I have never been homesick until Christmas hit. The Sunday before my site mates came over and we ate spaghetti and meatballs, had a group picture and watched Christmas Movies. It was a fun time and it was even more exciting because we had found out that we were able to get ground beef (hence the meatballs). The spaghetti and meatballs came out tasty tasty despite not having enough sauce and the meatballs not keeping their form.
The next night we went to Will's apartment (which has recently become Lorre's apartment) and we watched more x-mass movies with onesies. I haven't worn a onsie in YEARS but it was a nice reminder of how warm I could be if I decided to invest in one.
Wednesday was Christmas. I decided to stay home from work because it was ultimately a holiday and though not terribly religious, my family always celebrated together with presents, lots of food (pie's and cookies) and togetherness. It was a tough day for me and I started it with some eggs and mimosas (like i would with my mom) spent it watching X-mass movies, and cleaning. We went to Lorre's Ger (uhhum Will's new Ger) for a X-mass movie and some champagne. I went home and thanks to the world of technology (skype) I was able to watch my cousins open their X-mass presents. It was a nice way to end the night and very much needed to feel the happy Christmas spirit. I know that the first x-mass away was going to be tough, I was just surprised at how tough it ended up being. It was nice to be able to have friends around to celebrate with and I don't know what i would have done without them! It also makes me think about my mom doing PC in the 70's. She didn't have a cell phone, internet (hell, i'm not even sure internet existed back then!) That makes me realize how lucky I really am to be in PC in this day and age. I'm in MONGOLIA, yet my family is just a click away! Tonight is New Years! I am sure there will be much to share! I also will be updating about my schools shin jilt just as soon as my counterpart brings the disk with the photos on it! Have a safe Holiday and I'll meet you in the future new year America!
Yesterday, around 5pm, I was told by my counterpart that we were going to do a Social Worker training at the teacher's college. I would only need to take about 5 minutes, so I wasn't too worried. I realized this morning that in fact I was teaching young kids and that Social Workers from the college were coming to my school. Due to this fact, I opted not to use my power point on social work because the wording was a little more formal and geared towards professionals. It went very well, although I found myself going over the time limit (I've acculturated people)! I worked with an English teacher who translated so the students would know WHAT I was talking about! It was great fun! After, a million pictures were taken with me by the Social Workers who had presented. The training ended with a University Social Worker Teacher asking me to come do a training on American Social Work in January. It made me realize how quickly the time passes! In January it will be a full year since I was sent an invitation to join Peace Corps Mongolia! Finally, while sitting at my desk working on my VRF (Voljunteer Report Form that entails everything we have accomplished while we have been here) the news team came in to report. Since no English speakers were around, my counterpart Toghtoo talked about me while they video taped me working at my desk. They even video taped my power point on American Social Work. Sadly, my fingers have a bit of ash on them from my fight with the fire this morning, and my nails are NOT at all polished, so I am hopeful they did NOT zoom in on that atrocity! For your entertainment:
I felt that this warranted it's own blog for the sheer fact that the words have been resonating since it was stated. "We want to learn an emotional dance!" This was the request of the two school teachers who were asking me to teach them a dance for the new year concert. They wanted a dance similar to the one i taught the tenth graders two weeks ago. This was a bit of an odd request to me as I sat there making them listen to Frank Sinatras "New York New York". Of course, when they found out how many hours (9) were crammed into three days so the kids could learn that dance, their tune changed. The dance I taught those students was a bit of a mix...hip hop, modern..maybe even some contemporary mixed in. To dancer's in the states, we usually start for fun. It's something to keep our time occupied while expelling energy while mommy and daddy run errands. As we get older, we are taught to feel our movements. Dance teachers mold our bodies until the right body placement becomes second nature to us. In modern we learn to connect our movements, feel the floor rough up our feet as we move along, and connect to ourselves in an almost spiritual way through our own creations. In ballet, we learn a foundation. The techniques that will make us strong and will mold us into better, well rounded dancers. In a way I think that all of my peers in college felt this connection at some point during their stint at Dean College. Watching a ballet, or a modern group, this raw emotion is felt. So what about Mongolian dance? I have to say, when I was dancing at my swearing in, and in my school's concert, I felt very little however, I have not grown up with this form of dance. While I find it very interesting, attaching any kind of emotion to something so new and alien is difficult to do. This, in my mind warrants a question. Do Mongolian's go through the movements just because that is what is taught or do they feel everything that we feel when we dance; love, hate, sadness, joy all those raw animistic emotions? We are taught to show our emotions, and for some of us, dance was and is that outlet. Do Mongolians? I hope so, and I would like to think so. There is one student at my school that also performed for the 90th anniversary. She performed a traditional Mongolian dance and seemed so excited to be onstage. She was all smiles, and very much lost in her dance, her movements. The crowd wasn't there to her. It was her and that dance, her and her passion. So in closing (as I couldn't get back to sleep until I expelled what was on my mind) I think every culture has an emotional dance. The difficulty is being able to see how these emotions are expressed because cultures are so different. I plan on going through with teaching and performing "New York New York" with my teachers, but I have also decided that I will be performing my own very "emotionally driven" dance to see what kind of interesting conversations I can spark from it.
I have always been told that things come in threes. Today was day two of things that just don't quite go right. It started with a phone call from my site mate expressing that we had somehow managed to switch modems and that the gmobile people (after 2 hours of fussing) made her buy a new gmobile card. While she had stated do not cancel my number...lost in translation...they cancelled it, right before I was going to use the video of Rudolph to teach my kids Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Needless to say i booked it to gmobile after my class and things got sorted (with a bit of help from her English speaking counterpart). I had to buy more MB for my internet because they couldn't transfer the credits from Brittany's Gmobile to mine. Frustrating but we worked it out. I was luckily, able to find a red dress for new years and finish up my xmass decorations list. After our shopping excursion (very Mongolian of us) I went back to work. Throughout the day teachers had been coming up to me and talking about the new year. Being me I just smiled and nodded saying "za" yes. After about the fourth time, one of the art teachers came in and sat down and discussed this celebration with me (in Mongolian). It was indicated that I would need to teach a dance and I would be singing. It was also indicated that only "new teacher's" would be doing this. I immediately called an English teacher to clarify after this discussion. I am in fact, with 5 or 6 other teachers in charge of putting on a concert for the teachers next Friday the 27th. While this is exciting, it is supposed to be 4 hours long. I am hopeful that other teachers will also be singing and dancing and acting like I will be. While I was hopeful this week would be slow and I could eeeease on back into things. As it sits, this week and next will in fact be quite the opposite filled with bustling activities and New Years Cheer. Luckily, this is my favorite time of the year so this should be an endeavor I will at least enjoy... For your listening pleasure..
The last few weeks have been literally filled with every emotion I can muster. It was a blur of excitement, boredom, exhaustion and a mild form of holiday blues. My Thanksgiving was interesting. The site-mates came from not only my immediate Aimag center but the two soums as well. I literally cooked all day and used every last but of water for clean up. When the cooking was said and done, despite not having a turkey, I would say we did darn good! We had chicken seared in butter and oil, marinated with lemon, red wine, garlic and seasoned with parsley flakes and pepper. If I do say so myself it was moist and delicious! We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, garlic bread, pie and cookies. We drank wine and champagne. It felt like posh corps for a hot minute! And talk about delicious! When we were done we were stuffed and fully satisfied. We even had Thanksgiving decorations that had been passed down from other volunteers.
The week after thanksgiving was filled with rehearsals. I had a teacher come to me the Thursday before thanksgiving and ask that i teach her students a dance for an upcoming competition. We practiced literally three times for three hours and by Tuesday I had fully taught the students the dance. It was tedious and I definitely do not want to have to choreograph a dance that quickly again because it made me a bit of a bear (especially when the students weren't focused and laughing the time away), but I have to say I was pleased with the outcome and today when talking to the teacher she stated that the dance went маш cаин байна (mash san bain) very well! She also said her students thanked me. It was greatly rewarding. On Thursday I left for the big city (Ulaanbaatar). All of my site-mates and I left early and were pleased to arrive no problems around 4. I had a very nice long restful night. Friday I went to the British Embassy Christmas party with Marc. It was a lot of fun, and I got to meet a lot of really great expats living in Mongolia. Marc grabbed tickets to a drawing that was occurring and lone behold (definitely due to his luck and not mine) we won a bar tab! It was an exciting moment;-)
After an amazing night I had to be up bright and early for training. It ended up being a tedious 10 hour long training Saturday and an even more tedious 10 hour training on Sunday. It was great for our CP's but not so great for the PCV's as we had another 5 days of training ahead of us. This is Brittany's counterpart and mine during the lunch time training.
Saturday night the PCV's went out to a club. It was a fantastic time had by all...as is evident by the pictures!
IST was filled with a TON of information and lot's of nights like pictured above. By the time Friday came, I was ready to get out of there and have some down-time. Saturday, after saying my goodbye's to Marc (he went to the UK), I did all of my laundry and went out one last time to celebrate Angela's birthday. It ended up being hip hop night where we were and dance offs occurred. Artists were drawing on the walls all night as well. It was a nice ending to a long week and all the PCV's had an amazing time. My sitemates and I made it home to Arhangai about 10pm on Sunday and I spent all of Monday running around completing errands. When I got back home and was ready to clean and put away my food I couldn't find my keys. I had accidentally thrown them in a dumpster and the words needle in a haystack came to mind. Thankfully Will had an extra set and needed to go to the black market to make copies. I was able to grab a tree and some decorations so I called it a win win. After halfway decorating my Christmas tree, (I need more lights) I made some food and crashed. It had been an amazingly long couple of weeks and I am glad it is over.
