Squirrel In Mongolia

Today has been a big day. Mongolia won a gold medal in the Olympics in heavy weight (100 kilos or more Judo). One American with 32 medals to their nations name may ask why this is a big deal – it is the first time Mongolia has won a gold medal i ever.  Everyone is super excited, one of the news casters was balling as the national anthem was played – he was super emotional.

Also today I met my supervisor for the next two years. He seems super nice, but he doesn’t speak English and well I am not so great at Mongolia so we had some awkward conversations. But he is nice and a good singer (actually he was the only Mongolian guy that sang at our talent show).  I really like he a lot.  He tries really hard to talk to me which is good!

Center days are always super packed. We have lots of classes and then tons of stuff to do especially since I found out I am going to be in a small town when I get to site, so I want to do stuff in the city. Also I have to go shopping – I need a big bag I have no idea how I am going to get all my stuff to site.

It has been a really long time since I was able to communicate with anyone. I have sent letters, I don’t know if anyone has received them. My town does have a post office but it is never open, so to mail a letter you have to go to the post masters house, drink tea and mail your letter. It is a little difficult to know if the letters are actually going to get anywhere, but the post man is really nice. Translation some people may be getting letters several months from now that I sent. Speaking of letters, if you have my training address now is the time to stop using it (unless you are sending something especially breakable or valuable which you should tell be about before hand and send to the UB office, the next time I am in UB I will pick it up, also please pack anything you send well plan for it to go through hell before it gets to me). You should receive an e-mail with my new address in it; I really like getting stuff (especially letters) so please use the new address. I will try to write back as much as I can. As you may notice this blog has been written over the course of several weeks, so if some of the time references seem messed up that is because one part was written before another.

I have so many things to say this might be a really long post. I am going to try to write in chronological order.

Naadam. Naadam is the second largest holiday in Mongolia (check back in February news on the largest holiday), and it celebrates the three manly sports: Horse racing, archery and wrestling. The horse racing is very interesting, instead of using little adults to race the horses small children (5 – 8 years old) race. The race is held over 25 Km of open terrine and many of the racers ride bareback. I don’t know much about house back riding but I think that 25 km bareback would be very difficult, especially since they are going really fast. The races are the least exciting part to watch when you don’t have a car though because all you can see is the end. Archery is not at all what I pictured. I had a scene from Robin Hood in mind with round bulls eye like targets in mind – instead they shoot at a row of balls (not called balls but that is what they look like) on the ground between two rows of sand. I think the objective is to hit the balls without hitting either row of sand.

The most important part of Naadam is wrestling. Mongolians love wrestling it is a huge deal here, and consequently it is the most important part of Naadam. The wrestling is very different from say high school wrestling in the US or Sumo wrestling. It is similar to Sumo in that it is very ritualized. The wrestlers all wear the same type of costume: Big boots, a vest-like top exposing all of their chest (apparently a woman once beat all the men so now their whole chest has to be exposed so no women can wrestle) but covering all their back and arms, a little pointed cap and a Speedo like bottom. I am going to try and post a picture of wrestlers, if I don’t I am sure you can google Mongolian Naadam Wrestling and get a picture – they are very interesting and manly. The wrestling itself has a set pattern, the men all eagle dance to the judge – dance around him in a circle, he takes their cap, they dance up to the central area of the Naadam arena and slap their thighs on both sides indicating they are ready to wrestle. The wrestling actually happens many pairs at a time, but most fights are really short – only the last fight was really long in my town. A wrestler wins when between his opponent’s knees and elbows touches the ground. Upon winning a wrestler eagle dances again, slaps his opponent on the butt, and eagle dances around the center of the arena. It is really quite beautiful. Some of the wrestlers are super scary looking though – especially the once who wrestle in UB. They are about 5 lbs lighter than Sumo wrestlers in some cases, the guys in my town though big for our town were not big like the guys in UB on tv. Before someone wrestles you are supposed to ask them “Hoochy Hoo?” meaning “are you feeling strong.”

My Naadam was really fun. It was super hot and sunny, I got to watch all three events as well as the recently added, but no less important, Volleyball tournament. I also spent a lot of time with my host family. All of our family was in town for the week, so our house was really full it was me, my host mom, her 2 sons, her 3 siblings and her parents ( 9 people) plus a few other relatives stayed for a night here and there and lots of people (some related some not) came to visit. It was quite the change to have so many people around, especially since at one point there were 8 adults and 2 kids sleeping in one room. I felt a little guilty because I had the only bed and room to myself. I spent 2 days walking around the Naadam arena, eating Huushuur, which is quite possibly the most amazing food ever, they are fried meat filled dough pockets and talking to people. Other Naadam firsts – I rode a horse (or actually was lead around the arena on a horse), drank arige (fermented mares milk) which tastes far better than it sounds, made bortsick (another of my favorite Mongolian foods – like doughnuts without the sugar or the shape), and when to a Mongolian concert.

The week after Naadam we started practice teaching, so we are actually teaching a class full of Mongolian students. In my case our class is really full – 43 students and only 12 desks. It has been a major challenge – everything from classroom management to determining students’ level to getting students to talk has been difficult. Additionally it has been really hot, so everyday our classroom has been over 100 degrees. Making it even harder for kids to concentrate, and decreasing kids desire to come (and our desire to teach). I think it is going better – we just finished week 2 our class is about 10 kids smaller (4 moved to a different level and others left), we are no longer 4 kids to every desk, and they seem to be better at listening to us – though Friday is still hard. Hopefully, I am going to be a decent teacher. Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed by 40 kids staring at me not understanding a word I say, and sometimes I have a hard time making sure I am using vocabulary they understand because the words just come out. I guess we will see how I do at site, I am sure I will be ok, I just don’t want to let people down. Practice teaching ended 8/1, I am note sure if they learned anything – but we learned a lot. Our class got quite a bit smaller we lost almost 10 students (though we moved 4 to a higher level so we really only lost 6). Classes also got easier. On the last day I had a problem with too many people wanting to participate in the lesson, on the first day we could not make anyone even say “hello, my name is. . .” So it was quite a shocking change. I think I learned a lot from practice teaching. Activities at site are still going to be trail and error, and I will always have to have a back up plan for when my original plan falls flat on its face. I am also going to have to work on giving directions in short words – it is so easy to forget that words like “match” or “order” my students will not know. Hopefully I won’t have to teach my own classes right at the beginning so I can watch other teachers’ classes and learn from them.

On a happier note after our first week of practice teaching we went to one of the three most beautiful monasteries in Mongolia – Amarmayasgalant Monastery with our host families. It is one of the few monasteries not completely razed by the Soviets. Going to the monastery was not quite what I was picturing. Our first pre monastery event was killing a sheep (very Buddhist I know), when they kill small animals in Mongolia they do it without spilling much blood (If you want to know more detail e-mail me and I will tell you but I am sure they are people reading this who don’t want to know the details of how to kill a sheep Mongolian style). That was the night before. We left at 5 am the next morning for the monastery in four cars for the about 30 of us. We had three SUV type cars and one little Honda. All was going smoothly at 6 we past an Hoovo (sacred pile of rocks dedicated to the sky), where we stopped and added more rocks (this is a crude description they are much neater than that sounds) and broke out the vodka (we didn’t actually drink much but it was an offering to the gods). Then we continued on our marry way, until we reached the river crossing the road and the Honda had a problem – it got stuck. So we paused to push it out and were off again. Until the lake in the middle of the road – the Honda got stuck again and again was pushed out. At that point the monastery was in sight and we drove by. We continued around in this gorgeous field crossing on little river like 5 times, it turned out we were looking for a camping spot but that was not clear at the time. Then our car one of the big fancy SUVs got stuck in the river and we decided that was a good place to camp.

At our camping site we discovered that our host families had brought a ton of food. So we ate second vegetables and kham (not ham though pronounced the same) breakfast (I ate before I left for the trip). We then played the craziest game of soccer ever. It was about 15 on 15 and there were no rules, hands were fine tackling was fine, 2 goalies was not a problem, and there was no out of bounds (except the fire which we almost hit a couple of times). The grass was knee high and we were playing with a basketball.

After soccer the vodka came back out, and was passed around. Then at about 11 we all went to the monastery – which was absolutely gorgeous! It was super interesting. After spending a couple of hours at the monastery we returned to our camping site. At that point some of us went berry picking. There were tons of little wild strawberries all over the hill side. After berry picking we ate again. By the point the stones we had collected were warmed, we put them some potatoes, some carrots, and the sheep (in pieces) in this pressure cooker like box and left it for a few hours. While waiting for our real Mongolian bbq, we had relay races, limboed, and played tag. When the food was finally done it was soooooooooooooooo good. After eating we were all pretty lethargic and sat around for a bit talking. Then the potato for khuushuur was cooked and we started making khuushuur. We played more games while the Khuushuur was cooking. All in all it was one of my best days in Mongolia. The area around the monastery was sooooo pretty. Then again most of Mongolia that I have seen is really pretty, but that area was breathtaking. (interesting note the plant life looks a lot like that in Maine, there are a lot of the same flowers, and the wild strawberries, birch trees, and wild rubarb!)

On our way back to our town we didn’t get stuck once, though we did have to pull a van out of the river we got stuck in that morning. And there were white people in the van (which is very odd) so we all went to talk to the white people who turned out to be French and Dutch tourists. It was a great day!!

The next week was uneventful, the next weekend we had our community development project. Translation what was supposed to be a really cool event for all the town – but turned out to be a cool event for about 100 kids with out much good food. We were supposed to paint a mural on the wall at the school. Unfortunately the Thursday before our Saturday project the powers that be decided there would be no painting on walls/activities at the school. So we had a sudden reshuffle and we moved the project to the dorm building where we have classes and practice teaching. And painted our mural on a board that we hope they will hang up. It actually turned our really neat and the sudden change of plans part is really what the Peace Corps was hoping show us would happen with this project so I guess it is what they wanted from us. I think the kids had fun. My Dyys (younger siblings) said they liked it.

My host mom went to China for a week, and my host grandma came to stay with us and the baby. Interestingly my host mom when on vacation with her coworkers, not her family. When I asked other Mongolians about this they said it is quite normal, and that it is possible that her employer paid for the trip even though they were not working. They were walking around Beijing and shopping. Another interesting note is that the seven year old got a cell phone out of this trip. Why a 7 year old needs a cell phone I have no idea (in America or here). What can a 7 year old possible use a cell phone for – texting his 7 year old cell phoneless friends? In addition to the cell phone my host mom bought everything you can think of that a person might ever want – grapes, candy, an electric tea pot (her teapot was manufactured in a plant not yet ready for export to the US – it has the funniest English label that makes absolutely no sense), clothing for everyone in the family, toys for the baby, and more. It is an interesting cultural observation that my host mom went on vacation with her coworkers, apparently there is more socializing with coworkers exclusive of family in Mongolia than there is at home. This will probably work out well for me because I will not have any family so I would always been the odd person out if families were around!

Solar eclipse: There was a complete solar eclipse over western Mongolia on August 1. Since I am in central Mongolia it was not a complete eclipse but it was nearly complete - there was just a tiny sliver of sun left uncovered. We had some confusion over the time of the eclipse though, someone looked it up on the internet and said it would be at 11:30, 11:30 came and went no eclipse, our LCF said 5:30 – which also came and went with out an eclipse. As it turned out the 11:30 was the correct time, except it was Greenwich Mean Time – which meant the eclipse was at 7:30pm here. Fortunately I was already outside when everyone started saying nar (sun) something then car (moon) – which I roughly translated to mean eclipse. Also good is I had and index card handy with which to view the eclipse (I poked a pen through it so there was just an itty bitty hole in it – yes Dad I remember the story of the people in Boston who burned the center of the retnas by looking at an eclipse and I didn’t look directly at the sun). My little pin hole viewer worked quite nicely and all the kids and neighbors used it. It was super cool! The last time I saw an eclipse was when I was at Mallett School (I think 2^nd or 3^rd grade).

LPI/Host family appreciation even – So the last week we were in my town we had our LPI (language placement interview) I think mine went ok. I don’t know if I got a novice high (which is what we are supposed to get to go to site but PC is not really strict about that). I know I am a novice high speaker, but I think I might have gotten nervous and choked up in the test. One of the major reasons I didn’t study as much as I would have like to is that 2 days before the LPI our Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF or Mongolian Teacher) decided we had to learn to play instruments for our Host family appreciation event and I chose a really hard instrument. As it turns out I can’t learn how to play any instrument in 3 days and made a fool of myself in front of our whole town. Fortunately because we did such a bad job there will be no playing at Swearing In. And I never have to see that stupid instrument again (or the LCF after swearing in). Anyway aside from one awful part of the concert the host family appreciation even was really good. We made them food – some American some Mongolia, they really liked Spaghetti, Pizza and hamburgers, they were not such big fans of Chili or Burritos. And everyone had a good plenty to drink. By the end of the dancing after the concert most people where really hammered. And I still am not a huge fan of being around drunk people – this is probably going to be as much of a problem for me in Mongolia as it was in college in the US. I guess I will get used to it.

We leave my town in 2 days. I am really sad to be leaving my host family. They are super awesome and great. I hope I am placed close enough that I can come back often to visit them. It is also stressful to leave because I have no idea where I am going. I am packing all my stuff and taking it to a hotel but after that I don’t know where I will end up. I will find out soon – we start getting placements at 3 pm on August 12 (probably before I post this).

General impressions: I really love Mongolia it is super pretty and the people are great. The culture is very inviting and people spoil guests (there have been many days I have eaten 4 our more meals because they feel it is their duty to feed guests), which is probably a major reason while female PCVs gain weight here. It is also a very family focused culture, where extended families are very important. Interestingly the words for aunt, uncle, or cousin in Mongolia are never used all those people are older or younger siblings depending on age.

The sky is amazing here. It is not at all surprising that the first thing Mongolians worshiped (and continue to worship despite the predominate Buddhism) is the sky. It is absolutely gorgeous. At night there are soooo many stars, and during the day it is an amazing blue color. Also watching storms come in is really spectacular. The other day there was a huge thunder storm that came in and watching it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It has spectacular lightning, and these huge dark billowing clouds and it was at sunset so there was also the amazing red of the sun set. It was amazing. Also amazing is how fast the weather can change. Today it has been sunny this morning it rained a little (not a big storm) then it was sunny and HOT again and then it came in and poured (right when I went for a walk so all my cloths and shoes are soaking wet) but it didn’t last long it probably rained for 7 of my ten minute walk. Also at one point it was raining on all four sides around me but not where I was – that was a really strange feeling and now it is sunny but super windy. I have a haiku (yes I have a lot of free time if you are wondering) about the sun that communicates a huge party of the weather:

Mongolian Sun

When the sun is out its hot

When its not its cold

Last week was very sunny and it was very very hot, today it is cloudy and it is cold. I guess the major difference between here and home is that at home the ocean acts to moderate the weather so the sun doesn’t seem to have as much power as it does here.

Food is generally far better than I was expecting. I don’t really have major complaints. Noodle soup gets old after a while, and it is hot when it is 100 degrees outside but generally tastes good. I would like more vegetables but that is a problem with Mongolian in general – it is too cold to grow veggies (though you wouldn’t know that now). I am excited about being able to cook for myself. The main Mongolian dishes are actually really good – Huushuur which is fried pockets of meat is amazing, as is Tsoyvan, which is home made noodles with meat, potato, cabbage, onion and sometimes Mongolian cheese, and buuz, steamed meat dumplings are also pretty good, the big problem is there are only three major dishes and soup. Since I am used to living in Houston and eating Tex-Mex one day, Greek food the next and Italian the day after it gets a little repetitive.

The washing machine was one of the most wonderful inventions ever, it makes doing laundry much easier. Especially when it comes to hand washing and ringing out Jeans – I can’t ever ring my jeans out dry enough and then they never dry. I really miss being able to put my clothing into a big metal box, leaving for an hour and coming back to clean cloths. Dryers are nice too, but washing machines are really really wonderful! They do have washing machines here (my host family has one) but it is not quite the same idea because there is no running water so you have to put the cloths and water in, they wash, they put the cloths in a separate spin area spin then put the cloths back in the big part to rinse and then spin again – basically it is very labor intensive as well. So the moral of this story is next time you throw your cloths in the washer be grateful you have one!

Complaints: I can’t understand the news (thanks to Emily I know a little of what is going on) but I have no idea what is happening in the world outside my little town. Fortunately they don’t bite, and they attack the animals more than me. But on a positive note the Olympic they are showing are narrated in English with occasional Mongolian over the English, I actually know more about what is happening than people who only speak Mongolian. The flies: there are lots and lots and lots of them they are super annoying and buzz in my ears when I am trying to sleep and follow me to school. The flies are awful fortunately there should come a point in October where they all freeze to death. That will be a very happy day!

So some of you may have heard about riots in UB, related to some controversy with the elections on July 1. I want to emphasize that the violence was only in UB.  I want everyone to know I am safe, and the violence seems to have ended.

So it has been almost a month since I last had internet access, which is kinda amazing, I didn’t know I could survive a month without the internet. Since I last wrote a lot has happened, and I am sure no one wants to read the novel I could write about the past few weeks so I am going to pick out the highlights.

My host family: I am living with a not so traditional family. My core family is my host mom and her 1 year old son, also staying with us for varying lengths of time are my host mom’s 2 younger sisters and her younger brother, my host mom’s seven year old son. Everyone spends sometime in town in my house and sometime in the country with my host grandparents. My host dad is a teacher in South Korea, I am still kind of expecting him to show up at some point while I am here, but it hasn’t happened yet. We live in a nice little three room house, I have a small room all to my self (about 2/3 the size of a Jones single), My room is right off the kitchen which is the same size as my room and we have a big room (about the size of a Jones single) where everyone else sleeps. For the first three weeks we had very regular electricity but this weekend (the fourth weekend) we have not had electricity except for about 4 hours Friday night. There is no running water in my town, including the city hall and the school. The only problem I have had with my host family is not being treated as an adult. My host mom is very strict and doesn’t like it when I leave for not class related things, so that has made it a little difficult to socialize/ do anything outside the house.

My group: Peace Corps training in Mongolia is broken up into communities, there are ten other trainees in my town, we are all TEFLers (we will all be English teachers). We have classes together from 9 am to 1pm and then from 2:30 pm to 4, 5 or 6 pm (depending on the day). And we spend a lot of time together, because none of us really speak Mongolian yet, so that greatly limits the people we can hang out with. Our group gets along really well, and we have fun.

Classes: Classes are very long, it feels a little more like normal high schools than college (aka the type of high school I haven’t been in since my freshman year or 1999). It is hard to go from 50 minute classes to 4 hour classes. Mongolian language classes are the hardest, they are very draining. But our teachers try really hard and we are learning quite a bit, I can now say some things in Mongolian. Our other classes are cross culture, where we learn about Mongolian culture and how to navigate it as an American, and Technical classes where we learn about teaching English in Mongolia.

My town: My host community is really different and nice. It is a town of about 2000 people, most of the employed people in the town are farmer/herders, drivers, shop owners or government employees (my host mom and uncle are both government employees). There are probably 5 or 6 little neighborhoods in town, mine has maybe 10 houses. Almost all the houses have hashas or fenced in yards, in some cases, like my neighbors, this is to keep the animals in, but in other cases, like my house, it is to keep the animals out. The town feel very much like a small town, everyone knows everything, and all the kids know where the Americans are at all times. All you have to do is go to the area around the stores (downtown I guess) and say any of our names and the kids will point you in the right direction. Peace Corps living in a fishbowl analogy is really applicable here.

Animals: So as I mentioned before most people in our town have something to do with farming/herding. And so there are lots of animals around. Last night two giant herds passed through town (actually it was kind of through the outskirts of town because I live far away from the center). One of these herds was unique for the area because it had all five important Mongolian animals: sheep, goats, cows, horses and camels. The herd that came to town had only one camel, but it was still very neat. It is apparently fairly rare for herds to have camels in this part of Mongolia, because a lot of kids ran out to see it (including me). Unsurprisingly the American in the tiny soume in Mongolia became almost as much of a spectacle as the camel. In this part of Mongolia there are lots of cows, goats, sheep and horses. The most common thing to see in town is the calves, because they take the cows out to the country for the day but keeps the calves closer to home. We have one group of calves that likes to hangout in the shade of our school building, although last week they were displaced by a herd of horses. The sheep and goats are the most watched animals they almost always have a herder and dog with them, but the cows and horses wander freely most of the time. I have a crazy number of pictures of animals especially calves, I guess I will start deleting them at some point.

Food: I was most concerned about the food when I came to Mongolia. Fortunately the food isn’t that bad. The big problem with the food is lack of variation. There are only so many things you can make with potatoes, meat, onions, water and flour. Our host families have been prepared for the fact that most Americans do not enjoy eating large chunk of animal fat for our meals so they don’t feed it to me. However everyone else loves fat, including the baby. There are only a couple of other things that I refuse to eat, one being boiled yogurt, however unboiled yogurt is really good. So the food is not as bad as I thought it would be, though I can see how I am going to get very sick of it very fast. I think when I am living on my own, with some spices I will be able to make some pretty good food – after all it is a lot like Mexican food the same 5 ingredients combined to make different dishes (though Mongolians use less spices and cheese and more meat).

Weather: So the Mongolians say that the spring weather is temperamental. And that is an understatement. My first week here I couldn’t figure out how to dress because one day it would be really hot (think mid 80s) and the next really cold (think mid 50s). That is getting better it is now more consistently hot. But the weather is still really variable. We have had two big dust storms since I have been here. They are a very different type of weather than any I have experienced in the past. It gets really cloudy and they everything turns brown and it is super windy. Going outside is not a good thing to do. I am lucky I have never been caught far away from my house, because when a dust storm comes basically everyone runs home trying to get inside before it hits. Also we had five days straight of rain, which created flooding, and destroyed what was left of the romanticism of the outhouse.

So I guess that is a summary of what is going on here. Things are exciting; nothing is the same from day to day. When I can speak Mongolian enough to know what is going on I will be very proud of myself, right now I kind of just roll with whatever happens because I can’t talk to most people. For example there was an election in Mongolia on June 26 for their legislature, and there have been lots and lots of representatives from the two parties coming around to try and get out the vote – I would have loved to have talked to them but alas being able to ask “what is your name” doesn’t help me learn anything about politics. Fortunately I think the presidential election is next year or the year after, so by that point I should be able to know what is going on. As for the US presidential election I have no idea what is going on (actually I have no idea what is going on anywhere outside my little group of Americans in my little town). That is another thing better Mongolian would help me with.

I am going to have internet from today until July 4^th, so if you want to contact me please do so quickly. I will be going back to my little internet less town on July 5 until mid August. So yet again I will be really out of touch. (Of course you could always write me letters or send me packages – I would like any non perishable snack food particularly dried fruit and dark chocolate or spices or coffee (ground).)

So I have been in Peace Corps for a week now and in Mongolia for four days.  It is still going well.  I really like Mongolia, everything is very new and different.  Tomorrow I move in with my host family for the next 11 weeks.  It is a big family, there are four kids ranging from 10th grade to 2 years old so that should be interesting!  I am really excited but also really scared because I don’t yet speak any Mongolian and there are only so many times you can say my name is!  Orientation has been really great!  We have had language classes, and cross cultural classes that have started to help ease the fear of moving in with a Mongolian family (not completely).  We have also received lots of medical information and shots (more to come).   I now have pills to treat the bubonic plague in my possession!

One really exciting thing we did was have a traditional Mongolian welcome ceremony, which was really neat there were throat singers (you should youtube it to figure out what it is) and dancers and this contortionist who could bend her body in ways I cannot imagine. Finally there was this great little boy who looked super scared before he sang, but he turned out to be an amazing singer.

The city we are in is a very interesting city, it has a beautiful location. We hiked up to see a giant Budda statue yesterday on top of a hill over looking the city and it is really breathtakingly beautiful. And there was a statue of someone playing the traditional Mongolian fiddle with two strings while riding a horse.  I am not sure if one actually could play the fiddle and ride a horse - I know I couldn’t! We also walked through this really neat park for children with lots of little statues in the middle that were actually speakers.

Tomorrow I leave the city to move to a little town.  Translation I won’t have internet for a while - until the 4th of July.  But by that point I should be able to post in Mongolia, so anyone who wants to read after then will need to learn Mongolian (Just kidding).   My moto is no news is good news!

I am successfully in Mongolia.  The flight from the states was really really really long.  But everything is good here.  It is a really great country so far, I am having lots of fun.

I spent my first night in a ger (traditional Mongolian “house”), which was really cool.  Now we have started Training, and will be in the city for the next three days.  Then we go to Training sites with no internet so don’t expect to hear from me for a while.

This is my first post. I am still in the US and have no idea where I will be or what kind of access I will have to the internet once I get to Mongolia. So it is unclear how regularly I will be able to update my blog once I am there. I leave for Peace Corps Mongolia on May 30, 2008. I will first fly to San Fransisco where I will meet with the rest of the Peace Corps Mongolia group. We leave for Mongolia on June 1st to begin three months of training.

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