Catching up: First Semester at Site! (Part 1)

First off:  BIG APOLOGIES!  I know I've been terrible keeping up my blog, but it's a new semester ( I can't believe it!) at the college where I teach, so I have a clean slate!  My biggest enemy is the same one I had in the States:  time.  As you can expect, I'm keeping very busy here already, but I will try to make weekly to at least put in a brief entry.

For now, however, let me catch you up from the end of PST (Pre-Service Training) to the end of the first semester at the Teacher's College where I will work for the next two years.  Rather than give you a hideously long written entry, I'll share mainly through pictures!

As many of you know via e-mail, I received a new host family just a few weeks before the end of training due to unfortunate circumstances with my first host family.  It was hard starting over with a new family, but having better Mongolian language skills helped tremendously.  And my new family was wonderful.  I still keep in touch with them.

My newer host family had three children - a 14-year old girl, an 8-year old boy, and a 3-year old boy.  (The 3-year old may look like a girl in pictures with his long hair, but in Mongolian custom, children do not get their hair cut for the first time until about 3 years old.  Then, they go through a traditional Buddhist ceremony where the hair is cut; those who cut the hair are believed to blessed with good luck.)  I don't have any pictures of the 14-year old because I actually did not meet her until the week before I left training.  She was staying with relatives in another part of the country for the summer.

I still kept up with my former host mom and to a lesser extent the oldest of my first host brothers and his wife.  My first host mom actually came to our Host Family Appreciation Day picnic by the river in place of my newer family, who had to make an emergency trip to UB on that day.

Some pictures from Host Family Appreciation Day:

 

And our "official" training site group site, with our two LCFs (Language and Culture Facilitators...or language and culture teachers) Deegii and Orgio:

We printed and framed this picture each for Deegii and Orgio.

Finally came the time to leave our training sites, which was a bittersweet.  We were taken to the training hub in Darkhan, and that day, we were given our site announcements - the place we would spend the next two years, the rest of our time in Mongolia (for the most part).  All of the anticipation, the hopes, the dreams good and bad, culminated in this day.  We were taken to the children's park in Darkhan, where a large ground map of Mongolia is.  They started by calling out an aimag (province), a city or town, the specific host country agency (the place you would actually work), and lastly, our name.  Out of the 66 people in my group, my site and name were called second.  It was a little crazy and surreal.  I was lead to a point on the map that I did not know.  I only knew it was kind of in the middle of the country.

For the rest of the week, we learned about our sites, got lots of information ranging from policies and procedures to tips on how to continue learning and practicing Mongolian on our own.  And then, we met our supervisors.  I met Jackie, my supervisor at the teacher's college were I was to spent to work.  Jackie is not her real name, only the name that she has foreigners call her.  Her English is impressive, and she actually helped do some translating for other volunteers and their supervisors who spoke little or no English.

Then, at the end of the week, came the culminating event:  the Swearing-In Ceremony.  This event is a Peace Corps hallmark.  It is the event where one goes from being a trainee to an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).  Each and every PCV worldwide goes through this ceremony, of which the climax is the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, essentially the same oath taken by the U.S. President and other government officials.

On that day, we all dressed in our dels, or traditional Mongolian outfits.  My del is a winter del, and on that 90-degree-or-so day in Darkhan, I about died of heat stroke in mine, at least the few times we had to go outside.

My swearing-in picture with our country director Ellen and the U.S. Ambassador Jonathan Addleton:

Then, it was off to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, for a quick tour before headed to site.  A few of us went and saw Harry Potter and the Death Hallows, Part 2, in 3-D (in English with Mongolian subtitles) while there:

Then, it was off to site!  My site is the capital of an aimag (province) in western central Mongolia.  It considered one of the most beautiful areas of the country, and my city is one of the most beautiful, surrounded by mountains on many sides:

Bulgan Mountain and the aimag museum:

 
  

A shamanist shrine, known as an ovoo: 

My apartment building (with the red roof and green stripes):

And, of course, some pictures of the inside of my apartment.  These were taken on the first day I moved in, so everything is a little bare:

Ciarra, my training site mate and my site mate now as well, and I met Lauren (left), a professor visiting from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.  Lauren and I are now trying to work on creating exchange programs between WWU and the Teacher's College here.

During my first two weeks here, I attended my first Mongolian wedding receptions.  The actual wedding ceremony is held in a ger and is really only for family.  But the receptions are big affairs here, with lots of food, dancing, singing, toasting, and, of course, vodka.  At the first wedding I went to, I was asked to make a toast and sing to the new couple, whom I didn't know (they were the son and daughter-in-law of one of my counterparts).  I obliged and said a little in Mongolian and the rest in English, with one of my counterparts translating.  Singing and toasting that anyone can do and is kind of expected.  Below are pictures from the reception of my counterpart Lkhagva (seen in a white Mongolian shirt and a hat), who recently got married.  The reception was held in his ger.

My sitemates:  Tim has been here for a year already, and Ciarra and I came with the same group.  J.J. (Jae Jun) and Jong Cheon (who is by the window) are volunteers from KOICA (Korean Overseas International Cooperation Agency), which is essentially like Korean Peace Corps.  We hang out with them a lot.  A third volunteer, HyeJin, a woman, arrived in October.  Here, we're hanging out at Tim's apartment with Lauren and having good food, including homemade chili, past salad, and an apple pie!

...Tim and I both like to cook.

Anyways, I hope to do Part 2 of this update by tomorrow!  Then you can be fully updated, and I can keep up a bit better!

Bayarte!  (Goodbye!)