What Peace Corps Service Is Really Like Pt. II

New post coming soon.

Country Roads

TAKE ME HOMEEEEEE!

This past week marked the end of the first school semester in Mongolia and as a result schools are on break all week. In hindsight, I should have made some plans to travel in Khentii, or really just to do anything at all, but wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Instead, I’ve been sitting in my ger all week watching movies and napping. These couples days of loneliness gave me something to think about: Isolation.

I first started seriously thinking about this topic last weekend when I was on the way back to my soum from the aimag center. We had gotten lost near the end of our ride home and were low on gas. The trip back to my soum is 100 miles on dirt roads with no road signs, lights, or any real signs of civilization aside from the occasional ger or passing motorcycle. On that ride it really started to settle in how out there and alone I was. Sure, I have friends in my soum and know a few people who speak bits of English but by and large connecting with people beyond small talk is often difficult.

Khentii’s country roads.

Random ger we stopped at to ask for directions.

Another go at taking star photos.

I’m actually quite good about being alone. It’s never been something I’ve found troubling and is usually a source of relaxation and comfort for me. This type of alone-ness is different. Whether it’s my culture, language, or physical appearance I’m drastically different from everyone here and because of that everything is magnified. It can be big things like feeling uncomfortable when people come over and start going through my things or small things like having people think I’m weird for saying “thank you” all the time. It’s strange to experience but it’s these moments that broaden your perspective not only in terms of what it means to live abroad but also about the experiences of different people back in the United States. The experiences you have as a PCV aren’t limited to your time in country of service.

On the plus side, I’ve been extremely fortunate in terms of integrating into my community. One of the benefits of living in a soum is that everyone knows who you are. Since my town is so small, I end up seeing the same faces everyday which makes it easier to get to know people. The hope is these connections will make future projects and life in general run more smoothly.

On a different note, I went for a short hike earlier this week and got to see hundreds of Mongolian antelope. They’re super skittish, so I was never able to close too any but did manage to get a decent picture of some.

6th graders.

I’m trying to get better at taking portraits.

A friendly soum dog.

Sunsets and solar panels.

The closest I was able to get without them running.

Phone Photo Dump

These are a bunch of photos off my iPhone which haven’t really uploaded anywhere. I need to start using my phone for taking general snapshots since it’s a lot better and easier than my Leica for that kind stuff. Unfortunately, I couldn’t directly upload videos to WordPress so those will have to wait until another time.

I should have another blog post up soon about my weekend in the aimag center pretty soon as well. Enjoy.

Typical bowl of Mongolian soup. Ingredients include noodles, meat, onions, fat, and a bit of seasoning.

My cat, Mission.

The most expensive notebook I’ve ever seen.

Boys like to get close here…

PB&J.

View from my haashaa looking towards town. The two large buildings are our school dorm (left) and the hospital (right).

My ger from the outside.

My ger at my permanent site.

Suiting up for a 15 hour meeker ride to Dadal soum.

Sometimes your favorite student brings you your favorite kind of cookie.

An actual Red Bull I found in Darkhan.

Cooking up some fried potatoes.

The first last supper of Khentii.

Brian PTin’.

Courtyard of the Khutul secondary school where we had all our trainings over the summer.

My host family celebrating my birthday.

Language class.

Student drawings from practice teachings.

May have stumbled into a ditch.

Landscape around my soum.

Making resources for our lesson.

The post my lovely host sister, Otgonchimeg, made about me during PST.

Weird Red Bull rip off from Thailand. It wasn’t good.

View from my haashaa during PST.

Nick and Hongro.

When in Peace Corps…

Goy juice.

Lounging in hammocks during orientation days.

Harper hanging out the window of our bus to get some photos.

My ger during PST.

Communal snack pile during language class.

Getting ready for our micro-teaching lessons.

Another view including my haashaa dog, Yamer.

Random meat bowl that got placed in my ger.

Clouds.

Context-less Quotes

I was deleting old texts in on my Peace Corps issued Nokia brick when I came across some texts that gave me a chuckle. We volunteers get 100 texts a month we can use to keep in touch with other volunteers, or more importantly, to text Whereabouts! Let me share some of my favorites with you.

Mikey (on the first day with our host families): How are ya doing buddy?

Me: (probably sent a response about eating meat globs and endless amounts of milk tea).

Mikey: Lol be strong for all of us

Mikey: If I have one more bowl of milk tea today I think I’ll set the record for the most consumed in one day.

Renee: Come over please! I am currently making awkward conversation with idk who pls rescue

Mikey: Hard boiled eggs and cake for lunch. Just like home. Also, have you seen XXX (Mikey drunkenly downloaded this one night during staging) the movie? Might be one of the worst things I’ve seen.

Mikey: Finally killed my first animal today. Not as bad as I thought. I held its mouth closed to stop the screaming though.

Ashleigh: You have a new baby. It was only a matter of time.

Hana: Agreed. And really hope your host fam walks in on you dancing alone in your ger.

Seki (my Mongolian language teacher): I don’t like cats.

Mikey: Good news. We are roommates again. Bad news. We are one the fourth floor again.

Mikey: The Orange Market is having a sale on lube.

Hana: You over dramatic? What a concept

Hana: Agreed. Harper also pointed out that it tastes like bile as I was drinking it.

Random person from my soum: *soum name” sum ymar bazar bne gert bna u baishind bna u hoolo hij chadaj bna u.

Me: ???

And here are some other general funny quotes that have made me laugh over the past few months.

Mikey: Mongolia vodka is harsher than any lover I’ve ever had.

Logan: Ed Helms was in “Remember The Titans”

Jenni: Isn’t Bob Dylan black?

Zena: So why is it important to teach grammar?

Alex: Trick question, it isn’t!

Nik (from the Khutul Rap): Sportin’ good looks in my deel, can’t see my skids don’t mind the smell.

Paul (also from the Khutul Rap): My glutes by goy. I’m rockin’ with my boys. I throw rocks at cows, I got problems with my bowels. That ain’t no shit. So pull up your shirt show that bellybutton gleaming cuz parties don’t stop till 10 in the evening!

(Goy is the word for “cool” and are gluteus are goy because we walk everywhere. The next line is fairly self explanatory. Mongolians also do this thing where they pull up their shirts to just expose their bellybutton. It’s been deemed the “Mongol half-shirt.” And are curfew during PST was only 10pm.)

Dylan: *Somewhat drunkly singing “Space Oddity”*

Many of these probably won’t make much sense to people back home but to my fellow M26’s included here they hopefully provide a good laugh. I’ll have a new post up after this weekends trip to the aimag center and UB.

Toast Based Learning: Week one (and a half) of PST

I started writing this post last Monday but never finished it. I haven’t been in the mood to write lately because we’ve been so busy.

I moved in with my host family around a week and a half ago. Things have been really awesome. I have a mom, dad, and three lovely sisters. My youngest host sister knows a bit of English which has helped a lot with the language barrier. We’ve played cards, basketball, gone shopping, “family bonded” (this involved killing two sheep), named all the animals in my Yellowstone National Park book in Mongolian, bathed me, and much, much more.

I’m quite fortunate to have such a wonderful and attentive host family. The food they’ve made me has been all over the place. One day it’ll be a traditional Mongolian meal like huushur (deep fried hot pocket) and the next day I’ll have fried chicken and fries for lunch. No matter what it has been, it’s been amazing. It’s nice to get that kind of variety with my meals as most trainees don’t. Cabbage and boiling soup for everyone!

I have my own ger (similar to a yurt) in my families yard. Ger (G-Air, rhymes with care) life is one of my favorite things about being here. I have my own stove, water boiler, tea, water filter, and other generic home furniture. It’s a cozy place. I was my clothes and bathe in a tumpin, which is a small water basin I fill up with about an inch and a half of water. It has certainly been a change I’m still getting used to.

Our first weekend here was for getting acquainted with our training site and spending time with our host families. We took a tour with our Mongolian LCF’s (can’t remember this one) of our training site which was enjoyable. One of my favorite things is to hear stories about what each volunteer’s family is like. Even in our relatively small town, everyone is having wildly different experiences. Hey, Brain! (His family made him wear a dead fox and dress up in military garb).

PST consists of four hours of language training in the morning, an hour and a half break for lunch, and then three hours of technical training in the afternoon. Once a week we have cross-cultural sessions and thus far it has all been tiring. I’m up at 7 and am pretty much going until non-stop until 10-11 each night. The Mongolian language is very difficult and I’ve yet to have much success with it.

There are 13 other TELF trainees at my site. It’s been fun getting to know everyone and it’s crazy how fast everyone has bonded. I was lucky to get a great group for language training and partner, Jenni, for our micro-teaching sessions. Micro-teaching sessions are small practice teaching classes meant to introduce us to teaching English in Mongolia. We develop a 40-minute lesson where we teach to three different groups of students of all ages and experience levels. Jenni and I did a lot of planning for our first lesson and it paid off. We have great rapport, which has made things go really smoothly.

I know a lot more has happened but it’s a lot to remember.