End of PST (Pre-Service Training), Part 1

It’s very strange to think that PST (Pre-Service Training) is done.  Had there been more reliable access to the Internet – and we actually had WiFi at my site…most of the time – and had we not been kept quite so busy, I would have kept this blog better updated.  Now it’s the end of PST and there are almost too many thoughts and experiences to sum up.  But I will try.

Reflecting back, what comes to mind most prominently is simply the wide range of unique experiences I’ve had so far in Mongolia.  I remember sitting and milking a cow at my friend and sitemate Caitlin’s host family’s khashaa (yard) and thinking to myself, “When in my life would I, a self-confessed city boy, do something like milk a cow?  What would be doing with myself right now back home in the U.S.?  Probably something far less interesting or unique.” 

In addition to milking a cow, I’ve had numerous other unique experiences, among which include:

*Attending Naadam, one of Mongolia’s two great national holidays (the other one, Tsagaan Sar, is in February) in my training soum (village) of Dulaankhaan in July.  There we watched the Three Manly Sports of wrestling, archery, and horse racing.  (I actually only was able to see the first two.)  We also tried Mongol airag, Mongolian’s famed fermented mare’s milk drink.  A truly uniquely Mongolian experience.

*Learning a traditional Mongolian dance with my sitemates that we performed at the swearing-in ceremony (more on that later).

*Learning the Mongolian waltz and having the opportunity to dance it at community dances.  Also, I had the opportunity to learn a few popular Mongolian songs.  Mongolians love to sing and sing with no reservations, which I love.  Singing is a major part of any celebration, and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to sing.

*Learning to cook traditional Mongolian food, including my favorites buuz (steamed dumplings) and khushuur (fried dumplings).  Perhaps my favorite cooking experience was cooking a traditional meat roast with hot stones in a pot over an open fire, usually by the river.  This is a tradition I hope to take home with me to the U.S.

*Going swimming in the beautiful local river at least once a week on hot days and relaxing on the sandy beach on the river’s shore.

*Going hiking with sitemates and seeing the beauty of Dulaankhaan and northern Mongolia from high places.

*Hitting up the local karaoke bar with sitemates and some of our host siblings to celebrate birthdays – those of Marikaa and Daniel – or just to celebrate the end of a particularly arduous week.

*Teaching English to local children and adults and not only receiving great practice but building relationships in the process.

*Cooking American food with our host families and having a huge food party to celebrate as part of a Peace Corps project.  I gorged myself that night. 

*Doing seemingly mundane activities that I would have little opportunity to do in the U.S., such as drawing water from a well with a bucket and rope or becoming completely accustomed to using an outhouse.  Activities such as doing laundry and bathing become triumphal when you wash your clothes by hand and when you bathe in a bucket using water you boiled yourself. 

*Getting to know the local children, who always wanted to play and practice their limited English.  On numerous occasions, I turned into a human jungle gym.  We often played tag and laughed until it hurt.

*Perhaps most of all, getting to know the local people on a personal level.  I cherish all of the memories of visiting the ger of a family that I was able to get to know multiple times and often going to the river to go swimming with them.  I loved going over to Caitlin’s very cool host family’s house and cooking spaghetti for them and having a dance party in the house.  Tungaa, the youngest of the family at 17 years old, decided to try on my size 14 running shoes sitting by the door, and we all laughed for about 10 minutes straight.  I remember going over to my sitemate Sam’s house to chat and ended up being included in his host mother’s birthday party along with my host mom and several other host moms and sitemates.  I can’t count how many times I visited various peoples’ homes and was given food and tea until I could eat no more.   We ended the summer with our host families by having a giant picnic with them and having even more memorable times together.

Of course, there were trials too.  I had to experience an unfortunate problem with my host family, specifically my host father, that forced me to move to another family.  I was never mad and felt bad that I had to leave my host mother, brother, and sister-in-law, as well as their baby, as I had formed good relationships with them.  Luckily, my new host family was wonderful.  My new host parents were so gracious as to take me in only a few weeks before the end of training, and I had a wonderful time with their three children, my new host siblings, a 14-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy, and a 3-year-old boy.

I also was unfortunately bitten by a dog twice after entering a sitemate’s khashaa.  Luckily, the bites were through my jeans and were not bad.   I definitely now have battle wounds from my time in Mongolia.

But all-in-all, training was a wonderful experience.  I feel so grateful for the experiences I’ve had and for the new relationships I formed with both Mongolians and Americans.

On the morning we left Dulaankhaan at the end of training, I remember pulling away from the house of my sitemate Ciarra’s host family.  As we left, her host mother was chanting a Buddhist prayer and throwing milk into the air behind us, as Mongolians have done for centuries to say goodbye to loved ones.  As she did, a few tears trickled down her face. 

More to come…

One Month in Mongolia, via pictures!

I can't believe I've been here one month!  (Incidentally, I started this post several days ago, but the Internet connection is not great, so it takes a while.)

Arrival at Chinggis Khan (yep, that would be the Mongolian name for Genghis Khan) International Airport in Ulaanbaatar!

First night in Mongolia.  A bunch of us trainees hiked to the top of a nearby hill by our ger camp for beautiful views of the surrounding countryside.

Brittney and I model our new tumpens - bucket/pot for bathing and washing - which also double as top hats.  ;-)

Buddhist shrine

Shamanist shrine

The Land of the Eternal Blue Sky

My bedroom at my host family's house.  =)

A view behind our hashaa (yard).

My one-year-old host niece.  So cute!

My host brother, sister-in-law, and niece.  And our house!

My host parents and me.

Visiting my host uncle's ger.

Outside of the ger.

Horseback riding!

This place is often quite magical.  

Sain bainuu!

It is so weird to think that I’ve been in Mongolia (only) 13 days.  It has been a whirlwind two weeks, and it is really difficult to sum it all up.  So, yeah, why try?  End of blog.

Just kidding! 

So, it's been a little crazy here, to say the least.  We keep quite busy, so I'll keep everyone updated as I can during training.  Let me just try to catch you up from shortly after arriving.  This will likely be in two parts.  Oh! and pictures will be posted soon!

The first week in Mongolia was essentially summer camp.  No, really.  Summer camp aspect one:  Bunk beds.  I haven’t slept in a bunk bed since I can’t remember, much less the top bunk.  I was afraid that the plywood board that also doubled as a mattress (or at least it felt that way) would give in, and that would be the end of Leo, the poor, hapless fellow trainee sleeping below.  Summer camp aspect two:   Cool new people.  And lots of them.  I’ve had a great time meeting and hanging out with a bunch of new people.  Summer camp aspect three:  Cafeteria food…Mongolia style!  The food was not bad, though I had my fill of mutton after about two meals.  And one morning, we received an American-style salad – complete with iceberg lettuce, olives, bell peppers, and dressing – for breakfast.  And we’re pretty sure it also become lunch, as the same ingredients (minus the lettuce), including the olives, appeared in the soup.  Summer camp aspect four:  Cold showers.  Ice cold.  But after going to my host family’s house, where there is no plumbing, I was grateful for those showers.

We spent our days going through various sessions on technical, medical, and safety information.  We also started our Mongolian language classes.  My training group of eleven people started with two Mongolian teachers, Deegie and Orgio, whose hometown is our training site, so they continue as our language teachers there.  And let me not kid you.  Mongolian is tough!  It makes feel like I could become fluent in Spanish in a matter of days.  (In fact, almost all of us at some point or another wanted to default to Spanish.  I walked into a store and almost started a conversation with, “Hola!  Como esta usted?”)  The sentence structure alone is challenging.  I’m little-by-little getting the hang of it.

Our last night before splitting up and heading to training sites involved an outing to a local Western-style club that proved to be a lot of fun.  Our first taste of Mongolian nightlife was a win!

The next day, two Thursdays ago, we divided up into training sites, boarded meekers (bus-vans), and headed to different soums (villages) that were to be home for the next 10 weeks.  My training group, all TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) trainees, is very cool.  Here are there names (and I expect you to remember them!):  Marikaa, Caitlin, Stephanie, Andrew, Jordan, Sam, Daniel, Ashley, Ciarra, and John.  Our group gets along very well, though we miss others at other sites.

My host family is very cool.  My host mother is a grade-school teacher, and my host father is a vegetable farmer who works a plot of land somewhere away from our family hasha (yard).  The two of them are actually not home very often and are sometimes gone for several nights at a time.  I’m not entirely sure where they go.  I noticed my host mother dressing up like she was going to a club, and when I managed to ask in my broken Mongolian, they said they were going to the capital for something related to a graduation (I only got a vague idea).  I have a host brother (22) and sister-in-law (20); the two have a cute nine-month-old baby.  The two are students who are off for summer break and are home all day taking care of the house.  I also have a younger host brother who is 16 and almost never home.  A third brother lives and works in Ulaanbaatar, and I have not (yet) met him. 

Needless to say, I spent the vast majority of my host family time with the oldest brother and sister-in-law.  Also, the baby loves me.  Not kidding.  She follows me around when I’m home, and I’ve started singing English-language kids songs to her to help quiet her down when she cries. 

The language barrier is quite frustrating.  I managed to have short conversations with my host family, but they are labor-intensive and require the heavy use of dictionaries and phrasebooks, of which I’ve somehow started a collection.  Peace Corps alone gave us two phrasebooks and a dictionary, and my host family graced me with yet another Mongolian-English dictionary, on top of the Lonely Planet phrasebook I brought from home.  I also do a lot of miming, which despite my acting experience seems minimally effective.  I look forward to when I can have a more substantive conversation with my host family, as well as other members of the community.

I live with the family in a house.  Only a few trainees are living in gers (traditional Mongolian round felt tents) for training; most of us are in houses.  The house has entry room somewhat equivalent to a covered patio and a good-sized main room used as a kitchen, dining room, and living room, complete with satellite TV and a DVD player.  And then there are two bedrooms, of which I have one.  Peace Corps requires the host family to provide each trainee with his or her own room.  I feel bad because I’m 99.9% positive I inadvertently kicked someone – or several someones – out of their room.  Several family members sleep in one of the bedrooms, and a few sleep on the fold-out sofa bed in the living area, though as noted, my HF parents and the youngest brother are often not home.  The house itself is comfortable.  There is electricity but not plumbing of any kind, which I expected.  There is a well from which we draw water with a bucket and rope (which is actually a lot of fun, largely because it is novel).  As for the toilet – which I know you all want to know – yes, it is an outhouse.  It basically is a room with a platform with two slits through which you do your business.  It’s surprising how quickly you become accustomed to it, and the outhouse itself is kept reasonably clean.  My fellow trainees and I joke – and completely truthfully – that we often hold it to race home and use our own outhouse, much like you wait to use your own toilet at home back in the States.  There is a sink-like contraption in the entry room that you manually put water in, and it works quite well for washing hands and brushing teeth.  And as for bathing, Peace Corps issued us each a plastic tumpen, or large bucket, in which to bathe.  As you can imagine, bathing is not daily as a result, but I’ve gotten very used to washing down in various ways and taking a full bath when possible.


Okay, enough for now.  I'll write more later!  

Greetings from Mongolia!

Sain bainuu! 

I'm finally here!  AND, I finally have some time to give a brief update!

Staging in San Francisco went well.  It was basically a full day of information and preparation for the upcoming two-year commitment.  We were divided into two groups by last name, and I was able to meet just about everyone with a last name beginning with H on.  (And I'm still working on the rest.)  We were placed into groups for travel from SF to Seoul to Mongolia, and I was elected as my group's leader. 

The night before staging I was able to meet up with my dear friends Dan and Monica one last time for one last Mexican meal and drinks before the spending the night with them and heading to staging at a hotel two blocks from their apartment.  After Staging, I went out to Thai food and drinks with two fellow volunteers and new friends Sara and Elliott.

The next morning, we checked out very early (5:30am) and headed to SFO for our 11:00am flight to Seoul.  We got there plenty early.  After getting through security, we inaugurated our trip with mimosas in a cafe near our gate.

The 12-hour flight to Seoul was gruelling and included no working reading lights in our section of the plane, extreme temperature changes, and a cranky flight staff who had to deal with 66 mostly twenty-somethings roaming around the cabin to socialize with each other (and not sit for 12 hours straight) and taking advantage of the free alcohol served aboard.

We arrived at our hotel by Incheon Airport much later than expected and exhausted.  Only a few souls ventured into Seoul (no pun intended), which was an hour away by bus both ways.  Most of us were tired and wanting to rest before arriving in Mongolia.

The next day, we finally made it!  After a three-hour plane ride, we made it to Ulaanbaatar (UB), Mongolia.  After clearing immigration and customs, we exited to the airport to the cheers of our very own paparazzi, otherwise known as the current Peace Corps volunteers who come to welcome us.  We stood around outside of the airport chatting with the current volunteers and finally loaded up our bags into a large truck.  We were rounded up into vans and driven to an immigration office for further documentation.  Then, we were taken by vans over a dirt road to a nearby ger camp.  The crazy 20-minute-or-so drive over the dirt was hilariously fun as we hit large divits in the road at high speed.

The ger camp we stayed at outside of UB was nestled in a little valley with hills and some forests surrounding.  It was a beautiful introduction to the country that will become home.  The camp itself was clearly designed for tourists and were not true gers (traditional Mongolian round felt tent dwellings).  They were more akin to cabins in the shape of gers and included indoor plumming.  We went through some more administrative work and then had dinner.  Our first meal in Mongolia featured an apparently typical dumpling dish filled with what we believed to be mutton.  It was quite good.  After dinner, we were free for the evening.  A large number of us hiked to the top of one of the nearby hills and got a view of the distant mountains. 

The next day after breakfast, we were loaded onto buses and once again spent some time in transit.  This time, we drove to a city in the north, which is where we are now.  We are staying at a large secondary school in dorms and are going through a week-long orientation before being sent in smaller groups to small villages for training and to live with host families.  We've even started our Mongolian language classes, which so far are really fun.  The language is definitely challenging, but I'm enjoying it for sure.

The whole experience so far feels a little like summer camp, with planned activities all day long and lots of cool new people.  I think that the true, full reality of living in this country for two more years has really set in, but it will come.  I know it will be hard at times, but I am happy to have a new set of friends who are going through the same experience and can support each other.  I'm looking forward to the challenge, despite the worries and anxieties. 

Right now, I'm writing from an Internet cafe across from the school.  Internet access for us has been spotty, so I'll so what I can to write.  I do miss people back home, but so far, I'm having a wonderful time.  The real challenges are yet to come, but I feel more and more ready to meet them.

Quick First Post: The adventure begins!

Things have been a crazy whirlwind getting ready for this new adventure in my life.  I've been meaning to put in my first post for a while but have no time.  Packing, preparing my life to go to a new place...it's all so crazy!  The mix of emotions I've experience the last few days and weeks is almost undescribeable...excitement, anxiety, doubt, exhaustion...but mostly excitement.  I just finished the staging orientation in San Francisco, and now tomorrow, we're off to Seoul for a night, followed by Mongolia!  I'm having a great time.  A lot of the jitters and crazy mix of emotions have lessened now that I've met the other volunteers.  I've already formed new friendships!  Looking forward to this new chapter in my life!