Successes!

Chapter one closes and chapter two begins with some great feelings of accomplishment. Last week, at our "Host Family Appreciation" ceremony, Jimmy,

the man whom I have tried to teach to waltz for, oh, about
17 years now, won a dancing contest! It was a formal, waltz-
type dance, and his partner was his language teacher. The teachers all got to choose who they wanted to dance with, and Jimmy's teacher, Tuya, chose him. Smart cookie, Tuya. Tuya is about 5' 1" and pregnant, and she and Tom Bagway (Mongolian for "Big Bear" - the name most other PC folks and many Mongolians call him) looked ridiculously cute
dancing together. We think that may have been the real reason he won. The other medal was indisputably deserved,

however, since it was for volleyball, and Jimmy's team was, by far, the best (of 6) to play. The Mongolians take their competitions very seriously, and since Jimmy does too, it worked out beautifully for everyone. We both felt, though, like it was very surreal to experience Jimmy receiving a medal for dancing. Another one of those highly unexpected experiences here. I also sang a song with my little sister, and I wish you all could have heard her sing. Absolutely lovely.

This week we are in UB (Ulaanbaatar) for final training sessions, to meet our supervisors for our new jobs, and for our official Peace Corps swearing-in. My supervisor is Sarantsetseg (Mongolian for "moonflower"), who is the principal of my new school, and who seems really willing to work closely with me. The school has about 1500 students and 80 teachers, and I'm slated to teach 5th, 7th and 11th grade English classes, work 6+ hours a week on teaching methodology and English language lessons with other language teachers, 2 hours a week teaching English to non-language teachers, 3 hours a week running "English Clubs," and 2 hours meeting with and tutoring my principal in English. I've been told that that schedule is highly preliminary, so we'll see when we get there what I really end up teaching. Jimmy's supervisor, Enkhbaatar, is a jovial young guy who Jimmy feels will be really flexible with him as well. In the photo, that's me and my supervisor, Sarah and Cassandra (who will be in the same town with us) and their supervisors, and Jimmy and Enkhbaatar. The photo was taken at the theater in UB where we had our swearing-in ceremony.

The "tsamts" we are wearing (check out the sleeves on mine!) were custom-made for us by our host families. That's a standard, and incredibly wonderful and generous gift that host families most always give to their PC trainees. Mine is absolutely gorgeous.

I was asked to sing the same song I sang with my sister at the appreciation event, at the swearing-in ceremony. It went over really well! One Mongolian teacher actually told me that my accent sounded like a real Mongolian was singing! I couldn't have had a nicer compliment.

And, finally, I thought you might like to get a look at some of the folks with whom I have spent the last 2 1/2 months, laughing, learning and exploring. In the photo are 8 of the 11 PCTs who trained in the same school as me, and our two teachers. Starting on the left, it's me, Cassandra, Agee, Tsetsgay, Dwan, Chris, Jacob, Alli, James, Charlene and Peter. Peter and I did our practise teaching together, and had a blast the whole time. His wife, Cady, lived right next door to Jimmy, and the two of them also had a great time together this summer.

We've now already said good-bye to most of these folks, until we meet again in December for our In-Service Training week back here in UB. We head out at 5AM to the airport, then take a 2+ hour flight to our new city. It's going to be so weird to have our very first apartment-building experience take place in Mongolia! We also have our PC issued cell phones, which everyone is having fun watching us try to figure out.

So, in our next entry we'll be able to tell you all about our new community of Choibalsan! Meanwhile, happy back-to-school for many of you, and enjoy these last glorious days of summer.