Tomorrow, I have officially been in Shammar a week. I am loving every moment of it…except for the bathrooms which are outhouses with no toilet seat and missing boards in the floor. If you are a girl you can relate to how hard it can be to aim while squatting. On a positive note, my thighs will be wicked toned when I leave. THis week was HARD. My class is moving quickly in learning the language. WE have learned how are you, how did you sleep, where are you from, what is your name, bye, stand up , sit down, I am eating an apple, listen, read a book, study, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer….etc. WE are also learning how to write in Cyrilic. Did I mention….the language is INSANE? THe alphabet has 38 letters and numerous vowels. Ah, eh, e, ee, ya, yeah, yo, y, uh, oh, are just the vowels. I am starting to get the hang of it but practicing every night is completely necessary. Tomorrow, we will be breaking up into two different classes. One half of the class will learn a lot in a short amount of time and will practice more next month and another will practice more this month and then next month will learn a lot of materials. It is a tough decision as to which class you decide to be in. THe peace corps placement office will also talk to us to decide what accommodations we want to live in. A Ger, house, or apartment. I have decided that I DO NOT want an apartment because if the electricity goes out in the dead of winter I do not want to have to pack it up for a night or two or a week and move to a friends house because its negative 50 out. If you live in a house of Ger you will have a woodstove. While they are both more work, and usually do not have running water, being warm is at the top of my priority list.
Today we learned a few games. Mongolians play a game called SHAGAI. You play with sheep ankle bones. Each side represents a different animal. One side represents a camel, another a horse, another a sheep, and lastly a goat The game starts when one player tosses all the pieces onto the ground.. You roll all of the bones, (similar to rolling die) and you flick one bone into a nearby matching bone (similar to pool). IE..if you have a bone that lands on the horse side you have have to find another bone that is on the horse side and flick the first bone against that one. If you are successful, you keep whatever piece does not match another nearby piece. You continue this until the game pieces are all gone. It is a really fun game and there is a lot of thought that goes into the game. There is also horse racing. You line up the bones, and your pieces. You have four bones that you roll and if one, two, three, or all four land on the horse side you move your pieces accordingly. Whoever reaches the end of the line of bones first wins!
I am learning so much here, from Dana and her father (Pec) and mother (Torga), and Dana’s nephew in law (Gondolig). He is 8 but in Mongolian years he is 9 because they count the time that the fetus is in the womb as a full year. Mongolians are very hospitable people. If you show up at anyones house, they usually have something for you to eat and drink. I asked Dana yesterday why everyone tries to feed us so much and she told me that if the belly is full you will not miss home.
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