Manly Sports and Other such things

Hiya kids,

sorry this post is a little tardy, I have been a little low on funds (just got paid yesterday) and a little short on time. We just had our mid-Pre Service Training Language evaluations. Pleased to announce I don't super suck, I am on par with everyone else...except Jesse and a few other super stars (who we all hate) who recieved a Novice-high score. This is the score that you need in order to be sworn in as a volunteer. We are currently having a renunion with all 54 trainees in Darkhan for the week. It is nice to see everyone and how far we have come. We all kinda smell like sheep and the hotel that we thought was awful when we got here feels pretty good now. How quickly standards change.

Life in general is good. I think, for me this past week was a little rough. Kinda out of the honeymoon stage with Mongolia, or maybe just with training, and was feeling pretty homesick. Got a letter from Liz and John yesterday so that was awesome (blink blink). Will let you know when the package arrives and when your letters come riggaloo (I wrote you a letter about two weeks ago but it is still in my binder...I will mail it before I leave darkhan, promise).

Last week one of the things we had to do was cook over a fire. So we all got together and made hosher and boats. Hosher is meat packets deep fried and boats are steamed dumplings, of course meat filled as well. It was super fun. The pinching them closed is a little tricky and mine turned out very ugly but as I tried to tell the Mongolians it doesn't affect the taste. On Monday (the 4th of July) we had a birthday party for one of our fellow trainees and raised our glasses to the all of you at home. Then we lit some matches and called them fireworks.

On Tuesday we had dinner at our language instructors house and it was pretty fun. Ate hosher and drank milk tea and sang "American Folk" songs. I don't think I realized how many songs I don't know all the words too. The only songs we can sing as a group we learned under the age of 7.

Last week (skip reading if I posted this last time) we went to the cultural center and got a tour of all the traditional folk arts (singing, dancing, instraments). Peace corps said they will pay for music lessons for us so I am going to learn the Horse Head Violin (like in weeping camel) (I saw two camels on my way into to town the other day, they are so cool). I like it because it just sounds aweful so americans won't know if I am really bad at it or really good. It will be a mystery. Hopefully I will stick with it longer than the two weeks I was able to muster with the clarinet (sorry dad).

On Saturday Jesse is coming back with me to my town and it is Naadam! The manly sports festival (John I will send you pictures). From what we hear there is a lot of drinking, horse racing, and wrestling. People come in from all over and dress in their finest del's or in new clothes. My family measured me for a del waistcoat moments before we left for Darkhan so hopefully I will have something to wear at the Naadam. I will take pictures. Speaking of pictures, I have not figured out how to upload them here because our jump drive is not recognized by the operating system. Will keep working on it, however we can view pictures people send in email just fine. So I am excited that J will meet my family (they are all back now so the house is nice and full again) and it should be pretty fun to participate in Naadam. Learned how to refuse vodka in Mongol.

Next week my group goes to UB. So that should be an adventure. I think we are taking the night train and touring the town and going to some technical training sessions there. On my next post I will have some more interesting stories to tell about our time there. The way people talk about it it is some magical fairy land of a place.

And, this is pretty cool, J and I are both getting cell phones when we go to the capital. That means that people can call us (free for us) and we found a site where you can get $.05/min to call from the states to us. Everyone here has cell phones, mongolians and PC volunteers alike. Anyway will send more info once they are purchased.

I think that is all from me for now. For some reason I am blanking on stuff that I have done. Jesse was sad that people think he doesn't blog (or maybe that people think my blogging is so clever) so he is going to do his very own post tomorrow without me, with all of his stories. Stay tuned for more adventures from the Hoodoo (countryside)

Cheers!