by Kara

I read what Mark posted earlier today and thought it wasvery nicely composed. I don’t want to compete with his post, but thought thatmaybe I should share some of my own thoughts.

For me, right now it just feels like we’re packed up to goon vacation. It’s hard to mentally process that we may never come back to thiscountry again and even more, that we may never see some of our Mongolian andPCV friends again. I think it’s going to take some time for that to set in.

When we were applying for the Peace Corps I was so excitedto live in another country and have everyday experiences like going groceryshopping be interesting and like a small adventure. Now, after two years,rather than feeling like an adventure, sometimes it’s just tiring to have asimple task like grocery shopping be a cumbersome experience. I’m actually lookingforward to being able to go grocery shopping and not have everybody stare at meand to not have a confusing interaction with the cashier.

On the other hand, I still love the attention I get fromkids in Arkhangai just walking around town. Everyday there are always at leasta few kids who shout, “HI! HI! HI!” Other PCVs have gotten tired of this, but Istill love it. The kids are adorable. Now I’m going to go back to the US and I’m justgoing to be another boring adult. And if I give a piece of candy to some kid onthe street (perfectly acceptable here), people are going to think I’m akidnapper. Great.

Then again, I’m really excited for Mark and I to start afresh, new life together again in Seattle.I can’t wait to be busy learning (as a grad student at UW) and working(hopefully I’ll secure a job soon). Having struggled with a huge languagebarrier in my work in Mongolia,I’m especially looking forward to working with people who are all fluent in thesame language as me. I know I’ll face challenges, but at least we’ll be able tocommunicate with one another.

Clearly, there are a lot of things I know I’m going to missabout Mongolia (it’simpossible to list them all here) and a lot of things I’m looking forward to inthe US.

I can’t yet say exactly how my service as a PCV in Mongolia haschanged me for the long-term. Those close to me may be able to indicate thesechanges better than I can. I hope that it’s made me more patient andunderstanding. I definitely think it’s made me more understanding of people whoare living in another country and attempting to speak a non-native language. Ialso really admired a lot of the generosity I found in my Mongolian friends andcoworkers and I’ve hoped that would rub off on me… However, I’m not confidentthat it has. That’s still something I’m working on.

There are little things that are with me now but may go awaywith time. If my foot bumps somebody else’s foot I feel the urge to shake theirhand. I may be a bit pushy in ATM lines and stand a little to close to theperson in front of me, worried somebody might cut. I won’t be as disappointedif the item I order at a restaurant isn’t there. (Last night we went to arestaurant called Thai Cuisine and after ordering were told that Thai food is notavailable.) And don’t be too surprised if you catch me loudly slurping up hotbeverages.

Well, that’s all the insight I’ve got right now… I’m goingto go back to looking up tips online for how to travel with a cat on a plane. Here’shoping she swallows her pills and sleeps the whole time! Mark and I might posta follow-up post or two from the US,but this marks the last one from Mongolia! Bayartai! Thanks forfollowing our blog!

by Mark

Today is July 26th, 2011 here in Mongolia. Kara and I have spent the past week in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar where we've been finishing up our Close-of-Service (COS) paperwork for Peace Corps. As of July 24th, midnight, we became RPCV's...(the R means Returned...which we soon will be in actuality).

It's really hard to put into words how we feel right now. I know my feelings are different than Kara's...and I know our memories are different as well. Honestly, leaving Arkhangai was harder than leaving Mongolia will be. We fly out later tonight, but in many ways it feels like our time in Mongolia has already concluded. When we were packing our things in our apartment, it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might. It's a strange feeling knowing that you came to this country with two large bags and two carry-on items...and yet we'll leave carrying the same baggage. Yes, we've swapped out our old clothes for some of the gifts we received from members of our community. We've thrown out old shoes, and donated other items to friends, future PCV's, and even an orphanage. And yet, we're about to get on a plane carrying the same amount of weight as when we arrived over 2 years ago.

During our last 48 hours at our site, we had many different friends and co-workers want to stop by and visit, or take us out for a meal, or give us a small gift so that we'll remember them when we've left. It was a wonderfully kind show of affection. The most common question we received was "when will you return to Mongolia?". And honestly, we don't know. It's easy to joke about returning in 10 years...or telling people we'll return when we've had children and we can all reminisce about our 2 years in Arkhangai together. But the reality is we just don't know. And not knowing when you'll return can make leaving even harder than leaving a place you know you'll return to.

Before we left, my co-workers presented me with the "engraved" version of the bowl they gave me when we were camping. I asked them to have the text be engraved in Mongolian so that I can at least try to remember a few words of this language whenever I look at it. They've been incredibly giving to me over the past couple of years, and I hope that the "work" we've done in Mongolia, together, will be something they remember whether I return in the future or not.

The day we left Arkhangai we were told we'd be picked up at around 10am. Then that got changed to 2pm. Then we got a call at 1:15 saying they were coming to get us. Luckily, we were ready. We packed all our things into our micro-bus, including our cat Mishka (who is coming back with us!), and prepared for our final goodbyes. One of our friends from the community called me, asked us to wait, and said he was jumping on his motorbike and would drive down to see us off. And just before it was time to leave, a group of my co-workers arrived in a separate vehicle, told Kara and I to join them, to leave our bags, and informed our driver we'd meet them a little ways down the road.

They drove us out to the archway/gate at the edge of Tsetserleg where the rest of my staff was waiting to see us off. We all shared one last toast of Chinggis vodka, passed around some candy, and waited for our ride to appear through the gateway. I had a really hard time keeping it together. I couldn't say anything to my co-workers for fear that I'd really start tearing up...so instead I just tried to smile. When it came time for us to go, Kara and I were gripped with heart-felt hugs from everyone. And then we drove away.

I've had a lot of time here in UB to think about the completion of our service. To ponder what it means to "finish" something like volunteer development work. Our period of service is finishing, but what we've been doing and why we've been doing it will not end when we get on the plane. There are thousands of volunteers all over the world that are continuing to do what we've had the privilege to experience these past 2 years. And more importantly, we have friends that will stay here for at least another year.

As I was typing this I received a call from our sitemate Tim Jenkins. He will be the only volunteer in Arkhangai until the incoming trainees get placed. He used to tell us all the time that he's not sure how he feels about being left alone. He used to joke that we should stay to keep him company. And when he realized that we were really leaving he would just randomly quote the phrase "one man walks alone". But his phone call this morning was to tell me the following, "last night I realized that it won't be 'one man walks alone' when that man has the spirit of his friends with him all the time".

Our time here is coming to an end, but I hope that the spirit of what we've done here in Mongolia continues to live on. And I hope that our friends, of every nationality, know that Mongolia will continue to be a part of our memories for the rest of our lives. So it is with a mix of sadness, hope, joy, and amazement that I am saying goodbye to our relatively short time in Mongolia.

by Mark

I might as well warn you up front...if you don't like seeing or hearing about small animals being prepared as a meal, don't bother to watch or read on. Though really these animals had been dead for awhile, it's still a rather "uncivilized" form of food prep. But hey, they're still considered a delicacy...and it takes a long time to prepare them. My staff considered it mandatory that we get one last taste on this most recent trip to Blue Lake. I know we've talked about having marmot in the past, but this time I decided to take some video of the preparation.

First, the heads are cut off and innards are removed. The choice pieces of "innards" are then placed back inside, along with a handful of onion. Then you take stones the size of baseballs that have been heating in the coals of a fire and stuff them down inside until the animal is "full". Tie off the neck. These hot rocks serve to cook the meat from the inside out...then the outside is cooked using the following technique (enjoy the "barbarity"!):

by Mark

Kara and I just returned from a 3 day trip to Hukh Nuur (Blue Lake) here in Arkhangai. We were told it's not a very common trip for foreigners to take, other than on horseback, and we soon figured out why. Between the massive boulders, rivers that were easily 3-4 ft deep in spots, and the absolute middle-of-nowhere location, it's not an easy trek to make no matter what form of transportation you have.

It was beautiful countryside we passed through, and other than the massive number of flies and mosquitoes, it was great to be outside sleeping in tents and walking through such untouched land. There were 15 of us that went on the trip - it was partly a summer getaway, a thank you to some of my staff, and partly a goodbye trip for Kara and I. We swam in the rivers, cooked over an open fire for every meal, shared traditional meals as well as some of the more rare ones (marmot!), and generally baked in the 80 degree sunshine!

My staff presented me with a couple of gifts. First, they gave me a signed certificate from the governor of Arkhangai acknowledging the past 2 years of work I've done here. Then as a gift from all of the staff members I've worked with I was presented with a blue "hadak" (symbolic blue cloth) and a brass cup or "ayag" that is presently being engraved with a short message. In return I gave a short speech, mentioning some of my favorite memories of each of my staff members and then concluded by giving them a photobook with pictures of memories from the past 2 years.

As expected this trip reminded us rather starkly of all the things we find beautiful and fascinating about Mongolia and it's people...but it also reminds us of some of the hardships we/they face on a daily basis. We have learned to have an incredible level of patience in this country - sometimes because "waiting" will bring about the best moments, but other times the "waiting" is simply not worth it in our minds. But that's ok. In the end, we have the memories to look back on...and of course the photos:

(no sound, only pictures)

We figured we might as well give you as much audio/visual stimulation as possible. Here is a photo slideshow of the 2011 Naadam festival in Arkhangai set to some really cool Mongolian music by the band Altan Urag. Make sure to have your speakers on for each of the following videos.

If you would like to see the individual photos used in the slideshow and read a few more descriptive captions for each please check out Kara's FB photo album "Naadam 2011".

Also, here is a video of a dance during the opening ceremonies. The quality is poor and it's only about a minute of the full dance, but essentially what you're seeing is a large group of choreographed women dancing with 6 small bowls stacked on their heads. The dance involves them taking them off, putting them back on, spinning around, moving all over the place...and obviously NOT dropping any of the bowls.

And lastly, here's a quick video of the final 4 wrestlers prepping for their matches by walking up to the flagpole, waving their arms in the traditional eagle dance, and basically offering thanks/respect to Mongolia.

In just a few short hours, Kara and I will be traveling with 20+ of my counterparts to Blue Lake for a 3 day retreat/camping trip to celebrate our work over the past 2 years. Upon our return, we'll only have 2 short days left in Arkhangai. Hopefully we'll have some beautiful pictures to upload following this final excursion as well.

by Mark

I wanted to get these up on the blog because they are just too entertaining. We're right in the middle of the 3 day Naadam Festival in Arkhangai, and we've recently witnessed two Americans take on the Mongolian men in wrestling. Both of these men were named Tim. One is our sitemate, the other is a visitor from the States who is writing a book on wrestling traditions in other cultures. This first video is of our sitemate Tim getting thrown down by a rather large Mongolian man. Needless to say, he lost his match in the 1st round. (Sorry the quality is so poor!)

The second video is of the other Tim...he manages to take down one of the largest Mongolians on the field. After a few minutes of holding each other, we managed to capture video of the takedown. It's quite impressive. And really just a great move. Enjoy.

We'll try to post more pictures and video in the coming days. Hopefully...

by Mark

It's obviously been much too long since I last wrote (about 2 months!)...however, I have an excuse. I've actually been working! Well, traveling for work is a more appropriate description. A few months back when I realized that my grant funded unique business competition was going to be completed by May, I thought to myself "you should plan some sort of work for June so that you're not 'bored' at work during your last few weeks in Mongolia". I decided to push myself to do two more trainings for the tourism industry of Arkhangai - this time focusing on marketing.

So I told my staff that I wanted to travel to Tariat and Tsenker soums (if you remember from previous posts these are two of the tourist hot-spots of Arkhangai) to meet with some of the managers/staff of the ger camps. I also decided that I wanted to bring along two additional local trainers - preferably one that has been working with me for awhile as well as another "newbie" who might like to see how I lead/facilitate trainings for these groups. You know "capacity building" and all that good stuff! My goal was to lead a 3-4 hour session on the 4P's of marketing as it pertains to the Arkhangai tourism industry, gather some feedback, do some pre- and post-testing, and pass out some materials (brochures/posters) we'd created for the businesses involved in the www.travelarkhangai.com project.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, but I did want to mention that we learned a lot from the first training that we implemented in the second training. The results were much better. In fact, our first stop (Tariat) had the pre- and post- test results both equal exactly 61%. There are multiple factors for this that I won't go into, but we pinpointed them and a few days later when we were in Tsenker we had pre-tests at 67% and post-test results at 86%!! We had 23 participants from 14 different companies attend in total. Overall I'd say it was a success, and if nothing else, it was a really fun time for me and my staff as these were my final soum trainings.

We had our training in Tariat inside one of the gers - we split the group into two teams. Here I'm getting feedback from one team on how the tourism industry has been utilizing marketing techniques.

Here the other team is presenting after our "activity". I had the two teams initially write at the top of the paper a fake company name. Then my two assistants grabbed the paper and swapped them with the other team's paper. Now taking what the other team wrote, the new team had to write what product that company sold. We swapped after each topic was written about - pricing, target markets, ways to promote the products, etc. The final presentation of the "company" that your team was left with was quite entertaining. It was all done to show how marketing plans need to evolve as more information comes to light.

The training group in Tariat. Here we had 1 representative from 10 different ger camps.

Afterward we decided to go fishing in White Lake (that's my driver Tsogoo) - a mere 100 meters from the training site.

Do you like our band's album cover?

These were my two local trainers, Khorlo and Nowroo

A trip out to Tariat isn't complete without the "gorge" photo - I believe I now have one of these during every season in Mongolia.

The same training at Tsenker soums' Duut Resort. Different feel being inside a gigantic log cabin resort instead of a ger.

Here I have the one group drawing a price/quality matrix for a company/product of their choosing. I learned some valuable insight - for one, this group believes that Mercedes Benz makes a low quality, low price product. This led to all sorts of fun conversations and attempted explanations!

In Tsenker we had 13 attendees from all 4 camps in the area. One group sent 6 of their young staff members for the training. And they were all quite smart. I was thrilled.

This time we decided volleyball would be our relaxation/sport following the training. It's hard to tell but what appears to be beautiful grass around our feet is actually probably 30% wild onions! They were so good. You could just snap the greens off and chew on it while you played. Of course we all joked that I wouldn't be able to kiss any of the pretty girls afterward.

On the way back after all our work was done, we took a different route. After coming up over a hill, we found ourselves staring at some of the largest fields of wild flowers I've seen here. This particular part was all orange but others were all white, or all yellow, and they'd just blend one area right into the other. This is us pretending to look comfortable as thousands of bugs attacked!

And why not one more flower photo! We took dozens. This was actually us jumping toward the camera but it took too late and instead it appears that we've all just fallen down. Needless to say, we enjoy our time on these trips and I'm going to miss hanging out with my staff at trainings.

by Kara

A spastic update on life lately...

We've got a little more than a month left in Mongolia - that's it! It's crazy. I haven't fully mentally prepared myself for returning to the US. I've been so busy lately helping train the new group of volunteers that just arrived that I haven't had much time to sit down and think about all my own stuff.

Training the new volunteers has been fun (and tiring). It's fun to see all their enthusiasm and excitement. Until talking to them I had completely forgotten what it was like to arrive in Mongolia for the first time. It makes me realize how comfortable I've become with many aspects of life here and how normal so many things seem. It's hard trying to balance giving them an optimistic, yet realistic view of what their Peace Corps service might be like, but I'm trying. The worse part about training is that we spend 4 to 5 hours a day commuting from our office to the site their training is at. One day last week we had a tire blowout which extended our time on the road even longer. Not fun. BUT I do get to drive past herds of camels everyday, which still doesn't fail to excite me.

Though most of my mental effort is focused on training, I am thinking about life in the US a bit. I register for classes next week (!) and I'm job-searching. I'm hoping to find a part-time research assistant position at the university. These positions include a paycheck PLUS complete tuition coverage. Obviously that would be awesome and would ensure I wouldn't have to take out any student loans, but of course, these positions are highly coveted. I got really excited about one position that I applied for last week and just got an email from those in charge of hiring asking us applicants to be patient, as they received over 100 applications. Yikes. 100. Those are some tough odds.

Anyway, that's all I've got for this quick update for now. I don't even have any pictures to upload because I'm at an internet cafe and don't have access to my photos right now. Sorry! I'll be finishing up my portion of training next week then heading back home to Arkhangai for the remainder of our time in Mongolia. While in Arkhangai I'll be helping with a 4H exchange program that's bringing some American teenagers to Arkhangai to live with host families. We'll probably take them to my work's summer camp. We've also got Naadam (horse-racing, archery, wrestling) and then of course saying goodbye to everybody, packing up our stuff, giving away lots of stuff, etc. Crazy! Time is flying!!

by Kara

Saturday, May 21, 2011 was Arkhangai Aimag’s First Annual Health Fair! This event was made possible thanks to funding we received from the Millennium Challenge Corporation and from wonderful people in America who donated to the cause. A big thanks goes out to those who donated, particularly Mark’s parents.

We’d been talking about this fair with our counterparts for months and months but as things often happen here in Mongolia, much of the planning came down to the last minute. We were scrambling the week of the event to get everything ready. But in the end, the event happened and went pretty well.

The event included 4 main events:

1) 5K Community Walk and Run

This ended up being a little less than 5K, as we just used a course the PE teachers already knew about and could easily explain to everybody. It also just ended up being a run, rather than a big community walk, but that’s okay. We had adults and students participate (separately) and it was a lot of fun. And everybody who participated got a t-shirt custom printed for the event!

Lining up to sign up for the 5K. It was all about matching track suits.

Pointing out the course

And the adults are off!

Part of the race involved avoiding yaks. Yak-attack = disqualification

The finish line

2) Poster Contest

We invited students to submit posters that were related to the theme of tobacco and alcohol use and the effects the use of these substances can have on people’s lives. The submissions were really great. The winning poster will be printed on a bigger poster and displayed in town.

Two of the winnersThis one was pretty, and supposedly it was supposed to represent an alcohol and tobacco free life, but it was a bit of a stretch. It also looked like they just copied it from a book. But it was so pretty...

3) Nutrition Trivia Contest

Students were invited to participate in a trivia contest about nutrition and healthy eating. All 10th grade students have learned about this material in lessons throughout the school year.

4) Cooking Contest

All schools were invited to participate in a healthy cooking contest. The school cooks were asked to involve students in this as well. This was the least successful part of the event, as fewer schools turned out than we had hoped. The date of the entire Health Fair was changed from May 14 to May 21 at the last minute and some of the schools had prepared to compete on May 14 and were unable to participate on May 21. Though our counterparts were able to deal with so many aspects of last minute changes, this is one part that suffered. Hopefully they can do this next year with fewer last minute changes and better communication to all schools.

Event planners and winning cooks

Overall the event was a lot of fun. Again, thanks so much to our donors for help making this happen! We hope it’ll happen again next year too.

by Kara

Though it's hard for Mark and I to believe, the end of our 2 years of service is coming to an end soon! We received official approval from our Peace Corps Mongolia Country Director to conclude our service and fly home July 24!!!

However, before that day comes, we still have a lot to do. Mark is busy finishing up projects at work, including the final reports for his unique business and unique product competition, training his counterparts on how to maintain the Travel Arkhangai website, and a couple more tourism trainings for local businesses.

I'm heading off to the city of Darkhan next week to take part in a two-week training of trainers. I've been asked to help train the incoming group of Community Youth Development volunteers. This is what Mark did last year after we returned from vacation. I'll be gone about 5 weeks total, spending 2 weeks preparing the trainings and 2 1/2 weeks actually doing the training. Although this means time apart from Mark (and our cat Mishka!) I'm looking forward to a change of pace and a change of scenery. Things at my work have slowed down a lot for me lately and I'm not very busy. If you know me, you know I like to be busy. Plus, it'll be fun to see a fresh group of people newly embarking upon their experience here in Mongolia. Mark is planning to try and come visit me in Darkhan sometime in the middle of my training too, hopefully around the time of our anniversary.

After I return from training I'll spend some time at my organization's summer camp. Then we'll celebrate Naadam (horse racing, archery, and wrestling summer festival) here in Arkhangai, hand out some more helmets to child jockeys, and after, pack up our apartment! We'll head into UB a few days before our official Close of Service date to do gobs of paperwork and medical check-ups.

It's going to be a little odd and possibly anti-climatic because PCVs from our group are departing at different dates throughout the summer, so there's not exactly one big good-bye party. In fact, we've already realized we've seen some people for the last time in Mongolia and didn't even do a proper goodbye. We've already started trying to convince people to come visit us in Seattle and hope to visit others in the future too. In fact, some PCVs are already planning a two-year reunion in New Orleans where at least 4-5 PCVs from our group are planning to live -- a few of them planning to live together even!

To make our return home a little sweeter we've also planned a short vacation in San Francisco on our way home! We're visiting one of my best friends and her husband there. And I've never been to San Francisco so while they're busy working during the days, we're going to explore the city. Then, I'll be home in time to spend my birthday at home with our friends and families!

I'm not sure what kinds of photos to include on a blog like this, but a blog post is boring without any, so here are some from events as of late.

Ondor-ulaan soum, about 2-3 hours away from where we live. Mark visited it last week with the national Mercy Corps director.

Bulgan Mountain. This image is used on everything and seen everywhere throughout our town so it's a bit tired to us, but I have to admit, it is pretty. It's a very short walk away from our apartment.

And then there's the occasional dumpings of spring snow. Ugh. This was last week.

I held my last Zumba fitness class this week! The girls are super cute and I'm going to miss this them. Two of them have come to almost every single class since October so I made them certificates and gave them some jump ropes as gifts (to keep up with their strict exercise routine over the summer). For our last class we ended up doing about 10 minutes of Zumba and spent the rest of the time taking pictures and eating cookies. :)

by Kara

Last weekend Mark and I talked to our sitemates Sarah and Tim and decided that Saturday would be a great day to head to the river for a picnic. The weather was supposed to get bad on Sunday, but Saturday was supposed to be 61 degrees. So we met up around 2:00 and a couple of Mongolian friends joined us. It started out alright and we tried convincing ourselves it was a nice spring day - Tim was wearing shorts, Sarah a dress and flipflops. But then, a rare thing started happening - it started to rain... "Oh, I'm sure it'll pass over..."

After walking for at least an hour we arrived at the river and started eating. The men, in an effort to show us their skills, made a fire, for which we were all very thankful as the temperature started to drop...

Look how strong they are!Success!After eating Mark and Tim discussed the best method for fishing. Tim had brought his fishing pole, some hooks he had spent the morning searching for at our local market, and a ping pong ball for a bobber, but the selection of bait was lacking. Bread? Corn? Canned mackerel? He tried his best, but unfortunately, he was unsuccessful.

After enjoying some smores and delicious cake that Sarah made, we realized the increasingly steady pour of rain was not letting up and we should probably head back. Sarah and Tim were jokingly scolded by our Mongolian friends for not dressing appropriately, while Mark and I were praised for our preparedness. I pulled out two shirts, a scarf, hat, and gloves from our backpack for the walk home. Unfortunately, the weather kept getting worse and worse. Poor Sarah and Tim were miserable and cold to the bone. Mark and I were chilled too, but not quite as bad. Tim said on the walk home, which took about an hour and 15 minutes, that this was the coldest he'd ever been in Mongolia! Here's a picture, but it's kind of impossible to show how cold we felt. (And let's hope Sarah doesn't read our blog because she'd hate to know this picture of her, with Tim's socks on under flip-flops and Mark's huge coat draped over her, was floating around the interweb.)

All in all it was a fun day and definitely a memorable one!

by Kara

Every year Peace Corps holds a Close of Service Conference for all of the volunteers finishing up their second year of service. Our conference was April 27-29. Out of the original 69 volunteers who came to Mongolia we had 48 in attendance at the conference. If you're wondering, that's not too bad of a rate. I've heard that overall, Mongolia has a better retention rate than other PC countries, despite what you might think. Maybe we come to Mongolia with lower expectations than those PCVs who end up Fiji and think life is going to be a beautiful paradise everyday. (As I write this, it is May 10 and there's a huge snow storm occurring outside.)

Anyway, the conference was a time for us to spend time with our fellow PCVs, reflect upon our experiences together, and talk about post-Peace Corps life. There were some boring sessions and some interesting ones and fun activities in the evenings. It was great to get to spend a few solid days with all the PCVs. And it was interesting to see who has changed a lot, stayed exactly the same, or just changed somewhat (in most cases, for the better).

Hear are some highlights!

Day 1: The ger camp we stayed at.

It was warm and sunny and beautiful.

And less than 48 hours later we woke up to 6 inches of snow and freezing cold weather.

It continued to snow the entire day and the guys even had to get out of our bus on our way out of the camp to help push it. Typical spring weather in Mongolia.

One of our evening activities was a cooking contest. I was smart and joined a team with amazing cooks - that's us! We made fish tacos, beef tacos, (I made a million tortillas), two kinds of salsa, a peanut noodle dish (we had to make a Mongolian dish with at twist) and bananas dipped in chocolate and coconut for dessert. It was delicious and all made completely from scratch!Ashlee and I

Chaos in the kitchen.

WE WON!!! The judges joined us for this photo-op.

The three married men playing Monopoly dealAll the PCVs! Mark and I are in the back and you can't actually see my face in the photo...

by Mark

What started as an idea last August came to fruition in the past couple of weeks. Myself and counterparts from three different organizations that I work with here in Mongolia developed and launched "Arkhangai's 1st Annual Unique Business/Product Idea Competition". The aim being to foster an environment in our entire province that is open and welcoming for creative ideas to expand the types of businesses in the marketplace.

We opened up the application season March 1st with a goal of receiving 30+ applications. After advertising via television, flyers, banners, and newspaper we closed the application period on March 31st. We had received an incredible 56 applications from 15 different towns! But we only had money/space enough for 10 applicants to attend the training portion of the competition. We had to rate all of the applications so that we could choose the ten best to attend this second part of the competition - a week-long Business Plan/Proposal Development Training that would be mandatory for any applicant that was chosen. During the week, the trainees would be given all the basic knowledge through lecture, projects, guest speakers, and multiple skilled trainers to develop their full business plan - including 10+ hours of one-on-one work with a consultant who would help them with the financials and other technical aspects of the business plan writing.

As an added incentive the ten trainees were in the running for the grand prize: 1,500,000₮ (roughly $1200). But there was a catch...the money wouldn't just be handed to them in cash/check form. Instead, this prize money could only be obtained in the form of re-imbursement for any interest payments made on loans necessary to implement their winning business plan. Meaning, "Winner A" must actually start his business and make interest payments on his loan before he can approach our organization for re-imbursement. (Some of you may be wondering just how far this money can go. The average loan size needed to implement the business ideas proposed was about 6 million tugriks. The highest bank loan interest rate is currently 1.6% monthly for 24 months. That's a total of 2.3 million tugriks in interest paid using simple interest calculations. So this prize money would cover roughly 65% of the costs associated with obtaining a loan!)

We structured our prize money this way in order to attempt to guarantee results and to see the establishment of our top unique business idea. All but one of our trainees completed their business plan during the training, and three members of my staff rated their proposals using ten different criteria. I just received the final results yesterday. My staff was not able to choose just one winner - so instead we crowned two. The prize money will be split evenly between the two winners. But don't worry, both of the winning proposals only need approximately 3.5 million tugriks in loans to get started. So that prize money should go a long way in recovering their costs!

I'm guessing that many of you reading this are wondering what types of ideas were proposed for this competition. Well, I haven't looked at all of the applications that weren't chosen to attend the training...but I know there were ideas for magazine libraries and brown paper bag manufacturing. But I can tell you about the top 10 ideas. Enjoy the count-down:

#10 - Planting Chatsargana (small yellow berry used in fruit drinks) in Hairhan soum

# 9 - Toilet paper packaging

# 8 - Metal smelting for custom iron fence and roofing materials

# 7 - Using "yellow" milk to produce ice cream, jams, and candy

# 6 - Packaging Airag (fermented mare's milk) for use in ger camps

# 5 - Growing fodder for animals in Tsakhir soum

# 4 - Manufacturing cotton bags to replace plastic bags used in stores

# 3 - Packaging a form of boiled down animal meat product "stock" to be used in winter - I guess you just add water!

# 2 - Installation of electronic signs around our provincial center to replace all of the paper information boards - WINNER (most unique yet implementable idea!)

# 1 - Manufacture and sale of unique custom leather goods - WINNER (best business plan!)

I was part of the opening ceremony. However, I was unable to lead any of the training sessions due to the fact that mere hours after this photo was taken my translator left for a 2 week trip to Russia.

One of the first activities was to have the trainees draw their unique business idea concept on paper and present it to the class.

This activity was showing the trainees how to set objectives to meet your goal. They had to get from point A to point B using more than 2 different forms of movement. But they had to tell us how they would do it before they attempted it. (ie. 2 jumps, followed by 6 zigzag steps, followed by 5 hops, etc) This trainee was about to jump a short distance to achieve his goal.

At any given time we had 4-5 consultants wandering the training room helping people with their writing/planning.

After the first few days in the classroom, we moved to an Internet cafe in town that let us rent out their computers. Here the trainees put all of their preparations/notes into an actual written business plan (with the assistance of consultants).

All of the attendees were given a Certificate for having completed the training. This man happens to be our #1 winner as well.

The picture ended up being a little blurry, but this is the entire staff handing our #2 winner his "Батламж" or "Guarantee" saying he's entitled to 750,000 tugriks in re-imbursement money for being our competition winner!Overall, the entire project was a huge success! Yes, we had to change things as we went...but for the most part we were able to follow our project plan. Thanks to funding from a United States Peace Corps SPA grant and to Mercy Corps Mongolia, and with funding and training assistance from the local NGO's Knowledge Network and Information & Education Center, Arkhangai's 1st Annual Unique Business/Product Idea Competition did happen successfully. Ten different people have full business plans completed that they can take to the bank to receive funding for their ideas, and dozens more people were given the opportunity to express their ideas for what is needed in this aimag. We've already begun talks on how to fund this project in subsequent years. So here's hoping that Arkhangai continues to support the unique ideas of its residents!

by Kara

Over the past two years I have been pen pals with a 5th grade class in Woodinville, Wa. They write me letters by hand and send them here and I email them pictures and replies via email. It's been a really fun experience and their questions are awesome - everything from "have you ever been bitten by a yak?" to "do they have Coco Chanel in Mongolia?" They also love asking questions about Mishka (our cat). I think they may want to meet her more than me.

In the last batch of letters they sent me some instructions for a paper airplane experiment. They conducted this experiment and wanted me to do the same so we could compare the results. The experiment basically entails making three sets of airplanes and seeing which type hits the target the most. The first one is a regular paper airplane, the second is the same design but with a staple on it, and the third has some extra flaps cut into the back of it.

I conducted this experiment this week with two sets of my Zumba kids. They may have been somewhat confused at first about why I was having them make paper airplanes instead of doing our regular Zumba fitness videos, but they loved it. Check out this I put together to meet some of the kiddos and see the fun!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon sitting on our balcony, soaking up the sun, reading, and I have to say, it was delightful. Ever wondered what the view is like from our balcony? Wonder no more. It's of this huge apartment building across from us - beautiful isn't it? (Click on the picture to see a larger version)

by Kara

It's officially spring! Spring here means extreme temperature changes, wind, snow, and sun (no rain as of yet). Many Mongolians say they hate it. It tends to be when the most animals die, already weakened from the long winter. Though the rapid, extreme weather changes can be difficult to cope with, I'm just happy for the occasional warm days, seeing as how I don't have to worry about my animal dying. I've also noticed that March-May are busy work months. Once summer hits in June my work shuts down and we spend all our time at summer camp. We've got a Peace Corps Closing of Service Conference at the end of this month in the capital and then I will be helping with training the new volunteers in late May (preparing for training) and early June (actually doing the training). This doesn't leave me with a ton of time left at site! As of today I have 26 more days actually working in my office. Crazy. But I'll have more time with my coworkers at summer camp in late June and July. Mark and I haven't figured out when we're actually coming home, but probably late July or early to mid August.

Anyway, here are some pictures showing what I've been up to with work lately.

Soccer!

These are the same kids Tim (our sitemate) and I have been meeting with since the Fall. Our indoor karate class is now an outdoor soccer club!

In the background is the school that our friend Sarah, fellow PCV, teaches at.

English Competitions!

English Pyramid: this is a contest us PCVs organized. Students had to study three topics that we chose and wrote about: the Aztecs, the California Gold Rush, and the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Tough! Hearing the kids say things like "Tenochtitlan" (which I assured them I couldn't pronounce any better than them) was adorable.Our sitemates, the judges: Sarah, Tim, and Kaede

Sarah standing proudly next to the English Olympics winners from her school - Naraa, the teacher, took 2nd in the teacher's division, and the girl student took 1st in 9th grade and the boy student took 2nd in 11th grade.

School Cooks and School Doctors Training

One component of this training was providing the cooks with the opportunity to practice cooking new, healthy foods. We supplied them with LOTS of veggies.

One of the many dishes they prepared - meat, onions, peppers, etc. They didn't really know what to do with the broccoli ("flower cabbage" as it's called here) so it was mostly used as garnish, same with the lettuce. We gave them some ideas for how to prepare these the following day.

Chicken, carrot salad, and cabbage saladA very interesting creation... this is a display of a nearby soum. The big chunk of liver standing up is a huge rock, the hard-boiled eggs are gers, and the river is made of mashed potatoes and kiwi!

Human Trafficking Training

My counterpart Orkhoo and I did a couple of trainings with high school and college students about human trafficking.

by Mark

This past weekend I, along with 3 of my counterparts, traveled to the capital to attend the 2011 Tourism Trade Fair. For those that may not know it, my focus in Mongolia has largely been on developing the tourism industry within Arkhangai aimag. I spent early 2010 training trainers to go out into the surrounding towns and lead sessions on sustainable tourism. I then spent the summer collecting information (surveys, pictures, bios) on a majority of the ger camps, guesthouses, and other companies involved in the industry in our aimag. This information was then loaded on to a brand new website for our aimag that my friend and I developed - www.travelarkhangai.com.

Companies could join the site for a small annual fee, and overall we managed to sign close to 20 companies. As of writing this, we're only about a hundred dollars short of covering the entire cost of the project - and we expect to start making a profit on it as early as next month. I'm really hoping this project continues in subsequent years, as it will bring a nice additional income to one of the companies I work with.

Having launched that site in January of this year, we decided it would be to our benefit to promote the service that it offers to companies that are in the industry throughout the country. I developed a poster in English, and brochures (both in Mongolian and English) to be given out during the two day event.

My translator, Jackie, and I spent the weekend walking around UB visiting guesthouses - talking to them about the site and asking if they would hang a poster in their place in return for us adding their contact information to the website (so tourists have an option for lodging in the capital!). Occasionally we'd travel back to the trade show to check on our other counterparts to see how the brochure-handing-out-action was going.

Overall, we managed to sign four new Arkhangai companies to the website who weren't previously involved. They were impressed with how much of an effort we were putting into advertising the site, and wanted to take part. I also managed to get asked by about three different company managers to take a look at their websites and help them re-do them. We considered the trip a success, and I really felt that Mongolia did a magnificent job of advertising their tourism industry. I was impressed with the materials, the booths, and the overall creativity/showmanship the companies presented at the trade fair.

The work in the capital was good - but I won't really get into a full blown story on the travel to and from Ulaanbaatar. Let's just say it involved 19 hours in a bus and/or mikr, being puked on, being inches away from a 3-man brawl mid-travel, and getting back to my apartment at 4:30am. But hey, these are all gonna be great memories...and I choose to look at the potential future benefit this trip has brought to my staff and the tourism industry in Arkhangai instead. I'll deem it all a success. Enjoy the photos below...

This was our booth we shared with two other companies that are on the travel website. My staff includes everyone but the two women on the right.

There were performances on the main stage throughout the two day event, but with the massive LED screen behind the stage it was nearly impossible to take any good pictures as it just washed out everything in front of it.

A snapshot of some of the business booths down one of the walkways. I was really impressed with the professional advertising materials and displays that most of the places had.

Some animals out front of the expo hall. You could ride a yak if you wanted to. I chose not to.

A restaurant chain in UB called "Broadway" had bought out a whole corner of the expo and had food and drinks for sale as well as many different people in costume. They brought in fake chandeliers, marble columns, glass tables, etc. It was a magnificent display.

On our way out we took a photo with some of the warriors that wandered around the expo throughout the weekend. These guys were intense looking, but were really friendly and easy to chat with.

(hudoo = countryside)

by Kara

A little over a week ago I was told my coworkers were asked to do a training in a soum (a district of our province) about 2-3 hours away. On Monday I came to work and checked to see if the trip was still on, as I’ve been told this before and suddenly the trip has been cancelled, but this time, the trip was still a go. I went home at noon to get my stuff so I could come back in time to go to our coworker’s house for lunch at 1:00 and leave at 2:00. One of my strategies I regularly employ at work is to ask different coworkers the same question separately to see if I get the same answer. Every coworker I asked said declaratively we were going to leave at 2:00.

We got back to work from lunch around 2:30 and since I had already dropped my laptop off at home, I sat at my desk waiting for the call to go. I’m still not sure exactly what we were waiting for and I never even bothered to ask, but I ended up sitting at my desk waiting for the next 4 hours, until we left at 6:30.

After making a couple of stops we arrived at the school dormitory, where we’d be staying, around 9:30 pm. A very sweet woman who is the director of the local parent’s organization and who helped organize the training greeted us and welcomed us with a bottle of vodka and box of candies. This is a very common thing to do, but I still felt very weird having to take a sip of vodka with dormitory children running around the halls outside our room. Nobody drank much, it was mostly just about the ceremony, but still…

My coworkers didn’t let our late arrival affect their plans. We began some games and activities with the kids and at the end, left them watching a movie we’d brought. They all seemed excited to have something different to do for the evening. Most, if not all of these kids, are the children of herders. Their parents live too far out into the countryside for the children to be able to commute to school so they live in the dorms. It houses 80 kids, ranging from 1st to 11th grade.

My coworker leading games with the dorm kids.

The next day was spent doing trainings. My coworkers led all of the lessons and I served as staff photographer. Since none of them speak English and therefore can’t even get close to being able to translate for me and I don’t speak Mongolian that well, it’s impossible for me to lead a training. Anyway, my role as a PCV isn’t to lead trainings, it’s to help develop the capacity of my coworkers, but still, it’s sometimes frustrating not being able to contribute in more ways. However, I was pretty proud of their work and I don’t think they needed my help. They led trainings with parents about good parenting, and other trainings with teachers, social workers, the soum governor, and students. They didn’t use any powerpoint presentations and had games, activities, and small group work! I’ve seen way too many extremely boring presentations to be able to appreciate the better ones.

Meeting with the GovernorMy coworker Orkhoo talking to parents

After the trainings and some more activities with kids it was already 7:30pm and it was time to get ready for the volleyball tournament. Upon further reflection, I think this is the real reason I was asked to accompany them on the trip – to play on the volleyball team. That suited me just fine though.

We walked into the gym and I immediately saw a man drinking straight from a bottle of vodka, by himself. Even in Mongolia where vodka is a huge problem, that was not a good sign. He continued to roam the gym, onto the court during games, and yell at people the entire night. I think he yelled at me in particular (“Foreigner!!” and after I made a mistake, something like “Geeeeez, what happened?!”) Having a huge drunk yell at me didn’t help the fact that I was already getting stared at more than usual. I get stared at regularly (staring isn’t considered rude here), but I could definitely feel even more eyes on me than usual in this small town, as I don’t think any foreigners live there and few even visit. It doesn’t really bother me, it’s just a bit unusual.

Anyway, we played many rounds of volleyball and finally at about 12:30am our team played in the championship game! However, our team fell apart against our opponent, who was better than us anyway, and we came in 2nd place. By then it was 1:00am and I was ready to hit the sack, but no… it was time for table tennis!

The only volleyball photo that was taken - and of course I'm not in it. I think I had just served.

Two hours later the table tennis portion of the tournament concluded (I definitely did not play) and we could finally go to bed, around 3:00am. I got back to the dorm room I was sharing with my other female CPs and we all got in our pajamas. Just when I thought it might finally be time for sleep one of my coworkers brought in a bottle of dessert “wine” (think super sweet cough syrup) and a box of candy. Somebody had dropped it off as a present for us. He said, “Should we drink it?” In my head I thought, of course not, we’re going to bed, and we might as well save it (they like it after all) for a festive occasion, but my coworkers all readily agreed to open it. So we all had a little wine and finally got to go to sleep around 4:00am.

I had been told repeatedly by my coworkers we’d planned to leave at 8:00am the next morning. Now, I knew we wouldn’t actually do that, but I was hoping for 10:00am. But by the time we rolled out of bed, they spent an hour or so putting on make-up while I sat and waited, the guys warmed up our van that’d been sitting outside for two days by lighting a fire underneath it (literally, on the ground, underneath the engine), we visited the local kindergarten, saw the governor once more, etc etc, and we left at 11:45am.

I wanted to write about this trip because spending so much time with my coworkers on a trip like this (even if it was less than 48 hours) is kind of an intensive experience. For me, much of the trip is spent in silence, simply trying to understand what’s going on around me, so I spend a lot of time observing. Even after having been here for nearly two years, I still find myself surprised at times, learning new things about my coworkers and Mongolian culture. Spending a lot of time together without a break seems to highlight our similarities and differences. I find it interesting that my coworkers seem to have little to no desire to be alone and more so, that being a part of a group is vital. My female CPs always went out to the bathroom together (a latrine outside, which made me again, thankful for the indoor plumbing I have at home), they all brushed their teeth at the same time, put on their makeup at the same time, and even for their trainings, all coordinated matching outfits. While I feel the need to express my individuality and independence, they seem to express a desire to show they’re part of a group and a community. (I am, of course, making generalizations.)

By the end of the trip I was ready to come home to the comforts of my home, eat fruit and vegetables again, speak English, have some alone time, and have more control again (over time, what I eat, etc). It also made realize I don’t think I could survive as a PCV without the supportive network that I have here in my town (Mark and my fellow PCVs). Still, the trip was great. I was proud of the work my coworkers did and happy to be a part of it, even if I was just taking pictures and playing volleyball (but hey, we did get 2nd place).

by Mark & Kara

Our next destination was Koh Lanta – a small island a few hours from Krabi. This was the relaxing part of our trip. It was the first time we were in one place for more than two nights. Our time at the beach was very relaxing and low-key. We finally had our appetites back and spent a lot of time thinking about where and when we’d be eating. Mark tried a different Thai dish at every meal and I did at almost all of them. I also really enjoyed the fruit shakes and had one almost every day. The plethora of fresh fruit was amazing! One day we indulged in perhaps the best burgers we’ve eaten in years – in any country. Kara's burger involved avocado and crispy chicken, and Mark's was called the Garlic Sauce Cheeseburger made with a half pound of some of the best ground beef he's ever had. It must have sat a good 6-7 inches off the plate when it was brought out. They were expensive, but well worth it. We had to take a nap afterwards we were in such a food coma and didn’t even eat much of a dinner that night.

This was our view just 50 meters from our bungalow. Don't mind the baby stroller...

We could lounge all day and into the evening. It was wonderful.

The island we stayed on was very touristy, but beautiful. In the future I might like to visit a more remote locale. The beach was filled with Europeans – in fact, we only saw a few other Americans the entire time. There were especially a ton of Germans. We suspect many had been there for weeks, as they walked around sporting their perfect tans. We played a game of, “Who can find somebody as pale as us?” most of the time. Bonus points were awarded for finding somebody even paler than us, but that was a rare accomplishment.

This is a picture taken from about 75 meters out into the sea. It was so shallow you could walk out this far and only be up to your waist in warm, salty water.

One day we ventured out to explore some caves we had heard about. When we arrived they told us we each had to pay about $10 for the tour with the guide. I asked if we could go without the guide and the woman laughed and said no. So we waited a bit and ended up going with two young German women. After hiking for a while we got to the caves and realized we didn’t exactly know what we’d signed up for. We were given head lamps and realized this would be a bit more intense than we had anticipated. The exploration through the caves involved squeezing through really small crevasses, crawling on our knees, and scaling down rocks. Meanwhile, we were sweating like crazy in the extremely thick, humid air. It was pretty awesome though and worth it. The tour concluded with the site of hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling – very creepy.

Pro spelunkers! Headlamps, sandals, sweat-drenched t-shirt: check.

We kept trying different foods and different restaurants throughout our 5 days on the beach. One night we decided to do the "grill on the beach" option where the restaurant staff have you point to the items you'd like to have grilled and then brought to your table. Kara went with a huge kebab of chicken, onions, and peppers and a huge ear of corn dipped in garlic butter. I went with the whole tuna and a baked potato. We ordered drinks and watched the crowd of people grow, and soon after the corn came off the grill. Then more time went by and we got to thinking maybe we should ask about our food. The place was hoppin' and our waiter took about 10 minutes to figure out our food never hit the grill - unfortunately they were now all out of chicken kebabs. We watched as they put the tuna, potato, and the replacement beef kebab on the grill, knowing full well it'd be another 30-40 minutes. I'm not sure that Kara's side of the meal was the greatest, but when that full Tuna came out and I began picking away at it, it almost made the wait worth it. I'd been craving seafood for years really.

Simply amazing. Probably took me about 40 minutes to eat, but it was all kinds of fresh/delicious!

At the end of our meal that night we befriended a pregnant black cat (hard to see). We fed her bones from the fish, and a few extra pieces of meat that we couldn't finish.

Finally, our peaceful stay at the beach had to come to an end and we headed back to Bangkok on an overnight train. Arriving in Bangkok around 8:30am, we had one last day to spend there before our 10:45pm flight that night. It being Saturday, we went to the Chatuchak weekend market. We had heard it was huge, but even we didn’t expect how big it was. They give out color-coded maps. It's like the Puyallup Fair grounds in size, but the entire thing is just stalls and stalls of everything from designer clothes, to birds/fish/puppies, to used books. It was fun at the beginning but in the afternoon I had made the mistake of not buying something I saw earlier and I wanted to go back and find it. We got lost in the maze of the market and started to get overheated and cranky. We actually think we both got some sort of heat rash from the whole experience. However, in the end we walked away with a bag full of souvenirs.

This is another shot from Khao San Road where we had a few last meals and watched this band perform and get interviewed. I'm fairly sure we're in the background of some indy band music video now.

We finished up our day in Bangkok with a couple of happy hour beers and a smattering of street food – phad thai (Mark may have eaten two whole plates), chicken kebabs, corn on the cob, and fresh fruit. We're gonna miss those food options, the shorts/t-shirt weather, and the allure of exploration. But we’re back in Mongolia now, happily reunited with our cat Mishka, and planning out our last 5 months we’ll be here in Mongolia! Our vacation flew by as we know our remaining time here in the land of Chinggis will as well.

How could you pass this up? It was just a couple bucks to get a plate of phad thai and spring rolls. You pick the meat (if any), the noodle type, and the spices. Takes like 3 minutes and you've got lunch!

Though this marks the end of our blog posts related to our trip to Cambodia/Thailand, Kara has posted dozens more pictures on Facebook. Check them out here: Thailand & Cambodia. And we'd like to thank all of our family who really helped fund a large part of our trip with your wonderful Christmas gifts. Thank you. We're just grateful we could share our experience of South East Asia with all of you through the wonderful technology of camera and blog.

By Mark & Kara

The evening we left Bangkok we were riding an overnight bus south to Krabi Town. We got to ride one of those double decker, air-conditioned, sleeper buses. It seemed as though all the foreigners were put on the upper level in the very back (though this may have been a result of ordering tickets later than domestic travelers). Some of our neighbors on the trip were quite amusing, and listening to others' stories of travels throughout South East Asia provided for many good laughs and a few "oh i'm glad that didn't happen to me" moments. Seriously, how do you get your wallet/money stolen 7 times in a month?

Get it?! Krabi!

After arriving and settling in we decided to go to the Tiger Cave Temple. Upon arriving we were greeted by a bunch of monkeys!!! After taking a million pictures of the monkeys we thought, hey, let’s climb up to the top of this mountain. Everybody else was doing it and there was supposed to be a great view point at the top and a huge Buddha. And 1237 steps isn’t really that many, is it? Only a couple hundred of steps up and we were already asking ourselves why we were doing this. We stopped every 2 minutes, or whenever we found shade. We used up our water bottles in the first 600 steps. We pulled ourselves along literally climbing up steps using all four limbs. Needless to say, we pushed ourselves to the point of exhaustion again. The view at the top was nice, we got great pictures, but in the end we were very relieved to be off the mountain.

Just before heading toward the Tiger Caves, we walked along the river's edge - beautiful rock formations, warm weather, and the calm water made for a lovely stroll.

Monkeys! Baby monkey!

Seriously, Kara loved the monkeys...and they were so friendly.

I think we have better pictures of this Buddha, but this one shows how immense this structure was and just how high up we had climbed!

We were so tired we hired some taxi driver to take us back into town. Not the cheapest option, but at that point we could barely stand without our legs quivering and cramping. We got back to our little hotel, showered, rested, and then decided to walk all of 100 feet from our hotel to a restaurant that was supposed to be one of the best in town. We arrived at 5:01, not really knowing it opened at 5:00, and wandered around the two-story open air restaurant looking for someone who would be interested in helping us. We quickly realized that this place must be popular with locals, as tourists didn't seem to be plentiful in this part of town. After minutes of confusion, a man who we're not even sure worked there asked us what we'd like. We both ordered, got our food, enjoyed that...and then got presented with an entire platter of "goods" made from soy bean as far as we could tell. We think it was dessert, but we were so full we couldn't partake. No one really came to ask us if we needed anything, except for one repetitive instance of hospitality - whenever we took a sip of water, a waitress would walk over and fill up our glass. It was one of the strangest things...we couldn't get them to take our order, or bring us more of anything, or bring our bill/accept our money, but they made sure our water was full almost all the time.

The next day we attended a Thai cooking class! This experience was what I had been waiting for in Thailand. Kara and I love Thai food, and I love making different kinds of sauces...so to see how simple it could be to mix flavors to get so many good dishes, it was fantastic. The teachers made it impossible for us to screw up any of the dishes so they were all delicious. We got recipe books so hopefully we can try to recreate the food… though it’s nearly impossible here in Mongolia because we’re missing so many ingredients. By the end, we'd prepared something like 10 different dishes...so we sat down with an Australian couple on their honeymoon who had joined us for the class and enjoyed a feast. It would appear that our appetites were coming back. We really love Thai food!

Our teacher Mrs. Ya (not pictured) used this "prep" time to inform us on the proper technique for "Chop chop, Bang bang".

I know when you make a meal you appreciate it so much more - but seriously those were some of the best fried spring rolls ever! We even made the hot dipping sauce from scratch...I mean crushing-red-peppers-in-a-stone-mortar type of work!

Quite the spread...I don't think the 4 of us finished half of it.

Later that evening we spent our first real time on a Thai beach. We rolled up our pants and shirt sleeves, walked and splashed in the warm water, sat at a restaurant overlooking the sea, and captured our first really good sunset of this entire trip. If anything, it was a precursor of our time on the island of Koh Lanta. We were heading there the very next day...

The final chapter of our vacation story will be coming soon...

By Kara and Mark

We had thought that Phnom Penh was a big bustling city, but Bangkok is in a category all its own. It is a HUGE city of about 11 million people – that’s more than New York City. And a huge tourist destination too. At the conclusion of the "VIP" mini-van ride from the border, we got our first taste of the traffic in Bangkok. It took us over an hour to wind our way through the city, dropping off passengers, and ultimately ending up at Khao San Road - the mecca for backpackers. It was here that we enjoyed our first taste of Thai food. We knew we'd regret it later, but we couldn't pass up a wonderful plate of Phad Thai and another plate of grilled chicken and vegetables.

This was the Khao San Road area during mid-day. It's gets much, much crazier in the evening. And it's incredibly difficult to capture it in a few photos.

The next day we took a bus up north to Ayuthaya to see some more ancient temples. However, our energy was still low, it was about 95 degrees, we were both wearing pants because we thought we had to in order to see temples (really, it was only necessary at one that we visited, which we could have easily avoided), and after seeing the temples in Siem Reap, the ones in Ayuthaya paled in comparison. I would say the highlight of the day was seeing some elephants and seeing a little wild crocodile in a river. I'm sure the ancient city is noteworthy, but unfortunately for us the day just felt underwhelming.

Welcome to Ayuthaya

Elephant rides - would have been a wonderful (albeit expensive) way to get out of the 95 degree sun! We chose not to indulge.

An incredibly large sleeping Buddha at one of the Wats (temples) of Ayuthaya

Isn't that awesome! These are the little versions of tuk-tuks that drivers used in the Ayuthaya area. We rode in the back of one similar to this, but ours was just plain green.

The next day we were going to leave on an overnight bus at 6:00pm but we had the majority of the day to spend in Bangkok. We had planned on seeing all the temples and touristy things but after the previous days experience we had a change of heart. We decided to have a more relaxing day exploring Bangkok – riding the Sky Train (kind of like the monorail, but functional and useful), riding a river ferry, and just wandering around. It was delightful. We still hadn’t quite regained our energy, but we pushed through and made of a day of it. We were a bit frustrated that we still didn’t have our appetites back with all of the delicious and pretty cheap food surrounding us, but that didn't stop us from ordering anyway. But suddenly things like Club Sandwiches and plates of just fried rice sounded good...we were beginning to wonder when we'd have the stomach to dive into the spicy curries and noodle dishes we'd been craving for months. We were hoping soon, because in the next leg of our trip we'd be encountering a lot of down-time (read: time for checking out all the beach restaurants), and we knew we were going to take a cooking class. It was time to leave Bangkok...

More on our trip through Thailand coming soon...

by Kara

Ever since the seemingly never-ending, bitterly cold winter last year Mark and I have been dreaming about taking a vacation to SE Asia and that dream came true last month! We spent about two and a half weeks in Cambodia and Thailand. It felt so good to be in warm weather again and we practically felt naked at first walking around in only one layer of clothing and revealing so much skin in shorts and tank tops. We spent our time in Cambodia focusing on seeing the historical sites – memorials and museums in Phnom Penh and the ancient temples in Siem Reap. We did some more site-seeing in Thailand and also spent some time relaxing at the beach. Thanks to Mark’s very thorough planning everything went really smoothly. It was exhilarating to be in new countries again, seeing, smelling, and tasting so many new things for the first time. That’s the quick summary, but below are more details about our trip.

Phnom Penh, CambodiaOur first stop in our trip was Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We only had one full day to explore the city. We started out the morning by roaming around the streets near our guesthouse. Wandering around in a new city, hearing Cambodian, seeing thousands of motor bikes zooming past us, smelling the aromas of the street vendors’ food, I was immediately filled with a rush of excitement over being in a new country. I haven’t felt that way in Mongolia for a long time now – as we are not just tourists traveling in Mongolia, we are living there. There’s something really exhilarating about exploring a new place.

We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us to the popular tourist destinations for the morning. We went to the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum. I was shocked to realize how little I knew of Cambodia’s history, specifically, about the Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields were where the Khmer Rouge took thousands of people to kill them and bury them in mass graves. The Tuol Sleng Museum was a school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a place to torture people. It was very difficult to see this and contemplate how human beings can do these things to one another. There were still blood stains on the walls and floors of the museum and there were skulls and bones at the fields. In addition to the deaths that took place at these places we learned that many people died from starvation, disease, and forced labor during the rule of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979). Nobody is exactly sure how many people died but estimates are 1.5 to 2.2 million people – out of a population of 8 million. That’s 1/5 to 1/4 of the population. I could spend way more time talking about this… Obviously it was a very sobering start to our morning in Cambodia. Later that day we moved on to the National Museum, the Central Market, and some more wandering around town.

Our tuk tuk driver and his friend.

I know it's weird to post this picture, but this is what is at the museum that was once the killing fields. These skulls and other bones were unearthed from mass graves.

The Khmer Rouge heavily documented information about the people the tortured and killed. These are photos of the victims at the Tuol Sleng Museum.

The National Museum

The view outside our guesthouse -- look at all that green!!!

Siem Reap, Cambodia The next day we left to go to Siem Reap via bus. We got there in time to see the sunset at Angkor Wat and hired a tuk tuk driver for the next day, beginning with the sunrise at the same location. Unfortunately, it was so cloudy that we couldn’t really see the sunrise… but at least we got an early start to the day (leaving our guesthouse at 5:30am) and got to see some of the other temples before the rush of tourists. These ancient temples, built in the 12th century, were definitely a highlight of the trip. They were one of those historical sites and major tourist destinations that actually lived up to all the hype.

We finished our morning tour pretty quickly and got back to our guesthouse by noon. What had started as a wonderful Valentine’s Day, one that I had said would be very hard to top in the future, took a turn for the worse. We suspect we got some form of food poisoning or something from the water. We were stuck in our beds for the rest of the day with headaches, body aches, fever, chills, stomach cramps, and diarrhea – diarrhea that decided to stay with us for almost the entire trip. We were disappointed to have to waste so much of a day stuck in bed.

Though only feeling a little better, we stuck to our travel itinerary and took off at 6:00am the next morning to head to Thailand. In Mark’s very thorough research he had read online that getting from Cambodia to Thailand can be a bit difficult, but we had no problems at all. It helps that our travel standards are pretty low after dealing with travel in Mongolia – unlike some of our fellow passengers on the trip. When the microbus driver tried to fit one extra person on the bus a passenger started yelling at him and saying that was completely unacceptable. We laughed, thinking that in Mongolia, we would’ve easily had an additional 10 people in the bus. We also got stuck at a gas station with car problems and were forced to wait for over an hour which led other passengers to loudly complain, “What are we going to do!? What’s your plan?! Are we going to camp out overnight here?!”, yelling at our innocent driver after only a half hour of waiting. Lovely. However, he got it back up and going and we headed on towards Bangkok.

Angkor Wat

Monks at Angkor Wat

It seemed much steeper in person than it appears in this photo.

Giant trees taking over the temples (that's me if you can't tell)

Mark enjoying a delicious meal. Who knows, this might have been the meal that got us sick.

The sign read: "Dr. Fish Massage - Have you ever seen the fish can massage?

If our fish can not make you happy We'll not charge. Don't miss the unique experience. $3"

How could we resist? It ticked like crazy at first. It wasn't quite like the pedicure we were promised, but it did make us happy.

Posts about Thailand coming soon.

Day 1

Our dear friend Ochgo extended a wonderful offer to visit with her family on the first day of the Tsagaan Sar holiday this year. She did this last year as well. Typically this day is reserved for the younger family members to visit their oldest siblings' place or their parents' residence depending on the living situation. But Kara and I, as well as our site-mates Tim and Kaede, and even another PCV visiting at the time (John), were all invited. It was like our very own PCV family going to visit one of the families that has been the kindest to the volunteers of our community over the years. We were quite grateful for the invite.

Of course Tim, Kaede, and John came prepared in their traditional Mongolian dels - maybe just to make us look bad. But seriously, they looked great and we definitely got quite a few looks from locals as we hiked about 20 minutes out of town to Ochgo's mother's house. For these three volunteers accompanying us this was their first Tsagaan Sar. It felt as if we should prepare them for what was about to happen. And really, and I know I'm speaking for myself here, I felt relieved to know that I'd done this all before. Ochgo and her family would never pressure us or make us feel like we did something wrong, and that knowledge was all the relief we needed.

The traditional foods of milk tea, buuz, salads, candy, and the tail meat of the sheep were all presented to us. Ochgo was of course a wonderful host and her English knowledge made this a great reintroduction to the holiday. We were then treated to a beautiful walk home (on a side note we've been experiencing temperatures in the mid-20's for the past week - this is not normal for this time of year, but it made for a warm holiday).

Day 2

We weren't really sure who might invite us on the second day. Really the way it all works is you wait and hope for a text message from a co-worker or friend telling you that they're available and would love to have you come over to their place. Last year this happened in spurts - we'd get 4 invites one afternoon, then nothing one day, then 3 more the next day. However, Day 2 this year worked out perfectly. Kara received a surprise text message from a woman named Tunga who works at one of the World Vision offices in our town. Kara taught English to the staff at her office last year and occasionally helps Tunga translate sponsor letters from Mongolian to English. I'd never met her before, but Kara told me she was great...so off we went.

Tunga made us feel comfortable, offered us all of the traditional food/drinks, and introduced us to some of her family that was there. She's in her late 20s and isn't married yet so like most Mongolians in this situation, she lives with her parents. In the background of the picture above you can see her nephew playing a computer game, supposedly he's quite the gamer.

Day 3

The third day was meant to be the day you visit with co-workers. However, it was a Saturday which threw off everyone's schedules. This meant we were once again not quite sure where we might end up, but we knew that my co-workers could call at any moment and we'd likely end up going in different directions. We thus planned ahead so well that when I got the call to meet up with my staff, I decided to rely on their camera thinking that Kara might need ours. She ended up not needing it. Thus, we have no pictures from Day 3...not yet anyway...it's still possible my work camera will provide a few with me in it (but we'll have to wait until after our trip to upload those).

I did however go to two more houses on Day 3. I attended a child's hair-cutting ceremony as well. And in one of the more interesting moments of my time here in Mongolia, I watched as my counterparts all sprinted (not joking...sprinted!) out of a house. I quickly followed, not knowing if I missed something about the house having caught fire, or maybe we were "dining and dashing" Mongolia style. Once outside I realized that everyone was facing the now sliver of a moon that had appeared nearby our aimag center's mountain. They had all opened their wallets/purses, verified there was money inside, and were waving them in a circular motion toward the moon.

Day 4

Kara was beginning to wonder if any of her co-workers were going to invite us over before she had to go back to work on Monday. Day 4 we received a call from Orkhontuul asking us to meet her husband outside waiting in a car. He would take us to their ger.

We spent nearly two hours looking at great old photos of them from before they met, during their time at University together, and even more recent photos of their children. They really fed us an incredible amount of food - including some prime slices of beef. I believe we were even invited to ride horses with their family this summer.

Having spent time with all the different friends/co-workers this year I can say I was happy, relieved, and amazed at how far we've come since last year. Now that we've been here a year and a half we were able to understand 90% of the conversations, Kara (and much less so I) was able to answer intelligibly, and overall we just felt a sense of calm surrounding the holiday. We were able to enjoy the holiday by having the invites spread out, and we got to visit a couple of different places we didn't see last year.

We may not have another Tsagaan Sar in Mongolia, but we are proud to say we've experienced it in all it's glory. We are especially grateful to the members of the community who felt close enough to us to invite us to share a meal. The holiday doesn't end after 4 days - no it continues for what seems like weeks. Kara was invited to share a meal with co-workers on Monday, and I spent the entire day getting up and down out of my chair to greet many of the Mercy Corps clients I see every month. I can truly say we've both gotten pretty good at placing our arms in the correct position, muttering the greeting "Amar baina uu?", and sniffing both cheeks. Dare we say we've integrated...

by Mark

Even though today marks the beginning of the Tsagaan Sar (white moon/month) holiday - basically the Mongolian Lunar New Year celebration, this post is about the meal that Kara and I hosted at our apartment just this Monday. We'll save the Tsagaan Sar post for next time. We decided to have my co-workers over for a Mongolian/American meal both as a long overdue custom, but also as a way of saying "I can't afford and probably don't have the time to invite you all over here during the holidays". Also, because we're leaving for UB in just a few days now for our trip to Cambodia/Thailand, having a lunch before the trip and before the holiday just made the most sense.

Nine of my co-workers arrived about an hour after our intended lunch time and I decided to hand out our three sets of small photo albums. Most of them have not seen me before I lost the weight here in Mongolia, so there were a lot of "oh wow, Mark was fatter, we like him fat!" It doesn't bother me. And our pictures taken at the Grand Canyon a few years ago are just hard to explain. But these all helped to pass the time as some of the food was finishing cooking.

We decided to make the traditional steamed dumplings (buuz) and paired it with the staples of pickles and sliced carrots. But in order to give the meal a little different feel, we decided to make both a pasta salad (with tomatoes and cucumber) and one of our favorite salads, the Top Ramen Salad. My co-workers loved how simple it was - cabbage, ramen noodles, and peanuts with an oil, sugar, seasoning dressing - and loved that we cut the cabbage into larger pieces rather than coleslaw style. We had other fruits and candy on the table as well to accompany the main dishes.

Overall it was a simple meal. But in light of the food fest that Tsagaan Sar is we decided that simple is best, and in the end it was the simplest of foods that put a smile on my co-workers faces. I've been meaning to have them over for a very long time, and we've just not felt comfortable doing it...but now that it's done with we're both glad we did.

It's now time to eat buuz, salads, fruits, and candy for the next 3-4 days...and to refresh our memories of the traditional greetings and ways to be culturally assimilated at this time of year. To anyone reading this: Saihan Shineleerei! (Please Have a Nice New Year!)

by Kara

I spent Saturday with my coworkers at the Arkhangai IceFest. That's not what they called it, but I think it's a suitable name. The festivities took place at a local river, or rather, on the local river. Worried about the cold weather I wore three layers of long underwear underneath my jeans and four long-sleeved shirts under a sweatershirt and thankfully, stayed pretty warm throughout the day. Here are some pics!

My coworkers warming up around the fire

One of the sports competitions (and one that I was selected to participate in) -- hockey!CurlingOyunnaran and INonchalantly resting at a table and chairs made of ice.My coworkers competing in the tug-of-war competition.

I, shockingly, was not chosen to represent my work in this event.We lost. :(

by Mark

I thought I'd give it a little time before I posted pictures and commentary relating to my own Shiin Jil party. Is a week or so after Kara's post long enough? Kara did a wonderful job explaining the ins-and-outs of the evening...so my words will simply recapitulate hers. Ah, but the photos will be different. :)

Dress-Code

I'd like to start out with the dress-wear. Incredible. Really, some of the outfits that people have rented/purchased for this one evening are quite glamorous. However, the clothing is never allowed to simply speak for itself - it must be paired with glitter, and jewelry, and hair extensions, and pounds of makeup. Again, not all bad things in and of themselves...but Shiin Jil is about excess. It's about bringing in the New Year and saying goodbye to the old year in such a way as to only remember the good, the shiny, the pleasant. And that's ok in my book.

A little singing to begin the evening

A little speech/story told by another group

Some of the beautiful ladies I work with

And we even received a visit from Old Man Winter - who doubled as our MC at times, and presented awards to top trainers of the year!

DancingThroughout the evening, interspersed among the planned activities, meals and presentations there were occasions to dance. Mongolians love to waltz...and they have no qualms about swayin' and bobbin' to the latest pop/trance hits to come from Russia or the States. However, a dancefloor that is probably 25 ft. x 25 ft. doesn't leave much space for 30+ people to waltz around. No matter - you just smile after you bump into someone and move on.

Meal TimeNext is the food. This year really was the year of chicken. Kara got it. I got it. I must say that I believe our curried chicken breast with a side of potatoes, rice and salad may have been one of the better meals I've enjoyed at a company party. I wish I could say that everyone around me wolfed their food like I did...but nay, nearly every plate was only picked at. I don't know if it was the seasoning, the uncommon meat on the plate, or simply dozens of women trying to make sure they continued to fit in their dresses throughout the evening, but I saw pounds and pounds of tasty greatness get taken away uneaten. But hey, I ate like a king...check out this spread.

The man in white is my director, Dashzegve, and the woman between him and I was an English speaking Mongolian named Undral who works at a little cafe in town. Never met her before...and didn't know she spoke English until about an hour into sitting next to her.

Post meal satisfaction! Take note of the guy on the left - we'll revisit him later.

Photo-sessionYou have to commemorate an evening like Shiin Jil. And what better way than to take something like 500 pictures of groups, pairs, friends, co-workers, unknown restaurant workers, the drunk, the sober, and the American!?!

Some Extra EntertainmentI'm not sure if you've followed the outfit selection of the man in the following pictures. His name is Ganbaa. He's in his mid-sixties. He is the past director of the Knowledge Network NGO that I work with. He's quite possibly the funniest old man I've ever met, and I can't even understand 95% of what he's saying. He can eat, drink, and party with the best of us...and his energy levels rarely dim. He started out the evening with an awesome shiny green shirt (check out the pic from the "Meal" section of this post!), then donned a shoulder length wig about half way through the evening to cover his shiny bald head...and then when the evening was winding down he decided to dress like an elderly Mongolian woman and place 4 balloons strategically under his del.

Wrap-UpNeedless to say, the evening was entertaining. There are hundreds of photos of the entire event, but I hope this gave you a little sneak peak into my final Shiin Jil party in Mongolia. It's hard to believe Kara and I have been through two of these already. It's hard to believe we're already wrapping up our holidays in this country. I'm always glad I have pictures that I'll be able to look back on - to remember faces, prom style party dresses, tacky wallpaper, happy moments, and friends/co-workers who've all touched my life.

by Kara

Shin Jil -- pronounced "sheen" (like Charlie Sheen), "jeel" (rhymes with meal), but the "l" on the end of jil has a bit of an l-th sound. Get some saliva rolling around in your mouth and then say it. And the whole thing, шинэ жилийн баярын мэнд хүргае! Shin jillin bayariin mend hurgae! Happy New Year!

The new year celebration is one of the biggest reasons to party here in Mongolia. Every workplace has a party sometime around the new year. The work party usually doesn't include spouses, just the workers. My work didn't have a party last year because the country was freaking out about H1N1 and said we couldn't have parties. My workplace followed this directive, unlike most, but primarily because people were broke and couldn't afford a party. So, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect this year. Here's a bit about it.

I was told the party started at 6:00 so I left home, grabbed a taxi for the second time ever in my town due to the extremely cold weather, and played 20 questions with the driver. He was excited that I spoke Mongolian and during the few minutes in the car he asked me every question he could think of. What do you do here? Where are you from? Are you married? To a Mongolian or American? Do you have children? Which apartment building do you live in? How old are you? America is awesome. Mongolia hasn't developed enough. Do you agree? {Uhhhhh, some parts of America are cool, some are not. Mongolia is cool. Mongolia's development is alright.} Los Angeles. Cool. {Yes, cool.}

So I arrived at the restaurant at 6:20 and was the first one there. The party planning committee from my work arrived shortly after. All of the women finally strolled in around 7:20. I would've shown up late too but I can never tell what I'm supposed to be on time for, what it's okay to be about 15 min late for, and what it's okay to be really late for. But I'm used to it now and it didn't bother me.

Attire and AccessoriesShin jil attire is a big deal, especially for women. I spent one morning last week looking up pictures online of dresses for my coworker who was having a dress made. I used the search terms prom dress and bridesmaid dress. The more sparkles, the shinier, the better. I made sure to warn my coworkers beforehand that I don't have a cool dress and I don't have money to buy one {read: have no desire to buy one}. Fortunately for me, not all women dress up this much.

In addition to fancy clothes, a lot of women also get their hair done at a salon, get their nails done, wear fake eyelashes, apply glitter to their face and body, and adorn themselves with big, fake diamonds.

Here are some pics of my coworkers:

"One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong... "Orkhoo, Oyunnaran, Naraa, and Dulmaa

Some men find something fancy to wear too.

Turuu sporting a sparkly bow tie.Shiny suit!

All my male coworkers.

Food and DrinksI wasn't looking forward to this portion. They pre-order food for the group so everybody gets the same thing, which I assumed would be something with mutton. However, they surprised me! We had potato salad, a chicken soup with tons of veggies, and baked chicken, rice, delicious potatoes with a bit of BACON, and a little cabbage salad served in three courses. It was delicious.

For drinks, they fill the table with beer, vodka, wine (and by wine I mean a really sweet drink that tastes like alcoholic cough syrup), and champagne. Though, my coworkers don't drink much and I really wasn't pressured to drink too much. We only had to take two shots of vodka over the course of the evening, until the very end when they wanted to finish up a bottle and made us all drink two more whole shots, right before leaving. The vodka is horrible. Horrible.

Cheers!After being shaken profusely, the champagne went everywhere.

This was taken just as it was starting to explode.

EntertainmentThis isn't a party where you just drink, eat, and dance. Oh no. There must be planned activities. Games, raffles, contests, etc. They also gave awards for the best workers of the year. Following that, they surprised ME with a medal! Medals are a BIG deal and it's a huge honor to receive one, a remnant of Soviet times. I think I got it for the work I've done over the past year, primarily helping get our summer camp off the ground and bringing in grant money for it. It was really special and really nice to know they appreciate what I do.

My director pinning the medal onto my shirt.

I also contributed to the entertainment. (And not just with my bad dancing.) You know those Elf Yourself videos where you put a picture of somebody's face on the body of some goofy, dancing elf? I made these videos with all my coworkers faces as a surprise. I couldn't have predicted such a great response. They were practically rolling on the floor laughing! It's really hard for me to use humor with them because I can't think of witty things in Mongolian fast enough, (and I'm not good at slapstick, physical humor) so it felt good to make them laugh. The highlight was definitely the Chippendales video that had the heads of five of my male coworkers on shirtless Chippendale dancers.

Interspersed in between eating the various courses of food was a lot of dancing. With this group there was a lot of waltzing. I ended up having to dance with a really drunk old man with horrible breath a couple of times who kept speaking Russian to me. He was from the other group who was a construction company that we shared the restaurant with.

When we weren't waltzing we were dancing to weird techno music that sounds like it'd be playing in a dark, sketchy Russian dance club in the 90s. One thing I really appreciate though is that most Mongolians - of all ages - aren't afraid to dance. They're not necessarily good dancers, but it doesn't matter. I swear I've danced more in the last 18 months here than any other time in my life. The only thing I do NOT like about dancing with Mongolians is that they almost always dance in a big circle. I inevitably had to the be awkward one pushed out into the middle of the circle a few times. Fun. But I'm pretty used to looking and sounding like an idiot here most of the time, so it doesn't phase me as much anymore.

Overall, the party exceeded my expectations. I remember how little I understood of what was going on a year ago, and I appreciated that I can understand and speak more Mongolian now. I also enjoyed just relaxing and having fun with my coworkers - until 3:00am!

Oyunnaran and I. She's one of my faves.Orkhoo, another fav. I swear, she doesn't hate me, she just doesn't smile in photos.

This year we celebrated Christmas Eve at our friend Tim's apartment and Christmas Day at Sarah's. At Tim's it was all of us PCVs here in town, one visiting PCV, and our good friend Ochgo. At Sarah's we were joined by a Korean woman who is also a volunteer and who teaches art at Sarah's school. Sarah's ger is in the yard of very sweet Mongolian family and the woman from that family also joined us. Also, another Mongolian friend who is also named Saraa joined us. Here are some pics!

That's me, with the Old Man Winter snow sculpture.

Or maybe it's Chinggis Khan dressed as Santa. I'm not quite sure.

Mark and Ochgo at Tim's apartment on Christmas Eve decorating cookies.

Mark and Tim in Sarah's ger on Christmas.

Mark and Saraa

Eun-Joo and Anhaa

Saraa and Tim

Dinner: steamed broccoli with parmesan cheese, focaccia bread, green bean casserole, beef tenderloin with a yummy sauce, and pumpkin gnocchi! Not pictured are the appetizers: crab cakes and bacon and water chestnut wraps!

Dessert: pumpkin pie, apple pie, Christmas cookies, and chocolate cake with peppermint icing!

by Mark

This holiday season we are constantly reminded of who we love, why we love them, and how we're "supposed" to show them we care. The weeks surrounding Christmas are full of giving and receiving in many forms. Today I was reminded of how much impact a gift can have...and that we should always be grateful of our blessings in life. This reminder came in the form of a note titled "Long Distance Parents from Heaven". I was tasked to edit (after my translator changed the text from Mongolian to English) this note written by a World Vision staff member who interviewed a young boy involved in the World Vision Partnership Program.

I talked for a few minutes to a boy who is too small for his age and whose maturity is beyond his years. He said that there were originally 6 in his family. His parents died when he was really young. Now he lives with his brother and sister, and his other sister has her own family.

After his parents died their life became very difficult; they always had problems with buying food and clothes. When he was 2, he became involved in the World Vision Sponsorship Program and he thought God gave him second parents who lived in Korea - which is far away. They send him money twice a year. When he receives the presents he buys his favorite meals and clothes like other kids who have parents. He promises to repay their favor and be a good person. World Vision is the only organization which has ever helped him and his family. He and his siblings are very grateful for that. He wishes all the best to the World Vision Staff and hopes their humanitarian actions be always be sacred and holy.

We have so much to be grateful for, and so much to give. Show someone how much you care this holiday season. And don't forget to "repay their favor and be a good person"...

Merry Christmas from Kara and Mark!

Wishing everyone a very happy holiday season. Merry Christmas from Mongolia!

by Mark

It's that time of year again. Shiin Jil (translation: New Year): a combination of everything Christmas, New Years, and a bit of 4th of July thrown in. Though the parties have not yet begun, we here at Mercy Corps in Arkhangai felt like getting into the spirit. So we "decorated". This year has been nothing short of spectacular in terms of decorations - it looks like a clown just walked in to our office and shot off the equivalent of a confetti-packed potato gun. Streamers, balloons, and tinsel are everywhere. We spent about 3 hours putting together this beautiful chaos, and we now get to smile whenever we see the faces of the people that walk in for the first time! I hope it does the same for you.

Here's how it all came together:

It started innocently enough with tinsel cut into letters to form the phrase Happy New Year. I was thinking "how cute". And then came the swirly balloons.

My director Dashga decided to have some fun with the crazy balloons. I think he was trying to tell me he's a reindeer.

Next came the tinsel streamers that were each individually hung from a thin piece of scotch tape that was probably 12 feet long. We made 3 sets of these.We decided to string the thin tinsel like a chandelier. Turned out kinda cool actually.

Then we decided it would be cool to make a tree shape on the window. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it adds to the impressive overall display.

Getting closer to being finished. We've got tinsel everywhere, balloons hanging from the ceiling, and we've added the years to the wall. Can you see the little white puffs of cotton hanging every 8 inches or so? That's supposed to be snow. Balls of snow the size of golf balls. We were going for realistic.

This is the view you get immediately upon walking into our office.

And one from the opposite end of the room for good measure.

by Kara

I just thought I'd let you all know about an opportunity to support a project I'm working on. The project is the Arkhangai Healthy Lifestyles Project (I believe I mentioned it in a previous post). We received funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation but we are seeking some additional funds for part of the project. You can learn a little more about the project HERE. And if you feel called to, you can also donate to the project on that site as well. By donating through Peace Corps your donation is tax-deductible. (Donation FAQs)

Thanks!

by Kara

Last week we went to Ulaanbaatar for flu shots, for my GRE, and to celebrate Thanksgiving with Peace Corps Staff and Volunteers. We also snuck up to Erdenet for a few days and saw some friends who live there. Erdenet is the third largest city in Mongolia and has most of the benefits of a big city – of primary importance for me, availability of a diversity of food. They even have home pizza delivery! You don’t even have to call – you just send them a text message. And this is also possible because they have relevant addresses! I know, pretty amazing.

Here are some photos of Erdenet:

There's a huge Soviet and Russian influence in Erdenet, exemplified by the images of Marx and Lenin. I think this something about how Marx's teachings are the best and most powerful. I could be wrong though.LeninThough you can't exactly tell because we're all bundled up (it was FREEZING that day), that's Mark and I at the friendship monument. (Showing the friendship between Russia and Mongolia. Awwww.)Erdenet, in its all glory.

After we got the flu shots, the GRE, and travels to Erdenet out of the way (Erdenet was good, but still required another 13 hours on a bus, a few of which were spent with the girl next to me playing with my hair), we got to enjoy more time with friends in UB. Peace Corps brought in all the volunteers from our group for shots, so it was a nice little reunion for all of us. Overall the trip left us happy, but broke (UB is expensive!).

Here are some photos of our great Thanksgiving celebration:This was the meal we ate on Thanksgiving (our big Thanksgiving meal with everybody was on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, because having it on a Saturday is more convenient). We decided on Indian food - really, really good Indian food. I was really excited in this photo because the restaurant brought out a free little snack for us while we were waiting for our friends to arrive. That's very fancy for a restaurant here.The friends we ate Thanksgiving dinner with.The real Thanksgiving feast! This was taken far before all of the food had arrived. The table towards the back was JUST turkey! It was awesome.My (first) plate of food.The married ladies of Peace Corps Mongolia

by Kara

Since it's been nearly a month since we've posted any updates I just wanted to let it be known that we're alive and doing well! Life has just been moving ahead somewhat normally this past month. We've both been busy working on projects at work and I've been busy studying for the GRE in my spare time. We're headed to UB (the capital) soon for the GRE, to get flu shots, and to celebrate Thanksgiving with about 150 people (all PCVs and staff). We're also taking a short trip up to Erdenet, a town north of UB and the third biggest city in Mongolia. My friend who lives there says it's "better than Paris" in fact. We're looking forward to seeing another part of Mongolia, seeing friends, and doing some work while we're there too.

We wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!

Some of the planning committee with the Alcohol Awareness Week sign

by Kara

Last week was Alcohol Awareness Week in Mongolia. This is an initiative that was started by Peace Corps Volunteers this year. It was started to raise awareness about the effects and consequences that alcohol use has on people's lives and on their community as a whole. Mongolia is fortunate to have almost no problems with drugs other than tobacco and alcohol; "hard" drugs are virtually non-existent. However, alcohol abuse is rampant here. We just wanted to take a week to get people thinking about the role alcohol plays in their life, in their family, and in their community.

PCVs in towns across the country planned events. In our town my sitemate Sarah led the effort, but all of the volunteers were involved. My counterparts (coworkers) got especially involved which was really awesome. Altogether the week was planned by PCVs, Government officials, the Police Department, the Children’s Center, and the Health Department. The week’s activities included (but were not limited to) a poster and essay contest for children, lessons about alcohol use from the Health Department at all of the schools, and a survey about alcohol for students (my counterparts and I did that!). To publicize the week’s events the planning committee was interviewed by the local TV station!

The most exciting part of the week was the rally on Friday. This video that Mark made explains it best:

One of the posters that was entered into the poster contest. It's even 3-D!

Click on this to see a bigger version - it shows ALL the students who attended the rally!

A class with the sign the poster they made. They even made matching badges for the event. (The little yellow circles on their shirts.)

Bonus points were awarded for Japanimation style posters. (Not really)

The parade!

More signs

"Архи" (the word on the sign) means alcohol

Overall, this was one of the most exciting things I've been a part of in Mongolia.

For Your Information: Statistics About Alcohol Use in Mongolia*

There is one story selling alcohol for every 273 people in Mongolia.22% scored positive on AUDIT (8% F; 39% M) meaning they drink at a hazardous level.13.6% are alcohol dependent (5% F; 22% M) based on the Composite Informational Diagnostic Interview (CIDI).7.7% of males age 15-19 drink more than 60 grams of alcohol a day32% of Mongolians are under 25 years old18.6% have been in serious fights with injuries due to alcohol15% have been arrested due to alcohol20% regularly spend money on alcohol that they need for food and other essentials10% have significant marital problems due to alcohol consumptionThe average male spends more than 32,000 tugrugs a month on alcohol18.6% will be admitted to the hospital due to alcohol or alcohol related injuries.Drinkers are:

Twice as likely to have depressionTwice as likely to have excessive stressThree times as likely to have a heart attackFour times as likely to have a serious head injuryFive times as likely to have cirrhosis of the liver

*All statistics were taken from the Epidemiological Study on the Prevalence of Alcohol Consumption, Alcohol Drinking Patterns, and Alcohol Related Harms in Mongolia published by the Mongolian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, 2006.

by Mark

Last weekend the circus came through town. Our first thought (well my first thought anyway!) was "Are there going to be animals?!" No. However, there were acrobats, jugglers, clowns, a contortionist, and all manner of "circus-like" music.

We managed to get front-row seating due to our Mongolian friend Ochgo telling the front door man that we were foreigners and we needed to get in early to get good seats! We love her. And we were happy to use our "foreigner" status this time. It wasn't long before there were another 75 kids crowding around us to watch.

Not only did we feel like we were mere meters from the acrobatics, myself and our sitemate Tim actually did get involved. Tim was asked to participate twice. Once to assist in swinging the large jump rope, and another time he was in charge of clashing a large cymbal to the floor as part of a random collection of sounds performed by people in the crowd. This was also the "event" I took part in (oh there are pictures below!). My role was to hold an old abacus (yes, the ancient calculator using beads) above my head and shake it, and my butt, as fast as I could.

Overall the evening was entertaining. Enjoy the pics!

There are 7 guys involved, 2 ropes, 5 jumpers!

Click on the pic to enlarge it, that is 1 larger guy with two guys on his shoulders and one wrapped around his waist - and he's still managing to jumprope!!

Uh yes, 3 guys jumping simultaneously to jumprope!

Does anyone else think it looks like her head is coming up through the table?

She is balancing on a pole with a bite rag - yes, just her teeth are touching anything!

Tim attempting to show the clowns that he knows how to swing a jumprope properly.

Me shakin' my "abacus" - oh and you can see Tim in the corner waiting to slam his cymbal into the floor!

Check out the high-flyin' antics of this crew...and note the outfits and hair-do's...these guys were serious! Oh and there definitely weren't any safety nets or harnesses. Like I said...serious.

If you'd like to see photos (loaded on to Facebook) of the 2010 Arkhangai Partnership Trade Fair, click here. The final tally for the 3 day event was 212 businesses, totaling 228 million tugriks in sales (roughly $175,000). It was quite a successful event!

by Mark

Though I wasn't there for this particular event, I felt it was an important task that my co-workers were involved with and I was quite proud to hear of the results. An organization from California that focuses on distributing wheelchairs to disabled persons around the world, partnered with their counterpart organization here in Mongolia. Together, last month, they visited Arkhangai and Zavkhan aimags, giving out 89 wheelchairs to individuals aged 3-88. My Mercy Corps office staff (those involved in the FIELD project that works with disabled person's organizations in the community) was tasked with organizing the events where these were given out. Enjoy the pics...

by Kara

The woman who owned the apartment we were living in, who also happens to be Mark's coworker/translator, decided she wanted to sell the apartment -- a long time ago. After months of knowing we might have to move she found a buyer -- Mark's other coworker! However, first, our coworkers had to find us a new apartment. This process turned out to be, well, quite a process. First, the people who bought the apartment wanted to move in on Saturday, September 25 (which was only a few days after they officially bought the apartment) because it is a good day in Mongolia. It being a "good day" means it's lucky for things like hair-cutting ceremonies (see last post), weddings, and moving. It's not that if you move on a bad day people think they're likely to have the truck break down on that very day, but maybe if something bad happens in general, following the event, the fact that you moved on a bad day could be blamed. Anyway, they wanted to move that day but alas, we had nowhere to live. Sorry new homeowners.

Actually, it appeared they found us an apt pretty quickly. I got my hopes up about this new place because it had a fridge. (And a full-size oven AND a hot shower! -- hello Posh Corps!) But then when the owner found out we couldn't sign a 12-month lease she pulled out and the search continued. We thought we had another - alas, it fell through. Another two were visited. They wouldn't work. Finally, we found one! And to sweeten the deal the owner said she'd leave the fridge there. I let my hopes get up again for this promised fridge.

When moving day came along the whole deal almost fell through again but somehow, Mark's coworkers managed to keep it all together. Unfortunately, the owner decided at the last minute to take her fridge with her. I'm over it now, but I was pretty sad for about 10 minutes.

Moving itself went surprisingly smooth! We had seven of my coworkers and one of our sitemates there to help. But Mark and I were amazed at how much stuff we've collected over the past year. A major part of it is due to the fact that we're currently holding all of the things passed down from volunteer to volunteer, so we have tons of books and DVDs. Plus, if there's ever a natural disaster, we have to be the keepers of extra blankets, a kerosene stove, flashlights, candles, etc. Plus, we hoard food like you wouldn't believe. (If you see something you want here in town you buy all of it immediately, as it may never appear again.) Seriously though, I can't believe how much stuff we have.

Despite all of this, we loaded up my coworker's truck with all our belongings and furniture in 45 minutes and - get ready to be impressed - we unloaded it into our new 3rd floor apartment in 23 minutes flat.

We unpacked it all into our new, small apartment over the weekend and we're pretty much settled in now. Our new apartment is kind of similar to our old one but with a few differences. This one is only a one-room apt, with a separate kitchen and bathroom. Actually, there's a little toilet room and a separate shower room. The shower is way nicer than our older one (we're sooooo happy to have a hot shower again) except that we realized it leaks if you're not careful. Our second day in our new apartment included being yelled at (I'm not exaggerating) by the neighbor who lives below us because it leaked into her apartment. Fun. Anyway, our new apartment also has a bigger kitchen and appears to be warmer than our previous apt, which is going to be awesome in the winter. Overall, it's going to work just fine for the next 10 months or so. (Though I'm still terrified to take a shower and face the wrath of the scary neighbor again.)

The mess of stuff ready to be moved out in our old apartment.All of our worldly possessions in this country precariously perched on my coworker's truck.

by Mark

Getting your hair cut isn't as simple as you might think. Not when it's supposed to be your first time, and when the symbolism of the event requires all friends/family to be there to witness and partake in said haircutting.

This past weekend Kara and I were fortunate enough to be invited to one of the "events" in traditional Mongolian life that we have had yet to witness. In fact, we were invited to two of these events on the same day. September 25th, 2010 was an auspicious day in the Mongolian calendar - one that would bring good luck to any activity you should choose to partake of. Thus, there were weddings and haircuttings and people moving and putting up gers and all manner of partying - since of course this day could only bring good!

Children in Mongolia traditionally wait a few years before receiving their first haircut. For girls, it is best to wait until they are 2 or 4 years old to have this ceremonial haircutting. For boys, they should be 3 or 5. What this means is that it is nearly impossible to tell the gender of small children under four. Little boys run around in pink coats with hair to their shoulders. Thus it's typically acceptable to ask someone what gender their child is...or if you're fortunate enough to see them running around without pants, a common occurrence in the summer, you might be able to avoid the confusion altogether.

Kara and I went to our first haircutting ceremony (which happened to be for my directors' daughter) with this background knowledge, and yet as so often happens in Mongolia, we found ourselves confused as to what was happening around us. This child was not 2 or 4, she wasn't even 6 or 8...this girl was 12!! How could this possibly be her first haircutting? This doesn't seem real? We're not getting the authentic experience! We later learned that this young woman never had her ceremony due to various reasons, and so today was her lucky day.

How it works is actually fairly simple. The young woman goes around the room from person to person. If it's your turn to cut her hair, you grab the scissors with attached blue hadak (ribbon) and bag for catching the hair. You take a small piece of hair, maybe a few inches long, snip snip, put the hair in the little bag, and as you hand back the scissors you also give the child 5000 tugriks (about $4). That's it! Your turn to be involved takes about 20 seconds! Of course this is preceded by about an hour of eating and drinking and greeting all the friends and family of the child.

Immediately following this party, we went to another home of my co-worker, who did have a little girl that fit the typical age range. We simply repeated the above procedure. All in all, it was a great experience and another thing we can scratch off the Mongolian To-Do List.

Kara doing the honors

My co-worker, Naraa, handing over 5000 tugriks.

by Kara

It’s September. The leaves have started changing, it’s getting colder, I’m consuming way more hot beverages everyday, no longer wearing just short-sleeves to work, and trying to get my work up and going again. Like many other PCVs my time this summer was an alternating mix of intensive work – summer camp – and intensive rest. Now that the school year has started it’s time to restart my 9ish to 5ish schedule and put away my flip-flops, tank tops, and cotton skirt. I’ll admit, my work at my organization has gotten off to a bit of a slow start. However, I do have one project which is helping to keep me pretty busy: the Arkhangai Healthy Lifestyles Project.

Last spring my sitemates (Zaneta and Sarah) and I came up with a fairly elaborate grant proposal (for Peace Corps standards) with the small hope that we’d get funded. To our surprise, the Millennium Challenge Account decided to award us money! I think we shared in unison the response of, “Wow! Yeah! ...Oh crap” – realizing we had to make all the stuff we wrote about a reality. Fortunately, we have a great project team. Zaneta finished up her two years of service and left but we got an equally awesome replacement – Tim. He’s taken her spot at the Health Department. And Sarah is still a teacher. Together, with our counterparts, we make up a nice cross-sector project, combining health, education, and child development (that’s me).

So what does the project actually entail? Well first, we’re training student and teacher trainer teams to teach “healthy lifestyles” lessons to all public school 10th grade students from November to May. Second, we’re doing a couple of trainings with school cooks about nutrition and new cooking ideas. (All elementary students get a free meal/snack daily.) Third, this will all culminate with the first annual Arkhangai Healthy Lifestyles Fair next May. The fair will have cooking contests, a community walk and run, a poster contest (ala “what’s your anti-drug?”), a jeopardy-style knowledge competition, and perhaps diabetes testing and heart disease testing. The goal of this whole thing is to reduce the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and heart disease (the top killers of Mongolians, the latter being the number one killer of people worldwide) by encouraging healthy lifestyles amongst youth. We’re focusing on eating healthy, the importance of exercise, and the risks and consequences of drinking and smoking.

Why focus on these things? Primarily because that's what the funders wanted. A little background though... The Mongolian diet traditionally consists of meat and dairy products that are high in fat content. This is because Mongolians were traditionally (and about 30% of the population still is) nomadic herders. Being nomadic doesn’t allow you with the time to plant crops and harvest them. However, your animals are always present, which produce said meat and dairy products. Plus, even though you’re eating a lot of fat, you live a very active lifestyle and you burn it off. Now, more and more Mongolians have moved to the aimag centers (provincial capitals) and the city and live sedentary lives – engaging in less physical activity but continuing to eat foods high in fat. Also, while people in the aimag centers have the advantage of having year-round access to fruits and vegetables, they also have access to processed foods, high in trans fats and generally less healthy. In addition, smoking and especially drinking are huge problems (22% of men are alcohol dependent, 39% of men drink at a hazardous level) and both are big risk factors for heart disease.

Anyway, we’re really just getting started but it’s a pretty cool project and our fingers are crossed we can pull it off!

Here's an example of the traditional dairy products I referred two. These are two varieties of aarul -- dried milk curds. They were made in June and have been drying out and hardening all summer. These were given to me yesterday as a thank you from a local English teacher for helping her with her English.

by Mark

This past weekend was the 2010 Arkhangai Partnership Trade Fair. The two organizations I work with (Mercy Corps and Knowledge Network) were responsible for bringing nearly 200 businesses from 7 different aimags into one locale. The event was 3 days long. Including the great weather, everything went wonderfully. The diversity of products was incredible, and the produce being sold was of varieties we hadn't seen in town before. Things like real lettuce...canned salsa...packaged pizza. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Fried Fish from Hovsgul Aimag

Salsa - this was burn-your-mouth-spicy-HOT!

Notice the stuffed Badger, Marmot, Squirrels, etc.

A few of the performers

Arkhangai's Governor handing out the "Grand Prix", or top prize in the trade fair.More pictures will be posted on Facebook in the coming days - as soon as we figure out why our Internet in town has been going at a snail's pace.

Photos from a hike that Mark and I went on today:

That's our town, Tsetserleg, in the background

If you click on this, you should be able to see a bigger version. We just got a new program that allows us to stitch photos together so we were able to combine a few photos to get a good panoramic shot of our town.

by Kara

I know this is a long shot, but I'm looking for people are coming to visit Mongolia sometime between now and June 2011 and who may be interested in helping the Mongolian Helmet Project. Donors in the US are helping me collect new and used helmets for child jockeys to wear during the Naadam horse races. This year, in an effort to save money on shipping costs, I'd like to arrange for more helmets to be delivered in hand to Mongolia. Even if the person you know can only bring one helmet, let me know! Thanks!

Click on the pic to see an option for viewing a larger version I just thought you all might like to see my cheesy, smiling face on the 4th page of the August edition of Mercy Corps Mongolia's newspaper "Citizen's Voice". We were spotlighted for our work in our aimag and asked to list everything we've worked on in the past year specifically. Obviously you won't be able to read the text, but you can see my co-workers in the pic! I'm sitting next to my director Dashka and next to him is our driver Tsogoo. In the back row is Azaa (directly behind me), Jackie my translator is next to her, and next to Jackie is Baagii (our Program Officer). Wonderful people.

by Mark

For the last two weeks of July I was a trainer for the soon to be M21 class of volunteers. I was away from my work in Arkhangai, and thus my return in early August prompted a rather quick, albeit necessary trip to the neighboring soums in our aimag. My job was to gather information/documentation, as well as take photos of all of the businesses that will be taking part in the Travel Arkhangai website project we will be launching in January of 2011. We have roughly 30 businesses interested in the project, and so I spent about 6 days gathering photos and business biographies from nearly all of these businesses.

While some of these photos may end up on the site, there are many here that were just "extras" and simply show some of the fun we were having on our trip. Along with all of the traveling, we took the time to stop and see historical sites in our aimag, as well as simply stopped to pick berries along our route. I managed to get most of the photos I needed...and returned with a fever that I most definitely needed less so. It was a great trip with my translator and Mercy Corps driver, and I learned a lot about our already wonderful aimag on this adventure.

Now that I've returned, I'm actually writing this from UB, as we are back in the capital to see the new volunteers swear-in, and to attend our Mid-Service Training. It's hard to believe we've been "at work" for over a year now. Anyway, enjoy the following pics.

Ger Camp in Tsenker soum - you too could enjoy staying in this beautiful camp for only 25000₮. That's about $19.00/night.

Or right next door you could stay at this resort (yes, that's a rather large log cabin!). However, rooms range from $35 to $95 each night!

You would however get to eat in a nice restaurant that looks like this and you could find yourself conversing with the Prime Minister of Mongolia - yes, he has been here.

You could also swim in this wonderful pool heated by the local hot spring. It's something like 120 degrees when the water is put in...you have to wait about 2-3 hours before you can swim...when it's much cooler, more like 106-110 degrees.

On this trip I learned that the Turks were previously living in Mongolia (circa 500-700 AD) and left these two large stone pillars in our aimag. Supposedly the translations of the text on the stones is the first known instance of the Turks using their own name ("Turks") in reference to themselves. Interesting...

Up in these rocks is a famous monastery. This is the only existing photo of this portion of the trip as our camera died immediately following this snapshot. But you'll have to believe me that there was in fact a large monastery in those hills - if you study the pic you can see man made additions.

This pic was just amazing. It was the first time in Mongolia I can remember being in a location in nature where I felt more enclosed by the trees than the sky. In many ways it reminded me of paths through trees in Washington. It was beautiful.

These are my co-workers laying in the brush/grass picking wild strawberries. You better believe I joined them.

Check out how small these things were. We picked for over an hour and I probably ate like 25 of those.

This is a ger camp called Ogii Tour at Ogii Lake. It's right on the water. Great location, great staff, great bathrooms. All things you should consider when planning your future trip to Arkhangai.

by Kara

A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Tariat Soum with my sitemate Sarah and her visiting mom and sister. (Mark had to go to UB so was unable to join us, but he's already been to Tariat with his work.) Tariat is way out in the countryside and is known for being really beautiful. Fortunately it was, otherwise the bumpiest car ride I've ever been on would not have been worth it. Here are some images from the trip!

by Kara

I just got back from a long, full 7 days of children's summer camp that the organization I work with is running all summer. I'm too tired to do much of a write up, but here are some pictures from the week!

The kids' cabins

Morning line-up

Taking pictures for the photo scavenger hunt - made possible by Josh and Elizabeth, who donated cameras!

Happy kids, pretty sunset

by Kara

Last weekend, July 10-11, our province held it's Naadam festival. Naadam is an annual, national event in Mongolia. There's a big festival in the capital, but each province holds it's own. Last year we got to see this celebration in a different province, but I didn't get to see very much. This year we spent the full two-days at it.

The festival involves three sports: horse-racing, wrestling, and archery. You may remember that one of the projects I've been working on is the Mongolian Helmet Project. I found donors to contribute new and used helmets for the child jockeys to wear in the horse races. The project was pretty successful! We met our goal and collected over 100 helmets. We distributed many of the helmets the day before the race. Many of the kids wore them in the races too! My coworkers did a great job coordinating the distribution of the helmets and really helped sell the idea of wearing the helmets to the trainers. Hopefully, with each year, more and more kids will wear the helmets in the races, and eventually they'll all be wearing them.

I could go on and on about Naadam, but to really see what it's all about, take a look at the photos I've posted here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=236678&id=504170728&l=db262dce87.