Host Family Bound

Hi kids,
we are here in Mongolia in a town called Darkhan a few hours from UB. We are off to our host families tomorrow for the next 8 weeks. We have been busy learning mongolian, how to stave off drunks and wild dogs. pretty cool. mongolia is a beautiful place. first night here we stayed at a ger camp (really pretty yurts). it was crazy cold but really awesome, got some good picts. they call it the land of blue skys and it is. gently rolling hills and no pesky trees to block the view. looks a lot like colorado. we are in a town that is the second largest in the country but it is still not that big. takes thirty minutes to walk from one end to the other. lots of throw back russian apartments. jesse is taking to the food but i am considering vegetarianism again. we shall see how receptive host families are to that. : ) went to the black market yesterday and it was a crazy giant flea market. you could find anything there if you looked hard enough. it was really nice because no one was a pushy salesman and there is no barganing. mongolian is coming along slowly. jesse is doing great and i am running to catch up. yesterday my language break through was a rolled "r" so that was pretty cool. we can count to ten, talk about our family, if we like or dont like about 7 foods and how to say hello and good morning. i think there will be a lot of awkward silence tomorrow in our host families.

Jesse is in a town called khongor. His host dad works for a local company driving a tractor. His host mother is a herder. They have three children, all boys between the ages of 4 and 12. He is living in a 4 room wooden house, and is told it backs up to a beautiful hillside. I am in an apartment in Khutul. My host parent own two stores and have three girls between the ages of 14 and 6. I think it will be really good once i learn about 700 more words!

ok, that is all from us for now. feel free to post to this or send us and email (disappointing lack of emails people). we should have internet access weekly or so.

-sierra