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.