Holiday Roundup

I got back from IST on Monday. It`s good to be home, because the air is much better here and I`m not spending my month`s living allowance in a week. UB is kind of in a bowl surrounded by mountains and the smoke from the ger districts in the hills settles on the city. We go through money so fast because all the food is more expensive and there`s actually stuff to buy. I didn`t do any shopping this time, but I`ll stock up in two weeks when I go back for a mercy corps meeting.

IST was a mixed bag for me. Every day we had language and technical sessions plus the odd medical and admin meeting. All the language sessions were really good. I learned a lot of new stuff and filled in some holes from the summer. I was disappointed with the technical sessions. The point was to get people to go to sessions that were outside their area, but I thought that the business sessions were too general for us and too specific for anyone else. We`ll be the last business volunteers in Mongolia so we can`t change anything for next year, but we have had a few people come up and ask how they can help businesses at their site. We talked to peace corps and they`re letting us come in a bit early for our next training to work on some general business sessions for other volunteers. This also fits in with their goal of integrating business with the new youth development program. We hope to do some work with new trainees this summer to replicate some of our training.

Spending Christmas in UB was more fun than I thought. The medical officer had a party at his house on Christmas eve with good food and there was even a gift exchange. On Christmas day, I went to a friends aparment and help make pancakes and hot chocolate. Here are a few pictures of Nukht and holiday decorations around UB. You`ll be glad to know that the war on Christmas hasn`t reached Mongolia.

PS, here`s a comment I got from my friend Jeremy`s father.

I'm Jeremy Green's dad and I came upon your blog a couple months ago while surfing the Web and checking out Mongolia-related sites. I very much enjoy reading your blog, particularly since you're based near Jeremy and are in the same class as him; reading about your experiences gives me a better appreciation for what he's going through as well. All of us admire what you and the other volunteers are doing in Mongolia. I know it can't be easy, but I hope it's rewarding. I'm sure the experience and confidence you and the other volunteers gain will help you the rest of your lives--no matter what you end up doing after your tour is over. Keep up the great work, and happy holidays.

I`m never sure who actually reads my blog so it`s good to hear from new folks. Please comment with suggestions and encouragement (especially encouragement) and send the link around to anyone interested in Peace Corps or Mongolia.

Pre IST

I'm leaving for IST (in service training) tomorrow morning. We get to spend four days at a resort called Nukht. It't 20 km outside of town in the mountains and they refer to it as a "three star" resort. That should mean hot showers and tiolet seats. Score! It's the first time all the remaining M16s are together since swearing in. We've had a few ETs early terminations), mostly for medical reasons. IST will consist of hours of playing in the snow, drinking, and some kind of "training sessions". Each volunteer is supposed to bring their "counterpart" or main coworker. I've heard stories of hanky panky involving volunteers and counterparts so some of us have started refering to IST as prom. We'll see what happens. There should be plenty of gossip by the time the week is over. I got a glimpse of that when I took a Mongolian girl to lunch last week. Actually, my tutor fixed us up. A few days later I hear about it from my counterpart. Apparently, she heard about it from a friend who heard about it from the owner of the restaurant we went to. It's a very small country.

Well, I'm looking forward to spending some time with my fellow CEDs and attending a session about teaching large, multi-level classes. That will be valuable when I start teaching at the market when I get back to site. I'll post some pictures when I get back to site. For now, here are some from a trip I just took to Khangai soum.

Oh, and thanks to who ever followed by brother's orders and sent me a card. The only ones I've gotten so far are from Nicole of worththetime. Thanks again Nicole.

21 Months to go

Today is the 6 month anniversary of my arrival in Mongolia. So far I've made a lot of new friends, learned the language, and seen a good bit of the country. Since my trip to UB I have a lot of new ideas for what I want to accomplish at work. And after interviewing transalators all day on Friday, I think we found someone I can work with. I should get a lot more done now. I'm also starting my english lessons at the market. I got some advice from a sitemate who's been teaching here for a year. She said that with mixed ability classes you should start with the basics. I've never taught reading before, but I think she's right. I'm not sure what to expect, but I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck.

Hands Down

What an amazing trip! After I finished work on Thursday I went over to our country director`s house to catch the last of Thanksgiving dinner. I managed to get a turkey wing, some veggies, and pie. Then we went to a party at a volunteer`s apartment nearby, then to kareoke, then to a club. It was a preivew of what IST (in service training) will be like in three weeks when 40+ volunteers from my group are all together for the first time since training. IST is being held at a resort outside UB then most of us will go into town to celebrate Christmas. There`s bound to be plenty of foreigners to talk to again. I`ll have to pace myself this time. Combined with the bad air in the city my throat was soar from talking to British people about British politics and an Israeli guy about Israeli politics. Hopefully there are some Canadians there next time.

I noticed one more contrast in UB that I forgot to mention in my last post. Check this out.

Yes, that is the Grand Khan Irish Pub where I enjoyed breakfast with my Irish VSO friend Lorraine. I suggested it was like naming a Mongolian restaurant after Brian Boru.

Update

I'm staying in UB until Sunday, but I thought I'd let you guys know how my trip is going so far.

Visiting Arvaiheer was definitely worth it. My office hired a driver for me so I had the car to myself. Drivers usually cruise around trying to fill every possible inch of a vehicle before leaving town here in Mongolia. The trip only took six hours on mostly paved roads and I had a great fried chicken meal when I got there. No restaurants serve chicken in Arkhangai and Peace Corps medical has lifted the ban of eating it. I then checked into the my friend Laura's office. She works for the Gobi Initiative, another Mercy Corps operation. Their offices have a lot more people and are more established. Most have them have a few English speakers so it's easier for volunteers to get stuff done. I don't even have a dedicated translator so I can't interact much with clients. They're working on finding me someone though. The visit was worthwhile, because I learned more about their operation and the kinds of activities and trainings they do. Laura has been involved in two trade fairs and brought a county fair feeling to both. I'll be working on one for my aimag most of next year and I got plenty of advice and examples to take back with me to Arkhangai.

On Friday, we went to the Loar's (Sierra and Jesse) ger to watch a movie and eat pizza. Apparently Laura and her husband, Hector, do this every week. Jesse made the dough and we each got to cook our own pizza in an electric wok. When we arrived there was an exchange of goods that the Loar's had just brought back to UB. Living in Mongolia outside of UB is kind of like being in prison. You're always waiting for a package from your family or ordering contraband deliveries.

I took my first Mongolian bus from Arvaiheer to UB on Saturday. I got there on time and waited an hour and a half for the bus, aisles included, to fill with people and cargo. This was a more typical Mongolian travel experience, but at least I had enough leg room. This trip took eight hours on good roads and my ipod lasted the whole way thanks to my tune juice. I got a cab to the UB Guesthouse, which except for being really hard to find the first time, is a great place to stay. They have hot showers, free DVDs and internet, laundry service, and a plethora of foreigners to talk to. Sadly, they lack sexy, sexy dancers.

This is my first trip to UB since July and on that trip we were sheparded around by our trainers. Now I really have a chance to explore the city and, believe it or not, I can find my way around pretty well. I've been working most of the day, so I haven't been able to do many tourist things. I'll have to wait until I'm actually on vacation. At Mercy Corps headquarters, I've learned more about the whole program and now I realize why RASP doesn't have the same programs as Gobi. We're a much younger program and our offices are smaller. I'm hopping to bring some of Gobi's methods and input to my office though. That's how volunteers can help, because the two programs don't really talk to each other enough.

I'll have more to say about UB after our Thanksgiving dinner at the country director's apartment tonight. A few things that have struck me so far are all the contrasts that exist between UB and the rest of the country and within the city itself. First, to understand how important UB is to the country you'd have to put the 20 largest cities in the US into one and place it around St. Louis. Everything in the country goes through UB including most roads and rail lines. It's the only place you can get luxury items like real cheese and coke light (diet coke) so every volunteer comes here with a shopping list.

The contrasts within the city are small, like a guy in a del selling time on a mobile phone, or just odd like Los Bandidos the Mexican/Indian Restaurant, Strings the club with the incredible Philipino cover band named Nightshift, and Marco Polo the Italian restaurant with the strip club upstairs (so I hear). There's also the fact that most service workers speak English so when I ordered "sharsen toomc" at Dublin Irish pub the Mongolian waiter replied "yes, french fries".

The driver picked me up early so I didn't have time to burn pictures, but I'll take more and put up some galleries next week. For now, you'll have to enjoy this picture my friend Amazing Ben made of me as Ghengis Khan.

Priceless.

I don’t do windows

I had dinner at my tutor’s house with one of my sitemates last night. Otgoo, my tutor, brought some fish from her family’s house by Lake Hovsguul. Being in a landlocked country, I haven’t had fish in a long time. It was good, but the highlight of the evening was getting to watch cable TV. They have a few random English programs like this channel called NOW which just has weird shows about racing and video games. Then there is the German channel that does Deutschcentric news in English once a day. I am always surprised to see what American things they choose to dub into Mongolian. I watched, in a ger with a bunch of herders, the movie Wonderland with Val Kilmer as John Holmes. That was helpful. I was not sure how "wad" translated before.

Oh, you are wondering about the headline. Over here, all the apartments have two sets of windows and you have to seal them well or else you will lose all your heat. I tried before, but after a lot of banging and caulking (hee hee) there was still a draft. So, Otgoo said she would send some of her students over to help me. Apparently, that is normal here. So today three teenage girls come over, I give them a bucket (to clean the windows) and some duck tape, and they went to work. Luckily, I got two rolls in the mail, because they used it all. Now all the windows are sealed and it is a stable 67 degrees. I might have to break out the space heater later though.

I have plenty of warm clothes to wear on my trip next week. I (actually my mom) bought four pairs of long underwear of varying weights before I left. They go from silk to fleece, but I only wear the silk ones when I’m alone. They make me feel sexy. What? Oh well, I think I will post a bunch of galleries when I am in UB and the internet is faster. Expect more from there next week.

Traveling Man

Hey, gang. I know it’s a while since I rapped at yeah, but I’ve been really busy. The business plan for the dairy market is coming along. I have a much better sense of what goes into a plan after working on the word and excel portions. Other than that, work has been slow and I was somewhat disappointed that I did not have more too. I think the main thing is that my office has never worked with a volunteer and my job was always going be less well defined than a teacher’s was. That’s why it was good that one of the Mongolian program staff came out from UB to check on me. She gave me some good ideas as to how I could be more productive. For instance, I didn’t know that my counterpart was translating stuff into English herself and leaving sections incomplete. Now she asks me for more help and our respective language skills are getting better.

One of the other suggestions was for me to teach a community class. I sort of resented the idea of having to teach English at first, but now I see that it can really businesses. Therefore, I came up with idea of teaching a class at the local market. I could teach the vendors how to say the names of all the items they sell in English and how to give prices etc. By the time all the tourists come back next year, they will be able to talk to them. We talked to the market manager and he said it was a good idea. My counterpart also suggested I teach at the government building. I will see what the demand is, but with two classes and work, I should have plenty to do.

I also heard that Mercy Corps approved my big Thanksgiving trip so now I will be going to visit another volunteer at a Gobi Initiative office and spend a week in UB. My sitemates are already jealous that I get to visit other parts of the aimag. Most volunteers just go from home to school and only travel on Peace Corps business and for vacation. This trip means I will be going once a month from hear until February. I’d better save my money now.

Here is a map of the trip. Tsetserleg is the farthest west. Averheer, in the Gobi, is in the south and UB is the easternmost point. After this trip I will have made a big circle through the center of the country. I might get to go to more places in the Gobi and maybe even out to the far west next year. (Update: This map shows all of my travels as of November 1st, 2006.)

Here is a picture of me out side a hotel shaped like a giant ger. It was in Choolot soum. I got to go along on a bakery technology training there this weekend. I basically just watched a bunch of women bake cookies, bread, and cake for two days and was repeatedly ordered to taste everything. I love my job sometimes.

Turn the page

I just got back from another long trip and after being on the road for a week I can understand ow Bob Seeger felt, minus the groupies and song writing of course. We went to seven soums in six days and all the trainingins were conducted in gers. I didn't get much of an introduction to the students, but afterwards they all wanted to see is I would vodka. This isn't regularvodka, mind you, it's vodka made from milk. In fact, they have a wide variety of products all made from milk, curd, or whey all of which I managed to sample on the trip. They were all pleased to see that I would try each of them. I didn't have to speak much, but I did sing the one Mongolian song I know. I have to learn some more before the holidays.

I might have a big trip to UB and one of the Gobi offices coming up before Thanksgiving. That would be good, because it wouldn't come out of my leave days and I didn't think I'd get to see te Gobi at all. I'll still be in UB for Thanksgiving and Christmas too. In other news, a blurb about the Ambassodor's visit to my office last month made it into the quarterly report to the USDA, which funds my program. Also, I'm finally working on a new business plan after just reading plans and reports. It's for the dairy market I wrote about earlier. I translated financial section and did a spreadsheet for it. I might get to meet with them again and work make some comments this week.

In honor of my last trip, and because I didn't take many pictures, I uploaded all my pics from the last trip to Tariat in this gallery. Click on the collage to access the gallery.

I'm dreaming of a white...Day of Liberation from the French (Laos).

Thanks earthcalendar! If it had snowed yesterday, I could have used Antifascist Uprising Day (Macedonia). Oh well, it's cold now, but it will probably warm up again this week. I'm going on another trip this Friday to seven soums. I know I don't need work clothes this time. I'm not sure if I need long underwear. I've been wearing my lightest pair when it looks cold out. They're all silk so they're light and they feel like wearing an all-body silk stocking. Not that I've ever worn silk stockings. What?

I got a new package with the Lost season one DVDs and a bunch more food. I now have every single Asian side Lipton makes. I won't have to go out to lunch for a long time. There's this place called Fairfield here that I usually go to. They have good food and desserts. It's not so good for my waistline...er...budget. They say it's run by a British couple, but I think it was put here by the devil.

I finally got a language tutor. Right now we're working our way through the book Peace Corps gave me. It's a lot harder than the one from summer, but it's good to speak with someone outside of work. Munkjin from Peace Corps in here now to check on us volunteers. I get to sow her my office and apartment tomorrow.

I'll do a new post once I get back. I've been thinking of recounting some stories I forgot to mention before. I'll start a lost posts feature later too.

How I'm livin'

Editor's note: Invisotext ON!
Hey gang. I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but I've been really busy. We had a huge party/consolidation drill at my apartment complete with trivial pursuit peace corps conference calls, drinking games, and sexy sexy dancers. I had to leave for a week long business training trip in Tariat, but the others from my aimag stayed behind to drink heavily and contemplate the three peace corp goals. I didn't have much to contribute to the training, because my Mongolian hasn't reached the economist level. The curriculum was really comprehensive though and RASP brought in trainers from UB who have a lot of experience. We got to visit a national park and see a volcano, a bunch of caves, and white lake which has really cool. It was better because I had forgotten about the volcano and just thought we here climbing a hill. It took me a while to figure out what the big round cliff was. I'll post some pics in a gallery.

After getting back from Tariat, I got to go around with this consultant from Australia who was advising our clients. It was his second time here so he could tell me how they had changed. The meetings took up the whole weekend, but now I have more first hand knwoledge. One of our new clients will be the local dairy and meat market which is a hellhole and has some problems. I think that will become a long term project.

I'll post some pics of my apartment which have only been slightly photoshopped in another gallery.

Me Teach English? That's unpossible!

Most Peace Corps volunteers in Mongolia right now are here to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL). I'm a Community Economic Development volunteer, but during training they told us that no matter what your title is your coworkers would want you to teach them English. The trainers had us prepare a short lesson on a basic English topic to teach to a class. I chose introductions as is "hello, my name is" and "how are you?". I wrote down all the words in a conversation, one each, on pieces of paper and copied them. My students were older and they could read all the words. The hard part was getting them to come up in front of the class and practice. Apparently it's because it's not how they did it when the schools were taught "Russian" style. I though I took care of that by liberally sprinkling my dialouges with comrade and decandent westerner. It worked out fine, but I still didn't know what to expect when I got to work.

Sure enough, during my first week they asked me to teach English. I'd heard about other volunteers organizing once weekly classes, but my office is pretty small and I didn't think that would work. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to have a counterpart who speaks English. When I asked which person that was one of the Mongolian's pointed at my counterpart who then started giggling. This continued for a while and I thought she really didn't speak English, but it turns out she's just shy and wanted me to help her with speaking.

I borrowed a couple TEFL books and copied a few pages I thought she could use and gave them to her to read. I wasn't sure what level she was at, but she understood everything and read better than she thought. Now the hard part is getting her to pronounce "f's" and "th's" which aren't really used in Mongolian. That's something I can correct without holding a class. Needless to say, I have more respect for TEFL people now. Just don't tell them.

New Address and Mongolia FAQs

Here is my new address which you can print out and stick on packages and letters. I look forward to hearing from all of you and to receiving many packages. And now on with the questions.

Many people (ie my mom) have been asking questions about what life is like in Mongolia. So, I decided to answer them all (hopefully) in one round-up.

Q) What language do they speak in Mongolia?
A) In Mongolia they speak Mongolian. I wasn't quite sure of this myself until I got a practice CD in the mail from Peace Corps. The language is in the Ural-Altaic family of languages which also includes, Finnish, Turkish, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Korean. Don't ask me how Finnish got in there. The language now uses the Cyrilic alphabet and the Mongolians seem to think it reflects their language better than the old vertical script. I've met some Americans who are very good at speaking Mongolian and I'm making pretty good progress.

Q) Are all Mongolians nomads and live in yurts?
A) First of all, in Mongolia the large, round, felt tent is called a ger. And no, despite what Julia Roberts would have you believe, many Mongolians live in cities, drive cars, and have cell phones and cable TV just like anyone else. In fact almost half the countries population lives in the capital Ulaan Baatar. Everywhere that isn't a city or town is referred to as the Hoodo (think country), but herders often come into cities for supplies, information, or to visit relatives. Many of them own jeeps, trucks, or motorcycles.

Q) Isn't it cold?
A) That was the first thing I thought about too, but there are seasons here. Summer was pretty hot. There was some rain, but the climate is generally pretty dry. Fall has already started and it's a bit cooler. I've heard of snow in September so you won't have to wait long for winter pictures. It can get down below -40 degress F, but I here it only reaches -20 F where I am. It's as warm as the Gobi!

Q) What's the food like?
A) Meat is such a large portion of the diet here that they don't consider sausage to be meat. They call it "hyam" and it's a regular feature of meat-free dishes. They use lots of carrots, onions, and potatoes and make a lot of dishes with a simple dough of water and flour. They don't use a lot of spices, but do use lots of fat, salt, and oil. They're kind of shocked when you alter one of there recipes to add flavor. You can get all kinds of food in UB and Peace Corps gives you a cookbook that I look forward to using.

Q) What about the mare's milk and milk tea?
A) Dairy products are also a large part of the diet, especially in Summer. The fermented mare's milk, called "airag", tastes just the way you think it would. I don't much care for it, but I've heard two regions claim to have the best. I'll let someone else decide. The milk tea, called "soo-te-tse", is OK. It means "tea with milk", but it is really a bit of green tea mixed with a lot of milk and salt. If you are offered tea, you will get milk tea.

Q) What are you doing there?
A) Good question. I've asked myself this many times. I'm working for the Rural Agro-Business Support Program which is run by Mercy Corps and funded by the USDA. They concentrate on helping small, agriculturally related businesses through training, loan facilitaion, and business planning. I'll be helping with some computer and English training soon, but I'm still finding my place. It's a great operation that mostly lets Mongolians help each other and it should be a great experience.

Well I hope that that answered a few of your questions. Feel free to comment or send me an email.

I swear (or affirm)

I (state your name) am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer. The swearing in ceremony last Saturday was pretty impressive. The US ambassador and the President N. Enkhbayar both gave speeches and all the host families were there to say goodbye to their trainees. People from each training site got to perform traditional Mongolian songs, dances, and poems. The audience couldn't believe that we'd only been in the country for three monthes. It was great to see everyone in all in dels or Mongol shirts and the host families really enjoyed it.

I've been at work in Tsetserleg for a almost a week now. I had heard from other business volunteers that you spend the first 3 months reading and getting familiar with the operation and I thinkthey were right. Right now my Rural Agro-Business Support (RASP) office works with about 12 businesses in Tsetserleg and in nearby soums (towns). I've been reading their business plans and in a couple of weeks I get to travel to the soums to help with trainings. Tsetserleg is nice and there are a lot of foreign tourists passing through. I'm not sure how many I'll see in winter though. I'm still getting settled in my apartment and figuring out where things are. I want to go hiking and check out the mountains also.

More pics

Some shots from our business seminar. I can send you my presentation if you want.










Some pics of my host family and I plus a little going away party with Curtis and his family.











Big group shot. Some trainees at our Darkhan pub crawl. All the Khotol people at Vita's birthday party. .

Training Wrap-Up

Training is almost over and we're all back in Darkhan for our last medical and technical sessions. On Monday we got our Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) scores and site placements. It was a great day because I got an Intermediate Low (up from a Novice High at Mid LPIs) and I found out that I'm going to Tsetserleg, Arkhangai. It's supposed to the nicest provence and I'll be living in the capital in an apartment. We swear in and officially become Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) on Saturday. The ambassador administers the oath and various dignitaries as well as all of our host parents will attend. Each group of trainees is doing a performance and one representative from each is doing a speech in Mongolian. I have a Mongolian shirt and hat to where. After that we get to go to UB for a couple days to buy stuff for our sites. I'll do another post about swearing in with more pics from swearing in. Now, though here are some pics from my summer in Hotol and from our two trips to a monastery nearby. Click on the pictures or links to get to the galleries.

Business Seminar

Things are really good here. We had our business seminar yesterday and it went great. We had a full house (almost 20 small business people and students from our town) and all three of our presentations went over well. Peace Corps let us use their LCD and I used my computer for powerpoint on two of the presentations. I'm really glad I brought it because we wouldn't have been able to do the seminar with out it. If I get the chance I'll post my presentation which was on marketing. We had it translated into Mongolian and we got to work with a translator during our seminar. That took a little getting used to. It was really satisfying because one of the audience members got up at the end and said that she wanted to thank us for trying to help thier businesses. That's what we're here to do.

I'll put up my new address once I know it, probably at the end of August. Thanks for the comments and emails. Look forward to more blog posts and pictures.

Here is the label as promised. The address will be good until September. Also here is my latest photo album and a wish list I set up with Amazon. Just click on "add to cart" and ship to the gift registry address. If you think of anything else I might like just send it to 1010 Andrews Rd West Palm Beach, FL 33405 and my parents will send it along.

Thanks for checking in. More posts to come.

Hoodo Tales Part II

Part of Peace Corps training are so called "survival competencies". Here in Mongolian that means can you; chop fire wood, winterize your ger, and cook for yourself. To that end I've so far cut and chopped fire wood, cooked traditional Mongolian food, plus ridden a couple of horses and milked a goat in the process. I'll try and post photos of all these things when I go to UB this week and find a computer that will accept my USb drive. Or I'll break down and burn them to a CD. Either way, look for an action packed post at the end of the week.

Otherwise training is going great. I'm already at the language level I need to be at the end of the summer so now I just have to keep it there. On the business side, my group is putting together a business plan for a local shop and after UB we have to a small business symposium. It should be great practice for when I get to my real site.

In UB I'll post my new cell phone number which you can call with a calling card (incoming calls are free) as well as my Amazon wishlist and a mailing address. Comment on whatever you feel like or just email me at jrkinsella@gmail.com

later.

Hoodo Tales

The Mongolian word "Hoodo" means countryside, but since this is a place with a lot of countryside we translate it as anywhere more rural than where you are right now. Two weekends ago we went from Hutul, which has aparments with running water and paved roads, to Orkhan, which has none of these. The plan was to visit some other trainees and maybe see the river which shares its name with the town. That's where the trouble started. We found a taxi to take us to Orkhan, but the driver wanted more money than we expected. He said it was because he would have to wait for us. We said he wouldn't and we started driving. Eventually we pulled of the road (we were expecting to take a dirt road eventually) and pulled up to the riverbank. At this point we realized that he thought we just wanted to go to the river (I had been holding a towell). This struck us as odd and kind of like having someone bring you to the Mississippi river instead of to the state of Mississippi. Dan, one of the four trainees in the car, said he knew the word for city, as in Orkhan city, and told the driver "Orkhan mot". We then went back on the highway and across to the other, shadier side of the river. At this point I looked in our dictionary and saw that "mot" and "hot" meant city.

After that we had a little laugh with the driver and ended up making it to Orkhan to see our friends. We swam in the river and played frisbee and had two lunches (one with each trainee's host family). On the way out of town the wheel of a second taxi fell completly off and we had to find another ride. This week learned more word to use when arranging transportation so hopefully we can use them soon. Well, I have to go learn how to play a Mongolian musical instrument . I'll more Hoodo tales in my next post.

First Week of Training

I'm back in Darkhan for some shots (ouch!) then we go back to Khutul. My first week of training has been exciting. I'm living in an apartment with and mother, father, and three kids. It's kind of small, but I have my own room. Everyone in my group has the same situation and we get together to trade our cross cultural experiences.

The language classes are going fine. We started on the alphabet this week after learning some useful phrase like "I like eggs" and "I have explosive diarrhea". It's hard, because a lot of the letters sound the same. My host family helps me though.

We might go out to the country this weekend or try and climb this mountain that only men are allowed on. I'm not sure what that is about, but I'll try and post pictures later.

Seacrest out!

PS, I haven't read any American news since June 3, so I don't know what's been going on. I want all readers to comment with what think has been the most important story and I'll post the results as a poll. A little description would help also.

Greetings from Mongolia!

I'm in an internet cafe in Drakhan and Gmail just kicked Hotmail's ass. In other news, I made it here fine after a layover in Incheon airport near Seoul. We stayed in a ger (Mongolian name for a yert) camp that night. We didn't know where we were until morning, but it was really cool. I can't post any photos now, but I will soon.

Right now we're in a hotel in Darkhan. On Sunday the Youth Development and Economic Development people move to Khutul for 11 weeks of training. I'm not sure if I can post from there, but we'll be coming back here and going to Ulaan Baatar (UB) a few times.

The food is fine, but it has all been in the hotel so I'll have better reviews after Khutul. I'll probably be living in an apartment most of the time from now on unless I visit someone in a ger like a TFEL teacher. That's it for now. Thanks for the comments.

My Photo Album

To amuse you all in case I can't write for a while, I've uploaded images from a photo album I put together for my host family. Peace Corps said the families love to see volunteers families and homes etc. Hope you all enjoy.

Here's a sample.

Aren't I cute

Ice-breaker, dead ahead!

Today was the last day of staging in LA and we did a lot of "get to know each other" activities. It was better than some of the other team building stuff I've done before, because the activities were all geared towards our Peace Corps Service.

We got to practice what is like to be scrutinized by others and what it is like to be part of (or not part of) a group. There was also a lot of info about our Pre-Service Training (PST) which starts after we arrive in country on the 6th. PST lasts 11 weeks and I'm not sure I'll be able to post. If I can't, I'll write about it and post a long summary (and maybe pictures) after I'm swore in n August 20th.

Thanks for the emails and support. I'll work on the comment option and write more later.

And so it begins...

Welcome to my new blog. I'll be uploading photos and updates on my progress so check back later. My first stop is LA, then Seoul, and finally Ulaan Bataar (UB). Feel free to comment on any post or email to keep me posted. Thanks for reading.