LOOONNNGG....blog

March 25, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Yea, Korean food rocks….why the hell did we do Peace Corps in Mongolia?” – A mildly inebriated PCV demonstrated both their assimilation, desire for spice and their cultural sensitivity when they blurted this between chopsticks of Korean Food earlier last week.

Well you will notice a lack of a weeks progress in the blog from this one and the next (all ten of you reading) Well that’s because the past week I have simply been far too busy. What with eating pizza, drinking something other than vodka, applying to run a marathon and grabbing two huge jars of Peanut Butter and and about ten great geeks book that will keep me occupied for months….well ive simply had no time for blogs. But at long last I find myself back at my site with my rock hard bed, closed food stores, windy skies and iced over roads with dogs who seem to be the only other people in this country that actually enjoy Peanut Butter….home sweet home.
So yea…UB. Every time I show up in that town something new happens. This time I was not the only PCV in town, in fact quite a few had shown up. We all bunked in the same room and did what we usually do. Talked about the two things PCV’s talk about with one another: Food and Sex. We hung out at Greater Mongolia bar where the bang Altan Urag plays their 20 minute performance and we all did our best not to eat the plates as we ate every type of food put in front of us.
Some of us went on day to day private chores like seeing girlfriends or going to interview for upcoming jobs or sign up for marathons but in essence it was a week of us hanging out. Its still just too damn cold outside to do anything fun really, so everything involves going into a place. The roads are losing some ice but its just not possible to escape it yet…It will! Give it a month or two more.
We swapped music and games and gave each other in depth conversations. The conversing with someone that you can articulate yourself with is something you never even realize is a luxury until you fight to make yourself understood. Go figure.
While many PCV TEFL’s have another week off including myself last night I was becoming aware that this decadence was getting to me. It was costing a fortune, I was getting bloated from all the eating I was doing and in all honesty daily showers aren’t even that enjoyable to me anymore, so I headed back. Luckily I had taken all my winter clothing to UB to wash in a washing machine instead of doing it by hand, meaning that my clothes that I wont be wearing anymore (thick wool socks, heavy winter sweaters) are now all clean and so next fall when the cold returns I wont find myself slipping on something smelly and uncomfortable. I am not a man of forward thinking in regards to the little things in life. Glad I did for this!
So I got out to where the Meekers leave for Bagkhangai and I had no such luck Iike I had in previous meeker trips. I was the first to arrive and waited an hour and a half before anyone else started to pile in. Without movement my feet were getting pretty damn cold. Then we loaded the van up with drunken men who thought a tall white guy would be something fun to poke and blather at and three more screaming babies. Are we exporting kids from UB or something?
The standard two hour stress test followed and while the ride was certainly uncomfortable I was amazed at how much I seemed to be enjoying it as it was a reminder of where and what I was heading back to. After a rather bumpy and painful ride we pulled back into my town. AHHH….
Well now I find myself back where I was a week before. Happy but rather bored, all the delguurs are closed as they don’t resupply until the start of next month so I am fighting the urge to just start eating peanut butter right out of the jar….i am better without than with that’s for damn sure.
This will be a brief blog archive though because in a couple weeks time I will go back to UB for another soirée as there are some birthdays but also that I figure I may not get to go to UB in the month of April at any other time. With the melting snow, the ability to go outside and just flat out being busy teaching I may forgoe a mid April resupply. Havent decided yet…maybe im just spoiling myself more than usual these days.
Got a few books to read…nite all!


March 26, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 4
Today’s Quote: “I talk and they laugh at me, so I get angry and they laugh more…” –That was me describing to a scout leader from UB how the community and I get along.

Today a scout leader from UB (their office is next to PC’s in UB) to describe the history of scouts to the kids in our community interested in joining. It went well, and it was great how I could even remember and understand a lot of what he said and what was written. Tripp was their as well and we had both been Cub Scouts stateside (he bailed at cub, I stuck around till 2nd class boy scouts) here most scouts begin in their early teen years and continue until they are 25 so its much different. Still, something to take up some time during the day.
Warm enough outside to melt a little snow, but the ground is not absorbing it so it just freezes into black ice, not giving me the chance to run and then I cant just lounge outside because the wind is doing a real number. Were getting close though, I can feel it. Next week I plan to run all seven days, maybe even tomorrow if the wind dies down.
Interesting side note. Back in UB me and a few fellow volunteers were watching a few episodes of Big Love that somebody had from HBO. It’s a fictional story about a polygamist family living near mormons incognito and all that. As ive mentioned before Mormons are the most common Caucasians living in Mongolia next to Peace Corps volunteers, but as I was watching something came to mind that brought me up short. We have PCV’s who don’t drink, or at least only drink beer, and yes the taunts and jeers from hardcore Mongolians is annoying but theres plenty of coffees and milk teas to at least demonstrate willingness to interact and socialize with Mongolians. Then I thought of Mormons. They don’t drink any alcohol, don’t have any caffeine so all soda and coffee is out, and they wont drink tea so that knocks off “soutatsae” milk tea and the dark tea drank during the winter. We don’t have very good or very cheap juice, and the only people who actually drink water in this country are PCV’s so I just got to wonder….how the hay do Mormons keep on their feet in this country outside of UB, let alone relate to Mongolians when they pretty much cant drink anything made by Mongolians to drink?
Ill have to ask one the next time I come across one. Crazier things have happened though. I heard of a PCV who not only was a vegetarian but also had a milk lactose intolerance and they survived… I myself intend to find a way to survive without meat once my Peace Corps service ends as well.

March 27, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 4
Today’s Quote: “Clowns get hit with pies…” –Nicolas Cage

I woke up last night around 2am rather sick. My throat began to hurt and couldn’t really find a good reason for it. I just drank a lot of water and tried to get comfortable to no real success. Don’t feel sick at least so I just need to keep an eye on it.
The sun was out and the temperature at mid day was probably above 40 degrees. It was so bloody refreshing I just couldn’t stand it. I slipped on my running shoes and went out jogging. It was perilous to say nothing else. The melting snow is becoming slush and ice, and I had a few close calls today. The good news is that I have a sneaky suspicion that the next few days will be more of the same. The sun will be out and the wind will be light enough to keep melting more of the ice buildup on the roads. I am going to try and run every day this week. Difficult or not I do need to be sure that I can finish that marathon in June in UB. The price of the ultramarathon up at the Lake may be the dealbreaker for that. I will probably just show up and see if I can register that way and if not ill hitch on to a group horseback riding around the lake. Ill find a way to make that trip nice one way or another, and then in September that one down in the Gobi desert.
Today the warm weather meant the last straw in regards to my winterized apartment. I am sure that the temp especially at night will continue to drop well below freezing but I miss my balcony too much. I broke out my pocket knife (well done Eric for making me pack that!) and just chewed away at the foam and newspaper that had been lodged into my windowsill. It took a lot less effort than I anticipated. Twenty minutes or so later and I pulled the outer and inner window layers open and was greeted by a whosh of semi cold air that aerated my apartment for the first time in over five months. My hammock looked to be doing its same thing and as I lay back in it I reminded myself how good of an idea it had been to bring that with me in Peace Corps service. Its still too cold to sit outside for a prolonged time, but given where I was a month ago I can tell little by little that the Spring is moving in and Summer is just a little behind that.
Life is good.


March 28, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of miles: 4
Today’s Quote: “I will not kill my sister…I will not kill my sister…” –Dexter Morgan

Another day with the temperature above freezing. Little by little the snow outside is melting away from the roads and the ground. Out in the distance I can see brown on the distant hills and everyone is outside and you can see their faces because they only need to wear one coat in the 40 degree weather. The wind was also gone today (HUGE!!!) so I went out for another run.
Had a great cultural moment on the way back. As I wrapped up my run 2 pre-teens were walking back over the hill and one seemed to be walking funny. I slowed until they caught up with me and I recognized the two kids. They were both in my classes. Neithers families are farmers or herders, they work in the government center their families do. Yet one of the kids had a newborn goat zipped into his jacket, making a bleating noise over and over again. It was so cute despite still being wet from the process of birth. He sat tucked into the boys jacket who what I gathered was bring the goat to the family the herd belonged to. I would get that herders and their kids would know how to handle newborn goats without difficulty, and I even have cousins who work farms in America where a newborn still wet from the birthing process would not cause them to bat an eye or flinch, but these kids, who personally own no livestock had no qualms whatsoever with just scooping up a newborn goat and taking it back into town until its legs started working better. Just another fun culture moment I suppose, and I sure hope he washed his coat after!
After my run it was 11am and as I returned home some of the groundskeepers of my school invited me over for vodka. I have proven my willingness to integrate in any way that I can, but good gods vodka at 11am!?!?!?! Its not even a bloody holiday! I tried to explain that I don’t drink until after 5pm (and usually beer or wine but that I kept to myself) and I think they didn’t understand me because they just took off with a gruff. I know I understood what he was saying and I know what I said made sense, so he either simply didn’t understand my accent and gave up, or he is disgusted with me for not willing to start drinking at 11am with vodka…this is a great example of where I think you pay the price for your wish not to drink in this culture at the cost of not making it to social events. Now in all likelihood those guys were some of the more serious drinkers in my town and not getting into it with them may be for the best…but you get my point.
After Tsagen Tsar I really have lost all interest in drinking vodka ever again, and while I expect I will still drink it as the need arises I am under the impression that the warmer months actually means a great deal less drinking of vodka by Mongolians in exchange for lighter alcoholic drinks, which I most certainly get on board with.

Postscript: I just saw something really awful from my balcony. I will tell you about it tomorrow.


March 29, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of miles: 3
Today’s Quote: “The lessons that we never forget are often the ones we wish above all others that we could.” –Someone smarter than they act said that.

First and for the record. What I am putting down in this blog is NOT common in Mongolia. And by that I mean that statistically I don’t believe Mongolia is any worse off about this trait than America is, but that to me doesn’t make it a good thing…just something I wish wasent in either place.
Last night it was 35 degrees outside. How do I describe this in a way that makes you realize how warm that is for me? The snow had been melting all day long and the snow disappears more and more with each passing day and the brown ground beneath never looked more georgous. With my balcony reopened from my work disbanding the winterization I had taken the liberty that afternoon of buying a few Sappos (the Mongolian equivilant of a bad Corona and sat back on my hammock for the first time in months. A comfortable seat never felt so good. The wind was light, I was in a short sleeve shirt and was mildly buzzed on bad beer.
Then I watched from my balcony something pretty damn bad. It was a spousal abuse in motion. Usually beatings between husbands and wives takes place behind closed doors and I didn’t recognize the man but he was obviously in a drunken rage and his wife who was trying to coax him back into their apartment started to take a swing at him. He was drunk and she was nimble but even five floors up I could hear this beating take place. All happening in the courtyard of my apartment building.
As a full grown man and raised in a certain culture this sickened me, but what made it worse was what I did next…nothing. I bit my tongue not to shout at him to stop. The results would not have been fruitful no matter how it worked. He would have either ignored me, hit her harder, or raced up the stairs to attack me himself. If I had physically intervened I would be instantly found guilty of attacking a Mongolian citizen (as a foreigner the details would mean absolutely nothing) and the man even drunk would probably have overpowered me anyway because while I am willing to fight back my desire not to hurt someone is a trait I doubt I would have found in the man beating his wife. I could call the police, and in the end I called my counterpart to ask her if she would, but the response was what I thought it would be. She wasent being beaten to death and the drunken man was not armed, this was a domestic problem and needed to be handled as such. In Mongolia there is a saying “don’t bring your donkey between a man and a woman” In essence meaning that if its not about you, stay the hell out of it.
There are reasons given as to how this is not total abandonment. In this country I have noticed that a woman truly does have total control over who is and who is not allowed to stay in the house at night, and many a night I have seen intoxicated men who have been thrown out of their house to wander aimlessly by their wives for having one too many. Also like I said the woman was not being pummeled nor was the man using a weapon which based on the inquiries made when I txtd made this sound that if this indeed got any worse they would indeed intervene. Women subject to abuse are also capable of taking her kids and moving to her friends houses where her friends and neighbors upon being brought into the situation by one of the two involved are then viewed as allowed to act upon putting an end to this.
Its not an excuse, and doing what I did disgusted me no less. As a full grown man and fully capable of doing something that would at least immediately stop this drunken man, did absolutely nothing…
There are sociology cases where people in large crowds absolved themselves of blame for a crime like pillaging or murder as they blamed the crowd and not themselves. There is no such feeling for me. Watched by over a dozen out of our windows I and my community did nothing while we watched this…and I do feel disgusted by that.
It even gets worse. The five year old daughter of the two of them watching from five feet away was shouting at her dad to stop. When the wife ran inside the man turned his attention to the girl and started shuffling back and forth towards her. The girl ran away, and the father either drunk or unwilling to run just kept walking behind her as the little girl kept 20 yards from him. She kept running all the way away from the apartments and kept running into the countryside, the father slowly in pursuit shouting at her to stop. She kept running, and did so until they were out of my eyesight. That type of response by the kid leads me to believe that she was accustomed to her fathers behavior and how to counter it….
I think what made this so disturbing to watch was how long it went on. I just watched the kid run further and further out into the countryside. Turning every 15 yards to see if her father had given up wobbly chasing after her before turning to run a little bit more and repeat. The length of time this went on gave this a sense of realism. The idea that most people not personally involved in domestic violence see the quick flash of disturbance. The angry husband and wife shout two things at each other before they slam the door and the conversation and interaction becomes private. There was no such barrier in this circumstance, and for ten minutes I watched something helpless to stop it effectively and unable to walk away without thinking about it, so helpless to change their personalities I just watched. I don’t know what my take on god is, but if there is one, and the idea that god is responsible for the free will of mankind then I think I get the idea of why Arkadi and Boris Strugatski wrote a book called “Hard to be a God”
This is not a happy blog. I don’t have a happy ending to this or a moral. That’s what I think I am learning a lot about in Peace Corps. I am little by little coming to the sad horrible and unavoidable truth that not every wrong has a right, or at least not a permanent right. You can do everything possible, try to lead by example, and in the end so very very many things in this world are just gonna be so messed up. I guess you just have to hope that even when you realize this that your still willing to do everything you can at all times…
In every outcome of that story, whether I had intervened or not would have still led to it all being unbalanced. Lets say somehow, that I had calmed the man down in some way. His wife and child, sitting on a time bomb are going to be in that same situation again and I wont be there that time. And he had parents and teachers who should and for all I know did tell him that doing that was wrong…so why me? So why not me? Why is it so hard to find just one possible solution to the endless number of difficulties I see in day to day life. Its psychologically exhausting to realize that your best just wont due…
I talked to my counterpart about it the next day. She didn’t know the couple either….maybe it was just a bad dream from the bad Mongolian Coronas…I doubt it.


March 30, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “As a teacher I know that’s not true.” –A teacher was once told that respect had to be earned, that was their response.

I don’t know what the heck is going on. Maybe its near the end of the month so money is tight, maybe there is something in the air. But after seeing that domestic fight the day before suddenly I am noticing a lot of fighting going on around my apartment. A husband and wife were screaming (literally the first time ive heard a Mongolian scream) at each other in the hallway of our apartment block this afternoon and the wife threw the husband out. Geeze…
For the record: To my future wife, if I ever get violent you take a pillow and just wait till I fall asleep. There are a lot of terrible ways to turn out, someone who abuses their spouse is pretty damn high up on my list…anyway…
The cold and wind is in high gear today, and if the forecast is accurate it will be for the next few days. This break of mine was botched big time. I was too invested in going with others out west that when everybody pulled out I chose not to do it alone. It’s a reasonable excuse, and given the weather I may or may not have done myself a favor, but I instead spent the time eating insane amounts of food, gaining some weight because I still cannot run long periods of time and basically waiting to start teaching again. Wasted two weeks. Next year ill use these two weeks and go to China or something. I think my goal of limiting my stimulation is failing. Given I am two months away from no plumbing or a television with three really crummy channels either it may be time to reevaluate.
Crummy day outside. Not one of the 300 sunny days we have here in Mongolia. Today at the school all the teachers showed up (they get paid if they do despite the fact we don’t have kids) and they were all thrilled that a grant had gotten them modern cooking appliances for the canteen. The amount of stuff they were given is literally larger than the kitchen itself. They even got a buffet salad bar. I nearly wet myself thinking about the concept of a Mongolian salad bar…anyway, so my time at school was hardly required.
I am concerned about the weather. If I don’t start getting some longer distance runs in the next two weeks theres no way I can stack them up to 20 miles by May 1st. (then you taper off little by little till the Marathon on June 5th) and if I don’t build up my legs I am going to have to walk a large chunk of that upcoming marathon. I want to exercise. I want to be gasping for breath and legs that collapse when I try to bend them so badly. I want the cracked skin and the desire both to pee and throw up at the same time so badly….but this bloody 30 degrees outside with 20mph winds and ice on the main road!!! Not cold anymore but too damn cold and windy to exercise. Blasted…
So I caught an email from my mom today. Apparently she is headed to North Carolina this weekend with my sister. Wow, cant recall the last time my mom headed south without leaving for Aruba! Well that means that with her computer the prospect of Skype is not out of the question with my Grandparents…and while I would like to run more than anything else right now I will say that seeing my grandma and granddad on the computer screen and saying hi would truly make my day…and I imagine theirs as well.
So…having left behind UB a week ago I imagine I will be heading back again this weekend. As a man who had definitely had enough of UB by the time I left last week I did not plan on returning so soon, but for this very rare circumstance I will make a rare exception…of course a fellow PCV is celebrating their birthday next weekend and ill probably drop in for that as well and ….ah blasted….alright school will help get me back on track.
For all my whining about not being able to run I am pleased to report that the snow is still trickling off little by little. When you have seen the ground as a sheet of white for five months anything brown looks beautiful at that point. Common weather…let me run more…longer…farther! It’s the first ever International Mongolia Marathon! I want to at least jog across the finish line!


March 31, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “If that’s a crime then lock me up…” –Creed

Today at school we did the same thing we have done the past three days. Sat in the computer lab playing spider solitare (they don’t like video games apparently) and trading off using the internet. I got to use it yesterday at its awesome speed of a kilobyte per second of bandwidth. I took a quick look over at CNN and FOXNEWS…you gotta listen to the news…even the propoganda, because you gotta know what there saying so you know what those that listen to the propoganda think…see? Didn’t think about that huh? Every time I turn on the news after being out of the loop for a few weeks or so something else has come up I wouldn’t expect. Ricky Martin’s gay…not that that’s surprising just amusing that news like that would be higher up on the list than the Moscow subway bombings. I also found out they may be making sequels to Independence Day…do you realize that that movie is over 14 years old? Granted I was that age when it came out but G.M. Chrysler im old!
Luckily, blogs take up little space and I was able to look back on a year of blogging because I had guessed correctly. Last year on this date something pretty damn legendary happened.
I knew it was en route because I had gotten a call from someone at Peace Corps asking me if I was still a lockdown for the launch date and all that but that still doesn’t mean I wasn’t excited. I got the Peace Corps package and I knew exactly what it was. I was even pretty sure at this point where I was going but based on the number of blogs I had read at that point I was not willing to be sure of anything. I took the package from the mail room at Fordham University and I went over to Edwards Parade Lawn. I sat on a bench. If I recall the day was not especially pretty, but the students were all shuffling about to classes and I sat in my black trenchcoat and my black tie/shirt combo that I wore as part of my formal process at the school. I opened the package and that thick blue folder was in my hands. I was invited to serve the Peace Corps…in Mongolia. That blue folder I still have with me, and I will say for all ive bumped around that sucker has remained pretty sturdy. Good for it.
Ive read many a blog entries and heard many a reaction to getting their invitation letters. Some rip the package from the mailman’s hand and go screaming thrilled to no end back into their house to tell their friend and parents the good news. Some just come up short and wonder why they didn’t get placed somewhere else. Some probably even read that, scratched their head and went “Mon..gol..lee..yah………is that next to Moldova?”
For me, I just sat there. Quiet and collected on that bench reading the same lines over and over again about both the country I was invited to and also the type of work I would be doing. There was a lot of emotions to take in. I had originally been cleared to enter Peace Corps service in 2007. I had been given a career and educational opportunity at Fordham University that would not be as easily found when I returned from service so I put it off...and in 2007 I had a nagging suspicion that that was the first way that a long term goal I had had of joining the Peace Corps may not come to fruition. I spent two amazing years working at Fordham University. I learned new administrative and leadership skills, continued on as a life long learner with another Masters Degree, and probably most of all I matured some. Not completely, but enough to make this experience far more enjoyable. Had Peace Corps not been for me, I could have easily found another excuse to put off Peace Corps…maybe until I got promoted to Area Coordinator, maybe when I finish that doctorate, the school is subsidizing my classwork at an amazing school after all. Yet I remember the knowledge that I was 28 and had wanted to join since I first heard about the Peace Corps specifically when I was 20…that’s a bit too long to keep someone like me bottled up. That’s how you know when Peace Corps is right for you btw. When you have a million good reasons not to, or at least a few other thing you could just as easily do instead of serve…and then you apply anyway. THAT’S how you know…least my opinion.
As I sat there holding that package last year today, I needed a minute to just realize that while I in many ways contain faults I wish I didn’t have. That I was secretly arrogant in some ways and a pain in the ass to others… with that packet in my hand and a feeling of desire to join the service so I could help and teach others like I never had before…I realized that one of my greatest fears was not true. I am not full of shit. I am not all talk. My liberal lifestyle and viewpoints on the human comedy were not a grandstanders jeer. I really did want to help…and I really was going to.
Of course, getting that invite just set off a brand new process of gathering paperwork and signing specific forms for visas, my bank account information and various other things I needed to compose for Peace Corps Service. Also the following month I was presenting my Masters Thesis, getting my Teachers Certification in Virginia after the most trying two or so years of my life and managing a building of 250 Freshmen whose viewpoint on alcohol was getting worse and worse and so my euphoria about what was going to happen in 2 months got put on pause until about Mid May. Still to those reading this who got their letters around this time I tell you regardless of how you reacted. Whether your blindsided by Mongolia or like me your recruiter seemed to think this place was perfect for you from the moment you started your application process I promise you that us Peace Corps Mongolia Volunteers are the real deal.
We wear our service like a badge of honor and if your hearts in this whether you’re a vegetarian wine drinking beach loving tall white guy like myself going to a meat infested vodka swigging landlocked country of people about 5’5 I promise you to a moral certainty that there is no greater nation in the world to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer and you will have the absolute time of your life.
About eight or nine weeks until the M’21’s arrive….ill wave at you all when you show up. Look for the guy with the sign that says “Be intimidated!!! I was!!!” Funny how a year can look in perspective…
Now on to some logistical nonsense. I woke up today to the harshest wind I have heard and felt in the time ive been in Mongolia. It even blew in the windows to some of the apartment stairwell. It also brought a fresh blanket of snow, killing my chances of running for the immediate future….buzz kill! With that in mind and the prospect of saying hi to my grandparents on Skype I have decided to head back to UB again tomorrow. I may even cut this hair of mine as well. Would be a good way to start off the 4th quarter I suppose.


April 2, 2010. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Ein Pizzarae!” (That’s me today accidently using German, English and Mongolian in the same sentence to order a pizza)

I think I am getting the hang of UB. Yes it’s a tad more luxurious than I would like, but given that I plan to spend pretty much all of April and May at my site running (sky father willing) I will allow it to happen. So I got in and tomorrow I wake up at six in the fracking morning to Skype with my grandparents and Jacobs family members. I have spent my time eating pizza as always but the hostel has been particularly crowded with German and Austrian travelers. VERY cool. The current ones are only 20 years old. I thought back to what I was like at age 20….good gods I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes let alone there women. Not saying women are weak, quite the opposite, but of those preyed on by thiefs and robbers it’s the fairer sex that gets the attention. I think ill take the German ladies ive met out to Greater Mongolia to hear Ultan Urag if there interested. I like that band, and the beer rocks too…its sorta amusing that beer seven months ago was so lousy…and now having drank pretty much all the different types of beers Mongolia has to offer I will say that stuff is like liquid Ambrosia. Seriously if I drank an Augustiner I would hit nirvana.
So now I find myself VERY slowly downloading a movie from Itunes called “The New World” Its perhaps the most boring movie on the planet and as a result is probably the most accurate movie about the experience of the settlers of Jamestown out there. Yup…life is quite good. Maybe this afternoon ill do something crazy like take a nap followed by a rigorous round of book reading, might kick it into overdrive and even write in the diary I keep that I seldom use based on how often and accurate I keep my blog.


April 5, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 4ish
Today’s Quote: “I know your not gonna believe this, but theres was nothing left after I sheared him. He was just hair and sneakers!” –Porky Pig in his role as assistant to Duck Dodgers when he saved Dodgers from the Orange furred monster that Marvin the Martian had as a pet….i cant memorize the periodic table but I can describe in detail every single cartoon I have ever watched…go figure

Lot going on so lets get this blog started in here. The rest of my time in UB went well again. Met some Germans only 20 years old out for some culture before their University started. Good Gods I remember what I was like when I was 20…wouldn’t have lasted five minutes, and there girls too! Not to be sexist though, just that women travelers are targeted for looting and violence far more than men.
The skype to the Jacobs side of the family went great. In order to sync up times I had to get on skype at 6:30am in the morning (6:30pm there time) That might have been bad enough, but then I also had taken the Germans out for some drinking the night before and though not hungover I definitely had a voice about ten times deeper than I usually sound. Still, it was a great kick to see my Grandma and Grandad live. They looked like they were doing great. It was amusing for me that everyone was drinking wine while talking to me on Skype. Cruel punishment! Nah but seriously it was all good.
So I stuck around until Sunday for some fun. We got in the meeker that they stuffed to the rafters and headed out. Unlike my previous trips no babies this time, only old people. I like them though. Youd think that like in America some of the more nationalistic or xenophobic would be those not as accustomed to seeing Americans outside of television like the elderly, but luckily the goal of the Peace Corps seems to be doing well because everyone just points at me and says in Monoglian “He looks just like Lief!” You know how Westerners are considered racist when they believe all Asians look alike? Well I am pleased to report that to Asians all Westerners look the same as well. Everyones racist! Don’t you all feel better now? Collective guilt. The glue of society and what makes the world go round…wow that was a little too dark coming from a liberal. Now in all fairness me and the teacher from three years ago do indeed look the same in some ways, but no they even think me and Tripp look a lot alike which we do not.
We got back to site and I realized that I forgot to get my haircut. This morning I woke up and decided enough was enough. Time to cut this stuff. My hair was cut by one of the groundskeepers of my school. He sat me down and wearing my formal polo and no cloth over me just literally starts shearing into my hair. So with my thin and thick globs of foot long hair pouring onto my clothes the teachers and stare and mock. I have long hair, they laugh and say im ugly. I get a haircut and they laugh…cant win. On the upside I am now 50 pounds lighter and my ears are cold for the first time ever as my hair no longer covers them. How about that? But the hair is now much more appropriate for running too which I plan to do some of this afternoon because classes it turn out don’t begin until tomorrow. Well that’s fine with me.
Last piece of news. Oddly I had predicted this was going to happen from the very beginning. No idea why I was so certain I just was, but I didn’t get a job as a trainer this summer. Some of my friends had found out if they were or weren’t working this summer by email and having not gotten one I gave PC office a call. A one minute phone call and an apology for having forgotten to send me an email I was told I didn’t get the job.
Those that know me can vouch I don’t handle failures well. I am not a good sport despite the best efforts of my parents to beat it into me and enough failures in my life had come up in important enough areas that my body made me almost bedridden with fatigue I got at some points. Now I still stress thought that a lesser amount of frustration at failure CAN be a good thing. To at least have some sort of force egging you on to succeed will probably lead you to trying harder than you are used to. But no my previous encounters with failure were unhealthily severe. Yet when I was told I had failed to become a trainer this summer for the first time I can think of I took it well. Really well. Maybe theres hope for me yet….
Or maybe it just made me realize that I can go to all corners of Mongolia over the summer and spend some time informally helping those at my site. So I will shell out the cash and go horseback riding around Hovsgul Lake. Go see Eaglefestival out in the West, and even go east and…well im sure ill think of something. Ill save my trip to the Gobi for when I run the Gobi desert marathon in September. Who has a cooler life than me?
Additionally as not an official trainer I can now give the advice that PCV’s give to trainees that is not covered in classroom exercises. The real low-down so to speak. So pat me on the back. I failed at something and for the first time ever its not the end of the world. Good for me.
But I am still so gonna cheer the noobs on when they show up at the airport.


April 6, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 5
Today’s Theme Song: “My Happy Ending” By Avril Lavign

The trick to being a good runner is learning how to get over putting on your shoes. You heard right. Basically once you get into good enough shape to run 3 or more miles at a jog without stopping the physical act of running is in fact a very pleasant experience. Fresh air, endorphins, your doing something that you know is good for your body, knowledge that youll sleep like a log that evening. Yea, a runners high does exist. It just takes six or so months of running 5 times a week 3 or more miles to find it.
So with all that good feeling you may ask why I don’t always get around to running? Well the weather was a pain in the ass for the last 5 months this much is true, another problem is getting to that first step. You see, after teaching in a foreign language for the majority of the day, putting up with my counterparts sarcasm/insults and all around fatigue from a day of pshychologically draining work, getting into the mood for running is hard to do. So…you gotta trick yourself, or rather that’s what I do anyway. Basically when I get back to my room I do what all bachelors do. I throw my bag into the corner, hang up my jacket and proceede to get out of all my formal clothing and start to walk around my room in my boxers.
The next five minutes are critical, for I have to choose between my pajama pants and spending the afternoon lounging around or lying on my hammock until sunset, or I can put on my sweatpants and running shirt and go right outside. So in those five minutes I run to the bathroom, drink a liter of water, and eat a piece of Peanut Butter bread. If done effectively, I put on my running clothes and get my body moving. Ten minutes later I am thanking myself and so goes another day of preparing for the UB Marathon 2 months away. Ah, life is good.
Well, that was an interesting day today. A few bits to cover. First I showed back up to teach for the first time in over two weeks. I should have recalled how the first week of each quarter has always started. The kids are busy gossiping and the teachers who all took their vacations to heart give the kids a mundane writing assignment so they can create assignments to use in future weeks (do I sound bitter? The scarier thing is that’s not with an ounce of sarcasm. I wrote that as though I were copying a Chinese Food menu…mmmm…Chinese Food….)
Well I was also told that my Training Manager (the guy whose my neighbor) has been dismissed from his post...again. Oddly enough, this is the exact same time this happened to him last year and for exactly the same reason. I didn’t mention the reason before and im not going to now….its just something ill write in my diary and not this blog and ill let you all imagine, I assure you the real reason will blow yours out of the water. Anyways the person now working his job was rather remarkable if you ask me. It’s the 27 year old Mathematics teacher of our school named Sukbold. He was the guy who tutored me last year in Mongolian, and hes a hard worker and great guy. Hes also they youngest teacher in our school and somehow he was the one selected for the job. This dismissal and replacement is complicated and delicate to talk about so I learn what I do from hearsay but no women were considered for the job and the male teacher they picked was the youngest in the school. I believe what I am looking at is a true meritocracy. You go Mongolia! Make Temujin proud!
So todays school reminded me that the reentry into active student teaching will be gradual, but I made some accomplishments. Though we didn’t enroll in English Olympics those students interested were able to get a copy of the test given this year and they asked me for advice on how to take it so I helped them out.
Peace Corps also showed up today to have tryouts for the various teachers interested in being the Peace Corps Mongolian teachers for this summer both here in Ondortolge and in Bagkhangai. Curious and with little else to do I stuck around to listen to them talk about how their sample lessons went. As an unbiased observer I was amazed how little cutthroat of drive this position brought. I figured theyd undermine one another left and right to get the job. Instead they gave each other advice on their lessons and everything! Go figure…


April 7, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 3
Today’s Quote: “You shall not pass! The Force is with me and my Kung Fu is strong!” –The ultimate superhero.

Long Wednesdays. Were back into the old posture of some days of the week lasting forever while at the end of the week you look back and have no idea where the time went. Today was I think the greatest example of team teaching I have ever done with my counterpart though, was thrilled about that.
Seven more weeks of long Wednesdays, then the summer arrives. Everyday a little warmer, a little less snow. Its quite revolting to see just how many animals have frozen to death and been out by the roads up until now. Hard to miss now that the weather has been above freezing for the past week during the daytime. Nightime is still a bit cold out.
Someone in class with one of their cell phones said that its gonna be back to -20 Celcius and a snowstorm tomorrow. Weather…especially the winds but the snow too…you gotta stop this. I haven’t run longer than 12 miles without stopping in over six months and I got two months to get back into that. I needed this weekend for that. Seriously, you had your fun..lemme have a semblence of a Spring. Its like 70F in Washington DC these days…buggers.


April 8, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Theme Song: “Hands Clean” by Alanis Morisette

What the heck was the matter with my counterpart today? Everything I did and said seemed to make her angry. Cant see what, I ran both classes today, I kept the kids in order, I even invited her over to hang out with me and Tripp tonight and she gave me no more attention than some annoying accessory she kept having to ignore. What the heck?
Ill be honest next year is looking more and more promising. I could easily have worked here another year at this specific school but a chance at a more outgoing and less insulting counterpart really wouldn’t hurt. I cant tell if its me specifically or if this is the way she always acts around Peace Corps volunteers. Maybe it really is just me, but in seven more weeks I will be happy to try something else. In the meanwhile seven weeks will be a blink, especially now that I can go outside and whatnot.
Actually today I couldn’t go outside that much. It didn’t snow and it stayed quite sunny but the wind was powerful. It was tough to walk so running was probably out as well. No matter, today can be the rest day and tomorrow I can run and whatnot. Though there are PC volunteers I would like to see and a package with a new Star Wars book waiting for me in UB I don’t know if I want to go back to UB again. Its so bad that I am literally thinking of going to UB on Saturday, grabbing the package and then going straight back to Naarantul and back to my town without even spending the night. That would cost 10000 tugriks. 6000 round trip from my site and 4000 round trip by cab to the PC office. About 6 bucks, and a little under two days pay….wow I really must like these Star Wars books. Though in all fairness I haven’t read a new one in the series since last September. 8-9 months…eep. I choose a book series to read in Mongolia well though.
Well I haven’t really drank vodka in a couple months, but tonight me and my sitemate might break it out again. Cheaper than beer and to be honest its been a while since we hung out. Off to have some fun. Hope everyones life is going along a little more interesting than mine.


April 9, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 14
Today’s Quote: “Never Spit Into the Wind” –This was a tip given at the start of Warcraft II games. Its amusing that this is the only country I can think of where the wind is actually strong enough.

Gods I love running. Theres something so liberating at being able to make you body function for so long a period of time. I woke up this morning having spent the last night downing a bottle of mid class vodka. It was the first vodka id drank in over a month and as ive mentioned before my tolerance to vodka is finiky. Some nights a shot will knock me unconscious and other times I can drink the bottle and barely feel the buzz. Well last night I drank the thing and came out feeling fine. Hadnt really eaten in the past 10 hours either. How the hell does my body work?
So I woke up right as rain and went to school. My counterpart blew off today so I taught classes….Seven weeks to go. Afterwards around noon I headed back to my room. It was a balmy 30 degrees outside and the wind was strong enough to almost make me lose my jacket. Not ideal running weather obviously. No choice though, tomorrow I need to go grab that package in UB and I needed a long run….like today! So I put on the clothes and with a wind strong enough to knock me off my feet I headed outside. It felt amazing to run for so long. An hour out and an hour ten minutes back. I spent the first hour running directly into the wind. That hurt. I brought a Cliff bar that my Aunt had shipped me (Aunt Susie you so rock) and a tiny water bottle that I needed to hold in my hand because if I didn’t the water iced up. With the wind at my back most of the way home I got the whole run in. The meekers that run between our two towns keep stopping to offer me a ride. Mongolians are not real “runners” I suppose. Must be because of all the horses…
Over two hours of running without stopping after six months unable to run more than twice a week for a half hour and I did so after drinking a bottle of vodka last night….hey look everyone! I get cake, and I get to eat it too….and then theres more cake! Lifes not fair in a lot of ways, but every now and then you win the lottery and life is not fair to your advantage.
Well that run was encouraging. A half marathon. If I can run for two hours without stopping especially into a gale force wind for an hour of it then i can likely build that up even more in the coming weeks. In a couple weeks ill bank up to 20 miles and after that I can begin to taper back to 7-9 miles on weekends and faster 3-5 mile runs during the week. And if all goes well I show up and finish the first ever UB Marathon. I do hope some other PCV’s decide to run this race.


April 10, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia
Today’s Quote: “No you get to live and experience all the joys of male adulthood. Acne…Shaving…Premature Ejaculation. Its all yours kid.” –Arnold Schwarzenegger

Today I did a UB run. Literally I got up this morning and loaded into the meeker. I went straight from the black market meeker dropoff and headed to Peace Corps office. There was a package waiting for me there. Big props to the M18 Greg for the heads up about that. Had I not heard I wouldn’t have come to UB for another month. Yes the goodies inside packages are always nice, but there was a Star Wars book with my name on it. After that I had an hour or so before the Meeker headed back to my town. Out and back. That doesn’t count as a UB trip right?
With that hour to spare I walked over to a store in UB called Sky Video. Its practically the only legit DVD store in this country outside the State Department. I looked at the titles and settled on a two pack of Saw IV and Saw VI. I just finished watching them this evening. Im not so much into these movies for the gore and carnage, but rather the psychology behind them. The whole will to survive thing. I think that’s why Saw IV was by far my favorite of the Saw Movies. The mentality of it and the plot twist was rather impressive, even for a Saw movie. Also the first trap of the movie, where one man is blind and one cant talk and they are chained to one another with the key on the blind man and the mentality that because they didn’t trust one another they couldn’t both survive. So I was glad I got that.
Since Saw VI came out last October I hadn’t seen that, but I will say that I was not as impressed with this movie. Actually I really didn’t like it. In every movie of saw before this one, every person put in a jigsaw trap has a chance to survive. Now usually they don’t survive due to their inability to work together or overcome a difficulty they have, but before Saw VI everyone had a chance to survive from a jigsaw trap. It’s the mentality of Jigsaw that he wants people to survive, for in surviving they also become rehabilitated from their addictions instantly. They even covered this in Saw III with Amanda making traps you couldn’t escape.
In Saw VI though, its pretty much just a vendetta. In every trap somebody has to die, and though I get it that the mentality is that Jigsaw is getting his revenge on the people who have killed others, traps in which someone must die are in complete contrast to the message in the previous five movies. The ending of Saw VI was the only thing that saved the movie for me. Jigsaws apprentice making it out of his trap (very cleverly too) means that the next one will be interesting with the whole 2 remaining apprentices and all that. Naturally were all waiting for Dr. Gordon to show up, which I really doubt will happen but hey…another Halloween, another Saw movie. I think they got 2 movies left in em…which may mean I even get to see the last one in the movie theatres back in America…lucky me.
Back to the package. I will say this about the packages I get from home…the personality of the person sending me things is directly related to what kind of things I get in my packages. For example, when I ask my mom for Peanut Butter and Star Wars books in my package I get these things, but then she also sends Grape Jelly and Nutella as well as various dried fruits, ponytail holders for my hair (which ive cut but heck…I got over a year of service left to go) and tuna fish packets. In essence its full of tiny little knick knacks and cute little things that are so like my sweet mothers personality. My Dad sent me a package and with it something was sent by each member of the Jacobs side of the family that again is very like my dad. Especially the tomato seeds and growing kit. My stepfather meanwhile. I ask him for Peanut Butter and books….and he sent me EXACTLY that. Peanut Butter and books. Im not ripping any package format I just find it amusing how I could tell you who sent me something based solely on the contents and my knowledge of their personalities. Fun fun…


April 11, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Aye me lads! Weve got enough gold to choke a whale!” –Pirate for rich.

Snow….its snowed last night. Its 75 degrees in Washington DC last week when I talked to my family and here I am almost at the middle of April and it snows! You know some of us are trying to RUN around here!!!! Ah blasted. Well that’s no good. Though the temp is only around 20F here so the snow is not the bone dry scratchy stuff that was falling in February….but common!!! Ugh. I called up my sitemate Tripp and asked if this happened last year. Even he is floored by the type of weather we have been having. Tough Zudd! When running a few days back I was amazed at how many dead cows and goats were just lying around along the countryside. The cold and the lack of grass just wears the animals down. More amazing is that this isint even where Mongolia is being hit hard either. I can only imagine just how bad it must be in Aimags like Gobi-Altai up in the mountains that have been in the negative Fahrenheit temps since November and still are!
Well in typical style I took the Star Wars book “Backlash” and in a days time read the whole thing. I think I learned how to do this when I worked at the 10th hole snack shop at a country club one summer. The idea of excessive amounts of spare time coupled with mildly interesting books (Red Storm Rising was the popular book that summer for me, and other Clancy stuff) My opinion about Backlash? Eh…not bad not good. For me the problem is that my favorite character is long dead and demonized. Technically this part of the series is the characters trying to find out why my character went bad but in essence they have moved on from him pretty much, so I am disappointed before I even read em. Wow, mom’s right. I am a harsh critic! All in all it’s a fine read I just wish something would happen in these books that I somehow doubt will. Nothing for it, just gotta keep reading or take up knitting.
Oh yea. Today that’s 10 months of time in Mongolia and in Peace Corps service. Wow… When I skyped with my family last week they all asked if I missed anything about life back in America….and I came up short as I really didn’t all that much. But I tried to assure them that this wasent a bad thing. In fact I think the reason people miss something is because they don’t have something at their current place as much as they like. My relationship with my family is strong and solid. No unfinished business, nothing I haven’t told them and I think it’s the same for them about me. Were just all in all okay. I do miss being able to go into lengthy discussions with people about specific things and not my half assed Mongolian which is hard to use to talk in depth.
…that and wine of course, but maybe that and the pretty girls is why I miss Germany a little more than I miss America. No matter, I am fine where I am….if only it would please stop snowing in the middle of bloody April!


April 12, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “I don’t believe this im surrounded by assholes!” –Lord Helmet

Snow again today. Common its fracking mid April! It doesn’t need to be warm outside but its fracking snowing. Some of us want to run round here!!! Granted not a whole lot of us but still dammit.
School internet was working today and though there was a long line I stole it for two minutes to check mail and surprisingly got to have a momentary conversation with my mom. She brought something up that I want to comment on though. When I told her I wanted her to consider going to China sometime in March next year during the time I would have two weeks off of school she brought up two things. The first complaint she had was that China would be “Freezing” in March….she is aware that Latitude wise Beijing is further South than New York right? Although for a woman who goes to Bermuda in the Winter months yes I can imagine to her 50 degrees must be freezing. I haven’t experienced 50 degree weather in so so long. I swear when it hits 55 outside I am gonna start sweating again. I should be thankful for the weather though. The summer brings the warmth…and that brings the flies….LOTS and LOTS of flies….nah I still want the warmth.
Moving on from that, she accused me of planning too far ahead and not being here and now. Seeing as four months ago I pledged to myself that I would exactly NOT do that I want to comment. First off, this was all abstract thinking. Nothings planned out and if anything it’s a way for me to amuse myself. Not all of us have internet and the weather still limits how long I can spend outside! I am here and now… the only difficulty with here and now is that in the snowy months the small towns of Mongolia can simply be excruciatingly boring. Lack of internet though doesn’t let me plan stuff out though, and so I feel I can state that I am indeed here and now…I just like the idea of Chinese food….and I imagine that next summer ill have something else to do. A job, another round of service, the desire to travel Trans-Siberian. I haven’t made the plans but I know there eventually exist. No I keep my pledge and ill stay here in the true and utter boredom.
Moogi took my cinnamon. I brought some with me ten months ago and Moogi has this insatiable urge to eat cookies that her and her scouts are making so I just handed it over. That won me a few popularity points. Its amusing to me what makes you popular in Mongolia. Wealth isint all that impressive to Mongolians. Its seems to be how creatively you use your wealth that counts….such as procuring spices. Go figure.
By the by. During the five minutes I had internet today I looked at fellow volunteer blogs and an M19 wrote something that I think explains why a lot more dead animals can be found out in the countryside now. This winter was a bad one, which I for the record believe that means by the odds that my 2nd Mongolian winter will be far milder…always get the hard stuff done first! Yea but they mentioned that after November the temperature in Mongolia never went above freezing at any time. So for over half a year the snow that’s fallen hasent melted, and the ground underneath therefore up until last week was bone dry. The animals need food, and while grass will eventually begin to grow again the animals which have been on starvation rations for so long are simply running out of gas as they don’t have food now either. The endless cold and no food at a time when there should be grass growing would explain a lot.
Its rather amazing how all the M19 blogs I have read are gonna be done with service in three or so months. The color-guard is changing….the noobs become the veterans and another mountain of noobs will take their place. Life goes on…as it never ends.


April 13, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 4
Today’s Quote: “Reality can be a real bitch.” –Niobe

Good day of running. Stupid wind…it’s a real buzz kill. I remember running back in September on days where there was no wind. It would be shockingly quiet and serene. You have no such luxury in the Spring. Its running into a blasted wind tunnel half the time. Though like I said before the upshot is that when the wind is gone I imagine being able to run quite well because of the tolerance it will help me build. Its like that episode of Samurai Jack where the monkeys tie a huge boulder onto Jacks back so that he learns to “jump good” Whose with me on this one????
Onto Peace Corps work stuff. I found out when graduation is for my students. Your not gonna believe this but the ceremony is at the end of this month about 2 or so weeks away! The reasoning is logical if ridiculous and goes as follows. We have a graduation ceremony for 11th, 10th and 9th graders (the 9th and 10th graders who wont be continuing on and are leaving school to get a job that doesn’t need a college education) on the 30th. We test the students (who will all pass as every student in this country must….you know we rip the American Education system for not teaching kids how to lose well because we fudge numbers to get kids to pass…I have seen how it works in other places now!)
So they take our test and to those brave souls trying to go to University they take the English entrance exams. That test they most certainly can fail, and so Moogi and I have turned our 90% grammar based classes and made them 100% grammar based as this is all the English they are tested on. Id complain but even the internet is probably bored of my arguments against this by now. I still try to speak as much of it as I can to them while we learn it….ill redesign my strategm for next school year. The reason it’s a month before the close of school though is that some of the students truly serious about the University test at that point withdraw from the town and head to UB for more professional English practice. May will be a good month of teaching I think. It will finally be warm enough to go outside and with that I can perform some kinetic English lessons. “I am running! You are running!” So on… Or maybe just anything with warm weather sounds to me like the greatest thing on earth. Who knows.
Not much else to say. Started putting the word out to fellow volunteers not working as trainers this summer of some travel ideas. With as much time as I now have and no intention of taking any days off next year my VERY vague ideas are to UB Marathon in early June, wave to the M21 noobs…spend a few weeks learning how to live in a ger, then in late June go out West. Think of something cool to do, and then be back in Baghkhangai in time for Naadam in Mid July. Then get up to Khovsgul Lake in time for the ultra-marathon in the middle of July, and finally trek around the lake and go see the Reindeer people before heading back to get set for teaching in Bagkhangai. All vague, nothing even researched by internet, and plenty to do before that…but I like to think this is the best ive ever been at failing to get to do something and moving on. Not the greatest failure of my life admittedly but…baby steps. Off to wash off the salt buildup from my run. Cyas!


April 14, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 4
Today’s Quote: “Do any of us ever really get what we deserve?” –In Treatment

Its 40 degrees outside. Better still is that its not windy today. I am sitting in my room right now in a pair of shorts I haven’t worn in half a year. Gods I love shorts! The daytime weather and sun melt the snow and ice and at night it gets frozen again, but little by little the ice and snow is moving away. Just not too many more snowstorms please…really tired of that.
Though I will say I was thinking about this today and this long winter may prove to be benefitial as the months unfold. Unlike a spring in which the days remain around 50 Fahrenheit and though acceptable not ideal I get the suspicion that as April winds down and May shows up we will go from these 35 degree days straight into the 60’s….or I can dream that anyway. Oh to go hiking again. I got to see the north and the east….the south and the west lie open for me to explore as well. Theres even a prison in one of those directions for the members of UB’s society that needed to be pulled away extra! The days roll on…
It’s the thaw. I can see how fairy tales of old all have the dark days during winter. We may make them beautiful and cheerful in Disney movies these days but when you go through a winter like the one I just encountered and you get a day like today where you feel the sun on your face and the ability to stand outside in relative comfort…yea its that for a reason. Better still is the running. After being able to go two hours without stopping last Friday I got a lot of my running confidence back. My shorter runs are going faster and faster, and my bodys restlessness is easing off. Amusingly, I have a sudden desire to eat more and more as well. Score one for the Jacobs/Matthews metabolism…though I think sometime ago we established I got the recessive genes of my great grandfather on my paternal side. I dunno, someone in the family keeps track of that for me. Whatever the case my body feels amazing.
School went fine today. This week is kinda awkward because were missing a handful of teachers so instead of teaching so much were sort of juggling students for those absent. Next week ill finally get a set time of which class I teach and which ones my counterpart does. We only have six weeks after this one anyway. Today after school and running I looked over my old blog archive word documents. I admit the past few months have been boring entries not counting the one where I got stuck out in the Zuud pushing the meeker through the snow, but I had wild fun reading the earlier entries from August, September and October.
GM Chrysler im such a whiner! Maybe this is why I am always paranoid about if I am annoying the people I hang out with. Based on what I write I would pull my own hair out listening to a guy whine about the stuff that I do! I should remember this as true proof to myself whenever I sulk that absolutely every problem I have come across in my life has in some way or another worked itself out.
The language barrier is my favorite happy story of the blog. I haven’t written about language in a while because…well…I speak Mongolian now. Really I do. Granted noone comes up to me and asks me to describe the American political infrastructure or how to operate a heavy piece of machinery but I talk to everyone I come across in my community in Mongolian. As the big words solidified I worked on my tensing and expanding my vocabulary to more adjectives…and little by little I have been adding these into my conversations as well. Learning a foreign language is a never ending process and I am by no means finished with learning Mongolian, but after so much despair and grief in ten months time I have learned to use one of the more obscure languages on this planet…to those that know my history with foreign language that’s the equivalent of completing an ultra-marathon.
A month ago I was a little restless but happy, now im just pretty damn happy. Ive got less than two months before I move into a ger and go travel to western and Northern Mongolia and see all the distant corners of this amazing country that I promised I would reach a little under a year ago, and I have about five or so months of warm weather on its way. I am so utterly happy doing so very very little…life is good. We take that for granted too often.
A friend of mine txtd me today asking if I knew anything about if our PC passport would work if we wanted to travel back to the US over the summer. I told him what I knew but he was yet another in a trend I am seeing from a great number of M20’s. Everyone and their uncle seems to be heading back for a trip to America this summer if they are not trainers. Putting aside the money involved in buying a ticket back to even the West Coast of America how on earth do they plan to not only make the long flight home, but then in a few weeks time get back on a plane to Mongolia? I think of all the wine, hummus greek salads Five guys French fries and pizza that’s even thicker and greasier back in America and all I can imagine is that if I actually availed myself to that halfway through my service I would drive myself mad. No, that stuff needs to be for when its all said and done…not an intermission.
Far more importantly, when your already in a place as amazing as Asia why not India or Thailand or Vietnam? I have already been to SE Asia and don’t even have the funds for this, but even I am going to have the time of my life tearing it up through all of Mongolia that I don’t get to see. Its just such a different choice than the one I would make, and everyone but me seems to have made it.

April 15, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “They use a form of government called a “Democracy” Some form of system where the family in charge is the most successful at manipulating those willing to allow those to rule them.” –Nom Anor

A year ago today I presented my Masters thesis to my fellow students and professors for review. It went well….that feels like a lifetime ago…what a world.
Classes didn’t really happen all that much today. There was some kind of testing taking place and I had no real explaination given to me. Learning how to deal with situations where I am not aware of what is going on but still okay with it is probably in the top five lessons I will have learned from my Peace Corps service.
Instead I spent the day helping to clean out the back cabinet of my counterparts classroom. Its been unused all year and is simply a storage space for unused desks, textbooks and dust gathering. I moved stuff around and basically did as much as I could to make myself useful. Often PCV’s complain early on that we are little more to some of our communities and counterparts than trophies and work horses. I have a much more mild version of it, but I can see how if you choose to look at it that way it would be rather annoying. I instead look at it as demonstrating American industriousness and willingness to help without necessarily an end game.
Instead of banging my head on a table trying to get more integrated as the school year winds down I have instead started up a list of things I plan to do at the start of the school year once I move to the new school this summer. Its for the best, but it means that right now I am working as best as I can in an imperfect system. My lessons planning got thrown for a loop because of the lack of knowledge of both who and also when I have been teaching the past two weeks. Even if things become more regular we only have another two weeks until graduation approaches and after that I have four weeks in which I am not exactly sure which grades and students will remain or if they even get tested for it….Not frustrated!!! Not frustrated at all….whose more intergrated than i? Though I have an ability few other volunteers get. I get to start fresh with new skills and understandings of how things work in Mongolia so that I can make my second year of service a very productive and useful enterprise
Beautiful day today…as many of them are. Sunny skies, temp around 40 or so degrees, but a lot of wind… don’t like that. Some of the day was spent lounging on my wonderful hammock…by far the most comfortable piece of furniture I own…which I brought no less! I have yet to break back out my Frisbees and instead after running I go sit in the park and watch kids play basketball. I love how scary a single guy sitting and watching kids play in a park would be interpreted in America and how here I am one among a crowd of grown men sitting around doing the same thing…. Heres to Mongolia for not having that problem! I think it has to do with the smaller population and the more liberal viewpoints on sex between boys and girls at an earlier age than America.
I got news that basically I was going to take every stick of crappy furniture in my apartment with me when I move to the Ger in June. Wish I hadn’t heard that as I was counting on being able to get a second chance at chairs that don’t have nails sticking out of them…or beds….or bookcases that don’t collapse on themselves….so I guess that means that if I want some good stuff ill have to buy it myself. With trips to the West and to the North, horseback riding for weeks on end, buying an internet wireless card, buying furniture that doesn’t hurt, and UB trips to boot…This summer is gonna be Fracking expensive!!! Nah im okay with it…just something I noticed. I am gonna dip into some money I got back in taxes from this year and my stepfather offered to loan me some dough that I intend to pay back once my end of service resettlement money comes back in… Guess its time for some wireless internet….and outhouses!

Late Night addition: A man has been shout moaning outside our apartment now for over an hour. If I am assessing this correctly a man got so drunk that his wife did not care for his company and threw him out of their apartment. Rather than simply take his shame and knock on a friends door to put him up for the night he in his drunkenness has decided to stand outside and moan loudly like a little kid. I imagine like any kid going through a tantrum he will eventually fuss himself out and go to a friends house or sober up enough to realize what a fool he is making of himself. I hope he gets to it soon because he is pretty damn loud.


April 16, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of miles: 17-18
Today’s Quote: “Government by fear is no government at all…” –John Adams

Well school was rather boring. As the schedule is finiky this week I had no clue who or when I was teaching each day. Today I didn’t teach at all…so I did what I usually do in such circumstances. I went to the teachers lounge to eavesdrop on Mongolian chatter and to appear should manual labor or some kind of work come up that I can contribute with. What can I say…its all been said before.
I didn’t want to do my big run all that much today, but I knew that if I didn’t do it id find another excuse on the weekend as well, and I haven’t the luxury of time to get in shape for this marathon. Good news was that it was 40 degrees outside. I still wear sweatpants but I no longer need a hat or a coat to run and only one running shirt. I like running with fewer clothes. I feel more…nimble.
Usually the wind blows from North to South where I live (don’t ask) and so when I get to the main road (which runs north to south-south east. I start heading into the wind at first. Wind sucks, but it also kinda rocks in this country. Today was by all means not a windy day, but when you run straight into it you are experiencing a wind tunnel! Today however the wind blew south to north so I ran the other direction (once again into the wind first)
Today I did a 10 minute pace. An hour and a half out, and an hour and a half back. Nearly 18 miles….Legs were beat up afterwards but I kept on my feet and didn’t stop. This is what I meant by how once you get into semi good shape and keep yourself there for six or so months your body acclimates to that as a default and even after 5 months barely able to run in a months time I can already break out 17 miles. Nine more is a marathon.
Running into the wind first is critical. 6 miles into the wind is roughly the equivalent of 10 miles without wind and 12 miles with the wind at your back. I am banking on the hope that since June is a summer month in Mongolia and the wind dies down in the summer coupled with the buildings of UB the marathon will not nearly be as windy and therefore far easier to run. As always I don’t have a time goal, I have a finish goal…and that always works out well. This will be my 5th full marathon. VA Beach, Richmond, Phuket-Thailand and Philadelphia…and soon UB…5 time Marathon Man….nice ring.
I need calories…cya all.


April 17, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Ada…WAIT!” –Leon Kennedy’s Catch Phrase

I was a little banged up from that run yesterday (I am so glad I did it yesterday and not put it off till today) that I gave myself a simple chore today. Clear out my empty soda bottles from my room and sweep my floor. It had been a while since I had done either, and the piles were rather significant. I was en route to throw out the soda bottles when the store owner I usually buy them from stopped me and took the bottles. As I explained before, theres not a whole lot of an official recycling program in Mongolia because everything is already being reused. With the warming months approaching the ground will be stuffed with delicious and beautiful grass for the cows to eat, and that excess energy becomes countryside milk, that the ladies all sell who own livestock in my town. Just glad their being put to good use!.
After cleaning up my place I had expected to just read a book or work on the slideshow I am making for the school year, but I get a call from Moogi who has decided to tell me today about something happening today….(six more weeks…six more weeks) As I stated, my town didn’t really send anyone to English Olympics and though I surmised it was because we live in the UB aimag area and therefore have to compete with kids who live in the city and have private tutors and speak perfect English we didn’t send anyone to the competitions. Turns out we run our own English Olympics (they have GOT to come up with a better term for this competition)
So like all the other times where they spring something on me I shrugged, grabbed my light jacket and headed to school. I sat in on their test (that moogi had made with other teachers that morning!) and when they were done I did their grading. Helping out on the random things…it’s the way of a TT TEFL PCV. Then when I got back to my room my legs were indeed feeling pretty beat so I headed to sleep, but I didn’t get to sleep for more than five minutes before I heard something outside that I couldn’t recall.
When its windy you hear the whoosh, and the snow is usually found in all of that. Yet this was not just the all too familiar sound of a whoosh. It sounded like someone outside was throwing tiny tiny pebbles at my windows, which given how bored the kids at my school had been I would not have put it past them, but I still went over to look. Its amazing the types of things you forget about when you don’t see them for so long. For instance I have not seen an ocean in so very very long. I cant quite recall the feel of wet air, the rolling sound of the waves or the continuous access to water… I miss the ocean. When I looked out of my window I saw something I had not seen in so very long. I knew what it was but I couldn’t describe how it would feel to encounter it right then. The sensations seemed so distant and non existant where I have been…but it was finally happening.
Outside it was raining. Water fell from the sky, and was splattering everyone and everywhere. I guess spring finally did get here after all…
Next time it rains I will go outside and just stand in the pouring water. I never thought id miss rain, but I think that’s the things you really miss are the ones you weren’t even aware were a part of your life. Go figure.


April 18, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Because I had mine out while I was looking at yours…” –Ive been watching way too much television.

Today its around 45 degrees outside. Its partly sunny and in some form or another its been above freezing during the day for the past week. Two to three weeks ago, the early entries of this very blog (wow this is a long blog entry!) were complaining about how it was 30 degrees or so consistently outside, and I complained that I couldn’t stay outside for prolongued periods of time. Now I find myself with warmer but complaining about the weather once again. Its just so close to being comfortable, but I neglect how much MORE comfortable it was than last week. Its all relative.
Productive weekend though. Bathroom is scrubbed up, trash taken out, lesson plans for the rest of the school year (provided I get some consistent hours) planned out and my 3 hour run was completed successfully. If I were back stateside right now id be getting ready for a Fordham University holiday in which a band comes to perform for the students. One year it way Yellowcard… wonder who they got this time? I miss that school…I know ive been saying stuff like that a lot recently but that’s only because my work load while limiting me to my day to day life is not all that encompassing right now. I am sure the R&R I get over the summer coupled with a more locked down schedule next year (and the excitement of a new living condition that will demand more of my attention) will get me in line, as for now though im a tad bored. Next weekend if it continues to get a little warmer I might break out one of my Frisbees and see if kids wanna play in the park area.


April 19, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “But…life being what it is…” –Motto of the Benjamin Button movie

On TV today Russian ESPN is still showing biathlon racing. Now its in Russian so I may not understand this correctly but as we have reached the middle of April I am curious if they are just showing reruns or they are still going on somewhere. Still, its fun to watch even after all this time. Good shake up from the usual hockey.
I am getting better at understanding the Mongolian news I see on television. It turns out that all of Europe apparently cant fly because a volcano erupted in Iceland….sucks to be Europe right now I guess. Though were in the high 30’s today is both windy but also cloudy. Not the light poofy type ones that make Mongolia the land of the blue sky but dark ones. Its funny how when you live in a place where its bright and sunny on a day in which the snot in your nose freezes that when you suddenly do get a bleak day like today it really puts it into perspective. I am hoping for rain though. After the zudd the ground needs a lot of water to get some grass for the animals in Mongolia.
Moogi’s mother called her during class today. Her father had died in her home town of Selenge. First person ive known whose had someone die. She had to leave class and get on a meeker to get there in time for the wake in a few days. Ive chosen not to be angry that she has delegated me to make her tests for all her classes while she is away and teach all of her classes as well.
Funerals are the exception to the rule of Mongolians and parties for special events. Theres no real wake or celebration of a persons life when they die. Its an extremely solemn affair and in my opinion rather bleak. Noone is to talk to the family unless they have to. You especially don’t tell them “I am sorry” or even comment about the deceased either (in essence doing so is interpreted as you taking the blame for that persons death, as I mentioned before this culture is a tad more stoic than Americas). You don’t touch anyone as well. An elder or some variation of a shaman interprets the death and decided who of the family is responsible for handling and burying the body. Nobody drinks and for a large period of time noone really eats all that much either. At most someone in the family goes to the community and gives you a match that you are supposed to light and let it burn out…. Like I said, this is not a culture that enjoys death all too much.
So now I teach all classes until Moogi returns (no idea when) Not a problem though, as I always say its not like I have any pressing matters outside of work to attend to.


April 20, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 4 fast ones.
Today’s Theme Song: “Couch Potato” – By Weird Al

Hey….its 4/20! Having been both a high school history teacher and a college res life dormitory administrator I have bounced into way too many people in my life who got a kick out of that date. You know, with all my liberal lifestyle and viewpoints youd think id have been a total stoner. Ive been to Amsterdam twice, and Rome…which btw has more pot than Amsterdam based on what I saw and even in the rigorously anti-drug kingdom of Thailand I saw English soldiers lighting up without a care in the world…and ive never been high.
29 years old and no drugs…wow. Ive even got the last three Presidents beat! I wonder how I lucked out with all of that anyway. I think my late blooming was the greatest blessing I ever could have. I was too paranoid and afraid (not even of getting in trouble, but the ramifications of using drugs) when I was younger to seek drugs out, and as I matured I found myself in positions of power where my job was to stop younger people from doing drugs and so I just never got around to doing any. Wine is my vice anyway…
For the record I abandoned my earlier prejudices against drugs and don’t stand in judgment aside from the fact that people are breaking the law and if they are indeed serious about changing the law then they should probably stop using drugs and work the political process to change it but personally I don’t care enough one way or another to take a stand….except it did mean a mountain of paperwork when I used to work in Res. Life at this time of the year which was always a pain in the ass.
Got my first ever Mongolian dream. They say that is when you really know that the Mongolian is really sinking in when in a dream you either say or hear Mongolian. Pretty cool to wake up and remember that too. Its all that rock hard floor sleeping and the healthy lifestyle…not counting the occasional movie night of booze and the weeks of time where all I eat is bread and Peanut Butter. Relax, im eating potatoes tonight. Its been three or so weeks since I was in UB for any period of time, and I got another week and a half before I go back on May 1st (after graduation) in which ill only have one day to eat excessive amounts of good food.
Come May since I will still have my sitemate Tripp around I plan to go grab that internet flash drive as well. That’s a year without continuous internet. Could I go on? Absolutely I could. One year of my adult life has been spent without the endless and constant bombardment of information from around the world. I didn’t know about the news of Michael Jackson or Ted Kennedy until days or even weeks had passed. While America practically tore itself apart over a health care bill I caught a monthly highlight reel of it when I would use the internet in UB and otherwise was in the dark about so much. It was healthy…insightful to my ability to do without….and astronomically boring. I move into a tent in a month, might as well bring some internet in there with me. I am also thinking of the great English lessons I can create next year with the use of the internet. Google Earth alone could keep us busy for months… That is of course if the internet cards they sell here work on Mac’s or not.
Lets see…internet card…maybe a comphy camp chair….oh yea and salad dressing. An expensive weekend in two weeks. One of many to come based on my decision to head both out west and to the north. I may even need to buy a tent before I head out on these trips as much of where I will be traveling does not always have gers to sleep at. Some might call Mongolia the middle of nowhere. But when you live in the middle of nowhere for a year you begin to realize that the middle of nowhere is actually quite civil, and if your looking for the middle of nowhere you gotta look even further.
If my family does not send me salad dressing mix in the package waiting for me at the Peace Corps office (which I have asked for since November) I am just going to go to Mercury market and buy the bloody stuff despite the fact a small bottle will cost more than a top shelf bottle of vodka. A former vegetarian can only go without salad for so long. I can buy some cheap enough green and yellow peppers and with cabbage instead of lettuce and some peeled carrots itll be a very odd but passable salad. Ive also GOT to finally buy more than one bowl and one fork and spoon. Its pretty damn ridiculous just how many different ways I have put that off.
Today the cops called me up. Worry not, im in no trouble. My site mate Tripp lost something and had filed a report. In a town of 2000 people like ours and not on the path between UB and all I imagine the greatest responsibilties the cops run across is making sure the prison 42 kilometers to the South is secure. A missing item from a Peace Corps volunteer seemed to require a statement…from everyone in town! I sat in the police office for the first time, doing my best to give them some Mongolian answers while the head cop chained smoked and spoke like he was asking me where I had hidden the nukes or something like it. Very noir if I do say so myself. Then when he finished asking me random stuff he got all smile like…it was quite a contradiction, but amusing none the less. That’s one of the great benefits of being a man with a heavy dose of paranoia. The only chance I have at being at ease is to literally not have ANY secrets. So when the Mongolian police have a few “questions” you can handle that no sweat.
Moogi’s away and the kids are all VERY aware of it. I wrote up the tests for them easily enough though and got a good run in today. I found out today that Moogi got the job again as Mongolian teacher for the noobs over at Bagkhangai this summer. She follows me to no end, though I did hear good news that I wont in fact be taking my bed or chair furniture to my Ger, giving me a shot at a better bed and more comfortable seating in my new place. 10 there and 6 or so here in Ondortolge, this town is gonna be rolling in the dough with all the money they make off housing so many volunteers over the summer. Good for them, and itll give me a lot of noobs to amuse and help out with.


April 21, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Number of Miles: 5 REALLY fast ones
Today’s Quote: “D’oh: The realization of a foolish action.” –The websters definition of a fictional word

Today at school was tough, but ultimately inevitable. Moogi is still away for understandable reasons, and all the kids are VERY aware of it. I can and have put up with a lot these past few months. Rowdy kids, random swear words, ive even ducked the odd pen cap and notebook thrown at me by kids half my size who are all very very aware about my policy of how to handle disruptive students. Today was the tipping point.
It was seventh grade. That much was to be expected as well. The class was simply all out crazy. Barking mad out of control, and I had NO influence on them whatsoever. My largest and most disruptive group. The first kid I sent out of the classroom was making goose calls. You heard right. Doing nothing other than staring me right in the face and just going “OOOONNK!!! OOOONNKK!!!” Over and over again as the class watched on and cheered him. I asked him to sit and stop, I shouted for him to sit and stop…and after one final defiant OOOONKK! The little twig inside me just went SNAP…I grabbed his backpack and threw it out of my classroom. He obviously ran after it. When his comrad in arms took up the noise making and defiance I had had enough. Grabbing his backpack I ran to a nearby classroom and asked the teacher to watch my class. I was going to do something right out of the 1960’s I was going to take them by the ear to the principal (by ear I mean backpack) I knew what this meant in terms of backlash for these boys, but I had had enough. If they had been doing any of that in front of my counterpart Moogi theyd be lucky to be able to physically walk home. They were abusing my compassion for their own gain of merit before their classmates. They were demonstrating through my compassion that they were the ones with the balls to abuse the teacher…and that is where they crossed the line.
I walked over to the training manager with the two of them in hand. I didn’t ask him to punish them, but instead I said the following in Mongolian “these two are not going into my classroom. They were shouting and would not be quiet. They also defied my instruction to sit. I suggest they be sent home today” Sukboat nodded, and the look on those kids faces told me they knew they weren’t getting off with that.
I went back up to my classroom where the teacher I had asked to watch them had pounded some respect literally into some of the slightly less obnoxious but obviously disruptive elements of my class. The teachers were obviously disgusted by the students. Some were crying even from the discipline the teacher had dished out in the time I had left the classroom. I don’t condone it, only realize the degree to which compassion will be abused especially by something so terrible as the Id of a child.
7th grade class basically didn’t happen. The teacher continued to stay in the class and bark at the students, and EVEN THEN some wouldn’t sit still. The teacher hung her head in shame as I looked at her…like this behavior was somehow her fault. I hadn’t the vocabulary or the time to say it was alright.
Five minutes before class ended the two kids who had been sent to the principal came back with tears in their eyes. I really wish that hadn’t happened, and I know that the difference between me doing that and having the principal do that is a practical difference and not a moral one…I guess im just not able to come to terms with what else I could have done.
The only thing that keeps me stable is the thought of my alternative. I guess I could have just let the two brats continue to honk in my face, or I could have walked them out of the school entirely and told them not to come back inside…but in the end I think the tipping point that I needed them to realize is that they cannot abuse compassion to no end. That’s how sociopaths come into being without genetic predisposition. Those that abuse without personal consequence never stop… after all why would they?
They looked at me like I had done something wrong. I had, and two wrongs don’t make a right, but letting them think they could get away with that…that’s far worse. In my perfect world I would have taken them out of the school and told them to simply go away. The pressure and ridicule of NOT being allowed to attend class by their former classmates would begin to rein in their Id and the ego would call their instincts into check so that they would behave in class to be a part of their community again, but in this school system (and American one for that matter) this is not allowed, and so I had to find an imperfect solution in an imperfect system. It doesn’t make it better, just a rationalization.
So after school ended I went straight home. I needed to get away from that school for a while. Not even thinking I threw on my running clothes and just started going all out. I REALLY ran hard today. I just needed to burn out my body to match how I felt. Instead I found that I could piece a lot of that together. It was during that run that I sorted out a lot of the emotions I just wrote about above. I feel a little better now.
As a pick me up I got a surprise phone call from an M19 named Kyle who has been working on the alcohol abuse video a good number of volunteers have been working on and they need help editing it and posting it on youtube. They called me up and both flattered to be considered but also thrilled at the idea of contributing to such a project I jumped at the idea. Personally I think their thought process went a little more like this: “Ah man we have our video but we don’t know how to put it on youtube or edit it….Dammit! Were too damn awesome and none of us are Geeks who handle that stuff… Hey, wasent there some dweeb in the M20’s who made some seriously nerd video and put it on youtube last year? Yea, that nerd will know how!” For the record even if that is how it works I am still very flattered to have been called up for it.
Finally today this blog officially has reached 30 pages long, making it the longest blog archive I have ever written to date. Seeing as I don’t plan to go to UB until May I have decided that since I should have an archive entry at least once a month tonight Tripp and I are gonna hang out and I will borrow five minutes of internet so I can post this mammoth entry. Hope everyone reading this found it somewhat amusing…of course if you didn’t I imagine you stopped reading a while back. I am SO….gonna make this blog a book when I get back to the States.