Ploofle

I hit my head a few more times today, then went to opening orientation. We had lunch with the US Ambassador to Mongolia. The food was interesting – I got sidetracked in a conversation with a peace corps staffmember, so by the time I got to the buffet table most of the tastier/safer-looking things were gone. At the same time, though, I didn’t have to eat boiled egg halves with caviar on em, so that was nice. I did end up eating horse tongue, though. Sigh…as Bonnie knows, I’m not so big a tongue fan, but figured I’ll be seeing stranger, so I might as well give it a shot.

We then hauled our stuff onto the trucks and got issued our sleeping bags (rated for -15) – combined with my light down one, I should be able to keep pretty warm. Our next five days of training are in a city about 4 hours away from Ulaanbaatar, and apparently my host family will be even further away, as all the health people are placed in a different location than TEFL people. I’ll be really close to the Russian border for that.

At the same time, I don’t think I’ve encountered a completely functioning inside toilet since arriving in Mongolia. The one in our ger camp didn’t work well, and the one here in the post-trip hotel has an odd setup. There are mosquitos here too, and pastries – and internet, as you all have prolly already figured out.

More beef for dinner and cabbage and carrots. We’ve been told to watch out for manholes, especially at night. Apparently their metals lids are often removed to be sold for scrap metal, and so they can be easy to fall into. I was assured, though, that it’s not too hard a fall most times – they’re normally realtively shallow due to the garbage that accumulates at the bottom. That and in the winter especially it may be a homeless person’s shelter, so you’ll fall into a home instead.

Finally – the long-awaited Mongoliathon winner! The winner is…Rob!! Rob is Bonnie’s coworker’s Susan’s husband who we hang out with sometimes and is super spiff. It was close – great bits from people that really reflected your interests and personalities and made me smile bigtime I’ll try to post up those which were shown at the party (like Rob’s), but it may hard from here without a scanner. His winning entry, by the way, was a mini field-guide to Mongolia. It had many cute animals, especially rodents, and now I really want a long-eared hedgehog, but also am worried that asiatic black bears do exist here. Laters.

Tags: mongolia, peace corps

Woke up to a bright blue sky as far as I could tell from laying in bed at around 6am. Exiting the fake ger I went into what seemed a blindingly bright and breezy morning. Our camp is on the side of a small ridge, and there are a few other ridges surrounding us as well – some treeless, some with a thin blanket of shortish ones. Went outside and took a walk, which led us back down what really was a bumpy road last night rather than cross-country. This also led me through a small(?) herd of horses – about 25 I’d say. Walked back, which was a bit harder the out, as it was uphill and into the wind. Milled around a bit until I got this computer out, then hit my head quite hard on the top edge of the ger door. Blah. it’s 8:15 (or 9:15?) in the morning now and almost time for training to start.

Tags: mongolia, peace corps

Day was mostly uneventful due to writing paper. After that, I literally boarded the plane for Ulaanbaatar. On the plane I read randomly, took a nap, ate pre-Mongolia food (interesting spices with fatty pork; it could’ve been Korean as I don’t know much of that kind of food anyway…Customs and baggage was uneventful. Then…I exited the security area into chaos. Apparently all current PCVs and staff are in town and were waiting for us, possibly drinking to make the time pass faster as by this point it was close to 1am. I rolled my bags down a gauntlet of screaming high-fiving volunteers, many of whom oddly enough had little moustaches painted on their upper lip. The screaming and shouting continued until literally the bus pulled away, along with a few running along and shouting randomly. It was pretty intense and oddly like college – everyone was milling around near the bus introducing themselves and what-not – hi what’s your name what’s your area Overall kind of overwhelming, as I wasn’t prepared for loud social things right after getting off that plane…

We’re in a ger camp a bit aways from UB. It was neat to see the dust clouds in the headlights while we bumped along on what may have been a road most of the time. The washboard ended incongruously in a medium-sized parking lot next to the gers. They’re kinda fake gers, as they’re on concrete foundations and have a little bathroom attachment, not to mention cable and hot water. It was pitch black when we all got in, but some of us went outside to look at stars. I found the Big Dipper but not Orion. The ger here has quite a silly chandelier, and our toilet doesn’t quite flush. I settled down by about 2am. People tell me that because it’s the summer, the sun rises at about 3:30am and sets around 10pm. So it’ll be bright whenever I’m awake – rather the opposite of Seattle.

Tags: mongolia, peace corps

Last night I got the unexpected gift of more Bonnie-time – we were free to do whatever for dinner, and Bonnie still had the car rented, so we went to a tapas place (Eclipse di Luna) that I like – it was really nice

Yesterday we covered each other, mostly, plus some discussion of the Peace Corps Mission and basic security awareness.  There are about 50 people in my group with more diversity in gender, heritage, etc., than I expected.  Some pretty neat people perhaps

The most entertaining part was the “find who has done x” part.  There are people with a lot of random neat things – like the person who is a champion horse rider and the person who has authored a variety of articles and books on asian geopolitical matters.

Today has been covering more the nitty-gritty.  We talked about coping with harassment (general/living, not physical or sexual assault-type things) and strategies to mitigate or moderate those issues.  Generally speaking I don’t get much of that in the US, but from what I observe or hear about from my sister and some friends, it can be pretty pervasive even here in the US.  So I am a fan of not necessarily saying it’s due to being excessively paranoid about such issues or what-not.

We also talked about the “don’t do this” policies – drugs, leaving site without contact info, working for the CIA, etc.  I should be ok on those.

I’ll be trying to call people who have left me VMs, but I am still working on a paper that’s due today that I got an extension for until Monday.  Lots of working time on the plane, I suspect, and in Seoul.  We have a 28(!)-hour layover there and I probably will spend most of it inside typing frantically.

Also I’ve had some work requests for the several hats I wear – I’ll be trying to beg off on most of it…

Tags: atlanta, mongolia, peace corps