August 9

PST is almost done… one week left with my host family. One week left of living in Erdene with 12 other Americans and teachers and a family that can help translate things for me, and be there to talk to when I need anything… it’s kind of a scary thought! I am excited to live on my own at this point though, and I’m excited to get back to Zuunmod with everyone and swear in and become an official PCV!!! We had our last day of school with our students this past Friday. To make it a fun last day Maggie and I just team taught review things, so we sang all of the songs we have taught them throughout the summer. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun with this. Then the Peace Corps gave us certificates to give them so we made a bit of a production about that, and it was very cool. Then the kids gave us these little pillows they had made us that were stuffed with flowers that they had picked. Then they wrote our name on the little tag and another word about us; mine said princess. Finally we finished with a huge photo shoot; all of the kids wanted pictures with us. The whole day just got me even more pumped up to get my site placement and be a real teacher at a school here. We had a site placement meeting with Peace Corps the other day where we got to talk discuss placement options. I basically said I’m open to going anywhere, as I don’t really know where I would even request. And realistically they place us based on our skills and after looking at those and what the school wants/needs, they might look at our personal requests, but probably not. So I will probably be placed all alone in the middle of the Gobi since I was not picky in these interviews!! In a week I will know! Yesterday we did a bit host family appreciation event. We (and by we I mean the Mongolian men who know what they are doing) cooked a few goats. They do this by putting hot stones inside the animals or something and they cook them in this box thing… I don’t exactly understand it so I apologize for this terrible description, but the point is it’s this funky, cool way to cook the meat that the Mongolian’s love. Then they put potatoes and carrots in there that steam as well, and it turns into a huge feast. I filled up on all the other fruit, veggies, and treats obviously… My host family has come to terms with the fact that I’m not into the meat at this point! Once I’m on my own though it will be nice to be able to just never cook with meat at all. This last week is going to be packed with trying to fit everything in, making time to spend with host family, friends, teachers, and study for the language test that we will have on Thursday! We need to meet the Novice high requirement for the language test, so I need to make sure to study a lot this week. I’ve accumulated quite a bit of a Mongolian vocabulary already, though speaking it and understanding what they questioner is asking is different than just saying any random word that I have memorized. At site I’m hoping to be forced to really continually just learn more and more of the language, because as of right now they have just tried to give us a bit of a base so we can go out and kind of survive…