Dormitory holiday fun!!

Ah, the amazing dormitory students! I was invited, through formal

invitation to attend their party/performance. It was held December 26th and slated to begin at 5 pm. As is common here, the event actually started about 45 minutes late..... my patience is expanded through my living here.

The Santa boys, or Father Winter, as he's also known as, had some fun with sparklers while waiting for things to begin. For their performance, they did an entertaining coreographed dance to the tune of Jingle Bells.

The event was scripted and kept on track by the emcee's, an older boy and girl who live in the dorm. Many of the students were dressed in their finery, with dresses/gowns reminiscent of a formal dance or prom, boys in suits. I was seriously undressed, but they are mostly accepting of such faux pauxs from me as the American volunteer.

Dancing, singing and the excitement of the children made for a very enjoyable evening! The kids are so sweet, they even gave me a gift of a lovely chess set, complete with felted case and board! I was surprised, humbled and thrilled and it reinforces my ability to make a little difference here!

After the program, we danced (yes, I danced with the kids and had so much fun!)! I twirled around to the Mongolian waltz with a few of the boys, and one of their dad's that was in attendance), and hip hopped it around with all the kids. Many of them are great dancers, and the techno stuff they do is mesmerizing to watch! (guess that's why it's called trance).

More photos of this event to follow, my computer is having trouble uploading,

Happy Christmas- the holiday spirit is here

Happy Christmas is what the British say, and so it is in Mongolia. Most of the English text books here are actually British. Spelling, grammar and English language here in general reflect the British influence. Though as I've said before, here Christmas is not actually celebrated, it's hard to distinguish at times because of the decorations and themes seen around this time of year.

One afternoon I ventured into the market place looking for glitter and garland. Here such places are called "black markets", though not all with the same connotation that it invokes in Americans' minds. Our market place in Arvikheer, is called a "Container market", because many of the little shops are actual "containers" that would be hauled on the back of a semi truck. Though there are some actual stores, much of the buying and selling takes place at the various containers and stands, which are located mostly outside in the elements. I know I don't have the stamina to attempt to eek out a living in the elements!

Though this day was not so cold by Mongolian standards, about 15 above zero F, it didn't stop the vendors, nor the shoppers. I found the glitter and flashy garland for the dorm kids to use in their happy new year coloring posters that I'd copied for the arts and crafts time that evening

The masks and fireworks in the upper right picture are mostly used by children at Sheen Jeel.

These little girls pictured above followed me around the market for awhile, saying hello and giggling. Perhaps one day I will tire of being stalked by the "hi monsters" as some other volunteers affectionately refer to such little ones; but I appreciate and enjoy their curiosity and friendliness. Eventually I may meet all the children in town, but considering that there are four schools, plus countless kindergartens, maybe not.

Shown above left are some of the completed happy new year signs the dorm kids made, though the amount of glitter on them is difficult to see here, there was lots and lots of it!

Happy Sheen Jiil continued

Happy Sheen Jiil, still! What a lapse in posting lately I've had. However, I attended no less than three school performances for new year so this is the highlights of the first. (In addition to the big teachers party, and a new years eve performance and fireworks outside...yes, in the negative 20 air)

Literally and figuratively speaking, this performance was put on by and at 1st 12 year secondary school, my host country agency. This show was on Christmas Eve and was lots of fun! Controlled chaos would be an accurate description for the children in the audience!

The gym was very festively decorated and there were so many talented and cute children, both performing and in the audience, that I had great difficulty choosing only a few photos.

Happy Shin Jeel

Though not the exact spelling, phonetically Shin Jeel is the Mongolian term for Happy New Year. Though it is the coming of the new year that is celebrated, Mongolia is covered with Christmas decorations... trees, wreaths, etc, everywhere.

Here from what my students tell me, families usually put up their new year tree on the 25th of December, then New Year is when they really get dressed up, give gifts and celebrate.

So all places have major blow out parties, spending way too much money and wear glitzy clothes. According to my counterpart, Altai, our teacher party will be the 29th and the children will put on a performance on the 24th. I intend to get gussied up wearing my deel (skirt and jacket) I had made for my Peace Corps swearing in.

I bought a few decorations for my apartment: a tiny tree at the market with little lights and am making tiny snowflakes and tinsel to decorate it. That photo will come later along with the dinner and celebration with my site mates. Sadly Caitlin the site mate who loves Christmas the most, went home (early terminated) just recently. However, I did inherit her little toaster oven and massive cookie baking supplies so there will lots of Christmas cookies made by me for others. Hopefully, I can bake some for the dormitory students! Though the holidays will not be the same as being home and with my own children and family, circumstances change and so must I.

Wishing everyone a Happy Shin Jeel!

Mongolia is growing on me...

Most days I find it hard to believe that I have now been in this lovely central Asian country for six months. The whole place is growing on me as I adjust to the differences, in the pace of life here (much slower), the attitudes (very easy going), the lack of amenities that we Westerners are so spoiled by (but nothing very drastic), the people, the music, the pride in their heritage and their nation. Mongolia with it's harsh weather balanced out by the gorgeous blue sky has become home to me in this short time.

I enjoy the slower more relaxed pace, and have realized that though plumbing is awesome and I really appreciate it, I can live without a shower or a bathtub, learning to bathe in a tumpen. I am fortunate to have the stove that I have with one working burner, a second that works on low heat and an oven that mostly works (but you can't use the burners at the same time and the oven temp is hard to regulate). I have not driven a car since leaving the USA, and thought that would be tough, but it's not. In fact, I rarely ride anywhere, except for the bus trips to the city and back and the occasional taxi ride there. These are some of the minor adjustments I've made here and after awhile these adjustments become a normal part of everyday life.

The saying "time flies when you're having fun" is true. So is time flies when you are busy being confused, befuddled, misunderstood, frustrated and sometimes exhausted trying to communicate.

My Mongolian language skills, or should I should lack thereof, are just that. . . Though I have been trying, studying and attending weekly tutoring sessions, my ear for this language (or perhaps any language foreign to me) is just not so good.

Perhaps it is partly my age, the fact that our hearing (as well as sight, etc) starts to slowly deteriorate after age 30..; or, that I've never learned another language besides my native English (which is seriously weird after being here 6 months and talking slowly and in simple language); maybe because folks here are so anxious and interested in learning to speak English....maybe my brain just doesn't have the aptitude for language.

Whatever the causes, issues, the simple fact remains that I still can communicate with others, in spite of language barriers! Smiles, gestures, and dictionaries are oh so helpful here. I am learning slowly, but surely, and just like the other adjustments that I've made here, this too shall come in it's own time.

Mongolia or NE Ohio? Weird weather similarities...

Though I still miss leaves and forests, creeks and grass, there are many similarities here to NE Ohio weather wise....
Now that it's November, my steam heat has been on for 6 weeks and I have winterized my windows , there are days that I'd like to actually open a window or two! Just like back home, one day it's unseasonably warm, then the next day it's freezing cold! My heat is steam, with the old fashioned radiators and it's very, very toasty! There are many buildings heated by the same boiler and you can see the little building with the boiler and the black smoke rising from the stack. There are many of these stacks in our town and consquently a bit of air pollution hanging about in the cold weather.
As they say in Mongolian, "oh yahnna" , which roughly translated means oh my. So even when it's really cold outside I'm sitting in my apartment wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Yes, I shudder to think of all the years of cold interiors when I insisted on turning down the thermostat (with pricey gas heat), telling the kids and myself to just wear more clothes!
Now I can relate to what they wanted and rather enjoy the excessive warmth. However, I feel a little guilty with the excessive warmth. On the other hand, thank goodness I don't have to build fires daily or even many times during the day or night like my unfortunate counterparts living in gers.... (I was very fortnuate to enjoy the ger living experience during the summer and made very few fires...good thing, because fire building is not my forte'.
So I go from the warmth cozy comfort of my apartment, and have to hurridly layer up to go outside. Even wearing a long sleeve T and a light sweater inside make me sweat...Thus far, there have only been a couple days when I actually wore long underwear, though many days I wear the fleece sock/boot liners with my socks and boots.
It's still not cold enough for me to wear wool sweaters, long johns and a scarf over my face, but I'm sure the day will come soon enough.

just call me baagst.....

a few of the advanced english class students at the Arvikheer museãm. we practice speaking skills,and pronunciation top 2 and left

ecology club members have many awesome projcets above below and left

ecology club members top and left...

knitting club at the dorm!

english class at the dorm

Just call me baacsht ..which roughly translates to teacher in Mongolian. Though a social worker by education, I have found that I am mostly teaching English here, and I love it! However, I really need to brush up on my language skills. I cannot diagram a sentence to save my life, in fact I don't think I spelled it right either!

I currently teach two English classes to the dorm students (a few of them shown above) and they are wonderful, bright, eager, loving, sweet and sometimes mischevious! Mostly they just need more love and attention, which I am doing my best to give them. I have little teaching experience so am learning and flying by the seat of my pants! Some training this summer has at least helped me attempt to plan class time and what we will cover. There are over 60 students who attend the two classes! Sometimes I have 15, other times 30 with varying skill levels so it is challenging. I resort to playing games (hopefully they are educational), toss a spiderman ball to a student, try to pronounce their name (they made name cards with their names written in English) then ask them a question. The hour passes quickly and at least they are having some fun (me too)! One of their favorite activities is writing on the board so we do that every class, as well as using dice to practice counting and playing games in teams...

I have an amazing counterpart/dorm teacher, Octay, and we have found that we are of one mind when it comes to the dorm students and what they need!
Witness Octay teaching kids to knit! We have our own little stitch and bitch, Mongolian style going on! It was her idea and I happily joined in, even though it's on Saturday afternoon ...We started out with about 7 girls and within 2 hours had 20 kids there! Some already knew how to knit and others (including a few boys) were eager to learn! I brought chopsticks for those without needles and bought the locally available cheap yarn for the kids to practice with. They are so proud of their accomplishments and it makes my heart full!

The advanced English class is one that I mostly just practice speaking skills with and assist them with pronunciation. One of the interesting words we discussed was lion. They always say it like "leon". I told them that is a boys name, and if they want to sound like a native speaker....lion it is. Always a lively discussion in that group!