Tuesday, October 27, 2009

No School This Week

Due to all of the swine flu students did not have any school this week. Teachers went in yesterday and Monday for a bit to work on their classrooms. We completely cleaned the foreign language room and re-painted the desks and the floor. In typical Mongolian style we did this a little differently than one would in the U.S. but in the end the room looked good, and it was actually a lot of fun to be at school doing a different kind of work. The rest of the week myself and the rest of the teachers get to "relax." It is going to be a wonderful break and a great chunk of time to catch up on things and hopefully even get ahead on my lesson plans. Though I put relax in quotes because not too much I (and everyone else for that matter) do here in Mongolia is very relaxing. Yesterday when I got home from the day of working at school I chopped a ton of wood, wood that will probably only last me a few days then I will be at it again. I like all the work I have to do here to live, it is fun, but it is work. There always seems to be a fire that needs to be started, but first take out the ashes from the previous fire, then re-stock my coal/wood supply. Everything here is just kind of like that, there is no turning on a switch for heat or water or anything; you physically have to go through the steps to get anything you want. It is interesting for me, and fun right now, but eventually it will pobably wear on me a bit. So my point is, things just take longer, and three typical school days to stay home and relax will end up being a lot of ger maintenance too. Just to clarify though there are parts of Mongolia that have running water and all these types of things we have in the U.S. The capital of UB is like a big U.S. city I think, and actually most of my friends in the Peace Corps are living in apartments. I feel really lucky about the family whose haasha my ger is in. I live in two of my counterparts (they are married, both teachers) yard. The woman, Tamir is probably my closest friend here, and she is wonderful. So it's nice living in here haasha just because we get along so well, but also because her family is so helpful to me. Tamir will help me cook traditional Mongolian foods, which when I try to repeat on my own somehow they never quite turn out.... haha. But she will bring me food that her family is cooking, and then I make cookies and other treats and give them to her family as well. It is just a really nice relationship (by the way, the Mongolians that I gave my chocolate chip cookies to had never had them and they loved them!) My haasha bro's say "goy" about the cookies, which means beautiful, or really good. And this is always better than them calling something of mine "mohigh" which is bad... and they have done this a few times too! Also when I'm chopping wood it seems like I never get much time to do it by myself before Tamir's younger brother, who I believe is 23 also, comes out and helps me with it. Or rather, he says he will do it and takes the ax and does, which let's face it, he chops about 100 times faster than I do. I asked him if he has ever cut his fingers when he holds the piece of wood with one hand as he chops with the other (I don't do it this way, as I am positive I would cut my whole hand off). To that question he showed me his hand with it's array of gashed scars from the ax... he said he's just cut a "little" of his fingers.

Other news, I kind of have a puppy... I say kind of because I'm trying to not get too attached to the thing! Hence why she does not have a name, and I don't think ever will. Well actually I just call her gulug, which is the Mongolian word for puppy. I like this word, and she answers to it, so I think it will stick. She is Tamir's dog's baby so technically she is not mine, she is the families, she just likes me a lot and hangs out in my ger all the time. When her mom comes crying at my ger door I open up and let the gulug out, then when the gulug comes back crying I open my door and let her back in. It works out for everyone I think! I think they think I'm a little weird for liking this little dog so much because most Monolian people don't think of dogs as pets in the way we do. They are more animals that guard people's haashas, at night it is like this chorus of barking dogs. Many Mongolians I've met are afraid of dogs, some have told me how they have been bit when they were younger, so rightly so. Some dogs are really mean too, I remember being instructed during pre-service training to go down and grab for a rock if a dog is coming at you and usually this motion alone will scare them away because they think you are going to throw it at them. I have not yet had to throw any rocks at dogs. And in the meantime, I will continue being that crazy American teacher at school who is actually nice to puppies... weird.

I don't have too much else to report at the moment. Just loving life here really; I feel like I have several of those "aha" type moments everday here, which is wonderful. I will try to be better about posting more specific stories on here, as things all run together and I forget stories when I don't write them right away.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

October 4

This past week of school was pretty good, busy but good, and overall less busy than the previous weeks so that was nice. I played soccer a bunch of the days after school because kids kept asking me during the day. Playing seems to give me some form of credibility amongst some of these boys... because let's face it, in the classroom I'm kind of at their mercy. Though it was funny, the other day in my one seventh grade class I just laughed so hard. So there is one student in particular who never takes notes or anything, like I go over to him, get his notebook out and stand there asking him to write and nothing... and I really like the kid, he just doesn't do any work during class time. Though he finds me earlier in the day to ask about English class, and has stopped by my ger a few times and just kinda hangs around for a bit, so deep down he must really like me. Anyways, so the other day I go to class and he is there, but then also his twin brother.... who knows where the twin was for the first 2-3 weeks of school... but I just started laughing so hard because of course that would be my luck that the kid I struggle with so much to get any work done would have a twin! The class thinks I'm crazy I think because I was so amused by this, and they were all like, yeah there are two of them... so what. Then on Friday of this past week, these same kids had me laughing so hard again during class. So I walk into class and I could just kind of tell it was a different day. I asked what the date was and the whole class responded, and started writing it without me even asking... it was weird. Then I look at the twins and they were writing the date. I just about lost it then, I was like, why are you writing? you never write! haha, and the whole class just laughed, but the twins waved me out of the way like, um teacher can you move, you are blocking the board and I'm trying to take notes here... I'm sure it was a one time deal, but it was certainly a great Friday! So the kids in my neighborhood have caught on to me going running and have joined in on this. I had eight little boys tag along on my run today, ages 6-13 just following right along with me. And two of them ran the whole time with me, at first I was just laughing as I was running because it was such a halarious sight to see. I mean in America you would laugh if you saw it, but here in Mongolia people don't exactly go running, so it was just that much more strange. But then I was just impressed that these little guys ran the whole time with me... It's kinda nice to have some running partners here though I have to admit.