Orientation, Week 1

What a ride! And where to start??

After a restful layover, following our 15 hr flight to Seoul, we were ready to meet Mongolia face-to-face with no jet lag.

We were greeted at the airport in Ulaanbaatar, the capitol of Mongolia, by a boisterous group of currently serving volunteers who gave us a heroes welcome. We took a bus, in the dark, to our ger camp (see photo) for the night. It was perfect that we didn't get to see where we were until waking up in the very early morning to see the sun rise over the mountains behind us. Julie was practically in tears from the impact of realizing, suddenly, that we were really looking out on Mongolia. Its beauty met all of our expectations.

As the sun rose, Jimmy and I stepped out to a sky full of magpies, wheatears, hoopoes and the magnificent black-eared kites. It was a sublime beginning to our journey here.

Later in the day, and a four-hour, extremely hot and sweaty bus ride later, we arrived in Darkhan, an aimag (provincial) center north of Ulaanbaatar. The heat was NOT what we anticipated as a big weather challenge for us, but it is HOT right now! The Mongolians are saying that its hotter than usual -- about 90 degrees lately!

We are now in Darkhan, an old, highly Russian-influenced city, for our first four days, to meet the PC folks we'll be working with and to prepare us for our homestays (in Sukhbaatar) which begin next week. The language training we're getting is phenomenal. Julie keeps wishing she was using these techniques when she was teaching at home-- although she's proud to say that she has done a couple of activities that she used to use in her classroom. Lots of games, repetition, and laughter, and zero English. While learning the language is daunting, we're feeling less concerned about our effectiveness here and believe we'll be successful.

The training has been excellent, and the people have been wonderful to work and play with. Our Mongolian language teachers are a group of absolutely adorable, incredibly sweet, funny and highly effective women, who we all adore. And our colleagues are full of enthusiasm and warmth. We never feel funny about inviting ourselves to hang out with anyone at all, and no one seems shy to do that with us. We are thoroughly delighted to be part of this incredible group of people, collaborating on this incredible experience.

In two days we'll step over (not on - bad luck here) the thresholds of our homes for the next 2 1/2 months, and meet our new families. We are filled with butterflies, but know we will be embraced as special members of the family.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read our blog!