3/19/2014
My sister who had two interviews in the City yesterday and
was offered both jobs!! I knew she would do well. I can't wait to talk to her
and hear all the details. Also, my dad was re-elected for the third time as
Village Trustee. I could not be any prouder of my family right now.
At work today, I worked on drawing pictures of healthy
and non-healthy body parts related to smoking. I am now designated graphics
designer for the trainings. Haha. Ever since they saw the teeth I drew for my
oral hygiene training, my coworkers ask me to do drawings for theirs. Tomorrow
there is a training at the local tech school for kids grades 9-11 on drinking
and smoking. So I was asked to draw lungs, teeth and nails (both healthy and
what they look like after smoking for years). I must say I think I found my
little niche. I am pretty good at drawing organs! Haha. However I am horrible
at drawing faces. I was asked to draw a face of a smoker and a non smoker. It
was terrible and will not be used. And thanks to the 64 pack of crayola crayons
my parents sent me, I can now more accurately draw and shade them. I bought
plastic sleeves to put them in, so that I do not have to keep redrawing them
over and over fr each training. This was they are protected and can be taped to
the walls without destroying them. The pictures will be used to show the
students the harmful effects and to get a discussion going about what they know
about tobacco and the body. I also worked on translating a smoking time line
titled: What to expect when you quit smoking. What is interesting is that it is
all about the positive things that happen to your body within the first five
years of quitting. My counterpart is checking my translations and then I will
print them out on large paper to make an interactive time line that students
can hold/read and use during the training, instead of just throwing it up on
the projector. I also came up with a True or False game that will be used at
the end of the training to check whether or not they learned anything from the
training. Ariuk came to me yesterday asking how to make his smoking
presentation more interesting for the kids. So those were the ideas I came up
with that could be quickly added to his presentation. I love that he now
realizes that lecturing at kids does not work, they just tune you out after the
first 10 minutes. He is really trying to make his trainings more interactive
and energy filled. We of course will be doing the Human know game as well. I
think it is now a trademark of the NCD trainings.
While I was waiting for Ariuk to correct my translations,
I reorganized my desk and went through all the papers I was hoarding and threw
away all the ones that I wouldn't need. I also did this at my apartment over
the weekend. It is amazing how much stuff I saved that I have never used.
3/23/2014
On Thursday, I helped conduct a training on smoking,
alcohol and HIV/AIDS to kids at the MCYT School, which is a technical school
(like BOCES) for 10th and 11th graders. Mongolian schools
only go up to 11th grade. The students at this school go there to
become cooks, mechanics, drivers, maintenance and cleaning staff. For these two
years, they live at the school, which was about 20 minutes outside of town in
the middle of nowhere. Not another building around it, just miles and miles of
fields and mountains. No wonder why the social worker called the Health
Department and asked us to come do a training. It is no wonder why the
substance use and casual sex is happening; there is nothing else for them to do
during the winter. I worked with my counterpart on the smoking section of the
training. He made the Powerpoint and I came up with two activities for them to
do and together we made up the third activity. First, Buyaa, the non-communicable
disease doctor from the Health Department did a presentation on alcoholism and
nutrition. Then it was my turn. I realized that there is a large problem with
evaluating their trainings and seeing if there is any real knowledge gain, so I
decided the first activity would act as a pre-test for the students. I came up
with True or False Questions to ask, if they thought it was true they raised
their hand, if they thought it was false they would keep their hands down. Most
of the questions received a 50/50 answer, half thinking it was right and the
other half thinking it was wrong. The one answer that really worried me was
that about 85% of the class thought that it was okay to smoke during pregnancy.
It was so surprising to see that they had never learned about the dangers of smoking
while pregnant and what the consequences could be, so I made sure to tell my
counterpart to carefully explain that smoking during pregnancy is a big no-no
and why. After the pretest, Ariuk did a presentation on the effects of smoking
on the body and what problems second hand smoke can cause. I then did my second
activity, which was a “What to Expect When You Quit Smoking” time line. It was
the positive effects on the body from 20 minutes after quitting to 15 years
being smoke free. I found the information really interesting myself and they
kids seemed to too. There were 11 pieces of paper with time periods after
quitting and the effect on the body, so I took 11 volunteers and had them put
the time line in order and then stand and each read their time period out loud
to the rest of the class. Ariuk, then did a little more of the powerpoint and
at the end as the post-test, we handed out 6 pictures that I had drawn of
healthy organs/body parts and unhealthy ones affected by smoking. Those 6 kids
then had to come up and talk about their body part, the problems with it and
how smoking caused it. The rest of the class then had to add facts that the
person missed or correct what they said. The kids were really great and
discussed the pictures for a good 10 minutes. Ariuk then finished up by asking
a couple questions and letting them have a turn to ask any questions they had
themselves. Overall, it was a great training and I really think the kids gained
a lot of useful information that I hope helps them make better decisions in the
future.
Friday, I took a mental day off at the office. I went in
to the office, but I just hung out and played some ping pong and surfed the
internet, luckily the rest of my staff seemed to have the same idea and didn't
really do any work that day either. Towards the end of the day I had a nice
talk with Ariuk about taxes (Mongolians have to give the gov't 20% of their
earnings each paycheck) and what American Universities are like and cost.
Universities here cost anywhere from 400USD-800USD (a lot for a typical
Mongolian) a year. He was flabbergasted when I told him how much my university
cost per year. He has been studying all week for a Mongolian version of the
civil service exam, except they take it after a year of working at a government
job, so now that he has worked for a year, he must take the exam, along with
two others in my office. They are super nervous about it, but they have been
studying nonstop so I am sure they will do just fine!
This weekend, I went over to Will's to hang out with
Akira (the JICA volunteer, Japanese Peace Corps) and Ming Jung (not spelled
correctly, but she is a Korean Volunteer). We went out for dinner and the other
Korean volunteer who teaches sports at one of the local schools met us there.
It was a lot of fun and basically no one knew enough of any language to
communicate with one another fully, so it was a mixture or English, Mongolian
and Korean. Most of the conversation was in Mongolian since that is the only
language the 5 of us had in common. We all over pronounce Mongolian words, so
it is easier to understand them when they are speaking Mongolian than it is to
understand a real Mongolian speaking.
3/30/2014
This past week was relatively busy with English classes
and working on different health projects. I have been working with students at
school 2 getting them ready for a couple competitions that are coming up next
month that they will compete in.
On Saturday, it was Doctors Day, a day that celebrates
Doctors obviously. They celebrated by having a variety show competition that
was put on by all the local doctors. They each had to perform a song and dance,
2 health related skits and a closing skit that was of their pick. They were
hilarious and it was so much fun to watch them on stage. I had helped one team
with their skit, so I was excited to see the finished product. My counterpart
called me Thursday night at 9pm asking me to come to the hospital, that his
team for the competition needed help coming up with a dance and skit for Saturday.
So I walked over and was there until 1130pm helping come up with ideas. It was
a lot of fun. They were taking the competition very seriously.
4/3/14
Yesterday
was the English Pyramids, which is a competition for 8-11th grade
students. Ten schools came into Tsetserleg to compete against one another. All
the Peace Corps volunteers from the province came into town to help out with
it. It was so much fun to be a part of! It is a completion run by Peace Corps
Volunteers and consists of a question and answer portion, Taboo and Jeopardy.
The students are given essays written by PCVs about American culture, Important
American People and American events. They must memorize the facts in the essays
because that is what the question and answer portion and jeopardy is based off
of. This year the question and answer part was 8-9 grade had to answer
questions about National Parks in the US and the 10-11th grade had
to answer about FIFA World Cup. Many of the students like the ones I work with
at School 2, had the entire essays (2 pages each) memorized word for word. My
job was to ask the questions to the 8th and 9th graders.
I would ask them a question and they would repeat the whole sentence word for
word that contained the answer, it was crazy and super impressive. Each team
consisted of one student from each grades 8-11. The second part Taboo consisted
of one speaker who got a list of words that they had to describe to the other
three teammates to guess without saying the word itself. That was really fun to
judge! Some of the kids were so creative. There was this one 8th
grade boy whose English was absolutely amazing. If I closed my eyes, I would
have thought it was a native English speaker. On one of the breaks, I went up
to him and his teacher and told him how impressed I was with his English and to
keep practicing, that he is going to be very successful in the future. The last
part was Jeopardy which was based off of the third essay they were given, which
was about Benjamin Franklin. All the questions were based on the facts in the essay.
In the end the school that I have been teaching at on Thursdays won the
competition! I was so proud of them!
Today
was the English Olympics, which is another English competition for 9th
and 11th grade students. Each school picks one student from those
two grades to compete against all the other schools in a written test. The test
contains reading comprehension questions, essay and fill in the blanks with the
correct words. Will, Mike and I were proctors for the test, each having our own
classroom to distribute the tests in and watch the students for the hour they
have to take the test. After the students were done with the test we had to
meet with the Foreign Language Methodologist from the Education Department, to
grade the tests. The girl I have been tutoring each week won first place out of
all the 11th grade students and will now go onto the national
competition in UB in May. So next week we will begin preparing for that. I am
so excited for her, she works so hard and studies so much. She also took 2nd
place in the Physics Olympics. They have an Olympics completion for every
school subject. Each test was just
labeled with a random number that corresponded to a student, so that the grader
did not know whose test they were grading. At then end we had to match the
numbers to the index cards that had the students name and school on it. The
only thing is, is that they were all in Mongolian Cursive, which none of us
could read, so we were just trying to match handwritings based off the sign up
sheet. Luckily, a couple Mongolian teachers came in while we were doing it and
helped us read the names more accurately.
This
week I was asked to help my counterpart write an email to the Korean Health
Center to request their help. There is a young boy in our aimag that has
chronic kidney disease and Ureterohydronephrosis. This
young boy was diagnosed with the disease at age 4 and has been suffering for
years. He is now 13. They want more information about the disease and possible
treatment options available to their son. So Ariuk and I worked on a letter
describing the boys diagnosis, severity of the disease and gave summaries of
his blood work and CT Scans. His family has been saving their money for a
60million Tugrik operation (34,000 dollars!) and want to get him to Korea to
been seen by a specialist, in hopes that they will be able to eventually afford
the surgery. It is so amazing to be part of their journey and I really hope
that the a Korean Urologist can help out!
I was also
asked to help the Health Department and World Vision find a distributor for the
medical product, DuraSeal. So I have been contacting distributors in the US,
Germany, Korea and Australia about a product, DuraSeal, which is used during
neurosurgery to seal Dura Matter. The product is not available in Mongolia and
is not sold in all of Asia, but World Vision Mongolia contacted the Health
Department to try to order it so it can be used for a young boy who is need of
neurosurgery due to a cerebral hernia. My director told me it is my new job to
work on. So I have been emailing and calling distributors in other countries.
Hopefully I will hear back soon! She told me to tell them I am in charge of
Foreign Affairs at the Health Department. I did not, I made sure to tell them I
was a Peace Corps Volunteer acting in behalf of the Arkhangai Health
Department.
4/7/14
Sunday, I went hiking with my
friend Gerlee. She is a student from the Teacher’s College that Will introduced
me to. She comes to observe me when I teach English at school 2 to the 11th
grade students and helps me explain ideas to them. She is great! So nice and
wants to better her English because she wants to go for her Master’s Degree in
English so that she can teach English at a university. This summer she wants to
work as an interpreter at one of the ger camps for tourists to better her
English. We went hiking up one of the
mountains at the northern end of town and ended up walking for about 4 hours
till we reached the start of the river in the soum next to ours. It was such a
beautiful day; I was able to wear shorts! The river was frozen sold and covered
with snow at some points, which looked so pretty down the side of the mountain.
At one point there was a frozen waterfall. We ran into herds of yaks which now
had baby yaks in them, which have to be the most adorable livestock baby ever.
Gerlee told me stories about Arkhangai and invited me to go to her family’s ger
in the countryside next weekend. I am so excited. She said I can help out with
the chores. Her family is a real nomadic Mongolian family and is going to be
moving their ger to the river for the spring time. Her family’s home is about
an hour away so we will take the bus there on Friday afternoon. She said I will
be able to help milk cows and sheer goats to make cashmere! That is how her
family makes money. I can not wait!!
4/11/14
Tuesday
morning I had my English class with the HD doctors. I had them play Pictionary
to review words we had learned previously. Based off of past experience, where
I tried to explain directions on how to play games to them in English and
Mongolian (did not work), I had Ariuk write out the directions in Mongolian so
that there would be no misunderstanding, even though I though Pictionary is an
easy game to explain. But, of course this did not work either. I don’t know if
he didn’t understand what I was saying or they didn’t read his directions
right, but they totally made up their own game, which slightly resembled
Pictionary. Their version of the game was to pick a piece of paper out of the
bag which an English word was written, read the word out loud to the entire
group, completely defeating the purpose of guessing what they were drawing.
They then drew a picture of the word on the board and added things to it, then
made a sentence using the word and the other objects they drew on the board.
The game itself worked really well and was a lot more advanced than I had
planned, but they did a great job making sentences and reading them out loud to
the group. An example of what they did was, pull out a piece of paper that had
“nurse” written on it. The doctor than drew a nurse on the board and drew
clothes on her and drew children around her. She then wrote the sentence “The
nurse is wearing a white dress and hat. The nurse helps children.” It was not
Pictionary, but it turned into a great exercise and we ended up doing it for 45
minutes. They loved making up sentences and I then had them correct each
other’s sentences and explain why they thought it was wrong. They have learned
so much so far, it is so cool to watch them grow class to class. When we first
started they did not have the knowledge to write sentences describing a picture
and now they are making two or three sentences. It is awesome! After that game,
I then introduced the new lesson, which was an intro to Health vocab. I taught
them a few body parts, injuries/illnesses, how to express one’s health
condition and ask help from a doctor. It was really hard for them, so we will
be doing it again next week. One of my students raised her hand and told me she
was stupid. I laughed loudly at her statement, because it was just so blunt “I
am stupid.”, and then asked her why she thought she was stupid and she said
because this lesson was very hard for her. I told her she was not stupid, that
some lessons will be harder than others and take more practice to learn. I then
told her that next time she should say “The lesson was hard and I did not
understand it” instead of calling herself stupid.
Tuesday afternoon, I found out that
the Korean Hospital I had helped write a letter to, wrote us back saying that
they will help the little boy and it will not cost the parents the 37,000
dollars! I am so happy for the family and the little boy will be coming into
Tsetserleg on Thursday to get more tests done and get a more recent CT Scan to
send to the Korean doctors so that they can make an action plan and set a
surgery date. Wahoo! I was also able to locate three potential distributors
(France, Germany and Canada) for DuraSeal which another boy’s surgery requires
but is not sold in all of Asia. We have set up a meeting with World Vision to
talk about what the next steps need to be and how we will go about ordering it
and having it shipped here.
The Drug Research Center came to
the health Department to ask if I would begin teaching English classes there
twice a week. So I will begin doing that next week, every Tuesday and Thursday
evening. The staff does not have any knowledge of English, so we will start
from the beginning with letters and their sounds. I love teaching beginner
English, so I was happy to hear that they were no looking for an advanced
English class or speaking class.
On Wednesday,
I went to the local TV station to do an interview on a Morning Talk Show. It
was so much fun and I was surprised to see that the studio looked like ones in
the US. Upon arrival at the studio, Ariuk and I were ushered into the room
which the show would be filmed. We were told to sit on one of the large,
surprisingly comfortable purple couch that was positioned directly under 4
bright lights, next to a smaller matching purple love seat which the Host would
sit in. We were given bottles of water and mugs of coffee. Ariuk and I both
agreed that we were now nervous and it was hot under all the lights. But as
soon as the host began asking questions all nervousness subsided and I didn’t
even notice the lights. Although we were filming at 3pm, the show is called
“Good Morning Mongolia”, so we had to act like it was morning when greeting one
another. The host came in with a list of questions that she wanted to ask me,
which Ariuk then translated into English for me and we made sure they were
appropriate and I was able to answer them. Peace Corps does not allow us to
talk about politics , religion or my beliefs on certain subjects, so I wanted
to make sure I would not be asked any questions that pertain to those ideas or
anything about the US government. None of the questions were a problem, so we
gave them the okay and the host sat down and we began the 30 minute show.
First, I introduced myself, who I was, why I was in Mongolia and what I studied
in university. I did this part in Mongolian, but left the rest of my answers to
be translated by Ariuk, so that I did not make a fool of myself or say the
wrong thing accidently. The host asked questions varying on subjects about
education, my first thoughts of arriving in Mongolia, my childhood in America,
Mongolian Festivals, riding horses in Mongolia and different health concerns
and my advice for Mongolians who are trying to learn English. It was so much
fun! I would love to do it again. This will mark my third time being on
Mongolian TV. I have always wanted to join Kathy Lee and Hoda on their morning
show. They just seem to have so much fun talking about celebrity gossip and
news stories. This appearance on the talk show really just confirmed my wishes
of being a talk show host/ news correspondent. I hope to be able to be a Health
Correspondent for a news channel, you know like the doctors they interview
about different stories or the specialists they have on the morning shows
talking about different health concerns. Even better, maybe I could have a spot
on a talk show like “The Doctors”, once I get my MPH. So many dreams. My real
life goal is to become US Surgeon General, so many steps to go until I reach
that. I have a 20 year plan that I have made that list all career goals and the
steps needed to fulfill them. I am hoping to be Surgeon General around 50 years
old. Haha.
Thursday
evening, Peace Corps came to do site visits. They come twice a year to check on
us, to see how our homes and work are, although I think the real reason is to
make sure our mental health is good and that we have integrated successfully
into our communities (that’s what all the questions were about). The Mongolian
woman that came is the assistant to the regional manager. She is so sweet and I
just love her. We chatted for two hours about my life here in Arkhangai. She
told me how Mongolian I am now after I offered her hot tea and candies as she
sat down. After talking, she thinks that I have really integrated into my
community and its sounds as though they have really accepted me and are happy
to have me. She said as she was visiting other sites in my town (new ones for
the new set of volunteers coming this summer) that everyone kept asking her if
she knew me and telling her how amazing I have been at their schools/NGOs.
Hearing this made me feel so happy, because most of the time I am wondering if
people notice what I am doing and if they are glad I am there or if I am more
of a burden for them. She also told me that she just loves me and my
personality. It was the first time we had met and she said from the minute I
hugged her hello (not common to do in Mongolia), she knew that I was going to
be full of life and energy. For the second time, I was told I have a childlike
outlook on life. Which when I first heard this from my trainer last summer, I
thought it was a bad thing, but then she explained it was a great quality. What
she meant was that I have a positive outlook on life and an innocence about me
that children have (I think this just really means I came to Mongolia naïve
about life and had a really happy and easy life up until now). She said it is
what will make me a successful volunteer. Again, the assistant told me the same
thing. I then told her about the two little boys and their families that I have
been working with to help find them treatment. She had tears in her eyes (which
of course made me cry) and thanked me for saving their lives and reminded me
how important the work I am doing is at the Health Department and how I have
really changed these two little boys’ futures. She told me to think of them whenever
I am feeling overwhelmed or having a down week.
The Peace Corps staff is just the most amazing people. One of things I
don’t know if I ever mentioned before, but recently talked with another
volunteer about is that all the Peace Corps staff are host country nationals,
meaning they are all citizens from the country you are serving in. So everyone
working for Peace Corps in Mongolia are Mongolians, with a couple exceptions: the
country director and Director of Operations, Director of Training and the Nurses who take care of us are Americans. They are so
motivated to help their country and are so knowledgeable. They are great
resources and they care so much about us. Each and every one of them treat us
as one of their own, really like their children. They are here for us 24 hours
a day and are always quick to act the minute something goes wrong or we are
having problems at site or are just really home sick. They want us to succeed
so much, that they are willing to drive 8 hours to talk and make sure we are
safe (like when I have to be moved due to harassment problems). Truly the most hardworking group of people,
which should not be a surprise at this point, since I think the whole country
of Mongolia is made up of people just like them.
She then asked if there was
anything I needed or wished I had housing wise, so I told her I really would
like a refrigerator or freezer now that it is becoming summer. I can no longer
keep my foods out on my balcony, so I cannot buy meat or dairy products
anymore. So she said she will strongly suggest that my Health Department find
me one, but since it is not a requirement, she cannot make them get me one. She
said she will go from the angle that I am going to become weak and sick from
not eating meat (Mongolians believe you must eat meat or you will be a weak
person, they do not understand vegetarianism at all), so she thinks that she
will be able to get a fridge for me if she says this. I really hope so! She is
also going to ask them to get me a desk/table so that I have somewhere to work
and eat at, since the only furniture I have in my apartment is a bed, clothes
rack and a side table. That is required so she said they have to give me one,
they are also required to give me chairs and a carpet, but I told her I just
really want the fridge, so not to burden them with so many other things I
really don’t need. On Monday morning, she has a meeting with the Health
Department staff to go over the work I am doing and the desk and fridge.
I was not able to go to Gerlee’s
ger in the countryside because she had to compete in a competition at her
college. So she said we will go next weekend!
4/13/14
This
weekend the weather was gorgeous. Clear sky, 70 degrees and a slight breeze. I
took advantage of it and spent most of Saturday and Sunday outside soaking up
the sunrays. I went for long runs both days and then laid out on Bulgaan
Mountain (Buddhist Mountain) reading and studying vocab words for the GREs. I
will be taking the GRE here in Mongolia in September, trying to up my scores
from the last time I took them back at home. I really want to get at least a
160 out of 170 on both parts to feel confident that I will get into the MPH
program I want to go to. The test is paper based here, which I think I will
like a lot better. The ones back home are on the computer and 5 hours of
staring at a computer really hurt my eyes and I hate not being able to cross
out answers and underline sentences/key words. This is the one time that I am
happy that Mongolia does not have reliable computers and internet . I also was
able to get a couple loads of laundry washed and hung out on the line and
reorganized my clothes rack and put away all my winter clothes, which
unfortunately I may have to unpack again midweek. The weather report says 6-10
inches of snow on Wednesday. I hope the meteorologists are wrong!
Will
and I played volleyball with my coworkers Wednesday and Thursday night. I am
slowly getting better, but am still terrible compared to all the 6 ft guys that
spike the ball 24/7. At one point I was benched, which really upset me.haha. I
do not like not being good at something, so it kills me every week to play for
3 hours and be one of the worse players. I must get better. They just take the
games so seriously here. They are intense and you will get yelled/get a really
dirt look from the older men if you mess up. So serious.
Friday after work, I had nothing to
do, so I decided to make noodles from scratch, which is so easy, you just need
flour, water and salt. So I made my dough and cut it into long thin pieces then
cooked it Saturday evening for dinner. It turned out fantastic and I will
definitely be making it again. I have so much flour that I never use, so I
might as well keep making noodles from it instead of buying them from the
store. For dinner on Friday I made this delicious salad with quinoa (Thank you
Aunt Bobby for sending it!), carrots, cabbage, tomatoes and lemon bbq dressing
(just mixed a couple teaspoons of lemon juice with bbq sauce and water). I am
really trying to teach myself to cook different types of meals, instead of
always eating stir fry for dinner every night. Speaking of foods, this is a
list of ten foods I am currently craving and wishing I could eat: Avocados,
Chicken, Cantaloupe, Grapefruit, Smoothies, Strawberries, Seafood, Corn on the
Cob, Lettuce/Spinach and Watermelon. All I want is a giant fruit salad and
grilled vegetables with seafood. Those will be the first things I eat when I
get back to the States.
4/14/14
Today,
Peace Corps staff had a meeting with my Health Department to talk about the
work I am doing there and to remind them what I am supposed to be doing and how
you should be working with me. Overall the meeting was very successful, I was
able to get a schedule of trainings that will be put on in the next couple
months and was given a list of topics that the staff would like me to do
trainings on and also other things that they want me to help them with, like
purchasing new medical equipment and learning how to write grant proposals and
develop surveys. I am so excited to have an actual list of tasks to accomplish
now. Thank goodness for Peace Corps staff. Although, I have asked the HD staff
numerous times what can I help them with, they also just say the same thing
they want to learn English. I try to tell them yes, of course I will teach them
English, but I am here as a Health volunteer to help with their trainings and
give them new ideas on how to approach the community about different health
concerns. So now instead of them coming up to me 30 minutes before a training
and asking for ideas, I have a list that I will begin working on immediately.
They really want me to focus on oral hygiene in children and stress
management/occupational psychology when it comes to adults in the community.
Oral hygiene is a relatively new concept (within the past 5 years they have
recognized it as part of the NCD department), and here in Tsetserleg more than
60% of children have dental cavities and other problems. Also, with Mongolia
changing so rapidly, it is the fastest growing economy in the world, a lot of
new stresses have been added to the people of the country, causing a larger
incidence of depression and anxiety among adults, so they really want me to
develop a training that doctors can bring back to their clinics about stress
management. Both are topics that are really interesting to me, especially the
occupational psychology aspect, since that is what my undergraduate degree is
in. It feels awesome to be able to use what I learned in college and apply it
to the Mongolian people and adapt it to their culture. The Peace Corps staff
want me to send them the training when I am done so that they can use it among
their workers and have it available to other volunteers, which is very cool.
I also
received my desk today! Immediately after the meeting, two of my coworkers
brought the desk to my apartment and they have promised that I will have a
refrigerator by May. Great news! My supervisor at the health Department said
that I need to be more demanding of my agency and ask over and over for things
I want. She said that it is a large difference between Mongolian and American
cultures in regards to that. It is not rude to ask over and over for something
from a Mongolian, they think it is normal. I would ask twice but just then let
things go because I didn’t want to seem annoying or ungrateful, but my
supervisor said it is not seen that way at all here. It is an asking culture so
I must keep asking until I receive. I still don’t feel comfortable doing that,
but once I get a refrigerator, there is nothing else I really want. Sure having
hot water and a shower would be nice, but if they do buy me a refrigerator,
which is way better than a shower at this point. I have gone a year without
one, what’s another year boiling water and bathing in a bucket. Haha. It just
adds to the authenticity of my Peace Corps experience.
I am
planning an Easter party for the children of the Health Department staff. I
received egg dying packets in a couple of my packages. So I will dye eggs with
them, do an Easter craft (still trying to decide which one), make cupcakes for
them and give out candy and little toys to the kids. I also want to do an egg
relay race, where you put the egg on the spoon and race against another team if
the weather is nice out. The party will be sometime next week and I plan on
just telling them about spring time and Easter traditions in America, but I
have to leave out the religious component so I am just going to talk about
celebrating spring and new life, like baby animals and flowers, etc. I hope
they have fun! I also want to dye eggs with Gerlee and her family if I go to
their ger this weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment