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.
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