It's A Good Tired!

Hello again from the, aptly-named, Land of Big Sky. Jim here to report that our first three weeks have been filled with language training, laughing at ourselves and with loving, hospitable host families. Our first week of orientation was spent in Darkhan, one of the bigger Mongolian cities north of the capital, Ulaanbaatar. Our first day featured an official welcoming ceremony when we were each presented with blue silk “khadags,” a gift of thanks and respect. We were treated to a marvelous performance of traditional music and dance. We had been wondering when, exactly, the realization would hit us that we really are taking this journey. For me, this ceremony was that time as it marked the literal beginning of our service here and the epiphanal moment when the surreal transformed into the very real. It was the “This is really happening” jolt and my eyes welled up with feelings of satisfaction and pride.

In our host city of Sukhbaatar, the training throughout, be it on language, culture, safety and our program areas, has been terrific. The language training has been pretty intense and exhausting. The language trainers do not use English in class and we rely on each other as classmates to do interpretation. Often we find ourselves staring within inches into the mouths of our trainers in attempts to answer the frequent question “how are they making that sound?” For some sounds, there are no English equivalents. We must sound very funny to people here and our mispronunciation can lead to many laughs. For example, if you don’t say the phrase “It doesn’t matter” just right, you might actually be claiming to have “no nose.” This training period is flying by. We can’t believe we have only 5 weeks of language training until final testing. We have to be capable enough to survive here on our own before we are released to our assigned homes at the end of August.

Our host families have been wonderful to us. The living conditions are not like you’d expect in the States, but we are comfortable and all our needs are being met. The food has been really good. The meals for many families here in Sukhbaatar typically consist of some combination of meat (often beef), potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onions, garlic, rice and noodles. It’s amazing how many yummy dishes can be created. Our favorites have been something called tsuivan, which consists of the main ingredients above, along with boodz and hoeshuurs, forms of meat dumplings that are steamed or fried. Delicious!!! We’ve had a few opportunities to try organ meats, which we’ve passed on thus far. We can’t truly predict what ingredients will normally be available to us when we’re “at-site,” but we should be okay.

Next time we post, we to have family photos to share and we'll tell you about these fantastic people.

Our internet access is limited and we are often moving at sub-dialup speed. We’re finding that during this summer with the intense schedule that this is the most efficient way to communicate. We are very thankful for the emails we receive via our hotmail address and for the letters and packages we get. A couple notes about communications, though: the comments you write on the blog here (which we love to get) are for the world’s eyes, so if you want to be more personal, email is the way to go. Also, please let us know by email if you’ve sent us anything via the postal service. While we’ve gratefully received some mailings we can’t know if your delivery made it here okay, otherwise.

Please know that we finding our experiences to be demanding and exhilarating. Generally, we can find comfort and there’s awesomeness all around us. While we know we can’t change the world, we can help satisfy some basic desires of the wonderful people here and that’s so very rewarding.

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!