A few weeks ago I went to South Korea to take the GMAT. I am applying to business school for next year, so the past few months I have been doing little else beside study. Aside from my trip to Korea, I haven’t left Mongolia in the past 18 months. It was kind of strange to visit a developed country. The roads are actually paved. There ARE actually roads. Cars aren’t in a constant state of breaking down, and there are buildings taller than 16 stories. It was kind of intimidating.

Even just leaving Mongolia was a pretty funny experience. As I was standing in line at security a bunch of little kids who were probably going to study in Korea came, all carrying bottles of juice. Not only did they get to take their juice past security, they didn’t even go through security. They were just waved on through. And of course, there weren’t any of those “line control” things, so it was just a line of people standing waiting, which of course meant people were cutting to the front the whole time. Some people in Mongolia are just too important to stand in line. The woman at customs in the Ulaanbaatar airport took a very long time looking at my passport. She couldn’t understand the English on my Mongolian visa, and where it says “3 YRS,” she thought it meant 3 months. I explained that I live in Mongolia, that I’m a Peace Corps volunteer and I was just visiting Korea. She gave me a confused look and then let me pass. On the airplane as we approached Seoul, the flight attendant was passing out entry cards for Korea, and when she got to my row she gave them to the Mongolians sitting next to me but not to me. I asked her for one, and she said “no, you don’t need one. You are a transit passenger.” So I explained that actually, I live in Mongolia and was visiting Korea and then returning to Mongolia. We went round and round a couple times and she was clearly very confused, but eventually gave me the card.

Being in Seoul was fun, it was kind of frustrating at times because I didn’t understand anything that was being said around me. In Mongolia I’m used to being able to catch at least the gist of a conversation. Luckily, most people in Korea speak pretty good English so it wasn’t really a problem. I didn’t really do much because I was there to take the GMAT, but I did walk around Seoul a lot. I was kind of disappointed in the weather, it was cold and overcast the whole time I was there. Not nearly as cold as Mongolia, but I was really hoping that it would be warm enough that I wouldn’t need to wear gloves and a hat every time I went outside. I was really impressed with some of the differences I noticed in the few days I was there. Crossing streets, everyone waited for the light to turn before walking. Even if there were no cars coming. I was kind of shocked by that. In Mongolia that almost never happens. In Tsetserleg there are no street lights, but even in UB, people normally just walk right out in traffic. If you don’t, you probably won’t ever get to cross the street, and there is usually so much of a traffic jam that the cars aren’t really moving anyway.

As soon as I got to the check-in counter to my flight back to Mongolia I felt right at home. Everyone was speaking Mongolian and I could understand them, they were all trying to cut in line and an old woman in a fur coat even rammed me with her luggage cart because I wouldn’t let her cut in front of me. Everyone had luggage carts. Mongolians usually travel with little else besides their purse. I have seen women going on week-long trips without so much as a change of clothes, but coming back from Korea is an entirely different story. Nearly every person on the flight had a luggage cart full of boxes. Everything from Apple computers to blankets. The woman at the counter seemed surprised that I only had one duffle bag.

Even before I checked in, the flight had an hour wind delay. Flying into Mongolia in the winter is a tricky thing. I have heard rumors of at least two people who flew in from Beijing that got to Mongolia, and then had to go back to Beijing without landing because of either smog or wind. The weather in Mongolia is fickle. Luckily my flight didn’t fly all the way there before realizing there was a problem with the weather, so instead I just waited in the airport an extra hour. As soon as the airline staff showed up at our gate, there was a rush of people (there is no “group A” etc when flying to Mongolia, it’s just a free-for-all). The airline staff eventually came out from behind the desk and yelled at everyone to go sit down because they weren’t ready yet, but only about 5 people left the horde to sit back down. Once they did start letting people through, everyone started scrunching up to the front and two airline employees had to come and physically push people into some semblance of a line. That made me smile, and I was happy to be coming home. I didn’t even forget my line-standing defense mechanisms while I was in Korea. One man tried to casually cut in front of me and I gave him my best death stare, so he got behind me instead.

A few days ago I went to the ATM at the Khaan bank in Tsetserleg. The ATM is a new addition, it appeared last summer. No longer do I have to push grandmothers out of my way to get my pittance of a living allowance every month. But I do have to wait while a swarm of high school students tries to figure out how to work the ATM. I don’t know exactly when ATMs made it to Mongolia, but I am fairly certain it was only in the past couple years. In UB, most people have figured it out and are used to the process. In the countryside (as much as an Aimag center can be considered the ‘countryside,’ trust me there are several more levels…) people have not yet figured it out. Even young people, who are the most adaptable to technology, take several minutes to withdraw their 2,000 tugriks (less than $2) from the ATM. That’s another thing that seems odd to me, and makes me seem very strange to them. I wait in line behind 10 kids who each withdraw somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 tugriks, and then they all look over my shoulder while I take out 100,000. It probably just reinforces the perception that I am a rich American, but really I just don’t like to stand in that ridiculous line more than about once a month.

As I was walking to the bank, I saw a horde of high school or college age girls walking to the bank from the opposite direction, so I quickened my step in hopes of beating them to the ATM. I did, but there were already 6 or 7 people standing in line. So I stepped up (extremely close) to the last person, aware as I am to the Mongol line-standing requirements, and prepared to wait my turn. ATM etiquette has not reached this country yet, and everyone in front of me was looking over the shoulder of the person actually withdrawing money. Partially because most of them needed help from their friends to figure out how to do it. Also, PIN numbers in Mongolia are the last four digits of the ATM card, so it really doesn’t matter if anyone sees your PIN anyway, they could easily figure it out. Finally my turn arrived, and with three Mongolians looking intently over my shoulder, I withdrew the money I will need for UB as well as the money I want to exchange into Korean Won. This was a pretty significant amount (especially compared to the 2,000 or 3,000 MNT that most others were withdrawing), and I left the bank to a whispered chorus of “wow, that was a lot of money.”

This phrase has been the story of my life this past week. It means “how interesting!” or “how strange!” and it’s a phrase used in Mongolia for any number of things. It can have a positive connotation, like when you run into someone you know on the street that you weren’t expecting to see, or a negative connotation when you get hung up on by the fire department because it’s after 6pm and they would really prefer not to deal with your electrical fire after work hours.

Last weekend I went to UB to buy a plane ticket to Korea to take the GMAT and meet Cady. She came back out to Arkhangai to visit and do some seminars with me. While we were in UB we went to all the stores that sell “uncommon” vegetables and food, such as crackers, cheese, spices. On of my friends has told me about the American Store, which is owned by an American who has lived here a really long time and started importing many things from America that you can’t find here. The store is a little hole-in-the-wall place that is buried in a neighborhood in UB. My friend drew me a map, so Cady and I went in search of it. We eventually found it, and it’s literally in a shack in the middle of a bunch of apartment buildings. It was amazing. Tortilla chips, jars of salsa, marshmallows. Things I never imagined existed in this country. We spent about half an hour wandering around in awe.

We took the post bus back to Arkhangai, which is my usual mode of transport. It was especially miserable. We thought it was going to be the “big bus” because the woman who sold the tickets said so, but it didn’t turn out to be. The “big bus” is like a normal bus, the luggage goes on the bottom and the seats are normal bus seats that have backs and headrests. The addition of the “big bus” is a pretty new and welcome development. It turned out that we took the “little bus,” which is more standard in Mongolia. It is a bus about half the length of normal busses, with no room underneath for luggage. It should seat about 26, but usually there are about 40 people on the bus. And all the luggage is piled in the aisle, under seats, and crammed into the little shelf on the roof. On my way to UB it must have been “bring all your boxes on the bus” day, it seemed like everyone who got on the bus had about 4 boxes. So the luggage was piled about a foot over the level of peoples’ heads. I was in the very back seat and every time the bus stopped I had to crawl over the pile. On the way back to Arkhangai Cady and I were sitting near the front, so while we still had to climb over things, it wasn’t nearly as precarious. But we were seated right next to the heater, which is basically the breath of hell shooting hot air at you the entire 12 hour ride. So I opened the window. The bus ride is always a battle between the windows and roof vents being opened or closed. Usually someone will open them, and then 10 minutes later someone else will close it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. When the windows are open it is actually quite pleasant. It’s kind of annoying having air blowing in your face the whole time, but much better than being hot and miserable. Not usually according to Mongolians though. The woman sitting behind us was of the opinion that it’s better to swelter. So she tried to reach in front of me and close our window. I told her she couldn’t because I was hot, and she slapped me on the shoulder, pouted, and basically told me I was alone in being hot.

Everyone gets grumpy on the bus. It’s long and very uncomfortable. Sometimes that makes people act like jerks. While Cady and I were on the bus the Mongolians around us kept commenting to each other how difficult the foreigners were. I’m not sure why they thought we couldn’t understand them because we spoke to people in Mongolian several times. Our Mongolian is better than their English, so we made ourselves feel better by making sarcastic comments about them. After the lunch break a bunch of the men sitting in the front started drinking beer. So, of course, we had to stop at a place we don’t normally stop so they could get out and “look at the horses.” Cady and I got out and they yelled at us and said we weren’t allowed to and that we should drink less water. Later one of them tried to get me to throw his beer bottles caps out the window and I told him no I wouldn’t, what a bad thing. They all laughed, and it didn’t do much good because the next time we stopped for them to look at the horses he threw those and the bottles out the door.

We did eventually reach Tsetserleg, only slightly less the worse for the wear. A couple nights ago I had everyone over for dinner. We were all in my kitchen cooking, and all of a sudden we started smelling plastic burning. So we looked around to figure out what it was. Turned out to be my electrical outlet melting. So we unplugged everything, but Ochgo went out in the hall and saw a fire in the fuse box. That was a little scary. So I called my counterparts and they got a hold of my landlord. She came over and started calling the police and the fire department to get someone to come out and see what the problem was/try to keep my apartment from burning down. They hung up on her because it was after 6pm (not by much). Apparently in Mongolia the fire department only works during business hours. Yamer sonin youm be. Eventually they agreed to come out, and 45 minutes later two men showed up. I’m not sure what they did besides flip my fuses on and off a couple times and pull the outlet out and look inside the wall, but they said everything was fine but I couldn’t plug so many things in at once. Stupid foreigner. Aside from a half-melted outlet, it seems that everything is fine.

On Saturday we all went to Battsengal to go riding. It was Christi and Zaneta’s first trip to the hudoo, so we should have known… The driver we normally hire to take us to Battsengal couldn’t go because something is wrong with his car, so we had to take some other guy. About half way to Battsengal we were driving along and the tire fell off the axel. Not a flat tire, that’s normal. The entire tire, lug nuts and all, flew off the car and rolled about half a mile away down a hill. How interesting. The driver and Cady, who jumped out of the car and took off after the tire before we were even stopped, eventually got the tire back to the car and the driver began fixing it. He kept saying how interesting, we are so lucky, if we had been coming down a mountain we all probably would have died, we are the champions of luck. Interesting way to look at it I suppose. He discovered that the metal part that makes the tire turn was completely stripped, and a couple parts had fallen out. What brilliant car maintenance. Luckily Zaneta found the two little metal parts that were missing. He told us he didn’t need them so Tuul threw them in the grass, but it later turned out that his spare part was also missing pieces. So we picked through the grass and eventually found them. Two and a half hours, several games of 20 questions and charades later, and he had the tire pack on the axel and we were off.

On our way home, after our driver made us stop at some ger so he could buy aireg, the battery died. Luckily we just made it to Tsetserleg before the car completely died so we all just walked home. The driver still expected us to pay him full price. I refused, I have become so frustrated with some Mongolians and their ridiculous business practices. He takes horrible care of his car and it can’t even make it 120km without having several major problems, he stops at his friend’s place when we told him we didn’t want to stop and he still expects us to pay him what is equivalent to about a quarter of our monthly living allowance on top of all the gas? I don’t think so. We eventually came to an agreement on a 10,000 tugrik reduction in the price, and he was still mad and said we could never ride in his car again. How sad for us.

Luckily we made it out to Battsengal last weekend, because Winter has officially hit. It has snowed a few times this week and the biting, dust-filled winter wind has started.

This is my second Fall in Mongolia, and it's amazing how many things are different this year. One of the most noticeable, and recently beneficial, has been the fact that I know more people. Other volunteers in my Aimag do too, and we have all benefited greatly in the form of leafy greens. Ik Tamir has one farmer who is growing spinach and lettuce this year. We bought out his whole crop of spinach and a lot of his lettuce and I have eaten salad at least once a day since Saturday. I also know the people at Fairfield well, and have been getting lettuce from their garden, as well as the hook up with vegetables from other missionaries in the Aimag. It has been awesome.

My language (though by no means great) is also significantly better than when I arrived at site last August. I can understand a lot more, and I can actually hold a somewhat meaningful conversation in Mongolian.

One of the things I am most excited about this year (aside from the exotic vegetables in my diet) is actually having stuff to do at work. I have almost 200 surveys that my office collected from tourists this summer to process, and I've started writing the value chain report. It's so nice to be busy.

I've also been spending a lot of time with my new site mates. It's strange not being the only PCV in Tsetserleg anymore. One of my site mates has the entire series of Sex and the City, which is awesome. We have been watching that and we will finish with the movie (which came out on DVD in UB about a month ago, which I am sure is perfectly legitimate. I would not steal a car, or a purse and buying a bootleg movie is definitely exactly the same...).

Though I am much more comfortable and used to a lot of the things that are Mongolia, there are still some that continue to frustrate and sometimes infuriate me. Some things about this country really are just inexcusably ridiculous. I've learned to embrace pushing people when trying to stand in line at the bank, or standing with my toes practically on the next persons heels while in line at a store. But sometimes the blatant inefficiency and acceptance of such inefficiency really gets to me. Walking into a delguur and seeing the shopkeeper talking on her phone doesn't really bother me any more. I usually just start talking to her and ask for what I want anyway, and they usually give me what I ask for and take my money without even pausing in their conversation. But the last time I ate in one of the cafes near my office with my site mates and Tuul, the waitress actually answered her cell phone and started having a conversation while we were in the middle of trying to pay. Not only was she having a conversation, but she completely ignored us until she was finished talking.

A few weekends ago I went to the supermarket that is open on Saturdays. It isn't the one I usually go to, but the other one is closed on Saturday. I was there with one of my site mates, and we both found a few things we wanted (although the dried tofu that was confirmed to have been there the day before was nowhere to be found). When we went to the checkout we were informed we were not allowed to buy any of those things because they didn't know the price. Things like honey, yogurt and plastic cheese. Things that are commonly found in the supermarkets in Tsetserleg and were ON THE SHELF. This is a fairly common occurrence, especially at that supermarket. I don't understand why anyone would think that is acceptable.

I love living in Mongolia, but sometimes it is impossible for me to understand why things are the way they are. I'm quite sure they will continue to be this way indefinitely though, because every time I get upset about it Mongolians look at me like I'm the crazy one.

This summer has flown by. I'm finally back home in Arkhangai, and I don't plan to leave for awhile. It was really nice getting to travel so much the past couple months, I got to see Lake Hovsgul and the Gobi desert, but it was also pretty exhausting. My family was here at the beginning of August. It was really interesting to watch them come to appreciate what it's really like here. I thought I had described how bad the roads are, how things are never planned and how unbelievably long it takes to get places... but it would appear you have to experience it for yourself to really understand.

The trip I planned for my parents was pretty brutal, we only had 5 days to see the Gobi and Tsetserleg. Most volunteers who have people visit give them a day or two in UB to settle in, but we left for the Gobi the morning after they arrived. On the first day we drove all the way to Dalanzadgad, the aimag center of Omnogov (South Gobi). We were on paved road for about an hour, and then the rest of the 13 hour trip was dirt/rock/sand road. We arrived in Dalanzadgad at about midnight, but we could see the lights from the town for almost 2 hours before we actually got there. It was torture, we were all going a little crazy by that point. I didn't have a reservation anywhere, or really have any idea where we would stay that night. I just knew we would find a ger camp, there are several of them in the area. That's just the way things are done in Mongolia. My mom had a little freak out about that, understandably. But, after a ridiculous conversation with the receptionist at a hotel, we found a ger camp. The owner even made us some really delicious buuz, even though it was almost 1:00am.

The next morning we continued on to see the "glacier." The "glacier" is actually a small stream in a deep gorge that freezes so thick in the winter that it stays frozen all summer long. We rode camels part of the way into the gorge, and then walked the rest. It was a really beautiful place, the geology in the Gobi is incredible. The "glacier" was more of an ice cube by that time, it has been a very rainy summer, which washes away a lot of the ice. But it was still pretty incredible to see an ice cube in the Gobi desert in August. After the ice cube we drove to the Khonger Els, the giant sand dunes. We stayed at a really nice ger camp at the foot of the dunes. It was really incredibly hot. There was a constant wind that felt like it just sucked all the water right out of you. Even at 10 pm it was still unbelievably hot. My parents were hoping for air conditioning in the ger, which I said was impossible and they would never find that. Except, of course, the next night we stayed at a ger camp in Kharkhorin that actually did have air conditioning IN the gers. It was mind-blowing. Of course it was kind of cold that night, and we didn't need it. Too bad they didn't have that in the Gobi.

The last night my parents were here we stayed in Tsetserleg. My work had a horhog for us, which was really fun. My family also got to meet Sophie and see my apartment. Sophie was so excited that I was home, and I think she felt a bit betrayed when I left again the next day. It was interesting showing my parents my apartment, they were a little skeptical when we drove up to the building. It looks like a slum from the outside, but I think they felt a bit better when they saw my steel door and that the inside of my apartment isn't actually so bad.

I know that I have learned a lot of patience in the year that I have been here, but it really put it into perspective hearing my family asking "are we there yet?" and saying things like "it can not possibly take that long to go 200 km!" throughout our trip. And I guess I have forgotten how much I suffered the first few times I went on long trips in Mongolia.

My parents were also a little shocked by my newfound nonchalance about things like flies. One night we were eating dinner with our driver, and a fly landed on his hamburger (we were at the ger camp in Kharkhorin with AC in the gers, hamburgers are not normally found in the countryside). My sister scraped the fly off with a knife, because this was a very determined fly and would not be scared away by the wave of a hand. The driver then used the knife to cut his hamburger, and my Mom didn't think that was such a good idea. Such is life in Mongolia. Flies are everywhere, and you can almost guarantee they have touched your food at some point. And really, a fly never gave anyone giardia, so what's the big deal?

Seeing my Mom's surprise at my attitude about flies, I told the story of a volunteer who ate a piece of pizza off the ground this summer. When I was in Darkhan helping with the CED training, Cady hosted a dinner for the CED trainees at her apartment. We made them pizza, stromboli, fruit salad and all kinds of other delicious delicacies. Some people were standing out on the balcony at one point, and someone dropped a piece of pizza (Cady lives on the 4th floor). It just so happened that a volunteer was walking by at that exact moment in search of a delguur which would ignore prohibition for foreigners. He picked the pizza up and ate it. My family thought that was hilarious. But really, it landed crust-side down, and who wouldn't eat a piece of pizza that feel at your feet from the sky??

After my parents left my sister stayed four more days. We mostly stayed in UB and did some souvenir shopping and tried to avoid the creepy guy staying at the guesthouse. We did go out to Hustai National Park for one night. Hustai is about 2 hours west of UB, and it is where the 200 wild Takhis (Prezwalski's Horse) live. On our way out there the car got stuck in some sand, but after about an hour of digging and pushing we were on our way again. That evening we drove to the valley where the Takhis live, and as the sun set we watched several herds come down off the mountains to drink. It was really cool, they are the only undomesticated horses left, and Mongolia is the only place where they live in the wild.

The next morning we went riding. Our horses were unbelievably short, even by Mongolian standards. And the saddles, though the ger camp claimed they were Russian, were not much more than a thin layer of leather over some 2x4s. We both got a bit bruised.

After Tori left, I went back up to Darkhan to see the new volunteers swear in. We now have 59 new PCVs in Mongolia, three of which are in Arkhangai. I have two site mates in Tsetserleg, and there is a new TEFL in Battsengal (and she rides horses, which is good for everyone). The new volunteers have completely changed the demographics of Arkhangai, while I used to be the only girl in the Aimag, now there are four. It's a nice change, and they smell a whole lot better.

It has already started to feel like fall/winter. I forgot how quickly the weather changes. There has already been snow in several places of Mongolia, and I have already had to break out my long underwear (in August!!). I'm hoping that this winter will be a bit more mild than last, I lived through one record-breakingly cold winter and have no desire to do so again.

The past month has been a full one, for me and for Mongolia. First we had a State of Emergency for flooding, several districts of UB had to be evacuated and many summer English camps were cancelled or evacuated due to the heavy rains. My apartment was without running water until the morning I left for Darkhan to help with PST (a total of 15 days!), though there was certainly no shortage of water outside. The whole country is beautiful lush green now because of all the rain, and all the animals are looking fat and happy.

I spent about a week in Darkhan helping with training for the new volunteers, and celebrating the 4th of July. On the 1st we had our second State of Emergency for the summer, declared to stop the rioting in UB. Mongolia had a parliamentary election and the preliminary results were announced on July 1st, with the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) winning 46 of 76 seats. The Democratic Party and some of the other smaller parties claimed that the elections had been unfair, or counted wrong and organized a protest in Sukhbaatar Square, which turned in to a drunken, violent riot with 5 people killed and a bunch more injured seriously. They also torched the MPRP headquarter building and, sadly, looted and burned the National Art Gallery next door. Many of the rioters were drunk, and they also broke in to the Duty Free store in the MPRP building. The police used rubber bullets, tear gas and a water cannon to try to dissuade the rioters, but none of those things worked. Apparently the police didn't have nearly enough rubber bullets or riot gear, and the rioting lasted pretty late into the night. All that is left of the building is a burned shell. President Enkhbayar declared a four day State of Emergency, which included a ban on alcohol sales, a 10pm-8am curfew, a ban on public gatherings and only the National TV channel was allowed to broadcast. This was the first time anything like this has happened in Mongolia, and many Mongolians are really sad and disappointed in their fellow countrymen. There were many international observers of the voting, and all declared that they were free and fair. The State of Emergency was only in UB, but Darkhan followed suit and also declared a four day State of Emergency, which happened to coincide with the 4th of July. That was a bit disappointing, but luckily PCVs are resourceful as well as persuasive and managed to explain to a few delguur owners that it was a really important American holiday, and that we certainly weren't going to do any rioting.

After the 4th I went to Sukhbaatar with Cady to visit her host family. We spent the night at their house, and Cady, Eej and I drank some vodka and wine and had a dance party in the living room. It was really fun to see the host family again, and they were really glad to see us. The next day Sukhbaatar Naadam started, so I spent the whole day at the Naadam stadium watching wresting and archery. Another PCV was doing archery, and one of the trainees wrestled. I stayed in Selenge until the 16th, visiting friends and celebrating Naadam. Naadam was even more fun this year, I am armed with a greater appreciation of Mongolian wrestling, a stomach that can handle Naadam hoshur with ease, and the great patience to be able to sit and watch archery for hours upon hours. I have also refined my ability to take shots of vodka, a talent that it seems I am frequently called upon to practice.

I needed a few days to rest and recover after the week of Naadam festivities, and then took the night train to UB, in search of a tour group going to Lake Hovsgul to join. After a day of frustrating waiting and brief talks with some guesthouses, it seemed like it wasn't going to work out and we were going to have to suck it up and take the bus. But then, at the last minute, Doug and I joined a group of 4 Polish and a French guy. We piled in the porgon and off we went. Three days later we arrived in Khatgal (the soum on the shore of Lake Hovsgul). That trip was my first experience with Mongolian tourism. I am a little amazed that people actually take trips in Mongolia. I think it might have to do with the fact that, until you experience travel here, you have no idea what you are getting yourself into (but for those who are not faint-of-heart, you should definitely come! It is a beautiful country and there is nowhere else like it in the world). Don't get me wrong, to me it felt like luxury. We had our own car, we could stop when we wanted, and no babies were throwing up on us. But three days of off-roading in a Russian vehicle tends to be a bit tough on one's bones and muscles. It was well worth it though, and we all became quick friends and spent a good portion of the time laughing.

Once we made it to Khatgal we celebrated in the only appropriate way. The next day we set off on a two-day, one-night horse trek along the lake. It was the first time I have camped since I came to Mongolia, and it was beautiful. Lake Hovsgul is crystal clear and surrounded by wooded mountains. We rode through the woods along the lake for about 5 hours, after which both the horses and we were exhausted. We stopped for the night in a beautiful meadow right beside the lake, and even though we could see storm clouds rolling in we all decided we had to "swim" in the lake.

Several Mongolians have told me that Lake Hovsgul stays so cold, even in the summer, that if you swim out into the middle you will probably drown. I never believed that, but after the 3.5 seconds I spent in the lake I am a believer. It was COLD. All I could manage was a quick dive under water and then a hasty retreat to the shore. We enjoyed the rest of the evening by a roaring fire, and rode back to Khatgal the next day.

We decided to stay one more day at the lake, and 5 of us went in search of some kayaks that were rumored to be around. We found the ger camp, and managed to talk them down from $20/hour to 20,000T for the day. They only had two kayaks, and we were five, but they threw in an inflatable dingy for free, because "they don't like it and never use it." We quickly figured out why they didn't like it, and ended up having to tie it to one of the kayaks and pull it with us. We rowed out into the lake for about two hours, against the wind the whole time but consoling ourselves with the thought that the way home would be super easy with the wind at our backs. We stopped on the shore for awhile, and the next thing we knew we were watching a huge rainstorm sweep down the mountains over Khatgal, coming right for us. We decided to make a run for it, and got back in our kayaks and started paddling like crazy. About 2 minutes in we started to feel the first drops, and then the sky opened up. It was raining so hard we could hardly see where we were going, and we were a little worried when we started to see some flashes of lighting off in the distance but it ended up being quite an adventure. We all returned to the ger camp soaking wet, looking like drowned rats. They kindly gave us some hot tea and then we went back to our ger camp and put on some dry clothes and started a fire in the ger.

Doug and I were really lucky, and managed to catch a ride back to UB with two other American girls in a Russian jeep. The driver had lost his tour group, they decided they wanted to stay in Hovsgul longer instead of doing the 10 day tour they had planned, so he was going straight back to UB. It only took us two days to get back to the city, but it was pretty rough. Russian jeeps really beat you up, and the road we took was a really hard one.

I have been in UB for the past week working at Mercy Corps. I've been interviewing tour companies for a project I'm working on. My parents and sister arrive on Saturday night, which I am really excited about. We will go to the Gobi for a few days, and then to Arkhangai for one night. It will be nice to be back in Tsetserleg, even if for a day. I have been away for a long time this summer. I am excited to see Sophie, I have been told that she isn't eating very well and searches the faces of all the foreigners looking for me. Poor Sophie.

Last week I spent several days at a ger camp, Beaten Paths, in Battsengal. It is set up on the family's land, a few hundred feet away from the well (there are no rivers or water sources close enough for the animals) and consists of two tourist gers and the family ger. Beaten Paths is a Mercy Corps client, so I went out to give advice on how to improve and a basic accounting/bookkeeping training. Also to hang out with some other PCVs who happened to be there. We were the season's first "tourists," so it was a good chance for the family to figure out what they still needed to do to set up for the "Jinkin" tourists who will come later.

Spending more than 1-2 nights in a ger camp is quite rare, most tourists spend an average of 1 night in any given ger camp and then move on. And with good reason, there isn't a whole lot to do. But sometimes it's nice just to sit under a dirty tarp awning and watch the sheep, goats, horses and cows go by. Our proximity to the well meant that close to 1,000 animals came and went several times a day. We fought the baby cows for the integrity of our ger and outhouse (they thought the dirt pile by the outhouse was AWESOME), stared down goats and pondered the worth of "sheep language," which it turns out is seriously annoying (and, as everyone knows, sheep are stupid so probably not very worthwhile either). One morning we were sitting outside reading and looked up to find about 50 goats ten feet away from us, just staring. I guess we are interesting too.

Watching the various herds of horses was really interesting for me. Horses in America don't generally live in proper herds, but in Mongolia they do. A stallion has 7-8 mares with their foals and "daags" (2-year old horses, who are actually only one by conventional count but Mongolians consider them 2) following them around. There was one herd who's stallion looked just like Spirit Stallion of the Cimeron, and whenever they drank at the well he would stand back and keep an eye on everything, occasionally chasing away a goat.

The last day we were all there we drove to the river and had a sheep horhog (after having the sheep's innards for breakfast...) Then we spent the night in Rob's ger in the soum center and Tuul and I came back to Tsetserleg yesterday. As seems to happen whenever I go to the countryside, we came back to find that there will be no running water in town until the 20th. So much for that shower we were both really looking forward to. Living in an apartment without water is awful. The faucets and shower just sit there mocking me, and I am currently having a debate with myself between paying Fairfield to do some much-needed laundry (they have their own water system), or just being smelly for a few weeks. We will see which wins out.

It's official, I have been here a whole year now. It's weird to think that last year at this time I was afraid to even take a shower in the Darkhan Hotel because I was still used to American standards... So much for that. I recently had to move to a different apartment, and my new bathroom makes Darkhan hotel look almost nice. It's weird to think that now I am one of the "experienced" PCVs. The M19s arrived in Mongolia a couple days ago, so I am officially an "old" volunteer.

The past few weeks have been the busiest I have had since training last year. Full of travel to the countryside doing research for a Tourism Value Chain analysis I'm working on, hosting SIT study abroad students and moving. Today I'm headed out to Battsengal to spend several days at the ger camp out there helping out and teaching some basic accounting to the owner. This ger camp is one of my favorites, it was started last year with the help of the PCV in Battsengal, it is a Mercy Corps client, and it also happens to be where I go riding when I go to Battsengal, so I'm excited to help them out and hopefully get a lot of riding in this week! Next week I head to Bulgan soum to visit another ger camp, and then shortly after that up to Darkhan to help with training. Where does the time go?

In a few short weeks I will have lived in Mongolia for one year. That fact blows my mind in so many ways. I have never been away from my family, my country and all that I hold to be “normal” for so long. Yet I find myself at a loss of what to write about Mongolia, and my experience here. It has all come to seem so normal. Mongolia is like nothing I had ever imagined, or experienced, or even imagined I would experience. Yet now it is normal. It is Spring. Everyone says Spring in Mongolia is rough. All I know is Spring in Missouri. The red buds blossom, April showers bring May flowers. But Spring in Mongolia is filled with dust storms, white-out blizzards that melt in two hours and dead animals.

A few weeks ago I went to UB for my annual Peace Corps physical. The bus ride there was more frustrating than most of my previous trips to UB. They are working on the road again, which doesn’t mean progress at this point. It means driving aimlessly across fields because there are piles of dirt and rocks blocking the road. And it means animal carcasses. Animals die in the Spring. This past winter was harder and colder than it has been in 10 years according to most Mongolians. I believe them. Walking the 5 minutes to work my eyelashes froze, and even though my desk was mere feet away from the wall with a radiator, my hands were frozen most of the day. Long underwear, which I have never worn in my life, was a necessity from October until mid-March.

My trip home from UB was even more interesting. When we stopped for lunch it was like a scene out of a Disney movie. A storm was coming through. We sat in the ger , waiting for our lunch of tsoy vin to be served, and kept hearing what sounded like an airplane. It turned out to be a thunderstorm. When I went outside to look, I could see darkness sweeping over the land. It was like something bad was about to happen. I watched the dust storm coming from the West, and the thunderclouds coming from the North. But no lightening. In Mongolia the sky is nearly endless, you can watch the clouds cast shadow over the Steppe. I watched “dustadoes” rise into the air. There isn’t enough moisture in Mongolia to create tornadoes, but cyclones of dust frequently rise a hundred feet into the air.

Somehow, though I have never lived through a Mongolian Spring, it doesn’t really shock me. Last week I went to Battsengal to ride horses. While I was in UB I met some PCVs who had just ended their service in Ukraine and were taking the Trans-Siberian to Beijing. They ended up coming out to Arkhangai for a few days to experience the Mongolian countryside, and, of course, I took them to Battsengal. During the two-hour ride out there we saw innumerable carcasses on the side of the road. Spring means dead animals, but also clean-white baby sheep and adorable baby horses. Somehow, after living here almost a year the carcasses didn’t even phase me. Maybe it’s the normality of seeing animal bones littered across fields, and even in the dirt streets of Tstetserleg. The last time I went to Battsengal the baby sheep were just starting to be born, and when we came back from our ride the family told us that an eagle had eaten one. We saw one of the kids of the herder family tear across the Steppe on his ever-ready Mongol horse to the sheep herd because there was an eagle circling.

Everyone who has heard anything about the “Mongol Hordes” knows how hardy Mongolian horses are. During the time of Chinggis Khan, they carried the army all the way to Vienna. But you can’t even begin to imagine it until you see almost skeletal horses during the Spring giving birth and nursing their foals, and surviving that. Nearly every horse, yak or cow I see has severely protruding hip-bones, and is clearly seriously mal-nourished. Yet these animals, at least most of them, manage to survive this hardship and go on to thrive once the grass is fully grown and the Mongolian Summer fully arrives. Only to do it all again the next year.

It makes you think about the Mongolian people. Like their animals (which outnumber them almost 40 to 1), Mongolians, for centuries, have survived this harsh climate and at one point had the largest empire ever known. This country is full of hardy animals and the resilient people who care for them.

These resilient people are trying to fight through a post-Soviet, high-inflation and corrupt economy to develop. The contrast between their mostly small community knowledge and lifestyle and their desire to be a democracy seems an almost impossible struggle. The national elections are coming up this year. And with the national elections comes a possible shift in the controlling Party. In America we are used to essential continuity, regardless of which party is in power. Our basic civil servants are not politically appointed, they keep and do their jobs through major shifts in the political atmosphere. In Mongolia that is not the case. A change in the controlling party means every civil servant loses their job, and is replaced by someone with the same political affiliation of the controlling party. How is anything to be done under such a system? School directors, School system methodologists, Park administrators, all the way down to the drivers hired to transport these employees of the State have almost no job security. Why should they work hard? Why should the seek promotion?

Despite this strange governmental system, many Mongolians are working hard to develop their country and try to gain transparency in their government. Many of the younger generation, who haven't grown up under communism, realize there is a lot of work to be done and want to be the ones to do it. Mongolians love their country, and are proud of their unique traditions and way of life. Many of the small-business owners I meet and work with through Mercy Corps are eager to learn what it takes to compete and keep their business going.

Today I watched two little boys kicking a puppy. That is not at all a strange occurrence. A few days ago I was playing with some stray puppies outside one of my friend's apartment building and a little boy, probably only 4 or 5 years old came out and started kicking them for no reason. Mongolians are strange about dogs. Mostly they are terrified of them. The same day I was playing with those puppies a group of little girls was giving me the "hello!" chorus, and started to come over to me. One of the puppies ran up to them wagging its tail and the little girls ran away screaming. There are lots of street dogs in Mongolia, (somehow the yearly mass-murder of the stray dogs doesn’t quite solve the problem) and if they go within 10 feet of someone the person will throw a rock or yell at them. Watching Sophie run around town is an interesting sight. She is one of the friendliest dogs I know, she is always wagging her tail and running up to people, whose response is inevitably to jump back with a terrified expression and yell. Or pick up a rock and throw it at her.

I admit that sometimes she can be a little startling, there have been a few times I’ve been walking back to my apartment when she is outside and she runs up behind me at top speed. But she really just wants to say “hi.” And she’s not enough of a Mongol dog to know that people are not her friends. It surprises me that Mongolians are so fearful and mean to dogs. Most people who live in hashaas have a dog, and their dog is a pretty important part of their home security. Hashaa dogs keep the drunk men away and won’t allow strangers to wander around your yard. And dogs are used to guard herds. But many Mongolians practically starve their hashaa dogs. I can’t count the times I have walked into a hashaa and seen a skeletal, mangy dog tied up to a short rope looking up at me with sad eyes. In my experience dogs are most loyal when you feed them and are nice to them. There are many Mongolians who understand that and care for their dogs. But there are many more that don’t. And it’s no wonder they are all scared of dogs. They throw rocks at them and kick them every chance they have. Even puppies that belong to someone generally wander around the streets to some degree, and they are at the mercy of every pack of little boys roaming around looking for something to pick on. Every time I see a herd of boys beating up a puppy I want to go and kick them. It seems that torturing small animals is not a sign of sociopathy in Mongolia.

The following is a Mongolian poem written by O.Dashbalbar that my friend Tuul translated into English:

Love each other while living,

You need not be stingy with those things you hold dearest

Don’t hurt hearts with the spears of needless words

Don’t push one down into a dark hole.

Don’t laugh at the one who has fallen down sodden,

He might be your father, who knows!

If you’ve reached first the peak of fame

Open the gate of happiness for others

They should not forget your help!

Say the one nice word to the person

Who misses and needs it,

Days that are sunny outside and cold inside

Will be seen more than once on this earth.

The nice boy who fell in love with you,

Don’t hurt him with your hard words, girl!

Just love him back for loving you,

He might have loved another, prettier.

Our lives are the same

On our throats, words are knotted the same

On our cheeks, tears fall the same

On our ways, we cross the same paths

Without asking, wipe away a girl’s tear,

Raise up and calm a child stumbled,

Today you’re laughing and another is crying

But another day you’ll be sad and the other will be singing.

Because everybody passes through cradle and coffin

Just love each other, nothing else is needed!

In this wide world,

Humans need not be short on love.

Because I imagine happiness as a fire in the human soul

Because the golden sun bestows its rays upon us equally,

For me, being alive is to deliver my love to others

And I understand that happiness is to receive love from others.

Love each other while living, people!

Translated by S. Tuul

Last week the annual Academic Olympics were held in Aimag centers across Mongolia. In Arkhangai we also have the Pyramid competition, a PCV creation. It's basically a game show testing English speaking and reading comprehension ability, and gives Mongolian students a chance to show their competitiveness. There were some tense moments when we judged answers to be wrong and they didn't agree. They also all thought that students who are taught by a PCV had an unfair advantage. But there was only one yelling match.

The day after the Pyramid competition was the English Olympics. Since I am a native speaker, I am qualified to be an Olympic judge. Also, as Rob pointed out, "Peace Corps Volunteer" roughly translates as "Slave Labor." What fun. Each school in the Aimag sends their best English speaker from 9th and 11th grades. The Olympics consist of written, listening comprehension and speaking tests. The day began with all four PCVs sitting in the teachers room reading The Economist for almost an hour, then we all paraded into the classroom where the test was to be given so the school director could show the students that no one had opened the envelope sent from UB containing the test, and THEN we made copies of the test.

The CD that was sent with the listening portion, of course, didn't work on the CD player. It worked on the computer, so we sat down to transcribe it. We planned to act it out for the students, which actually would have been much easier for them. The speakers on the CD had really heavy British accents and were almost unintelligible. But when we were about halfway through the first section, the director came in and said the students didn't want us to act it out, because it would give Rob, Jeff and Greg's students an unfair advantage. So instead we carried the computer from room to room (not a laptop). Only about one student from each grade actually understood any of the listening portion, so it probably would have helped them out if they had just let us do it...

The speaking test was painful to judge. Even though these are the very best English students in the Aimag, only about 2 of them can actually speak English. They have been studying the language since 4th grade. Each student had 5 minutes to talk about their prompt, after 5 minutes to think about it. Rob and I judged the 11th grade, and at least three of them sat there in silence for the full 5 minutes.

This can easily be explained by the English ability of the Aimag teachers. Each school also sends it's best English teacher, and they have their own Olympics. All four of us judged the teachers speaking ability. Though most of them could speak a little bit of seriously broken English, only two could be considered anywhere close to fluent.

The education system in Mongolia is tragic. No one fails, so students graduate from University with a degree in English teaching or translating unable to carry on even the simplest conversation in English. Many TEFL PCVs don't even give their students grades, because if they don't give them good grades the school Director changes them. There were some positive aspects of Communism in Mongolia. The education and healthcare systems were far superior to what they are now.

That being said, there are a lot of Mongolians who learn English despite their poor teachers. The influx of American culture on TV and in music has been good for Mongolians who really want to learn English and have the drive to do it on their own. It also allows Peace Corps volunteers to feel really good about ourselves. Many of the people I meet who speak English well are quick to say they had a PCV as a teacher.

The past month has been full of travel (Mongol-style of course), Peace Corps training and enjoying above-freezing temperatures. I have finally been able to hang up my giant winter parka, and move back to my light jacket (a moment I celebrated fully). Some days I don't even have to wear a coat, so long as I layer properly.

In late February I went up to Selenge aimag with a friend to visit another PCV who lives there. We took the night train from UB to Sukhbaatar, which travels about as fast as a horse but is a bit more comfortable. While in Sukhbaatar, I visited Cady's host family from the Summer. They were really happy that I had come to visit, but I think I made Cady look like the "bad daughter" because she lives a lot closer but hadn't come up for Tsaagan Sar (never mind the fact that there was a snowstorm the day she had been planning to come, and the taxi drivers always seem to have a death wish anyway).

After three days of genuine hudoo life, I came to realize how happy I am to live in an apartment. I love my hot shower, the heat that is provided through no work of my own and my indoor toilet. The running water to wash dishes with is also a big plus.

I also got to experience the true "posh-corps" lifestyle in Darkhan for a few days after Sukhbaatar. Complete with CNN, National Geographic and Animal Planet, and a couch to lay on while watching. I went to Darkhan to give a training on sustainability with Cady at her CHF office, which went really well. We also had time to go shopping at an awesome thrift store, and I had a bit of a moment at Nomins. Nomins is a super-market chain that is in UB, Darkhan and Erdenet. I made Cady spend almost an hour just wandering up and down the aisles while I gasped at and drooled over the amazing things for sale there (sesame oil, broccoli, lettuce, meat other than hiam, brown sugar, cheese).

At the beginning of March we had a Peace Corps training on Project Design and Management (PDM). It was the last time all the M18s will be together in one place before our Close of Service conference next year. It was a really good training, and it was at a much better hotel than IST. The hotel is in the "Strictly Protected Area" outside of UB. I'm not sure exactly what is meant by "Strictly Protected," as there is still hunting, grazing, camping etc. allowed. But it was beautiful. We were busy with training sessions pretty much all day the whole time we were there though, so there wasn't much time to enjoy the newly-warm weather.

After PDM I spend a few more days in UB, going to some meetings and participating in the normal Peace Corps ridiculousness that ensues whenever a large group of us are in the city. Though it's always fun to be in UB, it gets expensive and exhausting really quickly, and I was glad to come back home. My friend came back to Tsetserleg with me to stay for a week and enjoy Arkhangai's awesomeness. The weather was beautiful. Arkhangai has been the warmest spot in Mongolia all winter, and it continues to be warmer than the rest of the country. All the snow had melted, and there are even some buds on trees now. Along with spring, though, comes the infamous Dust Storms. I experienced my first last Tuesday. Which, of course, was the day my office relocated.

Our office was moved in typical Mongolian fashion. I was sitting at my computer doing something when all of a sudden it turned off. That isn't such a strange occurrence, as the power goes out briefly quite frequently, and sometimes my computer turns off because someone looks at the extension cord wrong and it stops working for awhile. But I looked up to see people pulling computers off desks and stacking everything in the middle of the room. And so we moved. We threw everything in boxes and carried it to the truck downstairs. All during a dust storm. Probably not the best thing for the computers, but it really is amazing how durable things are when forced to be so. The office was moved because recently the cafe downstairs from our old office converted their pool/ ping-pong room into karaoke. You wouldn't think that would be such a problem, but in Mongolia karaoke starts up at about 11am. It's not so easy to focus on anything while listening to very loud, very bad karaoke being sung directly below you.

After the dust storm on Tuesday, the rest of last week was incredible. The sun was shining and it was warm enough to go on hikes without a coat. Doug and I went on a hike on Wednesday. We took Sophie with us, and as we passed by Andrea and Tuul's apartment buildings we were joined by two stray dogs that have befriended all foreigners. One is a true Mongolian dog, he is black with some white has the "four eyes" (light brown patches above his eyes). The other is some sort of mix between some fancy lap-dog and street dog. He is short and has curly hair (aka dred-locks). With our small herd of dogs we hiked up into the mountains around Tsetserleg. The little curly dog has some sort of inferiority complex, and can't get enough of chasing livestock. Sophie was good about not joining in at first, but as we went on she started to understand what was going on and decided she might like to play too. Near the end of our hike we heard thundering hooves coming up behind us, so we turned around to find an angry herder. He asked us why our dogs were chasing his animals. Doug told him that the yellow dog was ours, the other ones we didn't know anything about, they just followed us. He didn't seem to buy that completely, but eventually went away.

I also climbed Bulgan mountain for the second time last week. This time I climbed up and also back down the rock face. The first time Rob, Jeff and I came down on the other side of the mountain which is grass and trees. But this time Doug and I came across a couple of kids as we were climbing up, and they joined us. After we reached the top they decided they wanted to show us the "big hole." So we started climbing down the rock face, mostly scooting along in a sitting position. At first we thought it was just a little ways down, but as it turned out we climbed half-way down the mountain before we came to the "big hole." From a distance it looks like a yeti cave, but, in fact, it's just a deep hole in the rock.

We also went riding out in Battsengal again. There was again only one camel, and this time we discovered why. Apparently the other two camels the family owns had been bought recently, and they like to run away to their old home. I asked for a fast horse, and they gave me "Billy." He was dubbed Billy for the day because of his impressive mane, which is in the process of growing out and so stands straight up. Billy was indeed a fast horse, and just wanted to run. He has the habit of putting his head down while galloping, and that coupled with the fact that he has almost no discernible shoulder made it a little scary when trying to stop him. I always felt like I was moments away from falling off over his head. But we eventually came to an understanding, and spent most of the ride ahead of everyone else because Billy did not tolerate being behind anyone very well.

The camel was also a little sassy this time out. When Andrea and I were trading off, we tried to make him sit and instead of sitting he blew his slobber all over Andrea. For some reason he had collected an impressive amount of foam in his mouth, most of which ended up on Andrea's face.

Now I am back at work, in a new office with almost all new coworkers. I have a new counterpart, Azaa, a new translator, Jackie and our programming officer, Bayarhuu, is back from maternity leave.

It is officially the New Year according to the Lunar Calendar. In Mongolia, we rang in the new year in the traditional way of eating a lot of buuz, aaruul and various mayonnaise-coated salads and washing it all down with vodka. Tsaagan Sar is a very old, traditional Mongolian holiday that can be described as a mixture of Thanksgiving and Halloween for adults.

Preparations for Tsaagan Sar generally begin at least a week before hand. I was lucky enough to be able to help Uunee and her parents make their buuz. Many Mongolian women say they don't like Tsaagan Sar because they have to pinch a billion buuz, but for someone who hasn't done this every year my entire life, it was pretty exciting. It began with Uunee's mom elbow-deep in a giant bowl full of ground mutton, spices and salt. While she mixed the filling, Uunee and I began rolling out the 3-inch circles of dough. Making buuz assembly-line style for Tsaagan Sar was really fun, and after pinching about 5 buuz I had it down and even made some that could have been mistaken as Mongolian-made. I had planned to count how many buuz I pinched, but had to concentrate so hard on the first few I quickly gave that up. I'm sure it was a couple hundred though, I was at it for over two hours.

Tsaagan Sar eve was February 7th, a day spent cleaning house and spending time with immediate family, eating lots of food. This day is called "Bituun," which means to fill yourself up or become full. I spent the day cleaning my apartment and desperately trying to finish learning a Mongolian song (I have discovered that my problem is I absolutely cannot carry a tune). The first day of Tsaagan Sar I was invited to spend with Uunee's family. So about 10 am I put on my winter del and headed up the mountain to Uunee's house. We began the day in the grandparent's ger, which is inside Uunee's parents' hashaa. Upon entering a house for a Tsaagan Sar visit, you seek out the oldest man and greet him by putting your arms under his while he kisses or sniffs your cheeks. Usually you present him with a small gift or a small amount of money. Then you proceed to the oldest woman etc. People who are younger than you put their arms under yours and you sniff or kiss their cheeks. The Tsaagan Sar greeting immediately made me feel welcomed, people I had never met before sniffed or kissed my cheeks and asked "how are you, are you having a good new year?" Following this greeting the men and older women pull out their snuff bottles and offer them to everyone who has been greeted. After all these greetings and well-wishing the aaruul, milk vodka, aireg and vodka begin to be passed around, followed by buuz. As new people came into the ger everyone would shuffle around, and the new older people would greet Uunee's grandparents, and then sit down and everyone else would line up to greet them. I stayed with Uunee's family for about four hours, drinking, eating and looking at family pictures.

The second day of Tsaagan Sar I visited my friend Amu, who I met last September in the market. She goes to school in Erdenet, but was home visiting for Tsaagan Sar. While I was visiting her a couple of her friends came over, and then another of her friends came and picked us up and was going to take me home. We drove around for awhile picking up other people, and they were trying to decide what to do (everything was closed for Tsaagan Sar), so I invited them to come to my apartment. They all came over and bought a ridiculous amount of beer, vodka and food. We played Mongolian cards and hung out until eventually everyone fell asleep on my floor. The next morning I went to visit Dashka, my supervisor. Tsaagan Sar is like a drinking marathon, and I am continually amazed by the acceptableness of pressuring people into drinking in this country. Not to say I don't participate whole-heartedly in said pressuring.

After a final, relatively calm, day of Tsaagan Sar, my stomach finally gave out and I got violently ill for a day. But now I am recovered, and have survived my first bout of serious gastro-intestinal distress in Mongolia (I'm amazed I was able to put it off as long as I had). Though Tsaagan Sar is officially over, it is still common to see people giving each other the traditional greeting in the street, and people still come into our office to greet everyone they haven't seen yet in the new year.

Back at work after the holiday, there are some big changes. My counterpart, Uunee has been promoted to the UB Mercy Corps office. This is a great move for her, but sad for me. I am also getting a new translator, and will be interviewing people tomorrow. I have high hopes that after I get back from my upcoming trip to Selenge and the Peace Corps training I will be able to do more things and interact with clients.

Lately my life has been a little boring... which is why I haven't written much. It's mostly too cold to go outside, so I spend a lot of time in my apartment. I have come up with various things with which to entertain myself. I've been spending a lot of time reading, and have gotten through the first 9 books of the Patrick O'Brian series in a little over a month. Sophie also helps a lot, and we've come up with all sorts of new games to play. One of her favorites began when I decided she really needed some civilized manners, and so tried to teach her not to chew on my feet all the time. My method for this was beating her with a rolled-up Newsweek whenever she started chewing on me. That quickly turned into a new game, and now whenever I pull out the rolled-up Newsweek she growls and barks and runs around in circles while I chase her. She's surprisingling agile, and generally wins the game. I'm finding that she is quite difficult to discipline. I have tried beating her with my felt slippers when she latches on and forces me to drag her around my apartment. She actually seems to like that, and it also became a game. She is a sassy little pup, and backtalks all the time. When I tell her "no," she growls.

Andrea, Tuul, Ochgo and I have also started a new tradition of going dancing every Friday night. We started it as a celebration of wine being back in stores, the second week we celebrated the fact that they started selling beer in Tsetserleg again. Our most recent dancing expedition brought back vodka. Since vodka, beer and wine are pretty much the only alcohol available in Mongolia outside of UB, we will have to think of something new to celebrate next Friday.

I have come to love dancing in Tsetserleg. They play bad music, and generally we hear the same song at least twice in the 2-3 hours we are there (some songs as many as 4 times). But there is always something interesting that happens. Two weeks ago there were some hudoo guys in for the weekend, and they came to the dance club in their winter dels and Mongol boots. One of them, who's name was "Soel" (Culture in Mongolian), bravely came up and started talking to us and even let us drag him out on the dance floor. He was so adorable, and it turns out that he owns horses and his summer camp is about 2km from the hot springs in Arkhangai. So we have plans to make a trip out there to go riding as soon as he moves back to his summer camp in May. Last friday I was asked to dance by a 16 year old, and he taught me the slow version of the Waltz. I wasn't very good at it, but he generously counted for me which helped a lot.

The Mongolian winter lasts for 81 days. It is divided into nine periods of nine days, and each period has a meaning attached of the various things that will freeze during that period. Winter starts on the Winter Solstice, which was December 21st this year, and so it ends on March 10th (a day I am awaiting with great anticipation).

1st: Mongolian vodka made from mare's milk will freeze

2nd: A different type of Mongolian vodka made from mare's milk will freeze (or Russian vodka, depending on who you talk to)

3rd: The horns of 3 year old bulls will freeze

4th: The horns of 4 year old bulls will freeze

5th: Rice will not freeze

6th: Some snow will melt and you will be able to see the lines on the road (that is, if there is a road and it has lines....)

7th: The snow will melt from the top of little mountains

8th: The road will be slushy

9th: It will be warm (I'm assuming that's relative)

Today we started the 4th nine, which is supposed to be the coldest. I'm hoping that will not be the case this year, as the past week has been "colder than it's been in the past 6 years" according to my Mongolian friends and the Peace Corps. We even got a text message from the Peace Corps telling us it would be really cold, and basically "make sure you don't die." I knew before I came to Mongolia that it would be cold in the winter, but I have never experienced such extreme cold. And I live in one of the warmest places in the country. Everyone says that in Mongolia it's dry cold, so it's not that bad. I have to disagree, dry cold is worse. You can't breathe when you walk outside, and even the 6 minute walk to my office freezes my ears and nose unless I am completely encased in a scarf and hat with only my eyes showing. And even then, my eyes water and my eyelashes start to freeze together.

Nearly every morning my coworkers ask me if I'm cold, and if my apartment is warm or cold. Before this week the answer was always "maybe a little cold" or "my apartment is warm." But now my apartment gets really cold as soon as it is dark outside, and I am kicking myself for not taking the space heater that the Peace Corps provides us (I plan to rectify that when I go to UB in two weeks).

But at least we are now in the coldest part of winter, and it can only get better from here! I'm looking forward to the day I can go outside again.

Mongolia has been experiencing a period of prohibition for the past couple weeks. This was brought on when someone at the Asia Wolf vodka distillery in UB had the bright idea to add methanol to the vodka, killing 11 people over New Year's. Many other people were hospitalized, including the president of the company. As a reaction to this tragic event the government pulled all clear liquor off the shelves for an indefinite period of time. Somehow beer and wine were also included, but only in some areas of the country. In Tsetserleg wine was brought back last Friday, but beer and vodka are still off the shelves.

The really scary part of this whole debacle is that, rumor has it, the company was also filling old Haraa and Chinggis vodka bottles with their poison, and no one knows where these bottles ended up. Chinggis is one of the most expensive brands of vodka in Mongolia, so people would expect they are buying a safe product. Police are supposed to be confiscating and destroying all vodka throughout the country, but of course this isn't working out quite like it should. Instead, many police are giving or selling confiscated vodka to their friends.

It is nice not having ridiculously drunk men wandering the streets, but with Tsaagan Sar coming up it will be interesting to see if the government brings back vodka for the holiday. Tsaagan Sar is one of Mongolia's biggest holidays, and vodka is a vital part. This holiday officially lasts for three days, but in soums out in the countryside it can last up to a month. My fear is that if legitimate vodka isn't on the shelves, people will make their own, and that will be bad for everyone.

Some Random Pictures

The past three weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur. First we had a Peace Corps In Service Training (IST) in a ger camp outside of UB. All PCVs brought their counterpart with them, and it was a mixture of cross-culture, safety and security, technical and language training. Also a great excuse for the M18s to party together at night, as it was the first time we all saw each other since August.

The ger camp where IST was held was an interesting experience… It was really beautiful, in the middle of Terelj National Park. There were houses and gers, and those of us who live in cities or aimeg centers were all assigned to the gers except for a few. I was one of the lucky ones (so I though) who stayed in a house, with a toilet and a shower. Unfortunately the electrical capacity of the ger camp didn’t come close to being able to support all the electric heaters and lights, so the first couple days the power went out about every 20 minutes. Living in a ger does have its benefits, mainly in that you can build a fire. One night the electricity in our house went out in the middle of the night, and we all woke up freezing cold. Once it came back on my electric heater went a little crazy and started exploding and shooting blue sparks at me while I huddled in the corner of my bed and screamed like a little girl. Luckily Amber was there to unplug it. Later, when the Mongolians came to check it out I had an interesting time explaining to them that the heater had been shooting fire at me, while they looked at me like I was crazy. They took the wall socket out and did something to the wires, and seemed to think that it was fine, but I made them take it away. I’m pretty sure they “replaced” it with the same one, but no more blue sparks so oh well.

IST was full of interesting happenings. On the second day I and several others had partied just a bit too hard the night before and skipped a language training session to take a nap. We all got our names called out at lunch and had to have a talking-to during which we were told that had it only been one or two of us to skip, no big deal. But since 15 of us decided a nap was more important, we were going to be punished. Our “punishment” was that we had to serve dinner to everyone that night, which actually turned out to be kind of fun, and of course we served the Country Director and all the other important people last (they brought it upon themselves…. Giving the delinquents power over their food may not have been the wisest of choices).

The four Mercy Corps PCVs and our counterparts also had a very enjoyable “meeting” one evening. I invited Uunee to come over to my house and have a couple drinks, which turned into all the Mercy Corps counterparts, some of whom may have slightly deceived their PCVs into thinking it was an actual meeting… After we all had a good laugh about that we went down to the main building and bonded over a couple bottles of vodka and of course the mandatory Mongolian singing by those of us who know a song (I, to my great shame, do not yet know a Mongolian song… but am working on it).

We also had a bachelorette party for Kim, who is now at home in America getting married. She will be returning, and bringing her new husband along with her (brave soul that he is). I’m convinced that there never has been nor ever will be a bachelorette party quite like this one. Who else but Peace Corps volunteers can be convinced (and I don’t think it took a whole lot…) into stripping down to Victoria’s Secret panties and dancing around in front of about 20 women? For free?? And they let us take pictures… I’m told they even rehearsed their routine. In costume.

After IST we all returned to UB and had a couple days to relax (though there is never much relaxing that happens in UB) before our Christmas party on the 23rd. Brigette, a German expat who owns a bakery in UB generously gave us the use of her summer home outside of UB for the party. She and the Ambassador were both extremely generous in providing us all the food and beverages we could possibly want. A lot of us spent the night out there, and though it was really cold, we all had a great time. The next morning we spent several hours cleaning up the giant mess we had made (and I'm sure the local Mongolians thought we were all crazy drunks as they watched us haul billions of beer cans and wine bottles to the dump). As the morning wore on people started to head back to UB, those of us who were left made some hamburgers on the grill (a delightful experience) and drank some of the left-over beer after warming it over the fire. Probably the only time in any of our lives we will complain of beer being too cold, but frozen beer is really hard to drink.

A few of us ended up spending a second night out there, and had a quiet Christmas Eve which was nice after all the partying of the previous few days. Christmas was also pretty quiet for me, which was nice. I cooked dinner for a few friends. I made roast chicken and potatoes and broccoli. I was sooo excited to eat broccoli, it's one of the vegetables I miss the most.

The day after Christmas all four of the Arkhangai PCVs braved the bus ride home together, and after some more practice at climbing somewhat gracefully over piles of boxes and bags of frozen meat to get to our seats we arrived home safe and sound. The next day was the Mercy Corps New Year's party.

Mongolians celebrate New Year's any time between Christmas and the 31st, and somehow there has been some confusion between the two holidays. Santa generally makes an appearance on New Year's, as do Christmas trees. One thing Peace Corps forgot to tell me before I came to Mongolia is that I should have brought a prom dress, because that is the attire for women at New Year's parties. I told Uunee I didn't have a dress, and she said it was OK, so I just went with the typically-American jeans and black tank top. I did wear my high heel sandals from the Summer though, and I think it's the first time any of my coworkers has seen me in high heels. When I got to the nightclub where our party was held I found all the women in a back room busily changing into their dresses and using liberal amounts of glitter. They decided that even though I didn't have a dress, so long as I had glitter in my hair, on my face, my back, arms and chest, I would be Ok. So I let them douse me in glitter and we were ready.

The party was really fun, with lots of strange games and dancing. I even got to waltz with Gambaa, my favorite Mongolian. Waltzing in Mongolia is a big deal, everyone knows how and especially in the countryside it is an integral part of any celebration. I learned how over the summer, and was actually pretty good at it, but all my skills have left me. But Gambaa generously drug me around the dance floor and tried to make me look like less of a fool. I'm not sure how well it worked, but oh well. Being American you are allowed to look like a fool. :)

Actual New Year's Eve was an interesting experience. It was something like the 4th of July with no city restrictions on fireworks. From my balcony I could see fireworks going off all over the ger districts, and even fireworks shooting past my head as my neighbors shot them off of their balconies. It made me glad I live in a concrete building. I was really surprised not to see any gers go up in flames.

Now it's just a countdown to Tsaagan Sar, the Lunar New Year which is a much bigger deal in Mongolia than our New Year. Tsaagan Sar is February 8th this year, and will consist of three days of visiting friends and family eating lots of buutz and drinking lots of vodka. Uunee has agreed to let me help her and her family make buutz, each family usually makes between 1,000 and 5,000 buutz so I'm sure they can use all the help they can get. And hopefully I will be able to perfect my buutz-pinching skills.

Note: I added some new pictures to the December file.

Well, Not really as there is no snow on the ground, no crowded stores blasting Christmas music and no Christmas trees or lights... But I did find out yesterday that I get to stay in UB for the Peace Corps Christmas Party, which is very exciting! Next week we have Peace Corps IST (Inter Service Training or something like that) at a ger camp outside UB, and then there is a Christmas party on the 23rd. I was going to come back to Tsetserleg on the 23rd because I felt bad about how long my friend Tuul would have to watch Sophie, but then a few days ago Tuul said that she would be coming to the city on the 20th, but Ochka (another friend who works at Fairfield's) would watch Sophie, and Tuul would come back with me on the 23rd and we would have our own Christmas in Tsetserleg. But then, last night Tuul and Ochka came over for dinner and Tuul asked if maybe I would stay in UB until the 26th, and that Ochka would watch Sophie until then, so OF COURSE I said YES!!! :) I was sad that I was going to miss the Peace Corps party, so now I am very excited!

IST should be fun too, it will be the first time that all the M18's are together again since August when we swore in, so there will of course be a lot of ridiculousness that goes on in the evenings at IST and Peace Corps ridiculousness is the best kind!

Here are new pictures from Thanksgiving in UB and riding horses in the mountains a few weeks ago. More pictures to be added soon!

Pictures

It's amazing to me that I have been in Mongolia for six months now. I have been living in Tsetserleg for four, and it just recently hit me that I consider it home. When I was on my way back from UB after Thanksgiving I just wanted to get home. My life here has settled into a pretty nice routine. I have a dog whom I love, and that certainly makes my apartment feel more like home. Sure we have our arguments about the acceptableness of peeing on the floor or jumping on my head at 6:00am and whining, but all in all she is super cute and fun to have around. I have also made good friends that I spend a lot of time with. We go riding on the weekends, or make dinner together during the week.

I've even started to feel like people in the community recognize me and are starting to realize that I live here, I'm not a tourist. There are certain little kids that always smile say "Hello!" to me as I pass, and some the delguur owners are starting to recognize me. There are also several kids around my apartment who know Sophie and anytime I take her outside they all swarm around saying "Soapy! Soapy!" (Mongolians have a really hard time with the "f" sound).

Realizing that Mongolia feels like home also makes me think about all the things that I have come to accept as normal, that only a few short months ago seemed so strange. One of the biggest is hand washing all my clothes. I have never before in my life hand washed clothes, and it really is a huge pain in the ass. I'm a lucky one though, I actually have a bathtub with hot water. I've gotten it down to a certain science now, and though my clothes don't ever seem as clean as they used to be when they were washed in a machine, it works out well enough. With the cold weather it's become a bit more of a hassle. I only have one short line over my bathtub to hang laundry inside, so I usually just hang it outside even though it almost immediately freezes. I have found, however, that if I leave it out for about three days it will be dry (even though it stays below freezing all the time now, the sun hits my balcony all day so my clothes can melt/dry).

It's strange to think that I consider a place where I understand maybe one third of what goes on around me home. I've gotten used to only communicating with my limited vocab and/or hand signals, and not understanding the conversations that go on all around me. It will be so weird to go back to America and understand everything everyone says.

I've even almost gotten used to buying meat at the market. I don't buy meat for myself, but I do buy it for Sophie (I hope she appreciates the lengths I go for her). The cold weather helps, because the meat market doesn't smell as bad as it did when it was warm. But I don't know if I can even call it a "meat" market anymore, it's more of a "fat" market. All the animals have fattened up from the summer, so now the meat table is a sea of white, with maybe a little actual meat snuck in some places. Usually the only meat I eat is that cooked by others, and I'm ok with that. Cooking meat is just way too much hassle for me.

Cooking in general is a hassle. Every meal I have to cook myself, and sometimes it's depressing to be really hungry and know that it will take nearly an hour to cook anything. That being said, there is Korean Ramen that I can buy in the Delguur in my apartment building, so when I get really desperate and lazy I can eat that. But it's nothing like at home where you can buy pre-packaged meals that only take like 10 minutes to make. Oh how I miss those frozen Bertolli pasta meals!

Probably the strangest thing that I have actually gotten used to is peeing in the middle of a flat, open field. Traveling in Mongolia is a whole different world from travel in America. There are no gas stations with bathrooms to stop at. There are some Delguurs scattered along the road to UB, but they do not come equipped with indoor plumbing. Maybe an outhouse, but usually not. So every time the bus stops everyone piles out and scatters. The older women in their dels are smart, a del is almost like your own private outhouse, the rest of us just suck it up and walk a little farther away and hope no one is watching. That being said, in this matter Mongolians respect each others privacy. Privacy isn't really a concept at all in Mongolia, but when it comes to the necessity of peeing in a flat field, people look the other way.

Mongolia is a strange country, but if you really think about it America is more of an anomaly. A good portion of the world lives a life that is much closer to what I experience here than that in America.

I had the most amazing experience today that reaffirmed my absolute love of this country. My cell phone and the bag I left in the mikr last night have been returned to me. I went into the office to tell Uunee what had happened, and she was so helpful. She immediately got on the phone and started calling people, asking me what the driver and car looked like and eventually she walked with me to the delguur in my apartment. We spoke with the woman there and found out that the wife of the driver has a delguur over near the hospital, so we went there. The delguur was closed but we walked around and peered through the hashaa fence, and while the dog was giving a very good shot at mauling us through the fence, we saw the mikr!! So we Mongol-style pounded on the gate and eventually one of the little girls came out, then her mom came out holding my bag!! I was so excited. I told her I thought my phone might be in the mikr, and we looked and there it was! This country is so amazing; everyone was trying really hard to help the stupid American who left her stuff in the mikr. And I'm convinced that my chat with Buddha that morning was also helpful.

Last week I traveled to Ulaanbaatar for the Peace Corps Thanksgiving party, and also to get Sophie spayed. It seems that in Mongolia the only place to take care of a small animal is in UB. Wednesday morning Jeff and I walked through the first inkling of sunrise to the bus. I was really worried they wouldn’t let Sophie on the bus, but it turned out our only worry was actually the fact that the guy was going to charge us to bring on our backpacks. That didn’t happen last time I was on the bus, but apparently the system isn’t exactly organized and each bus ride is the sole domain of the driver, who can do whatever he pleases. So eventually we paid up, and Sophie, Jeff and I were off to the city.

The bus ride is always an interesting experience. We eventually filled it to 36 people plus one dog. And it’s really hot, so there is always a war about whether or not the vent in the roof is open or closed. For about 3 hours it went something like this: the guy sitting in the aisle would stand up and open it and everyone would breath a sigh of relief. Then about 10 minutes later the guy sitting next to the vent would stand up and close it. Repeat repeat repeat.

Probably about half of the total PVCs in the country were in UB for Thanksgiving and the M17s to get their flu shots. That basically meant it was a 3-4 day party, all of us acting ridiculously. It was fun to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in almost 4 months, and we celebrated accordingly. Our Thanksgiving wasn’t until Saturday, but the Peace Corps put on a really awesome party for us. PC got 6 turkeys and then everyone brought a dish. And Ambassador Minton generously provided several kegs and bottles of wine. We all had a great time and the turkey was almost as good as my Mom’s. Not quite though.

Being in UB in the winter was kind of a depressing experience. The air is so bad there some times you can hardly see in front of your face. One day I went to the black market with a couple other girls and driving back into the city the smog was so bad you could only see about 5 cars ahead. Just being there for four days was enough to give me a bad cough. My big Thanks for this Thanksgiving is that I do not live in the city. I love Arkhangai. From UB Mongolia seems like such a sad, depressing place. You don’t get to see the beautiful Mongolian sky very often, and the traffic is awful. There are over a million people living in a very poorly planned city. There are street children who have nowhere to live but in the sewers, families in the ger districts who can't afford coal or wood to burn, and sometimes freeze to death. There is also rampent domestic violence and child abuse that no one can do anything about because the government doesn't have a system for dealing with things like that. Many children have to put up with abuse so they can eat, because a lot of times the only place they can get food is from the man abusing them. It’s also sad because so many Mongolians want to move to UB. It has the sort of gold-paved streets draw that America has to so many. But the streets in UB are paved with trash and open sewer holes because people steal the metal to sell to China. There are many people working in restaurants that speak excellent English and hold four year degrees, because there are no jobs. It’s sad that they all want to live in UB, because anyone who speaks English has great opportunities in the countryside, many English teachers out here don’t speak any English, and there are jobs for translators that are filled with very under qualified people because no one wants to live in the countryside.

I don’t understand the rush to live in the city. Mongolia is such a beautiful country. People in the countryside are really friendly. Sure, sometimes they are rude and living here has made me take a sick pleasure out of shoving people. But people are always willing to help. If you speak any Mongolian people constantly compliment you on how great your language is. It’s nice to be flattered like that, and it helps motivate me to study.

They say that it’s a small world, but Mongolia gives a new meaning to that phrase. Mongolia is a huge country geographically, but it’s not at all uncommon to randomly run into someone you know on the street. While I was in UB I ran into Nabaa, who was Cady’s host brother over the summer. One of the Peace Corps program directors went to university at the same school in America where my sister goes. The strangest experience I had was the morning I drove out to the Dragon center to buy my bus ticket. My taxi driver was really nice and he spoke quite a bit of English. I learned that he is a student at the Police Academy, and his parents live in Darkhan and his grandparents live in Arkhangai. He was a really nice guy, I asked him to wait for me when I went in to buy the ticket, but the ticket office wasn’t open yet so I had to wait like half an hour, and he waited for me the whole time. Then when we were driving back into town he asked me if I wanted to drink some coffee with him. Sure, why not? So we stopped at a little guanz, and of course they didn’t have coffee so we drank tea. And he ordered some food which I didn’t really want, but ate anyway. After we were finished he wouldn’t let me pay, and then he drove me back to the Peace Corps office and wouldn’t let me pay for my taxi ride. Mongolian men are a lot different than American men. Anhaa (my taxi driver) said that he had a girlfriend, and while we were eating he said “I only love my girl.” But then he wanted to have dinner with me that night too, and I gave him my phone number. He said he would call me later in the evening, or maybe he wanted me to call him I’m not really sure but I wanted to have dinner with Cady since I never get to see her anyway. When I was telling another PCV the story I told him the guy had a girlfriend, and the PCV said that that doesn’t really matter to Mongolian men. It wouldn’t matter if they were married and it certainly wouldn’t matter if they only had a girlfriend. Oh well. I’m going to stick with the idea that he just wanted to practice his English.

My trip back from UB was an awful experience. When I got to the bus they wouldn’t let me on with the Sophie. Even though I had taken her on the bus a few days ago…. But like I said each driver is a King. I tried to tell him that she had taken medicine and would just sleep; she was really good on the first ride. I gave her some benedryl which helped her sleep and it also kept her from getting sick. Luckily Rob was there and he speaks really good Mongolian, and after arguing with the guy for awhile to no avail he helped me find a Mikr. We eventually found a driver going to Arkhangai, he didn’t have a mikr but he had a really nice car and he said we just had to wait for three other people. So we waited for awhile, then another guy got in the car and we drove a little ways off to where there was a mikr that just needed one more person. So I got on and we actually left RIGHT THEN, which is an amazing and delightful experience that is very rare in Mongolia. We actually picked up two more people, so it was four adults in the one back seat, three kids sitting on the box in the middle and then the driver and his wife up front. It was a little crowded, but Sophie and I both enjoyed our benedryl- induced happiness and we were on our way. The thing with mikrs that sucks so badly is that they will just stop randomly and wait. About an hour or two outside UB we stopped and waited for almost an hour to meet another car. I didn’t see any exchange of people or things, so I’m not sure what was going on. We stopped a few more times and there was something minor wrong with the mikr so the driver kept messing with the engine. It was really really cold too. UB is much colder than Arkhangai, so it was really miserable for me when we stopped. Sophie wanted to be outside checking things out and all I wanted to be to cuddle up in my coat and shiver inside the mikr. Finally we got to the guanz stop at around 8 (the bus arrives at that place around 12:30, and we left only half an hour after the bus…). We had to wait there for a really long time while the driver messed with the engine and then FINALLY we were back on our way. By that time I was so tired and had taken more benedryl and I began with the Mongolian-style sleeping on a stranger’s shoulder. I was sitting between two men and they both had very comfortable shoulders to sleep on. I think at one point one of them pushed me off, so I immediately moved on to the other. They didn’t seem to mind too much. I also had a kid sleeping on the knee, and Sophie on my lap so there wasn’t really anywhere else for me to go… I think at some point in the night we got a flat tire, which was frustrating because we were only a couple hours from home. We eventually reached my apartment at midnight. Luckily I had had a conversation with the driver’s wife. Once I told her I lived in the Goi Bashen she told me that she makes the buutz they sell in the delguur in my apartment building. When they dropped me off, in my exhaustion induced stupidity I left one of my bags on the mikr. My cell phone also somehow fell out of my pocket. I was so upset, when I got into my apartment I realized I was missing my cell phone and ran back downstairs but they were already gone. I cried. The things in the bag I left were the really nice pillow, some cheese and a piece of fresh ginger that I bought in UB. Sophie’s last set of vaccinations was also in there. Nothing irreplaceable but it’s going to cost a lot of money I don’t have to replace them. The cell phone is the worst thing. Peace Corps gives us a cell phone but if something happens to it we have to replace it on our own dime, and cell phones are expensive!!! But, I do know that they sell buutz in my delguur, so this morning I got Rob to go with me and asked the woman who runs the delguur is she knew them. She tried to call them but there phone was off or out of service, but I have the phone number now and the lady at the Delguur said I could go back later and she’d try again. I hope it works out. I took a walk up the path of Enlightenment to the Buddha statue this morning in the hopes that would give me some good karma…

When Tuul and Andrea mentioned that their idea for the next big adventure was to find some camels to ride, I immediately agreed whole-heartedly. I texted Rob, who lives in Battsengal where there were rumored to be some camels. He in turn found a herder who has three, so we planned to make a day of it. Three weeks later, when all of our schedules allowed it, Tuul found a driver to take us to Battsengal and Rob’s counterpart talked to the herder and it was all set up. We added a Korean tourist who was staying at Fairfield’s, who was also looking for something interesting to do. The five of us, representing four different countries of origin, piled into the Russian Jeep early Saturday morning (Andrea and I commenting that we really could have used another hour of sleep…) and headed to the countryside. After a somewhat bumpy two hour drive we arrived at Rob’s ger and added him to the jeep, then proceeded to his counterpart’s house where we were fed delicious currytae hoshur (hoshur with curry) and, of course; aireg, milk tea, coffee, and Mongolian milk vodka. About an hour and slight decrease in our level of sobriety later, we headed out to the herder family.

Once we arrived there seemed to be some confusion, the camels were nowhere to be seen and it turned out that they only had one available, which was currently being watered. So we gathered in one of the gers and enjoyed more milk tea, aireg and milk vodka. It then seemed that there might not be enough saddles for all of us. Eventually we went outside to see if we could speed things along a bit,and in the distance we spotted the camel coming back, loaded down with a cart of wood. We also solved the saddle problem by Andrea and Rob riding bareback. Our hosts were a little uncertain of this idea, but eventually we convinced them. I was elected to be the first to ride the camel, so once they "saddled" it up (tied a folded up blanket to it's back) and made it sit down with a slight tug on it's nose ring(?) and a firm "suk, suk" I climbed on.

Sitting on a camel while it stands up is a very strange experience. Luckily they have a hump that you can wrap your arms around and hold on tight. They stand up on their hind legs first, making you feel like you are about to be pitched over their head, followed by one front leg and then the other. Once he was standing, it felt very safe and secure sandwiched between his two humps. It took a couple minutes to figure out how to steer and make him go forward, and after one accidental sitting-down (The word for go, which is "choa" and "suk" apparently sound very similar, and we were close to the hitching post and I was trying to turn him... So I guess I can't blame him for being a bit confused) we were off. Camels seem to have about two speeds, meander and jog. To get him to "jog" took continual thumping with my legs and a constant stream of "choa, choa, choa." I'm pretty sure it was as much work for me as for him.

We headed off across the field, me quite a bit in front of the others. The horses were scared of the camel, so we had to keep them separated. After awhile Andrea took a turn on the camel. I rode her horse, which was possibly the shortest Mongolian horse I've seen, which is saying a lot. I think he was slightly bigger than a Shetland pony. But that made it easy to get up, and I could jump on him from the ground. They had put a pad on him, so riding bareback actually turned out to be much more comfortable than riding in a Mongolian saddle. Now that I was on a horse I could go faster than a meander, and so with my legs wrapped practically all the way around him we galloped ahead a for a bit.

We continued on our ride and eventually came to the river, I think the North Tamir. Even though all the grass is dead and the leaves are off the trees, it was still a beautiful sight. We rode along side a mountain, and passed where two rivers meet. We all took turns riding the camel, I'm sure he was pretty sick of sitting down and getting up over and over again. Tuul was the most determined of all of us to get him to run, and actually accomplished it for about five steps. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my horse, she was kicking him so hard, it looked like a scene from a Thelwell Pony cartoon.

We rode for about three hours and eventually circled back around the mountains to the gers. By the end we were all pretty tired and sore, and worried about our ability to walk the next day. After we arrived back at the family's gers we drank some more aireg and milk vodka, and of course had some photo ops with the family. Eventually we piled back into the jeep and Rob's counterpart's car and headed back to Battsengal. Lee, the Korean tourist who came with us decided to stay in Battsengal and go fishing the next day, but Rob came back to Tsetserleg with us. The ride back was filled with constant laughter. Tuul loves to tell jokes and riddles, and for nearly the entire two hours we heard jokes and took turns telling riddles.

On Sunday morning we met up again to watch the opening ceremony of the "Pathway to Enlightenment." There is a large Buddha statue about halfway up Bulgan Mountain, which has been there for several years, but they recently completed a large stairway leading up to it. I took Sophie along, which turned out to be a great idea. There was a huge crowd of Mongolians, and everyone was gathered around the statue where there were speeches, musical performances and a traditional Buddhist dance. Being in a crowd in Mongolia is always a bit of an ordeal, and being foreigners pretty much made us a target for people to shove out of the way. Luckily we are all pretty used to that by now, and know how to stand our ground. I was holding Sophie, and most of the adults would back down once they saw a dog. It was great. The kids loved Sophie, but I think they were just as interested in the retractable leash that I have now (thanks Mom!!).

The traditional Buddhist dance was an awesome sight. The costumes and masks were impressive and brightly colored. There was also a man dressed up as the Old Man on the Mountain, who at one point walked around the statue throwing candy into the crowd. He had to have a Lama as a sort of body guard because there was a swarm of children following him, and it seemed pretty likely that if they got the chance they would mug him for the candy hidden in his del.

Pictures

Last week was my first trip back to UB since I came to site in August. It was interesting and full of the usual unexpected frustrations of traveling in Mongolia. It was nice to be back in a city, with sidewalks and taxis. And the abundance of good places to eat and things to buy was amazing, though a bit frustrating with my severely limited budget. UB is the only place in Mongolia where you can find just about anything you want, from the extensive Black Market, the State Department Store and all the various food markets that have things like ginger and real cheese.

There is a bus that goes to and from UB every day from Tsetserleg, which is really nice because the Mikrs are miserable and take forever. The bus is much faster, we actually made the trip in 9 hours (compared to the 18 it took me by Mikr when I came to site…) They have also done quite a bit of work on the road to UB since last I traveled it. The road is an interesting story. They are currently working on paving the entire road to UB. Once that is completed it will be amazing, as the difference between driving on pavement and driving across a field is vast. When I say they are currently working on paving the road, what I mean is they have been working on it for the past two years and are a little more than half-way finished. Things in Mongolia don’t generally follow what Westerners would consider “logical.” Before they began paving this road they tore up the entire 500 kilometers of existing dirt/gravel road, leaving travelers for the past two years to take the bone-jarring driving-across-the-field option. The only reason for this I could come up with is that it’s possible there are only about two road-tearing-up machines in Mongolia, and they are also working on roads elsewhere…

I went to UB for a Mercy Corps training. We are going to start value chain analyses, which is apparently the new big thing in development work, of Yak wool and meat production in Arkhangai. We attended a three day training on how to do a value chain analysis. The training was, of course, all in Mongolian and I was the only American attending (except for one morning when Meaghan, a Fellow at the UB Mercy Corps office also attended). I struggled to really get much out of the training because my translator has, at best, weak English. The first day I understood almost nothing, but then the second day a translator from the UB office was there and she did a great job translating. And then the third day I found a woman who works at a Mercy Corps office in a different Aimeg who speaks nearly fluent English and she also did a great job translating for me. I was actually able to participate in the activities and understand what was going on, which made it a lot more worthwhile for me to be there.

I also got to see several other volunteers who either live in UB or were visiting for various reasons. I was hoping that I would see Cady, as CHF is also doing a value chain training this month. At first we expected to be there at the same time, but CHF kept changing the dates and we ended up missing each other by one day. Oh well. I did manage to finally (after several tries and calls to various people) find the veterinary clinic that is run by an American to buy shots for Sophie. Mongolians outside of UB generally don’t immunize their dogs, so it is impossible to buy shots out in the countryside. I’m a little nervous about giving Sophie her shots myself, but I think I’ll be able to handle it.

During my stay in UB I learned from another PCV in Arkhangai that he was under a Plague and Anthrax warning... I think Mongolia is one of, if not the only, place in the world where plague is still an actual threat. And anthrax occurs naturally. This past August a boy died from plague in another Aimeg, and the current plague scare was caused by a boy in Arkhangai who got sick after, I think, butchering a marmot. Not to worry though, the plague is now completely curable, and I actually have the necessary medicine in my handy Peace Corps-issued Medical kit. I think it might actually be kind of cool to get the plague. But I was a little worried that Arkhangai would be put under a quarantine, and I wouldn't be able to go home. Luckily that didn't happen.

My trip got interesting on Thursday. After finishing our training I asked Uunee when we would go to buy our bus tickets. You have to buy the ticket the day before, and you have to go in the morning or they sell out. I had been told we would leave on Saturday, and Mercy Corps had only given us a per diem through Saturday, so I was a bit shocked when Uunee said “on Sunday.” I then asked her “But aren’t we leaving on Saturday??” and she said no, that since it was the weekend we didn’t have to go back yet. When I asked her where we were supposed to stay (as Mercy Corps would not pay for our hotel longer than Friday night) she said she would stay with family. Well, thanks for thinking of me…. So I told her that was fine, but I was going back on Saturday. I could have stayed with another PCV, but wouldn't have had the Mercy Corps per diem to pay for my meals, and I was expected back on Saturday to pick up Sophie. Then a few minutes later Uunee said she had changed her mind and would also go back on Saturday, and that we would go buy our tickets the next morning at 9. I told her that if she wanted to stay that was fine, I could take the bus back by myself, but I would really appreciate if she would go with me to buy the ticket because I didn’t know where to go. She said she would.

So the next morning, at 5 till 9:00 I knocked on her door, only to find her bleary-eyed and still in her pajamas. Obviously having just woken up. So I asked if we were, in fact, going to buy the bus tickets. And she sort of nodded and closed the door. Then about two minutes later she sends me a text message saying she changed her mind and was going to buy her ticket on Sunday. So I knocked on her door again and reminded her that she had told me she would go with me… She seemed very confused by that and eventually I ended up calling the Peace Corps office where the receptionist explained to me where to buy the ticket. So I went on my own. After paying 4,000 Tugrik for the taxi ride out to the bus stop, I decided to walk back into the city center. As I was walking I got a text from Uunee saying that the hotel said we had to be out by noon, followed almost immediately by another asking if I had bought my ticket. I don’t know if she doesn’t think about what is going on, or just doesn’t care. So I called her and told her that Mercy Corps would obviously need to pay for another night in the hotel for me, since the earliest I could leave was Saturday.

The next morning I got a cab to take me to the bus stop. Since it was early in the morning I took a registered cab, because sometimes the unregistered ones are a little shady at off-hours. I thought everything would be fine, and the taxi driver and I even had a little conversation. Then we got to the bus stop and he tried to charge me 10,000 Tugrik for the drive. I told him that was too expensive, one kilometer is 300 Tugrik and it’s about 14 kilometers. He hadn’t reset his odometer, so didn’t know how many kilometers it was, but tried to tell me it was more. I told him that just the day before I had paid 4,000 Tugrik, and he said that was a bad taxi. We went round and round in my broken Mongolian. Finally I slyly pulled out all the money in my wallet except my last 5,000 tugrik bill (which amounted to about 6,000) and said "bi arlove miank bakgue" (I don't have 10,000), gave him 6,000 and got out. They always want to scam the foreigner, and it’s not even tourist season anymore.

The bus ride home wasn’t too terrible. On the way to UB I was sitting over the wheel well, so my legs were all scrunched up and the heater was on overdrive and blowing hot air all over my feet the whole time. Not only that but I had the two inevitable drunk guys sitting right behind me ashing their cigarettes all over me. They thought they were pretty clever, putting their vodka into water bottles, unfortunately they effectively blew their cover by giggling like schoolgirls when they passed it to their friend a few seats ahead saying "os" (water). That and the fact that they were completely wasted by the end of the trip, and getting progressively louder and louder.

On the way back I had figured out the little trick of asking for a good seat, and I got a fairly good one. Unfortunately, I found out that the overactive heater runs the whole length of the bus, so it was still ridiculously hot. And we couldn’t open the vents in the roof because of the four small children, who were also taking turns screaming their lungs out (probably because they were hot). But 9 hours of such misery is a whole lot better than 18, so I’m not complaining. The bus is actually the Post Bus, which is apparently how I get my mail. It has seating for about 25 people, but since (I presume) the luggage compartment is filled up with mail, all luggage goes under the seats or in the aisle. That arrangement can easily lead to a bit of claustrophobia, especially when it’s about 95 degrees on the bus. There isn’t really a limit on baggage, so though most Mongolians travel extremely light, when they are coming back from the city they have inevitably bought several things, or have 10 empty aireg jugs they are bringing home with them. So getting on and off the bus is a precarious adventure, involving climbing over seats and luggage and hoping the old lady in the del can make it.

I had assumed that when we arrived in Tsetserleg there would be a swarm of taxis waiting at the bus stop, as it is obviously a good opportunity to make some money. Much to my disappointment, there were only two, and I was not off the bus quickly enough to snatch one. And you can't just stand on the side of the street and stick your hand out to get a taxi here, like you can in UB. Since I don't have any drivers' numbers, I had to walk home, which is normally about a 10 minute walk, but as I had brought a good 20-30 pounds of books back with me from the Peace Corps office, it was actually a quite miserable 20 minute walk. But then I got to go pick up Sophie from Andrea and Konrad, who were kind enough to watch her while I was away. Sophie had some sort of amazing growth spurt last week, and is now quite a bit bigger. And is starting to put on some weight and has a cute little puppy belly now, instead of looking emaciated.

Yesterday I had the unexpected pleasure of some visitors. There are a few girls who live in my building who I've become friendly with (mostly over Sophie), and every now and then they will knock on my door and say hello. Yesterday Ako and Bukee knocked on my door, and after a few minutes of chatting, asked to come in. So I invited them in, and apologized for the messy state of my apartment. They quickly said that was OK and that they would clean it for me. Many TEFL volunteers have this experience, students come over and are appalled by the state of their ger, so quickly begin a thorough cleaning. As a CED volunteer, I don't have students to do my chores, so have not yet encountered this aspect of Mongolian generosity. Ako quickly set about washing my dishes and scouring my sink and counter top, while Bukee quickly organized all my various papers and things. I felt awkward, and bad that my apartment was not up to Mongolian cleanliness standards, so I fed them some left over spaghetti, which they loved. Jeff was in town for some sort of teaching thing, and he came back to my apartment while Ako and Bukee were teaching me Mongolian Hutzer (cards), so we all played a couple games. Then Jeff left and the three of us had an impromptu dance party to various poppy American music on my computer (all Mongolian teenagers know Beyonce, Snoop Dog, Akon and Fergie and absolutely love them).

Last week I went on my first trip to the countryside for work. We planned to travel to several soums and visit some of our clients who have outstanding loans and monitor their business plans. We left on Tuesday morning and drove to Hotont soum. On our way we had a bit of trouble with the jeep. At one point we stopped, and then it wouldn’t turn back on. The driver opened the hood and thought that something was wrong with the battery because it was kind of smoking. So he took it out and messed around with it for a few minutes. He tried to open it, but couldn’t, so he ended up just putting it back, and then the jeep turned on. On the way to Hotont we stopped at a ger belonging to a herder family who are our clients. We drank some aireg and ate some aaruul and chatted for a few minutes and then were on our way again. Once in Hotont we visited a vegetable farmer client who showed us her gardens and her root cellar. She also fed us lunch and some of her homemade pickles. I talked to her a little bit about growing uncommon vegetables, such as broccoli and corn, and she seemed interested. I was excited about that.

After we left her we stopped in at a bunch of other places to talk to more people, and then headed out to the countryside to visit an aireg producer. She was milking the mares when we got there, so we got to watch that, and then were invited in for some aireg. We stayed there for quite awhile, because I guess Mercy Corps wants her to go to a trade fair in UB, and will pay her traveling expenses. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go; because she doesn’t have a whole lot of aireg left after our trade fair, but could maybe buy some from other producers. So we had to wait around while she thought about it and decided. Communication in Mongolia is difficult. Most of it, especially out in the soums, has to be done face-to-face, so you end up doing a lot of waiting. As it was evening, while we were waiting she started preparing dinner. I watched her pull a leg of some animal, presumably a sheep, off of a shelf and start hacking it up. Of course there was no trimming; she pulled off a few hairs and other pieces of dirt though. Watching her cut it up all I could think was that I would be expected to eat it, and I was terrified. Who knows when the animal was killed, or how long that piece of meat had been sitting on her shelf being eaten by flies. She finished chopping up the leg, and cut up some potatoes and put them in a big pot over the fire to cook. She must have said that she had decided to go to UB, because finally Uunee said “OK, let’s go.” I was so happy, but then the woman invited us to stay and eat, because the food was almost ready. Uunee asked me what I thought about that. I told her that I was worried about eating the meat, because if I did I would be sick. She didn’t understand, and first thought I had a stomach ache from drinking aireg. I told her my stomach was fine now, but that if I ate the meat it would be bad. She still didn’t understand and we went round and round, and finally I explained that Mongolians can eat meat that hasn’t been refrigerated because they are used to it, but Americans can’t, because we aren’t. She finally got it, and told the woman that I couldn’t eat meat, which was answered by an exasperated “yanna.” Uunee then told me that it’s OK in Mongolia to refuse a meal that you don’t want, that “it’s free.” I’m not sure that I believe that, because it is really hard to refuse anything in Mongolia. But we left without eating. I felt bad, but I knew that having food poisoning in a bumpy jeep would have been excruciatingly miserable, so I didn’t feel that bad.

After we left the aireg producers we drove on the Kharkhorin. There are some other PCVs who live there, so I was able to spend the night in Dwan’s ger. At first I was just going to go over for dinner and to hang out, but I guess Uunee thought I meant I would spend the night there when I told her I was going over to my friend’s ger. When we got to Kharkhorin we found a hotel, and Uunee was expecting me to stay at Dwan’s, but I hadn’t really planned on it. Fortunately, when I called Dwan to ask her she said no problem, because there was only one room available in the hotel. Getting to Dwan’s was quite an adventure. I got directions from her, and then had to translate them to my driver. Directions in Mongolia are a bit different than directions in America. More like “turn left at the big rock and when you see the drunk man in a blue del standing in the field go right” We were able to get in the vicinity of Dwan’s ger, which is by the school, but trying to find the right “road” in the dark was next to impossible. I was on the phone with Dwan and trying to tell the driver which way to go from what Dwan told me. It didn’t work out so well, and we took a wrong turn and ended up going in a big circle. Once we were back at the school the driver just stopped and turned off the car. I guess he had lost all confidence in my ability to know where I was going. So Dwan ended up having to walk to the school and get in the jeep with us and guide us to her hashaa. It was good to see people that I haven’t seen in a while. On Wednesday morning I was planning to sit in on one of Dwan’s classes to see what it’s like. She teaches all of her classes by herself, TEFL PCVs are supposed to teach their classes with a Mongolian counterpart, but none of her counterparts stay for the class. She has some trouble with classroom management, as soon as the Mongolian teacher leaves all hell breaks loose.

I had no idea what time Uunee and Hongoroo were going to come to get me, the driver was fixing some things on the jeep in the morning. At about noon, right as Dwan and I had arrived at her school I got a call from Uunee that they were outside Dwan’s hashaa. Of course they couldn’t call me to say they were on the way… So Dwan and I walked back and I got my stuff and left. Before we left Kharkhorin we visited the monastery there, which was really cool. Uunee even talked them into giving me the Mongolian rate to go in the museum. Foreigners pay about three times as much as Mongolians do, but since I live here they were willing to consider me a Mongolian person. After we saw the museum we walked to where a bunch of women had cloths set out on the ground with Mongolian and Buddhist trinkets. Kharkhorin is a big tourist destination, because it is the ancient capital of Mongolia. I walked along and looked at everything; all of them had pretty much the same stuff. Every vendor kept showing me this little turtle thing that is sort of like a Russian doll set, there is a big one with a bunch of little ones in it that pull out. Of all the stuff they had, I’m not sure why they thought I would be so interested in the turtle, but nearly every single one of them tried to get me to buy it. I ended up buying a bracelet with the 8 Mongolian symbols carved into yak bone, and then for the next couple vendors they kept pointing out all the things they had with the 8 Mongolian symbols as well as the turtle.

Uunee, Hongoroo and Me at the Monastary

Our plan for Wednesday was to drive back through Hotont soum, and then on to Tuvshruuleh and then to Tsinker soum to spend the night. On our way back to Hotont I had the most unpleasant discovery that, though the roof of Russian jeeps is padded, there is a metal bar on top of the padding that runs pretty much exactly where your head will hit should you be thrown against the roof. My head did in fact connect with this metal bar as we careened over a rather large bump in the “road,” and it hurt bad enough to bring tears to my eyes. When we arrived in Hotont, Uunee told me that we had to meet up with some driver who had switched batteries with us the day before. Our driver thought our battery was bad, so had switched it out with another driver. But it turned out that the problem wasn’t the battery. So we drove to this guy’s house, but he wasn’t there. We drove to someone else’s house, and he wasn’t there either. So we drove to the government building, only to find out that the driver had waited for us in the morning, but then had to go to some distant bagh with the soum governor. So the plan was to wait until they got back, having no idea when that might be. Uunee told me that if they got back soon then we would go on to Tuvshruuleh and Tsinker, but if it was later we would spend the night in Hotont. The only “hotel” in Hotont is a room off of a guanz with a big bed that every one sleeps on together… Needless to say I wasn’t too terribly excited about that.

So we sat in the jeep on the side of the road where we could see the road where the driver would come back from for about an hour or so. Then we drove to a delguur and sat there for awhile. Finally we were driving some other random place, and happened upon the head of the citizens’ kuural in Hotont. Togoo (our driver) talked to him for a bit, and it was decided that we would go on, and a few days later send the battery back in a different car headed for Hotont, and they would do the same with our battery. Why we couldn’t have come to that conclusion before sitting in the jeep for two hours is beyond my understanding, but I’m sure there is a good reason.

So that decided, we headed to Tuvshruuleh. We were to visit one client who is a wheat farmer, and then another man who is a vegetable farmer who is not a client but I guess Mercy Corps wants him to be. We drove out to the wheat farmer’s ger, only to discover that he wasn’t there, he had gone to UB several days before. But we were invited in for some aireg, of course. I have developed quite a taste for aireg and suutae tse (milk tea) from my trip, as that was pretty much all I drank. After a quick bowl of aireg we were back on our way to Tuvshruuleh. Another PCV, Greg, lives there so I asked if we could stop at his ger so I could say hi to him. I didn’t know where he lived, but as Tuvshruuleh is a small soum, we asked the first person we saw where the “American English teacher” lives, and they told us. So we stopped by his hashaa, but he wasn’t there. So we went on to the vegetable grower’s, but he wasn’t there either. He had also gone to UB, apparently last week was a popular time to go. So we went back to Greg’s to see if we could find him, and we ran into him walking along the road. Greg doesn’t have cell phone access at his site, and has to climb a hill to get it. I don’t think he climbs the hill very often, and I haven’t heard from him in over a month, to it was good to see that he is still alive.

After a pretty much pointless trip into Tuvshruuleh, we headed on toward Tsinker. It had started to snow, so the mountains were all covered and it was a really beautiful drive. By the time we got to Tsinker it was dark, and we stopped at a hotel only to find no one was there. So we drove around and tried to find another hotel, but all of them were “not working.” But then someone told us that the person who runs the first hotel we stopped at had gone home for awhile, but would be back. So we stopped in a guanz and ate some buuz and drank some suutae tse. Then we headed back for the first hotel, and though someone was there, that hotel was also “not working.” So they made the decision to continue on to Battsengel soum, where we were going to go on Thursday, because there are lots of hotels there. So off we went, in the dark in the middle of a snow storm. Sounds like a great idea to me…

After we had been driving for about half an hour of the two hour trip we passed the ger of someone that Togoo knows, so we stopped and he went in to visit for a few minutes. Then we continued on our way, but apparently Togoo lost the road and we were driving over a field of really big bumps. There are a lot of fields like that in Arkhangai, I’m not sure how they are formed but it’s kind of like driving over a slalom field, only about 10 times worse. We were driving over these giant bumps, hanging on to the “oh shit” bars of the jeep for dear life, trying not to be bashed against the roof or the windows for about 10 minutes when we got stuck. At first Togoo tried the whole drive forward and backward to see if he could get out of the mud, but that didn’t work. In my opinion, he did that for far too long, and only served to get us thoroughly stuck. Finally we all got out and were going to try to push the jeep. We saw another car off in the distance, and by blinking a flashlight (flashlights in Mongolia are usually lighters that have a small light attached, very useful little things) we managed to flag them down and they came over to help. It was another jeep packed FULL of guys. That was lucky for us. So Togoo and all the guys tried everything they could think of to get our jeep unstuck. They pushed it, pulled it, tied a rope to it and had the other jeep pull it, even lifted up the back end to try to move the tires out of the foot-deep ruts they were in. Nothing was working. All the while I was standing outside in the middle of the field watching this happen, and Uunee kept trying to get me to sit in the jeep because it was so cold. I kept telling her I was cold, but OK, and that me sitting in the jeep definitely would not help them get it unstuck. Finally they decided to go back to the herder’s ger and get some wood to try to give the wheels some traction. So Uunee, Hongoroo, three of the guys from the other jeep and I sat in our jeep to wait. The guys were smoking in our car, without the windows open which was pretty miserable for us. We couldn’t say anything to them since they were helping us, to we just endured the cloud of smoke circling our heads. About 45 minutes later the other jeep came back with some wood, and they tried the whole thing over again. They lifted up the jeep to put wood under the tires, and then tried to pull it while Togoo gunned the engine. That went on for probably another hour or so, and by this time we had been standing outside in the cold and snow for about 4 hours. I was regretting my decision to wear only one pair of long underwear that day, and pretty much cursing the whole country of Mongolia. Finally I went and just sat in the jeep, because it was pretty clear to me that they were not going to make any progress. They had been doing the same thing over and over, to no avail, and I was tired and grumpy and turning into a popsicle. After about 15 minutes Uunee and Hongoroo got in the jeep and I asked what was going on. Uunee said that they couldn’t get the jeep out. So I asked if we would be sleeping in the jeep, but she said we would go back and stay with the herder family. I said I thought the Mercy Corps rule about not driving at night was probably a good idea, and maybe in the future we should follow it. She felt really bad, and apologized. It really was quite a predicament, because there were no hotels open in Tsinker soum, so we may have had to sleep in the jeep. But in my opinion, that would have been better than getting it hopelessly stuck in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm.

So we got our stuff and piled into the other jeep, I think there were 9 or 10 of us in there. I had to sit on Hongoroo’s lap, and of course, bashed my head on that damn metal bar for the second time that day. That did nothing to improve my already very bad mood. When we arrived at the ger we drank some suutae tse, and they let me sleep on the second bed. The herder family; husband, wife and two small children slept on the other bed and Uunee, Hongoroo and Togoo slept on the floor. Luckily I had my amazing Peace Corps issued sleeping bag with me, so I bundled up in that and covered my head with my coat and was actually quite warm. The ger was really cold though. It hadn’t been winterized yet, so there was only one layer of felt that didn’t quite reach the ground, and the hole in the roof didn’t have glass in it yet. It was cold!

The next morning I awoke in a much better mood, realizing that the experience I was having was truly Mongolian and you can’t pay for that kind of authenticity. Uunee and Hongoroo cooked a meal over the fire while Tuya and Dashka (the herder couple) were out tending to their livestock. Then they came back inside and we ate. Tuya was so friendly, she talked to me in Mongolian and I could actually understand most of what she was saying, and practiced my Mongolian on her. Then she had me help her separate horse mane that she would later make rope with. I have wondered why Mongolians cut the mane off their horses, and now I’ve figured it out. I wish we could have stayed to see the rope being made, because that would be a pretty cool thing to know how to do.

Me and Tuya

Around noon Togoo came back and said that he still couldn’t get the jeep out. So we came back to Tsetserleg in a borrowed car, and Togoo would go back later with some “materials” to get the jeep out. It was kind of sad that our trip had to end so abruptly. But, despite being cold and miserable for 4 hours in the middle of a snowstorm, it was a pretty cool experience. I might even go so far as to say I’m glad it happened, but that might be pushing it a little.

The rest of last week was finished off by the annual Peace Corps consolidation drill. Every year they make us practice consolidating so that they know how quickly they could make it happen should they need to evacuate us. It was nice, because it meant that I had the day off work. I am the subwarden of my Aimag because I'm the only PCV in the Aimag center, so I had to call the other PCVs in Arkhangai and tell them to come in as soon as possible, and I wasn't allowed to go to work, I had to stay at my "consolidation point" aka my apartment until everyone got there.

Consolidation is basically a good excuse for a party (it doesn't take much of one for PCVs). We went out to one of the night clubs in Tsetserleg on Friday night with a couple Mongolian friends and danced. You can't beat really old American pop and bad Mongolian pop for dancing.

On Sunday Rob, Jeff and I decided to climb to the top of Bulgan mountain. Bulgan is the mountain that is right behind my apartment building, it's pretty high (maybe 500 feet?). Definitely the scariest thing I've done in a long time. From the bottom it looks like it is pretty much impossible to climb without ropes, but in actuality it's mostly a pretty easy climb. There was one spot where we misjudged the difficulty a little bit, but once we got up to it we couldn't really turn around, so on we went. It was scary, but we made it with only one murdered water bottle. Rob was carrying the backpack, but he was trying to throw it up to me so he didn't have to climb that spot with it. It was heavy, so he took the water bottles out and threw them up separately. I caught the first one, but the second was not so lucky and bounced a couple times off the rocks before falling about 30 feet and exploding. Whoops.

The Hard Part