How it Goes in Mongolia

December 20^th 2010

Hey friends! So much has happened since I last blogged so I figured better update now before the next big holiday comes up (New Year) and even more exciting stories come up. Many of my friends and family are curious as to how the Peace Corps Thanksgiving celebration went down. It was great to say the least. There was about 80 Peace Corps Volunteers (maybe more) and it was strange to see those who I did not know(M20s) and it was wonderful to see those who I had grown close with over the summer yet hadn't seen since. My simple dish of mash potatoes didn't turn out to be as simple as I thought; there was a lack of space in the kitchen to cook the potatoes and a friend suggested to put them in the microwave to cook in a bag of water, yet those stubborn potatoes would not cook! With little time left I simply put the almost raw potatoes in a container, mixed in some mayo and called them “Ellie's Special Creamy Potatoes”. I made sure to avoid them as I walked around the buffet of food when we got there. The rest of the food, however, was delicious and I am so impressed with the PCV's cooking skills. It was great to be able to sit with my friends, exchange stories of our new lives, and eat familiar foods that have long been missed. After Thanksgiving, there was In-Service Training, or otherwise known as IST which you bring your fellow Mongolian co-worker and learn about new methods of teaching English as well as how to do a community project. I was very inspired by the community project sessions and I have a new goal to start life skill seminars for the youth here in my community so they can learn about sex safe, how to achieve their goals, how to apply to jobs, etc. I will also be giving a time-management seminar to some of the teachers at my school. It is a well know, (and well joked about) that Mongolians are always late! They call it Mongol Tsag or Mongolian Time. Why are Mongolians always late, you ask, well it has something to do about coming from a herding culture where families would only depend on themselves and rarely have to work with other families so the concept of working with another person and respecting other people's time or setting a schedule to achieve tasks through-out the day is fairly new. As a herder, your day was the same as the last and there was no need to keep track of time as we Americans do.

As I mentioned briefly before, New Years (Shin Jil in Mongolia) is coming up! Mongolians celebrate Christmas and New Years on the same day,December 31^st. They put a Christmas tree in their homes, the children have masquerade parties, many different salads are made, and fireworks are lit at midnight. At least, this is what I hear about when they mention Shin Jil. The teachers will also have a party where you get all dress up in fabulous 80's-like prom dresses and dance the night away. I am not too excited about wearing a dress when its -40 but they say it will be indoors so I wont be too cold. Nor will I be wearing a prom-dress since there was no room in my suitcase for such a luxury. I will look like a plain Jane in my simple gray dress and black tights. I will make sure to post pictures after the event! I miss all my friends and family and hope everyone back home has a safe and happy holiday!

Thanks for Giving!

Hello all! I quick update on life here in my small soum. The snow has started and it creates a beautiful layer of shimmery white all over the town as well as extremely slippery streets. Its not uncommon for me to slip or/and stumble across as I try to get to my destination of choice. I always hope no one sees me but they do every time. (humph) In other news I have (finally) found the disco club! Yes, that's right, in this small, sleepy, middle of no where town is a beautiful, fog machine, disco- ball, laser lighting, disco bar. The dance floor even lights up! I was shocked when me and my sitemate stumbled into it as it looked dinky on the outside so I expected it to look ruin down and sleazy on the inside. Yet it was not so at all! They play a mixture of techno and Mongolian music and I always leave smelling of cigarettes but its a lot of fun nonetheless.

On another note, the cold is slowly getting more and more cold and my apartment is freezing! It heats up a bit when I cook but I often worry about how it will hold up once it gets in the negatives. However, my landlord promised to give me a big heater to help in those cold winter months so that eases my anxiety a bit. The coldest months in Mongolia are December, January, February and despite the fact that I already think its cold, Mongolians simply shrug their shoulders when I ask them if they think its cold now and say “This is zugeer (not a problem); the winter months are the worst.” Sigh.

But on a happier note I will soon embark to Ulaanbataar (UB) which is the capital of Mongolia, to meet up with my amazing Peace Corps friends to celebrate Thanksgiving together and I simply cannot wait! Going to UB is a treat in itself, even though it is extremely expensive and will be really cold, because it has all the good food and better quality clothes. But on top of all that, I will get to be with my very much missed friends so I couldn't be happier about going. Also, the way Peace Corps celebrates Thanksgiving is quite cute; its potluck style so everyone makes a big dish and brings it to a hall that Peace Corps rents out. PC also provide the turkey and I was even surprised that they found turkeys here in Mongolia. What will I be making you ask? Well, since I am a master at cooking, I have decided to go with the very complex dish of mashed potatoes (I am not looking forward to peeling all those potatoes! Oiy! It will remind me of Chanukah tho) Well that's all for now my friends! I hope all is well in the States and I miss ya'll a whole lot!

Happy Halloween!!! (A bit late I know)

One of the strange things about not being in America, is realizing that most of the world doesn't know about American Holidays, like the most recent one Halloween. What's even stranger is when you have to explain it. I recently taught one of my classes about Halloween, and as I reflected about it, its a damn weird holiday! I remember how odd I felt saying: "Well, we dress up as demons, witches, or super heros and knock on people's doors and ask for candy..." whaaaaat. I definitely felt weird explaining it to these Mongolian students. But they said it sounded like fun! So my fellow Mongolian English teacher decided to throw a Halloween party for 18 7th graders and asked if I could help. Heck yes! I couldn't wait to see how a culture ,who has never seen Halloween, would interpret it.

The first thing I saw when I walked into the dimly lit music room was the most spectacular costumes I would ever expect to see! Mind you there are no costumes stores or anything of the sort but these 7^th graders looked like scary little demons! All the girls teased their hair to the max, one boy found a scary mask, and all of the children painted their faces with white, black and red. The energy of the students was bursting with excitement as they were all running around; some staring at themselves in the huge mirror making scary faces, others helping their fellow demon-classemates make their hair bigger or faces scarier with more paint.

My fellow Mongolian English teacher ,Sogii, and I planned some fun Halloween games last minuet including bobbing for apples, a screaming contest, a costume contest, telling scary stories and teaching them the Micheal Jackson “Thriller” dance ( or what I could remember of it). It was one of the most memorable and fun times I have had with my students. I will post some pictures and even the video of the students doing the thriller dance on my facebook soon!

A Day in the Life of Me

Hey Friends and Family!

I finally have sometime to spare to write about my daily life in my town. Since things have become the norm for me here, I forget that people back home might not know what/how a Mongolian School is run. Also, people always want to know what is the food like and what am I eating. Then there is the question of what the heck are you doing in Mongolia aside from working?
Well lets start with the school! The students stay in their homeroom class while the subject teachers move from class to class. The students stand up when a teacher enters and greet the teacher ( military style) saying "Good Morning/Hello Teacher. How. Are. You?" It was quite strange for me at first and sometimes still is. After the teacher says they can sit down, the lesson starts. Another interesting thing I have noticed is that Mongolian students have a very intense relationship with their notebooks. Their notebooks reflect who they are as a person so if they have a messy notebook or bad marks, people/their teachers will think poorly of them. So when I ask the students to draw a picture or graph they pull out their rulers and make everything so precise! They also dislike ripping out pages from their notebooks as it makes their notebooks look ugly after. The students wear black and white uniforms and the girls wear the biggest bows in their hair! Its quite cute. My school is pretty well stocked and most of the students have books. However it is not uncommon for many students to forget their books thus having 3-4 students share one book.
The schedule: There are 12 periods in a day, the first 6 are the morning classes and the last 6 are the evening going from 8:00am-5:30pm. But students don't go to school for the entire day; they either have the 6 classes in the morning and have the afternoon free or visa versa. However this means my day might start at 9:00am and end at 5:30pm with random breaks in between. During my down time I write lesson plans with the Mongolian English teachers, make materials, teach extra classes like the English Club and I am also teaching English to bank workers and to the teachers at my school. Sometimes it feels as though English rules my life!!! I hope this will change once I find a secondary project.
What do I do when I am not working you ask? Well...not much. I usually do some type of house work, wash clothes, or walk around to all the dellgores. (dellgore=shops). Sometimes my site mate and I will cook dinner together and watch a movie or some TV series. My wonderful mother has sent me my knitting and that keeps me busy for sometime.
Cooking keeps me busy as well. Although I am not a bad cook, I am sadly not great. The foods available are ok, but I usually dont know what to do with them! For example, I saw eggplant in one of the dellgores, got really excited and then realized I had no idea what to do with it. I also dont have a fridge so that makes keeping certain foods a challenge. And I really miss having good cheese!
Usually I make spaghetti (Mongolians say spaghetti) , rice, and alot of meat/carrot gravy (its easy and filling!) I recently found tofu (yay), soy sauce and kimchi which have changed my eating world for the time being. Also my sitemate and I have perfected the art of making fettuccine :)

Well thats it for now!
Miss everyone so much!
Bayishta! (bye in Mongolian)

ellie

A much needed update

Hello friends and family!
I know it has been WAY too long since I last posted an update. But I have good reason, my life has changed completely since last I blogged and finding time/enegry to organize my thoughts has been histuu (difficult in mongolia). So let me update you on whats been going on here in Mongolia!
I have left my darling amazing host family and my comfy little soum (soum: a small town which is a part of a bigger city) tearfully and then met up with all 72 PCV (peace corp volunteers) in UB (the capital of Mongolia) for one week. We partied, found out where we would live for the next two years, became offical PCV and then parted ways to live in our new homes. First I would like to explain how they told us about where we would be place. First they spread out a HUGE map of mongolia on the floor, then one by one, they called out our names and physically placed us on the map. I thought it was a really cool way to show us where we would all be. Then there was the swearing in ceremony which is when we go from being a trainee to an offical volunteer. We all get dressed up in our deels (traditional mongolian clothing) and someof us, including yours truely, put on a talent show! I, along with 3 other amazing volunteers, sang the popular mongolian song Aynee Showod which translates into Migrating Bird. Its a love song that sings about his love travling along with the birds to his lover (Awww). It was an amazing experience to be able to get on stage and sing infront of our future directors and pcv; I will never forget it! For those who want to see this perforance go to my facebook page and its also on Youtube...but i dont know what the video is called.
So now that I have vaguely updated you on that, let me tell you about my new home for the next 2 years. I live in the East of Mongolia in Chengis Khan's birthplace, Khentii Aimag. I live in a smaller soum in Khentii that has about 10,000 people and was built on the train line, which is good news for me cause that means better food! I live in an awesome apartment with running hot water (YAY) , a bathroom (yaaaay!) , and a kitchen (yAAy). There have been 8 other volunteers in this town before me so my mongolian english teachers who I work with (there are 5 of them) know alot about working with a PCV. I also am very lucky since I have a sitemate! He works in the hospital while I work in the school. He has proven himself to be amazing company and I look forward to working/living with him for the next two years.
One last thing I wanted to talk about was why I havnt posted any pictures. Reason being I go to internet cafes which have tons of viruses so if i did upload pics I would probably end up with a virus...which means no pics for a while...sorry friends! But I have been taking ALOT of pictures so once I get interent I will load them all up.
So thats it for now, if you have any questions please post them and I will try to answer them soon. Miss everyone from home SOOOO much!!!
<3 ellie <3

Finally Here!

Hey everyone! So before I begin I want to start by saying that what is said in this blog is NOT AN OFFICIAL PEACE CORPS VIEW. IT HOLDS MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS AND IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE US GOVERNMENT OR OF PEACE CORPS.


ok now that that is said, I would like to write a brief update on how things are going. After the 25 hour travel time to Mongolia all 75 of us came to stay in a school dorm for the first week. there were two showers for all 75 of us and there usually wasn't hot water. But at least there were showers!!! I now live with my host family and live in a ger while my host live in a house. I call them my hashaa (yard) family.
Whats it like living in a ger you ask? Well it is quite interesting! My ger is pretty darn big, and has beautiful paintings on it. I have my bed, a closet, a place to wash my face/brush teeth, a night stand, desk and stove fire. Its fun to wake up and see all of it first thing in the m0rning! Also, the ger gets very very warm if you can get a nice fire going (which i am still trying to figure out...suggestions are welcome) My host family has been SOOOO sweet! They make sure I am well fed and warm and comfortable!
Speaking of being well fed...lets talk about the food situation!
Mostly my family makes fresh pasta and cooks it with chopped up meat, potatoes, onions and sometimes bell peppers. It is sometimes a stew, sometimes a dry dish but always very tasty! They also put ketchup on most of their dishes! Also they make these super yummy dumplings called bootz and a deep fried dough with meat stuff in it....needless to say i am doing well fattening up for the Mongolian winter. There is alot of deep fried dough in their dishes...my favorite is the one with tons of sugar on it (YUM!)
Oh and I am in a really small town (2,000 people) in a beautiful country side with tons of cows and other farm-like animals...i got to fed a baby goat (so cute)! I can walk everywhere (to school or other volunteer's gers) which is really cool.
Ok well that is all for now! I will try to update as much as I can! Hope all is well in the states! oh and let me know if there is something you want me to write about!
Miss everyone so much!

ellie

Mongolia?

Hey! This is my first official blog...ever! I feel so trendy....and I can now officially say "I am blogging". Anyway, there are much more exciting thing to discuss! On March 12th I received my official invite to serve in the Peace Corps in Mongolia as a PETT (what a cute acronym) which stands for Primary Education Teacher Trainer. When I first found out I would be serving in Mongolia, I literally jumped up and down with excitement! I have always liked Asian cultures and felt like this was an excellent opportunity to be able to explore their culture. Then after the excitement settle a bit, I pondered "How the hell am I, a born and bred California girl, gonna survivor -40 degrees winter?!"

Although I am still trying to find the answer to that question, I am stoked to be going to Mongolia!
Let me introduce my self a bit for those who are wondering who I am. (Even though I assume most people who read this will be family and friends.) My name is Eleanor (Ellie), I live in LA, California and will soon graduate in Psychology. I have wanted to join the Peace Corps since I graduated High School so being accepted in a dream come true for me! Many people ask me why I want to join and here is the short version as to why: I want to be part of something that is bigger than myself and I want to live in another part of the world. I have a big urge to vent into a 10 page reason as to why join the PC (peace corps) but I will spare my few readers.
I plan to use this blog as a place where I will tell about my Mongolian Adventures, which I can not wait to begin! Hope you all enjoy my blog! Please feel free to ask any questions if your feeling curious about the things I write about.