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 2nd or 3rd 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!
