UB Here We Come!

It's been a busy few weeks of school, weddings, beautiful weather, and the usual drama of life in Mongolia. We are leaving on Saturday for UB and we won't return to Olgii until May 7th. Before we go, however, I thought I'd make this rambling post updating you on the goings-on of your favorite Olgii PCVs.

Last week I got pulled into my school director's office for a little chat/lecture. I think it was prompted by Peace Corps' inquiry into whether my school would like another volunteer after I leave. With Bahitgul acting as translator, my director interrogated me for fifteen minutes on "everything I have accomplished in two years." Unfortunately, most of my proudest achievements (like surviving two Mongolian winters and forging a close friendship with Bahitgul) don't really seem to impress her. I fear that all she sees is an American who doesn't speak Kazakh, who brings her expensive-by-local-standards electricity bills, who took a three-week vacation to Thailand in the middle of the school year, and who always seem to duck out of school parties before the meat plate is served. During the meeting, she said several times that she expects me to "work very hard" during my last months here.

Feeling a bit chastened, I walked home and discovered that our electricity had been shut off because the very same director that had just put me on the hot seat for not holding up my end of the bargain had neglected to pay our electricity bill for the past several months. I tried to be diplomatic about it first and not kick up too much of a fuss, but I don't think my director really understood the situation we were in. I know it makes us sound like Peace Corps divas, but Ashlee and I have discovered that there is a fine line between misery and "getting by" here in Olgii and that line is electricity. The second the power goes out, our refrigerator thaws spoiling our precious American food, our laptop batteries drain meaning we can't watch our beloved TV shows (the horror!), we can't use our little toaster oven, and, basically, life is in the pits. Anyways, I didn't see my director take much action, so I got on the phone to a few counterparts and also our PC regional manager. Within an hour or so, my director was getting phone calls left and right about her missed payments. All the badgering paid off and our electricity was restored within 36 hours, which is lightning fast for things in Mongolia.

In addition to fretting about our electricity, we have also attended two weddings in the past five days -- one for our friend Agii and another for our friend Aynabek. If you're in the right frame of mind, Kazakh weddings can be a hoot. For the most part, you are packed into a dining hall like a sardine for hours on end semi-listening to rambling toasts whilst snacking on potato and pickled vegetable salads and throwing back shots of vodka. Every now and then everyone breaks and heads into the dance hall for some good ol' Kazakh circle dancing. Although both weddings featured 25 toasts too many, we had a good time. It was nice that the four of us Olgii PCVs got to go together. At Aynabek's wedding we were even joined by our friend Denise, the American director of a local mine, who recently got back into town. During Denise's toast, she tried to explain the American tradition of clinking silverware on a glass to get the wedding couple to kiss, but it simply led to an awkward exchange in which the wedding emcee told the whole crowd in Kazakh that Denise was drunk. She was pretty embarassed.

In other news, the "countdown to freedom" that we have hanging in our apartment is currently at 65 days. I called it that because it's common to hear PCVs speak fondly of "Freedom Land" and not because we feel like we are in prison or anything.

We'll be in UB for most of the next two weeks. We have to have our medical physicals, dental cleanings, and our Mongolian language test (which we are confident we will fail). From the 27th to the 29th, our M20 class of volunteers will gather at a ger camp outside of UB to discuss how to transition into our post-Peace Corps lives. After this conference, we plan on making a trip down to the Gobi to visit some friends of ours. We figured that we can't leave Mongolia without seeing the Gobi!

Anyways, that's about all that's happening at the moment. My buddy Agii is still waiting to hear back about his Fulbright application and I'm waiting to hear from the Bowers Museum about hosting an exhibit from Olgii's museum -- at this point I can't see much happening on this during my remaining time here.

I guess that's all for now. I'm sure there will more updates when we get back from UB.