6/1/2014
Last
night, I went to a local club with my counterpart. There was a famous Mongolian
singer preforming there, and he was able to get us VIP tickets for the event.
We met some of our other coworkers there and their friends. It ended up being a
group of about 12. We had a VIP booth and received a complimentary drink and
big bowl of peanuts. The night was so much fun, the singer was really
entertaining and kept coming over to our table to sing and invited us up to the
stage to dance during one of his songs that was called “My Friends”. I met so
many new people, who all wanted to instantly chat with me and practice their
English. We chatted in Mongolian and English the whole night, intermixed with
dancing. By the end of the night, I had made 6 new girlfriends, who are
journalists at the government building and the local TV station. They all spoke
beginner English and were really close friends with my two coworkers at the HD.
We decided to form a girls’ group. There will be 10 of us in it and we will meet
on Wednesday evenings at 7pm and do various fun activities. They wanted me to
teach them English, so I took the opportunity to form a group, where we can
talk about different topics and problems facing young women in Mongolia. They
thought it was a great idea. They said they wanted it to be a “friend free
time”, aka: just hanging out, so I said that sounded great. They said we will
cook, exercise, watch movies, chat about problems and go out together. They
also promised to teach me Mongolian as well. I am excited to have this new
group to hang out with, since both my site mates will be gone most of the
summer and the friends I made from the Teacher’s College leave to go to the
countryside to their families, so this way I have people to go out with on weekends
now.
6/3/2014
Today the town celebrated "No Smoking Day". Ariuk and I planned a
competition that the local schools competed in. Each school had a week to come
up with a dance/skit about smoking and then preform it at the competition. The
team leader, either a school social worker or school doctor, had to set up
activities and trainings at their schools about the dangers of smoking. At the
competition, they would have to present what their schools did to celebrate
"No Smoking Day" and then the children would participate in a No
Smoking themed Jeopardy game, to test the knowledge they learned over the past
week. It was a success and everyone involved seem to have a lot of fun! The
dances were great and the students really knew most of the answers to the
Jeopardy questions, which was awesome! There were three judges of the
competition, all doctors from the Health Department (NCD specialist,
pediatrician and adolescent center adviser). World Vision sponsored the
competition, giving us prizes to give out to the students and a gift for the
winning school's teacher. The prizes were goody bags containing, headphones,
notebooks, mp3 players, pens, highlighters and other school supplies. Overall a
big success. Next year, we plan on making the competition a week long, where we
would go to all the schools and watch their no smoking activities. The schools
will also present to the community next year, and be responsible for making
posters and tri-folds about their schools activities to present in the town
square and at the government building. We want to make it a larger event in the
community.
6/9/2014
This past
weekend I participated in a sports competition, on the Health Department team
against other government organizations. In total, there were 20 teams who
participated in the competition; each team was made up of six people, three
boys and three girls. Originally, I was told the first part of the competition
was a 20km run, but what it turned out to be was a 20km endurance hike. I was
told that I needed a large backpack, to pack camping gear in, sleeping bag, a
cup and bowl and various other random items like a needle and thread. Part of
the competition was being prepared for camping; they would check our bags
randomly to make sure we had all the items that were on a list they gave out to
the team captains. I found this out about 3 hours before I was supposed to meet
at the government building. I do not own a back pack, I was the one Peace Corps
volunteer that packed my life into a matching luggage set, while the others
came with huge camping backpacks and army duffel, I was there with my stylish
set. I am still happy with my decision to go with the luggage, stay true to
myself, no need to pretend I was an outdoorsy camper when I wasn’t. But at this
point, I was trying to figure out how I would hike with my carry-on size
suitcase on wheels. My counterpart told me absolutely not, I would be hiking
almost 13 miles, I needed a comfortable backpack. So off to the black market I
went, in search of a camping pack. There were none. So I decided to go for a
large duffel bag that I would somehow make into a back pack. The walk home I
ran into my counterpart and showed him my bag, disgusted he said “Britt, that
will not work, you are going to be hiking for 8 hours; you cannot hold a duffel
bag”. I told him not to doubt me, that I had an idea. I borrowed a small back
pack from a friend and attached the duffel bag to it, using a belt and the
straps of the backpack. And just like that, a large camping back pack was
formed, which worked perfectly for the entire hike and activities! My coworkers
laughed at me at first but then once they realized it was actually going to
work out, they complimented me on my creativeness.
So at 2pm
we all met at the government building, where the 20km hike would start. We
formed a huge parade, 2 by 2, and marched through the streets into the
mountains, beginning our 8 hour journey to a nearby town. Ariuk and I were
partners for the competitions, so we marched along next to each other, chatting
and singing Britney Spears songs (the only English songs that they all really
knew). He had just watched a movie about World War II, so one of our
conversations was about the war, Hitler, concentration camps, other movies
about WWII and Anne Frank. For a solid hour we talked about this. It was really
interesting to hear his opinion on it, since Mongolia and its people were not
affected by the war; he really had an unbiased opinion. Every time I talk to
him, he surprises me, he pretty much knows more than me on every topic. I learn
something new every time I talk to him, it’s amazing. He knows more about what
is currently going on in the US, than I do. Ariuk is literally the smartest
person I have ever met in my life. I am in awe of him. Our conversation then
moved to guns and gun laws in the US and then marijuana laws (Mongolia has
really strict laws, prohibiting the use of marijuana; it is treated as a hard
drug here). We also talked about lighter subjects, like The Rock and Vin Diesel
(he is a big fan of both men) and Nirvana (one of his favorite bands). He also
told me his opinion on the Ukraine/Russia problems and we shared stories about
our college experiences. After walking and talking for about 2 hours, we
stopped to do our first competition, a race up the side of one of the
mountains. The mountain was extremely steep, staring up at it, we were all
nervous and anticipating pain. As we stretched out, we watched the teams before
us running up the mountain. My Health Department, really wanted us to win, so
we really wanted to get a good time on this race. We were the fourth team to
go, as we lined up on the start line, we decided that our tactic would be to
all start out sprinting and then the guys would grab the girls hands and
basically drag us up the mountain, if we started to fall behind them. We
inevitably fell behind; my health department men are all extremely athletic and
super-fast. My counterpart Ariuk paid his way through college by being a MMA
fighter. So halfway up the mountain Ariuk grabbed my hand and the other guys
grabbed the other two girls and pulled us up as they ran. My legs were going so
fast trying to keep up with Ariuk, I thought they would either cramp up or I
would just fall flat on my face. Luckily, neither happened, I powered through
the finish line hand in hand with Ariuk, the first pair of our group to finish
and cheered as the other four crossed right behind us. We all collapsed to the
ground, massaging our legs and trying to regain strength to stand up and walk
back down the mountain. Our time was 46.28 seconds. Once we got back down the
mountain, we watched the rest of the teams complete the race up the mountain.
When everyone was done, we had to get back into the parade formation and begin
marching again. This time, everyone was chatting to different groups, and many
people came up to me wanting to practice their English, or just asked me
questions in Mongolian about myself.
Eventually, a Mongolian- English lesson started. I taught them words
that had to do with what we were doing, so like tree, mountain, rocks, hiking,
sports, etc and then they would teach me the words in Mongolian. Once that got
old, I went back to Ariuk and we complained to each other about how much our
backs and butt hurt from our bags and the hiking. Since it was an endurance
test, we were not allowed to take our bags off, even when they would give us 5
minute breaks, or we would stop for pictures with the News crew who was
following us. We could only bend over to release some of the weight from our backs.
It was killer. A 20k run would have been easier, but it was a great time! We
walked through rain and eventually into darkness. At one point one of the men
came up to me and asked if I spoke Spanish, in Spanish. I told him I knew a
little and we ended up chatting in Spanish and Mongolian for a good 20 minutes.
When I started learning Mongolian, all my Spanish started to come back to me
and it was so surprising to be able to carry on a short conversation in Spanish
with this Mongolian man. He had spent several years as an adventure guide in
Spain; he is an avid hiker. We had to get out our flashlights and finally
around 10pm, we reached Ih Tamiir, the town we would be camping in. Since it
was pitch black, some of the people rounded of cars from houses nearby to drive
over and shine their lights at the field, so that we could set up our tents and
cook dinner. Around 11pm, we were huddled around the fire, eating rice and
drinking River Tea. River Tea is exactly what it sounds like, tea made from
river water and couple teaspoons of salt, and the added bonuses of pieces of
wood and rocks. Yes, it tastes like salty dirt. But, I was so thirsty, that I
drank at least cups of the river tea. After the first cup, the taste is no
longer unpleasant. After dinner, we played a couple rounds of Mongolian card
games in the tent and around 230am we all finally climbed into our sleeping
bags and fell asleep.
We were
woken up at 630am to the sounds of whistles being blown, our wake up call. It
was time to quickly bathe in the river (yes, the very river we had just made
tea out of earlier and would make throughout the rest of the day) and get
dressed. The whistle blew again, letting us know we needed to run over to the
Taikhar Chuluu where we had to do a couple laps around it and then get in
horizontal lines. (According to Mongolian legend, a serpent waged many wars in
the world, scarring the Mongolian people. The people asked Bukhbilegt, who was
a great wrestler and warrior, to destroy the beast. Bukhbilegt took a rock from
Bulgan Mountain and went to the snake. They battled each other and the wrestler
through this rock on the head of the serpent, killing it. The rock is named
Taikhar Chuluu.) It was time for military exercises and stretching. They had us
marching in different formations, doing pushups, jumping jacks, squat jumps and
various other exercises for about 30 minutes. We then had a short stretching
session and were dismissed back to our campsites to make breakfast and get
ready for the rest of the day. For breakfast we had river tea, bread and this
meat spread and sardines. The things I eat here are some of the things I would
have refused to eat back at home. Mystery meat spread and sardines are now on
my list of foods I like, thank you Mongolia. Once breakfast was over, we all
hung out outside, playing volleyball, limbo and cards. This time, cards became
really competitive and if you lost, you had to perform a dare. At first, I lost
five times in a row, because I had no idea how to play the card game and could
not catch on to save my life. So they kept giving me a break saying, after
losses I would have to do a dare, and then finally after the fifth straight
loss, they gave me my task. I had to go around to the different campsites
asking for food. I had to come back to our tent, with two plates full of
different foods. So I went over to the different tents, being followed by Ariuk
and Tuyaa and her camera, telling the other organizations that “My Health
Department doesn’t have any food and I am really hungry. Please give me food.”
I had to repeat myself numerous times, because most of the time, Mongolians
don’t know that I can speak Mongolian, so they don’t listen or for some reason
they thing I am speaking another language at them and don’t realize that it is
actually Mongolian, or maybe my pronunciation is just terrible so it doesn’t
sound like Mongolian. haha. Eventually, I had two plates of food and was
allowed to return back to my campsite and we began playing cards again. This
time we played a game that I was actually familiar with (Mongolian version of
Spoons) and never lost again. When the others lost, two of them had to get on
top of one of the cars and preform a “strip tease”, switch clothes with someone
of the opposite sex and two of the girls had to wear the same shirt for the
rest of the day, so they were stuck together until the competitions started. It
was so much fun. At 12pm, the rest of the competitions began.
The rest
of the Health Department staff drove up in the HD meeker and their own cars to
cheer us on and cook us lunch. When they first arrived they all came over to
wish us luck and give us hugs before they went to watch the first competition.
First, was a relay race that consisted of 7 different parts. Each of the six
team members had to do one part and the last the whole team had to do together.
The first leg of the race was riding a bike through an obstacle course to the 2nd
team mate who was waiting near the river. The 2nd person had to
trudge across the river, which was moving very quickly, to the other side,
where they then had to fill up two containers of water and carry them back
across the river and hand the baton to the next teammate who had to run across
a field to a station where he/she had to run back and forth carrying five
rocks, one at a time to a designated area, then that person had to run and give
the baton to the next team mate who was waiting to climb a rope, once at the
top had to blow a whistle and then climb back down, where they handed off the
baton to the next (my part), where that team mate had to run across a series of
fallen trees, without falling, or they had to start over and then sprint across
a field and kick a soccer ball through a goal, then hand the baton to the last
teammate who had to shimmy across a rope hung between two trees upside down.
All the teammates had to meet at the last spot, where all the girls had to hop
on the guys backs and they had to run up a hill and across another field with
the girls on their backs to the finish line. It was so much fun! We won. Next,
we played volleyball. After volleyball, we got a lunch break and went into the
woods for shade, where the HD had cooked us lunch. River water, rice and meat
soup. It was really delicious. We then had our customary 3 shots of vodka (I
got out of the last one because I was playing with the kids, so I only had to
do 2) and a glass of beer. As soon as we were done eating, we were ushered over
to the next competition, Tug of War. At this point, we were all a little tipsy
and tired, so I was unsure of what to expect from my team as far as strength
goes, but after 5 rounds, it was us against the hospital. In a tug of war that
seemed to last an eternity, we unfortunately lost to the hospital team, coming
in 2nd place. In between each round, the HD doctors would massage
out our fore arms and biceps. One of the best parts of the day. They were in it
to win it and were not going to let our arms cramp up. Tug of war is my
favorite activity to do here with Mongolians. They have serious strategies and
did not shy away from telling me when my form was slipping or showing me how
they think I should hold the rope. At one point, one of the doctors was yelling
at me to just lean back more, so I leaned back as far as I could and ended up
falling backwards, I blame it on the vodka.
The last
competition was a competition among the team captains. It was a map
orienteering race. They had to read a map to figure out where they were
supposed to go and do different activities at each checkpoint. I did not really
pay attention to this competition; I just played with the HD doctors’ children.
Running around the fields and playing in the river. Most of my time was spent
catching grass hoppers for this little boy, who would then proceed to crush
them in his hands and wipe their guts all over the rocks, over and over again.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t stop catching them for him, it was really funny
to watch him talk to them and then just crush them. Sick I know. But it gave
him such joy, am pretty sure that it is an early sign of a murderer. But right
now he was only 5 so I just let him go on doing what he was doing. Once the
competition was over, we had to pack up all of our stuff and put it into the
Health Department vehicles. Luckily, we did not have to walk back. The closing
ceremony was at the Taikhar Chuluu. We ended up winning first place in the
competition. The HD was so excited; they were screaming and clapping for us. I
won a gold medal, gym membership and another gift card to a local restaurant.
Once they handed out all the awards, we then had 2 celebratory shots of vodka
and candy. The head of the Sports Center, the organization that ran the event,
made a speech thanking me for participating in the competition. It was really
sweet. We then all piled into the meeker which drove us back to the HD. I was
exhausted and went to sleep as soon as I got home.
Sunday
morning I woke up with the stiffest body ever. So I did some yoga and then met
up with Will to go on a hike. We laid out on top of the mountain reading for
most of the day. Then on Monday, I went to work for half of the day. I took the
afternoon off to relax. I ran to the river and hung out there for a couple
hours, reading and writing postcards. I am now officially dark brown. Everyone
who sees me comments on how dark I am. Finally!
No more pasty skin.
6/10/2014
In
ten minutes, I will be calling my host family to talk to them! I am so nervous.
I have been texting my host parents since I have moved, but I have yet to talk
to them on the phone. Talking on the phone in Mongolian is the hardest thing
for me. Every time I do it, I realize how much I rely on hand gestures when I
speak in Mongolian. I think the reason I am most nervous is because I want to
show them that I have improved since last summer, which I feel like I have, but
it is hard to tell, since most of the people I work with speak a little
English, so our conversations will be a mix of English and Mongolian, with
random Russian words thrown in that I have picked up (most Mongolians speak
Russian as well, since Russians occupied their country for so long), Peace
Corps likes to call it Monglish. Monglish-the official language of Peace Corps
Volunteers in Mongolia. Hopefully, I will be able to carry on this conversation
for at least a couple minutes! I don’t want a whole conversation of me saying
“I don’t know” every time they ask me a question. Please let them ask me
questions I know how to answer!
Update:
I was able to speak to my Mongolian family for 15 minutes. I actually
understood most of what was said and was able to ask questions back and answer
their questions correctly. It was so cute to hear my little host sister yell Britt-na-na in the phone. I have missed hearing their little voices. I will be visiting them July 17-19. I am very
excited. I saw pictures of my host sisters and brother, they have gotten so big
in the past year, it really is amazing how fast children grow! Talking to them
on the phone for that little time has really made me want to start studying
Mongolian again. I want to be able to really speak with them when I visit in
July.
6/11/2014
The
Health Minister of Mongolia came to visit today. She was here to take part in
our opening ceremony for the reveal of our new 21 health initiatives for this
fiscal year. The ceremony included giving the province hospitals new medical
equipment, such as an infant incubator, oxygen machines, and some other medical
supplies. The ceremony was held in the town square, where my director, the
hospital director and the Health minister gave speeches and recognized
outstanding hospitals. After, some of the doctors from the hospital and HD
preformed a Zumba dance to show the community a fun way to exercise. Then the
reveal of the new health initiatives took place. They had 21 large canvas
posters on stands around the perimeter of the square explaining the new goals
and information about them. A staff from the Health Department stood at each
poster, explaining it to all and giving out brochures the social workers and
doctors. The posters were really nice and a big hit with the doctors. The
Health Minister’s assistant asked me to explain the healthy eating poster to
him, so I looked at him, laughed, dramatically pointed at the poster like Vana
White and said “this poster is about healthy eating”. Then read the servings
for each food group from the poster and then just names a bunch of fruits and
vegetables. That was the extent of my Mongolian on the subject. He laughed and
told me good job.
I then
was asked to write out the official invitations to the Korean doctors who will
be coming to our Health Department and Central Hospital in July to preform
surgeries and teach new surgery techniques to the doctors at the hospital. Two
plastic surgeons, two ophthalmologists and two general surgeons from Korea will
be coming for a week. I had to write the invitation that they will use to get
their VISAs to come to Mongolia. After that I just worked on my VRF (volunteer
reporting form) for Peace Corps and my peer education power points.
When I
got home, I got a surprise phone call from Peace Corps saying that I have been
nominated by PC staff to be one of the two leaders for the TIP taskforce
(trafficking in persons) and that I will be going to Darkhan July 2-4 to run
some trainings on the subject with the new volunteers. Peace Corps has
different taskforces, which are groups of people who work together to raise
awareness and present trainings on problems that are affecting Mongolians. So
the group comes up with ways to get information out to the whole country and
activities to raise awareness in the country as a whole, not just in the town
that you are working in. So a third year volunteer and I will be heading it. I
am really excited to help train the new volunteers and be in charge of the task
force. I have wanted to do something with Women’s Rights/Women’s Empowerment in
Mongolia, so this is a perfect way to do it on a larger scale.
