As I have said before, this business of peace-building is a tough line of work. You rarely see quick results -- or any results for that matter -- and most of the time you really have no idea of what you're doing. That's why, however, it is so sweet when you do achieve a small bit of success.
Back in December, my main counterpart, Bahitgul, and I attended a week-long seminar conducted by Peace Corps. It covered loads of topics from team-teaching to cross-culture to project development, implementation, and evaluation. There was definitely some good stuff in there. Well, now that we are back in Olgii, we decided to share that good stuff with the rest of our fellow English teachers.
Yesterday Bahitgul and I put on our own seminar. We've been planning it for a few weeks and we invited our school's other 7 English teachers. While only 5 showed up -- and they were all close to 45 minutes late -- the whole thing seemed to be successful. We were very professional: we had an ice breaker, slideshows, structured 40-minute sessions, and even a tea break complete with some of Ashlee's homemade oatmeal raisin cookies that everyone was quite impressed with. We covered lots of ground: Peace Corps, Peace Corps Mongolia, American culture, team-teaching, games, life skills, time management, English clubs, and critical thinking. Everything seemed well-received and the teachers all enjoyed themselves. It was also the first real test of mine and Bahtigul's working relationship. We made quite the team and I could not have done it without her. She really came through in setting up the time and place of the seminar, procuring a computer and projector to show our slideshows, and preparing her sessions. With that said, we will see how things go from here.
In other news, things are going well. The weather is marginally improving -- this past week has seen some above-freezing temperatures! -- and we are sliding ourselves into March. We have our eyes on the ball that is our California vacation in about three and a half months. It's going to be awesome. We've already got a list of the restaurants and eateries we want to patronize and the family and friends we want to visit -- err, family and friends being the more important of the two...
Also, those of you who have been following our blog the last few weeks may remember that my family has been on pins-and-needles over my father's thyroid cancer recurrence. Well, after a tough few months and a battery of tests, I am happy to report that my father's oncologist has assured him that with the proper treatment, he will completely fine. Needless to say, it is a load off of our minds.
With that said, however, being the natural worriers that we are, we have found something new to worry about -- ha, it certainly doesn't help matters that we have so much time on our hands here. As you may know, we burn lots of coal. On average, I'd say we burn at least 50 or 60 pounds of coal a day. Heck, I think we must have gone through 2 tons of the stuff in 6 weeks during January and the early part of February. Well, lately our carbon monoxide detector has been going off daily -- which is a huge hassle. It means that we have to open our door and window to air our place out, which means losing our precious heat to the freezing outside temperatures. We also sometimes get headaches and general "funkiness" -- and again the worriers that we are -- we are paranoid that they may be coal fire-induced. Needless to say, we plan on bringing up the issue with Peace Corps. We have been keeping a log of our fire schedule and every time our alarm goes off along with whenever we feel light-headed or head-achey. I believe that in the past when volunteers have had such issues, Peace Corps has provided them with new living arrangements. So who knows, perhaps next year we will find ourselves in an apartment -- with a whole host of different problems... Ha, just living the dream here, ya know?
With that said, we're thankful again that March is practically here. Hopefully it will be a busy month for both of us what with some upcoming English competitions, a two-week school break, a major Kazakh holiday, Ashlee's attending a HIV/AIDS education seminar in UB, and our sitemate Laura's three-day English seminar for all English teachers in our province that she has asked me to help with. June will be here before we know it, right? Right?!?!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
California, Here We Come! (in June)
There's no hiding it, life in Mongolia for a couple of California kids used to sunshine and modern conveniences is tough. Things can just be so different here -- from the food to the weather to the language to the work to the culture. Some days are a real battle to keep our heads up and (especially on the weekends) to force ourselves to leave our house -- which has become our warm island of America, albeit sans plumbing. We definitely both have cases of the "Mongolian Winter Blues."
Things are especially tough on holidays. In fact, I've never really appreciated how many holidays there are until just this year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, our birthdays, and now Valentine's Day. As these days come and go, we can't help but think how we'd celebrate if we were in America, causing serious bouts of home-sickness. These special days are when we realize just what we are sacrificing to be here -- yes, I know that many of these "sacrifices" are completely superficial (nice restaurants, new clothes, daily hot showers, etc.) and that they represent many of the things we are trying to overcome here in the Peace Corps (i.e. consumerism), but we are only human. Scratch that, we are only American.
So like I said, some days can be a real battle. To win these battles, just like in actual combat, we have to arm ourselves. Instead of weapons or armor, however, we have outfitted ourselves with a slew of coping mechanisms to get us through this season. Some of these mechanisms are positive -- forcing ourselves to leave the house and stroll around town to let the cold air cool our heads...and give us brain freeze -- and some are not so positive -- the other day we watched back-to-back movies while eating an entire bowl of instant chocolate pudding.
Fortunately, we have stumbled upon the seeming holy grail of coping mechanisms for the Mongolian Winter Blues -- we have booked tickets for a visit back home to California this coming June. That's right, in just over three months we'll be back in sunny SoCal for three weeks swimming in pools, eating guacamole, and heading to the river. Now, for me at least, no matter how down this winter gets me, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I know that I can stick it out.
In other news, this past weekend was Tsaagan Sar, a major Mongolian holiday involving visiting every single friend you have, eating greasy meat dumpling after greasy meat dumpling, and swigging shots of increasingly cheaper vodka. Back during training we were given tons of advice on how to handle this holiday. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, since we are living here in Kazakh-land, the holiday was extremely muted. Actually, except for the fact that schools are out for the week and all government offices have been closed, you would never have figured it to be a holiday.
Needless to say, with the schools and government offices closed, Ashlee and I have been thankful to have some official time off of work. We've gotten to sleep in, avoid having to go outside, and relax as much as one can while living in Olgii.
School starts up again next week...and I'm hoping that time will just slide by. It looks like we'll have a pretty busy spring. Next week, my counterpart, Ashlee, and I will be holding an English-teaching seminar for our school's English teachers where we will cover many of the issues we discussed at our Peace Corps training back in December. The week after that will be a two-day "General Knowledge & English Language Olympiad" where teams of 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students from different schools will face off to show their skills in the classrooms. This activity was started last year by our sitemate, Matt, and one of my counterparts and it was a huge success. In the American spirit, this year will hopefully be bigger and even better.
The third week of March is the Kazakh New Year (called Nayourz) and, apparently, Olgii is the place to be when this occurs. It sounds like there will be much visiting, eating, drinking, and parade-watching in store for us -- along with a mega concert by the smash Kazakh band Muzart. It sounds like, however, Ashlee will be missing the celebration this year -- a PC friend of hers in UB is holding an HIV awareness seminar that Ashlee will be flown in for. Looks like I may be flying solo at Nayourz. It's ok, I plan to be doing it in style. I asked my counterpart, Bahitgul, to help me procure a custom-fitted Kazakh knee-length jacket and hat. More details on that later.
So yeah, for the moment we're still taking it a day at a time. Every day that passes means one less day of winter and one more day closer to our SoCal vacation...
Things are especially tough on holidays. In fact, I've never really appreciated how many holidays there are until just this year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, our birthdays, and now Valentine's Day. As these days come and go, we can't help but think how we'd celebrate if we were in America, causing serious bouts of home-sickness. These special days are when we realize just what we are sacrificing to be here -- yes, I know that many of these "sacrifices" are completely superficial (nice restaurants, new clothes, daily hot showers, etc.) and that they represent many of the things we are trying to overcome here in the Peace Corps (i.e. consumerism), but we are only human. Scratch that, we are only American.
So like I said, some days can be a real battle. To win these battles, just like in actual combat, we have to arm ourselves. Instead of weapons or armor, however, we have outfitted ourselves with a slew of coping mechanisms to get us through this season. Some of these mechanisms are positive -- forcing ourselves to leave the house and stroll around town to let the cold air cool our heads...and give us brain freeze -- and some are not so positive -- the other day we watched back-to-back movies while eating an entire bowl of instant chocolate pudding.
Fortunately, we have stumbled upon the seeming holy grail of coping mechanisms for the Mongolian Winter Blues -- we have booked tickets for a visit back home to California this coming June. That's right, in just over three months we'll be back in sunny SoCal for three weeks swimming in pools, eating guacamole, and heading to the river. Now, for me at least, no matter how down this winter gets me, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I know that I can stick it out.
In other news, this past weekend was Tsaagan Sar, a major Mongolian holiday involving visiting every single friend you have, eating greasy meat dumpling after greasy meat dumpling, and swigging shots of increasingly cheaper vodka. Back during training we were given tons of advice on how to handle this holiday. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, since we are living here in Kazakh-land, the holiday was extremely muted. Actually, except for the fact that schools are out for the week and all government offices have been closed, you would never have figured it to be a holiday.
Needless to say, with the schools and government offices closed, Ashlee and I have been thankful to have some official time off of work. We've gotten to sleep in, avoid having to go outside, and relax as much as one can while living in Olgii.
School starts up again next week...and I'm hoping that time will just slide by. It looks like we'll have a pretty busy spring. Next week, my counterpart, Ashlee, and I will be holding an English-teaching seminar for our school's English teachers where we will cover many of the issues we discussed at our Peace Corps training back in December. The week after that will be a two-day "General Knowledge & English Language Olympiad" where teams of 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students from different schools will face off to show their skills in the classrooms. This activity was started last year by our sitemate, Matt, and one of my counterparts and it was a huge success. In the American spirit, this year will hopefully be bigger and even better.
The third week of March is the Kazakh New Year (called Nayourz) and, apparently, Olgii is the place to be when this occurs. It sounds like there will be much visiting, eating, drinking, and parade-watching in store for us -- along with a mega concert by the smash Kazakh band Muzart. It sounds like, however, Ashlee will be missing the celebration this year -- a PC friend of hers in UB is holding an HIV awareness seminar that Ashlee will be flown in for. Looks like I may be flying solo at Nayourz. It's ok, I plan to be doing it in style. I asked my counterpart, Bahitgul, to help me procure a custom-fitted Kazakh knee-length jacket and hat. More details on that later.
So yeah, for the moment we're still taking it a day at a time. Every day that passes means one less day of winter and one more day closer to our SoCal vacation...
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Happy Teacher's Day!
We did it! We survived another Kazakh/Mongolian social situation with never-ending vodka shots, long-winded toasts, impromptu singing, and non-stop dancing. Last night my school officially celebrated Teacher's Day by holding a dinner and dance at a local banquet hall. Jokes aside, it was actually a lot of fun.
The reason I say that last night was when my school "officially" celebrated the holiday is because Teacher's Day seemed to be more of a Teacher's Week. Every day this week there was something on the agenda to recognize teachers -- student performances, gifts, concerts, award ceremonies, inter-school sports challenges, and karaoke. Last night was just the culmination of the festivities.
As I mentioned before, Ashlee was invited to join in the fun. I was thrilled to have the company. Most of the time these sorts of functions go over my head since I don't understand what's going on. Apparently everyone else was glad that Ashlee came too -- all night long people were shaking her hand, asking her questions, and she took more than a couple spins out on the dance floor. She was a hit!
So yeah, there was lots of food, definitely lots of vodka, and even more dancing. The music was a blend of traditional Kazakh tunes and modern techno remixes of American songs. Every once in a while the DJ decided to throw on Mongolian waltz music and everyone would immediately pair up and spin into oblivion around the dance floor. A couple teachers tried to teach me the dance, but I kept getting too dizzy. Instead, Ashlee and I kept to the edge of the floor and tried not to get in anyone's way -- which was difficult as we kept getting jostled by couples spinning a bit too recklessly.
My favorite dance of the night, however, was definitely the Kara Jorga, which translates roughly into English as "Black Horse." It's this great song that every single Kazakh I have met absolutely loves. I swear, I think the song could repeat over and over the entire night and nobody would mind. The dance requires lots of shoulder and arm movement -- something that I appear to be quite deficient in. Once again, Ashlee and I were mere spectators. Here's a link to a YouTube video showing the song and the dance.
Another high point of the night was when four couples were brought into the center of the dance floor after dinner to play a game. Bahtgul explained that each couple was going to act out how different animals "love." We weren't sure if we understood correctly -- were the couples going to simulate animal sex? Yes, that's exactly what they were instructed to do. Finding this a bit odd in conservative Olgii, I was curious how this would play out. It turned out that each couple demonstrated the courtship of different animals: horses, goats, chickens, and cats. By American standards, it was pretty clean but it was hilarious watching every single teacher in the room turn into a blushing giggly teenager.
Like I said, it was a fun night. It was great to be able to unwind and to see my co-workers in a relaxed atmosphere. I took some video of the night (including some awesome Kara Jorga-ing) that I hope to put together and post here soon. Here's some pictures for now.
Some of my students performing for the teachers.
A shot of the spread put out at the banquet hall: salads, fruit, and (of course) the meat plate.
My training manager, Vasya, and I. Training managers are sort of like vice principals.
A couple of teachers trying to get me to dance the Kara Jorga.
School 4's English teachers.
The reason I say that last night was when my school "officially" celebrated the holiday is because Teacher's Day seemed to be more of a Teacher's Week. Every day this week there was something on the agenda to recognize teachers -- student performances, gifts, concerts, award ceremonies, inter-school sports challenges, and karaoke. Last night was just the culmination of the festivities.
As I mentioned before, Ashlee was invited to join in the fun. I was thrilled to have the company. Most of the time these sorts of functions go over my head since I don't understand what's going on. Apparently everyone else was glad that Ashlee came too -- all night long people were shaking her hand, asking her questions, and she took more than a couple spins out on the dance floor. She was a hit!
So yeah, there was lots of food, definitely lots of vodka, and even more dancing. The music was a blend of traditional Kazakh tunes and modern techno remixes of American songs. Every once in a while the DJ decided to throw on Mongolian waltz music and everyone would immediately pair up and spin into oblivion around the dance floor. A couple teachers tried to teach me the dance, but I kept getting too dizzy. Instead, Ashlee and I kept to the edge of the floor and tried not to get in anyone's way -- which was difficult as we kept getting jostled by couples spinning a bit too recklessly.
My favorite dance of the night, however, was definitely the Kara Jorga, which translates roughly into English as "Black Horse." It's this great song that every single Kazakh I have met absolutely loves. I swear, I think the song could repeat over and over the entire night and nobody would mind. The dance requires lots of shoulder and arm movement -- something that I appear to be quite deficient in. Once again, Ashlee and I were mere spectators. Here's a link to a YouTube video showing the song and the dance.
Another high point of the night was when four couples were brought into the center of the dance floor after dinner to play a game. Bahtgul explained that each couple was going to act out how different animals "love." We weren't sure if we understood correctly -- were the couples going to simulate animal sex? Yes, that's exactly what they were instructed to do. Finding this a bit odd in conservative Olgii, I was curious how this would play out. It turned out that each couple demonstrated the courtship of different animals: horses, goats, chickens, and cats. By American standards, it was pretty clean but it was hilarious watching every single teacher in the room turn into a blushing giggly teenager.
Like I said, it was a fun night. It was great to be able to unwind and to see my co-workers in a relaxed atmosphere. I took some video of the night (including some awesome Kara Jorga-ing) that I hope to put together and post here soon. Here's some pictures for now.
Some of my students performing for the teachers.
A shot of the spread put out at the banquet hall: salads, fruit, and (of course) the meat plate.
My training manager, Vasya, and I. Training managers are sort of like vice principals.
A couple of teachers trying to get me to dance the Kara Jorga.
School 4's English teachers.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Another Week Down.
I realize that as the winter continues to drag on, these posts are coming fewer and more infrequently. I can assure you, however, that Ashlee and I are still trudging along. We have heard that the worst of the winter is behind us, but the daily temperature still fluctuates between -20F and 15F. We're still making three fires a day and we have probably burned one ton of coal in the last 5 weeks -- sorry, Earth.
This past Monday (Feb. 1st), Ashlee joined the 25-year-old club. We both played hooky in the morning and we spent most of the day eating out of our care packages and watching movies. I made M&M pancakes for breakfast, bean burritos and quesadillas for lunch, and we went to the Turkish restaurant for dinner for our usual grilled chicken and french fries. Since we're regulars at that restaurant now (every Friday night), they helped us celebrate Ashlee's birthday by giving us complimentary cake and tea. It was really nice. Oh yeah, I also baked some double chocolate brownies. They were delicious.
This past week at work has been a bit screwy. A couple of weeks ago we officially started the third term of the school year. Usually the students get a one-week break between terms, but because we missed three weeks of school in the Fall because of H1N1, the Mongolian government decided to postpone the break until mid-February, when students will be out of school for a week anyways to celebrate the huge Mongolian holiday that is Tsaagan Sar. As a result, the students -- and many of my teachers -- are all a bit stir crazy and February 11th (the start of the break) cannot come soon enough.
Tsaagan Sar is probably the biggest holiday in Mongolia, but since we live in Olgii with Kazakhs who are fiercely un-Mongolian, we most likely will not be joining in any festivities. Since the routine for the holiday is to spend three days visiting friends and drinking vodka and eating greasy meat dumpling after greasy meat dumpling, we're not too sad. We'll make it up though -- next month is Nayourz, the huge Kazakh holiday which you spend visiting friends, drinking vodka, and eating a traditional 7-ingredient soup -- I'm not quite clear on what the 7 ingredients are, although I'm positive that meat is included.
This past Monday was also Teacher's Day, which seems to be a big deal. Every school celebrates the day differently. At my friend Laura's school, the students taught all the lessons while the teachers got to hang out in the lounge. At my school, the students all put on performances for the teachers and they decorated the teacher's room with pictures and personalized poems for each teacher. The school has also put together a big party tomorrow night at one of Olgii's disco halls. I asked exactly what I am in store for, and I was told "eating, drinking vodka, dancing, and karaoke." Sounds like something I can get on board with. My counterparts were nice enough to invite Ashlee also, so I won't be flying solo. She is thrilled.
My resolutions are still holding strong, by the way. I have been teaching my English lessons to teachers for 6 weeks now and I have 8 students that come every week. We've all been having a good time. I'm also making slow but steady progress on my language skills. Our 80-year-old hashaa grandmother, whom I chat with whenever I get water from the big house, ensures me that my Kazakh is excellent. I've also been meeting with my older students in the afternoons. We mostly just play Uno, but I think they are definitely warming up to me and their English is much better than I first thought. Ashlee and I have decided that next week we will start holding English Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At first we will mostly play games and sing songs, but eventually I want to get to the point where we can begin talking about life skills -- like managing stress and developing personal goals.
Ashlee's work is still slow -- although it picked up quite a bit this week as they asked her to write no less than four grants before a deadline this afternoon. She has also started spending more time at my school helping teach English to the younger students. I got to watch her in action yesterday as she taught the song "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" to a group of 7th graders and she looked the happiest I have seen her in months -- well other than when we are at home watching shows on our computer and eating double chocolate brownies.
On the homefront, we received news yesterday that the thryoid cancer my father overcame almost 15 years ago has decided to come back. A biopsy yesterday showed that he has a couple of small pencil-eraser-sized "nodules" -- not tumors -- in one of his lungs. He will be meeting with an oncologist in the next couple of weeks to determine a course of treatment. At the moment he is symptom-free and he is confident that it was caught early. Nonetheless, I am finding it difficult to be so far away from home. If you're into prayers, please keep him in yours.
That's all for now. Take care.
This past Monday (Feb. 1st), Ashlee joined the 25-year-old club. We both played hooky in the morning and we spent most of the day eating out of our care packages and watching movies. I made M&M pancakes for breakfast, bean burritos and quesadillas for lunch, and we went to the Turkish restaurant for dinner for our usual grilled chicken and french fries. Since we're regulars at that restaurant now (every Friday night), they helped us celebrate Ashlee's birthday by giving us complimentary cake and tea. It was really nice. Oh yeah, I also baked some double chocolate brownies. They were delicious.
This past week at work has been a bit screwy. A couple of weeks ago we officially started the third term of the school year. Usually the students get a one-week break between terms, but because we missed three weeks of school in the Fall because of H1N1, the Mongolian government decided to postpone the break until mid-February, when students will be out of school for a week anyways to celebrate the huge Mongolian holiday that is Tsaagan Sar. As a result, the students -- and many of my teachers -- are all a bit stir crazy and February 11th (the start of the break) cannot come soon enough.
Tsaagan Sar is probably the biggest holiday in Mongolia, but since we live in Olgii with Kazakhs who are fiercely un-Mongolian, we most likely will not be joining in any festivities. Since the routine for the holiday is to spend three days visiting friends and drinking vodka and eating greasy meat dumpling after greasy meat dumpling, we're not too sad. We'll make it up though -- next month is Nayourz, the huge Kazakh holiday which you spend visiting friends, drinking vodka, and eating a traditional 7-ingredient soup -- I'm not quite clear on what the 7 ingredients are, although I'm positive that meat is included.
This past Monday was also Teacher's Day, which seems to be a big deal. Every school celebrates the day differently. At my friend Laura's school, the students taught all the lessons while the teachers got to hang out in the lounge. At my school, the students all put on performances for the teachers and they decorated the teacher's room with pictures and personalized poems for each teacher. The school has also put together a big party tomorrow night at one of Olgii's disco halls. I asked exactly what I am in store for, and I was told "eating, drinking vodka, dancing, and karaoke." Sounds like something I can get on board with. My counterparts were nice enough to invite Ashlee also, so I won't be flying solo. She is thrilled.
My resolutions are still holding strong, by the way. I have been teaching my English lessons to teachers for 6 weeks now and I have 8 students that come every week. We've all been having a good time. I'm also making slow but steady progress on my language skills. Our 80-year-old hashaa grandmother, whom I chat with whenever I get water from the big house, ensures me that my Kazakh is excellent. I've also been meeting with my older students in the afternoons. We mostly just play Uno, but I think they are definitely warming up to me and their English is much better than I first thought. Ashlee and I have decided that next week we will start holding English Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At first we will mostly play games and sing songs, but eventually I want to get to the point where we can begin talking about life skills -- like managing stress and developing personal goals.
Ashlee's work is still slow -- although it picked up quite a bit this week as they asked her to write no less than four grants before a deadline this afternoon. She has also started spending more time at my school helping teach English to the younger students. I got to watch her in action yesterday as she taught the song "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" to a group of 7th graders and she looked the happiest I have seen her in months -- well other than when we are at home watching shows on our computer and eating double chocolate brownies.
On the homefront, we received news yesterday that the thryoid cancer my father overcame almost 15 years ago has decided to come back. A biopsy yesterday showed that he has a couple of small pencil-eraser-sized "nodules" -- not tumors -- in one of his lungs. He will be meeting with an oncologist in the next couple of weeks to determine a course of treatment. At the moment he is symptom-free and he is confident that it was caught early. Nonetheless, I am finding it difficult to be so far away from home. If you're into prayers, please keep him in yours.
That's all for now. Take care.
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