I am officially done with PST (preservice training) and wow do I feel exhilarated (and incredibly anxious). I can't believe that 2.5 months have passed by and I am less than a week away from swearing in and officially being a Peace Corps Volunteer. I feel like I have been waiting forever for this day and now its over. My language test went way better than I could have hoped. I had so much I wanted to say, she kept cutting me off and moving onto new questions. I wanted to yell out "Wait Stop, I know so much more vocabulary, wait till you hear me conjugate and put together the next sentence, it will blow your mind". I had prepared so much all this week, that I wanted to keep going and going. I'll find out my score in the next coming days. We are supposed to test out at, at least Novice High, which I know I did (well here's hoping I did), I want to know if I got higher than that though!
My final evaluation went extremely well. They are convinced that I am going to be a great volunteer and that my personality is going to get me very far. They said that everyone loves my energy and looks forward to having me in training. They don't for see me having any problems adjusting to my new community and as long as I keep up my positive attitude and my smile, I will do great things! It was so nice to hear. They said I had such a positive,strong,confident energy about me, which was so nice to hear, because that is one of things I wanted to gain here: to be more confident in crowds and public speaking. I can check that off my list. Yeah!
We had two volunteers come to our technical training yesterday and talk about their experiences last year, and it was so nice to hear the "real" story. They were so open and real with us,it was great to hear, that they still struggle with the language and yet they have done amazing projects so far in their first year. I learned so much from them and they brought us Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, as well as cliff bars and a cake! The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were out of this world. The best surprise ever. I had two! I am going to really miss my trainer Bolgi, she is a Mongolian doctor, she was amazing and such a great person. She has so much experience in the medical world and has so many connections with World Visions, WHO and Red Cross, I will definitely be utilizing here in the the coming years. She is an amazing woman.
8/4/2013
This weekend has been full of
celebrations. Last night, I went to a get together in the country
with my friend Cidell and her family. Seven of us piled into a small
car with bags of meat, vegetables and drinks. We drove through a
field, a forest, another field and then a forest where we reached our
destination. What we arrived at, looked just like a little resort
motel that your would find in Luzerne or Lake George, NY. There was a
row of three A-Frame Log cabins, a gigantic picnic table made out of
the same wood the cabins were and a big fire pit. It was fantastic.
The Mongolian man that owned the place is a forest engineer and he
said that he made the log cabins out of the trees he grew; the
purpose of them were to house his friends after late night parties.
Each one came came equipped with a mattress and little stove. He then
showed us the huge plot of land where the new trees were being grown
and his irrigation system. It was so cool. He had rows of 4 year old
pine trees growing, who knew pine trees even existed in Mongolia, let
alone have the same name. We helped get water from the well and then
it was time to start the fire.
We were having Horhook, which is when
the sheep is cooked, usually underground in a hole with these special
hot rocks. You stuff in the cabbage, potatoes and carrots and then
cook inside the animal. The only thing I can compare it to is a pig
roast, only with a sheep. It is absolutely delicious. While it
cooked, we had the usual three shots of vodka. First, a shot is
thrown into the air as an offering to the land and then you sit in a
circle and a shot glass is passed around. It is customary to have the
shot glass go around three times, so everyone receives three shots.
They do this at almost every gathering (Mongolians love vodka and
drinking, alcoholism is a huge problem here because so much of their
life revolves around celebrations and vodka. It's not uncommon to
walk around the town and pass people passed out on the side of the
road. They sell IV fluids in stores, to “cure” hangovers here).
After the third shot, Cidell and I looked at each other and were
happy to have made it through the rounds and to be done with the
vodka, but no the Mongolians began chanting and clapping at us to
drink more. Finally after proving we were worthy people, we got to
eat the food that had been prepared. They again clapped for us and
told us we were good Americans. Next time I am in this situation I
will refuse to drink the first shot, so that they understand I won't
be drinking anything that night. It's so hard to refuse, they make it
extremely hard and you want to so badly integrate with the community.
We actually just had a whole training on how to properly refuse and
how in some situations you may have to make up an excuse, like saying
you are sick or allergic in order to get them to stop hounding you
about drinking. They don't understand that people don't drink until
they pass out. Here (not everyone) but most Mongolians when
celebrating drink heavily and assume that you will too. Lesson
learned go prepared with an excuse to a party.
The Horhook was simply amazing. Before
you can eat it, you must pass around the hot stones from hand to hand
until they cool. Doing this brings good health and luck, but really
it just brings me burns on my hands. I then had to put the stones to
my ears, for more luck. It's painful, but I am not going to bring bad
luck upon myself by not doing it. I did however decline when they
wanted to put them under my shirt on my back (even better good luck)
for an extended amount of time. Finally it was time to eat and I sat
their like a cave women, tearing the meat and fat off the bone with
my teeth and eating the vegetables with my hands. Back in the US I
wouldn't even eat chicken wings because I didn't like having to chew
meat from a bone and there I was gnawing sheep meat from a big bone.
And let me tell you I enjoyed every second of it. So delicious.
Today was Host Family Appreciation
Day, so we invited all of our families to our school where we had
cake and were supposed to have coffee and tea but we have been
experiencing a black out for the past two days and the electricity
will be off for another four days. So we each prepared a little
speech in Mongolian to read out loud to our families and then
preformed two Mongolian songs for them. They seemed to really like
it. They also, received their certificates for completing the summer
as Peace Corps host families. At the end of the party, one of the
mom's stood up (a known partier) and began passionately talking about
something which seemed to get all the host families going. We
volunteers just sat their wondering what was going on, at first we
thought it was an argument, we could only make out a couple words.
One thing we were at first sure of was that something important was
happening today or tomorrow. Then we began to hear food and beer
being thrown out as ideas. So we put it together that they wanted to
have another party. Thirty minutes into the discussion they began
writing on the whiteboard food, drinks and other things they would
need for this second party. It was then decided that we would all
meet at 3pm (its was then 12:30pm) for a party at the river. Each
family had items to buy and then we would all meet up. It was so
funny how they just through this big party together in 30 minutes and
it was to happen in 2 hours. And by god everyone showed up at the
river in 2 hours. Back in the US with my family, parties are planned
weeks in advance, it is a whole gigantic process where schedules have
to be considered and location, no not in Mongolia. Everyone drops
what they were doing and plans a party that will be held in 2 hours.
It turned out to be such a fun time.
We had sausage sandwiches, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples candy, chips,
beer and pop. It was all set out on a picnic blanket and arranged so
beautifully by the mothers. We all played soccer and Frisbee and a
Mongolian game where they yell out an article of clothing or
accessory and it is a race to get the articles. If you are the last
one back to the line, you are out. And you keep going until one
person is left. So the Mongolians lined up in a line and we lined up
about 100 feet away from them. Our teacher yelled out an article of
clothing and we had to run to the Mongolians get it and then run back
to our original position. At first we were all a little weird out by
the game, stealing clothes and people stripping, but we went along
with it. Our teacher yelled out shoes, glasses, shorts, etc. and we
would have to run and get that from one of the Mongolians. It was
hilarious when they all started taking their shorts off to give to
us. Literally giving the clothes of their back to us so that we could
win the game.
As we drove to the river we passed
several people who were running around the river naked. They don't
think anything of it. In a way its nice, everyone is just so
comfortable in their bodies here. They are proud and confident, no
matter what they look like, no shame and no one is inappropriate
about it. One Mongolian women stated “I'm women. You women.” when
asked about nudity and bathing with other women such as friends or
sisters in the room. I think that there is something to be said about
that. In America, when you go to a gym and its just the one big
shower room, everyone is embarrassed and self conscious, you wait
until everyone leaves and jump in quickly hoping no one else walks in
or awkwardly try to shower without exposing yourself too much. But
here women are proud of their bodies, large or small, and other women
do not judge them or talk about bodies in a negative way. They are so
respectful and just really proud to be a women, there is no shame in
showing their body. It's very empowering to hear and we need more of that confidence in the United States (Emily, I think we already have this covered..."no pants are the best pants"..hahaha miss you) .
8/3/2013
Yesterday was
Ombra's 2nd
Birthday. A lot of family and friends came over for hosier, kimbob,
apples and candy. After about 30 minutes of playing with the kids
(twirling them around so much that ombra actually puked. Ooops),
I sat down and
began to celebrate with the adults.
A lot of fun and
craziness. We took about a trillion
pictures. I want to have a few
printed out before I leave and give them a photo album of the
pictures as a thank you gift.
That is my task for this week.
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