If last week was my best week, this must have been my worst or at least in the eyes of a foreigner. To put things into perspective, what may be depicted is not necessarily bad events, but rather bad timing. Don’t get me wrong, because for me a bad week here is still as good as a great week in the states.

It all started when I watched Goodfellas for the first time on my hard-drive. I got to the end, but unfortunately I had not scanned the whole movie and only had half of it, which was really too bad because I was starting to really get into it, you know booty on the edge of your chair and all. I should have seen this as a bad omen.

I wake up on Thursday completely fine, except for my weird muppet dream where we all sing about felt… Anyway, I go to school, play jeopardy, which I am the best at of course (thanks G-Ma! If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t know the rules!), and even plan our teaching strategy lesson with Jesse. The downfall started right before dinner. *If you are prone to queasiness do not read any further* The past couple of days I had been strangely hungry, and I mean thinking about food all the time, even when eating. But I began to have the gurgles (for those of you who do not know my vocabulary the gurgles are when your stomach makes noises for no apparent reason and you sit there awkwardly and super self-conscious about it). I tried to eat dinner, what was rice and meat mixed together, but after two bites I couldn’t. Then it hit me at around 10:30 pm. I was super nauseous and thought maybe if I puke once I will feel better, which I actually did! But then I puked again, and again, and again. This process of me puking in my tumpin (the bucket in which I wash my clothes and my hair/body in) and then dumping it out in the outhouse continued for another 2 hours. My host mom would come in and push on my back to get it all out. It was the sweetest thing and I would have cried if not for my excessive vomiting. By round 5 I thought I should call my emergency medical number. Linnea was super nice and supportive. She told me to try and get as much fluid in me as possible and rest and to call me in the morning. Well I took her advice, but to no avail did the storm in my body dwindle. Having multiple aunts and a doctor in the family I wrote down the time of each episode and what it entailed. Throughout the night I was dry heaving due to the fact that there was nothing left inside of me almost every hour on the dot. Finally at 7:30 am I called Linnea back and told her my situation. She said not to worry and was on her way. By 9:45 she was in my room taking my temperature, pulse, and heart-rate. She said I was extremely dehydrated, which I already knew, and was surprised I wasn’t dizzy at all, but I have tuff skin or at least like to think I do. She pulled down the picture hanging right above my bed and hung up the IV right there in my room! Trying to find a vein was tricky because she said they were all flat, whatever that means. But she finally found one, and it must have been a good one because there was blood everywhere. She even gave me chemo nausea medication through my IV as well. Not going to lie, I kind of felt like a badass for not fainting when I got pricked like the last time.

After I had my fluids I felt 110% better. I slept most of the day and my host sister even went out and got me apple juice! I watched a few episodes of friends that I started from the beginning, courtesy of Christie! My family thought it was the strangest thing that I wasn’t eating but you wouldn’t have either after an illness like that. The host family coordinator even stopped by to check to see if I was ok! Sarah is the sweetest and has basically the same output on this job as I do. It wasn’t until later that I found out she came to everyone’s house, but it doesn’t make it any less special that she came to chat.

The next day my group was able to make Hoosher, a traditional Naadam food, with our language teachers. It was really fun being in a different setting than all of our classes. We even got to play with Emily’s puppy! Afterwards we all went down to the river, or more like a swamp, for Melissa’s birthday! All of our host siblings came and it was really fun. The summary was a group of Americans watching William’s host brother take off his pants to go fishing and then proceed to take off his shirt and dive on in, collecting little swamp fish along the way.

Sunday we ventured back to School 4, a 40 minute walk from our school, to get our 3^rd and final rabies shot! I don’t know about you but I never thought I would be this happy to have all 3 rabies shots. This day had to be put in the books because I was able to wash, rinse, and hang all of my clothes within an hour and a half! I had cut my time in half! I then conquered my tumpin yet again, after thoroughly cleaning it, to take my weekly bath/shower/washcloth rinse.

After dinner Khatnaa and I ventured over to my cousins house, or my moms sisters sons house as they would say in Mongolia, to deliver some yogurt (Tarak). I met her cousin, who is one of the twins, and his brother’s wife and 2 month old baby who was the cutest little baby I have ever seen! We spent some time there, chitchatted and whatnot, but when we left he told Khatnaa that I was a cutie American and I don’t know why but I could not stop blushing. Maybe it is due to the lack of romantic or sexual connotations here but I felt like that came out of left field and caught me way off guard.

Anyway the past two days have been somewhat of a blur getting ready to go back to Darkhan for the week and whatnot. We have mid-center days for medical and safety training yet again but get to see all my friends from before! We are down to 89 volunteers with 2 people have gone back to the states already. Can’t wait to tell you all about our mini reunion next week!

 The gang at the "swamp"

 Melissa the B-Day girl!

 "Fishing"

 Senior Pic