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!