On January 28th, Tyler was medically separated from Peace Corps and I decided to take Interrupted Service. This means that we can begin the process to reinstate and return to Mongolia after Tyler receives medical clearance after about three months. I have been told that the reinstatement process is considerably less involved than the initial Peace Corps enrollment process, but that it could take from 3-5 months. We don't have any guarantee that we would return to our site, Khovd, but our country director has said that he would try send us back to Khovd if/when we reinstate.

As for now, we've returned to the United States and are staying with Tyler's family in Pittsburg Texas. His family is currently remodeling their house and have rented a large bed and breakfast, so we're living in the lap of luxury. Yesterday I washed and dried our clothes by machine!

I am currently seeking employment as a teacher and Tyler is setting up his appointments for physical therapy.

Things have not worked out according to plan, but we are glad to be home. Tyler's Papa (his mom's dad) suffered a heart attack this week and has been in the Intensive Care Unit in Tyler, TX until today. He is still in the hospital, but now he's been discharged from the ICU. We are grateful that we could be here now to spend time with Papa.

This has been a very interesting holiday season. Three weeks and a half weeks ago Tyler dislocated his knee cap while wrestling with another volunteer in some approximation the Mongolian style. An MRI showed that he had torn three ligaments, including a bucket handle tear in the meniscus that made it impossible for him to bend his knee more than 30 degrees. Washington received the electronic version of the MRI immediately and the hard copy was also sent there. In the mean time, he stayed in a hotel in Ulaanbatar and we celebrated Christmas. I went to Nalaikh for the New Year to see my host family and Tyler stayed at the hotel. After two weeks, Peace Corps Washington replyed that he should go to Thailand for surgery and I was lucky enough to get to go with him since one of our Peace Corps Medical Officers was on vacation in Hawaii.

Thailand is so beautiful. The food is delicious and plentiful. There are flowers and green things everywhere. It is hot! We saw a traditional dance performance in which there were flying dancers, musicians, a river and elephants--I actually touched one elephant's trunk as it walked through the audience! We also saw the Avatar at an IMAX theater in 3D. The Thai people are very friendly and famous for their smile, but they don't stare at foreigners. In fact, in inclosed spaces like elevators they stare at the floor. It's easy to to get around in Bangkok. The sky train is easy to use, but there is also a river taxi and two types of street taxis--modern and traditional. It seems like everyone there speaks at least a little English. After Ty's surgery while he was sleeping in the hospital I went to the Grand Palace and saw where the King and Queen of Thailand live and I also saw the famous Reclining Buddha.

I didn't want to leave Thailand and I especially didn't want to leave Tyler while he's still recovering from surgery, but I'm grateful that I got to accompany him at all and to stay for the surgery. That really meant a lot to both of us. The Peace Corps staff in Mongolia and in Thailand have done so much to help us in this situation. The Thailand Peace Corps Medical Officer helped us make all of the appointment at the Bumrungrad hospital and she came with us to meet the surgeon the first time. That hospital is like a 5 star hotel.

I'm in Korea now posting from the airport and they've just annouced the boarding call for my flight to Ulaanbatar. Pray for Tyler to heal fast.

Yesterday, two of my friends came over to play games and color pictures: Boba, 4 and Esuixen, 8 are two of Tsagana's 3 children (Tsagana is a friend of mine from work).

Later, Tyler and I went for a long walk with one of my students, Nyamundral, to her grandmother's ger. Her grandfather, now passed, was a councilman who helped to plant the trees that now line the streets of Khovd. Near Nyamundral's grandmother's ger there are groves of Aspen and Willow trees as well as a large garden and current bushes. We enjoyed currant jam and hot current tea at her grandmother's ger as her two nephews entertained us. On our way home, we walked along the Buyant river which is now frozen.

It was my first time to walk on a frozen river. The late afternoon sun reflected on the ice and snow in lines of colorful sparkles that looked like a rainbow on the ground. In some places, the ice was thin and we enjoyed stomping and jumping on it until we fell through to the lower layers of ice crystals.

We had so much fun, but the temperature outside is already -20 degrees Celcius. When we got home I was very numb.

In this game, the students gave each other oral directions in English. The goal was to dunk the bunny in the bucket.

Batna and Buyna (above) gave a good showing in the paper Dance Contest, but Khundiz and Tserenhuu (below) were the winners. The goal was to stay on a piece of paper that the moderator kept folding into a smaller and smaller piece.

The 2nd course English students (sophomore English majors) organized an incredible Halloween party this year complete with bobbing for apples, costume contests, singing, dancing, and other games that I have never seen before. It was a very exciting event. All of the English students attended and really enjoyed. I taught them how to do the Macarena and the Monster Mash and since then my students have not stopped telling me what an excellent dancer that I am! I love Mongolia. No one has ever asked me to teach dances or complimented me after seeing me dance before!

1) As of November 4, there have been 859 laboratory-confirmed casesof H1N1 in Mongolia. There are 690 confirmed cases in Ulaanbaatar. The other 169 cases are in 17 aimags: Khovd (19), Darkhan-Uul (23), Govisumber (16), Uvurkhangai (15), Orkhon (13), Dornogovi (17), Selenge (11), Khentii (11), Dornod (11), Tuv (10), Arkhangai (8), Bulgan (5), Zavkhan (3), Bayankhongor (3), Umnugovi (2), Khuvsgul (1), Uvs (1). No H1N1 cases registered in Bayan-Olgii, Dundgovi, Sukhbaatar and Govi-Altai provinces.Just to lighten things up a bit I have decided to include a picture of me before I got a haircut. This is the longest my hair has ever been and after months of listening to- ahem- a person's request that I get a haircut I did so and just as Sampson of old I have now lost all vitality; colors are not as bright, food does not interest me, and even salt has lost its saltiness.

Well, Rachel asked me if I would be kind enough to write a column for her blog and I thought that I would oblige her considering that she has been asking me to do so for five months now and anyway it looks like it will be another two weeks off from school for me and the rest of the secondary school teachers in Mongolia. That's right the H1N1 has shaken up the country and two weeks ago the education ministry got together and decided that it would be best not to take any chances so they decided fall break would come early this year and all the children rejoiced. Then those same guvment people started thinking that if one week off was good then two weeks ought to be twice as good, which was fine by me since I make the same nine cents an hour whether I am fighting for truth, justice, and the American Way or picking navel lent while using 3-D imaging software to make the coolest tree-house imaginable. Well, things were moving along pretty smoothly for me but the number of people infected with the H1N1 (I do that so as not to upset the pork producers of America. Times are hard enough as it is without having ignorant people think that eating the most delicious of God's creatures causes the flu. I get onto the rest of the foreign devils here whenever they say swine flu because anything that hurts bacon production hurts the U.S.A. and that's unAmerican. No joke, I would stab a unicorn in the neck for a lifetime supply of bacon.)

has about doubled and to keep things from getting even worse the education minister decided that a month off sounded about right. So I have included a picture of me at a Halloween party celebrating the H1N1 holiday. The Piggly Wiggly shirt was just a coincidence.

1.) The Government of Mongolia & The Ministry of Education has announced they will close all secondary schools on 26 Oct 2009. This school closure is earlier than the usual Fall break and may be extended. 2.) At present time there are 135 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in five Aimags in Mongolia.Tyler's school will be closed all next week. However, Khovd University will not be closed and Rachel does not get any time off.Today is a beautiful Saturday with fresh snow on the ground. We will both participate in an international clean air campaign called "350". http://www.350.org/understanding-350

This morning, I watched my aunt Tererai's story online. She was on Oprah! I'm so proud of her. She has worked so hard and has such a beautiful story and now she is sharing it with the world! Check out this link:

http://www.oprah.com/media/20090925-tows_tererai-dream-education

Lately, I have settled into my work routine and I have been missing home and feeling a little down about the work that I'm doing here. Small daily frustrations weigh on me and make me aware of being so far away from my family and friends, but seeing Tererai's video on-line makes me feel connected to home and gives me inspiration at the same time.

Here are some of my friends, English teachers at the university, dressed up for the anniversary show. They performed a military-style dance at the concert.

This is where I sat for the opening ceremony at the stadium--with the honored guests and international visitors.

This is the opening parade.

This is the synchronized aerobics performance. In Mongolia, aerobics is also called "gymnastics".

This is a picture of the wrestling competition.

This is a picture of me with the winning horse.

Horse race!

This is a picture of the panel of distinguished people at the awards ceremony including the governor of Khovd Aimag.

This is a picture of the Academic Conference.

Last week, Khovd University celebrated it's 30-year anniversary. This event was top priority for the University (over and beyond classes) as well as a very important event for the community. Several local secondary schools canceled their classes in order to allow teachers and students to attend. International visitors came from 7 countries for the Academic Conference held on the second day of the anniversary celebration. First however, everyone assembled at the stadium for the opening ceremony.

The teachers and students marched into the stadium in parade formation and the students gave musical and aerobics performances (279 students particpated in the synchronized aerobics performance). Naadam style celebration came next complete with wrestling, archery and horseback racing. I touched the winning horse, which is very good luck.

Later, everyone assembled for a giant awards presentation in which the governor of Khovd, former director of Khovd University, presided.

The first evening, a giant concert was held in the community theater. The teachers and students gave musical and dance performances for nearly four hours. Unfortunately for me, I was one of the unlucky 200 that was locked out of the theater--it seemed that everyone in Khovd wanted to attend the concert.

On the second day, I gave two ten minute speeches at the Academic Conference. Mine were not presentations based on long reasearch projects, but rather short speeches that I wrote these last couple of weeks. One of my them was entitled Shakespeare's Macbeth: One Example of Why English Language Students Should Study Literature, the other was about teaching methodology: Teaching Adult Students Using the Communicative Approach. I was the only person there representing the United States as well as the only person to give speeches in English. My friend, Amraa bagsh, who is the head of the English-Chinese department at Khovd University, translated for me. I wish that all of the other speakers (who gave their speeches in Mongolian and Russian) would have had translators as well because I couldn't understand very much of the other speeches!

The following are pictures taken from my balcony (the red building is the community theater where live performances are given at least once a week) and pictures of the main square and street in town. You might notice that there is not very much traffic in Khovd.

Last weekend, the principal of Tyler's school, Oyunchimeg bagsh, took us to meet her mother in the countryside. (That's her in the purple del.) As soon as we got there, the goats were ready to be milked.After milking, EEJ (mother) served us cream and mongolian vodka (which is distilled from milk).Later, we went horseback riding.

This is the road that we traveled to get there.

Tyler and I are really happy to be placed in Khovd, a city famous in Mongolia for watermelon and vegetables. Here are some pictures from a recent harvest festival / handicraft fair.

Look how big that cabbage is compared to Tyler's hand!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32736713#32736713

Peace Corps Mongolia has been in the news this last week. Follow this link to listen to our director, Jim Carl, speak about our work here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/anna.keegan/Mongolia02?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvoq_Hh6ojlLQ&feat=email

My friend Anna has posted some pictures from our training.

Today is the first day of school in Khovd, not only at the university where I work, but also at the seven secondary schools. This morning, on my way to teach American Literature to 3rd year English major students, I walked past many children in new school uniforms with new backpacks and new shoes. Smaller children were led by there mothers, holding mom's hand. Older children walked in groups of 4 or 5, arm in arm, speaking to eachother happily and with excitment. There were so many more people than I had ever seen at once crossing the city square! The announcers were blowing and instruments were playing and at every school opening ceremonies were held: songs were sung and speeches were given. When I arrived at my classroom at 8:00, the students were not there and the door was locked. They were all at the opening ceremony!

My students arrived at 9:28, two minutes before our class was scheduled to end. Needless to say, I didn't give the lecture that I had planned for today, but I did get the chance to speak to my new students and introduce myself to them. I am very excited about the new school year and getting to know my students! I will also be teaching Freshman and Senior English Practice classes, running the university English club, and teaching a seminar for the English teachers.

Now that I have a set schedule and access to the Internet in my office, I will be making more regular blog entries... I have many pictures to post. I hope that you all are well. Tyler and I are very happy in our new city, Khovd or "Hovd", the center of Western Mongolia. This is a very interesting city with many different ethnic groups and cultural events.

This is my friend Mona (another Peace Corps Trainee) with some children from another Ryan's host family and neighbor's family (Ryan is also a Peace Corps trainee).

This is picture of my host family's home--my host dad, Batrentsen, with Tyler and my host mom's younger sister.

Since everyone liked the Boetz, I have inclued a couple of pictures of huushuur. This is like Boetz, only bigger and fried. AMTTETEI! Very delicious!!

Last weekend I went to the capital city to learn about some of the unversities that are there. UB is a very modern city and the universities that I visited had computer labs and technologically advanced lecture halls.

We didn't have much time for shopping, but I purchased some hand-painted cards from an artist: this is him and my friend Baldra. She likes to make jewelry!

We also went to eat at an Indian restaurant. Delicious!

Peace Corps has been keeping us very busy with many different types of training sessions. In addition to Mongolian language classes (everyday for four hours), we have also been participating in community development training, cross-culture training and TEFL training (teaching English as a foreign language). Most of this training has been very interesting.

For example, in one community development training activity we were asked to bring one member of our host family on a community walk. As we walked around Nalaikh, our host family members pointed out different buildings and landmarks and told us about them (one of our trainers acted as a translator for this activity). We visited several points of interest such as the cultural center built by the Chinese in 1958 in symbolism of Chinese-Mongolian friendship, the large statue dedicated to the local coal miners, the cookie factory, the newspaper office, the surgery hospital, the kindergarten, the post office, etc. Then, we returned to the GOLOMT school (where we have our training classes). There, our trainers divided us into two groups (Peace Corps trainees and host family members). Each group was asked to make a map of the city, to circle the three most important community landmarks or places, to designate the places where we spend time, and to list at least three things that the community needs. Although both groups listed a youth sports center as one of the things that the community needs, our host family members pointed out that the city was in need of a public library, new apartments, and a dry cleaner. These were all things that we hadn’t even considered.

For one of our cross-culture training sessions, we visited a local family’s ger. We were served milk tea and milk treats as their five-year-old daughter, Tuul, recited a very long and beautiful poem about all of the good things that mothers do for their children. We learned ger etiquette, how to build a fire, and we talked about how to winterize a ger. Then, we went outside and learned to saw and chop firewood. We were all very impressed by their garden and greenhouse. I really enjoyed this hands-on training session!

Our TEFL training has included practice teaching. We have been working with a partner since we are most likely to work with a Mongolian counterpart once we get to our sites. It has been very helpful to practice teaching English to Mongolian students and to learn different techniques for teaching foreign language without using translations.

I feel that this has all been very good preparation for the work that I will be doing after training... but even if it isn’t, I have been enjoying!

After language class, my host parents and couple of my host mom’s friends taught me how to make BOETZ (Mongolian dumplings).

Recipe: 1. Chop partially frozen mutton into very small pieces. 2. Add cubes of sheep fat. 3. Add chopped green and yellow onion. 4. Add salt and powdered bouillon. 5. Add small amounts of water and mash with hands. (this is the stuffing) Next: 1. Make a dough with refined wheat flour and water. 2. Flatten small pieces of dough into small tortillas 3. press stuffing into BOETZ 4. Steam for twenty minutes. 5. Serve with ketchup and enjoy!

We also played “ankle bones”—they’re actually sheep bones. It’s the national game of Mongolia. The bones can lay 4 different ways: “Mur”-horse, “Timee”-camel, “Yama”-goat, or “Hun”-sheep. The bones are rolled like dice. Players must try to flick one bone to touch a matching bone without disturbing any of the other bones. Also, if all of the bones match, then players must try to be the first to grab all of them. I really enjoyed!

This weekend, my host parents have been teaching me to play Mongolian card games. At first I was very confused, but after several hours of playing I think that I've learned to play ‘HOSIN’-cards well. On Sunday evening, Tyler came to visit and we all played HOOTZER together.

In Zuunmod, Tyler convinced Nargui, one of the Mongolian Peace Corps trainers (who is also an Elvis impersonator by night) to teach him a few Mongolian wrestling moves. We were treated to a traditional music presentation (this traditional stringed instrument has a horse's head).

The landscape is beautiful... open spaces, mountains, flowers.. and animal bones (including horse skulls).

This is a picture of me wearing a modern style del.

After spending five days in Zuunmod with the other M20s (twentieth group of Mongolian Peace Corps volunteers), Tyler and I have moved to Nalaikh in the Ulaanbaatar province along with 10 other Peace Corps volunteers. We will all live with Mongolian host families here throughout the summer. The weather so far has been very cold (the temperature is 14 degrees Celsius during the daytime and the wind is blowing steadily, but it is very sunny). Unfortunately, I left all of my sweaters, wool socks, corduroy pants and coat in my “winter bag” that Peace Corps stored for us in Zuunmod and will not have access to those clothes until August. My host family and several of the locals have assured me that it will get warmer after a few days.

My host parents, Batrentsen and Tsetsegmaa, are very nice people in their early 40s. They have a very good relationship with each other—always joking and laughing, and they are very happy to have me at their home. We live in a modern apartment with electric appliances and a hot water heater in the shower. I am staying in the largest bedroom while my host parents are sleeping on the pull-out sofa bed. I’m fairly certain that they gave up their bedroom for me. They have two daughters: Bolortsetseg, 22, and Battsetseg, 24. Bolortsetseg is living in Korea for the summer (everyone in my host family speaks Korean, but only Batsetseg—Baggui speaks a little English), and Baggui lives here. She stays in the small room at the front of the apartment, which will be my host mother’s father’s room when he gets home from the hospital. He is 90 years old.

Tyler is living with an elderly couple in a house. I have only met his host mother. Since Tyler and are living in the same city, we will be able to see each other every weekday during language class (4 hours) and maybe during training sessions as well. We are both very happy with our host family situations.

It's great to spend time outside enjoying the beautiful spring weather with good friends! Today Tyler spent the day learning to fly fish with Don Oglesby. Rachel went hiking around the rock quarry behind the Trent residence with Marie VanPatten, Sheen Joseph and Lexi dog.

Life

Our life flooded in ruin

Washed away with the storm

Broken

Our family photographs

Mama’s state flower quilt

And

Our house spilled on the street

Gutted wooden carcass

Ruined

Our insurance money

Pocketed by a crook

Transformed

Our FEMA house a home

Flowers planted in hope

Through

Our faith in God’s promise

We find hope and courage

Faith

Our rainbow is the church

Baptism in prism

And

Our flowers stretch toward light

Reborn out of water

Love

Our brothers and sisters

Renew us through Christ’s love

After months of waiting for a Peace Corps placement, we have finally learned that we will be leaving in June for Mongolia for 27 months. After we go to our work site, Tyler will be working as an English teacher at a secondary school and Rachel will be training English teachers. For the first three months however, we will live in Darkhan with separate host families where we will receive training in Mongolian language and culture as well as job-specific training.

In the meantime, we are enjoying our last few months with our family and friends as well as stocking up on long underwear!