Work (Scott)

Ok, so by judging by the past dozen or so posts, I know what you must be thinking: "Did you guys just go to Mongolia to hang out and gorge yourselves celebrating American holidays?" No. I promise that we did, in fact, come here to work. It's just that the whole H1N1 craze really threw a wrench into our plans. I mean my school was closed for an entire month and the people at the health department where Ashlee works have been running around like chickens with their heads cut off yelling, "I'm so busy!".

This past Monday school actually did resume, but it's a bit of a nightmare. It is really difficult to pick up where we left off weeks ago and my students seem to have forgotten every English word they know -- except "Hello," of course, which they continue to shout at me from across the schoolyard. Also, the schedule that I worked so hard to put together has completely changed: all the teachers get new time tables next week. At this point, I have pretty much written off the rest of the year. I have one more week of classes and then I leave for In-Service Training (IST) on Saturday December 5th. I'll be in UB for almost three weeks.

What's IST, you ask? Well, now that everyone in our group has been at their sites for three months, Peace Corps wants to bring us all back into the capital for further training and progress reports. We also all get to bring one co-worker along with us so that they can learn how to work more effectively with a PCV. Believe me, when my teachers heard that I had the power to grant one of them a free trip to UB, I was quite the popular guy.

Anyways, IST lasts for a week. Since Ashlee and I are in different volunteer sectors, we have different ISTs that are a week apart. She actually left today and her training runs from November 30th to December 5th. My training is December 14th through December 19th. We decided that since we are both headed into the big city, we'd spend the week between our training sessions together enjoying the urban scene and all its conveniences.

Until then, however, I'm on my own here in Olgii. Without Ashlee, the house definitely feels a lot emptier. Not to mention the fact that lunch time is approaching and I'm left to fend for myself. No worries, Ashlee took care of me -- she stocked the cupboards and refrigerator with food and she even prepared me a little "bachelor" cookbook with all of my favorite dishes, including vegetable soup, suutei boda, and mashed potatoes. Wish me luck.