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Hello again!

It has been getting warmer, I mean it is still really cold. As in cold enough that I am really glad I didn’t bring a thermometer, because I think if I did I would never leave my house. I don’t really leave now, I mean I go to work and the store and come home, and the out house. The longest period of time I spend outside is the time I spend chopping my wood. A daily task, fortunately it doesn’t take me that long anymore. I can now chop enough wood for a day (and my fire never goes out when I am home all day so it takes a lot of wood) in about 30 minutes. I have yet to hurt myself, knock on wood. I have me several people who have missed the wood and hit their hand with the ax, with a nice straight scar between their thumb and index finger, this is not something I want to do, the 24 hour ride to UB for stitches would be a little painful. But my ax is really dull so even if I missed the wood, I think I would be more likely to crush something than cut something. I hope I don’t find out. But I still really like wood chopping, I mean some days I don’t really want to do it, but in general it isn’t that bad. I think I would like hauling water much less than wood chopping (now my water comes by horse and cart).

Work is going well. I don’t know if I have written that my school got a new director. He seems good to me, but I might be the only person in the school that thinks that. He seems serious about having our kids actually learn something (and he got us high speed internet). The counterpart that I am closest to really really doesn’t like him, and so I am a little worried that is going to have implications for my relationship with him, because I still need a translator to really talk to him about my ideas. But so far it has been fine. As I said I think he is serous about the kids learning something, which is a positive thing. Before my school seemed to be big on teaching but not on learning (which I have discovered are not actually the same thing – maybe if I had at some point taken an education class I would have known that before). But then in talking to other PCVS this seems to be a common problem. The first semester ends at the end of this week. I am hoping that next semester I will actually be able to teach something to someone. I think this semester I have just been treading water, I am hopeful that now that I have a better picture of what is going on around me I will be more productive. I have also grown to accept my inner bitch, and I am less afraid in letting it come out and yell at students and teachers that are not doing their job, usually in Mongolish. Next semester I want to make an American classroom in Mongolia, which is going to be interesting, and quite amazing if I actually succeed. On a more positive note I have found more of my grandfather in me than I thought I had, because I have realized that even some of the worst kids in my classes are good people and they have skills that are important (this doesn’t always work when I am actually trying to teach but outside of class it works well).

My counterpart has returned from UB. So maybe I will have a compound family again. Although it has been really quiet around here lately, which has been nice. I do miss the kids; they make me laugh so it is sad that they are not here. Since they left about a week ago I have spent the longest time since getting to Mongolia without eating mutton. And I have realized that mutton and my stomach don’t really agree with each other. (yes it took me almost seven months to realized this, I know I am a little dense). On the whole Mongolian food has not been as bad as I thought it would be when I left. It is a little greasy and a lot bland and repetitive, but it certainly could be much worse (since my family has been gone I have been putting raw garlic in everything to give it some flavor – im sure my breath is awful, but my food tastes good). However not eating mutton is going to present me with a problem, called protein, more specifically not eating enough protein. As much as I love peanut butter and I have been eating it at every meal, something tells me I might need more sources of protein, so if anyone is thinking about sending a care package would you please send some beans. I can buy lentils in my aimag (provincial capital), but other than that I can’t buy any beans outside of UB. Also spicy stuff (hot sause, Tabasco, anything with flavor) would be appreciated, as I said food has no flavor (except greasy and sometime sweet).