappointed when I went to UB instead. I told them it wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t matter. Now, I hope that their sore breasts will be aleved. (I could’ve sworn “aleve” was a word. I guess the popular pain reliever has made its way into our vernacular as a verb.)

“What?!” you say. Well, in the world of sociology, it’s a well-known fact that different cultures manifest bodily pains in different places for different reasons. In the U.S., a person might get a sore neck due to stress. In China, a person might get a sore back due to stress. In the U.S., a person might simply have feelings of frustration due to being disappointed – or whatever happens. In Mongolia, women’s breasts get sore. I get a giggle out of it every time, but I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate me laughing at them. Let’s hope the pizza helps.

Remember the pants that I told you I ripped on the barbed-wire fence a while back? I finally got them sewed up where you couldn’t really tell. Well, it seems like I’ve had them long enough for them to naturally get a hole from wear and tear and washing. When I went to put them on this evening, my big toe caught the new whole and ripped them right nicely. Dang it! I’ve been asking where I can buy some good quality jeans in the city. I guess I’m going to have to step up my search. I hope they don’t cost too much.

Alright, I’m going to go and get those pizzas to cooking. I hope that you are good. Write me when you can.