FoReVer BroKen

As MST came to a close and health checks ensued, I mentioned a problem I have been having with my knees to the PCMO (Peace Corps Doctor). She immediately set me up with a rehab clinic in UB, who sent me for an MRI scan. While I am notorious for hurting myself in awkward ways; the finger incident last year, the slicing of my finger, the second degree burn on my ankle from a demon steamer and more recently the wood that is floating around my wrist; nothing could prepare me for what they would say. I got a call asking me to come in because after a week of physical therapy they finally received the results. As i sat there in the office, my PCMO rattled off some strange foreign name for what was happening in both my knees I was stunned. The name of this strange syndrome was Infrapatellar fat pad syndrome: or Hoffa's syndrome. This syndrome is just what it sounds like. I have fat in between my joints that rubs and causes swelling, bruising and pain.  Apparently it happens in athletes. Since I had been dancing off and on and my knee was fine up until I came to Mongolia I can assume it was not just that. As I went back to rehab with this diagnoses, they told me the bending I have been doing in my Ger is probably the problem. So...after two weeks of rehab, a couple days of rest and steroid shots to me knees I was allowed to go back to site with promises of an apartment in the near future, (as soon as they can find one). I am currently staying at my site mates apartment while she is away in Greece so right now it is not a dire situation. I am hopeful if I continue to work hard on my stretches that this too will pass and no more strange syndromes or injuries will be in my future.

UniTE!!! HapPy 25th AmeRiCa!

I have for the past 6 months worked on raising awareness against violence against women at my site. Tonight, I went online and saw this article:  sexual threats against Emma Watson and became quite disgruntled. 

It also allowed me to start some research and here is what I have found as it pertains to the U.S. There is a pervasive problem in the U.S for violence against women. In one survey conducted, it was found that more than half of the women surveyed had reported being physically assaulted by either an adult caretaker as a child or as an adult by another adult. Nearly 1/5th reported being raped at some point in their lives. Furthermore, 2.1% of women reported being physically assaulted or raped in the past 12 months. This number is equivalent to 2.1 million women who are raped or assaulted ANNUALLY in the United States. 8,000 women completed a survey administered by females with questions pertaining to rape, physical assault, stalking, victim-perpetrator relationships and specific examples of violence they had experienced.      Prevelance, incidence and consequences of violence againt women

On another site the most shocking information I read was as follows.
-More than 22 million US women have been raped in their lifetime,
- 63.84% of women have experienced rape, physical assault or stalking within their lifetime
-1/3 of female murder victims are killed by their intimate partner
-The FBI estimates that only 46% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police. U.S. Justice Department statistics are even lower, with only 26% of all rapes or attempted rapes being reported to law enforcement officials. 
If you want more facts visit this site as it is also a good read. (Please don't ignore it just because it is a feminist site)
violence facts 

 In Mongolia, violence against women is prevalent.  Women are discriminated against in life, the workplace, and home. While there are laws to promote gender equality, domestic violence continues to be an ongoing struggle. Existing laws are inadequate to deal with the struggles that women continue to face on a daily bases and lack of protection for victims and lack of prosecution on domestic violence cases yields little success on deterring offenders on participating in spousal abuse.  Sexual Harassment continues to be a problem as well.  This is a continuation of tradition and non-employment. While parliament passed a bill in February 2011on  "promotion of gender equality" this is still and ongoing issue, especially in the workplace. Furthermore, while there are specific laws that focus on rape carrying a 5-10 year sentence, unless it results in injury or entails death or a child under 14 (which yields a 15-25 year term or the death penalty); there is no current law that deals with spousal rape. For more information on this subject you can visit this website. http://www.stopvaw.org/mongolia

I feel that women have to continue to speak out about their personal experiences in order for change to ensue. Women have to start being more openly vocal and honest about their negative experiences so that awareness to be raised, and changes in social ideals can occur. Since this is my blog and I am preaching honesty and openness, it makes sense that I participate in expounding some of my personal experiences.

Since I came to Mongolia in 2013, I have experienced three instances of what is deemed sexual assault. My butt has been grabbed while walking down the street and dancing in a club by complete strangers.  I was so stunned the first time that all i could do was yell at the person in English as they sauntered away. The second time I smacked the 50 year old's hand off of my butt as I quickly walked away. The third time I was dancing at a club and pushed the guy.  The first time the male, about 21 years old looked at me like at a daze (he appeared very intoxicated), the second time the 50 year old and his friend laughed.  The last time, the guy got angry but walked away. Every time it has been disconcerting and upsetting. Subsequently, I find myself walking while constantly looking over my shoulder to see who is around and what threat they pose. I also find myself glaring at any male that comes close enough until he passes more than an arms length away.

I have also been sexually harassed at work by interns and teachers. In order to not completely burn bridges I have had to ignore inappropriate remarks from teachers, and have had to forcefully explained through English teachers what the expectations of my interns were as social workers in the school setting, stating; you will respect me and my professional experience and will act like professionals while in my office. I have also had to ignore the cat calls and whistles of Mongolians while walking down the street.  Interestingly enough, the minute I say something rude to them they state they are sorry and act like I have caused them discomfort.

While this feels more prevalent in Mongolia, this has happened throughout my life. Cat calls while walking down the street in Boston, dates that progressed too quickly, and rude comments from customers while waitressing or bartending.  This has also happened pretty consistently to my female friends. Friends that are grabbed, harassed, told inappropriate sexual comments in jobs or out in the world; old or young it doesn't seem to matter. The fact of the matter is, it happens and it happens too often, especially to women.

In 2014 we are still experiencing gender based violence. I find this horrifying. While the world is advancing in so many ways, it is still so far behind in creating a safe environment for our children to grow up in. While some men will experience these issues in their lifetime; the fact remains that as of current, women continue to be more at risk for violence, sexual assault, stalking and partner violence than their male counterparts. Spread the word and UNITE to end violence against women and girls.

A SuMmeR FillEd WiTh CaMpS

If At First you don't succeed:

Try try again! This was what I have been continuing to tell myself this summer when all three of my camps that were planned were cancelled. After those three were cancelled I worked hard to get other camps and work situated. At one point I had found a potential job for a week teaching English in UB through the Embassy. It would have been the second job teaching English that was cancelled.  At another, I had another camp that I had heard about through Peace Corps. By the time I called, the other camp had filled the open position exactly the day before. It was clear camps were the wrong way to go this summer.

After contacting numerous people about open positions it finally worked and I am currenty at a camp outside of UB.  Even that was a bit of a tabocle. I left Marcs apartment around 8 by taxi. I went to the american embassy because I was told that it was not far from there. After asking a guard directions to where I needed to be I realized it was about halfway in between Marcs and the embassy. So I walked with my huge backpack about a quarter mile, then asked a ton more people on the way how to get where I need to be. By 8:45 I got to the childrens center, and by 8:50 Dream camp called me and said they (the teachers) were leaving at one,  and the children would be at camp 3 days later (on the 18th). Luckily, they stated that they would pick me up, so I walked the last ½ mile back to Marcs and took a nap. By 2:30 pm we left and by 5 we arrived at Dream Camp.

The first night sleep was rough. The staff ages 17-early 20s mostly with a few outliers being between 25 and 28, decided they would stay up all night and “party on dude”. The walls in our rooms are paper thin and you can hear cell phone use, whispering and whole conversations. There was yelling and stomping around and (my favorite) door slamming. By 3:30 I had fallen asleep,and by 7:30 everyone was up again making noise. It was not a fantastic start to camp. Especially since by 8 we were suposed to be at breakfast (which I skipped) and by 9 I was being awakened for a staff meeting that I did not understand.  At about 10 we were walking the grounds picking up garbage. At 11:30 I was told I could rest for a bit, until lunch around 1. When lunch concluded, we worked on a dance (the gummy bear dance; look it up on youtube) and I had to choose a song that I would be singing for the concert which I assumed would happen when the kids arrived.  After taking another  ½ hour to rest I was called to another meeting, in the Dream Restaurant. The Dream Restaurant is completely themed like a fairytale. Grass, green skys, real wood and branches are used for beams and fences, a fake fireplace and fairytale themes like that of snow white. It’s quite a pleasant place, and also the only place I can plug in my electronics.  The meeting lasted an hour an a half and then it was time for food. After we ate, I was told we would be going to do our dance. I assumed by do, they meant practice but it became quite clear this was a competition. There were three judges, the camp director, assistant director and some other man I did not know. It was quite a fun show and regardless of how last minute it was, I had fun. Right before the show, a staff came and asked me if I wanted to dress like a baby with them, like a swaddled baby with a blanket around us and tied in. I had no idea what I was supposed to do but said ok! When it was our turn to present, they waved me out and I just kind of waddled around and tried to look innocent with my pigtails. Then the staff “babies” broke out into a dance, that they had forgotten to teach me. It was really easy so I picked it up, it was just humorous that I was asked to be in the skit dance and then they forgot to teach me the dance!

My group won best song and I was given a huge trophy, that I had to give back at the end. We were also given Mars bars stapled to a ribbon that they hung around our necks. After a dance party that lasted for about an hour, I made my way back to me bed and passed out around 12 regardless of the noise.

Today has been mellow, woke up, had a shower, had breakfast and have had free time all day. We are supposed to go to the river around 1, it’s 1:30 now, so we will see what happens. I managed to get a hike and a work out in so I am feeling rather calm, relaxed and awake!

Our random outing

The second day of camp was a lot more fun.  I got to catch up on my sleep and we were able to get to the river, have a nice dinner, and go for a walk up a mountain where there was a cave. It was really neat to go in the cave with everyone. Since no one told me we would be hiking up a mountain, I only brought sandles. It was still totally worth going however! We were also able to pick some tiny strawberrys, what they lack in taste, they totally make up for in flavor. The only annoyance was the little red and black ants that seemed to be attacking  my feet while I was searching for the jimms (fruit). I backed out after 5 minutes.

Bees!

I had always been pretty sure that in I have never been stung. Today, I decided for for sure that I have absolutely never been stung in my past 29 years because I got stung.  Now, there have been plenty of opportunities for this to happen in my lifetime. As a child I remember a big scary tree in our front yard that constantly had bees surrounding it. I lived in the woods growing up, so bees among other insects were always out and about. Then I came to Mongolia. My family had a bee farm, I helped them one day collect honey. I touched dozens of screens filled with bees. Today however, I did nothing to put myself in a bees line of fire.  I went to the bathroom, opened the door and bam, I was hit! I looked down in time to see the zoogie (bee) stinging my arm and swatted it away. I came to Mongolia, and got stung by a bee...

The Campers FINALLY came Day 1!

The campers have finally showed up. Since the camp is Alvin and the chipmunk themed I am one of the Simon camp leaders. Today we introduced ourselves and had a competition with different activities. I played a game with a ball and a timer. The quickest time got the most point!

It was a fairly relaxed day and after dinner we had a dance party. The campers were semi into it but i think they were tired from traveling from UB so not many of them danced (which was suprising because Mongolians loved to dance. It also rained all day so that put a bit of a damper on things.

 Day 2: Simon group!

Today we split the kiddos into three groups for English, Elementary, advanced and super advanced. Since there was 45 of them and a 15 minute conversation with everyone would have taken all day I did a quick assessment of the kiddos language through an ice breaker in each group (simon, alvin, theodore).  I somehow have ended up with 21 kids in my class as I am working with the super advanced group and I am sure that some of them will drop to advanced. The night English game class was cancelled due to the rain. It has been wet and cold here for two days now and I predict tomorrow will be much the same. There was a movie night that they held but since it was completely in Mongolian  chose to take an amar (rest).

Day 3: English Lessons

Today I had my first lesson. As hypothesized, 3-4 campers left my group. I made it very clear from the beginning that if they did not understand the lesson, they needed to talk to me and move to the advanced class because nothing is more frustrating then not understanding. I also made them mini books that they can use as notebooks for classes and lifeskills.  I used the English curriculum I was given but found it difficult to explain past participle and past simple. Until  I came to Mongolia I didn’t know that we had so many tenses and grammatical jargon. Growing up, I loved English class and now I find myself slightly annoyed with it. We didn’t have time to do lifeskills today which I was a bit bummed out by but, we will do Stress Management first thing tomorrow. It seems like it is going to be a busy day. I have a group meeting today and then Engish games and a concert of sorts to attend tonight. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, and I have a feeling that it is going to be a super busy week, which can be good because time should go rather quickly. Next Saturday my mom comes so I am hopeful that this week does in fact go rather quickly!

Day 4: More performances

Last night was a lot of fun. The kids performed dances, songs, and skits. I was really impressed with some of the guys who danced. One moved just like a robot. Stilted moves in perfect positions, while the other was a bit more smooth in the way he danced, even doing the moonwalk at one point. It was really cool to watch them, and made me want to learn how to dance like them.  There was also this little guy in one group that was about 8 years old, 4 feet tall and had a bit of a belly. He came out in front of his group with sunglasses a low hat on a ton of attitude,  and started break dancing. At the end he pulled up his shirt to show drawn on abs and pecs. It was hysterical! The night ended up a meeting at 10 which lasted about an hour.  In the meeting pictures were shown of everything we have done and gifts and certificates were given out to some staff. At this point, I expect this kind of activity. Literally, there are certificates and gifts for everything.

Today I had a group of 11 in my English class which was perfect. We started lifeskills and they loved it! It was so successful that we ran out of time and will have to continue skits tomorrow. It was also really neat because the kids worked together and really enjoyed performing the skits I created. They have all been talking about stress today so it’s rather amusing.

Today was also sports game at the camp. The children had a basketball tournament that went from 2pm till supper time around 6. After supper they played a form of capture the flag, it was called “Night Fight” and required players to get arm bands off of eachother. As far as I could tell, not everyone playing had an arm band. There were two teams and they would run out, knock another team member down by wrestling them or “fighting” them to the ground and take their arm band. The arm band would be given to the staff who would then check the number on the armband to the list of students they had in front of them.  From what I can assume, one number was the flag. Since it was  night-time, and there were no lights on the field I just had to guess what was going on.

Day 5: The fashion show

I was asked to be in a fashion show the last night I was at camp. I had no idea what this meant but was asked to wear a fancy dress. Since I didn't have a fancy dress about half way through the day I was told I could wear my cowboy boots and be a cowboy. They students were busily making their ruway outfits so I was mostly left to my own devices, only checking in when needed. When the time came for the fashion show I put in a tank, my white button up, jeans and boots. Then, the Mongolian counselors made my tie up my shirt. They had made a runway out of carpet and I had to actually strut down it to music while the children clapped and the judges rated. All of the counselors were involved so at least I wasn't alone. After we all had our 5 minutes on the runway, the show began. Students showed what they had worked so hard on and I for one was incredibly impressed. My group won the first time ever. It was a nice ending to my stay at the camp, as the next day I would be leaving. 

The last camp I participated in this summer was for individuals with disabilities. Two days a week for two weeks (which wasn't much) I went to the American center and focused on speaking as it pertained to the lesson someone would teach in the morning. It was a great experience to have and I enjoyed the enthusiasm of the group I was working with. While I only participated in the camp for a short time, I look forward to helping out the "We can" NGO who headed the group in their endeavors next year.