So I have safely arrived at my site! I love it! It is in a beautiful part of Mongolia surrounded by taller mountains than my training site was. I live in a wooden house and my host family lives in a ger. My family is really really awesome. I have two little siblings, 3 and 4 and they are super cute. They try to talk to me a lot which is good, but I don’t think they understand that I don’t understand. My host father is a herder he has almost 700 animals so he spends most of his time in the country side taking care of the animals. My host mom is an English teacher, she has been really nice and having her speak English helps a lot. My house is really huge. It is super nice. I can’t believe I live here all alone and my host family all lives in a ger (a big ger, but still smaller than my house).
It has been surprisingly cold the past few days, they say it is only sometimes this cold in August, but I had to move my stove in from outside to get some heat, and have been struggling with the fire making process. One good thing is that it appears I will have lots of practice with fire making by the time it is really cold, and making a fire is really important.
For anyone that wishes to send me a package these are some things I would like:
Construction paper (colored)
Markers (are really expensive and poor quality here – they cost almost $10 for a 12 pack – which when you are making $100 a months is a large part of your income to spend on markers)
Index cards
Colored chalk (I think I will have a chalk board)
Magazines with pictures that could be used to illustrate things (or provide me with news)
And anything else people who have taught before found useful ( I have no teaching experience so anyone with ideas can send stuff – nothing is provided by the school)
Also I like American food, and coffee
And finally if you are going to send a package and wouldn’t mind throwing in something for my host family – a bag of candy or chips (I think they like Pringles and Pringles would be easy to send) I would really appreciate it.
