9/5/13
Every Wednesday and
Thursday I have been playing volleyball after work. On Wednesdays we
play at Lori's school with the teachers at her school and on
Thursdays we play at the sports center with my Health Department
coworkers. In a couple weeks, Wills school has sports day on Fridays,
so we will be playing volleyball or basketball with the teachers from
the college he works at. It is so much fun! I am going to be a pro
volleyball player by the end of these 27 months.
After volleyball on
Thursday Will, Lori and I went on a sunset hike. We hiked up one of
the small mountains around 730pm and at the top we watched the sunset
and sat around for a couple hours chatting about our plans for the
next couple weeks. It was so beautiful and peaceful! You could see so
many stars and all the fires from the gers were glowing against the
night backdrop. We then put on our headlamps, took out our
flashlights and hiked back down the mountain. We want to do it again,
only go up earlier, make a fire, cook dinner and watch the sunset and
then layout and look at the stars. Since there is no street lights or
large buildings, the stars are so bright! I am able to find the big
and little dipper every night with ease, as well as various other
constellations that I can't remember the names of that Mike showed us
when he visited.
On another note, Gigi
(my cat) has decided she will only eat fish now. She will not touch
the chicken I give her, so in order to use up all the chicken pate I
bought for her, I had to buy sardines to mix in with it. She eats the
pate as long as there is fish mixed in with it. Crazy cat. So because
the chicken pate is so cheap, I am going to keep buying I and just
mixing in some sardines with it, which are way more expensive. We
will see how long I can trick her into eating the chicken. Also, I
realized I never explained why I named her Gigi. Her real name is
жижиг машин (ji-jeek machine), which means little
automobile. I found her under a car in a puddle while walking to my
friend's house, so i named her little car, plus she was a street cat,
so I thought she should have a rapper name, like Lil' Wayne/Lil'
BowWow..so she got the name Lil' Car. She is so full of energy all
the time, but at night she lays in bed with me and sleeps curled up
next to my neck (she rests her head on my neck under my chin..so
cute!), or when she is cold, she goes under the blankets and sleeps
next to my legs. I keep calling her Mayble (my cat back home) though.
I'm so used to saying Mayble, that it just comes out whenever I call
her.
9/8/2013
Today, Lori and I
started Day 1 of the Insanity workouts. Every day after work we are
going to do them, since the snow is supposed to start tomorrow,
running is going to become difficult!! Yikes! My neighbor came over
and asked me to stop the noise, I assume the noise he was referring
to was the pounding of us jumping during the work out. So I am going
to ask my director if we can use the exercise room in the Health
Department to do our work outs in the evenings. Maybe some of my
coworkers will join in! I have been wanting to start doing Zumba work
outs there with some of the ladies I work with. Maybe I can start up
an exercise club! Everyday when we arrive at work, we do 15 minutes
of stretching to get our blood pumping for the day.
Last night, Lori and I
went out to eat at this little hole in the wall restaurant. I'm 100%
sure it would not pass a building inspection or a health/sanitation
inspection in the US, but it has the most delicious Mongolian food
for so cheap. After dinner, we met up with Will and went to Lori's
ger to watch scary movies by her fire. We watched Saw 3. When I first
got to her Ger, her hasha mother (a hasha family is the family who
owns the property her Ger is on) brought in her younger brother, who
is an OBGYN at the hospital here. He heard I was visiting Lori, and
wanted to talk (and talk we did, for about 2 hours). He asked if I
would teach to the doctors at the hospital. I said of course and that
I would get back to him this week with a schedule of classes I could
do with them. He has been teaching himself English through textbooks,
which is amazing to me. If I had tried to learn Mongolian through
just a text book, it would have never happened. He also taught
himself Korean. Mongolians amaze me with their drive to learn new
languages and cultures. They are so dedicated and their schools
really stress the importance of language. I wish that US schools
emphasized language more. Here in Mongolia in elementary school they
begin studying Mongolian and Russian and then once they hit 5th
grade they add English into the mix. Except most of the Mongolian
English teachers don't know English well themselves, so by the time
they are graduating high school, they are still at an elementary
level English, which is why Mongolians jump at the chance to learn
English from a native English speaker.
I also did some more
laundry today. I don't know why I waited so long to do laundry. I
have been doing laundry for an hour each day, for the past 3 days and
am only half way through my dirty clothes. I am never waiting that
long again to do it. I have blisters from washing so much clothes by
hand. I need to by rubber gloves.
9/9/13
It is freezing out
today!! I had to plug in one of my space heaters while getting ready
today in the bathroom because it was so cold I could not bare to get
out of bed. Half way through putting my make up on, I started to
smell smoke so I went into the entry way where the space heater was
plugged in and smoke was pouring out of the electrical socket.
Somehow the plug melted and then started burning. I will never use
that socket again or that space heater. Luckily, I have two, so
hopefully the next one doesn't burn! I was scared to leave the house
this morning, in fear that there was a fire in the wall, but I kept
feeling the wall for heat and there was known, so here's hoping I go
back on lunch and the place is still standing!
This morning I
established that I will be teaching English to the employees at the
Health Department on Wednesdays at 4pm. I'm excited for that to
start, I think it will help me gain stronger relationships with
everyone here.
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