First post in May....about the rest of April

April 23, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Orders not back up with force are called requests.” -Vergere

Did you know that since I have arrived in Mongolia I have made twenty archived entries into the blog (not counting photos or video) Wowza… Last night Tripp dropped in and loaned me five minutes of his glorious internet. Its funny to think that in a weeks time its possible that I will own an internet card. Once again I will have ready access to pretty much any information I want to see at any time. Granted this will be incredibly slow, but I think going for a little under a year of my adult life without the use of the internet has suited me very well.
I learned a lot about myself during this time. I realize what the internet is to me. Like all things it’s a blessing and a curse. It helps me in some ways and hinders me in others. I think the boredom I sometimes face in the winter months will drive me to internet use that may not be particularly useful (I imagine ill be watching a great number of montage movies on youtube) but I hope to keep myself more busy next winter than I did this one. My ger residency will probably help that. Having continued and ongoing internet access may prove useful both in teaching next year but also in communication and general interaction with some that I have been less than chatty with. (those kids are gonna have an absolute blast with Google Earth. I am gonna show them all where I used to live)
…..Besides, in a month I move towns and I am losing plumbing…might as well gain some internet. If nothing else just consider it a practical decision.
Even with internet I intend to make blog archives like this one. At first I figured these entries would fizzle out as life got boring, and over some of those winter months it most certainly did, but now I have grown to like writing these, and this blog is as much for me as it is for anyone who bothers to read it… Strange how I never kept a diary or journal and now I do a daily record….what can I say, im pretty damn strange.
So last night Tripp also told me something shocking. My town does Naadam in August instead of July. What the hell??? I had a lot of trips planned with the intention of being back in my town for the Naadam celebration and now they don’t have it??? Well I guess I could also go to Erdene, see the family and watch their festival, or I am sure the trainees will get carted over to Nalikh or some other nearby town to do that festival and I could tag along…. But that may mean I am not around for my towns Naadam. Tragic, but like all things in Mongolia I have stopped trying to understand why things happen and instead have simply tried to jump on the band wagons as they roll by.
So this week wraps and I find myself a little lost about what to do. I might try hiking this weekend, its finally getting and staying warm enough.


April 24, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Were a generation of men raised by women…” –Tyler Durden

Yesterday after school I was sitting around my room. I got a txt from Peace Corps office telling me that there was a snow/sand/wind storm coming this weekend that was gonna be pretty bad. This was no problem though, as the weekend was going to be spent around here and not traveling to UB. I got a knock on my door. As usual, this is extremely odd. I don’t know if it was my fault or the simple fact that apartments don’t make for as congealed of a community as haasha families but aside from kids wanting to play cards I pretty much don’t get any visitors. (the haasha family is gonna help keep me more of an open person next year, I can tell already)
I opened the door and who should it be but Borte, Tripp’s lady friend. (That’s not really her name, it’s the name of Temujin’s wife and no Mongolian women are called that anymore, but I don’t want to put names of anyone not in Peace Corps that may not want them) Apparently Tripp was off doing something in the town of Nalikh an hour or so away and she while stepping outside for a moment had forgotten to bring her key.
She doesn’t personally know anyone in town and was freezing to death so she came to my place. Thank gods I was here! So with that in mind I spent about seven hours in my apartment yakking with her as we waited for Tripp to return. It was nice to talk to her. Her English is perfect and we had a lot to talk about in detail. She was curious what I thought about Mongolians, and I found when I actually explained it to her that this is the first time I had really thought this over.
Mongolians, much like Germans, Thais, Italians, Americans, Israelies and pretty much any nationality on the planet that I have spent enough time with or around to meet a bunch of said people have the same thing in common. People are a mixed bag. Some good, some bad, and a wide bell curve of ordinary people just interested in living out there lives more than willing to just be a ship in the night that just slips right on by. I also described how I think the process is not linear. Those in stable families and given every opportunity become sociopathic asses while there are those who come from nothing and make themselves into what they are today. A million nurture factors come up against who we are as people and when you stir the pot long enough you get whatever makes up…regardless of our nationality.
I talked to her about how I was moving to the other town in a little over a month and she joined all Mongolians in looking shocked and awed at just how crazy I was turning down a house in favor of living in a ger. She said that and the fact that I live alone that the people in my town will all call me “Old Man” The greatest irony that could exist would be that I end up hating living in a Ger. The outhouses where your poop freezes into a mountain and stacks up in the winter to the point that you realize why they cut two holes in the outhouse, the chopping wood when its freezing outside, the handling of coal for so long your hands are permanently black, flies, spiders, freezing at night, difficult to maintain temperatures, lugging water from a well, sleeping with your shaving kit in your bag so your shaving cream and toothpaste doesn’t explode….and doing all of this for a year…..no im sorry that just sounds like WAYYY too much fun for me to pass it up. All my bitching and moaning and once again I end up getting absolutely everything I ever wanted. I have GOT to learn my lesson about this, it would make matters SO much easier right from the beginning, and would save me some fatigue.
My own American sister has often looked upon what I liked doing with a certain lack of understanding. If she reads this she must truly be wondering… which one of us was switched at birth? Seeing as I have two VERY stable and salt of the earth parents I imagine it was me. My younger brother is a lot like my sister too, and im also a middle child, you know how that works…
We also talked about Asian/European/American men and women in regards to physical appearance. This is where I confessed my attraction to women from Europe and America to me have a slight edge over Asian women as well. Actually nationality for me has nothing to do with that either, but I described how the women I like are generally tall, long wavy light hair, bigger…yea..., colored eyes…and it was becoming pretty obvious this is going to be found a lot more in European and American and even Israeli girls than Asian.
This shocked her as practically every western man she had encountered had said the exact opposite. Go figure! (next time I do Peace Corps ill shoot for Macedonia or Bulgaria! And having said that lets be clear to everyone reading this that you pretty much are assigned a country based on your qualifications alone and not your “which women of the world do you think are hot?” list) She on the other hand could do nothing but rip Asian men and said that guys from Europe were the only way to go. I dunno, it just seemed like one of those conversations where you don’t learn as much from the person your talking to be realizing how a lot of the generalizations you make about people turn out to either be true or false. I also asked her what she though about black men, but she said she never had a tour group with a black man in it (she had a black American woman once though) so she had no opinion.
I discussed how age difference matters for me plus or minus five years. To her this was just flat out stupid and her retort of “Why don’t you like younger girls? They are fun!” was one moment where I laughed back and realized that I may the only one who actually is having a problem with this. She was also having a hard time accepting the idea of my self-imposed celibacy because I had not found the one yet. I tried not to come off like a complete girl to her so I described myself as the type that “mates for life” Which actually to her made a lot of sense, though she thought it was a stupid way to live and gave it a good laugh to reward my honesty. I did mention that celibacy only counts in regards to sex and that I do indeed date and make out where warranted, though this to her probably made me sound like a Mongolian young teenager.
The problem with talking to her or any other Mongolian is the same reason its hard to talk to an American and to get a median of values and ethics of a particular culture or people. In a country as big as Mongolia theres a wide range of Mongolians. Some city, some countryside. Some devout, some liberal. She for example is a city girl, young and pretty with skills such as language knowledge that enable her to provide quite wealthily for herself as well. She interacts with people from all over Mongolia as well as other countries.
I thought of myself and realized how I would indeed be similar to her as well. Born into the American bourgeois, raised by parents with slightly opposing but never radical political thought, raised in the suburbs of one of the most internationally diverse regions in the WORLD, college educated and two masters degrees so I posess qualifications and skills that also ensure an adequate amount of wealth for comfortable living, and I too have spent much of my adult life interacting and traveling through many of the countries and peoples of this world. In essence, I believe that we are both very progressive individuals, however a great number of those both in America and Mongolia that would not have encountered this amount of interaction may not share these views.
The ultimate litmus test I think of a country’s wellbeing can always be found in looking at its percentage of middle class. (India has the worlds largest middle class but is still relatively poor given that 1 billion people live in the country… though I do see India, not China as the next great world power) Its not about being wealthy, but the ones who have found themselves one or two steps up Maslows hierarchy for an extended period of time (as in several generations). Its in this that people start to overcome prejudices and are more open to learning about people who they consider different, and then realize that were really not that different. Its not about finding out whose right or wrong….everyone thinks they are right and that will get you nowhere but frustrated. Its far more useful to find out WHY people think they are right. I think that is where you can both understand people more but also predict their reaction to changing events.
…wow… sorry everyone there was a bit more in there than I expected to put down…getting back on subject…
She works as a tour guide leader for Westerners and said that over the summer if she picks up any groups of hot European girls that she would be sure to swing by Bagkhangai so I could “personally” give them a tour of the abandoned Soviet Air Force base in town or even tag along for some adventures out in the countryside! See??? Not getting to be a trainer is getting sweeter and sweeter this summer! Though it is becoming clear I will need to stop off in the black market and get some gear. A water filter and a Chinese knockoff tent….that shouldn’t be too much Borte estimates it around 50-60 bucks. I was expecting WAY worse, and push come to shove I will shell out more, this summer escapade WILL happen.
She mentioned that when she talks to Westerners about how she knows people in Mongolia who work in the Peace Corps the answer is universally the same. A bunch of smiling faces of people so proud that something so noble from America as the Peace Corps is out here representing. An ego is a terrible terrible thing and I will say that comments like that are enhancing it probably in an unhealthy way but truly how cool is that that everyone seems to know us!
Strangely though, when I met a pair of Austrians a month ago in UB they knew of Peace Corps but believed that we were some sort of volunteers who join the military but don’t want to fight so we volunteer as such. I was glad to help them sort that out. I gotta one day get a sticker or something to throw on a backpack. I had actually tried to find one before I left for service, but Peace Corps is obviously not really in the souvenir business. Ill figure it one when I am back stateside.
So while last night was unexpectedly chatty I am afraid this weekend will be rather boring. The snow/sand storm has hit and the wind is pretty damn strong out and the moody clouds have brought the weather back down to freezing even during the day and the color of the clouds let it be known that at any point there will be dumping snow out of the sky. Out of boredom I made a video tour of my apartment and to top it all off instead of buying alcohol I bought eggs and tried to actually cook them. I think ill stick to hard boiled ones from now on…or the alcohol. I could call up Tripp but given that hes helping me out next weekend I don’t want to overstay my welcome and so instead I am playing a few video games, which in fairness I have not done in quite a while.
It will hopefully be the last weekend as such for a while. Next weekend will be quite busy both as graduation at my school happens and then I head to UB both to aid in editing some video with my computer and then seeing if the internet card is available. After that weekend it’s the month of May, and while March and April certainly have shown me that Mongolia does not follow the temperate zones of the past it cant stay THAT cold THAT long…can it? For the record again im not actually complaining about the cold…for I do like the cold, I just want to spend more and more time outside! Picky picky huh?


April 25, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “It’s like having drunken midgets running around your house” –Dennis Leary’s explaination of having kids.

The skies cleared but the weather and the wind most certainly did not. Were back into freezing temperatures with wind that knocks you off your feet. It was amusing to go outside to buy some potatoes today and as I walked past my main city square it was absolutely deserted. For the past week kids were playing and people loitering in the area as the 5-10 degree weather allowed us some degree of outside interaction…and now its all just gone cold again. The abandoned look is so depressing now that I have seen this place active again.
I bought, peeled and boiled a kilogram of potatoes today. With the cold weather back and the lack of time in which I had just eaten plain old potatoes like this it was amusing just how much this all seemed to feel like it was September or October all over again.
Boredom has definitely hit me of late a little harder than I would like. Peace Corps docs told us this was the time to watch out. The time just before the dawn of warm weather. Its not like in December when you are VERY aware of just how much more time you have in the cold left to endure. Instead with it being the end of April you constantly feel as though tomorrow very much could be the day in which it all goes warm…the tease. The 25th mile of a marathon as I wrote about before. I was glad that Peace Corps warned us about this, it reminds me that I am not alone in all of this.
So to pass some of the time I picked up my phone and started txt’ing a lot of the volunteers I interact with the most over this past year. Many a volunteer now has internet either personally or they live in an Aimag center which has an active and fast internet café so I find that they often know a LOT more about whats going on in the world than I do.
The majority of them are M’19’s and therefore at the end of this cold weather they even get to go back to the world of Wi-Fi everywhere you go and a diet of fruit, fruit and nothing but more fruit. So they are even more on edge than I! Hopefully ill bond with the M21’s, my group the 20’s I just found far too tame and sedate and distanced from…or maybe I just picked a clique of M20 friends that all decided Peace Corps was not for them…either way befriending the 21’s is a wise step, and having made all my dumb mistakes BEFORE they arrived im sure ill hit it off.
So we all had one major gripe that I wanted to post. If you watch American television, Peace Corps every now and then gets mentioned. Usually a character is either a returned volunteer or is intending to volunteer. We find the characters and their qualifications to always be wildly inaccurate. For instance that girl from Community would NEVER have been able to join the Peace Corps without a college degree. Barney from How I Met Your Mother was planning on becoming a volunteer in South America despite not having a perquisite knowledge of some Spanish, and though I personally don’t know this one someone told me Callie from Greys Anatomy would never have been let into service either.
Though we all agree that Survivor could not only use a volunteer, but if they really want to give the contestants a hard place to live they just need to be dragged out to Mongolia. Where in Mongolia though is hotly debated, as practically every region has its own unique difficulties. The north reached -56 Fahrenheit this winter, but has lakes and rivers for camps. The Gobi is of course one of the least populated areas on the planet. The Altai mountains are exotic and beautiful as well as rugged and difficult to live in, and finally us steppes folk can vouch that the rolling hills are no rose garden either. Someone call up that guy who runs that show!
We also like to txt about what we see from exactly where we are. A sort of “What are you wearing?” question that is more Peace Corps specific. Arent we a quirky bunch??? I often wondered why at my previous job the returned volunteer guy named Anthony never really talked all that much about his time in Peace Corps. I know this is a rather chatty blog but as I mentioned before this is either a book deal when I finish service or its some kind of defense mechanism for me to have something to talk in depth with. (good god, my computer is Wilson!) But seriously one on one talking to someone who hasent personally done this…I haven’t a clue what I would tell you. Ill have to put some thought into that.
Much like yesterday I decided instead of drinking alcohol to buy something exotic to eat today. Todays menu item was a jar or pickles that I have been looking at in the store for months now. You know, if there was ever a sign of a bachelor lifestyle it was me sitting on the floor my room, where I sleep on a floor next to a bed with nails coming out of it, sitting full lotus style eating half-assed pickles from a jar while watching “Black Hawk Down” As usual it’s the moments in life you don’t take pictures of that you will remember forever.


April 26, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Theme Song: “Nice Time” By Bob Marley

Today the culture center put on performances by the kids in my school. Some were some of the dances of the show back in March, and then there was a few skits too. I may be bored out of my mind these days, and I get that they are kids….but those performances were just absolutely unacceptable. Noone knew ANY of their lines and half the time was spent just fumbling around with microphones. Quite unimpressed.
Today the weather defies decription. The sun is out and shining, its about 25 or so degrees Fahrenheit outside…but the wind. It was bad yesterday, today its legendary. Buildings of cement literally sway under the power of this wind. I begin to see just how easy it was for early many to worship the elements as deities themselves. There are moments where walking into the wind I cannot even inhale air its so powerful. When I look at my balcony made of concrete and steel and see pieces of rock grind apart from the tension of the parts bending to the wind… you know now that I think of it if I were ever to become a man of faith again I would be shamanist or some kind of worship of nature itself. Living in Mongolia has given me a really close look at what power there is in that. This kind of wind is only usually found during a hurricane or some kind of storm. Not counting the wind it appears a bright and sunny day… even after a little under a year it all seems so out of place.
I gave my friend who lives in the deep Gobi a call today. Evidently this wind is taking place all over Mongolia right now and the sand storm that this wind would cause, thank the gods its not yet hot in the Gobi because wind blowing hot sand at this speed would melt and flay your fracking flesh. He texted me saying that he is indeed being stretched by this weather. What its like in the mountain passes of Gobi-Altai…this is no country for cold men!
So tragically this means I am spending yet another day indoors. Goin stir crazy these days, but as I always say…nothing for it. If the wind blew like this on race day I would seriously question if I could successfully finish a marathon. The 20 mile run will take place sometime this week but first this weather has really got to calm down some.
Peace Corps dropped in today. Bagkhangai and Ondortolge housing needs inspection. Basically the applications for host family volunteers is all in and now Peace Corps needs to pick which families have the best setup for hosting. Here in Ondortolge where I don’t think there allowed to host them in the apartments (too luxurious) the list of spaces cant be very big. From the window I counted the number of houses and gers that exist in our town and the number was under thirty. Given that some of these are not going to have the necessary accommodations (a specific “bedroom” and a door…plus a bunch of other stuff im not gonna list) that would indeed cut the list of spaces available pretty damn quickly. Well im sure there experienced in picking out good ones. They picked out my host family in Erdene didn’t they? Cool side note, my sister whose an English teacher is getting a major feather in her cap. She gets to be an English teacher in Erdene for the trainees this summer. That is GREAT news not only for her but to the M21’s that she will be teaching. Lucky buggers.
Anyway a great side note to Peace Corps arriving in my town today is that it means that they brought the package that my family had sent me. I was going to have to lug that back from UB this weekend but now they have saved me the trip. It was from my dear sweet Aunt, (actually while perfectly kind and nice to me I am not sure that dear and sweet would be adjectives I would use to describe her) who sent along a plethora of spices and boxes of wine. The wine I most certainly will enjoy, and the Mexican food will make a world of difference in terms of actually enjoying the act of eating again, for a meal at least. No matter, care packages are kinda hard to screw up. Aside from Tootsie Rolls I cannot think of a single thing people can send me that I wouldn’t like…never gonna let that one go am i? I am however trying to bank up some of my stored foods for when I have go on some of my summer explorations.
So that’s life I guess…


April 27, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Im pretty sure at this point you don’t even know who Ghandi was…”

Well Moogi had some Peace Corps news for me. Turns out they found enough workable spaces in Ondortolge and given that this is where all the logistics of the two towns are and where those that can teach them how to play horse violin of dance, they are going to have 12 volunteers in Ondortolge and 6 in Bagkhangai. That works too, but I imagine that will make for some close quarters to the volunteers in Ondortolge. Good so they’ll get to bond.
The wind doesn’t go away, and it gets colder. Quite unfortunate given how I am feeling these days. I need some outdoors time, I can feel the general awkwardness and discomfort from all my time spent indoors, and unlike in the winter when there is a VERY good reason not to go outside the fact that its just 25 or so Fahrenheit with wind that knocks it down another 10 degrees is what is making me annoyed. Its too damn pretty outside to be this fracking cold. I have officially decided today to go to Mercury market this Saturday after I try to get internet and buy the insanely priced bottle of salad dressing so that in the month of May I can feed myself some greens. Cabbage, onion, carrots, some peppers and maybe a crappy and overpriced tomato….That simply was inevitable, and with this weather I could use a morale booster. I could also use a good run, but with this weather I seriously fear whiplash if I were to run into the wind.
Classes went well today. Moogi and I sorta did some of our best team teaching, and I got a further explaination as to how and who I am teaching next year given that from now on all 10th and 11th grade classes are taught exclusively in Ondortolge. Works for me, it may mean that my goal of donating a dictionary to every kid in my school a real possibility. Though the classes went well I can tell that autopilot has been engaged by both students and staff. In the younger kids this means being wildly rambunctious as ive mentioned in previous entries. In the older kids it means absolute silence and a lack on interest in even opening their books, let alone repeating after me. Nothing for it, and if I wasent so bored out my mind I would probably find school to be a boring thing too.
Nothing else to report on really. It’s the end of April and theres snow on the ground and its been below freezing during the day for six of the last eight weeks. What’s the temperature where you are just now? I remember at the start of the cold weather while sitting in my kitchen boiling water to make boiled potatoes I asked myself “will I go mad?” I am pleased to report that if I were to have it would have been earlier, but sitting on the verge of outdoor stimulation and recreation I am not going mad, but I can VERY easily see how some who do not share my love of new (albeit boring) experiences may have found themselves in a different point of view.
One thing I am still astonished at is the number of M’20s that are using the summer to go back to America. Seriously between the number of 20’s I know going back to America for vacation and the ones I know that got jobs as trainers I can only think of a single volunteer to visit during my travels over the summer. Perhaps my astonishment carries with it a touch of jealousy…but then I thought it through a little more. In terms of money between going back to America or tearing it up through Mongolia, that’s a wash. Though the cost of the ticket would be daunting, my families abodes and leeching off their free stuff would probably balance out to some of the crazy stuff I have planned for the summer like Horseback riding around 1% of the worlds freshwater, traveling out West on a bust ride that takes 3 ½ days, and so on. Yet as I mentioned the only thing that really peeved me off about my placement was my lack of proximity to some of the more distant locales of Mongolia. Unlike at the last break though where a lack of fellow travelers cut me off, I make my pledge right here and now that I will travel alone if need be.
Actually ill stop myself right there, that’s whats annoying me. With all the M20’s back in America or teaching the noobs, the M19’s leaving and the M21’s all learning how to say “bi Maahand dortay!” all summer there will hardly be anyone for me to drop in on. This will NOT stop me from excessively traveling this summer though…mark my words. Instead I imagine the summer to have Mongolia teeming with tourists, and theres gotta be some traveling German girls like the ones I met back in June that could use a tall white guy with a grasp of the Mongolian language to wander this amazing country with. In fact I will say that id probably have tried to travel back to Germany or Eastern Europe before I would have looked up flights back to America. It seems so healthy just how detached I am from America while still knowing that’s who I am. Cant explain it I guess.


April 28, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Nobody gets out alive.” – Al Swearengin

Today was yet another presentation day of sorts. This one I think having to do with the kids infrastructure and all that. Basically they had kids read a prepared text verbatim about the stats of kids graduating this year (the 100% pass record is still going strong despite the fact we haven’t even given, let alone made the tests!) I dunno, I think I had a few bad dreams last night and was not in the mood to sit for four hours through yet another procedural ceremony. I once put down how I didn’t think that peoples personalities changes all too often after young adulthood, barring extreme traumas or alienations, but while sitting there with time to spare I thought this through.
I find pomp and procedure for the sake of procedure infuriating; of this I have no doubt and my unwillingness in the past to oblige those who find use in such to be a major weakness. My time in Mongolia so far has not changed my dislike of this pomp, but I feel as though it has done me a kindness and a lesson. I now know what REAL pomp looks like.
I used to bitch and moan about having to wear ties to work. The idea that I was to be respected more for wearing formal clothes to me just reeked of skin deep assessments of one another. Come to think of it to this date I still feel as though the idea that we judge and rank someone on the types of clothing that they wear is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. I made a stink about this in my previous professions, and did everything short of direct disobedience in an effort to frustrate those who enforced these policies.
As I sat today in that crowded auditorium going through yet another “ceremony” as opposed to the two we had last week about other issues I think back to my dislike of formal clothing….THAT was my biggest complaint! THAT was what infuriated me, for I hadn’t four hour ceremonies about things that were fake to begin with. I don’t think that procedure for the sake of procedure is any less annoying, instead I now have some relativity. No matter where I live or what I choose to do with the rest of my life I begin to see that every other difficulty I have is gonna seem so mundane and minute compared to some of what I am going through during my time in the Peace Corps. What? They don’t have MY brand of hummus? Oh wait, I lived in a country where I ate six things almost all involving meat for two years. Aw dammit the heaters broken……ZUUDDDDD!!!!!!!
We don’t change, but the longer we live the more relativity we aquire…. Least I hope so. So yea, if I choose to wind back up in some formal profession back in America and I roll out of a full sized cushioned bed and shower just like I had the day before and I am about to go to some heated/air conditioned office and make more than $3.50….yea ill wear the damn shirt and tie. (But there both gonna be jet black, if were going to judge people superficially I might as well come off intimidating)
For the second long day, teaching wasent all so bad. The kids actually seemed half interested in studying quietly today for some insane reason and me and Moogi used the quiet to type up the tests for 9th and 10th grade. And by “we” I wrote them up and Moogi looked on in amusement at just how much more fun life is with a secretar….Peace Corps Volunteer living in your town. Savor the flavor Moogi, I move in a month….to get used by another set of lucky teachers. Fun fun!
The wind died down today. By that I mean that its scaled back from wind tunnel to a simple pain in the ass to walk into and be sure to spit to the side instead of in front of you kind of wind. Tomorrow I gotta get a small run in to prep my legs for the 4 hour ordeal I am going to put them through on Friday. This last week has been impossible to run, and I really could use a few more 3-5 milers, but I am out of time. This run needs to happen right here and now, and my UB trip this weekend is not gonna give me the luxury of doing it then. Wish me luck!


April 29, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia
Number of Miles: 20+ not sure exactly. Probably a lot.
Today’s Quote: “Sometimes I feel as though im David in a world without Goliaths…”

Too damn nice outside. That beautiful Mongolian sky shining down on us. I tell ya with that georgous orb staring at me all day and having felt the elemental power of the wind shamanist worship of nature and the elements of the Earth is getting more and more inviting. Warm enough, probably even near 50 today and the wind…down to about a steady 15-20mph, you feel it but after the wind tunnel of the past month it felt wonderful. Couldn’t pass it up. I hadn’t run in a week, and that had been the 18 miles run no less. Hadnt really stretched all that much, and had a very empty stomach….what can I say….do I know how to run or not?
So I did my dance of returning from school and instantly changing into my running clothes so I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I munched down a few of the power bars my Aunt sent me (ill save the goo for the actual Marathon…again Aunt Susie and everyone who contributes to her packages you all so rock) and with a belly full of water I headed out. Two hours into the wind, two hours and a little chump change from walking a little bit back…. WOLF!
As ive said before, once you get a solid few months of 3 mile runs or longer youll find that your brain gives out well before your lungs or your legs do. You just gotta find ways to trick yourself into being alright or distracting yourself. High decibel music can help on longer runs, imagining your doing a Rocky fitness montage also works. Basically I have a vivid imagination, and so even in bad shape….i still run, and run a whole hell of a lot!
Running the way I do presents a challenge though. I run on the main road between my town and Ulaanbaatar, and while beautiful I am afraid that in the 30ish kilometer run there is not a single shop, store, or even structure. So basically without my running belt you gotta ask…how the hell do you hydrate? I bring water with me, but you should know water is actually a pretty heavy and bulky thing and without the ability to strap it onto your body it can be very cumbersome. I ran to an hour and fifteen minutes before I put the half finished bottle down on the side of the road so I could pick it up on my way back.
Mongolia is dry….i mean DRY!!!! Were just north of arguably the most inhospitable desert on the planet, and all around it just feels like the air itself is trying to suck every drop out of you. Running makes you sweat, and I was already pretty dry. Near the end of that run I was so dehydrated it literally felt like sand was coming out of my pores.
Still, I finished and with just enough energy to get back into my apartment and down a couple liters of water and a package of tuna to get my body a little protein. When you are physically in the act of running long distance, eating is critical, which poses a difficulty because when running eating is the last thing you would ever want to do…thats why those goo packages are so important, one quick disgusting squirt and you got 250 runner friendly calories coursing into your body. However, once your done running the feast of food and the beer they usually pump out to the champs rocks. I remember the first marathon I ever ran at VA Beach where Papa Johns had signs along the marathon course that said “Pizza: Carbohydrates, Fat and Protein all in one!” Only at a marathon would a pizza company take pride in something like that!
So that’s that ladies and gentlemen. After nearly 5 months of being house ridden by freak windstorms and the toughest winter in 30 years I was successful at in a months time bringing my long distance runs from 6 to 20. Now with a little over a month before the race I spend the next two weeks just going 3-5 miles daily and around 10 on a weekend run (suddenly that distance seems so utterly small!) and then in the final two weeks 3 mile fast runs every other day until its time to tear up UB. I just realized that I don’t know if we get a medal for finishing this or not….no matter, but it would make for a nice decoration in my ger. This Marathon has special importance to me, for if I successfully complete it I will be a 5-time Marathon Man. VA Beach….Richmond….Phuket, Thailand…. Philadelphia…..Ulaanbaatar. (Itll never be said I am not a diverse man.) That’s something for all of us to brag about! I should really get my brother in on this, hes at the age when I did my first race, and it would be nice to talk to someone during the races…scratch that my brother almost never talks in the first place…ah heck he still should run a marathon with me…my sister and dad too….and mom….and my stepdad…..come to think of it even Grandad and Grandma should get in on this! I can just hear my Grandad going “good night!!! As we reach mile 15 and my Grandma would just keep saying “my land!!!” as we hit the 20 mile marker Okay…im obviously encountering a “runners high” right now so ill change the subject.
One thing I do love about running is the ability to basically think about…well everything and nothing at the same time. I only bring my Ipod with me on the weekend long runs though, and during a brief period of walking/drinking without music I was thinking about stereotypes that people have of Asians. It was a line in a movie I was watching, and then after NOT laughing at the stereotype I analyzed why. I came to the following conclusion: I live in an Asian nation that breaks EVERY single Asian stereotype that exists!
Seriously how did I not think this was so cool until just now? Throw out your stereotype and I can counter it. Heres some of the biggies. They cant drink, or if they do they redden up (im quoting Ms. Margaret Cho btw…) Whooooboy, Mongolians can drink! Seriously in terms of alcohol content and amounts drank, Mongolians outdo even Russians. Men and women as well….they all drink. Heck 5th graders are given the fermented horse milk in the summer! Theres a major stereotype out the window.
Next up….Asians are short and thin. Not in Mongolia at least. Granted the all meat diet probably contributes to this and at 6’3-6’4 I am the tallest man in a town of 2000, but I can state I know a couple six footers in town and by and large (pun intended) Mongolians are probably on average only an inch shorter than Americans! They also are all fat, and by “fat” I mean they carry their weight in their gut, but unlike in other countries like America noone here is out of shape. The fattest guy I know who chain-smokes the most lethal cheap brand of cigarettes Mongolia makes is my schools Gym teacher. That’s amusing….its like watching a pulmonologist smoking outside of a hospital or something.
How bout the whole: “All Asians look alike and its impossible to know how old they are” Not true on either account in Mongolia. I can tell you a total strangers approximate age in this country just by appearance and EVERYONE in this country looks a little different from one another when I take a look around. Though as I mentioned in a previous entry, everyone in my town believes I have the exact appearance of the red bearded sitemate of mine Tripp…we look NOTHING alike. All Westerners look the same to Asians I have met too, but hearing that got me thinking and this is what I assess from that.
Pretty much Mongolians fly in the face of every single stereotype that Asians are bestowed by Westerners that I know of. Now at first I wondered if this was because as some in Asia would classify the Mongolians as having ancestry from the far West and not the early Chinese civilizations, but then I realized something that made even more sense and best of all demonstrated something enlightening to me.
Stereotypes exist to classify something or someone you don’t know a lot about…. After living in Mongolia for around a year I now understand and see a lot more than I knew before, and so all of those gross summaries of certain people from Asia do not apply to anything I see. That’s the cure to undoing stereotypes, not disputing them, but instead learning more about one another their undoing will occur naturally. That’s the kind of discovery that at 29 can keep you a liberal and a hopeless romantic into the years when those who are more conservative in nature would say “the age of innocence comes to a close, and the age of reason gains ground” to quote a more conservative family man/friend that I know.
Life is good…..running can do that…


April 30, 2010. Ondortolge, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “Never trust a computer that you cant throw out a window”

Graduation day. Now granted I would be headed to UB now if I weren’t here for this but even with that bias I will say this ceremony has a shocking resemblance to the first day of school. Everyone washed their hair, everyone put back on their bank teller/French maid uniforms and in essence we stood at the front of the school while the big shots all talked about the kids hopes and dreams.
Okay actually it wasent all that bad, it just seems to me a little ridiculous to have this a month before school actually comes to a close. Its another beautiful day outside. Still need long sleeves but seriously I don’t know if I even need my Fordham University jacket anymore. I am really grateful for these past two days of weather after the week before. I sorta needed a pick me up and as ive said before I am tuned to the weather. Being able to sit at the culture center steps and watch the kids play some violent form of basketball…it just makes me feel good. Gods that makes me sound like such an old guy! Im gonna start talking about going to the pond and looking at the ducks after this!
Tripp stopped in to say hi at the graduation too. It was good to talk to him. He is coming to the end of his Peace Corps service and is looking into staying in Mongolia to work. His knowledge of Mongolian is practically encyclopedic so I guess he can really write his own ticket. Lucky him. Its strange to think of being around here without him. As he will likely be residing in UB its likely ill see him now and again but in the many occupations I have worked in people come and go….its not a lonely life, just one where you realize that really clicking with people is not going to keep em close forever. Go figure.
Tomorrow is a busy day. Only got one full day in UB and theres internet cards to buy if there available, I gotta edit that software for the alcohol awareness video in the Peace Corps office, then I need to buy some salad dressing (yes I am doing this!) and I gotta spend a little relatively fast internet time. Pizza eating and beer drinking too…lets not forget that either. I figure ill upload this entry and start a fresh one for May. Additionally I got something Ive been building up for a while. An unofficial and informal packing list for those who in a little more than a month will be finding themselves in Mongolia. It sorta started as a lark, but now that im putting a few final touches on it it surpasses my greatest hope.
I hope UB has a couple PCV’s wandering around. Would like to catch up with a few, and I REALLY want this weather to stick around too…I may delude myself but with the weather this warm they may have even started to open some of those beer gardens again (benches and tables for outside drinking, but when you’ve been cooped up all day a beer garden takes on many forms!)