Khan Khentii Complex School's English Room Revitalization

Hi Everyone,

I have shared this grant via Facebook, and now I want to share it with those of you who may not have seen it.

A few of the students that would benefit from your donation!

Link to the project on the Peace Corps website:
https://donate.peacecorps.gov/donate/project/capacity-building-students-and-teachers-through-english-room-revitalization/

Over the past several months, my English teachers and I have been working hard in the planning stages towards a project that will revitalize our school's English room. Currently, our English room needs a lot of help. The floor is old and coming apart. There aren't that many books, and the ones we have are waaaaay too advanced for our students. The desks and chairs are old and broken, and the few books we have don't have enough room on the one tiny bookshelf.

This grant will allow us to purchase new tables, chairs, flooring, and bookshelves, as well as buy equipment needed for multi-media educational resources.

With the new room, we will host English clubs 3-5 times a week, schedule tutoring hours, reading time, and put a check-out system in place to encourage students to further their English education through literature.

Not only will this benefit the students, but it will motivate the English teachers to push harder and offer more opportunities to the school and students.

Here they are again, singing a counting song in English. 

Please consider making a donation to this project. The overall goal is just under $2450, and we will not receive any funding unless the full goal is reached. The school and community have contributed about 25% of this goal ($675) through donations and in-kind services. As I type this now (July 22 at 7pm Mongolia time), $1,225 has been raised, which is half the overall goal!

Thank you to those who have already donated. Please know that even the smallest amount makes a difference. American dollars go a long way here. Any little bit helps us get closer to our goal!

Here's the link again: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/donate/project/capacity-building-students-and-teachers-through-english-room-revitalization/

Please share! Tell your friends and family! Sometimes, it's so difficult to figure out if your donation will go to a good cause, especially overseas, but I am in the thick of it, and this is a true need for this community.

I look forward to posting a before and after blog post of our room once we move forward!!! Thank you for your support!

~Sally

Хэрлэн Голын Зусланд (At the Kherlen River Camp)

I started negotiations with the owner of the Kherlen River Camp several months ago.  We agreed that PCVs could help this locally owned and run camp for two separate week long sessions during the summer. The purpose of our assistance would be to offer English lessons and in general just play with the kids. I solicited the help of a number of volunteers in Khentii province and together we planned the lessons. Before we knew it, the week of the first session was upon us, and Sally, Kyra, and I set off on week of adventure.

Kherlen River Camp

The Kherlen River camp is located 11km outside of Chinggis town in the middle off steppe. From the camp, it is easy to make out the city in the distance. The camp is a loose collection of older buildings with 1970s camp architecture that are left vacant during the colder months of the year. There are a couple of student dorms, a teachers’ dorm (where we were placed), a cafeteria/central meeting hall, camp store (for ice cream and treats), and several out-houses. The river flows a km outside of the camp grounds in the direction of the city. The lands surrounding the camp are open grassland speckled with gers and herds of livestock.

Sally and Kyra leading a circle game

Me awkwardly throwing the basketball

For Sally, Kyra, and I the camp was a lot of fun. Our typical day involved waking up at 8 to the sounds of the camp loudspeaker as the campers did their morning exercises and stretches. We would then follow the campers into the dining hall for breakfast which was usually bread with some sort of spread and a milk/rice based porridge. Our mornings were usually free for us to prepare for afternoon activities. The students during this time would have math lessons. Lunch was at 1 and was always some sort of Mongolian food.  At 3 o’clock we would offer English lessons in two classes to young campers who had no English skills and middle school campers. The high-school campers at our session were not there for math or English, they spent their days practicing archery on targets around their dorm with an instructor from Russia. (Archery is a big deal in Mongolia and is one of the three sports of Naadam.)

Sally teaching an English song in her class

Me teaching the Baby Shark song to practice family vocabulary, "Grandpa shark do do do do do do do Grandpa Shark!" 

From 4:30-7PM were afternoon activities. These usually involved various sport competitions including basketball, volleyball, and sumo wrestling. On several of the days, the temperature was in the upper 90s during this time, so the campers spent several hours trying to stay cool. On the first day, we had a water fight with a water hose, but this activity was not repeated.  7 o’clock was dinner again strictly of a Mongolian variety.

Water fight!!!

From 7:30 to 10:30 were evening activities.  During this time, we would often play with the kids using a Frisbee that Sally had made for my birthday. The campers loved the new games we taught them, and swarmed around my tin whistle playing with open enthusiasm. On one day there was a Mr. and Mrs. Competition where campers dressed as the opposite sex for a beauty pageant. Several other nights were devoted to dances that were given by various instructors. Sally and I learned the Mongolian waltz during this time. We also tried to teach the campers swing dancing. It was challenging, but they seemed to enjoy it. Sally and Kyra were able to teach a number of dances to the Mongolians including the electric slide and the cupid shuffle, but the all-time favorite was a routine to “Uptown Funk” that Kyra taught everyone. While I doubt that Bruno Mars is aware of his fan base in Mongolia, he is nonetheless quite popular.  The evenings would close with a soothing traditional song circle which seemed to relax the young ones. Then after everyone had wished each other good night in song, the circle would unravel and we would return to our beds.

Sally and Kyra teaching a dance

Sally and I teaching swing dance 

Every night we got Mongolian Yogurt as a snack

Me playing the tin whistle for a group of kids

While the campers were not allowed to go to the river because a number of them were too young, Sally, Kyra, and I managed to visit it twice during the week during our free time in the morning. It was nice to “bathe”, and the waters cool and refreshing. The only downside was that the river flowed through a lot of grazing lands, so there was a lot of manure floating down stream.

Unlike American summer camps, Mongolian summer camps do have a lot of built-in free time. There are advantages and dis-advantages to this. Some of the biggest intervals of free time were during the hottest times of the day when activities were canceled because of heat. As someone who grew up in the Deep South, I always wondered how it was that northern climates could suffer so badly from heat waves. It seemed ridiculous that thousands of people might die in a northern city that was only experience temperatures in the high 90s. Now I understand. We who have lived with air conditioning do not understand what it is like to be in these temperatures without it. Even when we go out for the day or weekend to camp in extreme heat, it is always with the knowledge that we will return to the comfort of air-conditioning at some point in the foreseeable future.  I can now say with ease that high temperatures are no laughing matter. Some days it is difficult to get cool when literally everything around you is in the high 90s. Each subsequent day that you are unable to cool off in the evening is torturously hotter. It adds up and adds wear and tear to your body, but I digress. The camp was not this bad. While the days were sometimes hot, the evenings were usually cool and breezy.

The river wasn't very deep, but I could still float hundreds of yards down stream

The three of us PCVs were placed in a separate building to sleep in. This was nice because it afforded us some privacy during our down time. We were about half-way through our camp session when we began to notice the bats. There were hundreds of them that rousted in the space between the roof and ceilings, and in the walls of the abandoned building next to ours. We noticed the bats one night as we were brushing our teeth and looking at the stars and the details of the milky-way. The silent night flyers would shoot through the air sometimes cutting amazingly close to our heads. There would be dozens of them soaring around our building, but this was not a problem because they were not inside the living quarters.

One night shortly after I had fallen asleep, I woke to Sally patting my head from her twin bed. When I was manageably awake, she dove back under her blanket and left me in the open. I realized that there was a black silhouette bouncing through the air of our room. As I fumbled with my glasses, the shape bounced off the window next to my bed and fell on my exposed leg. Everyone in their life time have had moments when they are jolted from sleep in a most horrible and inconvenient way. This may take the gold as the worst way I have ever come into consciousness.

After some cussing and shouted exasperations at the irony of life, “Really!?! Really, did that really just  happen!?!” I managed to fumble the lights on as Sally and Kyra maintained their security of mind under their blankets. I remembered that bats can’t take off into flight, they require a drop/freefall of a couple of feet, so I flipped over my fleece blanket where the animal was now burrowed and picked it up with an old t-shirt to take it outside. Its exposed mouth was opened in rows of little razor sharp yet cute teeth. The shock of being man-handled seemed to wear off half way across the room, and I barely made it to the hall as the animal screamed a most frighteningly loud screech before I lost control of the t-shirt. The bat took flight, and I slammed the bed room door behind it. I shall not detail the moments behind our closed door as we realized the animal was still in the building. Nor will I tell of my heroic journey into the dark hallway to open the outer door for such moments are rarely so exciting in their retelling.

Bats and heat aside, the camp was a lot of fun! It was great to spend so much time with the children who really appreciated our help and lessons. After a long week, we switched places with the new PCVs and returned back to our homes in Chinggis. Sally and I for only a day before speeding away to our next camp adventure!

~Caleb 

P.S. Thanks to Kyra! She provided a number of the pictures on this post. 

The Last Weeks of June

(Before I begin, I would like to apologize for the delay in post recently. Sally and I have discovered that the summer has actually been quite busy for us. Right now we are about a month behind on post, but hopefully we will get mostly caught up soon.)

After Linda left, June seemed to fly by in a blink of an eye. Sally and I ended up spending a few more days in UB to take care of our annual physical with PC. We then returned to the quiet of Chinggis.

One of my projects for the summer is the Kherlen River Camp. This project involves a number of volunteers working at a local summer camp. Our objective would be to teach English and have fun with the kids. I had enlisted a many of our fellow Khentii PCVs to help with the two sessions that we would be working. On the 16^th of June we congregated in the aimag center to plan for the camp that would occur in the first few weeks of July.

The next week was rather slow for Sally and I. Our schools were no longer in session, so there was not too much work happening for us. The entire country was preparing for the parliamentary elections, so nothing else was happening outside of our schools for everyone else. We enjoyed a much needed staycation with movies, games, and the complete Penny Dreadful television series.

Elections in Mongolia are a big deal. Mongolia is a democracy with around 20 different parties; only 4-5 of these are big enough to count. Many jobs (pretty much all of the directors of schools and government organizations) are tied to election cycles. This means that a change in party could result in a lot of people losing their jobs. In the past, elections have sometimes resulted in violence in Ulaanbaatar. Naturally this is something PC wants to avoid, so the week surrounding the elections was a “stand fast” period for all volunteers in Mongolia. This meant that we were not allowed to travel away from site, and were advised to just chill at home. PCVs also have to be careful about not expressing any political opinions and cannot attend political rallies, speeches, or parties.

It is interesting to be on the outside of an election that you cannot participate in. For Sally and I, the election went by uneventfully with only large posters of amiable Mongolians and an influx of new people wandering the streets of our town to mark its passing. Sometimes political canvassers would knock on our door, but quickly retreat when they realized we were not Mongolian. One morning we were awakened by the sounds of a loud speaker. When we opened our blinds we saw that there was a political rally occurring right outside our bedroom window for the people of our complex. The election cycle resulted in a peaceful change for partisan control for Mongolia.

On the 1^st of July, we met with our site mates for a barbeque early 4^th of July celebration. I cooked shish kabobs over an open flame using Kyra’s ger stove. In the winter this stove is vital for providing warmth, but seems to function great as a barbeque in the summer. It was a lot of fun to do American food with Americans on an American holiday.

Me cooking on a ger stove. All of the photo credit for this post goes to Kyra.  

Some modifications were needed. We used tiles to make the opening smaller, and wood blocks to keep the chimney in place in in the wind. 

The final meal included chicken skewers, baked beans, cucumber salad, chips, and other festive odds and ends. 

As the June came to an end, Sally, Kyra, and I prepared to go to the first session of the Kherlen River Camp. Stay tuned for our adventures there!

~Caleb 

Momgolia Part 5: A Mom in Mongolia (A Guest Blog Post)

Hi all. Below is the final chapter of our Momgolia posts. We thought you might enjoy Mom's reflections of her trip as someone who doesn't live here. Without further ado, here's Mom.

I traveled to Mongolia. Me. Yep….still hard to believe and what a wonderful opportunity and experience.  Mongolia is not a place I learned about in school or elsewhere nor was it ever on my bucket list of places to travel. The main catalyst for the trip was, of course, to visit Sally and Caleb wherever they might have been be it Mongolia or Timbuktu. (Where is that?) In spite of the distance, long flight time, not to mention the time change, Mongolia turned out to be a pleasant and educational experience.

Since Sally and Caleb took on the task of blogging about the specifics of my visit and our travels, I will write about some of my thoughts and observations.

Mom at the top of the Chinggis Khan statue

How wonderful to visit a country not from a tourist standpoint but from a “real” life perspective.  Sally and Caleb planned  a great itinerary and we hit all the points minus one side trip. They navigated the language and the currency, knew the local customs, where and what to eat so I had the luxury to relax and enjoy the experience.

The country of Mongolia is vast and beautiful. Visiting the countryside for the camel rides and the trip to Dadal was beautiful yet I felt at home having lived in rural country areas much of my life.  One very poignant moment was stopping on the way to Dadal and having an impromptu picnic of khuushuur in the car in the middle of the Mongolian Steppe. Nothing to see but grass, hills, sky, and sunset. There were no houses, power lines, or others sign of civilization… nothing. It was quiet except for the sound of the wind and rain…so peaceful.   I remember picturing a satellite image of this moment, our car sitting in the middle of a vast endless land looking out of place and tiny, and I felt very small in comparison. A surreal and memorable moment in time.

The Mongolian Steppe

On the opposite spectrum of my experience was the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. With over 1.5 million people, it is by far the largest city I have ever visited. We walked most everywhere which was fun as I’ve never lived in a place where this was practical. We also took taxis which my feet appreciated.  Mongolian taxis are basically regular cars; there are no meters or lit signs on top of the cars to indicate it’s a taxi. Sometimes you are not sure when a car stops if it’s a taxi or they are just stopping for the traffic. And in UB there are a LOT of cars of which every 3^rd or 4^th seemed to be a Prius (They are quite roomy actually).  Once in the taxi, there was the anticipation of hearing Caleb’s exchange with the driver. He would lean forward and using his best Mongolian ask the fee, convey our destination, and engage in small talk.  I cannot describe how utterly entertaining this was to witness. Mongolians are very accommodating with these exchanges. Caleb was always eager to practice his Mongolian, and the Mongolians seemed genuinely pleased that he could somewhat speak their language and happy to help him with the correct word or phrase if needed.  There were lots of smiles and head shaking or nodding. Never once did I see a Mongolian lose patience during these exchanges.

View from the Blue Sky Hotel in UB

 If having a picnic in the middle of the Mongolian Steppe was my surreal country moment, my surreal city moment would have to be when we went to a movie theater in UB to see Captain America: Civil War. It was the 3-D American version in English with Mongolian subtitles. I remember thinking how weird that I flew thousands of miles and here I am in Mongolia sitting in a theater just like back home, eating popcorn and watching Captain America. The one difference was not having any ice for my soda. I could only drink bottled water while there so ice was also off limits also.  By the way, it was a good movie…go see it!

I enjoyed all the aspects of my trip. Visiting the birthplace of Chinggis Khan was an epic adventure.  Such beautiful country there and it was kind of neat knowing we were just one mountain range away from Russia. Riding a camel, sleeping in a ger, visiting the Monasteries, shopping at Naran Tuul, experiencing a Khorkhog, discovering Korean, Indian  and other foods were all super fun adventures.  Staying at Sally’s and Caleb’s apartment and seeing what day to day life is like was probably my favorite part of the trip.  It was fun to grocery shop, visit one of their friends who lives in a new apartment building and also visit another who lives in a ger and in general see their city and what life is like there. Another interesting thing is what you don’t see such as fast food restaurants and large malls or stores like Wal Mart.

Narantuul from above

One of the highlights was seeing three different schools where the PCVs work and meeting the teachers they work with.  The atmosphere and smell of the schools were just like schools in the States. High points of this were seeing Caleb’s huge school office, visiting Kyra’s vocational school to purchase some handmade items by the students to bring back home, and meeting with the director of Sally’s school. I believe that was my first ever conversation with someone through an interpreter. I discovered through him and a few others I met that Mongolians like to know what others think of Mongolia. Also they are very hospitable. I left Sally’s school with the gift of a book and handfuls of candy (Mongolians like candy). And at the teachers’ khorkhog I received a nice jewelry set.

Mom wearing her new jewelry

In Chinggis Hot, Sally and Caleb’s city, we ate in a restaurant once and had a traditional Mongolian meal at a friend’s once, but mostly Caleb cooked delicious dinners and Sally made some delicious pies while in their city. Cooking, bathing and washing clothes are all done a little differently but something one adapts to quickly. Sally and Caleb manage it all very well. I did get scolded a few times for forgetting to remove my shoes at the door. This is a custom in Mongolia for apartment and ger living and even at the hostels we stayed in.

Caleb making pizza

All in all, it was a great visit/trip.  I found the Mongolian people I met to be friendly and down to earth. Theirs is  a family oriented society. It was not uncommon to see a Mongolian man pushing a stroller with a very small baby or with one or two young children and no woman in sight.  That is not something I see often in the states and when I do it strikes me as a little odd.  Caleb explained that in Mongolia child care is shared.  

Sally with pie trying to act Korean

It is amazing how much I did and learned in two weeks. This was my first international trip, and while it felt a little strange if not scary to travel alone through and to places that don’t speak English, I came away with the impression that people are just people where ever you go. One such example: some of the taxi drivers would have their wives ride along with them. While I could not understand what they were saying I could read body language and tone. So when I asked Sally “Is she telling him how to drive?” and she answered “yes” it was a little bit amusing but not surprising.

One other side note: Korean Airlines is great! If you ever need to take a long flight and can take KAL I highly recommend it. They are very accommodating and even flying economy class you are pampered and well taken care of.  The Incheon airport in Seoul is top notch.  They offer free showers for international travelers and you can purchase food or other items with American dollars but will get your change in Korean won. Plus they can understand and speak some English.

Mom at the Onon River near Dadal

Thank you Sally and Caleb for inviting me and planning this trip. I enjoyed sharing a little part of your Peace Corp and Mongolian Adventures even if you did make me eat buuz before I left.   It was fun, educational and enriching.

Where to next?? 

~Linda (Mom)

Momgolia Part 4: Back to Ulaanbaatar

*Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of these last few days. I think all of the pictures taken were on Mom’s camera.

After another 6-7 hour taxi ride back to the capitol city, we checked in to our hostel. That night, we ate at MexiKhan, which serves a combination menu of Mexican and Cuban food. It was amazing.

The next day, we went to Gandantegchinlen Monastery. It’s a long name, I know. Most people just call it “Gandan” for short. This Buddhist monastery is one of the most historic in Ulaanbaataar. It has been built and rebuilt since the early 1800s, and it is home to about 150 monks. Inside the main temple, there is a statue of Avalokiteśvara, a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. It is huge and takes up the whole building at 90 feet tall. There are walls of prayer wheels surrounding the statue, and as visitors leave the building, they walk backwards through the entrance so as not to turn their backs on such a magnificent and reverent statue.

In the afternoon, we geared up for shopping at Naruuntuul, which is called ‘the Black Market’ by English speakers in UB. It is a huge open air market with rows and rows of anything you could possible want. Mom had a list of things to buy, and we were lucky to find almost all of it at Naruuntuul for great prices. She bought all kinds of stuff: a wooden carving of a little man playing an Asian instrument, felt slippers, a Mongolian deel for her granddaughter, new curtains for her dining room (the curtains in Mongolia are very elaborate), a handmade leather belt, and more.

That night we dined at the Blue Sky Hotel Lounge. The food was okay, but the view was divine. There was a live band playing also, which is always nice.

The next and final day, we did some minor shopping at stores close by to finish getting the things on Mom’s list. She also bought me a new pair of Mongolian earrings, which I will show in a later post. We mostly hung out at the hostel relaxing and spending time together. For dinner, we went to a Korean place, and the food was, of course, amazing!

Back at the hostel, Mom packed her things. We took her to the airport in a taxi and all too soon, she was heading past security and out of sight. Her flight to Seoul departed at 12:55am, and then Momgolia reverted back to plain old Mongolia.

Overall, it was a great vacation for Caleb and me, and I think it was a grand adventure for Mom. The two weeks she was here went by so quickly, but I’m so glad she was able to come and get a little taste of life in Mongolia.