The Last Days of Summer

            Sally and I have been in our new home in Chinggis Hot for almost two weeks. It has been a nice gradual transition for us. We have had the opportunity to meet many of our Mongolian Counter Parts (CP) and have become somewhat accustomed to life in this small city.

            For most PCVs, I think the transition of starting in a new site can be difficult. After months of training with other Americans a volunteer is placed alone in a site where only a handful of the local population might speak English and even less fluently. For some volunteers fresh out of college this is the first time they have ever lived alone. While the potential for personal growth is exponential, the trials of the first few months are noteworthy and intimidating.

Photo from "Dream Camp" earlier in the summer 

            This difficult transition is not the experience that Sally and I are having. For us it has been fun to create a new home together. To finally unpack the winter bag was in many ways like Christmas, because neither of us remembered what was in the bags. (When we came to Mongolia we had two large bags. One we kept with us during the summer, and the other was placed in storage for arrival at site.) Our transition has also been easy, because so far both of our Host Country Agencies (The schools we work at, HCA) have been helpful and excited about working with us.

            Last weekend was an aimag wide teachers’ conference that occurred at a school in our city. Our HCAs informed us that it was not necessary for us to attend because it was entirely in Mongolian and we have not settled into our jobs yet.  Two other new volunteers had traveled into the aimag center with their counter parts from distant soums. The Mongolian supervisors got together and decided to deposit all of the Americans into Sally and I’s care for the weekend.

            This turned out to be a great time. We were able to meet and kinder stronger friendships with our fellow PCVs. While our Mongolian coworkers met, we united all of new khentii aimag volunteers for dinner at our apartment. For one meal we experimented with a chicken curry rice dish, breaded potato wedges, and a cucumber onion salad. The next day I was able to make a pretty decent egg salad. I also experimented with what I thought was lentils, but turned out to be some sort of Russian grain similar to barley or wheat. This was just okay.

            Food and having control of our diet has been a luxury that Sally and I have been enjoying thoroughly. We have already cooked more times in this kitchen in a two week span then we would ever do in America. A healthy reason for this is the inability to just go buy cheap warm fast food. The availability of food is limited in our small city, so sometimes we much just wing dishes and hope that it turns out well. Last night, Sally and I created calzones in our small oven or steroid boosted toaster oven depending on how full or empty the glass is to you. The dough was too thin so the calzones took on a nice hot pocket feel and flavor that was enjoyable. On the previous night we created chicken khuushuur that turned out to be pretty good, although we are still tinkering with the ingredients.

            There are some things that Mongolia does not do well. Cheese is one of these things. They have everything they need including a robust population of milk-able animals, but still the cheese and dairy products tend to come in one flavor that I have not acquired a taste for yet. The only cheese we have found in our city that does not fall into this category is processed cheese slices which have been enjoyable.

Photo from "Dream Camp" earlier in the summer 

            Still as I write this, I slap myself into perspective. Last weekend, we were shopping with one of our PCV friends who lives in a ger.  We found ourselves in a sort of furniture store and were sitting on a comfortable new couch. The one person with money to spend was looking through the rugs trying to decide which would look good in his ger, and debating as well the necessity of a fridge and washing machine. “Look at us,” I said “here we sit in a store debating whether to buy refrigerators or rugs. Think about all of the volunteers in Africa who are living in straw huts. Isn’t it weird to be shopping for these things in the Peace Corps?!?”

“This is true, but the volunteers in Africa don’t have to contend with Mongolian winter.”

And contend we shall, for now life in Chinggas town is relaxing and fun. Sally and I are enjoying the last months and days before the weather changes and winter is upon us.

~Caleb 

The Orkhon Jims "Dream Team" Swearing-In Performance

As I mentioned previously, my training group from Orkhon Jims was selected to perform for the swearing-in ceremony. We performed a mash up of a popular Mongolian song and the "Cups" song from Pitch Perfect. Please take a look at the video below, taken by a fellow PCV. 

Enjoy!

~Sally

Our New Home! (8/19/15)

This Chinggis Khan statue is Mongolia's largest statue, at 130 ft tall.
 It is on the road between Ulaanbaatar and Chinggis town.

Caleb and I are finally living together again in what will be our home for the next two years. Our apartment is very nice. We just got internet today, which is great! We can now easily be in contact on a regular basis with everyone back home. We don’t know our address yet, or the best way to send and receive mail, so please be patient on that front. We will find out within the next week, hopefully.

The entrance to Chinggis Hot!

Our apartment is nice! It is on the second floor and is super secure. All of our neighbors take pride in being clean, quiet, reasonable people. Our apartment has three main rooms: a bedroom, living room, and kitchen. We also have a bathroom, and the hallway connects everything. Our bathroom has a toilet and a bathtub with a shower head, but unfortunately there is no hot water. The water that comes out of our faucets is very chilly, so neither of us are really interested in taking an actual shower. We must heat water using our water boiler and stove top to have hot water.

Our bedroom

We have a large bed in our bedroom, which was a surprise to me. It is super comfortable, and our room is dark and quiet at night. There is also a large wardrobe (in the corner not pictured here) that amazingly houses all of our clothes. Our living room has a couch, table and chairs, and an entertainment center type furniture piece. We don’t have a TV, which is fine with us. We have lots of movies and TV shows we can watch on our computers. Our kitchen has a table and two chairs, lots of cabinet space, a single sink, a refrigerator, microwave, and small just-a-little-bigger-than-a-toaster-oven oven/stove.  

Our living room

Our kitchen

Caleb and I have met each of our supervisors and several of our coworkers. Everyone has been super helpful and nice in making us feel welcome here. We have done a lot over the past few days. The first day we arrived, our school directors and several of our coworkers prepared food for us in our apartment. It was a nice surprise, and it made us few pretty special that both of our school directors wanted to meet us the day we arrived. The second day we were here was a rest day, which is a first in a long time. We slept in, unpacked, and went for a walk around town. There are several small food stores very close to us. My school is just a stone’s throw away from our apartment building, but Caleb’s school will be about a 20-30 minute walk for him.

Yesterday, Caleb’s supervisor and coworkers took us shopping. We bought several things for our apartment and bought some groceries. To my surprise, there IS cheese in one of the grocery stores; however, it is sold by the slice instead of by the pack. Later that evening, my supervisor came by to walk us around and introduce us to our neighbors that live in our part of the apartment building. This, I think, was super helpful, and two of our neighbors are taxi drivers. It’s good to know the drivers in Mongolia.

Today, we went to the police station and the government building to get registered and to meet official people. That went pretty well. We also bought a modem for internet. Since then, we’ve been interneting. Yep.

Chinggis Hot from a distance. This was our first look at our new city.

Chinggis Hot is very flat, but we can see mountains far in the distance. Mountain hiking will definitely have to be planned out for us, but at least there are mountains close enough to get to as a day or weekend trip. When we have time off from work, there are mountains in the north part of our aimag that we definitely want to visit, too, including the sacred mountain where Chinggis Khan was probably born.

Please feel free to get in touch with us via facebook, email, or in the comments on this blog. We are much more reachable now that we are at our permanent site! Ask any questions you may have! We are happy to respond.

~Sally

Here Ends PST--08/17/15

            “I, Caleb LaRue, promise to serve alongside the people of Mongolia. I promise to share my culture with an open heart and open mind. I promise to foster an understanding of the people ofMongolia, with creativity, cultural sensitivity, and respect. I will face the challenges of service with patience, humility, and determination. I will embrace the mission of world peace and friendship for as long as I serve and beyond. In the proud tradition of Peace Corps’ legacy, and in the spirit of the Peace Corps family past, present, and future I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.”

            Eleven weeks of training have come to an end. On Saturday the 15^th of August, Sally and I attended our swearing-in ceremony and are officially PCVs. It has been a long hot summer, but not a bad one. We have made many friends, many of whom are on their way to sites on the other side of the country. Some people are as far as a 50 hour bus ride from Sally and I’s new site.

            We spent most of last week in Darkhan attending final center days/training. Since it was the third time that we stayed in New Darkhan, it was fun to visit various restaurants and enjoy some Mongolian-American food. We also were able to meet and dine with our site mates. There are 6 PCVs from our cohort that will be going to the same aimag. Four of us will be in in the aimag center (Chinggis Town).

            After a week of training we attended the swearing-in ceremony. It was surreal. I found myself often wanting to slap myself. There are moments in life where you can almost somatically feel chapters changing. Moments that enormous amount of time, effort, and planning are needed to achieve. And when you finally find yourself in that moment time seems to shift into hyper speed, and you find yourself on the other side forever in a different chapter.  Sally and I have wanted to do the Peace Corps together for almost 6 years, prior to that it was something that we each thought of often. Here we are.

            The swearing-in ceremony was pleasant with speeches and presentation of certificates. It was almost like a graduation into Peace Corps after months of training. The highlight of the ceremony was the cultural performances that were done by PCVs. Sally’s group performed a popular Mongolian song and meshed it with “When I am Gone.” The songs sounded really good together and the combination of Mongolian and American music was a neat symbolic moment. Two other groups performed: a Mongolian dance and a solo song. The solo singer did a really good job.

            After the ceremony we had a short reception and spent time with my host mother and sister who had come to see us swear in. They presented us with a nice house warming gift for our new apartment in the form of a small statue of two Mongolian horses standing side by side.

            We traveled by bus to UB where we dined on amazing Cuban food. (For reasons unknown to me or my fellow PCVs a Cuban chef has set up in Ulaanbaatar.) After one night in the dorms we loaded all of our stuff, ourselves, and our two supervisors into a taxi destined for Chinggis Hot.   

            PST is over, the real challenge and job begins now.

~ Caleb 

Site Placements! Drum roll please… (8/12/15)

Two days ago, the M26 cohort said goodbye to their host families and returned to Darkhan for the final week of training. That afternoon, after sitting through several sessions that no one remembers, we gathered in the school’s gym in front of a huge map of Mongolia that was hanging on the wall. One by one, aimag by aimag (province by province), names were called and given sites. They called it by sector: east, west, and central. So without any further ado, for the next two years, Caleb and I will be living in...

Chinggis Hot (hot means city) in the Khentii Aimag (aimag means province)

The dream that I had did not come true, but I’m not upset. This aimag (province) is in the east part of the country. It is a very historic aimag, as this is where they suspect Chinggis Khan to have been born. We don’t have the towering mountains of the west, but the Khentii (pronounced “HEN-tee”) mountain range runs through the north part of the aimag. In the south, there is steppe, and Herlen river runs through our city.

Highligted here is the Khentii Aimag.

 City is a relative term. Chinggis Hot is the aimag center of the Khentii Aimag, which means it is like the capitol of a state. This is where you can do the major shopping in your aimag and where the governor lives and where most of the stuff happens outside of farming and herding. Chinggis Hot has a population of just under 20,000 people. So it’s not a soum, but it’s not a huge aimag center either, thankfully.

Caleb and I will be living in a 2-bedroom apartment. We will have indoor plumbing with hot water and a toilet inside. This is not what I was expecting at all. I was hoping for a ger, but alas, we are back to apartment life. It will be super convenient, I’m sure, but I am a little disappointed we won’t experience ger life. I’m told that my school is just a two minute walk from the apartment. Unfortunately, Caleb and I will work at different schools. His school will be further, about 15-20 minutes to walk.

Both of us will work at a complex school. Complex schools are for grades 1-12. It looks like I will be teaching English to middle school aged students and facilitating English clubs for middle and high school aged students. I will have four Mongolian counterparts that I will work and co-teach with. I have heard that at least two of them are very excited about having a PCV and are very hardworking teachers. I will meet my counterparts when we get to site next week. Caleb will be primarily working with a social worker counterpart, who we’ve also heard great things about. Caleb will be expected to facilitate a variety of clubs and life skills classes.

Overall, this site seems like a great match for us. I am just ready to get there and start getting settled. Please feel free to google it. FYI, our site was changed to the name Chinggis in 2013. I don’t know what the name was before it was changed two years ago, but this may make it a little difficult to look up. I haven’t tried this website yet, but our paper lists www.khentii.mn as the site for the aimag. I haven’t visited because I don’t want to see any pictures of my site until after I see it first with my own eyes. J I’m excited!

~Sally

It’s August! (8/1/15)

It’s August and summer is still here! It’s not snowing yet. Yay! It’s been pretty hot this summer surprisingly. It rains pretty often, which cools it down for a few days. And then it gets really hot and then rains and then it’s cool etc. etc. All of the host families that I know of still serve steaming hot soup or heavy meat dishes during these hot days. Once, I was eating soup on one particularly hot day, and I look over at my host brother and his face is just pouring with sweat. Light, cold summer cuisine isn’t really a thing here.

August means I’ve been here for two months. In one week, everyone will be leaving their host families. We’ll have final center days where we find out our permanent site placements on August 10^th. We will leave for our sites on August 15^th. I had a dream about a week ago that Caleb and I ended up in the Gobi-Altai aimag, which is to the west and is quite mountainous. The same night, apparently one of Caleb’s fellow CYD trainees dreamt about all of the CYD site placements. He ALSO dreamt that we were going to the Gobi-Altai. Before this, I didn’t have a particular aimag in mind, but since those two dreams, I kinda want to be in the Gobi-Altai.

Last weekend, my sitemates and I went to Ulaanbaatar, the capitol city. We left on an overnight train at 10pm and arrived at 6am. We stayed in unofficial Peace Corps hostels. We visited the Peace Corps office, took pictures at Sukbaatar square (sp?), shopped at the State Department store and more.

The best part was the food. It was SO nice to have a choice in food. For breakfast, we went to Millie’s and I split a special with another trainee. It was eggs, toast, fried potatoes, and steak. As in beef steak. As in beef. As in cow meat. Wow, was that good. We ate German doners for lunch, which we as good as the doners I had in Berlin, if not better. For dinner, I ate a cheeseburger. As in cheese. Not cheese curds. But cheeeeessse! Oh how I’ve missed cheese. You’d think with all the cows, cheese would be a thing here, but alas, no. Cheese curds are a thing, but that’s a flavor that I’m not quite used to yet.

We stayed in UB for one night and left around noon the next day. We took a bus to Darkhan and then took the train the rest of the way back to our soum. I really liked our visit there. We had a nice time, and it was nice to become more familiar with the capitol city.

Last week, I had three practice teaching days. Two were with my partner Mikey, and one was solo teaching. My first time solo teaching went pretty well! I had a few issues, but overall I think I did well for my first time. Our trainers offered some good feedback, which is always helpful. Next week, I will solo teach on Tuesday and co-teach with Mikey on Thursday. Thursday is our last day of practice teaching! I’m looking forward to being finished with training.

On Friday last week, my sitemates and I took our LPI (language proficiency something). Peace Corps wants us to score at the novice-high level. I feel good about my LPI, so I’m positive I got novice-high. We will find out our scores at final center days next week.

In other news, Peace Corps called for applicants to perform at our swearing-in ceremony. The six of us at my site decided to go for it. It’s a mash-up of a Mongolian song we’ve been learning all summer and the Cups song from Pitch Perfect. For this, Marc plays guitar, I play ukulele, Alex plays the trash can, Mikey plays the cup, and Lexa, Jessica, and all of us sing. I think it’s a pretty cool song, and we’re hopeful to get chosen to perform. Again, I will share this when I have internet enough to share it.

PST is almost over. This summer has gone by very fast. I’m looking forward to living with my husband again and hopefully having better ways to be in touch with everyone back home on a more regular basis. One more week! I can’t believe it! I can only imagine how quickly the next two years will go by.  

Last Day of School (8/7/15)

Today we had our final Mongolian language class and final technical session at our little soum for PST. We are finished with language classes as a group. During final center days next week, we will have lots more sessions about our sites, how to survive, medical stuff, etc.

Tomorrow, my site (Orkon Jims it is called, now that I can tell you) will have a host family appreciation day. All my sitemates and our families are going to the river to eat food and play games and generally appreciate one another. Then Sunday will be our last day at Orkon Jims (O.J.). Early Monday, we are headed to Darkhan for final center days.

 Our host family appreciation day at the river

It’s crazy that PST is almost over. Time has really flown by, surprisingly. O.J. has been a great place to be for PST, I couldn’t have asked for better sitemates. I am really looking forward to living with my husband again, so these last two days couldn’t go by fast enough.

Now, everyone is looking forward to site placements on Monday. There are four people that already know where they will be, in the far west where the people speak Khasik (sp?). They had their own session today in Darkhan for some crash course language learning. One of our sitemates, Alex, will be there, and he seems really excited. This is the aimag (region, kind of like a state) where the Eagle Festival takes place every year, so I most certainly hope that Caleb and I can visit while we’re in Mongolia.

I may have already mentioned this, but I think Caleb and I will be in an aimag center. I, at least, am hoping for a soum (small town), but since Caleb and I are two people within two different sectors, we might be more useful in a bigger place or a bigger school. I’m just hoping that I don’t have 13 counterparts to work with, like I’ve heard some of the current PCVs talk about. I’m really just ready to know where we’ll be. We’ll know in three days.

We’ll definitely update you when we find out. I don’t know why I’m saying this; the blog post with site placements may be posted on the same day as this one. But ANYWAYS, more later. Can’t wait to talk to you guys soon from Darkhan.

~Sally

Weekend Journeys, Monastery, Dream Camp, and UB--08/02/15

 It has been over two months since we first arrived in Mongolia. Sally and I are amazed at how fast the time has flown by. In one week, we will leave our host families and go to Darkhan for final center days. During this time, we will have the last of our global training seminars.

It has been a fun summer, one filled with adventure, mis-communications, new friends, and long days of language learning, but I am ready to make a home with my wife. I recognize the importance of our training, but am tired of it. During the first day of final-center days we will find out where in this vast country we will be serving for the next two years. At the conclusion of this last week of training, we will travel to our new site and home with our host country supervisor. The anticipation is brimming. Will we be in an Aimag Center? (Mongolia has 21 Aimags/States. Each Aimag has at least one large city that serves as its capital and center of commence. The population of these can range from 30,000 to a 100,000 like Darkhan. Darkhan is the Aimag Center for this province.) Will we be near the desert, the steppe, or mountains? Will we live in a ger or apartment?  In just one week our separation will be over and we will know where we are to go…

The past three weeks have sped by in a blur. To quote a PCV I met in UB, “The days are long, but the months are short.” Two weekends ago, Sally and I had our final visit for the summer. It was a fun weekend. We spent the Saturday with her language group in a very crowded meiker that took us to a popular monastery north of UB. Tibetan Buddhism in rooted in tradition and rituals that are not always apparent to westerners. At the monastery, we saw amazingly detailed religious tapestries, bizarre representations of demons, and carved stone statues.  It was hard to entirely understand the symbolism of the monastery, but it was still an incredibly enlightening experience. (This monastery is relatively new only a little over 20 years old. When Mongolia was a satellite of the USSR, almost all of the religious sites were destroyed to accommodate communist philosophy.) Behind the monastery was a trail leading up the mountain through a woods of symbolically carved stones. It is here that one can experience rebirth, after viewing large phallic symbols, by crawling through tight stone crevices. Along and at the end of the journey of spiritual rebirth one is able to see multiple detailed depictions of various spirits and Buddha.

The trip to the monastery took almost all day and we returned to Sally’s family home late in the evening. The next morning I returned to Darkhan initiating our final three weeks of training and separation.

That week, I and my fellow CYD trainees, left Darkhan to spend three days at a Mongolian Summer camp, “Dream Camp.” We traveled there by train for five hours and then via cars over bumpy roads for another hour. The total distance was in the neighborhood of 150-200 kilometers. Our journey took us into a scenic valley where the camp was nestled facing one of Mongolia’s sacred mountains. (Mongolia has 7 or 8 mountains that are deemed sacred by the government. The mountains are set aside because of holy significance or tradition. Following tradition sacred mountains can only be summited by men; a bummer to sexual equality. In addition to State sanctioned mountains sometimes communities we deem nearby mountains sacred or evil.)

It was a fun few days at camp, and a neat opportunity to connect with that summer camp feeling. Almost all of the CYD, trainees spent some amount of time either attending camps or working on staff at camps, so we slipped into the rolls of counselors with ease. We taught two sessions in small groups at camp: one on life skills, and another Basic English class.  We also participated in various games, “camp fire” performances, and even a hike/picnic. The campers almost all came from UB and many spoke fluent English.

On the second evening of camp, the guys and I found ourselves with some free time, so after getting permission from our trainer, we crossed the valley and ascended the sacred mountain. I do not support the gender inequality of the sacred mountain, but it was a really cool mountain and the hiking spirit in me could not say no. Our ascent was steep and in some places treacherous, but we knew what we were doing and were safe. The summit was a three hundred foot cliff that extended out into the valley offering a bird’s eye view of the world around us. It was awe-inspiring.

On the last day of camp, Jake, Theo, and I again found ourselves with some free time and ascended another nearby mountain that was taller than the sacred mountain. At the top of the mountain was a large wooden Owoo. It is customary to circuit these structures three times in a clock-wise manner. The purpose is for spiritual reflection and prayer to the creator. (Owoos are remnants of shamanism in Mongolian culture. Shamanism dates back thousands of years in a form of nature worship. In Chinggas Han’s time Mongolians would often ascend mountains in order to be closer to the creator Telori: god of the eternal blue sky.)

On the last dinner of camp, the campers were told the parable of spoons. In this story, God/Creator has given all of the people in heaven and hell spoons for arms. The people in Hell starve because they cannot bend their elbows and feed themselves, but the people in Heaven feast with joy as they feed each other. The camp director then instructed us to feed each other on this final feast. This is perhaps the first culture shock experience that was truly difficult for me. While the message was very neat, it was hard for me as an American to thrust food into other people’s mouths. I felt like I would be imposing on them. Nevertheless, I had a lot of food given to me as the campers gave to each other in earnest. A part of me also had difficulty with the concept of sharing silverware with so many people. I tried to feed some of my neighbors and then feeling like I had participated I attempted to eat just the food on my plate. I found myself wondering if children in America would participate in this giving activity with such earnestly and sincerity.

The summer camp was a really neat experience. It was great to hang out with teenagers and get an idea of what life was like for them. However, we went to a camp that was primarily for teens in UB who spoke English and were very westernized. My fellow trainees and I were ecstatic over running water and comfortable bunk beds, and the kids felt like they were roughing it in the country. There is a huge divide between the half of the population that lives in the capital city and the half that occupies the rest of the country. Ulaanbaatar feels almost like a different world in comparison.

Which brings me to the final weekend journey to talk about, after another week of classes the CYD trainees boarded a late train from Darkhan to UB.  The purpose of the trip was to familiarize us with UB and various landmarks that are important to us like the PC office. Sleeping on the train was an interesting experience. Theo and I took top adjacent berths and buckled ourselves in. I had seen other people sleep in these bunks on previous train rides, but I was unprepared for how tight the top bunk was. I did sleep well next to the open window where I could see the blurs of telephone poles.

At the crack of dawn, we found ourselves in UB. The day was spent visiting various sites, and the night in a hostel that seems to cater to PCVs. I have no doubt that Sally and I will visit UB together again and take better pictures, so I will leave much of the details for that trip. The highlight of the trip was going to Gandantegchinlen Monastery. Theo and I had broken away from the group in search of the cinema and “Mad Max.” Unfortunately American is offering another “Mission Impossible,” and “Terminator” to the people of Mongolia, so we decided to find our way to the monastery instead. We had no idea what to expect, and found ourselves before a massive ancient building.

Religious sights are very interesting to see, not just for the reverence and spirituality, but also because all of the area’s best craftsmen and artist come together to create something that is meaningful to the community. It is meant to show of the beauty of the culture in reverence to that cultures beliefs. This Monastery was one of the few that the USSR did not destroy. Inside was a space that I am still having trouble describing. I found myself speechless in awe of the sacred sight. A cavernous open room with deceptively high ceilings containing an enormous statue of Avalokiteśvara. (Tibetan Buddhism believes that the current Dali Lama is the 14^th reincarnation of this Bodhisattva of Compassion). The Statue was painted gold, and the space conveyed holiness. I hope to go back and take some pictures. On this visit I did not feel like that was the right thing to do. It was truly a sacred experience, and I am still digesting it to some degree. 

~Caleb 

Three Weeks Left (7/21/15)

There are three weeks left of pre-service training at our current sites before final center days, and I am so tired. I am doing well altogether, but I am very tired every day. This second half of PST is very busy. We had our first practice teaching yesterday. My partner Mikey and I did pretty well, I thought. Similar to micro-teaching, practice teaching has us teaching a beginner, intermediate, and advanced class. By the end of practice teaching, we will have taught 24 classes. Right now, it’s 3 down, 21 to go. This week, we will teach on Thursday and Friday. Next week, it’s Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the following week, it’s Monday and Wednesday. Unlike micro-teaching, we are now using a book to create our lessons. This makes life a little easier, but we still have to spend a good amount of time lesson planning.

In addition to teaching, my group has been collectively working on a community project. We are at a good place with this right now, but work will pick up on this over the next three weeks.

This weekend, my group is going to Ulaanbaatar (UB), the capitol city. We are taking the train to get there because it is cheap, and there are special activities we must do while we are there. I am both looking forward to and dreading this experience. UB apparently is known for its pickpockets, especially during the summer. And the time that we spend in UB is time that we are not getting to lesson plan for classes or study Mongolian. However, it WILL be nice to get acquainted with the city and go somewhere else for the weekend and eat different food. I just know this weekend isn’t going to make me any less tired.

Learning Mongolian is, as always, slowly progressive. I wish I had more time to study, but these other things have a higher priority. Next week at the end of the week, we have our language proficiency test, which I am already nervous about. I’m sure it will be fine, but I wish I could just know everything already. I want to have one of those things like in the Matrix where they slip that thing into the back of my head, and I’m fluent in 3 seconds. That would be ideal.

Caleb visited last weekend. On Saturday, my group and some of our host family members and Caleb and I went to a really nice monastery (pics later). We got to take some cool pictures and do some hiking. This was a really neat experience. I look forward to doing more things like this with just Caleb and I when we get to our permanent site. This was also the last weekend Caleb and I got to visit each other before final center days. This will be the longest stretch we’ll have apart, which to me is a pleasant surprise. I thought we would see each other much less over the course of PST, but altogether now, we’ve seen each other six times. I know these last three weeks will go by really fast with all the stuff we’re doing, so I of course miss him a lot, but there is plenty to keep us both occupied.

Outside of all the Peace Corps stuff, I’m also spending time with my host family. My family are very nice people. I help with dinner sometimes and talk to them as much as possible. As an introvert, some days I’m more enthusiastic about hanging out with them, but other days I just want to go to my room and sleep (which I haven’t done! I’m being a good hostee and spending time with them! Except for right now… I’m sitting in my room alone writing a blog… Oh well…).

It’s tough to find a balance right now between sleep, family, Mongolian, practice teaching, other projects, and personal time. But there are just three weeks left before we go back to Darkhan for the last week of PST. I will be reunited with Caleb, and we will soon after be departing for some unknown new place in Mongolia. Just three weeks left!