October 4
I went to my first wedding last night. It was really interesting. Very very different from an American wedding. First of all there is no religious aspect – no priest/monk – so I guess it is more like having just a reception. the wedding I went to was actually not the actual wedding it was the dinner for the teachers so there was no family at it either. We got there they gave us milk tea, and after drinking the tea we used the same little bowl/cup/mug for the really really good potato salad. Then the first round of Mongolian vodka was served. I am still not entirely clear how Mongolian vodka is different from Russian vodka, but I think it might be made from horse milk. How it is made is not really important they taste very similar and I do not like either. Particularly since you have to drink it straight without a chaser (though by the end of the night some Mongolian/Russian brand coke materialized so there was a chaser). I sipped it because it is rude not to, interestingly vodka is sacred in Mongolia, particularly Mongolian vodka and it is rude not to at least touch it to your lips when it is served. Then we had soup, which was really good, it was potato noodle soup, with fried potatoes, meat, buuz (meat filled dumplings), carrots, onions and fat. It was good, I was happy to not be the only person who didn’t eat the giant pieces of fat in my soup, I am getting better with fatty meat, but I still draw the line at just fat. Fortunately people don’t usually ask questions – I am sure they think the American is weird. And then more tea and singing, for my benefit we all sang the one and only Mongolian song I know, though I could sing the refrain of a few others because I have heard them several times. Then we came home. It was lots of fun, it was nice to see all the teachers outside the school, and to be included. One final note, at an event like a wedding the seating in the ger is based on seniority. At the part of the ger opposite the door, the oldest people sit and then going around to right by the door where the youngest people sit, also usually all the men sit on one side and the women on the other, but because almost all the teachers are women there were women on both sides. Despite being the youngest person there (with only one exception maybe) I was seated almost at the back of the ger. Felt a little odd, but I guess again it is because of my Americanism.
Written October 1
Now that I have internet in my town I figure I should up date this blog. The reason I haven’t written more is there is very little to say. Life is becoming more routine. I wake up cold dreading going to school. Ok dread maybe a little bit of a strong word, but I certainly am not excited about teaching classes of almost 40 students in language they don’t understand . I team teach in the morning, and then I come home eat lunch – when I feel like cooking, or go for a walk, or try to plan lessons. For each class I teach I need about five lesson plans because the first few never really go as planed – probably it is the communication gap with my students not speaking English, and even though I know some of the basic commands I need in Mongolian, I don’t want to use them, because they will never learn English if all they hear is Mongolian. So I teach eighty minutes (2 periods) to the best students from each grade – 7,8,9,10,11. Actually 9th and 10th grade no students come so I guess I don’t really teach those. I also teach a teachers class with one of my counterparts. My best class is 7th grade, the students are really good and they really like learning English and there are enough good students that we can communicate. Then I come home, hang out with my host family, who are super awesome. Eat, talk, play with the kids and so on. Then I go to bed.
My life is not all that exciting. I am starting to make friends, as well as any person who doesn’t really speak the language can. I have taken some great walks. The area around my town is really really pretty. And this weekend all the trees turned (for those of you not from the north this means all the trees went from green to yellow). I thought this was odd because I had though since I got here that the trees were evergreens. And therefore would not turn, but they are now yellow. Actually they are now white because it is currently snowing. Though most people would not find this very exciting, I do. I love the snow (I will probably eat these words in January or maybe not because January is to cold to snow). It’s a little early for snow, but that is ok. It is fun to watch it. Snow falling is very peaceful. Particularly when you aren’t out side hearing the chain saws running as everyone saws their wood for winter. Wood I have yet to receive – but my director says it will come before October 11 (and he is probably right because October 11 is when people from UB comes to visit me and they will want to impress them, and not have me without wood). My cp said it would be chopped which would be awesome – but I think she might have meant sawed not chopped. We shall see. I don’t actually mind chopping wood, another statement I will probably not like to read in January, it is a great release of frustration. All you have to do is picture whatever is annoying you right before you swing. I probably hate it less now because I have become better at it. I can now split the same amount of wood that would have taken me 2 hours and major blisters at first in about 20 minutes. I am still light years behind my host dad, but he has many advantages over me, I am not at least as good a my 12 year old host sister. Also I can build fires, which is a valuable skill so I will not freeze to death. Unfortunately I cannot fix all the computer problems I am called on to fix, some I can – like making the internet work and loading programs (I have an advantage because all the menus are in English so I can read them and then just have to follow instructions) but I cannot make printers print with ink not designed for them, and I do not have a copy of Microsoft XP in my pocket. But I guess the person I am replacing was really good with computers, so I am just going to prove that all Americans are not great at computers. I am not even sure I know what to do with a computer without the internet. But we have that now so I guess I will become more helpful (maybe).
I am starting to feel more at home here. Though there are always things that upset me, the day to day stuff is becoming more normal. I can go to a store and get what ever I need (as long as the store has it – but I can ask if they have it). I am a little concerned about food in the winter. Right now everything is fine. It is the fall, so there are lots of vegetables (potatoes, onions, yams, carrots, beets and sometimes cabbage!) However from what I have gathered in the winter Mongolians basically only eat meat – and fat, and gedes (which is all the innards of an animals of which I will only eat about 3 pieces). I don’t know how that is going to work. Hopefully I will still be able to find at least onions and potatoes. And then I can eat onions and potatoes and four at home and meat other places. But I came here really concerned about the food, and have so far been pleasantly surprised – it isn’t that bad, hopefully that will continue.
Wish list:
Coffee – it is impossible to buy – there are only these little instant coffee packets that are 50% sugar and 25% cream and 25% coffee – they are more like hot chocolate.
Peanut butter
Magazines/newspapers – especially anything with pictures in it because I need lots of pictures to teach and I am not the worlds greatest drawer.
I wrote this about a month ago. But I though I would put it up anyway.
So I have been at site for about 2 weeks, and have yet to actually do anything. I don’t really even cook for myself – which is a blessing and a curse. I have to eat more noodle soup, but I don’t have to cook anything. So far I have gone to the Aimag capital once, it is fairly expensive to go so I will probably not be going much. There is some talk that we might be able to get a dial up connection in my host families ger (which would be awesome). If that happens I will be super excited. It will still be really slow (remember dial up – now add Mongolia to it) and fairly expensive (you all might laugh at the price because it won’t sound like much in US dollars but my income (just over $100 a month) doesn’t sound like much either). Hopefully I will be posting this from my town.
I guess the big news is the cold. It has been super cold, and it snowed once (August 24) that is probably the earliest I have ever seen snow. I guess it is going to be a really cold winter. Hopefully by winter I will have figured out how to make a fire, without a box of matches for each fire.
Now I should be writing a lesson plan, because classes start in 4 days, but I don’t know who I will be teaching (as in how old my students will be). That makes lesson planning a little difficult. I have vague ideas about what to do the first week (introductions and games), but until I know what age group I am teaching I can’t make anything more concrete. I ask everyday but the answer never comes, so I will be in for a surprise when I get to school. I am trying not to be frustrated, I guess it doesn’t really matter who I teach, and I can prep during the week – it will be nice to have something to do. I hope my students don’t want a syllabus because they aren’t getting one.
Week 3 is now over. School started this week, so I had more to do, not a lot more but some more. I am team teaching with the two English teachers at the school for 15 hours a week. That is interesting because the two teachers have very little in common and I have yet to convince them of the value of team planning. But that is my next goal. From what the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) trainers said during pre service training, the PCV who was here before me already won half the battle, my teachers are willing and want to team teach. Now I have to fight the second half of the battle making them willing to team plan. I think I have the easier part. This week, I should get my own classes. I am going to be teaching about 20 students from each grade 6 – 11 the best students from each grade. I don’t think I am going to have a spelled out curriculum or a book – so it is going to be very interesting this year. Hopefully having the best students will mean that I have less classroom management issues and certainly with only 20 students I should have fewer issues (the largest class in our school is 43 and most classes are 35-40 – which makes almost all typical language learning activities very difficult because group work just gets so loud). Interestingly Mongolian law stipulates that there should only be 15-20 students in English classes, however there are only a few schools in the nation that actually have the resources to have that small English classes, and most of them are in the cities.
Other than school is things are good. I am getting better at fire making and wood chopping, when I can succeed splitting the log in half I am golden – however sometime I can’t split the log in half. But the weather has warmed up significantly.
