growing pains

So I've been seeing her for about 6 months now. Its pretty complicated. Since communication is very important in a relationship, its a bummer that its so hard to see each other clearly. Usually I resort to groping in the dark and making hand gestures.

Hope can be a dangerous thing. As long as there are enough positive aspects in our relationship, I can still forget the shortcomings.

I am usually quite independent, but with this friendship sometimes I make myself vulnerable. A friend can take you to places that you would never get to otherwise. Sometimes you will even come out a different person.

Sometimes I forget about the previous relationships that I have been in. I hardly hear from America very much. Once in a while I pay attention to whats going on, but long distance relationships are pretty difficult.

school break

Well, my first semester of teaching is finished already. I can't say I've worked that hard at the break, but it has been nice to relax a little bit. I watched a couple movies and played some video games, but I've also had extra time to spend with some people at my school. I got a washing machine and it just arrived last week. Though Mongolians do have some frustrating qualities, they are very generous and caring. My training manager came over one day to wash my clothes and showed me how the washing machine works. (I'm not going to bore you with the differences between a Mongolian washing machine and an American one, but its a little more work - way easier than hand washing though). Not only did my manager help me wash clothes but she also helped me clean other parts of my house. I felt strange about it, but I think that she was happy to help me. Could you imagine your manager coming over to clean your clothes, and then start cleaning your floor? I don't think that would happen in the US, but that's just my opinion.
Some other teachers came over a different day to help move coal for me. Mongolian tradition is always to offer food when someone visits your house, and I managed to make banana bread one day, and tsuivan (Mongolian noodle stir fry) one of the other days. They weren't perfect, but they turned out okay. it was also an honor to be invited over to one of the math teacher's house. She is someone that I can sort of communicate with even though my language is not that good. It really helps when the person you are communicating with is patient at listening to you. Since there was no school, it was a good time for me to invite my English teachers over. With scheduling, its hard to get all 5 of them to be together at the same time, but they all came over. I made tacos (my tortilla-making skills are improving) for them and I think they liked it quite a bit. I made sure to make it very mild, because people here typically can't eat spicy food. So yeah... a lot of visiting each other's houses.
And this week I came to UB to meet up with my peace corps friends for thanksgiving. Its spendy here, but I have had some pretty good food. One of my meals was broccoli soup (yum), another was curry chicken (yummy!) and I also had some pizza (cheese!!) and some pancakes (delish :) ). I've only known my friends here for a couple months, but it was nice to see them again. There is a handful of people that I like to talk to quite a bit. My other main mission was to buy a horse fiddle. I wish I already had one a couple months ago because I have wanted to start learning how to play one since I got here. So I asked around for a place to find one. I didn't want go by myself to shop for one, but that's how it worked out. Long story short, I purchased one. It was spendy, but I think it will be worth it. I don't have my camera right now - I'll just take pictures later and upload them in a couple days.
Anyways, happy belated thanksgiving!!
Peace,

my mongolian survival skills... or lack thereof

staying warm - I actually got a cold this week. I'm not sure if it was because someone was spreading a bug around or if my immune system was really low, or it might have been a combination of both. The good  news  is that my friends took me shopping, so I'm plenty warm at the moment. not sure how warm those clothes will keep me for the actual cold part of winter, but we'll see.

making a fire - lol, at first it would take me nearly an hour to get a good coal fire burning. its getting easier but I have not yet reached a 100% success rate. Theoretically, I should get up early every morning to get a fire going, but I never actually wake up in time to do that. And when I go to school after making a fire, sometimes the teachers see remnants of coal because I wiped my face, and they start laughing at me.

cooking food - I just made an amazing batch of tsuivan (Mongolian noodles) this weekend, but cooking takes a lot of time. Therefore I have developed a repertoire of "microwave meals." Bread and jelly is easy and readily available. I recently found some hot cereal that kind of tastes like cream of wheat. It's not oatmeal, but it will do. I also am very thankful for raisins. its not extremely unhealthy and it is an easy snack. I'm eating eggs alot more now, and if I'm really in a hurry I will pick up fruit yogurt at the store. And Its a good thing that I like tea, because I'm going to be drinking it a lot this winter. I just bought a teapot to put on my fire stove, so now I will use my electric boiler a lot less.

maintaining a Ger - If you know me, you already are aware that I'm not a cleanly person. Therefore, a Ger is not ideal for me because its all one room and there's nowhere to hide stuff. And in Mongolia, people often visit without any warning. My sister chewed me out for having a messy Ger, so I am trying to keep it a little cleaner - not sure how long that will last.

What's been on my mind recently?

I've been thinking a lot about my relationship with people here. I'm really motivated to help people in Mongolia, but things don't always work out in the way that I think that they would. Plans change often, and things get cancelled frequently. I try not to take it personally, because sometimes there are good reasons for schedule changes, and I also need others to give me flexibility with timing as well.

I love adventures, but sometimes they can get very tiring. A lot of times, things take much longer than I would expect. One of the definitions of my name, "Will" is determination - I need a whole lot of it. In some circumstances, I have no problem with that. I tell myself that if I can run a half marathon, I might as well run a full. When things go wrong repeatedly, its hard to keep trying though.

I realized that the most important thing isn't communicating with my counterparts how to be excellent English - it is more important to be a friendly and social person. Unfortunately, I don't have a naturally charismatic personality and its challenging for me to make a lot of friends. But that is what people want - somehow I have to be a more open person. Its a lot easier to change external things (such as language learning, teaching, etc.) than transforming myself.

Classes

Here's a couple pictures that I took today. Teaching has been a lot of fun so far.

 

 

 

 

One of those days

Sometimes bad things happen - yesterday, alot of bad things happened

1. When I came back to my home, my ger was changed. it was almost the same, except my door does not shut and the skylight windows were gone. Did I mention that it was really cold?
2. I was very short on money, and when I went to the bank it was closed.
3. My foot was sore, so I didn't feel like walking at all.
4. When I was in the middle of cooking dinner, I realized the power was out.
5. My class for English teachers was cancelled for the 4th consecutive week.
6. I was very low on water, and the well was closed.

Looking back it seems pretty funny, but I was pretty flustered at the time.

Things to check off my phobia list

September 15th

You probably know this already, but I am naturally an introvert. I don't like crowds of people, and don't talk very much at all when I meet someone for the first time. Beneath the surface I have many anxieties, but since I have come to Mongolia I have gone through a lot. Looking back, I have less reasons to be afraid of anything. For example, I have already experienced -


trying to get to know my sixty-some fellow M23's during orientation days
meeting my Mongolian parents for the first time. The only word that I new then was “hello”
going hiking alone
eating everything served to me (including the popular sheep intestines)
constantly meeting new people
tasting vodka
singing a solo in Mongolian
getting harassed by drunk people
supervising a group of junior high kids that don't speak English
giving a speech at my school in Mongolian
getting lost at night with a dull flashlight
teaching an English class by myself
surviving in the Gobi desert

Some of those things I never want to experience again, but some of the fears that I have had are not there anymore. There is a certain part of me that likes to overcome obstacles – if I see a mountain, I want to climb it. Hopefully that quality will help me in my quest to be a more sociable person.

Mongolian People

September 6 A lot has been going on, but I haven't been writing that much. I'm going to use some words to describe some of the people that I interact with everyday.

Spontaneous – At a moments notice, people will change their plans and an an adventure ensues...

Friendly – People have stopped me in the street and start talking to me. I gave a speech in Mongolian at my school and it wasn't that great, but everyone was applauding. Being an American makes me somewhat of a novelty here, so people get excited to see me when I come to teach their class.

Hospitable – Family and friends visit each other very often, and food is always served.

Hard-Working – The week before school all of the teachers put on dust masks, sunglasses and head wraps, and we all carried rocks/dirt together. Normally, teachers wear dressy clothes, so it was funny seeing them transform into construction ninjas.

What is personal space? - If there aren't enough chairs, have 2 or 3 people sit on the same chair. Family and friends will randomly visit your Ger and hang out with you. Kids will take you by the hand and walk with you wherever you are going. You may think of these things as a nuisance, but it is a way to get to know people better and it also removes the typically shy nature of the Mongolian people.

Traditional – Many things have changed, but there is still some amazing culture here. I really like when people start singing songs. Once one person starts, everyone will join together and it sounds beautiful. Music is one of my main interests, and getting to see the horse fiddle being played or watching traditional dances is really fascinating.

Life in the desert

August 26 Well, the Gobi has a lot of – you guessed it – sand. On the way here, it was hard to tell whether we were on a road or not because all of the landscape is brown and flat. On our six hour drive, there was one stop where we were able to get water. When we got to the city it looked kind of bare. We have one big school, a general store, a cafe, and a government building on the main street. There were a few people standing nearby, but it was hard to really see them because they were all wrapped up to protect themselves from the dust. There are actually more camels than people – it can get so crowded that you cannot even walk down the road. People use dung as fuel to cook their meals, and it can get very hot because of the weather outside. There is no river, but there is a well that we can fetch water and carry buckets to our house. My Ger is pretty sturdy. The winds can be very fierce, but there are large rocks hanging from its sides to weigh it down so the whole thing wont blow over. I have been warned that the Mongolian dogs can be very dangerous. At night I can hear them howling, but none of them have made it inside my Ger yet. By the way, I'm joking. I only wanted to get your imagination going. The gobi is not what I expected it to be, and its probably not what you expect it to be like either. It definitely will have some extreme weather, but people have been living here for a long time so I'm trying not to worry about it too much.

a couple days in the capital

August 17 - Today I officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer. There was a big ceremony, but I will not bore you with the details. One of the more important events surrounding the last few days of training was site announcements. We finally received some information about what our next two years of Mongolia will be like. For our first two months, we mostly got vague answers beginning with the statement: “It depends...” So long story short, I'm going to live in one of the cities of the Gobi desert, and I'll be living in a Ger. My situation is pretty good. I'm actually pleased that I'll be living in a desert and I also wanted to live in a Ger.

I also met my training manager. She is very nice, but does not know much English, so I was using my survival phrases to carry on a conversation. “Do you like potatoes? What is your favorite color? Is winter cold?” Actually, I asked more relevant questions than that, but my language skills are still very limited.

Before going out to site, we did some shopping in UB (the capital). I said goodbye again to some of my friends. I became pretty close to some of them, but work and distance might prevent me from communicating with them very much. At least I've got a phone now!

Oh yeah, and I took advantage of the movie theater in UB. I watched the new Batman movie and I also saw Brave. I missed out on Spiderman because the showtime was too late at night :( They were in English too, which was very helpful. There are quite a few movies on TV but they are usually dubbed in Russian, Korean, or Mongolian. Napoleon Dynamite was on the other day, but it was not nearly as good without the actual voices.

the great outdoors

August 10
There is some romance about living on the opposite side of the world. The air has a different aura, nature is more spectacular, and animals are captivating to observe. I've lived in Texas before, and I've seen plenty of farm animals. So why does it feel so new and strange here? I don't know. There is a lot of space here. I like going to the top of a hill, breathing in the brisk wind, and watching time creep by slowly.

One of the things on my checklist during my stay here was to spend the night in a Ger. My host family happened to put one up because someone else was going to be living there, and it was empty for a couple weeks.

I expressed my interest in this opportunity because I don't know whether I'll live in a Ger or not later on. I was amazed at how much one can hear through those walls. I felt like someone with the superpowers of invisibility and super-hearing. The next night, I got to experience a moonrise. It was really bright and happened to be aligned with the ceiling window of the Ger and my bed. The next evening was not so pleasant: rain + leaks = little sleep.

This was not on my checklist, but was equally amazing – one of the days before we left our training site, we got permission to sleep outdoors. We made our own fire, broke out some glow sticks, and got into our Peace Corps issued sleeping bags. The stars are very brilliant at night and there were tons of shooting stars too. The downside of sleeping outside was the mosquitoes. I didn't get bitten that many times, but that high pitched buzzing noise in my ear was irritating. Even though Mongolia is not an easy place to live and it is lacking some amenities (like plumbing and paved roads), there are other things that can be experienced here that defy reality, as if one were living in a dream.

Last photo is courtesy of one of my fellow-PCV's: LN

going to the monastery

July 31^st

Everything has been pretty easy to deal with, but it is often unpredictable. I think language has a lot to do with it, but I still think that things happen more spontaneously here. One of the biggest events here was taking a trip to the monastery. If you know me, that is a subject that I'm really interested in, so I was really curious about what it would be like.

Each person had about two family members along, and since there are 10 trainees here, that adds up to 30 plus people. We ended up leaving really early and then packed into 3 vehicles. I don't have photos, so I'll leave that up to your imagination. There was a stretch of paved road, but most of the trip was very bumpy and sometimes watery. One of the cars got a flat tire, but that seems to be a regular occurrence because they always have an extra tire handy. After a couple poddy breaks and a couple people puking, we were there in no time.

Most of us though that we were going straight to the monastery, but after circling around a couple times, we all stopped by a small creek. They started to get out some food for us and we started eating. I heard that we were all going to share a goat and they told us to gather some wood. They have a curious way of cooking large amounts. They put the food in a large container and then put really hot rocks inside to cook the food. While we were waiting for the second meal to cook, some of the American guys started to do Mongolian wrestling. Everyone was really excited to watch, and it was kind of funny because we don't know all the rules. Somehow I managed to win a match, but the next ones I didn't do so well and I got pretty tired. So then we had our second meal. Each of us got a huge bone with meat on it along with a small a little bit of vegetables. When I was biting some meat off the bone, I chipped a tooth : (

Anyways, everyone started to get restless again because not much was happening, and I saw someone going around with a squirt bottle spraying people. It was kind of humorous so someone got a bowl full of water and started splashing people. Eventually people got more bottles and containers filled with water until most everyone was soaked. Some people were hiding in the car, but they ended up getting dragged out and soaked. No one was spared, but everyone was a pretty good sport about it. Just when I though it was about over, somebody picked up one of the smaller kids and put them into the creek. It was pretty funny, but that added an entirely new dimension to the insanity. One of the Mongolian dads was strong enough to pick up just about anyone. I'm pretty sure all of the Americans got thrown into the creek by the time it was all over. I inadvertently packed an extra shirt and some shorts in my bag, and I was very happy to put them on later.

Okay, so we got back into our vehicles and went to this place that had holy water and everyone loaded up there water bottles to bring home. I tasted some and it was very fresh (no, I didn't get sick from it either). Near the monastery there were a couple of shrines on top of a large set of steps. Someone told me that one of them had exactly 108 steps. Apparently that is an important number. I tried to keep track, but I lost count. I walked with my family as we went around the shrine and spun the prayer wheels. It was all very strange and beautiful. Some people spread rice, lit incense, and gave money. When we got to the monastery we did not spend a whole lot of time inside. It was not huge, but very ornate. My camera couldn't really capture all of it, but there were many gods everywhere. One of the walls had 1,000 Buddhas. I happened to learn a phrase in Mongolian to ask someone if I can take their picture. I said the phrase to one of the monks, but they did not want their picture taken. When exiting, I guess you are supposed to go backwards. I didn't know that, but they stopped me in time before I went out the wrong way. There was this bizarre thing outside that you were supposed to go inside of and turn around three times in to get reborn, but I'll explain it more when I learn more about it. There was also a circle that you were supposed to stand in and pray with your eyes closed while going towards a wall in the distance, but I didn't do it right. There's a lot of cool things to learn about, and hope that I'll understand them better while I'm here.  

mongolian family

July 25^th

P.S. I ate Starburst this week, thank you American Mom.

I talk about myself way too much, so I am dedicating this posting to my Mongolian family. Most of the time, it has been just me, my parents, and one sister, but my brother's family was around for a couple of days too. They are all pretty laid back and easy to get along with.

My dad is one of the taxi drivers here. He got an award recently from the city for being a safe driver. We don't talk very much, but he's pretty nice to me. One of the days that my brother was here, the three of us went to the black market. That was one of my favorite days.

My mom reminds me a little bit of my grandma that passed away. She is a fantastic cook, often making meals from scratch and doing so with ease. She is kind and thoughtful, but not to the extent of spoiling me. She doesn't have a job but, but she does a lot of work around the house. 

My family has a pretty big garden. They have potatoes, carrots, green onions, radishes, and maybe more. My parents are sometimes working in the backyard late at night and also in the morning once in a while too.

My sister is a computer teacher at the school, and has the summer off. I have probably learned more about Mongolia from her than anybody else. I got a lot of really interesting cultural information from her. She knows English and Mongolian pretty well, so she has helped me with understanding some of the differences between the two languages. Recently, she has been teaching me less often because I have been “studying too much.” She figured out that I am pretty shy, so she has been trying to get me to be “more free.” I have met some of her friends and played cards a couple times. Though I couldn't understand what they were saying, it was really entertaining to watch them joke around, tease each other, and laugh. 

I'm only living here for 2 months, and will miss them when I leave. Hopefully I can come back to visit a few times.

grilled cheese and graveyard adventures

July 20

Over the past 2 months, I have had a couple chances to do cooking. I made soup once which was not too difficult, except that I was chopping the vegetables “incorrectly.” I also made a dish that is comparable to pasta with meat and vegetables. I made it mostly by myself and messed up one of the steps, but it was edible. I am going to try getting some practice making dough. I'm pretty sure they use the same recipe for noodles, dumplings, hushur, and maybe regular bread too. If I can figure out the formula, I will be very proud of myself.

I was trying to figure out a idea for making an American meal. At first, I was thinking tacos, chili, or possibly pizza. I realized that it would be a little to ambitious for me at the moment. I don't quite know which items are available or where to go to find them. Fresh tomatoes are around, but I did not come across them yet. Avocados don't exist as far as I know. I have not tasted any meat that resembles peperoni yet, and shredded cheese is rare. I decided upon making grilled cheese sandwiches because all of the ingredients were available. I have only seen people cook with oil, so I was curious if cooking with butter would be problematic. No worries though, it went well. I think they were pretty happy with it. I sliced some meat on the side (because every meal here has had meat so far) and also served pickles to go with it. In retrospect, I should have taken a picture – my bad :(

Today's adventures were not over yet. I really wanted to go to one of the mountains here because it is where people are buried. I checked with my sister to make sure that it was okay for us to go. She doesn't like going because she doesn't like being near ghosts, but we were allowed to go if we wanted. (Cultural note – traditionally, a person visits a family member that has passed away only once. Three years after someone dies, a family member will come and place milk or some type of food at the grave site and then they never come back to visit them again.) It was one of my favorite hikes so far - we got to see a spectacular sunset, and the gravestones were very interesting to look at. We were running out of time, so we didn't actually climb the mountain. Everything worked out fine, but it was kind of hard to see on the way back. Even though the sky was not black, it was a little disorienting to figure out how far away we actually were. We did have a road to follow, but the terrain was uneven and we had to walk pretty slowly. I took some of my friends home at the other side of town so it got pretty late by then. (I had my flashlight, so everything was completely fine.) I can understand why people think of the sky as a god. The moon was not out, but I could see clouds and stars at the same time. I wanted to take a picture, but it would be impossible to capture it into a good photo.

Random Thoughts Throughout the Week

July 13

I do like the food here, but when I think about the readily available foods in the US, I start to get cravings. Anything with cheese would be good right about now. I have not come across pepperoni here yet, so I'm assuming it does not exist. Ranch dressing – need I say more? The ice cream I've had here does not taste like ice cream. Strangely enough, you can find Snickers anywhere here and Coca-Cola/Pepsi are very easy to get here also.

Today, I saw my first snake here in Mongolia. Don't worry – I was not in any danger.

The locusts here are very different from anything I've seen. When I was walking around one day, there were several loud clicking sounds surrounding me. I though they were demons or something, especially because I did not know where they were coming from. Anyways, I finally looked up above me, and figured out that these things were hovering in the air. They can travel long distances without needing to touch the ground.


I added some photos to this posting of a bug that we found. I have no idea what it is.

We had many days off this week because of national Naadam. We were provided with sunscreen but I still acquired a sunburn that would make the red ranger jealous. Usually there is a big family get together for the holiday, but my mother's mom is ill. My sister told me that during Naadam, its common for families to eat a sheep. Since there weren't many people here, I figured that it would not happen. The next day when my dad drove home, and all of the sudden a sheep appeared. Then it was dragged onto the porch and killed. So far, this has definitely been the most fascinating and disturbing thing that I have observed here. Not that animals don't get killed in America. I grew up in suburbia, so for all I knew, animal meat came from plastic containers. I personally think that if Americans needed to actually kill the animal in order to eat meat, many people would eat less meat or even stop eating meat altogether. I sometimes get queasy from seeing blood, but I watched the whole thing. It took pretty much the whole day to take off the skin, separate the organs and cut up the meat. The weirdest part for me was seeing them wash out the intestines, stomach etc. If I were slaughtering an animal, I would have just thrown those parts out. Some of my other friends already had eaten animal intestines already, but this was my first experience. They put everything together and boil it in a large soup pan, and I got a sample of everything. I tried not to think about what organ I was eating, but eventually I will want to learn which part is which. Along with the main dish, I drank the broth which was really good. I ate everything that they gave me, but for some reason the last couple bites were very difficult to keep down.

The Naadam sports in UB were on almost every channel, but I mostly just saw the wrestling. The way the horse races were televised, it was hard to follow what was going on. I didn't see any archery – not sure why. The final wrestling match was pretty entertaining. It lasted about 40 minutes because they took many breaks. In a strange way the long pauses made it more intense. I did not want to look away  lest I miss out on the moment of victory. There were 512 wrestlers at the beginning, so its a pretty big deal to win the tournament.

I'm glad that I brought everything that I did, but the most valuable items that I took with me have been my hiking boots, a rechargeable LED flashlight, and an MP3 player. I have been spending a lot of time outside because I will not be able to do any of that during the winter. Then I will switch to reading books and hopefully learning how to play the horse fiddle. I don't think that they are too expensive, but I haven't had a conversation with anyone knows much about them. I probably won't get one until I am at my actual site, so I'm crossing my fingers that there will be people that will help me learn how to start playin

Language Analysis

July 8th

I may be using terms that you aren't familiar with, but no worries. You can ignore them or else you can just imagine that they mean beautiful wonderful things. I am going to talk about some of the unique things about the Mongolian language. They use a different alphabet and have 35 letters total. Initially, its confusing to read because some characters are similar but are a completely different sound. (H in Mongolian is a “N” sound, P in Mongolian is a “R” sound.) I still mix them up sometimes, but its not that hard to adjust to.

Mongolian has some foreign sounds that are not used in English. The letter X is like a hard “H” sound (it might be more helpful think about what it sounds like when Darth Vader is breathing.) The “L” sound is very difficult to explain. It more resembles our “th” sound. (Pretend like you are going to pronounce an “L,” but instead let the air flow through the sides of your mouth.) Anyways, Mongolia loves fricatives (sh, th, s, v) and some of the stops are a little less common (p and k show up mostly from borrowed Russian words.)

Depending on where a letter is placed on the word the sound occasionally changes. The g (which is usually a stop) turns into a fricative when it is in the middle of the word. At the end of words, the normally voiced stops sound voiceless. (Its hard tell whether the final letter is a j/ch, g/k, d/t. The X sporadically is pronounced as a voiceless guttural trill (instead of the Darth Vader breath). It might be just certain words, because I have not found the pattern. The vowels are a little difficult to pronounce, but the sounds are very consistent with the spelling. “A” has one sound in Mongolian. In English, “A” has a number of sounds. I apologize ahead of time to the Mongolians who have to figure out how to pronounce English vowels correctly.

Another major difference between Mongolian and English is case endings. For those of you who have studied languages like Greek or Latin, you might be familiar with some of the terms: Nominative, Dative, Genitive, Accusative, Ablative and Comitative. In English, we use prepositions as a substitute for many of them. (with a dog, from the store, by car) In Mongolian, a suffix is added to the end of the word.  (dogtei, storeaac, caraar) Also there are endings to indicate possession, verb tense, and direct objects.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that Mongolia uses a lot of lengthened vowels. In some cases there are two words that sound exactly the same except for the vowel lengthening. Paper is “tsaas,” and snow is “tsas.” “Han” means “a wall,” and “haan” means “where?” There are many words that sound similar. One day I was trying to say the word “twenty,” but I accidentally said the word for poison. Its amusing to see people's reaction when I mispronounce something and it actually means an entirely different word. To be continued...

Local Naadam

July 6

During the past couple days, our town celebrated Naadam, one of Mongolia's biggest holidays. (I'll try not to blow your mind, but the first day of Naadam was happening at the same time as your July 4th due to the 13 hour time difference. We did celebrate July 4th the day before, which to you would have been July 3rd) One of the traditions here is to get new clothes for the event. Each of our families got us Americans a dell to wear as well. I really like the designs on them and they are very shiny. It was a hot day out, but they were comfortable because they are so light. During Naadam, there was some dancing and music, but the main event is the “three manly sports” - horse racing, wrestling, and archery. It was kind of difficult to watch the horse racing because you had no idea when the riders were near the finish line, and they would already be gone by the time you get to the area where the finish line was. The wrestling was pretty fun to watch. Rules are a little different, if your elbow, knee, or back touch the ground, you lose the match. For archery, the target is a bunch of rocks lined up on the ground. They actually let me try firing an arrow, but it didn't end well. The popular foods for Naadam are hushur and airag. If you ever go to Mongolia, you should try some hushur. They are kind of like deep fried tacos with just meat. Airag is fermented mare's milk. Its strange, but I'll probably get used to it over time.

Some of the people at Naadam were dressed up, but it seemed like most of the people were wearing regular clothes. I found that funny since all of the Americans were wearing dells. On the first night there was a big dance concert afterwords. It was a good time, but I felt awkward because I don't know how to dance. I'm sure some people had a similar thought that I had about them not wearing their traditional clothes when they knew more about modern dancing than one of the Americans. I realized that it really didn't matter whether I am good at it or not because its just for fun. I think it was a good way for us to interact with Mongolians without having to deal with the language barrier problem. Mongolians really like modern music and were glad to have us Americans party with them.

Summer Project

July 1

The Peace Corps is an organization that operates under the following premises -  world peace is possible, communities have the capacity to develop indigenously, and every type of peoples regardless of nationality/origin can learn to appreciate their differences. And we all lived happily ever after. This isn't a criticism, I'm just pointing out that those goals are very idealistic.

During training, the people at our site are working on TEFL, the Mongolian language, and community development simultaneously. At this point I don't think anyone can actually be successful at one of these (let alone all three). I think that the hopeless optimism of the Peace Corps is telling us that if we try to do these impossible tasks, there is a slight chance we will be successful. Also, when we get to a site, the workload will become even more intense. We will be teaching for real, trying to become proficient at the language, and also making a difference within the community. I don't think the Peace Corps expects us to be perfect, but if we strive to succeed in all three areas, we might actually make a difference here.

I'll be straightforward, the community project that me and another PCV are trying to get going is not looking too good. Lesson number 1: Plans change most of the time. We had 2 weeks to get started, and nothing happened for about a week an a half. The day that we finally got some work done, we  didn't end up working on it until late that night. Lesson number 2: You can't force good ideas. We made some questions for the intention of figuring out what the people here value and what types problems they face. I don't know if there was a translation issue or if the questions were worded wrong, but the answers that they wrote down did not give us much to work off of.

So now what? I'm not sure. There's not much time for a project to happen this summer :( When I get to my site, I definitely want to be more thorough with the assessment phase. It will take some patience, but if I am persistent I could discover an idea that could really take off. Will there be roadblocks and dead ends along the way? Of course.

Learning and Teaching

June 22 Btw, Happy birthday to my American sister! Its been really busy – I feel way behind with the material in language class. The first couple of days, I learned tons of words but my pace of comprehension seems like it has slowed down. Oh yeah, and we've been working on doing our own teaching too. This was the first day that we held our own language classes of teaching english. I co-taught with one other person and it went fairly well. Somehow, the lesson plan was close to the level of our students. They have knew some english from school but I think we gave them a couple new vocabulary words. Its summertime, so there weren't that many students but it was a good way to ease us into teaching for the fall.

I talked to a few people in my soum for various assignments and one guy actually remembers my name. Everyone is very friendly when I try to talk to them – it reminds me of times that I met people in america that did not know English very well. If you are reading this, make a point to be patient with those that don't know english very well because its difficult procces to work with an entirely new language.   

Reincarnation

June 12

Its a strange feeling to be treated like a child again. The mixture of limited communication and not knowing how things are done create awkward circumstances. I was given something to eat today, and I had no idea how to eat it. After my futile attempt to transport the food into my mouth without looking like a fool, my mom looked at me funny and made motions to me how it was supposed to be eaten. During my lunch break, it started to sprinkle. I was handed an umbrella against my will because I did not know how to explain that I would not melt. At least I can now walk to school by myself without getting lost :) Today was also the day that I finally asked how to take a tumpen bath. I heard from my friends about their odd experiences with a tumpen bath, so I was a little uneasy. It wasn't as bad as I thought though. A tumpen is a fairly small basin which people use for washing. My sister helped me wash my hair, which is different, but it is hard to pour water on your own head without spilling it everywhere. It felt odd washing myself in the kitchen, but it was actually nice because there is no carpet there and I didn't need to worry as much about making a mess. Its quite the balancing act to stand on one foot while washing your other leg with soap, and then rinsing.

There are many things that I don't even think about until they are not there. I finally got a watch, which was a great relief, but I really missed having a mirror. I felt bad about asking for one, but its kind of hard for me to floss my teeth or shave without one. I also had a absurd nightmarish thought of going to school without noticing that my face was painted bright orange or something. Anyways, I brought it up and they got me a small mirror. It could have been weeks before I could go shopping around in a city again, so that was really helpful. I am starting to feel a little more useful because my sister let me wash the dishes once, and my mom has started to let me help with some of the cooking. Even though some things are still frustrating, I have been treated very well and there are slight glimmers of better days to come in my future.

Host Family

June 8

There has been a lot of talk about the host families that each of us are about to meet. I am naturally anxious about everything, and there is no way to really prepare for it. The village that my small group was going to was not that far from where we had been staying, and things happened very quickly. One funny but cool part of the process was that our whole group visited each house where a trainee would be staying, and the families offered us snacks or little candies at every place. One of my friends mentioned that It was kind of like Halloween, which was very true. The house that I will be staying at is a family of three: the parents are in their 50's and the daughter is about my age. I hadn't met her yet, but she just walked in while I was typing this. I call them “mom” and “dad” - the words are short and pretty simple to pronounce. “Mother” sounds just like when we pronounce the letter “H” from the alphabet, Father sounds like “avv.” They are very friendly and eager to help. I forgot to bring a couple things with me such as a clock (I never ended up getting a watch) and slippers/sandals for walking around in the house. Not knowing the language and trying to have a conversation makes me feel paralyzed. I often resort to flipping through my notes or showing them a word from the dual language dictionary I have. Ever since I got here to Mongolia, we have been fed a lot. Its pretty good food, but I have not had a huge appetite. Don't get jealous Mom, but the soup that I had tonight was unbelievable. The only way I can think of explaining the taste is that its the best chicken noodle I've ever had (except it didn't have chicken in it). Though I think that I've had a head start in language learning regarding the recognition of pronunciation and a little grammar, my ability to use the Mongolian language is very slow. I have a lot of work to do. (sorry guys, the rainbow photos do not look nearly as magnificent as it looked in real life)

A glimpse of Mongolian Culture

June 6

I can't really describe the feeling of watching the display of music that we got to experience during one of the training days. I have often listened to music in other languages because I am attracted to hearing sounds of non-sensical words. Lots of english music contains lyrics are unintelligible, but I almost never look the lyrics up because I like it better not knowing what the vocalist was saying. The difference between my fettish for lyrics that I don't understand and the music that we got to hear is that you could see the musician communicating. That only heightens my desire to learn the language and ultimately learn about the people here. I was also fascinated by the stringed instrument that one of the musicians played. If I get to take music lessons with any of their instruments, I will jump at the chance. Some of the songs were their traditional style, but they also played songs in a style which is similar to pop music in america. I don't know why I'm trying to write about what it was like because it would be impossible, but it was definitely a moment that made me ecstatic to be here. I also wonder when the moment will come that I will despise being here. For all of you who read the Game of Thrones books, you may recollect the phrase “Winter is Coming” (in Mongolia, they supposedly have very cold winters). I switch between being a optimist and a pessimist, so its a somewhat troubling thought to imagine when the moment will come that I wish I never came.

PS. To my friends and family: If I do describe difficulties that I'm going through, please don't feel sorry for me or tell me to quit either. Its going to be totally worth it to go through the whole experience – good or bad.

navigating a city

June ? I don't know what the date is

So yesterday was the first day I actually had some conversations with mongolians. I have less of a mongolian vocabulary than my 3 year nephew has of English, so it depended mostly on whether they new a little English or not. I went on a bunch of adventures, but I'll talk about the restrant that me and somebody else went to. Though the words don't exactly look like English, they might sound the same.  I figured out that one of the words was cafe. Menu is a common word in both languages too, but that was about the extent of what we could understand. It was the first time I ordered food while having no earthly clue what it was going to be. All the restraunts that I've been to have no pictures. After pointing to a random item on the list of foods, and pointed to the drink we wanted, we got food without too much trouble.

Today, my goal is to shop for a watch. I think the word sounds something like tsag. Buying a watch doesn't seem like it would be difficult to do, but simple things can get complicated. Using the shower and toilet at the place I'm staying gave me a great sense of accomplishment. I felt like a mechanichal engineer after getting it to work, and who knows if I'll have another hot shower anytime soon. Also walking through a building/climbing stairs without tripping is an art. Never take for granted a flat floor or stairs at the same height for granted.

Things really have been easy so far though, and learning will accelerate once the whole group splits up, and each of us start living with a host family. There will be another month or two of training, but situations will feel much more realistic. A bunch of people have asked me what area I'll be in. I know the city where I'll be going for now, but I'm not supposed to disclose locations and I don't know anything about the area where we'll be. It is in the general vicinity of the southern part of the country if that gives you a better picture.

I have no idea when I'll have access to the internet next, so it could be another month or two until I post anything new.

gers and hiking

June 3

So we stayed at a"ger" camp the first night, but those were some really high class gers. They were equipped with running water, bathrooms, electricity, and chandeliers - really? (The next night we went to a hotel, which oddly wasn't as nice as the gers)

The air is very refreshing, and the sun is brilliant. The mountains look like some of the foothills in California, but they feel totally different. I had a strong desire to do some climbing, so I went with a few of my friends towards the top. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath, and I told myself that it was the altitude rather than the fact that I'm not in very good shape. There are some beautiful views, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to hike a lot while I'm here.

We're in the city for some pre-training stuff, and today was really the first time that I have been near actual mongolians. I didn't have courage within me to practice trying out any phrases yet, but I'll try to do some of that tomorrow since we will be more on our own.

I'm here

June 2

Summary of the last 3 (or 4?) days –
1.carry baggage
2.stand in line 
3.travel
4.get baggage
5.stand in line
6.get some sleep
7.repeat.

I'm in the country now, but I know that there is gonna be at least one more round of traveling and carrying baggage (Yay!) By the way, I should have done weightlifting in preparation for carrying my baggage because both arms are going to fall off.

Meeting new people is near the top of my phobia list. I am excited about the peace corps, but within that excitement, I tend to dislike interacting with large groups of people I don't know. There's about 70 of us, and I've gradually learned some names. I finally realized that I what helps me remember someone the most is by having meaningful conversation with them. It feels like opening mystery box – I have no clue what is within a person until you start talking with them and discovering what they are like. Most everyone has done a lot of traveling already and has gone through a lot of studying at universities. That's not too surprising, but I figured out that some of my friends here like the same musicians, authors, and ideas that I like think about too. I guess the peace corps attracts similar types of people.

There have been a lot of pleasant moments in San Francisco and South Korea that I wont have time to describe. Incheon is gorgeous, and they have some fancy technology that I haven't seen in the US. Their airport is better than any other one I've been to (including the customer service). They were patient with us even though communication was a little confusing. I did get searched there in one of their back rooms because my suitcase had this funky flashlight and they thought it was a highly advanced weapon of some sort.

Okay gotta go.

excited and anxious!

Hello, my name is Will, and I am venturing to Mongolia as a Peace Corps volunteer. I don't know if there is a way to describe exactly how it feels to be leaving in less than 2 weeks on a trip for 2 years. Its been a mixture of trying to figure out everything possible about Mongolia, but at the same time knowing that I can't really start learning until I get there. I found quite a few blogs from people already there, which I have found both helpful and amusing. There are even some TV shows that had episodes featuring Mongolia (Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, and River Monsters). Its really cool to think that I will be visiting one of their "exotic" destinations personally.

I've been itching to get out of Suburbia, USA for at least a year, but I am also anxious about meeting a whole lot of new people and being in a new place, and - oh yeah, not knowing the language. And I have not really started packing yet. Apparently, I need to be ready for warm summers and very cold winters. I won't be taking more than 2 suitcases, so I'm going to need to let go of a lot of stuff too. But that's not as hard as saying goodbye to friends and family. I have already said my final "goodbyes" to quite a few people already - some co-workers, and fellow-teachers, my sister living in a different state (and her newborn!), and some aunts and uncles. Some have contributed to my life so much, and I don't feel like I have given back that much in return. Now I have the opportunity to pass on the things that I have been given and help  people on the other side of the world!

My next posting will be in Mongolia - depending on internet availability, the timeline may not perfectly accurate but I will try to update when I can.