A Sad Situation

The links below are to some amazing photos taken of a very sad situation I have personally witnessed both during my time traveling through UB and here in my own city.  Alcoholism is a rampant problem in Mongolia and is often a topic we, PCVs, steer a good amount of our energy toward combating.

The New Yorks Times Blog

-40/96*

Tsagaan Sar 2013

Another Tsagaan Sar (Lunar New Year) has come and gone.  Over the three days, I made 86 veggie buuz, ate a combination of 40 veggie, horse and mutton buuz, took only 10 vodka shots and wore two deels.

 The traditional greeting is "Амар байна уу?" (pronounced "Amar bain uu?") which means "Are you rested?" and you greet the eldest person of the household first out of respect.

 My veggie buuz.

 

My deel vest (previously seen at Naadam).

 My super awesome ultra warm winter deel debuts!

 PCVs at my house.

 Blaze orange deel!

 Boy in a Buryad deel.

 Loved the color of her deel.  Too bad she turned away just as I snapped the pic.

 

 There's a baby in that red bundle.

 Deel family!

 I just love the deels.

 The awesome table Z put out for us.

 

PCVs at Zoloo's house.  Her parents had just gotten back from the hudoo where they got stuck due to all the recent snow.  Glad they were able to get back so we could greet Aav (father).

 The girls on the frozen fake lake.

A busy week!

Last week was a crazy whirlwind of volleyball and seminar planning & facilitating.

Monday afternoon, all day Tuesday AND Wednesday morning was the aimag-wide teachers' volleyball tourney.  I was able to play in 11 sets, of which we won 7.  The ShKh ladies played twice more on Wednesday without me and ended up finishing 6th while the ShKh men took 3rd.  Way to go guys! 

All day Wednesday and Thursday morning the PCVs hosted an Active Learning seminar for the aimag's teachers.  It was a lot of work, but I think they got a lot out of it.  We really emphasized going beyond the Ministry-mandated textbooks to incorporate communicative methods, various activities to support multiple learning styles, immersion language learning, critical thinking and making students responsible for their own learning.  We had hour-long large group sessions as well as 45-minute small group rotating sessions, which means the participants got tons of information in a very short amount of time.  The participants seemed really excited about it so hopefully they can take it back to their classrooms and make some positive changes, as well as educate their fellow teachers (only one teacher from each school was required to come, although many schools had 2 or 3 in attendance).

 

Introducing the practical application activity: taking all the skills & strategies participants learned the day before and using a lesson from the textbook, make an Active Learning lesson plan.

 

 Each PCV monitored a small group as they lesson planned.

 

Group shot at the end!

So now I am officially on school break, although I still have some side-project work to do.  I am looking forward to catching up on a whole lot of nothing the next few days before the buuz-fest known as Tsagaan Sar hits next week.  Mmmm, buuz.  Can't wait to eat buuz until I explode!  :)

Bummer of an update...

After two emails going unresponded (is that a word!?) to, I sent a facebook message to the former PCV who had been working with (but stopped back in December) the PUC-Mongolia program at Texas, the one who first got word out to current volunteers about this program.  She confirmed my suspicions: my shelter project will not be funded. I am pretty broken up about this, but not for me, for my community. I wish those advocating for this project and making the financial decisions could have seen the project through my eyes, seen the women and children it would have saved, and treated it with the respect it deserved. And that they would have had the professional courtesy to tell me the project was a no-go.  But I am NOT deterred; already this morning I am researching, contacting and sending off the proposal to try to find funding elsewhere. It may be a very, very long shot, but I have to do something. Wish this underdog some massive luck!

Birthday and More...

Celebrated another birthday in Mongolia, #29.  Or, as some have so astutely pointed out, 30-1.  Thanks for that.  ;)  On the 19th, everyone came to my place and we had Thanksgiving in January.  See, a turkey (two actually!) magically made it's way to C-town, and since the holidays had already passed, the next occasion to celebrate was my birthday.  We pot-lucked it again, with all the trimmings: mashed potatoes & gravy, dressing, green bean casserole, peas & carrots, fruit salad, pasta salad, and bread pudding.  After hanging out and binging on all the deliciousness, we went out dancing.  Fun times.

 Two big thumbs up!

 I carved that baby up like a pro!

 Om nom nom nom!

 Oh hey, thanks Grand Club!

 Out with the girls.

On my actual birthday (that was the 22nd, for those of you who were unaware), I had lunch with my CPs, skyped my PC bff, had a beer, and just bummed around.  I had thought about going out, but I am broke.  :(

These last three weeks we've been practicing volleyball every day for 2-3 hours in preparation for the Teachers' Day tournament.  We also had the intra-school competition (went 4-3, took second) and the foreign language teachers' competition (went 4-0, took FIRST!!), all leading up to the big tourney in the next day or two.  And if you're wondering (my mother especially!), my knee is taped not because I messed it up again, but because during the intra-school competition I dove for a ball, my knee pad slipped down and I got wicked court burn.  I taped it up so that my knee pad wouldn't irritate the raw skin, as well as to keep some "magic medicine" on it until the hard scab forms.  Now there's a lovely image...Ha!

 Zoloo, me and Andi.

 Shooting the ball over.

 At one point, I served 10 aces or shanks in a row before missing.  What do you think they were all talking about later?

 The ShKh players.  I wasn't on their team because we numbered off instead of playing by school.

 The winners!  Woot woot!  (We of course partied after which is why some are already dressed.)

So that's what's been happening here.  Not sure if the big inter-school tourney will be Sun & Mon or Mon & Tue or just when, but that will be fun again.  And my friend Vihn is on his way to C-town as I'm typing this. (Also, as I'm typing this, that turkey carcass from last weekend is simmering away, soon to become homemade stock, and making my apartment smell ridiculous.  Yum!)  He'll be helping with a seminar we're facilitating on Weds & Thurs.  Then Friday is (actual) Teacher's Day, so party party!  10th and 11th grades still have classes next week (although I don't teach those grades), then it's two weeks of break, the last week being for Tsagaan Sar.  Dang, how is it nearly Tsagaan Sar already!?  Where did the time go!?

Packages

Hello everyone. 

I've been told that the USPS (no doubt due to their financial crisis) is going to be raising the prices on their large flat rate boxes from $60.95 to $79.95 come Jan 27.  Not sure about the other box sizes, but certainly they will go up as well.  If you were thinking of sending me something, please do so in the next 10 days, not only because I'm nearly finished, but because that's a crazy jump in price and I can't ask any of you to pay that much just for shipping.  Craziness!  ;)

Much love to you all!!

Winter's a...

...well, you know what she is.  We're into the second of the 9 Nines (What's that you say?  Check this out.) and everything I've heard/read/seen indicates it's gonna be a brutal winter.  There's a special word for exceptionally bad winters: зуд (translated as "zud" but pronounced "zude").  It literally means "winter devastation" and comes in two forms, white or black.  White zud is exceptionally snowy, black is exceptionally cold.  The results?  Either too much snow for herds to graze and the animals starve or it's so cold the animals freeze to death.  Either way, it spells economic ruin for herders, a hell of a lot of extra work for ger dwellers, and downright dangerous conditions for all.  Back already this fall some Mongolians were throwing around the word "zud" and it looks like they may have been right.  How they knew, I'll never know.  Probably because with traditional lifeways comes a deeper connection with nature, especially the ability to read the seasons (was the previous season especially rainy? dry? hot? cold?)  and make predictions.  No matter how they knew, I wish they had been wrong.  As you all know, there's no love lost between me and the cold weather.  Just one more way PC is forcing me to change, grow, adjust...

UB Post article

National Emergency Management Agency article

As mentioned in the first article, school break has been extended for all students in anticipation of the deadly cold.  10th & 11th grades will get two weeks, 7th-9th grades will get three weeks, and Kindergarten-5th grades will get five weeks.  In addition to the evacuations and extended school breaks, the government passed a special, one-time payment of 340,000MNT ($250-260) to each elderly, disabled, or child to (in theory) cover the extra heating costs.  You should have seen the lines at the banks!

Don't worry about me, I've got my Columbia jacket, long johns, fleece socks and lots of hot cocoa to get me through!  Plus, that little pup of mine just happens to be the best space heater imaginable.  D'aaww!

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