The start to my day was not the best and had me questioning if I should have even gotten out of bed; less than an hour into it. I woke up pretty cold (it was really only 60 in my Ger) but managed to drag myself out of bed and get ready for my day. The brisk morning left me wishing I was back in the warmth of Texas and the moon seemed to be taunting the sun as it had not yet set. It was 8:15, why was the moon still high in the sky? As I was navigating my route to work and contemplating my day, I decided to cross the mini stream to the other side of the road because eventually, I would need to cross it anyways. Three steps in and my left foot completely slid out from under me and I landed on my left side. It was the first time in my 28 years that I took a minute to determine if I had broken anything or if I was in fact just fine. I decided I was probably okay but would be left with a killer bruise on my knee. After slowly picking myself up off the ground, I managed to safely walk to rest of the way to school.
Despite having a difficult start to my day, I am proud to say that I had my first successful dance class! I had about 30 kids across two dance classes! I even had another full class of kids show up because I had accidentally scheduled them at the same time as the other class! I told them tomorrow I would hold a dance class for them. Interestingly, the older kids (9th graders) that were very gung ho about taking my class, did not show up at 11 for their dance class. I will need to remind them that they have class on Wednesday's the day before and inform them that if they do not show up (3rd week in a row), that their class would not have dance. There are more and more teachers that are asking me if their class can participate so that spot can easily be filled. I have also decided that once the four classes I have participate for a couple of months, I will rotate them out. There are about 1500 kids in my school, and it seems that the vast majority of them are interested in my dance club. It will be impossible to get them all in if I don't rotate! It was a great feeling dancing again, even greater was teaching. I never wanted to be a dance teacher but these kiddos are so enthusiastic it makes it hard not to enjoy it!
Togtohoo, my social working counterpart and I continue to get along swimmingly. While I still have very little Mongolian and he has very little English, we have started to make lists of Mongolian to English translations to hang up on the wall. If it is hanging on the wall, I have to say the word in Mongolian and he has to say the word in English. It seems to work and we have a good laugh when one of us says a word incorrectly.
Yesterday, I had to think on my feet when my room when my English club room was locked and the only one with the key was a math teacher who was not there. We ended up using my office and the kids stood the majority of the time because we had about four chairs, and culturally, women and girls do not sit on tables (apparently it means you will never be married). They finished up discussing the fashion designs they had made and then we played a couple of ABC games and worked on diction as P, Z, C, F and V can sometimes be difficult to say. My second class went the same way. At the end of the class one of my students wrote out that she loved her teacher and gave it to me. It is not in Cyrillic but, the national writing of Mongolia. It was a beautiful reminder of the impact we can make on our communities in such a short time.
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