Ger-riffic

Hello hello,
so we are nearly a week into our site and it has been wonderful. I will provide the following highlights our trip to the site, our ger, our community/family, our work.

Trip to Site:
We were scheduled to leave from UB on Tuesday at 10 am with an estimated time of travel between 5-10 hours. It was raining (a lot) but considered a good luck omen in Mongolia. I just thought how wet my things would get... : ) We waited until noon for our ride to show. Then we drove around UB for an hour, went and picked up more people for another hour and left UB between 2:30 and 3. Then we proceeded to stop every 10 Kilometers. Most of the time I wasn't sure why but there were a lot of potty breaks. 1/4 of the way into our trip we got a flat tire due to the enormi potholes in the road. However we were back in business in no time. At the half way point we stopped at a roadside town/diner. We were there for about an hour. We finially arrived at site at midnight! It was a super long day but we were excited to finially be at our new home.

Our Ger:
Our place is really great. Ger life this week has been pretty easy. When we arrived we had most of our furniture but no kitchen gadgets. So on Wednesday we went with our hashaa mate, Uganaa to the "black" market. (more on that in the later section). We ordered a futon to be made to fit jesse's "height" and so we can both sleep on it and picked up a chest for some of our clothes. We also bought some kitchen gadgets. Tricked out the ger for a mere $70 USD. Pretty cool I think. Our ger is painted very traditionally in orange with multi-colored patterns. The poles and center wheel are painted as well as a matching chest and kitchen cupboard and coffee table with tiny stools. We have been practicing cooking and last night made awesome pizza in the wok. Today for lunch we practiced with the fire cooking. I can boil noodles on it like a pro. We got windows put in our skylight yesterday and it keeps the heat in and rain out now. Very nice. It is kinda trippy living in a circle but it is really cozy. It has brought out the "man" in Jesse. Who likes to make fire, chop wood, and generally do manly mongolian things. Ger life suits him fine.

Our Community/Family
Our hashaa family (aka also my counterpart) are really nice. Uganaa is an english teacher and has been wonderful showing us around and helping us get settled. Her husband works crazy hours and we met him last night. He seems really nice. They are a cute couple. The kids are starting to warm to us and come by the ger a little more frequently now. The boy, esoo, likes to check us out and then leave. last night he and his sister came over and jesse showed them pictures on the computer of our family and time in mongolia. They liked it but esoo didn't like our music and covered his ears and made faces. I understand the feeling. Today Uganaa's brother (who also lives with them) came over with his pictures. He is 17 and seems to be a really nice helpful kid. I think we are really lucky to have a family like theirs living so close. Oh...and we are close. The Ger pretty much takes up their whole yard. It is kinda wierd but we will get used to it. The hashaa dog's name changes daily but after the first night he doesn't bark at us and seems to do a good job of protecting his family.

Our community is nice. There is a small apartment district in the center of town but it seems most people live in gers or houses. We have really only been to the town center area so far, not a lot of exploring in the residential parts but the commercial area is pretty cool. The black market is staged out of rail shipping containers. Whole stores in tiny containers. Then they are arranged into alleys. It seems like much can be found if one looks hard enough. Really hard. Found the meat house (almost made me throw up but actually pretty clean) and the veggie area. Also found cloth and household items. Still discovering the area but so far we like what we see.

Our Work
Jesse and I visited his office yesterday. It is housed in the big government building in the center of town. People seemed really friendly and helpful. I visited my work today and it seems pretty cool. Everyone is shy but hopefully we can overcome that soon. Will both start work next week and are looking forward to getting started. We have had some good talks already about our ideas of projects and activities.

I think that is all for now. Good luck to everyone as they start school and summer winds down. Keep on keepin' on.