A bit of reflection

I was talking with my friend the other day and he asked, saying he knew this sounded about as cliche peace corpsy as you can, but if I have been reflecting on the almost two years I have spent here at all lately? As the end of service gets closer I have been reflecting on things more and asking myself things like, what have I accomplished here? what have I learned? how can I take this experience back with me to America and keep the memory with me forever... Now I didn't say I had the answers to any of these questions, but I have been asking myself them!! I think if somebody told me to tell them one thing about my Peace Corps service it would be this: it's humbling. Not speaking the native language is an incredibly humbling experience. Even two years in, and about to finish, I am nowhere near fluent. It is a crazy level of humbling to go into a classroom of 40 students and teaching for 40 minutes while not being fluent in their language! You are really at the mercy of the students. It is humbling to not have anywhere near the level of control that I did in America, including everything at work and at home. Simple things like my firewood to heat my ger. I depend on several other people to get the wood, then saw it up so I can chop it... it is never something I can just go and take care of myself. So relying so much on other people has been a big difference here. Then even funny things here that I have no control of... I need to shower but have no water... sadly I have put that shower off a day or two far too many times! So what have I done while in Mongolia? You would think in two years I would have like built a new school with smart boards included or something wouldn't you... I wish. I think the impact I have made has been on a smaller scale, but still significant. Batzorig told me that before I came he thought he wouldn't like me, that I would be older and always crabby. He then told me, but your not, you're ok and seldom crabby! haha In my time here I haven't dramatically changed my English teacher's teaching methodology; I haven't put on seminars to educate about important concerns like alcoholism, domestic abuse, eating more vegetables ~things I would have liked to have done. But I think I have gotten a lot of students excited about English, and have gotten them comfortable actually speaking English. And I do think I have developed very close relationships with a smaller group of counterparts and students. My one student gave me a letter the other day that said this... "Hi Allie teacher! You is very clever and good teacher. Thanks for always help me. Mostly people can't live far of their family. But you can. You is brave woman. I spend too much time with you and olympics students. You is my best teacher and my best friend. you have to never forget it. You'll go to America and I graduate my secondary school soon. I'll miss you. I never forget you." She goes on a few paragraphs more and ends by saying, "Maybe I wrote fault (incorrect) sorry." I laughed at that part because she did have a bunch of mistakes that I know she knows that grammar, I'm tempted to read through the letter with her so she can fix those mistakes, but I won't!! Anyways, the point of me writing about this letter is not to brag, but is part of me reflecting on what I really did here. So what have I done here? well I made a positive impact on this student, and hopefully a bunch of others. That is really what I wanted to do in Mongolia. And that is what I want to continue to do when I get back.

Teaching

Above is my school's people in the Regional Olympics which were held in Batsumber this year. The spring in Mongolia is kind of this funny time full of holidays and competitions which makes consistent anything difficult (my type A personality has shifted a lot more towards type B due to necessity here!) So my main responsibility besides teaching my regular classes this past month has been preparing these 10 students to participate in the English Olympics. All school subjects in Mongolia have Olympics in the spring that both teachers and students in each grade participate in, and all schools take it very seriously. the English Olympics consist of a written test which includes everything: listening, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, etc. Then a speaking test, for this we had students describe pictures. So on March 19 we had these Regional Olympics in Batsumber, at which a fellow PCV and I were the speaking exam judges. The purpose of the Regional Olympics is to be a practice for the aimag Olympics which are this next Tuesday. So I am actually in UB right now and will head to the aimag center tomorrow, as I will be judging the speaking again with some other PCVs. I was really proud of all my students at the Olympics, Batsumber took first place overall :) I wish I could eloquently convey to all my students how all that hard work they put in, and that their personal improvement was why we as a whole could get a high enough total score to win first overall. Sadly though I think my students who didn't get medals focus on only that, and so do the other teachers, losing sight completely of the point, that they now know so much more English then they did when we began preparing, and unlike the majority of the students in their class, they can actually communicate in English. That is the whole point. Before the competition they asked me if I thought they could get medals... I told them of course I think you can all get medals, but I don't care if you do. They gasped!! and I said, to me the point is you are learning English. We have had many discussions together about why they want to learn English and in these discussions they all say numerous reasons for why they need English in their lives. So I reiterated that that is what I am trying to help them with; they said they want to learn English, and that is what they are doing right now, that's the point.

I have been thinking a lot about education and being a teacher lately, and for a lot of reasons. I have been reading all about Governor Walker and what's happening with teachers and school budgets in Wisconsin. So some days as I'm walking home from a 10 or 12 hour day of school knowing when I get home I need to get my ger in order, make some food and then sit down and make sure I get everything prepared for the next day of teaching in order. And I love this because I love teaching. So sometimes on these walks home I can't help but just get frustrated that it seems like right now in Wisconsin some of these law makers don't understand 'the point' and again forgive me for not being eloquent at all with what I have to say, but they are simply missing 'the point.' I feel like there is a fair amount that should probably change with education in America, and I try to keep myself informed about these things and want to always learn more. I spent my senior year in college making art about inequalities in our education system. Having taught the past two years in Mongolia though I can now look at education in America and education here a bit comparatively, and in general I think we are doing pretty well in America. So when I hear about possible school budget cuts it upsets me. Oh no problem, we will just put a few more kids in each class, teachers will just take on teaching a few more classes... Well I have taught classes of 40 students here, I have seen more teaching with no preparation beforehand than I care to, and if I can be completely honest, it doesn't work, and it is not in the best interest of the children learning. So when I hear about eduction being devalued and teachers being told they need to make sacrifices too, I can't help but just think, man this guy (these guys) are missing the point. Students deserve to have the best opportunity to learn provided to them, yes we have budget problems, which I'm not even pretending to be well-informed about, but there simply has to be other solutions than drastically cutting education funding.

I have been trying to get all my information in order to hopefully apply for some teaching jobs for next fall and I stumbled upon this quote, "You must convince adolescents that being educated will enhance their lives." Teaching in Mongolia there are some days I leave class and think, wow, that was a good class... I think I was convincing today that this English stuff is worthwhile and the students seemed to have a lot of fun too! Good work Allie! And then there are plenty of classes where I wonder how much more each of my fourth graders would learn if the class size was cut in half, and some of these little boys would have the expectation in their head that they too actually need to listen and do the work I am saying... or wonder how my tenth or eleventh graders can possibly think they have 'earned' any grade other than a D (I am told no F's) when they have done no work the whole quarter, they don't even have an English notebook to show me as they stand in front of me saying, "Allie bagshaaa, a 65..." but this all gets me thinking about the whole system here and I wonder if I should bump everyones grades up, or ditch teaching any grammar at all, and instead just try to get these students speaking using the English they do know. I was talking with one of my friends Mongolian friends who is a teacher the other day and she asked me how education in Mongolia and America differ. I said the biggest difference is probably in America we are a lot more private with each student in terms of their grades and all that. In America (at least I hope, or as far as I know) a teacher would never announce a students good or bad grades aloud as a way to glorify or shame them. A teacher would never call a student stupid or intentionally embarrass them. Students aren't subservient, rather they understand figuring things out and messing up is part of learning, and they can always learn more because it is the teachers job to facilitate this, it is not something they either have or don't. Now there are so many great and kind teachers in Mongolia so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but at the same time the education system here is transitioning and there are a lot of old ways that are all too prominent, at least in my experience.

Anyways, concluding this entry that was all over the place... I guess my point is just that I think education is very important and being a teacher provides people like me the opportunity to be one of those influential people in a child's life... and I can't understand why anyone would want to do anything but support teachers and education.

Vacation!

Finally I am posting about the vacation four friends and I took about a month ago! Two weeks in Cambodia and Thailand was wonderful, and a bit strange to be in other foreign countries. There were a few times when talking to a Thai or Cambodian person and they didn't understand what I was saying, to which my first response was to switch into Mongolian and try to explain myself in Mongolian instead -- Only to realize that would do me no good being outside of Mongolia! This only happened a few times though, as most people's English was amazing, and it seemed like everybody spoke at least some English due to all the tourism. So that was very different than Mongolia.
Bangkok is huge! We spent most of our time around Koh San Road amidst all the other backpackers. Excellent people watching, food, shopping, temples... I could go on and on! My friends and I loved seeing so many other kinds of people and speaking so many different languages. Cambodia was great. The people there (and Thai people too) seemed to always be smiling and much like Mongolia, the little kids would yell "hello, hello, hello" to us as we passed by. We took the train from Bangkok to the border, then a taxi to Siem Reip. During the 2 hour drive to Siem Reip from the border I saw a guy getting his haircut in one of those old barber chairs but just out in the open under a little hut for shade, and all kinds of cows and maybe water buffalo? the cows looked so different than the cows in Mongolia. There were several soccer fields with goal posts and everything (have not seen goal posts in Mongolia yet) and people riding motorcycles, usually a baby or a toddler in front, then somebody driving, and then usually a person or two behind them. We ate amazing food and shopped entirely too much. The Cambodians trying to sell us things would always call us "lady" and all the young kids selling things would do the same, "lady, you want a postcard, you buy ten, see, one, two, three..." "I give you good discount, how much you pay lady?" Their sales scheme worked on us probably 90% of time! The main thing we saw in Cambodia was Angkor Wat, temples built in the early 12th century. I don't even know how to describe how amazing all these temples were! One day we did a big loop around the further out temples in a tuk tuk, a carriage thing pulled by a guy driving a motorcycle. Our driver's name was Jumbo; he was a wonderful little man that drove us around all day. The next day we rented bikes, a dollar for the whole day. So we biked the 6ish km out to Angkor Wat, then 17ish around all the inner temples during the day. Biking around was really nice and only got tricky on the Siem Reip streets when we were going into and out of the city, as the roads were packed with other bikers, people walking, cars, buses, and motorcycles. We all survived the whole day though and were really happy we biked. The guys that worked at the guesthouse we stayed at were extremely helpful and kind, and their English was fantastic. The head guy's name was Song, to which he told us the acronym: See Oportunity N Go... this actually really helped me remember his name! He set up a taxi and people to help us getting back to the border and then a bus back to Bangkok. Oh and this guesthouse, which it technically was, but looked like a hotel, air conditioned rooms, TVs, own bathroom... $14 a night split between two people, yeah it was wonderful (yes my perspective may be a little skewed because of coming on this vacation from living in Mongolian ger... but still, it was nice!) So at the gueshouse though we ran into a few Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers, small world! It was really interesting for us all to swap stories and clear up a few rumors about Peace Corps Mongolia --no we don't all get personal horses issued to us! haha We went with them to watch a free show one night and got to see some traditional Cambodian dancing, so that was really cool. I found it really fascinating to watch them speak Cambodian to the local people too. So Cambodia was awesome. Getting back into Bangkok we left that same day on a night bus that took us down to Koh Phangnan and the next day we were laying on the beach! The next few days consisted of basically laying out, eating, drinking fruit smoothies... well yep that's pretty much it, repeated a lot! One morning though I did get up for a run and saw all kinds of students in their uniforms on their way to school. Making me think what a different experience I would have had if I had been placed in a Peace Corps country like Cambodia or Thailand... It's interesting though because talking with the Cambodian volunteers, even though the climate is totally different and all that, a lot of our challenges and successes sounded pretty similar. Anyways, we were all quite sad to leave Bangkok and all the good food, the beautiful weather, days free to do whatever we wanted... but we did leave and got back to Mongolia safe and sound. Being back has been good, school is crazy busy and it is getting a little warmer outside... and in 4 months I will be coming back to the States... crazy.

2011!

New Years in Tamir's house

Sulushesh, one of my 5th graders, don't tell the other students but she's kinda my favorite!

Christmas Day in my ger with some teachers.

School New Years Party!!

As usual I have been meaning to post some updates for awhile and thought I would at least do it before 2011... oh well! Things have been pleasantly busy around here lately. Mongolians celebrate New Years big time, so that has made things pretty exciting. I have had to explain quite a bit that I celebrate Christmas on the 25th and then also New Years on the 31st. Most Mongolians don't really celebrate Christmas, but a lot of the New Years decorations and songs and everything is Christmas themed. So I think that has to do with some of the confusion on thinking the two are one in the same. Our school New Years party was actually on Christmas Eve. They decorated the gym and all teachers (except me, as I have no kind of outfit like this here!) got super dressed up, like prom style! It was a really fun night; I had a blast... felt a little under the weather the next day though! My teachers and students were so nice, sending me text messages wishing me a Merry Christmas and coming to my ger with food and presents... it made Christmas really seem like Christmas. And it's certainly cold enough here to be Christmas! New Years Day it was like -20 I believe, with the night being like -30 or -40... today was around zero degrees I believe so it felt wonderful in comparison! On the 31st I went over to Tamir's sister's house next door and ate buuz, and then on the first I went to Tamir's house and again ate buuz... so I ended one year and began another eating buuz! Buuz are the national Mongolian food; they are sheep meat wrapped up in dough that's steamed. Anyways, once I get back in America it's back to vegetarian life for me! Here now though, personally I have chosen to eat a little meat sometimes just because I think it's respectful to the people serving me their food. Sorry the pictures above are an out of order mess! I can't ever seem to figure out how to upload them correctly... maybe I will get it right before I come back!