Naadam

On July 6^th and 7^th, my soum celebrated Naadam, the national holiday recognizing Mongolia’s indepence from China that was gained in 1921. The holiday revolves around a sports festival honoring the three manly sports: wrestling, horse racing, and archery. We celebrated by going out to our town’s “stadium” (a ring of cinderblocks, more or less, in the open countryside). During the Naadam opening ceremony, there was a lot of singing and dancing. In fact, my host brother sang the “Orkhon song” and danced with some of his friends.

Then the wrestling commenced. Soon after, herds of children jockeys on horses came stampeding towards the area, and we all had to run to watch and cheer their arrival. This festival is supposed to take place during the hottest time of the year. However, our Naadam was unusually cold. Cold as in, I was wearing leggings, pants, two pairs of socks, a shirt, and two jackets one day—inside. I do not know where the cold came from, but it came fast. A friend’s mom told me that a cold summer meant a less harsh winter, so let’s hope that’s true. Despite the weather, the festivities were fun. I would liken the holiday to a rodeo—lot’s of people wandering around a campground of sorts, animals abounding, plenty of drinking, and even more fried food. The unofficially official Naadam food is hoshuur, a mixture of some variety of meat and onions fried in a portable dough pouch. It’s like a meat hot-pocket. But fried. And best with ketchup (which in Mongolia is spicy, thank God) or soy sauce. There is no clean way to eat hoshuur, and asking to eat only one or explaining that you are full is pointless because I think it is some (again unofficial) tradition that whenever hoshuur are made, they are made in large, large quantities. All in all, Naadam was fun. We even had a dance at the Culture Center one night, and who doesn’t love a dance? The other wonderful thing about Naadam is that since it is a national holiday, we got three days off from school. Even better: our three days were capital’s Naadam days, so we had our celebration Wednesday and Thursday, and then were off from school Monday-Wednesday the following week. I’ve enjoyed my holiday and have spent it reading a lot (I’m reading Life of Pi, the second Harry Potter, and Just Kids), and I’ve also been watching a lot of movies and Arrested Development thanks to my fellow sitemates allowing me to rip them from their external harddrives.

One month down...

            A month has passed since I left the States for Mongolia, and so much has happened. Since moving to Orkhon, I’ve had an interesting mix of relaxed Mongolian life and intense work schedules. Everyday, I go to the school for four hours of Mongolian language classes. Afterwards, I walk back to my house (about 20 minutes away) and eat whatever lunch my younger sister has prepared. After lunch, I return to school for afternoon technical sessions directed by Peace Corps Volunteers and training staff. These sessions range in topic from cultural adjustment and acclimation, to job-specific TEFL training. We also have culture classes held in Mongolian on Monday afternoons. Our language teachers direct these and we study a variety of topics including Mongolian history, customs and traditions, holidays, music and art, and, of course, how to make toasts during celebrations.

            Though my days are busy, I still somehow find time to read and hang out with new friends. My fellow sitemates and I have become fond of climbing a mountain in our town where an oboo rests at the top. Our entire town can be seen from the top, and it is a relaxing place to be. We also spend a lot of time at the park playing volleyball, basketball, and Frisbee with locals. We have found favorite spots around town to meet up and have lovingly nicknamed each. Among my favorites are the ger-zebo and the Soviet wall. Besides playing sports and “American Hang Out,” I play a variety of Mongolian games. The most popular are khuzur, a card game which seems to be a variant of hearts, and shagai, a marbles-type game played with sheep ankle bones.

            My soum is currently preparing for Naadam, a national sports festival with contests in wrestling, horse racing, and archery. Though the official holiday isn’t until next week, my soum is celebrating early, small-town style. My brother will be singing and dancing in the festivities. Meanwhile, my fellow Americans and I are trying to decide how we will spend the 4^th of July (tomorrow). We have school all day and, ironically, a culture session about Mongolian holidays in the afternoon, but we all agree that we want to have a celebration. Today while we are in Darkhan for our vaccinations, we all have the task of finding “something American” to bring to the party. Still no word yet on the firework situation.

            Before I left, many of my friends and family members were curious about what my diet would consist of while I’m abroad. Last week, I documented with a fool-proof tally system each food type that I ate. Over the whole week, the variety of my food ingredients did not stray from the following (listed by frequency): meat, noodles, onion, potato, bread, cabbage, red pepper, rice, egg, “fried something,” kash (cream-of-wheat style sweet porridge), pickles, and carrots. Every meal I ate consisted of some re-working of those ingredients. To drink, I was served coffee most frequently, followed by milk tea. I enjoy the food here, but nearly all of the Americans at my site and I fantasize pretty frequently about more variety. I’ve even started to dream of awful fast food from America, which I rarely ate but would gladly revisit. Sometimes I just get plain rice, which is one of my favorite dishes, and I add butter and salt and pepper and pretend that it is something from home. Another note about Mongolian cuisine: it is usually scalding hot. On my hot walks home from school, I usually can be heard wishing for anything but soup, because that is the hottest dish. Also, all liquids served with meals (coffee, milk tea, milk) are served hot. My family laughs at my inability to drink them as fast as they do, but it really is impossible.

            I really enjoy my time with my family. I have learned enough language to converse casually (usually about the same thing, but I’m having conversation nonetheless). We even make jokes together that I (usually) understand. I’ve sent some mail back home to my family, though. Sending mail is tricky here because my town doesn’t have a post office that is currently operating, so I have to hand off letters to a volunteer who is going to the city and pay that person to cover my postage. Receiving mail is slightly easier, but I still have to rely on the current volunteers/trainers to bring whatever mail I receive from the capital of UB to my site when they come for our afternoon sessions. I haven’t gotten any letters yet, though I’m sure some have been sent. It is a long process, but well worth it. Mail days are so exciting here. We even send intersite mail from soum to soum to fellow trainees. Since I have no internet and very limited phone access, mail is really special (enter shameless plug for you all to send me mail).

            I will not be back in Darkhan until mid-June, but now that I’ve realized that I can use my external hard drive as a USB, hopefully I can post more the next time I am able. Until then.

Orientation in Darkhan

For the past several days, I have been living in Darkhan at a dormitory with my fellow trainees for a quick orientation. Before arriving in Darkhan (by way of a turbulent 4-hour bus ride), we stayed one night in a ger camp in Ulaanbaatar. Many of the volunteers agreed that our introduction to Mongolia has been "cushy." Our meals have been good and our days easy. We've had running water. I'm at an internet cafe (think less Starbucks, more basement where Mongolian teens play violent video games.)
Here in Darkhan, we've spent our days in seminars ranging from our job expectations, to crash courses in Mongolian before we begin our four-hour daily classes next week at site. We even had an orientation to Mongolian culture today including norms, taboos, and the proper way to do a variety of activities including entering and exiting a home and accepting and refusing food. Once we're at site, we'll be living with host (hashaa) families who will help us learn other survival skills. In fact, our families have received a checklist of the skills that we need to be able to complete successfully by the end of the summer. Included on the list: how to chop wood, how to clean the stove, how to wash clothes by hand, and the ever-important how to bathe in a tumpin (small plastic tub). Not included on the list: how to use a latrine.
We concluded today's training by receiving information about our host families. I am very excited to go to site tomorrow and meet my hashaa family and the cows and dogs that they own. I'll be spending the summer with this family and they will invariably become my own. Not to mention, I will have no choice but to pick up Mongolian faster once out of my sweet dorm life and into complete submersion. Just think, in a few months I might be able to understand what these teenage boys are yelling in exclamation as they shoot guns and basketballs on the computers next to mine.
Though I am anticipating meeting my hashaa family, they will, of course, be no replacement for my own. I learned today that my brother and sister-in-law saw the heartbeat of their first baby, and I can only imagine what the phone call of that news would have been like. However, I hope that my family finds solace in knowing that I am being taken into this Mongolian family as one of their own without exception, and that the Peace Corps is making every effort to ensure my safety during my service.

In Transit

I arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday and had dinner with a few old friends at a Greek restaurant. The next day, I became a Peace Corps Trainee and completed a day's worth of staging activities with the people who will become my coworkers and support group for the next 27 months. We went over a lot of procedural information, but also had time to chat and get to know each other. Though I've just met this group of people, our shared circumstance has made it easy to become fast friends. We were reminded at one staging session in which we discussed our anxieties and aspirations about service that the beautiful thing about being in a room of fellow volunteers is that you do not need to explain your reasoning for moving halfway around the world to serve for 27 months. I could not agree with that fact more, and have found it refreshing to be around so many like-minded individuals. We have become surprisingly close in the past two days, and I hope my family and friends back home find comfort in knowing that I am serving alongside some wonderful people.

Last night we stayed at a Best Western in Seoul, South Korea. I went to dinner with some fellow volunteers and encountered my first experience with a language barrier. The evening was comical and relaxing. Our hotel was fun to explore as it was furnished in the style of the culture here. We had rice pillows in the closet, house shoes in the entry room before the sliding doors which separated our foyer from the sleeping area, and even floor pillows for meditation. My favorite misunderstanding was when my roommate and I were trying our best to make the "Makeup Room" light come on by pushing a button labeled as such, only to realize that the button lit up a sign outside our door instructing the hotel staff that we would like our room to be made up.

I am currently in line to check in to my flight to Ulaanbaatar. I am balancing my computer on the handle of the cart holding my luggage. I anticipate having internet access tonight, but am not sure about the certainty of it after that. The past several days in transit have been a whirlwind, but if they are any indicator for how my service will be, it will be filled with excitement, good friends, and new experiences.

Staging and Flight News

I realized today that I have only three more Saturdays in the States. I try to stay busy and avoid thinking in numbers, but the countdown inevitably creeps in as I plan going away shindigs and one last road trip with friends. And in my preparation, I am eating all of my favorite foods, of course. Don’t get me wrong; I’m aware that in just two (short) years I’ll be back enjoying the variety I have now in my current diet. Still, this thought has not kept me from savoring every bite of the Mexican food that I’ve consumed upwards of six times in the past week (including the obligatory Cinco de Mayo lunch and dinner). Regardless, I’ll still be having my last dinner with my college friends at Garcia’s next week. So maybe I don’t have a lot of variety in my current diet. But sometimes variety takes a back seat to cramming in two years worth of TexMex.

Other preparations that I am undergoing include making sure all of my Peace Corps paperwork is in order. This past week I received my staging email which included information for booking my plane ticket to San Francisco. I will fly out from Houston on June 1^st. That night, I hope to meet up with some great friends from Breakthrough Houston who are working hard to close the achievement gap at their respective teaching jobs around the Bay Area. I’m really excited about being able to see friends in San Francisco before Staging begins. Few people understand my motive to serve others as clearly as my Breakthrough family. I know that spending time with them before this new beginning will be comforting to me.

On June 2^nd, all of the volunteers in my group will finally meet at Staging. I belong to the M22 class of volunteers—the 22^nd group to serve in Mongolia. According to the schedule I have received, Staging is something like a whirlwind of get-to-know-you activities mixed with a hailstorm of what-to-expect information. The day will surely be long, but other volunteers and I have already discussed options for how to spend our night in San Francisco. For the past few months, I have kept close correspondence (via the magic of Facebook) with not only my fellow M22’s, but also with volunteers who are currently serving in Mongolia and who are anxiously awaiting our arrival. These volunteers have been an invaluable resource. They help us decide what to pack and what to leave at home. Their wonderful suggestions also include pulling an all-nighter at Staging, which doesn’t seem like a horrible idea since we will be checking out of our hotel at 5:30 a.m. on June 3^rd to head to the airport.

So at 11 a.m., I will be boarding a Boeing 747 and departing for Mongolia. After a layover in Seoul, South Korea, we will arrive in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia at 11:20 p.m. on June 4^th. Supposedly, (again, thanks Facebook) the M21’s are coming to the airport to greet us upon our arrival as the M20’s did for them.

I’m going to try to not get too anxious over these next three weeks, but I’m not making any promises.

The Countdown

In less than one month, I will depart to Mongolia and begin my 27 months of service as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer. I cannot speak to my expectations of adventure, save to say that I know the experience will be my biggest yet, and the excitement that is snowballing as the days pass is the most electric I’ve ever known. I like to think of how the 17-year old version of myself would have viewed this blog as a hopelessly fictional daydream. I hope that wherever life takes me next will seem as surprising to the 21-year old sitting here today.
               
               The Waking

               I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

               I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

               I learn by going where I have to go.

               We think by feeling. What is there to know?

               I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

               I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

               Of those so close beside me, which are you?

               God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

               And learn by going where I have to go.

               Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

               The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

               I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

               Great Nature has another thing to do

               To you and me; so take the lively air,

               And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

              

               This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

               What falls away is always. And is near.

               I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

               I learn by going where I have to go.

                             

               -Theodore Roethke