Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Oh Boy!

So it has been a crazy crazy week, or maybe it has been two weeks? I don't remember. We have had very little down time but it has been good. Jesse and I arrived in Darkhan and moved into an apartment. It has a shower and hot water and is pretty awesome. The only downside is that there are only singe beds in seperate rooms. We pulled the mattresses off and are sleeping on the floor in the kitchen, so it is kind of ger like but square not round. We have been in TOT (Training of Trainers) last week and this week. Last week it was a lot of peace corps focused stuff but this week has been focused on getting session outlines prepared for the summer. Last wednesday my group went up to Sukhbataar where the CYD people will be training. It is right on the Russian boarder and is really beautiful. There are trees and a river up there. Almost everyone lives in a house because wood is so plentiful, which is the exact opposite of Arvaikheer. We visisted all of the host families and looked at where the trainees will be staying. Met with a bunch of organizations and I think training this year for CYD is going to be really busy but good. Jesse and I have been put in charge of our respective sectors to hash out training schedule, topics and whatnot. Balancing act for sure.

Today is a holiday in Mongolia, women and children's day. We have a staff retreat and will be going to a children's camp to do group bonding and sports. I have allergies now (never had them in the states) so i may sit stuff out, plus I prefer not to run for pleasure. So we shall see. Jesse has had lots of boy time (all the other trainers but one are boys) and has been playing basketball a couple nights a week so I am guessing there will be a hot game today.

Saturday we saw jesse's host mom and almost didn't recognize her. She lost a ton of weight and cut her hair. She looks good. She is getting another volunteer this year. She gave jesse a 5 minute hug. We are going out there on saturday to see the rest of the family. On sunday I randomly ran into my host sister at the black market. I had a feeling i would see someone and i did. crazy.

Last night we had mexican night and invited over some trainers and some of our new mongolian counterparts. They liked everthing. Amazing. I thought for sure they would just pick at food but everyone got their eat on. Then we watched the story of the weeping camel. Now that i understand mongolian the subtitiles are really funny, not quite a literal translation for sure.

Two nights ago our friends resuced a little puppy and we went over to play with her. They are going to Russia for the next three weeks so we may get to puppy sit. I am excited.

We head up to UB on sunday this week to welcome in the new volunteers on midnight monday. There will be a ton of current volunteers there at the airport. It should be really fun. Then training starts and all our preperations hopefully will bear out.

This has been a really random post and i don't even know if i covered everything but i gotta get in a micro so i will go. Hope the other half is living well. Cheers!

Friday, May 19, 2006

We are Off

Ok so it is 9am and we are ready to rock and roll our way to Darkhan. We have been in UB for the week doing medical stuff...we are both healthy and cavity free (for once)...and working on our training schedule. It is going to be a very busy time for the new PCTs but i think it will be 100 times better than our training was, or at least the technical sessions that jesse and I are doing. : )

We are training up in Sukhbataar which is right on the russian boarder. Supposed to be pretty but it is 2 hours each way so a little bit of a trek three days a week.

The newbies come on June 5th. There are a ton of volunteers to come up and welcome them at the airport. The M15 did it for us last year and it was crazy. Quite the welcome.

Ok we are loading up our car so i gotta go but will send some updates soon.

We are going to visit host families soon so that should be wierd and mostly good i think.

Cheers.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Goodies

So Jesse and I sat down this weekend and put together another...drum roll please....picture CD! Aptly titled "Picture CD 2." So we will send it out to the Loars to make copies and pass along to friends and family. You will see amazing mongolian sights and your favorite PCVs. It is going to be huge.

As far as updates not a lot. It snowed yesterday and today so that is random. Working on Jesse's med school stuff and contimplating our lives so that is fun. The phone system is down today so I am going through texting withdrawls, not pretty.

Ok just thought I would let you all know to be anxiously expecting the mailman to give you something great in the next 7-12 weeks. : )

Words of wisdom today brought to you by John "Palindrome" Koehn: Step on no pets.