At Long Long Last....We Come to the End of January....

December 29, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “The only real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscape, but in having new eyes.” –Proust

Today while walking to school I noticed something. This keeps happening where ill pass the same place a thousand times and each time things seem slightly different than before. This time though Santa was looking at me. Yup. For the past two weeks a massive pile of snow has been outside the government office. This was strange as though it is incredibly cold around here we have had very little snow this year. Not complaining, it just becomes a sheet of ice and we have to go dig out the road when it gets bad. So I was not sure WHY there was so much snow/ice there but I just let it runs its course. Now I know what they have done. They started a snow/ice sculpture. With sub-zero temps continuing until March or even April they have carved out two 10 foot tall ice sculptures of Santa and Ms. Claus to stand guard at the entrance of our govt. building. How clever.
My mother would likely remark how tacky they look, and yes they are, but thanks to my childish disposition im rather for tacky!
Today it was still over negative 20 outside today. That’s subzero Fahrenheit but there was a great twist to the weather…no wind! Right after classes I threw on my running shoes and made my way to the rail tracks. I had some ger chores that I probably should have done like get some water but a windless day in winter is just far too rare. The run was exhilarating. I had a lot of built up energy and I ran a little faster than I usually do. I loved how without the wind the cold did little more than give my body that perfect go between of cooking in my clothes and also feeling cool on the outside. I got my body to sweat and though it will mean even after a water rinse I will smell a bit to get your body to sweat at least feels like the healthiest thing you can do it. I can feel the leftover garbage from all my holiday vices pouring out of me.
Best of all, running relieves stress in myself and lets me sleep. Like really sleep. Tonight will be the most wonderful dreamless unconsciousness I will have encountered in weeks. I gotta try and run like this at least twice a week if I hope to like last winter maintain my running form for summer marathons. You know, when January rolls around I should probably look up marathons to do back stateside. Probably try and run the NY marathon even if I am not living there.


December 30, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Well mark the day. This is when I finally have made a decision to put my foot down and pull the plug on my eagle hunt in the west. It was going to be one of the four points I traveled to and did something one of a kind, but after getting monetary information on it it just reached a tipping point.
The only people who would take me out on a trip into the eagle hunting region in the far west wanted $2,250 for seven days, that included one day just flying to Olgii, One day flying back too. Meaning after you start horse trekking to the region for hunting id be there for 3 days. I spent 25 days at Khovsgul Nuur on horseback for under $500. This was just not acceptable. $2,250 will buy a PS3 to replace the one my brother somehow worked to death as well as buy every game that has come out since I joined Peace Corps with enough money to buy one of those new 3d TV’s as well. I cant logically fork out that much money for so short a period of gratification.
So, with the hunts plug pulled its time to think about China. That will be last week of March, first week of April. That sounds about right. Maybe not sub zero in Mongolia at that time but definitely still freezing. China will be warm, hell maybe even shorts weather warm. Flowers blossoming, Great Wall…fruit to no end… im sure they have their own cheap beer to drink…yea. So for 2nd quarter break ill go do the visa dance with the Chineese embassy. Fun!
Last night I didn’t start to cook dinner until late. A simple soup concoction of sheep meat, a potato, half an onion and some noodles. Ive gotten pretty good at this of late and since I got to run that day I was certainly in the mood for some good grub. Well to cook on my stove I need to turn off my space heater as it will trip the breaker if anything more than one active appliance is running in my ger at one time (how many appliances do you have running at once every day???) so I cook it up, slurp it all down an sat to watch “Sit Down, Shut Up” for the 10,000th time in the last two years and as I did…I forgot to turn back on my space heater.
My space heater is really not impressive. Its over 10 years old and rattles like hell. If its warm the ger remains kinda cool. If its cold the ger remains kinda freezing. If the ger is freezing the ger remains freezing. This machine has one ONE singular but absolutely vital application. When it is sub-zero, it will keep the ger just freezing. I can sleep when it’s freezing, its not physically possible to sleep through sub zero if you don’t use your sleeping bag like I don’t. I woke up at two in the morning freezing my ass off and having no idea why. My coal fire had simmered down, but usually that residual warmth lasted till dawn.
I was groggy but finally I caught on that I hadn’t turned on my space heater and leapt out of bed to do so. The trouble was that now the ger was sub-zero and so I spent the rest of the night impressively cold. Live and learn I suppose.
Although in all fairness it is REALLY cold today. The wind came back with a vengeance and it feels like your fighting to walk into the wind every step of the way. I think It may be time to actually wear my winter coat instead of continuing to lug around the fall coat that my mother made me buy before coming to Mongolia. I still hate that coat, back in the states I have brand name the exact identical to the coat I brought here that was four years old and my mother demanded I buy a new one…I think at the end of my service ill leave this fall coat here so I can take back up the old blue coat back in the states. If coats had feelings the fact it got left behind must have really hurt it. Not that it matters, I always wear my black trenchcoat anyways. Given what I have been through and am going through ill be able to walk through a N.VA blizzard in a speedo and a top hat.


December 31, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.
Today’s Theme Song: “Time of Your Life” –By Green Day (its been cliché for so long that if you listen to it it actually sounds pretty nice again.)
Todays’ Quote: “To old friends, lost loves, broken promises and make sure we all give the devil his due” –a toast for all occasions, good or bad.

…well. How about that? End of the year 2010. The year of my life that I spent exclusively in Mongolia. Life is a funny thing. So I guess its time to pull some kind of lesson or philosophical quote out of my ass justifying my existence and summarizing what someone gains from such a way of life.

…

Guys I got nothing. My last year here (or year and a half) has truly been astounding. Yet to try to summarize this is like asking someone to summarize War and Peace. Yes you could, but there is no way you could cover everything. So if I cant summarize lets at least go down the list of things that happened.
I have been places I didn’t know existed, met people I didn’t know were there and did things I didn’t know I could do. I ran marathons AND ultramarathons. I drank my weight in vodka and ate a few sheep eyes to boot. I taught pains in the asses as well as possible future presidents, some of whom are one in the same. I lived in a shitty Soviet block apartment and came to terms with just how amazing that place was when I then moved into a tiny little tent. I survived subzero nights and sun boiling July afternoons. I was nearly killed many times on a horse, and I watched a passed out Mongolian on a horse literally fall on his face. I lived for months off the grid without internet and I lived in a tent while having T1 wireless a hundred yards away. I learned how to speak and understand the Mongolian language more and I learned how to start a coal fire from coal that literally is dug up 3 kilometers away from my town. I puked in a winter dell from too much vodka and buzz on Tsaagen Tsar. I have pushed meekers in subzero winters through ten feet of snow like my life depended on it (it did). I read a bible I had saved from being toilet paper at an outhouse, I read all the Harry Dresden and Star Wars books up to date. I lived through Mongolia’s coldest winter in 30 years. I met a really really hot woman who actually seemed to enjoy my company for a prolonged period of time even when I acted like myself (tall order!). I learned how to make more montage music videos both relating to Peace Corps and those just relating to boredom. I also wrote an extensive diary/blog that in my final six months I intend to edit and format into some sort of book to publish.
I…did stuff. Did I learn a lot? Yea I suppose so. Like I often mention I gained a great deal of relativity from my time in Mongolia. That is what Mongolia has taught me above all other things, relativity.
I imagine my first real encounter with relativity will happen when I get in line to fly back to America at the airport. Ill stand in line to get a ticket and I wont be scanning left and right looking for the fat Mongolian jerk who cuts in line or does not acknowledge its existence. I could stand in lines for hours now without a care in the world. Then ill get on a plane in which I have a 12 or so hour flight ahead of me. I could do that standing on my head (which I practically had to going to Dadal) but additionally I will have my own seat. As in I have a specific spot that is “mine” that only my butt gets to be on! Occasionally someone will even bring me foods and wines. I don’t think flying is ever going to be uncomfortable ever again.
Maybe the moment will be when I return to America and join a work force where its someones birthday and we have a cake where when they give me a piece they give me a fork AND a plate to eat it instead of just putting a slice in my hand.
Then back in America I am going to go to Giant the grocery store and stand in front of the Peanut Butter. There will be a jar of creamy…a jar of crunchy…and a jar of extra crunchy. I fear I may just curl up into a ball and start to seize when that display of options happens. Or it will be like that episode of the Simpsons where Mr. Burns is holding a bottle of ketchup and catsup for ten hours.
Then I will find some job somewhere where I will be doing bureaucracy that people actually read for some reason and “jobs with no real rush” on them are due within the hour. In essence Mongolia has demonstrated to a man like myself that there is a VERY very different world happening outside of the United States. Not even always for better or for worse either. It just is.
2010… I pledged to myself that I would not worry about my future, and I did that very well. Didn’t think about future jobs or careers, just let myself be here. I gotta say for the first 6 months of 2010 in which I had no internet for months on end THAT was a tall order. I read the small collection of books I had at the time, got REALLY good at Civilization IV (I hear the new one is not nearly as good) As time has passed I got better at interacting with my community so I was not alone as often as I had been before. This is not a country for introverts, no matter how many lonely nights I have been through. I am one of the most introverted people I know and this place has REALLY stretched my limit on that. I didn’t go crazy…didn’t go native, and if not for sheer dumb luck on the end of meeting a smoking hottie from Hong Kong would have been spent all on my own too. Peace Corps is to me in its own way a voluntary exile. A true test of my character.
Mom asked me two days before I left for service why I was doing this and while we had batted this question around before I finally summed it up pretty well. “I want to know if I am full of shit or not” I remember her nodding, not exactly a comment but I think she kind of got it. I was going to really do what everyone else talks about, and wow wishes were horses. I got a small little town with a rundown apartment and tent and in essence found the quietest, emptiest corner of nowhere and set down my bags for a rough 50th of my life. Yet unlike most exiles mine has a set expiration date.
Unfortunately, in a little over six months Peace Corps service will come to an end. So now with 2010 hours away from wrapping up its time for me to spend the next few months coming to terms with the rest of my life. Making another one of those watershed decisions that will for better or for worse effect every other decision of my life. I really need to stop running into these! Kibbutz? More Peace Corps? US Aid? Community College? PHD? High School History Teacher? What the hell happens now? In the words of the Buffy musical “where do we go from here?”
Ill narrow the decisions down by February but no matter what it is my ability to apply for most things will be hindered by my lack of a presence in America. At least I have my GRE’s all handled. So many Peace Corps Volunteers need to take those and must fly to Korea to do so. Nah I got that and my 2 rounds of MA programs already under belt. Of course, most those dealing with GRE are dreading the big upcoming 25 unlike my 30 here by February. 30’s are a good time to get the PHD right? Spend middle age working towards the doctorate and getting the professor job, make the money, embrace the gray hairs that I totally intend to highlight rather than dye. I imagine ill eventually need to get married in there too right? Some might read that and think “ah good…he got that Peace Corps adventure bug out of his system.” Its not like that at all…
Heres what I draw from my ideas of how to spend my life and it applies to everyone. There is NO bad way to spend out your life at all. Janitor/CEO/unemployed lay person/Peace Corps Volunteer/teacher/porn star/Civil War Reenacter/office drone… none of them are bad so long as it is what you want to do. I don’t work hard and play hard. I do what I love and love what I do…So the important thing is once you decide what it is you want to do you need to really try to enjoy yourself doing that thing. So if I go back to America and get a community college teacher job its not me “settling down” its me doing what I want at that time. The only person who you should care about what your doing with your life is yourself and THAT person should be the harshest critic you have.
So yea, 2010. Quite a year. Lots of highs and lows. Lots of twists and turns but let me tell you there is nowhere I would rather have been and there is nothing else I would rather have been doing.
Next year? 2011? Well, as 2010 proved to me you really never know. I got my year of not worrying about my future and it was quite relaxing, but I don’t think it will have the same degree of calmness and serenity of the last year. I get the strange feeling that while it wont always feel that way everything is going to work out fine in the end. I guess the only thing left to do is embrace it.
Meanwhile I have purchased and brought in 2 bottles of Bulgarian wine from Ulaanbaatar and a single bottle of “champagne” which I imagine will taste like “cooks” champagne from Giant (it should be so lucky) for just this occasion and not drank since Christmas to drop my tolerance so I sign off this reflection blog not with a quote but just a summary.

Ill never be the same again, and every decision for the rest of my life has been changed by my time here…so yea its sorta been like every year that has come before it since I was 24 years old.

Take care all…I platonically love you all. 2011…bring it on! (I am going to get tanked now)


Final PS: The President of Mongolia showed up to toast the new year on television…with a glass of milk. Seriously…probably the most pro-alcohol nation on the planet and the president doesn’t even want us to taper off. He wants everyone cold turkey. He received a round of boos from everyone watching TV with me at the time (all Mongolians) and I began to suspect and alien or robot of some kind had replaced the President. Baby steps dude, ask em to drink Champagne instead of Vodka instead dude…

January 1, 2011…wow…Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

2011 is the year of the Hare. To those playing the home game we in Mongolia follow the calendar of the animals, each one depicting its own type of year. The year of the Hare starts off well, and ends in disaster…hehehe…how enjoyable!
So, I got my oven back…for another three or so weeks. I get it now, it’s a Tsaagen Tsar thing. They want to make something special that requires an oven so they want to collect it for that purpose. So that means they don’t need it until the end of January. Well bollocks by that time do I really want to shell out the money to buy an oven for such a short use? No matter, I will celebrate with a grilled cheese sandwich tonight and then some pizza for next week. Havent made pizza since the beginning of December so that is overdue anyway.


January 2, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Good gods it felt so good to run today. I hate being able to run only once or twice a week, but I have to be careful. Today while running my….uh….well my penis got cold. Now luckily I noticed early and halfway through my run I “clenched” myself to ensure I wouldn’t get frostbite in a place I REALLY don’t want to get it, but it is something to seriously worry about! January is going to be a hard month, I can tell!
The wind disappeared. I know how crazy this is but there is still no snow on the ground. It hasent snowed in a month, and while it has been freezing or sub-zero everyday since aside from the ground ice chunks we really are still without snow. As I ran today I got to see further north, and despite being only 100km to the SE of UB we have just missed a great deal of snow that has blown through. Suits me, the all white look of last year was daunting, especially since it lasted for over 6 months.
So if memory serves correctly we should be entering the second “cycle” of the Mongolian winter. There are nine cycles about ten days long a piece. The peak at the 4th cycle (end of January towards the start of Feb), in which the horns of a 4 year old bull/ox crack (really no easy feat and unless it get impressively colder and a lot faster does not look like it will happen). The second cycle has to do with the freezing of Russian (ie: high alcohol content) vodka will freeze if exposed to the weather. In essence this means that Tsaagen Tsar (Mongolian New Year this time situated at Feb 3rd) will be when we start to go down in cold weather days to the point that you can see roads and go outside without everything on the planet freezing. In an earlier entry I decreed that reaching winter solstice was the halfway point of the winter. In terms of how dark it gets that is true, but I do have another month in which it gets progressively colder.
The weather definitely is picking up in terms of cold. Even with a roaring fire I cannot sit around in my boxers and at night I wear wool socks and the thermal pants to bed. Nothing for it, and its still wisps of nothing compared to the -50 nighttime temps of last year that lasted for weeks on end, but -40 is still nothing to blow your nose at either (you couldn’t anyways because your snot has frozen).
On the subject, I have another cold. This one is not bad at all, just a stuffy nose. I don’t even feel all that sick but I imagine this is inevitable when you do ger chores in the sub zero temps. A little over two more weeks and ill already be back in UB as the second quarter break finally arrives on the 19th of January. That’s a good time to spend a week in a heated building.
A quiet Sunday. The wind has finally started to pick up the pace. One of the reasons that we sleep in round tents is that they are best at deflecting the winds but they cannot keep out the absolute howl that comes from them. Beautiful in some ways, terrifying in others. I guess it just comes down to how well sheltered someone is from such elements.

January 3, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

In a mood. Its fracking cold outside and once again Sarangoo has invented another round of shit work for me to do. This time she wants her kids ready for their speaking “English Olympic” events. She seems to be of the mindset that though we only really teach and test grammar in classes (a fight I let go of long ago) we should still compete in events where the students speak English and that with three weeks until the competition begins it should be no problem for me to “whip the kids up into shape and have them speaking English”
I am and remain long past getting angry at stupid garbage like this, I just am impressed how no one around here bothers to try anything planned out and ahead of time when things could actually be productive. It’s inefficient and unproductive and does little except get our kids trounced by the UB kids who speak perfect English.
Nothing for it, nothing for it at all. As usual it boils down to me not exactly being swamped in work and feeling this is no worse a way to spend my time than anything else, just stupid really stupid. Its also cold…colder than I am even used to. Winter arrived at last.

…postscript: I went home and made a grilled cheese sandwich and forced myself to eat. Instantly I felt immensely better. I am far too tuned into my stomach! Its just another phase of us trying to compete with UB kids. We did it last year, we might as well go through the motions and do it again right?


January 4, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

(Note: This pry began on New Years Eve, but not to upset the end of year blog entry I put it off for a few days while I waited on some intel back from people I confide in and seek the console of)
I REALLY wish I had not snooped just now. It looks like Esther (actually her name is Lam) may not be able to make it up to Beijing in the end of March for when I head down into China. I am REALLY trying to get into the spirit of going to China for a while, but to be honest it’s a wall and tombs run with an acrobat show thrown in…it really is.
So today in a pouty mood I tried to think about what happens in the world around that time that I would LIKE to actually do. Only one things came to mind. Its date switches around a lot, so I did not think it was very likely that I was going to get it to synch with my vacation let alone the fact that I have no chance of throwing this together but I googled it and low and behold its happening between the 19th of March and the 4th of April. Then I did something even crazier and looked up flights for that time…and dammit if the ticket across a third of the world did not cost less than a thousand dollars.
…dammit am I going to go to Starkbierfest? Okay hear me out.
So I get off school on March 18th for 3rd quarter break. I am not due back to work until April 4th. What if…I took the train south to Beijing on the 19th of March. I stay in Beijing for a week, do the sights, shout the line from the wall, all that good stuff. Then…I take a plane from Beijing to Munich on the 26th. I know right!?!?! Well it gets better. After that I stay in Munich for the Strong Beer Festival, and then on April 2nd I take a flight through Moscow directly back to UB (avoiding a multi entry visa to China) The flight? $850. A one way flight from UB to Beijing is around 250-300 dollars, and I can fly over a third of the world from Beijing to Munich or from Munich to Ulaanbaatar for a little bit more than that. I have around 4000 bucks at my disposal right now not counting the 7 or so grand that comes from my end of service.
Am I really doing this???


January 5, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I hate teaching on Wednesdays. Actually I only teach one class, but as the warmest building I come to the school throughout the day where all the teachers (about 20 of us) all occupy a dorm room sized room and they get particularly roudy on Wednesdays. Too much free time for everyone I think…
Yep…im doing this. I know ive been there before, and I know that I have even done this festival before, but its just too well timed, too inexpensive for all the fly time and most of all its just too much fun to pass up.
Third week of January ill go to the Chinese embassy and find out what it takes to get that annoying and expensive visa and once I have that I will start booking the tickets and doing the paperwork with Peace Corps. I want no repeat of my Khovsgul vacation where everyone seemed to think I was dead…
Not even Peace Corps Mongolia can keep me from my German beer festivals. China AND Germany…heck ill even spend three hours each way on layover in Moscow….Who has a cooler life than me huh????
I had conferred with my father, mother and stepfather to sorta be a sounding board and make sure I was not doing anything crazy, but they all seemed to think that my plan was abandoning China altogether and going straight to Munich! When I told them I am going to try to do both that is when they all realized that I may be a little nuts indeed.


January 6, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

2nd quarter wraps up in two weeks. Couldn’t come soon enough! I mentioned earlier that 2nd quarter really is the tough one. Not tough as in lots of work, more like it is tough to keep in high spirits. It also means that my counterpart needs to write lesson plans to coincide with her unit plans, neither of which she uses, and in all fairness no Mongolian teacher uses them, and based on my time in the American school system I am willing to lay money that no teacher actually uses this as an actual teaching guide. It’s paperwork to make the administrators who supervise teachers look important. The truth hurts, and then it sets you free…
So English teachers are the only ones who type their lesson plans in English. The fact that my training manager and principal cant read or understand English is all the more amusing as it means we probably could write for our 5th grade lesson plans “We are going to teach our students the comprehensive evaluation on the preparation of mixed drinks like Mai Tai, Seabreezes and Zombies. The “Comprehensive Evaluation” would totally be the only words they would be looking for and therefore approve it. There are a lot of advantages to living in a Mongolian town or city where people have actually worked on their Mongolian. The odd joke I get to play on them is one of the few advantages of the other setup like the one I have.
Sarangoo has once again simply given me her old templates and told me to write hers up. Its that type of work I described in my last entry, but the standing argument that its not like I have any other prior engagements makes me just smile as she hands me her work from last year to update.
Two months from now I imagine it will happen again to the 3rd quarter stuff. Oh plz oh plz Sky Father and the Lords of Kobold give me strength!
Changing subjects!!! There are pineapples for sale in my stores. Okay, I know it’s a mild winter, but that’s a little scary. Pineapple…PINEAPPLE!!!! This is from the same town that had beets, carrots and potatoes last year.
I think I know what this is though. Tsagen Tsar is less than a month away, and this stuff is for partying. Actually noone would ever dream cut up a pineapple, but rather use it as pineapples outside of the tropics are always used as a decorative piece on a fruit platter for all to see and eat. I sorta keep scanning it again and again wondering if I was just making this up or looking at a disfigured apple.
My town still has cherry tomatoes and bell peppers. That also was a luxury that tapered off by October last year and did not return until May. Occasionally instead of drinking I buy those and make a lettuceless salad. My vegetarian has been patient for far too long, and this whisps of meatless days are making it realize that before long ill be back to hummus/pita/fruit/wine non stop. I really promise I am not counting the days, its just something that was so far away I couldn’t even consider it. My brain feels one way but my body is definitely demanding another.
Germany always had the best cherries… and strawberries… mmmm… strawberries. Who would have thought that going to Germany would entice someone to NOT have to eat meat! Oh…I just remembered….the pretzels!!!! Beer….wine…. the Augustinerskeller… Bierkeller 90…. the open air market beer garden… dammit snap out of it! Your eating horse meat soup and potatoes tonight!


January 7, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Didn’t feel like forming pizza dough today, so I made Bruschetta instead. Worked really well, especially because the bread is not the loaf stuff that I usually love. There’s a woman in Ondortolge that pretty much owns a bakery, and for 650 tugriks she makes loaves of bread that look like the stuff you buy in you American grocery store minus the slicing. The alternative and usually far more available stuff is just a round shaped loaf that is made in bulk in UB and found pretty much across the country. The ones the Ondortolge woman has are great for grilled cheese sandwiches, but the other type don’t. They do once you slice them though make for a great bruschetta stick, so that’s on the menu for today. I also was able to procure some cherry tomatoes to chop up as toppings anyway. I put a chunk of the cheese my family shipped to me for topping, much more effective at melting than the lunch cheese stuff I can buy in my delguur. Each passing day my culinary diversity widens and widens.
No alcohol this weekend. Spent a tad more than I expected of late and after the running I got in I feel pretty good of late without the desire to stupefy myself for comfort. The great seesaw battle of what to blow money on. Food that is not potatoes or alcohol….food wins this weekend.


January 8, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Weekend at last. I like weekends. Kids with UB parents are usually there and the school is MUCH tamer during this time. Noone comes to school unless they can use the internet. So its me and the kids with the One Laptop Per Child computers. I even occasionally do a small computer club when we get enough of us.
This last week, I dunno why but I was cranky as all hell. Its as an old M20 (old in times past not age) Nathan once said. Days last forever, but at the end of the week it feels like time has flown by. I am okay with that, at least on Saturdays.
Did another water carry today. 70 liters of water is heavy as hell, and even with a cart the handling of water in sub zero temps and wind can be hazardous. By the time I finally had gotten the jug back into my ger my pinky finger on my right hand was acting funny. I recognized the feeling, hadn’t had it happen since I pushed the meeker through the snow about a year ago. My pinky was….sluggish. I have no knowledge of its term medically but if my assessment is correctly my finger was getting ready to stop reacting to impulses sent by my body. It was on the fence, ready to slide one way or another. Its actually a little scary to encounter when you are in your ger knowing your in the process of warming yourself but you don’t know if you pushed yourself too long. Luckily feeling returned soon enough….but still…close call. Luckily I now have more than enough water to last the next few weeks, and by then ill need the container to be mostly empty so I can go to UB without the thing exploding.

January 9, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

No snow on the ground…were approaching the 3rd cycle of the Mongolian winter and still the only snow to be seen is the residual stuff from a brief snowstorm we had over a month ago. Its still just as cold as last year (maybe a few degrees warmer, but still subzero during the day and night) but without snow. Its strange, back in America on the East Coast snow is always an indicator that it is cold out. Here snow is so very different both in feel but also what it does to us.
A year ago I joined 2500 people of my town with picks and shovels as we dug out the road between Bagakhangai and Ondortolge. Snow truly cut us off. Walking was a perilous mission as every step brought you onto snow that had been crushed down to the most glistening of all ice blocks. I still walk on dirt.
Such a different experience this year than last. That was key to the last six months of living here being so enjoyable. The weather was mild and every experience was new. New counterpart, new town (sorta), new place to live, and more. Now at 6 months to go the new stuff is routine, and while not depressed boredom has begun to take its toll. February has a lot of holidays and begins to SLOWLY pull us to warmer temps, its this blasted January that takes forever to go through. Even the 2nd quarter break is not a full week off of school. Toughen up soldier!!!

January 10, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I just got off the horn with probably the rudest man ive ever not had to meet. I am actually in a good mood so its not like I had a bad reaction to anything. I just needed to know what a Chinese Visa requirement was for an American at the embassy in Ulaanbaatar. After being sworn at (IN ENGLISH!!!!) He then rattled off this list.

$160 which must be paid in US dollars to the teller themselves. (I would need to withdraw tugriks, and then go to an exchanger to get that amount….rounding up the exhange rate it would be around $200
proof of a flight out of the country (that I could do…but still?!?!? How many Americans are trying to live in China?)
Copy of bank account information
5 blank pages in my passport (don’t have in my original passport….and wtf?)
passport photos (don’t have…yea I can get em…)
itinerary ( 1)show up 2)stand on the wall and shout in South Park fashion…”Geawd Damnn Mongoleans…Staap Bwakeng Dooown Miine SCHitty WAWW!!!!” 3)go drink for five days)
one week wait… (meaning I need to bring all this together on a weekday IE: miss school come back a week later on a weekday IE: Miss school and pray to Sky Father nothing has gone wrong to collect visa’d passport which does not have enough blank pages)

This is what is required for an American in Mongolia to get the most basic run of the mill visa to the Peoples Republic of China. This is supposed to be a vacation, something without stress to enjoy…and they throw all this at it??? And to see a wall?...i don’t have the time and patience to work out a tour thing and the only thing I really want to do in China is see that blasted wall!?!
The train ticket cost from UB to Beijing was also way higher than I expected but putting all this together may have tipped the scale. I may just go to Munich in March for the festival and fly right back. The flight in and out of UB costs $850. There is no visa requirements. I know the place, love the place. The guesthouses (hostels) are under $15 a night thanks to it being off season…yea a slightly longer stay in Munich it is then!
China I can go to after Peace Corps service depending on how much I have left and what my future prospects look like. Failing that…well, China is not a young mans country anyway. The wall is not going anywhere, and it sounds like visa requirements in America are much much easier to work around.
Actually this all formed throughout the day. Before I decided to pull the plug I also received a nice surprise about JUST how cheap Munich guesthouses are in the off season. $14 a night for the one I looked up. Well…I mean even ten days in town is less than $150. That’s less than the cost of a Chinese Visa alone! Add on the plane ticket and 10 days round ticket is 1000 bucks…. now all I gotta buy is beer and food since I already own lederhosen (ebay)
Strange how things come together sometimes.


January 11, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “That guy wasent gay he had a mustache!” -Pierce

Month 19…cool.

I have taken up a new habit of late. I have always been prone to facial hair. Don’t use a razor for about 5 days and I have a full sized beard from ear to ear. It must be a civil war ancestry thing I think…anyway. I went through my beard phase in my early 20’s and since then have come to loathe all facial hair, and it simply meant I shave and shave a lot.
Additionaly a mechanical razor just doesn’t give off the clean shaven look quite as well, and prior to Peace Corps I usually just bought the razors and shaved. Even during my first year of service when I had running water (cold but running) I shaved without cream and without a mirror. Very impressive I must say myself. I saw the writing on the wall when I reached the ger, and my dear sweet mother was kind enough to send an electric razor to me. I would have bought one here but that might have been complicated. Men don’t grow a lot of facial hair out here that quickly. Most pictures Mongolians have of Chinngis Khan are of him with the large Merlin shaped white beard, no doubt demonstrating how unique he was to have been able to grow something like that!
Well I am not growing a beard, but I have begun to shave in the evening with my electric razor instead of the morning, it means that I am rocking the scruff look. Now in America, this would look rather ugly, and even I admit its not my default style, but as they have seen me clean shaven for a while I am definitely providing my fellow teachers with some impress as they see my facial hair grows across my entire face!
Lots of people wanting to touch it. A few guys in peace Corps not only have beards, but red ones too! (Tripp even had one!) No doubt to the amusement of their communities as any hair color other than black or dark brown is very uncommon.
On the home front I found tucked away in a corner of the Railway shop a cheese grater. It has probably never been used to grate cheese in this town but for me this will greatly help in the creation of pizzas with more sporatic cheese. Its great that in UB I can buy the block stuff and use that on the pizzas. The dude who runs American Burgers and Fries was kind enough to tell me one night where I could get ahold of blocks of cheese in UB. Those keep very well, and make all the difference between the lunchbox cheese you can buy in my town. Its funny, a few months ago the discovery of any cheese brought me to new levels of euphoria. Now that I have that I am hunting out better types of cheeses for my pizzas now. Its all relative, and we can always want more. How much we ever actually NEED…well last year demonstrated to me how little actually is.


January 12, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

Okay, I cry foul! I just got done reading the news and saw that a female teacher in America has been caught sleeping with one of their male students. We like to cry over the little things in America, and I know how insensitive it sounds to call something like statutory rape a little thing but there is a point here. I have many theories on why this is but to prevent digression I will point out I cant really think of any news story I have ever heard of teachers in Mongolia sleeping with their students (I imagine the numbers may rise when you hit college but lets keep it at the K-12 range for now) but in America the story is very different. I don’t cry foul about teachers being punished for sleeping with their students, I cry foul on a sexist characteristic about this.
I have been meticulous about looking up crimes committed in America where teachers sleep with their students since I became a teacher back in 2006. I have always been VERY paranoid that even the baseless accusation from a student can destroy a perfectly innocent teacher. I always keep my classroom open, never drank near the bars of my schools, and most of all I kept electronically off the grid when I was in the presence of those as on the grid as myself. Luckily I’ve never been accused of everything and I pray to the Lords of Kobold that I never am. There is something aggravating about these news reports other than teachers violating their students.
What infuriates me is that when a male teacher seduces a student he’s either thrown to the wolves or locked up for 10-25 years. THAT should ALWAYS happen!!! What you may not know if you do not keep track of it is that a great number of the secondary education public school teacher seducers are in fact women, and that they are never brought to justice in the same way as their male counterparts. Mary Kate Letourneau had sex with a 13 year old student and spent less than six months in jail! The majority of female teachers who seduce their male students spend less than a year in jail and then get released on probation.
Most also do not even have to register as sex offenders after their release. Mary didn’t the first time she raped that kid, only when she did it again less than a month after being released from jail did she have to register as a sex offender. Imagine if the genders were reversed, that guy would never see the light of day again.
Those who make the community aware of sex offenders seldom bother to let people know that they are in the community either.

FOUL!!! Impressive foul!!!!

To further annoy me the people I expect to receive support of this imbalance of justice do not make a lot of noise about it. Liberals and feminists especially! The idea that female teachers who seduce their students is less of a crime than their male counterparts not only is inaccurate but it takes away from the trauma this puts on anyone affected by this crime.
The arguments as to why female teachers receive lesser punishments only make their case worse. Most commonly I am told that women teachers are not forcing themselves on the men and that the male student is just lucky as hell. This is what makes me more upset than any other statement on this subject.

Rape has NOTHING to do about sex or even liking something. Think of it like this: If a woman has an orgasm during a rape is it a rape? People under age are not allowed to give consent to sex and therefore cannot be considered consensual, regardless of enjoyment, gender or even wanting it.
Additionally how does that not work the other way? If an attractive male teacher consensually sleeps with their butt ugly female student how is the female student not just lucky as hell?

The reasoning behind this is as simple as it is fundamentally wrong. There is a standard set up where what men do to women is considered more destructive than anything a woman could do to a man. There’s a word for that type of thinking…its called sexism.
Argue anything you want against that, some of which are even academic good points but the reason those women don’t go to jail for 25 years or more is because a double standard exists and continues to exist until more people realize that the battle against sexism is about getting it right and not getting even!
I’m sorry for getting worked up this just really annoys me. Too often the feminist movement I think is so busy trying to undo establishment sexism they occasionally forget certain areas where an eventual equality among men and women does not necessarily mean advantageous to women. It’s like women who advocate being allowed to serve in the military but not be required to enroll in the draft.
Ladies, I support women being fully integrated into the military, much like Israel. I don’t think though women should “choose” to serve in the military, I sure as hell can’t choose! You can’t ask for the “right” to serve in the military and not the “responsibility.” When I turned 18 I was required to enroll in the draft, and no woman in America has to do that. I don’t get to choose if I want to fight or not if drafted. Ladies on the other hand still remain allowed to join the armed forces if they so choose but if we get into a “Red Dawn” situation they get to sit that whole mess out. Feminism is an important and just advocacy movement, but you cannot selectively choose where equality should shine, even if in other fields women are still not considered male equals by all. All or nothing everyone…all or nothing.
…okay so I got started on that. What was my point? I think we started somewhere about statutory rape and got to me complaining women are not in the draft. In all fairness though I made some valid points for all the ranting I did.


January 13, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Bored. Ive been a little more bored of late than I expected myself to be. I guess there is only so many things you can watch on youtube before you start to go a little batty. I tried to think about what I was doing last winter and realized that the inability to play video games on my computer anymore really does give me a lot more time than I expected it would. Nothing bad about it or for it. My computer will black screen if I stress the damaged video card and so I find myself simply resigned to typing and email. Meh…few more months and Spring is here. Maybe not shorts weather but enough to get me outside and walking around. There is still hardly any snow anywhere. Freaky in some ways not to compared to what it was like last year.
I could lie or not even talk about it, but it’s a well known but little spoken fact that alcohol is indeed a way to pass boredom too. I don’t advocate it or recommend it but much like last year there are many a days at 4 in the afternoon where you think to yourself…so what do I do for the next 8 hours?
I drink the mid shelf vodka. The staples if you will. Not gutrot and not the Grey Goose (or the Mongolian equivalent) I could make mixed drinks but that would only sully the good taste of juice so I just take it by shot. I drink alone, not out of alcoholism or to not feel sad or anything like that. I drink alone because if I were to drink with my fellow countrymen, they would make me drink more than I would like and they are not all quite as good at keeping themselves sane as I am when drunk. I LOVE living in a soum, but the real drawback I can think of is being the only foreigner in town. No Peace Corps buddy that I can sit around with where we each have our own beer and drink at our own pace. Meh…ill survive. Made it this far after all.
Vodka…one of the things I am REALLY not going to miss about Mongolia. Vodka, outhouses and rabid dogs are the things not to miss.

January 14, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Today was a day of health. Mental, Psychological and Physical health. Was a little overdue too. I have spent one too many days drinking a little more vodka than I should have. One too many days not outside running or exercising (it is sub zero outside with howling wind most of the time though) and one too many days wearing clothes that I only hand wash. I needed a day where every chore and act I did on the grand scale made me feel better. I got it today.
It was the last day of the school week and when I finished my last class I turned off my computer. I made a run to the well with my container. It was half full, but I was going to be using a bunch of water and the line for the well was relatively short. The well is our towns water cooler/coffee maker. It’s the place where us ger dwellers circle around to watch the well slowly chug up water to fill our containers while we gossip and chatter.
I don’t use as much water as my counterparts do or at least that’s what they were talking about to one another wondering why it had been so long since I had gathered any liquids. We talked about who was pregnant now and who made a fool of themselves last week walking around drunk after getting kicked out by his wife. We sit outside while chatting and even on windless days it’s a little too cold to enjoy this very much but I can see how the well is definitely a point of consolidation for the towns ger dwellers.
With a full tank of water I stopped over to the store and bought yeasts, flours, carrots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers and some vinegar (I am pretty certain I am the only one buying vinegar in town) It cost more than enough but like last weekend I was passing on alcohol in favor of some really good and healthy food.
The wind this afternoon was still beautifully absent and before it could change its mind I put on my running clothes and headed out. I have to be careful when running in the winter. Run too fast and your body will start sweating in under 10 minutes. When you run 45 minutes like I do if you get your body to sweat early near the end of the run your sweat will be freezing cold, severely dropping your body temp. Ive had a close call or two, but I am pretty good at keeping myself from sweating for the first 20 minutes. I got back from the run feeling exactly what I wanted. My legs didn’t hurt, but they had stressed themselves, and the sweat I had coming out of me felt so purifying, like so much oxidants and even stress itself had come out of my pores. I filled up my sink with water and stood in my tumpin.
It was time to finally wash. Not wash like I do everyday where you get the “Carlin 4” (George Carlin’s guide to what you need to be sure is clean. Armpits Ass Crotch Teeth) No this was going to be a shower that took more than a single liter of water! Spoiled myself I really did. In all fairness it has been several weeks since I last had a hot water shower so yes I imagine if I had a sense of smell I may have been a little smelly but just to completely douse my hair in water again and then actually soap up my body. Black water formed in my tumpin’s lining.
With the shower handled I got my work clothes together and scrubbed them. REALLY scrubbed them. Cleaning your clothes by hand is a LOT harder than you think. Not just time consuming but intensive on your muscles if your actually trying to clean stuff. Two pairs of khakhis and three formal shirts later I had clothes that were only going to get cleaner if I had a washing machine. That cleaning would at least hold them for a week! I so wish I had taken a picture of my tumpin water before throwing it out.
The final thing I did was make myself some pizza and salad for dinner. Actually I am still working on that now, listening to my favorite band Within Temptation do their thing. I am waiting for the pizza dough bread to rise. I am SO glad I really got to clean house in so many ways. I could feel how easy it is in the slow lull of day to day life to build pressure. I am going to sleep SO well tonight.
Good start to the weekend marking the end of the 2nd quarter. We may have colder days ahead of us…but somehow it feels on a day like today that each day is going to feel better and better…all the way up until the warm days of summer.

January 15, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Its about time my town and the rest of the Mongolians are gearing up for Tsaagen Tsar. Though there are plenty of “days” in Mongolia rarely do any of them get people off work. Only two really big type holidays like that: Naadam in the summer and Tsaagen Tsar in the winter. We celebrate Tsaagen Tsar on the start of the fifth 9th of the winter cycle. Its purpose? The equivalent of the temperature new year. Solstice may be in late December and that may be the darkest it gets, but Mongolia gets colder and colder up until the fifth cycle of nine. It is at this point that we have a feast to both get a good full meal in our bodies, but also to celebrate that each day after that brings us to warm weather and grass on the ground for the animals and open fields to ride on. Its also a time for us to visit friends and family and to welcome them to all that we have to eat and drink and to show how we hold nothing back and offer all we have to those we live among… or at least that is the romantic notion behind it. Its all that, and three days off of school and all the vodka and buzz with mayonnaise soaked potato salad your liver and stomach can take.
I like the holiday, it’s the closest thing to Thanksgiving, and the mood is the same. Lots of talk about food and family. Last year it was hard for me to get into the spirit of the holiday. I am not accustomed to just going to my neighbors door dressed in a winter dell and am expected to just eat food and drink that they stuff down my throat. Eventually the teachers lassoed me into a bit of an apartment crawl.
So to prepare each home and family will make thousands of buzz. Those wonderful little dumplings of sheep and goat meat. They will buy shelves and shelves of vodka, and the wealthier members of the community will even buy the “Chinngis” brand vodka. It costs about $7 for a 750ml bottle, and tastes better than Grey Goose. Its 2 days pay for me so imagine the cost to someone in the town! This bankrupts families who all want to put on a good show for their neighbors.
As a result, the govt helps out. Each member of the community gets around 50,000 tugriks as a subsidy to help pay for everything. For some reason the school has become the place where members of the community come to gather their coupons for the subsidy, it has made the school a little noisier and louder place than I am used to on weekends. Nothing for it, and I do like the holiday so I take it in spirit.
I am also in a jolly mood for this years Tsaagen Tsar because I get to do something that I didn’t get to last year. I will go the day before to UB and immediately catching a ride to Erdene because I will be going to my Mongolian family for Tsaagen Tsar this year! Oh I am SO syked to see them all again. I haven’t gotten to since we dropped in for a night with Esther back in July. I get to go through the holiday with them in addition to a few fellow PCV’s visiting their families as well. I even caught a ride back to my town on the second day of Tsaagen Tsar so I will have a day and a half to go to every home I want to in Bagakhangai as well.
Getting good and exciting around here…

January 16, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Good weekend! Got to run twice, got to eat well and I slept better than I had in a long long while. The lack of wind was critical. It really does -20 to -60 or makes -20 feel like something you could walk around in with a banana hammock.
Well this week only goes until Wednesday, and then we put all of the 2nd quarter behind us. That’s it, I can feel it in my bones. The last month or so. Not a rut, but difficult and uncomfortable days. Its all going to be so much easier to enjoy myself. The running helped.

January 17, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Note: The opinions I am going to stress are mine alone and do not represent anything about the Peace Corps or the American government. That goes without saying and is on the top of the blog but this entrys kinda touchy so I just want to put it down here again to be sure everyones on board.
Im gonna talk about the shooter in Arizona. I have been living outside of the United States for over 19 months now. I have gotten my news from Mongolian newspapers, from BBC world news, Al Jazeera, Mongolia news networks, and the internet news networks of CNN, ABC, Foxnews and so forth.
I used to think we just advertised them more. Bleed its leads type of thing. Infotainment and the like. Maybe its because of gun laws, maybe a million other things but as time has gone on I have come to a conclusion. America is where crazy people go on rampages. Simple as that. Scan the history of Mongolia, heck even look into the history of the million person populated city of Ulaanbaatar and you will never find anything like this. Columbine, VA Tech, church holdups, Wisconsin school (is that where the kid held his class hostage?) and now Arizona. I wish I could tell you that America just advertise it the most, but I have learned that for whatever the case that is just not true. America is where rampages happen.
Are there murders in Mongolia? Yes, if you look up enough of them some probably even happen by gun, somehow I doubt it, and there has never been any “rampages” like America has done. Its not due to lack of means either. There certainly are enough guns in this country. I personally can vouch that every ger around Lake Khovsgul has a rifle that works in it. My training manager who lived next door to me last year owned and showed me his own rifle and he lives in an apartment block. Its situated next to his bed, disassembled fortunately but in very plain and accessible site with 2 pre teen kids living in the same room as the weapons.
Are there distraught or disgruntled people in Mongolia? Yep. Not any different than America either. Heck this country even has its own brand of Neo-Nazis. Seriously they use the non Tibetan Swastikas and dress like SS officers! They held a rally on Sukbaatar Square not too long ago either. Mongolia has a liberal drinking policy and so people upset can further enrage themselves by turning to drink as well, but once again these people never find themselves carrying out a crazy act of violence like has happened time and again in America.
Like America in small but sufficient numbers Mongolia has guns, cities, racists, alcohol and crazy people, but no lethal rampages. Why? What is the secret formula that brings about the carnage in America?
I don’t have an answer here, only the statement that I am sorry America but we are the only country where these rampages keep seeming to happen, and I have NO plausible explanation behind it.

January 18, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Didn’t need to hear this. My school has decided to push back its 2nd quarter break until the 26th of January. This means they are linking the holidays of the 2nd quarter break and Tsaagen Tsar. Not at all a bad idea except the the fact that I really could use a warm bed and some well rounded meals. I hate January…

January 19, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

My haasha family is fighting lately. Mom and Dad seem to be at odds about something and they are rarely in the same ger together. Dad comes over to borrow my phone. He barks some pretty harsh words into the phone and then retires back to his ger. Not a fun month for a lot of people huh! Screw the cold and wind, im going running!
Postscript: Very glad I did that. I found an elusive yellow pepper in my delguur today and so I bought that with the traditional green and red ones to help make a salad…Good eatings tonight! Running…it turns any day upsidedown!


January 20, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

There’s something funny about perspective. I don’t know how I noticed it today but after walking into my yard for the thousandth time today at the end of school I noticed something I hadn’t before. Nothing really had changed. I like my yard. Its not special or remarkable, but I like it for the same reason that we like our own silverwear or our own blanket. Its “mine.” Yet I have nothing no one else doesn’t…or do i?
The dog barked fierce (relax, he knows my scent and knows im friend not foe) the pile of coal is where it always is. My dad was walking around chain smoking and three guys I didn’t recognize were all working on a single car jacked up on builders bricks among the other three broken down cars/jeeps that are parked in our yard like it is all the time. I was instantly asked for my phone so my dad could also make his weekly shouting phone call to his wife whose still not all that interested in talking to him.
It must be because I actually live in the home, but I am in “that” home aren’t i? The one on the suburban block that everyone knows and laughs at right? Homicidal dog, broken down cars, angry residents. It’s the trifecta of the backwater yard/home.
Hehehe…we even had bombs in a corner of the yard not too long ago too….

It may not be easy to live in Mongolia, but when you stop and catch up to the moment living in Mongolia is pretty damn amazing and one of a kind. Earlier today I read some of my 2009 blog entries. Two years ago this month I was eating Brussels sprouts and egg paste with a nice glass of red wine with two beautiful women in the servants quarters kitchen of a mansion inhabited by the President of Pratt University in Brooklyn, NYC. Now I find myself here, the other side of the world in a tiny little railroad town of Mongolia living in a home/yard like this one and eating sheep meat from the sheep my neighbor at the end of the block killed a few weeks ago and heating my home just above the freezing mark with regional coal and the sound of a loud passing railroad less than 100 meters away in Bagakhangai, Mongolia.
Dave Matthew, now THAT’S funny the way it is!


January 21, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

MUCH better week than last. Especially considering I had thought earlier this week that Wednesday would be our last day before the break. Now I just need to get through Monday and Tueday next week and ill be in UB for some R+R+B (Relex, Recreation and Beer)
Tonight I am going to drink some vodka and watch a crappy movie that I am long overdue in seeing: Snakes on a Plane. After all the buildup and hype I never saw it. I cant remember why I never got around to it either. Go crappy movie go!
Postscript:

I swear though the movie is no worse than say “Deep Rising” from 1998. Better still, can you imagine what it would be like if it had debuted now when 3-D movies are all the rage?
I think the fighting between my haasha mother and father is taking a turn for the worse. Tonight I have in my guest for company my little brother Ulaaka. Nice enough of a kid in small doses, but he has been running around messing up my ger and breaking my stuff because I believe that his mother or his father have had such a fight that neither has come home tonight and so he has no real way of getting into his locked ger. As it is -50 outside babysitting duty has fallen to me tonight, and while this is the only time this has happened I hope in terms of unannounced babysitting jobs it is also my last. Again, hes really a sweet kid, but he likes to pretty much break everything he touches in my ger, and its only a miracle that I have kept him away from my computer. He is also a dyed in the wool Mongolian, and so the food I had at my disposal to feed him was not up to par. Mongolians, like everyone but Americans hate peanut butter. You know, peanut butter was invented in America. Pretty much it’s the only 100% authentic American food. Would explain why no matter where I go in the world I am the only one who seems to eat the stuff. Luckily I had a backup roll of deli meat so I could get something in him. He hated my peanut granola bar too.


January 23, 2011. Bagakhangai, Mongolia
Today’s Quote: “I am your father’s brothers, nephews, sisters, mother’s domestic partener’s roommate!” –Lord Helmet

Small and intricately connected world. I apparently am going to meet someone next time I drop into UB. Well that’s one way of meeting someone I suppose! We have been going back and forth by email for the past few days. Instantly my mood lifted. Just talking in such detail about ridiculous things that only a fellow American living in Mongolia could comprehend and respond in kind…there is something deeply psychological about that. I guess when Caitlin took off and I didn’t have anybody to txt message the calming effect that had on me went unnoticed until I found myself in a month not really talking outside of my superficial Mongolian conversations about potatoes, weather, cold, gers and teaching.

January 24, 2011 Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Something very annoying happened today. Once again my school screwed around with its schedule at the last minute, and changed the date we have the Monita party from tonight to the 26th. I am going to UB the 26th, and I specifically modified my schedule on the basis that the 24th was when Monita happens. Well, sorry guys, I am not screwing around with my schedule. I bought my Monita a gift and will give it to Sarangoo to give to my Monita at the party. I know I should feel guilty about not being for this party like I wasent for the new years one, but my town has moved both parties around at the very last possible second, and no its happened far too often that while not angry I most certainly not feel bad for not being in attendance at these shindigs.
We leave tomorrow for a conference in UB. As had intended on coming into UB on the 26th I will simply use my trip there to stay. Phew…one month, and the 2nd and hardest quarter comes to an end…glad to have it behind me. But, then again…it means I only have five or so months of service left in Mongolia. The end is creeping up little by little…. Wow. On the upside I got someone to meet up with on this UB run, so it wont be just burgers, pizzas and beers.
…gotta buy my plane tickets and paperwork for my March vacation too.


January 25, 2011. The road to UB, Mongolia.

Well, full load of teachers en route to a conference in UB. I will tag along during the day and use my time in UB as an escape to take my time off of the last 2 days of the 2nd quarter to get an extra shower and beer in. I need this time in UB. My town was starting to drive me a little batty. I love my town. I love every little quirk of my town except for the absence of a shower block….but one month is really what I can stand of the day in day outness of lack of close communication and a mostly potato and mutton diet. The cold is no forgiving mistress either.
Well, at least for a litte while that’s not a problem. Actually tomorrow evening something cool happens. I am meeting someone new. My stepfather via email introduced me to her. The degree of seperation from this woman is too astounding and comical to be properly articulate, but she is a 28 year old woman who has been living in Mongolia almost as long as I have and has been and is a non Peace Corps volunteer music teacher named …Emily. My sisters name is also Emily. ….its the most common name for a woman in America so I vote to just let that part go.
The posture I am maintaining to write this while being driven to UB is awesome. I would probably make a great model for an Apple computer advertisement with me sitting next to old Mongolian women in winter dells and here I am in my Russian fur coat in a car that is pretty much a model from the old USSR as I type away happily to thousands of onlookers behind me in the bus who seem to think the idea that I can both be sitting in a bus and typing away is perhaps the greatest thing they have ever seen…and I got to admit I can tell I am making this look good.

January 27, 2011. Nayra’s Café, Mongolia.

Okay, that was way too painless! I just got done getting approval for my March Munich getaway. Now it’s a biggish deal in Peace Corps for us to go on a trip, and being a government organization I imagined this would be paperwork and runaround galore. Good gods I have never been so happy to be wrong!
Went to Peace Corps office this morning, got the form from the desk, and my passport to boot. Went up to my regional boss Bayar, who after a two minute phone call with my boss (“hes not missing school right?) signed off my form. Then I needed the country director to sign approval as well and once again she was both present and all for the trip so long as I submitted a copy of my itinerary. Sign, sign, copied and filed…I just got approved to go to Munich for the 3rd quarter break….seriously I did not see getting approval for that so simple and straightforward. All for it though…really all for it.
Got to meet Emily at ASU last night. Shes as I suspected from our dialogue by email and txt messages as cool as can be. I think my geekiness which I am for some reason not trying to hide is very amusing to her. Eventually I plan to show her Star Wars. She is in a unique setup where she never has seen ANY of the movies and so she actually gets to watch them from best to worst. Lucky her. Ive made her promise that she has to at least watch past the crummy Episode I movie.
Shes also quite the cook, a fan of white wines, and has an apartment with what is probably the only nice view in all of Ulaanbaatar. I think I was nervous as well as excited and therefore louder than I usually am, but then again I am never the best at first impressions. She seems like the type that will give me the chance to quiet down after I burn out from being hyper.
That is particularly important as when we met I don’t think ive been as hyper in my life. I just….you had to be there. I have no idea in retrospect what the hell was the matter with me. My fault but I was more than odd, I was off the wall itself. Now luckily a few emails later and everything worked itself out, but…wow. Again, you kinda had to be there.
Go cool life go!