Summer time is slow time.

6/28/2014

                Nothing too exciting to report. The most exciting part of the past two weeks,involved objects flying through my windows. First, a bird flew into my apartment! I heard something hitting against my curtains and saw this shadow. Inside my heart skipped a beat and I realized that this was something I was going to have to solve on my own, no one was here to help me. So I through on my winter coat, put the hood up, I was convinced that as soon as I moved the curtain the bird would dive at my head and peck it. So i quickly moved my curtain which cause the bird to fly around my bedroom like crazy. I ran to open every window in my apartment and my door. I then stood in my bathroom putting on makeup with my hood up. I was terrified of it pecking me. Luckily, after like 10 minutes, the bird figured out how to get out and left via my apartment door into the stair well. The next object to fly into my window, was a paper airplane, which was really cool. I live on the 3rd floor and it first had to fly into my balcony and then through my door and land on my kitchen floor. I ran onto my balcony to see if the kid from upstairs through it down, it is impossible that someone through it up 3 floors. But no one was above or below me. I then got a feeling that it was a sign from my Uncle Tim, that he was watching over me and supporting me. It was such a wonderful feeling and a great way to start my day, although at first it did make me cry, but after the initial sadness, it was really uplifting.  I really miss him.
               The summer is a slow time in Mongolia, most people take off to the countryside for summer vacation, so little work gets done at this time. The past couple weeks, I have just been teaching English to my two HD classes, my kids group and  teaching a speaking class at a local summer camp for 10-11^th grade students. The summer camp class is really fun, I just play games with them that have them practice speaking out loud. In schools here, English class is taught in Mongolian. The whole class is in Mongolian, so they really only learn to read in their head (translating words) and write English words, based on memorization. A lot of words they do not know how to pronounce and they cannot really read out loud. If you write out sentences, they will be able to translate them and understand what they are supposed to do and can write stories in English, but they really lack speaking skills. So for the 6 days I volunteered at the camp, I had them speak for the 45 minutes I taught the English class. I tried to do as little writing on the board as possible and only speak English at them when giving instructions on an activity. I think their favorite was when we practiced directions and they each took turns being blindfolded and being led around the building by the other students who were yelling out directions to them. I also gave them pictures from magazines and told them they had 5 minutes to come up with a story about the picture. So they had to tell the story out loud to their peers, another activity was to describe a part of the building and the others had to guess. We also played Taboo and practiced pronunciation of the letters and common words. The teachers brought their young daughters to the camp, the first day, I did not know they were going to be there, so I saw the little girls just sitting in the back of the room, quietly sitting, watching the class. So I asked the lead teacher if they were going to be there every day and if they knew any English, I felt bad that they had nothing to do. So the next day I went to the camp with activities for the little girls, to help them begin to learn the English alphabet and numbers. They seemed to enjoy the little activities I gave them, and by the end of the camp, they knew most of the letters of the alphabet.

                On Friday, I baked cupcakes again with my kids group. I am proud to say that they now know all the kitchen equipment and can correctly read recipes and find the ingredients themselves. I had them make drawings of the kitchen and label all the furniture, and they did great. I then had them make flashcards of all the different types of equipment, so that they can study them at home and teach their parents. An elderly lady, who is a cook, was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for her meeting with the nutritionist and she was watching us, asking the kids questions about what we were making and when we sat down to go over our kitchen vocabulary, she took out a notebook and was writing down the words, and having one of the girls spell out the English words to her. It was awesome to see she was so interested in knowing the English words.

                As far as health projects go, the summer is a slow time for work. Most people are on vacation in the countryside, so little work gets done, plus a lot of power outages, so their computers don’t work, which is where all their work is. So I have just been working on my Peer Education Workshop and doing research on Trafficking in Persons. My main counterpart was in UB for the past week, so he wasn’t there to work on projects with. But, since I have so many English classes to plan for it works out well that I don’t have a ton of health work to do. I am looking forward to the fall though, when I can dive back into community health projects. The 2^nd week of July, I do get to go to UB with my director and counterpart to welcome the Korean  Doctors who are going to be working in our Health Department and Hospital for the next couple months, so that will be fun!

                It has been raining for the past week and a half, so I haven’t been able to get outside and hike or run, which is driving me crazy. Last week, we had the most intense thunderstorms I have ever witnessed (other than being in the Tornado in SC). One of them woke me up and for a solid hour it was lightning and thunder. I wasn’t going to fall back asleep, so I went into my kitchen to watch it from my picture window. It was so eerie, but beautiful in a way. The next day, there was a double rainbow over. Because of the storms most days I have not had power during most of the mornings. Today, I was out of power from 8am-4pm. It is supposed to be nice out during the day tomorrow (thunderstorms at night); I hope the weather report is correct. I need sunshine. Today, I went for a walk in the rain, because I just needed to do something outside. (I had watched all the Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl episodes I had left to watch. My guilty pleasures.) I hate being cooped up in my apartment, especially with no power, but I did get a lot of reading and studying done. Luckily, I received my BUTI fitness DVDs in my last package, so I have been able to do them every day. They are so fun, it is a mixture or yoga, African tribal dance and plyo. I am obsessed with it.

 I just finished the book “The Happiness Project” by Gretchin Rubin. It was about the author’s resolution to do a year of monthly resolutions to have a happier life. She was already happy, but felt like she could be happier, so she made a chart of things she wanted to change or accomplish and the book followed her on her year long journey to a happier life. It is about setting small goals and changing small things in your life in order to be your happiest self. Nothing drastic, some of her resolutions were to clean for 10 minutes before bed, clean out her closet, sing in the shower every morning, stop expecting praise for everything she did, fight “nicer”, eat brunch with her friends every weekend and run every day. It was a great book, and now I am going to start my own happiness project. I am working on my goals now and breaking them down into steps over the next 12 months. By this time next year, I will be going back to the States and want to have a clear idea about what I want my future to be like and how to accomplish it. This past year I have grown so much and I think this next year will prove to be even more important and life changing, so it is a perfect time to try out this “Happiness Project”.