Medical Leave,UN summit on HIV/AIDS and Thanksgiving

12/2/13

        Well I can't believe that I have been in Mongolia for 6 months already! Only 21 more to go. It is insane. The days are slow, but the months fly by. This is the longest I have ever been away from my family and I can't believe that I am actually doing it! I am living across the world and surviving. This whole experience has been so eye opening and full of such personal growth. I can honestly say that this is exactly what I needed and that it has been the best decision I have ever made in my life. What a truly amazing gift this was and I can not put into words how much the past 6 months has made me grow and become such a more confident, self reliant woman. I wish that everyone could experience Peace Corps life. I wish that everyone could spend two years in a foreign country, really living among the locals and helping out other countries. It is the most powerful catalyst for self change and growth. How humbling it is to be among this people, who have way less than anyone I have ever met, yet they are so happy and driven. Life is so simple, yet so gratifying here. I don't have a refrigerator, washing machine or a shower. At first this was mind blowing and really stressful for me. But now, I use the balcony of my apartment as my refrigerator, who needs one when the weather 8 months out of the year is under 30 degrees. A shower, please, I have my large mixing bowl, ladle and boiled water. A washing machine? My hands do just fine washing my clothes and the line I hang them on even though its winter dries them. Although I do have to chip off the ice and thaw them, because they dry hard like cardboard. And what about a toilet? The world is my toilet now. Haha. But I can't lie, when it is 20 degrees in my apartment and I am standing in my empty cold bath tub pouring warm water with a ladle onto my body, shivering and goose bumped, I do wish I had a shower with hot water. The boiled water cools off so quickly that by the end of my “shower”, I am rinsing off with just warmer than room temperature water. I then quickly dry off and throw sweats on and immediately blow dry my hair to ward off frostbite from setting in (yes, a slight exaggeration, but it feels like it could definitely be a possibility at times).

       I have not blogged in a while. I have been traveling and without internet, so I will try to remember everything that has happened during the past couple weeks. Last week, I had to travel to Ulaanbaatar (UB, the capital city) to be seen by the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Office). I had a Cellulitis infection, which should not be confused with cellulite. It is basically a staph infection. So after sending pictures of the infected are to the nurses via email, they quickly called me and told me that they wanted me on the next bus to UB to be checked out by them and that they were most likely going to have to lance it open. I jumped on the first bus going out to UB and arrived around 10pm, where a PC driver picked me up from the bust stop and brought me to a PCVL's (Peace Corps Volunteer Leader) apartment, where I would be staying while in UB. The next morning, I tried to navigate the city and make it to the Peace Corps Office. Needless to say, I got lost, anyone who knows me, knows that I have the worst directional skills ever. I ended up being 45 minutes late to my appointment and had to call various other volunteers and the nurses to try to figure out how to get to the building. Finally, I arrived and was sent straight up to the medical floor and into on of the exam rooms. The infection did have to be lanced open and drained. So painful. I stayed in UB for a total of one week, going to the office every morning to get the wound cleaned and repacked. Luckily, I was given Vicodin to take. While there, I walked around the city and visited all the toursity spots. I went to the art museum which was amazing. The pictures were gorgeous and the sculptures and costumes were breath taking. I love museums, so this was just a fabulous way to spend one of the days. I also visited the opera house and of course all the department stores. I even found a Cinnabun, a burger place and KFC! Cinnabun had never tasted so good in my life. I also went to the movies and watched the new Hunger Games, for only 4 dollars. One of the days, I met up with Laura (a fellow health volunteer) and went shopping at the market and bought matching fleece lined pants. The funny thing about the pants and why we bought them were that only the knees and butt were padded and lined with fleece. We will be wearing them at IST as a joke. The padding is quite thick, but they are really the warmest pants ever.

        I loved walking around UB. It was so nice to see diversity. UB is an up and coming city with a lot of foreigner investors and foreign companies moving to it. I saw white people, black people, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, French, just so many different people, it was weirdly comforting. At one of the coffee shops I sat and talked with these Americans who are going to university in UB and another night I talked to two business men who were starting a banking company in UB. It is was so great to see other foreigners around, walking the streets and going about their days. I forgot what it was like to see other people. Living in Arkhangai (and all other places in Mongolia, other than UB) is like living in a bubble, you are cut off from everything that is “western” really. The only people I see that are not Mongolian are my site mates. There are not many cars, no billboards or advertisements, no department stores or malls, no chain restaurants, UB in a way was overstimulating, but in a good way. After living in somewhat isolation for the past 6 months, it was amazing to see a bustling city full of people and things to do and places to go. It was so nice to spend the week there!

        On Wednesday morning, I went to an HIV/AIDS summit at the Chinggis Khaan Hotel. It was a summit of all the Directors of all the Health Departments of Mongolia. I got a ticket for it, because a former Health volunteer, who worked in Tsetserleg before me, now works for the UN in the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund for Population Activites), branch and invited me to go. The UNFPA's goal is to promote the right of all individuals to develop to their fullest potential. To exercise this right, all people, especially women, need access to information and services on reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, to enable them to make informed and voluntary choices and decisions. As reflected in our mission statement, "UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, delivers a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person's potential is fulfilled" .  The meeting was awesome. The presentations were in Mongolian, but I got power point printouts in English to follow along with. The presentations were on the current statistics of HIV/AIDS and other STIs in Mongolia and various ways communities are combating the infections. During one of the tea breaks (my favorite part about Mongolian meetings, there are at least two tea breaks during conferences, where tea, coffee and cakes are served), the director of the Public Health Institute of Mongolia came over and started to talk to me about where I work and what community projects I have been involved in. She studied at Johns Hopkins and is married to an American man, so she spoke wonderful English. She invited me to sit next to her for the rest of the conference and we continued our conversation through out the day. She is a great person to know and I am so glad I got to do so much networking at the conference. I also met with an NGO that does sexual health outreach to isolated villages in Mongolia and help promote acceptance of the LGBT community in Mongolia. I took a bunch of their publishing and brochures to bring back to my town and Health Department. My director was also at the meeting and was surprised to see me there. She introduced me to all the other directors as "my American", which is how she introduces me to everyone. "This is my American, Enekes." She also likes to call me by my last names because it is easier for her to say than Brittany. I would have never guessed the Enekes, which 90% of Americans can never figure out how to say, is easier to a Mongolian than Brittany. So most of the HD calls me Enekes. I kind of like it. It makes me feel important and weirdly more intelligent, like I am some kind of health expert. I don't know what it is but I really like it. Maybe it is because for so long, I wanted to be a doctor (now I want to be a public health education specialist) and fantasized about being called Dr. Enekes, so now I am sort of living out that dream. Perhaps, I will go for my PhD so i can still play out that dream. haha. I also got to talk to the Minster of Health again, which is always nice.

        I was able to find the right city bus to take me to the Dragon Center (the bus place) to get onto the bus back to Tsetserleg. After I got my ticket and was walking out of the ticket office, a man grabbed my arm and started talking to me. I understood nothing he said and just kept asking him to repeat things, but nothing sounded familiar. After about 5 solid minutes of this man intensely speaking to me I told him in Mongolian that I did not understand what he was speaking and asked if he was speaking Mongolian to me. He started laughing and said No, he thought I was Russian and had been speaking Russian to me. I laughed and thanked god inside my head, that it was not my lack of Mongolian that was the problem. He then started speaking in Mongolian and I was able to understand that he wanted to help me carry my bag and show me to the proper bus. So he picked up my suitcase for me and brought me to my bus and then asked me for money. I gave him a small amount and he thanked me many times and sat on the bus and talked to me for a couple minutes. I then went and got lunch at a little Mongolian restaurant. I got back on the bus and then man came back and asked for more money, I apologized and told him I had no more (note to self, don't give out money or have anyone care your bags, because all they want is your money). We chatted a little more and than left. On the way out he told the driver I was an American, the driver than called over his buddies to take a look at me and the proceeded to take pictures of me reading my book, trying to ignore the fact that a small crowd had formed outside me window and were watching me. Just another paparazzi moment. Finally, everyone else boarded the bus and I the seat next to me was occupied by the cutest 8 year old girl who was traveling with her dad. Both of them attempted to sit in one seat, so they didn't have to pay for two. I silently cursed my luck but then 20 minutes into the ride the dad found an empty seat and moved it, leaving just me and the little girl. Thank god a seat opened and he moved to it. Three people in one cramped area would have been miserable and he reeked of vodka. She shared the candy her dad bought her with me and quickly fell asleep on my shoulder. After we stopped for a dinner break we got back on the bus and I chatted with her about UB and what I do in Tsetserleg. I then fell asleep

         I got back late on Thursday night (Thanksgiving), which did not feel like Thanksgiving at all. I had to promise the nurse that I could repack my wound, in order to be allowed to go back to Tsetserleg for Thanksgiving with my site mates. So she showed me how to repack the wound and gave me all the tools, saline solution, disinfectant and various other things needed to make it as sterile as possible. So today I will attempt to repack my wound, should be interesting, she told me to call her if I needed moral support. For anyone who doesn't know what this entails, it entails me pulling out the old packing gauze, cleansing the area with iodine, using a syringe to flush it out with saline solution and then using a hemostat to put more packing material into the wound. Sounds like a lot of fun, definitely adds to the Peace Corps experience and it will be a fun story to tell one day. But now I can add packing deep wounds to my list of skills. Since I was in UB on Thursday, we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner Saturday night.

         Friday afternoon, I went to an event that the Health Department put on at the government office. It was about alcohol and cigarette awareness. Three different companies from Arkhangai were competing for money. They had to put on skits, sing songs and give a presentation on the danger of alcohol and cigarettes. The community was invited to watch, and a lot of people turned out to watch the competition between the Teachers' College, Police Department and Electric Company. The skits were hilarious, yet very informational. The skits depicted Mongolian life and were so true to all the stigmas and beliefs about alcohol use here in Mongolia. It was funny to watch them make fun of their own culture and interesting to see that they perceive the alcohol use the same way that I do. They had skits about drinking at work and doing shots of vodka during the day in a circle, where everyone is pressures to keep drinking the shots until the bottle is gone and one about drunk men passed out in fields or on the side walk. They had a skit about the men having affairs with other woman and young girls becoming pregnant. I was surprised on how aware they were of the problems in their community, yet nothing is done about them. They had these brilliant plays that perfectly depicted life in my town, yet some of these people I knew and have seen out drinking excessively. The event lasted about 4 hours and at the end I handed out pamphlets with information about alcohol and cigarette abuse and how to get help for both addictions. I hope that the community members and kids who attended the event got more out of it than just the laughs that could be heard roaring outside of the building!

Saturday morning, I went to one of the local schools for a health competition. The kids had been studying their health books and then all seven schools got together to compete in a health facts competition. The health department set up the event and there were about 50 children involved. On the projector a question and 4 possible answers would show up, the kids each had papers with A-D on them and had to hold up the paper with the letter that they thought was the correct answer. If they held up the wrong answer, they were eliminated. First, second and third place won money and a plaque.

         Our soum volunteers came into Tsetserleg for Thanksgiving. We cooked and ate dinner at Jen's Ger. We cooked most of the vegetables on her wood stove and used the oven for the chicken (the only turkey you can buy was in UB for $70 US dollars, it was small and totally not worth the $70 bucks) and the apple pie. I made mashed potatoes, brown sugar carrots and pumpkin bread (thanks to the mix my mom sent me). It took a couple hours to cook everything on the wood stove, but in the end, the meal was delicious and we all had a great time. To me, it did not feel like Thanksgiving, but just another meal with the group, which I think was the best thing. It kept me from being sad about being away from my family. It was strange to be away from home. It is the first holiday I have not spent with my family and it was such a strange feeling. Since Mongolians obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving, there was no real excitement about the day, which helped. I didn't have to see other people celebrating with their families, so I wasn't as upset as I thought I would be. I think that Christmas will be the most emotional, because some Mongolians do celebrate it. But I am happy that I will be able to Skype my family during their Christmas Eve dinner, my Christmas morning. I think Christmas will be the worst, we all already feel the emotional roller coaster starting to pull us downward as the days pass in December and make their way to Christmas. But we all plan on taking Christmas off from work and watching Christmas movies all day and eating a nice meal together.

        Tonight, I am going to a play about AIDS/HIV. It is being put on by the local theater group here and is supposed to promote and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent the spread of it in Mongolia. I am currently working on my HIV/AIDS program that I am going to do with the local schools here in town.