Bonding Time

A couple Saturdays ago I got home from hanging out with some friends and I was immediately pulled into the kitchen to help make dinner. I do not/cannot/don’t enjoy cooking, but I usually at least try to offer to help prepare things for the cooking, although I’m typically refused. Apparently I also cannot satisfactorily chop vegetables and meat. However, on this fine day I found something that I actually can do!

I can fold these!

I put my things away and went back to the kitchen where my family was making buuz, a Mongolian dumpling. My mom showed me how to get a bit of meat and then properly fold the dough around it. You only use your right pointer finger and both thumbs, and fold the dough between your right pointer and thumb as your left thumb shoves the meat into the resulting pocket. I was horrible at it. I was laughed at. I laughed at myself. But I kept trying, because it really didn’t seem all that hard, it was just a matter of getting it right.
We kept making buuz, and my pathetic attempts were kindly put into the steamer alongside the cute folded-pocket ones. After a while, I got better. My first slightly successful attempts were applauded and passed around the kitchen with awe. Finally, I could do something half right. A few buuz later mine were nearly indistinguishable from the rest! I was bonding with my host family! And dinner was delicious!

The following Saturday, my class/sector got together for a Mongolian cooking class, where I was deemed the buuz “expert.” While this is not necessarily true, it was good to know that the skill stuck and I’m somewhat more prepared to feed myself this winter.

On Sunday afternoon, the day after our buuz dinner, my family took me to the countryside. Keep in mind that mine and my family’s communication is incredibly limited, so I was told this by having the word “country” pointed to me in my Mongolian-to-English dictionary with them saying the word “tomorrow” in Mongolian, which I know. Other than that, the details were very unclear.

The packaged product of my demise

So around 5 I was herded into the car with my parents and younger children and we drove about 45minutes to the country. To get there we drove through old Darkhan, where we mysteriously stopped at the train station for about 10minutes, and then a store, where my dad got us all soda and packaged ice cream cones. From the store we drove a bit, including past a river where people were swimming that I desperately want to go to, and then we just pulled off the road onto an unmarked dirt road and went down that for a good while, until the city was no longer in view and we were officially in the country. It was beautiful. I rolled down my window and started taking pictures.

Eventually we pulled off the mysterious dirt road to a ger. I still do not know my family’s relation to these people. Friends? Relatives? I don’t know. But we hung out in their ger for a bit and they gave us milk tea while the adults talked. I’m essentially always part of the “children’s table,” although they don’t talk to me much either. After a while my mom and the other women took me down the hill to the other ger, a smaller, cooking ger, where we made a fire out of cow poop [баас] where we cooked noodle soup. After the soup got going I was basically left to my own devices.

The family’s ger was on a hill that over looked this beautiful, grassy valley where hundreds of cows, goats, and horses were grazing. Off in the distance, mountains enclosed the valley, which must have had a river, because the grass was a deep green. The ger-children took me around to see their family’s cows and goats and down to the valley to take pictures.
I met back with my mom and children at a different ger, where our host disappeared and came back with an adorable baby goat, which I immediately held and smothered in love. My host siblings also wanted to smother him in love, but there was a bit more smothering than loving going on. Eventually, prompted by the screams of the tiny goat, I intervened and declared baby goat-play time over. I asked to ride a horse, and I think they were going to let me, but I was wearing my Rainbows and a skirt, which admittedly, is not ideal riding apparel.

the Mongolian countryside

my host siblings love-smothering the baby goat

ger-child

I spent most of the afternoon taking pictures, but by the time the sun was beginning to set, around 9ish, I began to feel quite nauseous. I assumed it was just because I’d eaten a lot of sugar that day so I tried to quell it with plenty of water, but that didn’t really work. A sudden dust storm sent us back into the main ger for a while where I was taught Mongolian poker. Apparently my brain was only up for learning one new skill over the weekend, because I had no clue what was going on. Then my dad came over and said “goat,” (in mongolian), and put his finger over his throat in a slicing motion, which, as noted by Star Lord, is the universal symbol for killing someone/thing. It was finally time for the traditional Mongolian goat kill and I was ready. Except that I was nauseous and had cold sweats.

my host parents sniffing snuff during the dust storm

The women led me back outside, past the ram tied up to the ger, and headed toward the cows. Apparently we were gonna milk some cows while the men folk killed the goat. I thought about asking to watch the goat kill, and I probably would have if I had been feeling better, but instead I just went with it and headed toward the cows as well. Thankfully, I later learned that women aren’t actually allowed to watch animals being slaughtered, they’re just expected to prepare it after its been skinned, so my nausea helped me remain culturally appropriate.

I’ve milked a cow before, and I don’t know if its because I wasn’t feeling well, but this time around I wasn’t getting anything from that cow. While my mom and hostess milked several cows I sat around and tried not to be sick, which, while successful, was not tons of fun.

By the time we got back to the ger, complete with a freshly skinned goat carcass, I needed to tell my family that I wasn’t feeling well. We left soon after, but it was a shame to end the day that way. I’m sure everyone thought that the poor white girl got sick after she saw the innards of a goat, therefore bringing shame to my whole family and all of their ancestors.

In conclusion, I spent the next 12hours vomiting and then the proceeding 12hours in bed. While miserable, this did have the continued effect of further endearing me to my host family. They bought me apples and once I was feeling better they let me cook my own egg, which was a big step up.

Since recovering, life has gone back to its Mongolian normalcy.

This past Wednesday the whole Mongolia26 group got back together for several days of continued safety and informational sessions. I didn’t have a great time. It was awesome to see everyone else again, but getting constantly reminded about all the rules and regulations we have to follow is a bit of a downer. Also, going from being surrounded by 12 Americans to 73 Americans is quite overwhelming. But I got back to my host family yesterday afternoon and after processing everything I began to feel better about things again. I had my interview with our country director today, a truly fabulous woman, and it went really well. I’m definitely starting the week with a better mindset.

possibly what my deel will look like,
but hopefully without the pained facial expression

After I got back from my interview, my parents loaded me into the car with my little sister and we went to get fabric for my deel for Nadaam, a holiday coming up this weekend. I’m really excited for it and you’ll never guess what color it is!!....

A Day in the Life

view from my bedroom window

My days here in Mongolia are beginning to follow a pretty consistent schedule. Monday to Friday I go to language class from 9-1. It’s at a local elementary school, so I can walk there pretty easily. I come home for lunch and then go back to the school from 2:30 to 5:30 for our Technical Sessions, which is basically training for working within the health system.

The language is definitely hard, but I’m slowly improving. We got to choose if we wanted to be in the faster paced/advanced class or the slower/regular class, and I quickly chose the slower one. I’ve discovered that the hardest part is listening to people and then actually understanding them, but I think we’ll be working more on that soon. Our technical sessions are taught by two PCVs that are coming up on their 27mo mark this fall and a Mongolian woman who works for the PC.

Every Tuesday afternoon we go to our practicum sites where we meet up with a Mongolian counterpart (CP). My practicum is at the local health department and my CP is a midwife who also teaches prenatal and sex ed classes. It would be a perfect fit, except that she doesn’t speak any English and my Mongolian is basically useless at this point. I can’t even observe her prenatal classes because they’re in the morning during my language sessions, which I can’t miss. I’m not entirely sure how this will work out yet, but at least it’s just supposed to be training for our permanent sites, which will be much more prepared for our arrival.

my house with garden

My host family is still good. I’ve discovered that my house is by far the nicest out of anyone in my group, so I kind of lucked out there. Last weekend their oldest daughter, who lives in Ulan Battaar, came to visit with her two sons, but she went back on Sunday and left her sons here. I think they’re about 4 and 8, so the house has been a lot livelier this past week. I’m pretty sure my mom took time off “inspecting,” because she’s been home all week working in the garden. Communication with them is hard. I rarely know what’s going on, but I guess that’s not too different from usual.

As much as we have to do, I also have a lot of down time. I’m reading a ton, so any book suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I managed to watch the last few episodes of GoT. Next month we’re going into UB for the weekend, where I fully plan on seeing the new Jurassic Park, even if I have to fake sick to carve out an afternoon in our schedule.

room from corner

room from other corner

I feel like this is a boring blog post, haha. I mean, I’m adjusting to Mongolia really well, particularly in my house, where there isn’t much adjusting to be done. Our lack of a planned schedule is bothering some people, but India got me pretty used to that. There are still a ton of rules, but I haven’t managed to break any major ones yet! Covering my arm tattoo is a must for any non-casual situation, which is basically every situation with the PC, so that’s getting a bit old. It’s surprisingly hot here. Since we got to Darkhan it’s been in the 90s most days, but

it’s a dry heat with a good breeze. No rain yet, but this is the desert. So far I’ve consumed horse, but no alcohol of any sort, so it’s kind of surprising that my liver hasn’t gone into shock/withdrawal. Nadaam, a sporting holiday, is during the second week of July and I’ve been told that I’ll probably be able to try some fermented horse milk then.

Darkhan

first hotel

I can’t believe that I’ve been in Mongolia for hardly a week. I feel like its been so much longer, but I’m sure that’s because we’ve done so much in just a week. Right now I’m in Darkhan, the second biggest city in Mongolia, at my host family, but we’ve been here since Tuesday.

On Tuesday we left the first hotel outside of UB (Ulaan Baatar) and took a bus to Darkhan. We were split up into two buses, so I was back with the group I was with in San Francisco. We drove through some suburbs, which were surprisingly modern and cute, and through UB. In usual Asian fashion, we stopped in the parking lot of a grocery store for about an hour for no apparent reason, but it gave me plenty of time for a first look around a Mongolian grocery store. It was pretty awesome, but then again, I am weirdly fascinated by non-American grocery stores.

Once we got on our way we drove for about four hours across the northern Mongolian countryside. It was absolutely stunning. I had previously not been feeling too well, as coffee isn’t really a thing here so one could say I was experiencing “withdrawal,” but as soon as I realized what we were passing I opened my window, put my camera around my neck, and stuck my head out. I think someone has pictures. I took about 200 hundred pictures, but deleted about a third of them. For some reason pictures taken from a bus window while careening at 50mph over roughly paved highway doesn’t make for the best picture quality.

We checked into another hotel in Darkhan and spent the next three days at the local college in various orientation and training sessions. Here we got broken up into our sector groups for the first time, so I actually got to get a visual on the rest of the Health people, although there’s only 12 of us. Current PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) are helping with our orientation and continued training, which will last until August, so its nice to have them as an additional resource for questions about our potential jobs and such.

On Friday afternoon we were separated by our sectors and taken to our host family communities. Since Health needs to be close to a city for resources and our practicum sites, we stayed in Darkahn, but other groups are in small communities as far as an hour or more out of the city. We won’t be back together as a group until the beginning of July, which is a shame, but luckily my friend Ophelia (Feebee) is also in Health.

My host family is certainly not what I expected, which isn’t a bad thing. A lot of people are staying gers (yurts) or in houses that don’t have electricity or plumbing, but I’ve got all of that. My house is in a nice area, has three floors, and honestly, is nicer than a lot of houses in America. My room is off the main floor with a window that over looks the fenced in yard that is completely filled by a fruit garden. I can even flush the toilet paper here, which is a real delight since in the rest of the country the plumbing can’t handle it so you have to throw the tissue in a basket by the toilet, which stinks (literally).

I have a host mom, who is an officer (I’m not sure of what), a host dad, who’s a driver, a host brother, who is 25 and works at a gym, and two host sisters, who are 27 and 11. There’s another sister who lives in UB with her family, so I haven’t met her. But everything is really good. I was disappointed that there weren’t any animals or small children, but this is just fine. I’m definitely not roughing it. Although I did just get my hair stuck in my overall strap, so clearly life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

For the next 11weeks I’ll live here and have classes at a local school during the week on the Mongolian language and technical training on health in Mongolia. My little host sister has already tried teaching me all of the vocab she has in her English book for school, but in Mongolian, so at least I know I’ll have a tutor.

Peace Corps- Mongolia

May 31, 2015

Last Tuesday, after living at home in Nashville for nearly a year, I embarked on a plane to San Francisco for two days of Peace Corps Pre-Service Training. I went with three bags and a backpack, the contents of which will allegedly sustain me for two years of Mongolian living, so packing was a bit of a challenge.

I arrived at the hotel in San Francisco about 30min shy of our first meeting, so I immediately went to my room to put down my bags and take off my pants. Luckily, my roommate did not choose this time to appear. I was told to bring plenty of business casual clothes for working in, but I soon learned that dressing in business casual is basically expected at all times. So I changed and went downstairs to fill out more paperwork. Immediately, I had to be social and outgoing, and I somehow managed it because I was able to make a few friends.

my group, so about half of us

On Wednesday and Thursday of Pre-Service Training, all 74 of the Mongolia26 team was split in two and had various sessions from 8:15am to about 5:30pm. Friends were made, presentations were seen, information was leaned.

Friday morning, at 4:30 am, we met in the hotel lobby and made our way to the airport.  Surprisingly, we were not accompanied by anyone from the Peace Corps on our flights, so we were kind of just left to our own devices. Our flight to Seoul didn’t actually leave until 10:30, but with such a large group we were given plenty of time in case things went wrong. 

horrible, no tv plane

The plane for this flight, which was a bit over 12hours, was quite old and didn’t have TVs on the back of each seat, which, honestly, I didn’t even realize was still a possibility for international flights. So once I realized that I couldn’t entertain myself with movies and tv for next half a day, while incased in a metal tube at an absurd altitude while traveling across the Pacific Ocean, saying I was “disappointed” was a bit of an understatement. Obviously I survived, but it was a close call.

We got to Seoul and spent about 5hours at the airport. The Seoul Airport is lovely and should set the standard for airports across the world. I was able to eat, drink, and nap, and the other half of the group took showers. Thankfully, we flew Korean Air to Ulaan Baatar, which was another 3hour trip, but so much more luxurious compared to the United travesty from earlier. I lucked out and didn’t have anyone sitting next to me, so I just laid down and slept the whole flight, which was almost a shame since there was a solid movie selection. 

sign at the UB airport

Finally, we reached Mongolia around 12:30am, very early Sunday morning. So somehow I lost a day in there, but I’m just not going to think about it too hard. We were met at the airport by a lot of staff from the PC Office, and after collecting our bags we loaded onto buses and drove another hour to a large hotel about an hour out of Ulaan Baatar. Absolutely exhausted, I went to bed around 2:30am.

Today, which is Sunday, May 31^st, we didn’t have to be at brunch until 10, so we were able to actually get some sleep. After that we went into more info sessions that were more geared towards Mongolia, but still pretty broad. We had some more medical and immigration paperwork, but it got done in alphabetical order, so I got out in pretty good time.

This afternoon a bunch of us went out on a walk around the hotel, which turned into a surprise hike. We went up a big hill with a trail, which ended in a gorgeous overlook. However, Julie (my roommate) just came back into the room and told me that hiking has officially been banned. So there’s that.

MONGOLIA

Tomorrow we have more info sessions and I think I get a couple more shots. On Tuesday we go to a city called Darkhan where we’ll eventually be sent off into our home stays. Since Health is the smallest sector, my group will stay in a fairly close proximity and stay together for training during the next 11 weeks.

Hopefully I can post again before we get into home stays, because then I really won’t know how frequently I get internet access. I’d also like to apologize for the quality of this post. I haven’t blogged since I left India and apparently it’s a mindset I need to get back into. Until next time!