The End

We have reached the end of our incredible peace corps experience. We finished in a fine fashion. We did a wonderful camping trip with a bunch of our peace corps people and mongolian friends. We rented a mini van and headed out. Our destination was a monastary at the top of the mountain. We stopped the first night at the most beautiful ger camp in Mongolia. It was located at the top of this cliff and at the bottom was a beautiful river with huge boulders everwhere. The boys went fishing (but caught nothing) and the girls looked cute. We brought along a special person to hunt a marmot for us. There was no other reason for him to be there, I don't know who he was, except that he can hunt a fine marmot. You cut the little head off, then turn it inside out, take out the guts and cut out the inside meat. Then you fill it with hot rocks and the bits of inside meat and the heart and liver. Steam was pouring out of this little marmot cooking sack. Then when it is all full you sew the neck up and blow torch the fur off. Then you cut it all up and eat it. It was the coolest bbq ever but the marmot meat is not awesome. Colin thought it tasted like squirrel which isn't a useful reference but there was not a lot of meat (mostly bone) and it was kinda wierd. The Mongolians think it tastes like horse. It decidely does not taste like chicken. That is about all I can say.

The next day we hiked to the monastary. It was 3k strait up a hill. Flys were everywhere! Millions of them! I just about died. But the monastary was beautiful, awesome views and pretty little temples. It was a wonderful camping trip.

Following was a series of goodbye parties. The first was jesse's work. We went out to dinner and fake disco. It was really nice. They gave everyone certificates of the heart to fill out about jesse and then they stood up and read them. We made a toast, recieved gifts, and then did some dancing in the resturant. At some point we were forced to teach a song and taught them the little green frog song.

Nadaam was fun but just kinda the same. We didn't stay long but my favorite part was the archery. I like it because they sing songs and stand really close to the target to make it more dangerous.

My office took us to the country side and we did a regular harhog (the hot rocks and meat in a container to cook) and we played traditional drinking games, in teams. They played with the mare's milk and since i can't drink it they made me take vodka shots instead. It was about 4 hours of drinking. It was really funny. I am actually quite good at the finger drinking game. It is like rock, paper, scissors but not.

The whole week we tried to say goodbye to people but no one wanted to say bye. So the morning that we left we met everyone at the square to say bye...but no one wanted to say bye still...so they followed us out to the very edge of town and we had wine and candy and then we said bye. It was sad and wierd. It didn't feel real so i was sad but not as sad as I might feel on the flight.

This week we have been in UB running around doing a bunch of paperwork and whatnot. Did I mention the whatnot? So much whatnot! So we are saying bye to PC people and are all ready to leave. One day left.

Thank you to our faithful and intermittent readers. Thanks to our friends and family who sent us yummy food, movies, and creature comforts. We hope that you enjoyed reading our random stories as much as we enjoyed living them.

Now to our next adventure...America or Bust.