I have the internet again!!!!!! At least for a little while! Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My current band width usage would rival video conferencing which is unfortunate because I only have a dial up connection and things are going VERY slowly, but I have a lot to down load –2 forms for Peace Corps, an update for my virus scan and because I am such a patient person I am also surfing the internet.
February 8,
Maybe I will post this today. Yesterday we celebrated teachers day, (Read excuse for all the teachers to have a big party and get drunk). But then what else are holidays for any where. I still haven’t quite gotten over my nervousness about getting drunk with my school director. It has been drilled into my head for so long that work functions are not a time to get drunk, that it is rather shocking to see everyone drunk at a work function. But that is a cultural difference they would think it is very very odd to see coworkers spouses at say an office holiday party because work parties are for workers and spouses are not included.
For teachers day some of the students had a concert, it was good there was lots of singing and a little dancing. Singing is a big part of Mongolian culture everyone can sing and does sing a lot, this is awkward for me because I can’t sing and only sing alone in my car with the volume turned up really loud (being with out car this is not easy to duplicate here). At least I now know the number of songs that they sing at all functions, one of my favorite is about the singer’s (male) mother’s milk tea (Praising it incase you weren’t sure). The weather has defiantly been improving, I am hoping that it doesn’t get cold again, because it still could. My calendar said that groundhog day just passed. Did the ground hog see his shadow? I wish I had caught on to it before it would have been a great holiday to teach my kids about. (it is actually the same day as teachers day). While discussing holidays all the teachers were very concerned to hear that in America we don’t celebrate teachers’ day. I wasn’t quite sure what to tell them, but I am quite sure that if we did have a teachers day it would not be celebrated in quite the same way – I think there would be more kids bringing of presents to teachers and concerts. Although I think the idea of having kids run the school for a day (part of the teachers’ day thing is that all the kids run the school and no teachers go to work each teacher and the janitors and the principle pick kids to be them and then don’t go to work while the kids still have classes) is rather fun. I think the kids would like it. Unfortunately ours was on Saturday – go figure – so it doesn’t really feel like we got a day off. Fortunately the school has decided not have other classes on Saturday. The flexibility of the schedule is some what amazing to me, I guess in some ways it is good, and it would probably be less confusing if I really spoke Mongolian because all the other teachers seem to understand what is going on better than I do.
February 5, 2009
So it is cold today. And windy and generally nasty, there is a lot of dust in the air, my CP says this is how everyday is in the spring, I’m not excited. Oh well, the weather is not one of the major draws of monoglia. I guess that is probably a big reason why some people considered Peace Corps Mongolia one of the hardest posts in Peace Corps (this is probably not true I think all Peace Corps posts have unique and equally challenge posts – although I would give a lot for a garden with anything in it that is not potato, onion, carrots, and beets (although I like carrots and beets). And I eat lots of apples. I guess I have complained about food a lot in this blog. It isn’t that bad, particularly since I got an ice cream maker and started eating ice cream many meals a week, I make Mocha Chip ice cream to rival round top (If you don’t know round top you should, it is the best ice cream in the world commonly sold at the Squirrel Island Tea Shop – for the record squirrel island is where the name for this blog came from). The only problem with ice cream is that it is cold, and I have to sit outside (equally cold) to make it and so now after eating all my wonderful Mocha chip ice cream I am very very cold, I actually considered sitting on my stove but then determined that was probably a bad idea – for my cloths they might burn or at least melt wholes in them. I have a surprising number of little burn wholes in my clothing, but it is a little depressing especially my 3rd favorite pajama pants.
Life here is going. It seems to be getting warmer (although the beginning of this entry might contradict that). The school year is almost over, or more than half over. Which is scary and depressing because I seem to have done absolutely nothing in almost 6 months at site. Some of my students seem to like me, my cps and I seem to get a long ok although a lot of the time I feel like we function on different wave lengths, and in different worlds, which is probably at least partly because we do.
There are somethings that amaze me about living here. For one the sky at night, do you know that Orian really does look like an archer, it is really quite amazing to me. I remember going through an astrology phase when I was younger. But it was a quick phase because I decided that the astrology stuff was crap because none of the stuff actually looked like anything (except the big dipper and little dipper), but now I can see that the Greeks and Romans might actually have seen something that really did (do) look like people. It is quite exciting and if I had the internet and a printer I would print out a sky chart so that I could see if I could find something besides the dippers, Orian and Casiopia. I guess this is a subtle hint that if someone is sending something to send me a sky chart.
I am hoping that the internet will come back soon. I bought an internet card today hoping to access the net, unfortunately the phone cord is broken. It seems that the world is conspiring against me having the internet.

February 1
Hello. I guess its been awhile since I posted. I am yet again without the internet. This is not entirely surprising. But it is quite depressing. I feel like I am living under a giant Mongolia shaped rock. But I guess that is ok, it sounds like most of the news is depressing anyway, and at least under a rock I don’t have to hear all the bad news. My most recent piece of news is that it is lambing season. I would think that if I were to chose an animal to raise in a country with winters like Mongolia I would pick one that has its young in a warmer part of the year, but I guess people didn’t make that choice did they. It is quite cold still, but not as cold as it was. I still have to have a fire going all the time im at home, but I guess that is also normal.
Otherwise things are quite dull. Tsaagan Sar (the white month or lunar new year) is coming quickly, in fact we have school the next 3 Saturdays in a row so we can have a break at Tsaagan Sar (why this makes sense I don’t know but I guess it must make sense to someone).