The Home Stretch

Well, we're back in Olgii after two weeks in and around UB. With dental check-ups, medical physicals, language tests, our close-of-service seminar, lots of visiting with friends, a quick trip to the Gobi, and the longest flight delay ever, our time away from site was hectic, nerve-wracking, maddening, and awesome all at once.

While in UB itself, we stayed at our usual place: Khongor Guesthouse. For 12,000 tugriks per night we get a private room with access to a shared toilet and hot water shower. With so many PCVs in town, however, we got bumped up into a larger room with a full-size refrigerator and balcony over-looking Peace Avenue (sort of UB's downtown Main Street). Needless to say, with PCVs being so broke...er...budget-conscious, our place became the party room. It helped that we brought our ipod speakers, that the weather was awesome our first few days in town so the balcony came in handy, and that the supermarket just around the corner sells 1L bottles of Gem Draft for 3,000 tugriks.

Like I said, the weather started out gorgeous with plenty of sunshine and highs in the 70s, however, over the course of two weeks we got to experience the full gamut of Mongolian weather: fog, rain, sleet, snow, and wind/dust storms -- but more on that later.

Our first few days in town we were busy with Peace Corps business. Our first item on the agenda was taking our Mongolian language test, which was mandatory for our whole class of volunteers. We actually had the option of taking a Kazakh language test, but we decided that while we speak Kazakh much more often than Mongolian, the Kazakh we know is very informal whereas we had 6 weeks of formal training in Mongolian. Anyways, we were both really nervous about taking the test. The test itself is graded in multiple levels: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior. Each level is then further divided into low, middle, and high. Back during our initial training, volunteers had to test at Novice-High to officially swear-in as volunteers, so that was the level we were gunning for. We got the test results within a few days and we both did shockingly well: Ashlee got Intermediate-Mid and I got Advanced-Low! Peace Corps' in-country language coordinator did announce, however, that scores this year were a little inflated because the testers placed more of an effort on communicative ability rather than overall accuracy -- thus even though our grammar is terrible and we speak haltingly, we were able to string words together and express what we wanted to say. Our language might not sound pretty, but it gets the job done.

Anyways, the other things we had to get done early on were our dental and medical check-ups, which both went well. Before we officially leave Mongolia, however, we have to provide blood and stool samples to test for parasites. We're really looking forward to that.

From the 27th to the 29th, we were at a ger camp two hours outside of UB for our "close-of-service" conference. Out of the 69 M20 volunteers that arrived in June 2009, 48 have stuck around -- the others have gone home for various reasons (including medical). The camp itself was nice and the gers were warm and well-insulated. "Ger service" was available in which you could give your key to the front desk and they would dispatch someone to build you a fire. The volunteers who actually live in gers year-round found this hilarious.

The 48 M20 PCVs who have stuck around

The whole point of the conference was to talk about how to end our Peace Corps service and move on with our lives. Some of the sessions were helpful, but I found others a little boring. I realized that a lot of our fellow volunteers are sad about leaving Mongolia and these sessions got pretty sentimental. Now while I know that I will miss certain things about life in Mongolia, they are a little overshadowed by our excitement about returning to America.

Anyways, the conference was great. One of my favorite parts was eating lunch with the US ambassador and his wife. They are a wonderful couple of people and we had a great wide-ranging conversation. The ambassador's wife is Scottish, so we had loads to talk about from Ashlee's and my experience studying in Edinburgh. Another highlight of the conference was the cooking competition that took place on the second night of our stay. There were three teams of volunteers organized along geographical lines in Mongolia: north-west, south-west, central, and east. Ashlee was on the north-western team with a few other culinarily-inclined women from the region and they called themselves the "Beach Bitches." They actually won the competition with their beach theme featuring a Thai cucumber salad, peanut-garlic noodles, fish & beef tacos, nachos, and chocolate & coconut-covered bananas.

The Beach Bitches: Lara, Kara, Sarah, and Ashlee

The BBs again accepting their awards from the judges

We also had a great time hanging out with our fellow volunteers. We have made some great friendships here in Mongolia and I really hope they continue after we leave. An idea was floated to have an M20 reunion in New Orleans in 2013 -- I suggested San Francisco.

My buddy, Ryan, and I enjoying some rocking chair time in between hands of Monopoly Deal

Now, back to the weather. During our last night at the ger camp, a storm blew in. All night long rain and wind battered our ger. When I woke up the next morning, I stepped out to use the bathroom and laughed when I saw that everything for miles around was coated in three inches of snow. The snow didn't stop all day and it was near white-out conditions, which made our drive back to UB quite fun. The entire time I kept thinking of how much negative publicity Peace Corps would get if something bad happened to one of our two buses, which were carrying 24 volunteers apiece. We all made it back to the city safely though.

This is Ashlee trudging through the snow to our ger on our last morning of the conference

The ger camp is set on a hill, but the buses couldn't make it up the slippery driveway, so we had to meet them at the bottom of the hill. We were all pretty miserable by the time we boarded.

After a couple more nights in UB, we set out for a visit to the Gobi Desert on May 1st. A couple of months ago, we floated the idea of taking a week-long tour of the Gobi with some friends through one of UB's tour operators. For various reasons, however (work, money, and scheduling conflicts) we couldn't round up enough people to commit. In the end, we decided to strike out on our own and use Mongolian public transportation to visit some friends of ours two provinces south of UB in the northern Gobi. Mandalgovi is the capital of Dundgovi province and it is about 275 kilometers of dirt road from UB. There are two M20 volunteers there along with a M21 married couple, the Newberrys.

From what we can tell, Dundgovi is one of Mongolia's scruffier aimags (provinces). It's pretty remote, the road there is quite bumpy, and it is subject to fierce dust storms in the spring. In fact, a day before we left the worst storm of the year had just rolled through, quarantining our married friends in their ger. We thought it was funny that the few people we told of our trip south (particularly a Mongolian friend that works for Peace Corps) firmly came out and said, "Why? Mandalgovi is not nice."

We were not dissuaded, however. Although the trip down was a little long and really bumpy, we made it in about 8 hours, which included thirty minutes of being stuck in a snow bank and having to be dug/fishtailed out. We stayed three nights with the Newberrys in their cozy little ger and we had a lot of fun visiting, cooking, and playing Monopoly Deal (of course!). I think they enjoyed having us over and I hope we didn't cramp their style too much. One of the highlights of our visit was driving 18 kilometers outside of town to visit a nomadic family with a herd of camels, including a few babies. Another highlight was the creation of our very own cocktail: tequila, orange juice, and lime juice. The little mixture got everyone pretty chatty, so we named it "Loose Lips." **Ashlee's edit: actually, it was named "Veritaserum."

The road is paved for about the first hour of the trip. We actually managed to score a pair of comfy seats right behind the driver. If you look closely, you can see two (crazy) men on bicycles in front of the car ahead of us.

Our ride was the newer-looking Korean bus in front. The bus behind it is one of the older Russian buses that are much less comfortable. When they are not breaking down, the Russian ones can travel faster because they are better at off-roading.

A view of Mandalgovi city from "Monument Park"

The largest morin khuur ("horse-head fiddle", a traditional Mongolian instrument) in the entire world

A small Buddhist monastery on the main drag

We always joke that Mongolian towns are the same: "And this is OUR statue of Lenin."

This is the Newberrys' ger. They are the first PCV married couple in a long time (maybe ever?) to be placed in a ger. While ger-life certainly poses challenges, they seem to have adjusted to it well and their home is very cozy. The small structure directly in front of their ger is called a ping and it functions as sort of a front-porch, helping to provide a weather buffer and food storage unit in the winter.

This is during our trip out into the countryside to see camels. One of Ashlie's counterparts sent her niece to guide us to her family's small camp. The problem is that because camps move, there are no set roads, no street signs, and not even any real landmarks, finding the camp was difficult. We had to stop a number of times for our young guide to get her bearings.

The Gobi Desert. If you look closely, you can see tire tracks marking the road we were following, or maybe forging? In the distance lies Mandalgovi city.

The Mongolian word for camel is "Tiimmeee!"

Ashlee trying to make friends with the baby who was quite shy. She will be the first to tell you that camel humps feel really really weird.

As I was getting close to take this picture, this guy decided to spit/sneeze on me. He had the most rancid breath.

Ashlee making a new friend. Camel babies aren't very cute, huh?

After being spit on, this was as close as I wanted to get again. The family tried to get us to ride the big one in the back, but the camel wasn't having it.

This was the family's small camp. You might be able to notice the solar panels and satellite dishes -- and also the goat trying to open the front door of the ger.

Even though Ashlee hates goats, she loves baby animals.

Mandalgovi's larger monastery

We made the trip back to UB on the morning of the 4th, which was just in time because another nasty snowstorm rolled in half-way through our trip. It was pretty slow-going most of the way, but our driver seemed ultra-cautious as we slowly but steadily made our way to the big city. I think it took us a little over 8 hours.

We once again holed up at Khongor Guesthouse, whose hot showers were quite welcome after three days' of ger-life in the dusty Gobi -- I know what the Newberrys will think when they read this: "3 days!?! Try 2 years!"

Anyways, the rest of our time in UB was basically wrapping up a few loose ends before returning to Olgii -- for the last time! We had some shopping to do for the sitemates -- Brian wanted four bottles of hot sauce to last him the summer and Adi had a few spice requests of her own. Another thing we had to do was make a visit to the optometrist so we could both get new glasses on Peace Corps' dime. Thanks all you American taxpayers!

This is during my eye exam. They gave me these "tester" glasses to test my prescription.

Me, my new glasses, and a plate of tasty nachos from Los Bandidos, "the only Mexican/Indian restaurant in UB" (and probably the world).

We flew back to Olgii yesterday. As usual, our flight was scheduled for 6:50am, so we were up by 4am and at the airport by 5am to be first in line to check-in and avoid all the pushing and shoving. Unfortunately, after getting squared away at the check-in desk, we heard that windy weather in UB was going to affect the flight schedule. At first flights were only delayed an hour, then two hours, then four, then eight, and finally twelve. That's right, we got the pleasure of miserably sitting around Chingiis Khaan International Airport for pretty much the entire day. What made the whole experience really irritating was the fact that the airline didn't seem to care about keeping us passengers informed because they just closed down the check-in counter and retreated to the back room to drink tea, what announcements were made were in unintelligible Mongolian over the scratchy PA system, and the only desirable food available to us were candy bars, ramen noodles, and Mongolian grisly sausage-stuffed dumplings (**Ashlee's edit: this was desirable? was it even edible?). Anyways, our plane was finally cleared for take-off around 6pm and we made it to Olgii by 8:30pm.

Me not happy after spending 12 hours at the UB airport

So yeah, now we are back in Olgii to finish up the last 7 weeks of our Peace Corps service. It sounds pretty weird to say that we will be back in America next month! Speaking of which, we should have our flight information home next week! Then the countdown will really begin.