August Wrap-Up

by Scott

Oh man, after three weeks in UB, a weekend in Darkhan, and our mid-service training seminar in Terelj National Park, we are now back in Olgii and things are calming down, which means it’s time for an update. Let’s see, to sum up August in a nutshell: our new sitemates seem really great and our next (and last!) year of service is looking up, my ribs are still recovering from my encounter with the open manhole, Monopoly Deal is one of the best card games in the world, I miss whiskey, PC married couples make awesome friends, and, oh yeah, Ashlee and I both contracted the worst diarrhea of our lives. Overall, things were pretty great.

About our sitemates: there’s Adi, another SoCal native who has been posted to a small village two hours outside of Olgii. As I mentioned in a previous post, her new community makes Olgii sound like NYC (she just found out she won’t be having electricity for a month because of maintenance) – but she is totally digging it and she is looking for that rough Peace Corps experience, although she did have a minor setback in the form of a severe eye infection which earned her a week-long trip back to UB and the land of PC doctors, but that’s another story. Our next sitemate is Brian from the Midwest, a fellow English teacher who moved into Laura’s old house but who will be teaching at a different school – a school on the “other” side of town, which means he has a nice 40-minute walk to work every day. He seems really nice – one of the first things he said to us was that he is looking forward to having some three-way with us. We were a bit weirded out until he explained that a three-way is a hallmark Cincinnati food dish involving spaghetti noodles, chili, and cheese – I think. Two random things about him: he says he got his law school acceptance letter and PC invitation for service on the same day – he hopes he made the right decision! – and he says he has been working in and around kitchens for years so he’s anxious to explore the PC cook book. Our last sitemate is Justin, a journalist also from the Midwest, although he does have a bit of a southern accent. He’s been placed in an apartment and he’ll be taking over Matt’s work at the children’s center. Although he is admittedly lost when it comes to the kitchen, he seems enthusiastic about picking up cooking tips from Ashlee and Brian and he apparently has a cabinet full of spices. His Mongolian is excellent, he’s been cracking on with his Kazakh studies, and he is definitely anxious to get to work. I’m hoping to pull him over to my school and maybe we can work on some small projects with my school’s social worker. So yeah, everyone seems awesome and we are really looking forward to getting to know more about them. Also, to cement our early friendship, we did all go in on purchasing a washing machine, but I’m getting ahead of myself.




Anyways, we spent our first two weeks in UB meeting with these newbies and attending their site placement and swearing-in ceremonies. I have really enjoyed spending time with this newest group of volunteers. I have always hated being the FNG, and now with these new people in town, our street cred has bumped us up a notch on the totem pole – not that I flaunt this or anything. We also did make fast friends with a really nice married couple from Texas who got placed in a ger – what the what? This is something that Ashlee and I can totally commiserate with – like them, we felt like we got the shaft in our training group what with first being separated during PST and then being placed in a house while the other three couples were living the apartment high-life (right). Not to worry though, they seem like great people and they are down for the cause. We did assure them that if they ever needed a sympathetic ear they are more than welcome to give us a call – or maybe they can cross their fingers for carbon monoxide poisoning and then get moved to an apartment. Just kidding.

After these newbies officially swore in as full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteers (isn’t it sort of lame graduating from a trainee to a volunteer?) and were scooted off to their respective sites, Ashlee and I banded together with our friends, Mark and Kara of Seattle, to visit our other friends, Ryan and Stephanie of Oregon, in Darkhan, Mongolia’s second largest city which is only a three-hour bus ride on a paved road from UB. From what we saw, Darkhan is a great city – from the big parks to the largest (or only?) suspension bridge in Mongolia to the soft serve frozen yogurt to the chicken pizza, it’s all good. Also, Ryan and Stephanie’s apartment is pretty awesome. It’s large, it’s fully furnished, they have hot water all year (the 6 of us took more showers in 3 days then I took all last winter), and they have an espresso machine! It was like America. To run with the American theme, we all chipped in and bought a couple bottles of Johnny Walker, a bag of ice, 2 liters of coke, and we sipped cocktails and played hand after hand of Monopoly Deal. It was a great little vacation from vacation.



After three days in Darkhan, the six of us made the trip back to UB to attend our mid-service training (MST) in Terelj National Park. From the get-go, my MST experience was blighted by the worst case of diarrhea I have ever had. To make matters worse, we were staying in a ger camp, so I had to make repeated trips across part of the camp to the communal loos. The training sessions that I did attend, however, did get me excited about my second year of service. Ashlee and I have made a resolution to not just be social with our sitemates, but to try and work with them. We have a few ideas of projects that we can all pitch in on. The ger camp itself was in a really beautiful spot with mountains, trees, and a freezing cold river that Ashlee, throwing caution to the wind, decided to plunge into with her friends. Like a good husband, I rooted her on from the shore. Also, next to the camp was perhaps the nicest resort I have ever seen in Mongolia – I think its sign even boasted 5 stars. Hmmm, maybe for our close-of-service conference in May Peace Corps can shell out a few more bucks and we can say goodbye to Mongolia in style.




After the conference ended we were shuttled back to the Peace Corps office where I promptly started a round of antibiotics to combat the gut-busting giardia I was battling. We spent our last night in UB dining out with some friends at Kenny Roger’s Roasters of all places. It is a restaurant that we have walked passed numerous times and we always thought it was a joke. It’s not a joke, though – the food is delicious! They have legitimate roasted chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, milk shakes, and – just because it’s Mongolia and things are always a little off here – delicious Vietnamese pho.

We caught an early morning flight back here to Olgii on Saturday, August 28th. Our apartment seems to be all in order and my director did reclaim her refrigerator. Fortunately, though, my counterpart made good on her promise to lend us her parents’ refrigerator. Oddly enough, it’s the exact same model as the one we had to give away, and here we thought that hunk-of-junk was one of a kind. Hmm, they must have been Soviet-issued. Jokes aside, we are definitely thankful to Bahitgul and having a working refrigerator is a huge bonus for our life in Mongolia.

To keep the good news coming, my English cabinet is still intact! I was sure that sometime over the past 3 months it would have been dismantled and I would have been back to Square 1 this school year, but I was proved wrong. In fact, the day I got back to school my director decided to provide the cabinet with 10 brand new desks and 20 brand new chairs – all my fellow teachers assured me that this was a giant honor.

In other news, I'm looking to make some big changes with my counterparts this year. I have decided to be much more American in my work ethic. Last year I tried to be Kazakh and I let work fall apart one cup of tea at a time. This year, however, will be all about time management. If my teachers blow off meetings, there will be consequences. Exactly what consequences, I'm not sure, but there will be some. We'll see how that goes.

Yesterday was the first day of school. I was pretty nervous about it, but it came and went and I am still alive. I'm sure once I find my groove, things will be fine. Besides, we only have 11 months left in Mongolia!



In other news, our toilet still doesn't flush (we'll need to get the landlord on that) and we are eagerly awaiting the turning on of our hot water sometime around October 15th. Oh man, we get excited thinking about being able to take a hot shower every day! The weather is still nice, but we know that nasty winter is lurking just a few weeks away. Eagle Festival this year will be October 2nd & 3rd. A lot of our PCV friends from around the country have expressed interest in coming, but we'll see how many actually make it. Also, I need to start my grad school applications in a few weeks. Yikes! The thought of life post-PC is exciting but nauseating at the same time. Wish me luck!