Thursday, October 24, 2013

below zero, puppies and drunk goggles

10/15/2013
       I finally received my birthday package from my parents! They, along with my aunts, put together a giant box full of dried fruit, Oreos, cake mix and frosting, magazines, beauty products, pajamas, scarves, 2 new pairs of boots and movies. It was amazing! The box looked like it literally went through the Typhoon that happened last week in China. Which makes sense since it was stuck in China forever. It was torn, opened and resealed, wet and squashed. Luckily, everything inside was fine! The box even had a Chinese sticker on it that said return to USA, but someone crossed it out and sent it onward, thank god! When I went to the Post Office the lady told me that my package was very large and that I should get a taxi to get it home. But I have yet to get a cab here in my city and really didn't want to test it out without my handy dictionary, so I decided I would brave the walk and carry it home ( my site mates were all still at work). My arms ached by the time I got home, but I made it and only had to stop twice to take a break!
        An electrician came today to take a look at my hot water heater in my shower. The box was broken, so I always have to heat my water on the stove, but it looks like the landlord is going to replace it, since I pay more in rent because the apartment is supposed to have hot water in the shower. I will be so happy if this really happens. They took the old one out and said they would be back with a new one (I think that's what the man said, I really could not understand him, but hand gestures and the fact that he had the old box in his hand led me to that conclusion). Fingers crossed!

10/16/2013

            Yesterday, I was part of my first real training. I planned the training and activities that would go along with it, but unfortunately due to time constraints we had to reschedule my part for another day, which is fine, because there is so much more that I wanted to do and now I'll have more time to do so. It was nice to watch the other presenters, they consisted of 3 Health Department staff members and 2 staff members from the Tuberculosis Center. My counterpart gave a presentation on the dangers of smoking, he is such a great presenter! He engaged the college students and had them really into a discussion and had them laughing the whole time. He is so ambitious and self motivated, its amazing. I am so lucky to be paired with him. I always have a great time when he is around and he is so knowledgeable on everything, literally any question I have he can answer. The other two health department staff presented on nutrition, STD/STI and family planning. The two woman from the TB Center presented TB, obviously, which is still a large problem in Mongolia. My presentation was supposed to be on the dangers of binge drinking in college and I had made “drunk goggles” and prepared an obstacle course for them to do with the goggles on. The goggles were super easy to make and when I go into UB for Thanksgiving I am going to buy real safety goggles to use just for this demonstration, for now I am using my sunglasses. All you have to do to make them is to have a pair of glasses or goggles and then you put Vaseline on the lenses. The Vaseline distorts everything when you look out the lenses and to add to the drunk feeling, I was going to make them spin 6 times before they could start the obstacle course and intoxication drills. I am excited to do it tomorrow because I tried it out this afternoon and they really worked. I am going to have them wear the goggle and spin and then another student will toss a ball at them to try to catch and then they have to navigate through like a maze and at the end write down their name and phone number on a small piece of paper. Tomorrow, I will be doing my presentation first to make sure I get to go, because my counterpart thinks the kids will like mine the best, which I agree. Health educators here in Mongolia, do not use any interactive means to teach their information, it is just straight lecture. Yesterday, many of the students were talking, sleeping and playing on their phones through out the training. I wanted to snap my fingers at them but I thought it would be rude. They were very nice and respectful of me though. When I first got there, they had one of the better English speakers welcome me to the university and told me about the schools history and current population of students. Its funny, when I first walked up to the building, I thought it was an elementary school, the universities here are so tiny. It is smaller than the elementary school that I went to back home.

10/17/2013
          Today, we were supposed to do another training at another university but it got rescheduled due to teacher inspections. I have no idea what that means, neither did my counterpart. But this gave us the time to sit and chat because now we both had nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon. At first we both went to our separate offices where I began to Pinterest my future wedding and house ( such a guilty pleasure) and check out the latest celeb gossip on Perezhilton.com (my go to sites when I need a brain break). Then in the middle of looking at wedding dresses, my counterpart came in and sounding distressed he said that he had important question about the cervical cancer vaccine. I laughed because it was so random and we have never talked about that before. But then I realized he really did want to talk about the vaccine and had some very valid concerns and questions. A little background on Mongolia and the cervical cancer/HPV vaccine. Two years ago China began to ship it to Mongolia, so it is still really new and many people do not accept it and are afraid of side effects (most of which are myths and untrue, but without the proper knowledge being explained to them, they believe it all). Many parents refuse to have their daughters get the vaccine because they are afraid it will give them cancer or that they will die from the vaccine because of numerous other reasons. My counterpart is not one of those people, but does show concern that their vaccines are not up to par and since they are coming from China they have no idea how they are being preserved and shipped. So he began asking me questions about the vaccines we have in America and how doctors handle parents and children regarding the vaccine. I told him that when it first came out, a lot of people were against it and thought that it was just a way for pharmaceutical companies to make more money. There were rumors about it causing bad side effects, but now it is accepted and most girls ages 9-15 receive them. 70% of cervical cancer is caused by the HPV strands that the vaccine protects young women from, so why wouldn't you get the vaccine. To me it is a no brainer, but that's because I have gotten the correct information fed to me and have done research of my own on the vaccine in college. The vaccine saves lives, yes are there people whose bodies react negatively to the vaccine yes, but that is true of any drug. So I showed him a bunch of stats and charts on the two drugs that the FDA approve in the stats and then showed him the rate of HPV and cervical cancer and how the vaccine is helping, not hurting the female population. At the end of my rant ( I never knew I was so for the vaccine until I started explaining it to him), he asked me to help him make a pamphlet and start a training for the community on the importance of the vaccine. But, I do want to look into more the type of vaccine they are giving the girls and how different it is from the one in the States. He told me that they get it between the ages of 15-18, then another in their 20s and a third in their 30s. I explained to him that it may be more useful if they give it between the ages of 11-15 instead, since many girls in Mongolia report having sex at early ages and in order for the vaccine to work, they must have not come in contact with HPV before. We will see how this goes, I tried to explain to him that it may take a couple years for the parents to accept the vaccine and the benefits of it.
           Another concern he voiced during out conversation was the problem with food poisoning at the public school dorms. This week 20 children at food poisoning at one of the local schools. My first question was “well do the cooks get training on food preparation?” His answer “No.” Well there is your problem I told him, I would guess that the food is not being cooked or stored properly in the dorm kitchens. I told him that I would love to spear head a training/seminar for the cooks at the schools and teach them food safety. He was all for it and told me to present the idea to Gandiima after he talked to me about one other problem the community was having. This time they have had an outbreak of illnesses. Children who were receiving their 1 year old shots, 7 of them, had become very ill after receiving them. After asking him a few more questions I discovered that the children had been given the vaccine by the same nurse at the same family clinic. At first I asked if they received a bad dose of the vaccine, but he said they were in the same batch as the rest of the clinics, so he ruled that out. I then asked how the nurse gave the vaccines, what was her method, how did she handle the children and the supplies. Did she wash her hands between children? Did she use clean needles? Wear gloves? He said he did not know but most likely she was not washing her hands or wearing gloves, because they don't do that here. Well I said what were they symptoms of the babies, was it a skin irritation, flu symptoms, cold symptoms or any other kind. But he did not know, so I told him in order to help him, I needed more details. I have a feeling the babies got sick because they were all seen by a nurse who never washed her hands or wore gloves, therefor spreading bacteria from one baby to another and then onto the needle she was injecting them with, but we shall see when I get more details. Sometimes I feel like I am playing the character of Dr. House except for the fact that I am in Mongolia and do not have a medical license. But I do have the internet, 4 years of medical related classes and pretty good common sense, which goes far here. My counterpart told me that I have more knowledge than most of the doctors, which is actually scary and now I know why Peace Corps flies us all the way to Thailand when were are sick or injured instead of to a Mongolian hospital.
          After our discussion I went straight up to director's office, which I am very proud of myself, because usually it takes me a couple days of careful planning and courage to go up to her with ideas of projects. But I decided to just go up and try to fumble my way through Mongolian mixed with some English words I know she knows and hope she gets the jist of it and okays the projects. Luckily, she understood it and loved it and gave me the names of the health department staff she wanted me to involve. She also told me that she wants me to go meet with the Community/Social Health branch for he health department and give them ideas for World Aids Day and cardiovascular disease trainings. I don't know why I am so afraid of talking to her, she is so nice and caring. She always asks how my health is and if I am eating well. She asked me to come talk to her everyday whenever I have time, so I really am going to start doing that. The more I talk with everyone, the more comfortable they are asking me for help and just interacting with me, so I really need to take the initiative and not be afraid to be turned down when it comes to project ideas because so far they have liked all my ideas.
        I can't believe that I have been here for almost 5 months already! Some days I feel like I am a great volunteer and then other days I feel like I am doing nothing. But as more time goes on I realize that feeling is not going to go away and the more I talk to other volunteers, I find out that that is how everyone feels for the whole two years. It is hard to see change in such a short period of time, but there are going to be those flickers of light, where you see small movements towards change and that what is going to give you the courage and drive to keep going. I have learned to accept that more, and not wait for giant ah-ha moments, because there will be a few of those where you can measure tangible change. For the most part it's going to be all the little things I do that make a lasting impression and help them become more successful. That is the hardest thing to accept. When I first signed up for Peace Corps and truly even during training, I thought I was going to walk into my host agency and just start making changes left and right; holding these giant trainings and health projects that would change the lives of everyone in my community. Boy was a I delusional. But as long as I try and get the information out there, some one's life will be changed for the better and that is all we can hope for while we are here! Thank god for the wonderful PCVs that are here with me, keeping me sane and reminding me to breathe when things go a rye. Although I accept that fact that I may not change every single person here, I will keep trying to change my whole entire community, because that is the type of person I am, but I will be easier on myself when things do go as planned or I don't see the results I was hoping for.

10/18/2013
         This morning I had the best skype session with my best friend Emily (for those of you who don't know her, she has been one of my closest friends since elementary school). It was just the conversation I needed! It is so weird not being able to talk to her whenever I want about everything under the sun. From good times and bad times we have always been there for each other and I am so lucky to have such an amazing friend in my life. I am so excited that she has an awesome new job, new apartment and is really loving life! Both of us are in such great places in our lives (finally). Ever since we talked, I have really been taking the time to look back on things that have happened in the past and things that are going on now and be comfortable with who and where I am right now. The one thing that really stuck with me that she said (I can't remember the exact wording) was when looking back at memories and experiences, you can look back at them and be happy, but you also must ask yourself “and what”..And what did this teach me and what am I going to do with it. So I traveled to these great places and met these great people which is great, but the most important thing is what you do after wards with what you learned. How do these experiences make you grow and be a better person, what actions can you now take?
        One of the most important things that we have both learned from being abroad and being really on our own is that “it is what it is”. Things happen and you can't control them, you mustn’t dwell on these things, just be happy everyday at each second. There is no good in worrying. Just be in each moment completely and enjoy each moment. So thank you Emily for such a wonderful and inspirational conversation. Love you so much and can't wait to talk to you again (I promise not to write about every conversation we have haha).

10/20/13
        Work has been going fabulously. I am really making moves with my two projects and becoming really good friends with my counterpart. He is so much fun and we are finally feeling comfortable with each other. Our conversations no longer seem awkward or strained, we now joke around and tell each other stories about our childhood and families. We get tea together and text each other on the weekends about upcoming events. He is awesome and I am so lucky to have such a great counterpart who is not only good at his job, but an awesome friend and great person in general. I am now tutoring his younger sister in English and helping her with her homework assignments. She is studying for the English Olympics, which is an English competition that the top 3 students from 9th and 11th grade from each school in Mongolia participate in. She won in 9th grade for Arkhangai, and is hoping to win again and then move onto the country wide competition in the capital. She is so smart and motivated. When I asked her why she wanted to learn English, she said that she wants to go to university in UB to be an Economist and then go to Harvard for her masters. She teaches herself English for the most part, because she is now beyond her teacher's level of English. I asked her how she practices and she said that she talks to herself in the mirror and listens to music and movies in English. She goes to school at 9am on Saturday mornings to do extra math work with one of her teachers, because she is much more advanced than the classes she takes. I asked her why she works so hard at school, when all her friends are home hanging out and she told me that she wants to be able to help her parents and take care of her younger sister one day by getting a great job. I told her that I admired her and that she is someone who can make a lot of difference in the world. She such smiled and giggled. I hope that she continues to be driven and enthusiastic about school, because she honestly could be such a positive role model for the women of Mongolia. I am so excited to see what the future brings for her and to be able to witness it over the next two years. School in Mongolia is done at grade 11, so next year she will be going to UB for university. She has her entrance exam in April, which will tell her what school she can go to. I have no doubts that she will get into the best one.
            Yesterday, I woke up and cleaned my apartment and went online to look up ways to decorate it, now that I am most likely staying here for the rest of my service. I found some cute organizational ideas on Pinterest and decided to go shopping at the Markets to find everything I need. I called Lore and asked if she wanted to join in on the shopping trip and we met at the bank and began the hunt for my craft supplies. I bought everything I needed, hooks, nails, wood, curtain rods, clothes pins, string, tacks and spray paint. I now had all the supplies to make my scarf organizer and make shift clothes rack to hang ironed outfits, so I don't have to iron an outfit every single morning. On our way out of the market we saw that the new “super market” that has been being built since we moved here was now open. It is amazing! The supermarket had three different types of soy milk, vanilla, chocolate and cappuccino! Lore and I were in shock, we bought all three types and they were surprisingly good! I am so excited to be able to have cereal now in the morning. It also carried multiple kinds of pringles and champagne! We immediately bought our favorite Pringles and ate them on the steps of the market. It was such a beautiful day out. We also bought champagne and orange juice to make mimosas with to celebrate the new supermarket. It's the little things in life. I called Will as soon as we checked out and were eating on the steps to let him know of the great find, he literally ran to the market to meet us and see it for himself. Who knew that a supermarket could elicit such excitement in 3 grown people.
         Lore and I then went back to my place to meet up with our friend Urta, for a girls night. Urta speaks English pretty well and is hoping to get a job at World Visions, which would be amazing because then we could work together on projects. If she doesn't get the job, then she has to move back to UB to work, which would be so unfortunate because she is so much fun to hang out with! The three of us made springs rolls and red bean burgers. Both turned out fabulously and Urta enjoyed them as well. Mongolians tend to not eat vegetables and in order to consider something a meal, there must be a large portion of meat, but since being in Mongolia, for the most part, Lore and I have not been eating any meat. I don't cook meat at my apartment, so the only time I eat it is if I go to a restaurant and order it, which is not often. As we ate our meal, we watched an episode of Friends and then spent a couple hours on Facebook showing each other our friends back home. Urta also asked how “Americans keep their teeth so nice”, so I then gave her a mini lesson on how to brush and floss her teeth. She has never used floss before, so I told her that floss is just as important as brushing her teeth and gave her a box of floss to use. She was so excited and then told me about the dentists here and how she doesn't like how you can only go when you have a really bad cavity. After I told her about American dentists and how Americans go about twice a year to get their teeth cleaned “professionally”, she said she wished that the dentists in Mongolia did that, because “mongolians have ugly teeth”. I reassured her that Americans also get cavities and sometimes have ugly teeth. Haha.
        Urta told us how a dog in the neighborhood had puppies and left them in back of her apartment, they were really small and she was worried that they were not going to make it out in the cold. She was feeding them, but could not keep all three puppies herself inside her apartment. I have always been an anti dog person. I like other peoples' dogs, but never had the overwhelming feeling to have one of my own, so I brushed of her comment, saying that I would go look at them, but I really don't think I want one. Then I made the mistake of going to see the puppies the next morning. They were so adorable, even though they had fallen in one of the squatty potties in the yard. Lore and I could not resist their tiny little faces. We called Urta and told her we were behind her apartment looking at the puppies. She came down and talked about them, telling us which two were the best behaved and then invited us into her apartment for lunch. Her mother was so sweet and gave us beef stew, bread, tea, candy and airag (fermented mares milk, which has definitely grown on me). She sat there talking to us as Urta translated. Her mother said she would have prepared a real meal if she knew we were coming and that next week she will have us over for dinner. She will cook us a French meal, that she learned from one of the missionaries that had been in the town. Her mother told us how she loved American women and that she wanted us to visit her frequently and thanked us for helping the community. It was so sweet, I had tears in my eyes the whole time we talked. The people her are just unbelievably kind and open. I hope that I leave Mongolia with their attitude and outlook on life. What an amazing way to live.
      Lore and I left Urta's apartment with two puppies in plastic bags. I now have a puppy named чихэр (cheekhair), which is Mongolian for the word candy. She had the most wonderful attitude and is adorable. I am so excited to spend the winter training her, she is going to know some amazing tricks by the end of these two years. But first things first, I must house train her, which is going to be hard, because she is so little and should still be with her mother. Lore and estimated the puppies ages to be a little over a month, based on the amount of teeth they have (we searched online how to tell the age) and due to the fact that they are teething. Will came over to play with the puppies and help us bathe them. My puppy loved the bath and just laid right down in the tub, but Lore's on the other hand, hated it and was jumping around the whole time. After the bath, they were freezing so we put them in front of the space heater, where they quickly fell asleep cuddled up next to each other.

10/21/13
        It snowed so much last night and is now -4 degrees. I love it. The town looks so beautiful covered in snow and the puppies (Lore's is staying at my place until she can get a gate to block off her Ger, which should be tomorrow) loved playing in it. I woke up this morning and took them outside where they jumped around and wrestled in the snow. They then ate some breakfast and fell back asleep as I got ready for work. I went to work and worked on my Food Safety presentation and looked up how to train a dog. I got a couple E-Books about it and will be reading them all week and practicing with the puppies. During lunch, Lore met me at my apartment to take the dogs outside again and go out to eat. They are getting better at going to the bathroom outside and we even started to teach them how to sit, which they surprisingly caught onto with the help of hotdog pieces. Since there is no dog food to buy, we have been creating our own, using rice, beef broth, carrots and chicken pate. They seem to love it and we also got a great recipe to bake treats. In Mongolia, the dogs just eat the scraps and leftovers of their owners food, which usually means, skins of potatoes and carrots, bread fat, water and anything else that falls on the floor or that the humans don't eat. The concoction is actually really gross looking and smelling. I remember watching my host family feed their dog and feeling so bad for it. I am just so excited to take the puppies out tonight in the snow and play around with them. The snow is perfect for packing snowballs!
          The girl I am tutoring came to my work today to have me look over two essays she wrote, which were great and I only had to fix some grammar mistakes and cross out a few extra articles. The internet isn't working at work, so it's making it hard to look up things for my trainings. Luckily, I downloaded a couple articles and PDFs about World Aids Day last Friday, so I am reading over those now. Since the internet is out, my coworkers have been playing table tennis. I love that when the power or internet goes out, all work stops. People just go home for the rest of the day or they hang out and play table tennis. No stress. Granted, they do work all hours of the day on the other days to finish their work. Numerous times I have walked by the Health Department and people are working away at 8/9 at night. So although they have no real schedule, they do stay at work much longer than Americans. There days consist of coming to work at 9 or 10 am and then staying till 8 pm because they take so many breaks and go shopping during work hours. But I kind of like that about Mongolia, because when I am feeling tired from working, I just go on a two hour lunch break or a walk around the market, come back to work rejuvenated and ready to do some more work. Maybe they have work all figured out. If you don't stress time so much, maybe people will be happier and more productive at their job. I recently read that Arriana Huffington (my idol) of the Huffington Post (I read it every morning) has nap and yoga rooms in her office for her workers to relax and sleep in. She feels as though her workers work better when rested and relaxed and has been writing articles, cleverly titled, “Sleeping Your Way to the Top”. She has done research and is now implementing it at her job; when people get enough sleep and take naps intermittently through out the day they are more productive.

10/23/13
        Today, I had a three hour meeting with the social worker of School #1 about the Halloween party we are planning for this Saturday night. Jen and I have been planning the party for over a month and when we went to day to make sure things were still going as planned, we learned that her counterpart had forgotten to tell the teachers and students. So here we are 2 days away from the event and no one knows about it. Luckily, my counterpart came with me and was able to translate everything and the party is now on again for Saturday. In true Mongolian fashion a party for over 400 students is being planned 2 days before it is supposed to take place. For the next 48 hours Jen and I will be doing non stop work on the party that was supposed to be planned solidly over the past month. We had a party committee set up with teachers, social workers and students, who were supposed to be getting ready for the event, we had given them examples of the decorations the students need to make, wrote out a description in both English and Russian to give to the English teachers of the school to translate into Mongolian. But if it is like any Mongolian party I have seen before, it will be awesome and the students will have a great time.
         Yesterday, I helped give a presentation about binge drinking at another college and it went really well. They loved the beer goggles game and were really enthusiastic about the rest of the training as well. I completed the English version of my food preparation training, so now I just need to take the rest of the week to look it over before I submit it to my counterpart to translate and work on. Today, I also discussed the idea of getting dentists to come into the elementary schools and give presentations to the students, as well as provide each student with a free toothbrush. This idea was new to him, so I explained how dentists give out free toothbrushes in America, and told him about the time when we had a dental student come into Boys and Girls Club and do a quick presentation and gave out little gift bags of floss, toothbrushes, toothpaste and book. He is really interested in doing this at the schools here and we are going to start looking into setting this up for next year, when he can submit a new budget and get some goodie bags together for the children that attend the training. In the mean time I am going to look up grants that we can apply for to get more funding for our trainings.
         Tomorrow, I am helping gather all the surveys we sent out to different organizations around Arkhangai. The surveys were about daily health practices and overall health. We sent them out to 19 different organizations to be filled out by their employees and will collect the majority of them tomorrow.
         My puppy is doing so well. She is so cute. She snorts when she is happy, its adorable and I hope she never grows out of it! I used to be the person who never ever wanted a dog, but now that I have one, I just love it. I didn't even like playing with other peoples' dogs let alone having one myself. Apparently, when I turned 23 years old, I also turned into a dog lover, more like dog liker, I still do not allow her to lick me (I hate that) and I will never refer to her as my child like she is human. We have been practicing sit and shake, which she has down for the most part. Her favorite treat is little pieces of hotdog, so whenever she does something well I give her a little piece. She is also doing really well with house training. She has figured out that when she whines, I will take her outside, so she does that whenever she has to go to the bathroom and when I am not home, she uses the little area I set up for her bath-rooming needs (most of the time). Since being separated from her sister (lore's dog), she is now afraid to sleep alone in the kitchen, so she now sleeps in bed with me. Which I don't mind at all, she is extra warmth in my freezing apartment. She sleeps curled up next to me. I can't wait till she is big enough to go for walks and runs with me! I got a couple books on how to train a dog to do tricks, I figure I have two years to make her the best trained dog there is, especially since the winter time is so long and work is almost non existent during those months.

10/24/13
         This morning we had another meeting about the Halloween Party and drew up a layout of the gym and a schedule of all the games. 13 teachers have agreed to help us proctor the event and bring in juice and snacks for the kids. They are going to do a decoration contest tomorrow, and the winners will receive a prize and the decorations will be used to decorate the gym for the party. Tochto, Jen's counterpart got really into making up games and gave us some great ideas for the party. Aruik, my counterpart, just helped me write a speech that Jen and I will have to give in Mongolian during the opening ceremony of the party. The parties here are so “formal”, the students and teachers will arrive and take their seats in the gym while the director gives her speech and then we give ours, after the opening ceremony, the games will start, then awards will be given out for the winners and then the alst hour will be the dance. Before the last song, their will be a short closing ceremony, with a couple other speeches and then finally the last song and the end of the party. The games that the students will be playing are: 3 legged race, limbo, pin the tail on the black cat, pumpkin bowling, orange passing relay race, ball toss (set up like beer pong, but without the beer) and freeze dance. They are going to be class versus class competitions, where each class is awarded points for how they do during each game.
       About 20 minutes ago, I found out that I will be doing an hour long presentation for all the health educators and school nurses/doctors on how to decrease non-infectious diseases among adolescents. It will be on November 7 from 1030am-1130am. Luckily, I will have a translator, so I only have to prepare the Powerpoint in English and then the translator will put it into Mongolian and translate for me during the presentation. I am super nervous, but also excited. I need to start working on it ASAP.

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