Best Week I’ve Ever Had

So they say that Peace Corps is like a roller coaster, but I think it’s more like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. The ups are great but then without warning you are turned into a fiery hell that scares the shit out of you when you are 7. Thankfully this week was when Mr. Toad went out with some friends, pleasant and enchanting.

            It all started on Sunday. I was bored so I decided to go for a walk down by the river, one to start my daily walk to burn off some of my blubber, and two because it was finally spring with a nice warm breeze instead of the chilly I hope my nips aren’t showing like it usually is. I started listening to an audio book and walked for about an hour. Funny thing is I was paying so much attention to not falling on my ass I still can’t really understand what the book was about. Something about famous people getting drunk, but that’s beside the point. When I finally come back after turning around because a dog was staring at me, and yes I am afraid of dogs now, you would be too if you saw some of the countryside dogs that look like they can tear your spleen out in one snatch, my music teacher’s husband was waiting outside my haasha in his car. I said the courtesy hello and thought I might take a nap, but somehow I ended up in the car on the way to his house. Don’t worry the story doesn’t get creepy or anything. But it ended up that he had been waiting for like 10 minutes to invite me over for dinner. I’m pretty sure it was to thank me for having her over for American Tsagaan Sar, but who knows something could have been lost in translation seeing as neither of them speak any English. We had delicious baked vegetables and meat, which is kind of amazing because not many people have ovens, let alone use them. I once caught my cp keeping her notebooks in hers. Anyway, we talked and she showed me pictures and she even gave me pomegranate! I know! Crazy right? She had just come back from UB and said a friend gave her one and she chose to share it with me! After dinner we all hopped in the car, my music teacher, her husband, her daughter (6), and her granddaughter (3), I know weird family timeline but it works out really well surprisingly. We drove to the culture center, which is approximately a 2 minute walk from my ger where her husband went in to see the wrestling tournament. The girls stayed in the car because she was in her robe and slippers. I didn’t just want to leave her so I stuck around, that and because I didn’t know if it would be considered rude. We hung out for a while or so chatting about our families and her children, you know good bonding topics. She sent her daughter out to get ice cream, which we also ate in the car, and after what seemed like an hour I started to keep track of the time. We laughed sang English, Mongolian, and Russian songs, I bonded with both the kids so that when I see them now they actually talk to me instead of staring blankly in my direction. But after 2 hours I decided to go ahead and walk home. I got a shitty nights sleep because I got home so late, but she also told the teachers the story of how we sat in a car for probably 3 hours right outside my house in the teacher’s room. It was well worth it.

            The next awesome turn was when my department (English, Russian, Mongolian, and Social Science *basically foreign language and a rando) decided to do some team teaching exercises. So we were all put into teams of 3-4 teachers and went at it. I was paired with one Mongolian and one English teacher. We decided to focus our lesson on animals and adjectives because we were going to teach 6^th grade. Our Mongolian teacher, Paga, talked about the differences between 4 animals (elephant, lion, rabbit, and giraffe), habitats, eating habbits, and so on. Ichka, our other English teacher reviewed past adjectives to get the class warmed up to English. And finally I introduced six new adjectives and did an exercise with them too. We used a projector to make it that much more spectacular. Needless to say our presentation was almost flawless. Can’t toot my own horn too much. I was actually really proud of putting together such a great lesson in just one day. The feedback we got back from the other teachers who watched was amazing. They said that it was a true lesson focused on the student’s abilities and not just making the teacher look good. They complimented us on our organization and time management too. It seriously made my week. The other teacher’s lessons were very good as well and had plenty of materials to work with. It was great to see them put that much effort into lesson planning, but now I know that they can do it and just choose not to do it with me….

           

            But not to worry because my week picked up for the last and final curveball with a field trip to the aimag with my 5^th grade students. I tutor one of the 5^th grade teachers, Tegshe, two to three times a week and asked if I could tag along. And man am I so glad I did. We went to celebrate the end of elementary school, which is kind of a big deal, especially where 30% of students don’t graduate. (and yes I just made that statistic up…) We took both 5^th grade classes (50 students in total) in one meeker (large van which held 24 students and 2 adults, excluding the driver) and a bus (holding 26 student, 2 teachers, and 2 teachers kids, excluding the driver). Needless to say it was packed. I sat by the door to keep the kiddies safe. We left around 8 and were off for the four-hour drive! (The drive time has shortened thank goodness because spring is finally here!) My teachers had the trip planned down to the minute. They even made an itinerary. It was adorable. We stopped at a few religious statues along the way, with our teacher trainer explaining the meaning of them to the students. Only 4 out of 24 students got sick, which I call a success too! Once we got to the big city we stopped for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants (aka a guanz, or a local food palace). The teachers were spoiled with breaded chicken while the kids got an assortment of eggs and mystery meat. We then drove to the first museum, the history museum. Basically the history of Mongolia’s clothing, artifacts found in the dessert and paintings. It was kind of an assortment of Mongolian traditions and traditional items. Even though most of the kids knew what most of the stuff was, they were still really interested. It was fun to see them intrigued in their own culture. We wandered over to the next museum across the street after about an hour or so. My friend, April, joined us too. The second museum is more about the nature and animals of Mongolia. It had taxidermy animals and even a dinosaur skeleton that was discovered in Bayankhongor. Needless to say the kids were ecstatic to see everything, and went a bit cray-cray.

            After the museums we walked to the park where there was a huge type of cat with a slide coming out of its mouth. The kids went wild. I mean I would have too if I were a kid and just came out of two museums. We then walked all around Bayankhongor to a bunch of different statues where our training manager explained the meaning, symbolism, and when it was built. It was really interesting to see that she knew all those things even though she lives so far away. We finally made it to the hill in the middle of the city with an oboo, or religious statue, on top. We all walked up slowly and took countless pictures. Finally the day was done and we were all exhausted. The drive back was pretty nice. We all sang and relaxed our feet. It was pleasant because the sun goes down around 9:30 or so, so the whole drive was lit and we didn’t get lost once! We even made it back in record time. This was definitely the best trip I have had so far. The kids just made it so much more memorable and entertaining.

            Oh and last but not least I put on an alcohol awareness month. I was a little skeptical of whether it would work or not because a month is a long time. The goal was to have one competition per week all in Mongolian of course. And so far it has been a great success. The first week was the drawing competition where students grades 5-9 drew pictures of what our soum and families would look like without alcohol. We had 34 students participate and the pictures were incredible. We gave out medals so they got really into it. The second week we did an essay or poem competition for 10-12 graders where they wrote about their families and the affect alcohol has on them. We had an astonishing 68 students participate and the essays got very real. It was really nice to see the students portray their real lives, even though they might not be idyllic. We winning essays were incredible and very personal. We decided to type them up and post them without names to keep their identities from judgmental eyes. This past week we did skits, or role-play. We only had 3 groups participate, but they were phenomenal. They used stories that have actually happened in our soum to make it that much more meaningful. They were so good they are going to present them at our parent’s day next month.

            So basically I had the best week I’ve ever had in Mongolia so far. What have you been up to this week?

            Hope your week was as baller as mine.

                      

                              Rojo

PS This next photo is a special treat for all of you who actually read this far down. Just look at all their faces. They love me. 

For almost every volunteer here in Mongolia, unless you are the naturally blessed curve-less petite whose doctor asks to gain weight, there comes a time when one of your friends calls you fat. Now it is not that they are being mean, but most people here are just naturally skinny, just like the ones most hate back in America. Granted America is known for being a fat country, and I have nothing against fat people, but man it doesn’t sting any less.

            I love this country and all the experiences and people I have met, but they are blunt and don’t really grasp the concept of offensiveness. I guess I should start from the beginning…

            In high school I was pretty average, except for large boobs, which to this day I am very proud of. They have taken me far. In college I gained the freshman 15-20 but not freshman year. It kind of all began when I could drink legally. I mean the liquor adds on the pounds and then I found out I was going into the Peace Corps so I started eating my favorite foods, healthy and not. And it added up. I left for Mongolia not at my ideal weight, but my clothes still fit and I didn’t consider myself obese. Being here has been a completely different story.

            Over the summer I hiked almost everyday for hours and my clothes actually started to feel loose. I can only hope and guess I probably lost about 10 pounds, which for me was awesome! I was in a new country, eating new foods, and losing weight. What more could I ask for!

            By August I moved to my soum where I originally lived with a host family, in their house, no privacy, no kitchen. Needless to say it was awkward because my mom was antisocial, even for Mongolian standards. (For those of you not here Mongolians don’t like to ask personal questions, just polite greetings). So it went for almost 2 months with me eating bread and soup over and over and over again. On the bright side one of my teachers and I ran in the mornings everyday for about a month until it was too dark and there were too many stray dogs to ward off.

            In October I moved into my ger and things got a little better. I had my own space, could cook my own food, ect. But going from using the elliptical 3-4 times a week to nothing doesn’t help. Time continued to pass with holiday feasts and birthday fiascos but nothing changed in my new lifestyle. I used to consider myself a fairly healthy person, but now I just don’t know.

            Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t view myself as obese, but overweight yes indeed. I would say I am in the chubby yet seductively curvy phase. The one benefit is that my ass has finally come into its own.  The approaching gut and muffin top I could do without.

            That about brings us to present day. I was having kind of an awesome day because one of my teachers who never lesson plans with me came over to plan two days in a row! With great ideas too I might add. I had just added some new old pictures from high school up in my ger and we were just chatting and talking about them. This is when she commented, and I quote, “Rojo was thin in high school, but now in Mongolia Rojo is fat.” Remember Mongolians think of fat as just a descriptive word and nothing more, so I laughed along and continued to be polite, but later that evening I couldn’t watch any of my tv shows with skinny stick people in then for fear of jealousy. So of course I watched my idol on “The Mindy Project.” Needless to say she is an inspiration for all normal sized people who aren’t ridiculously naturally twigs. I’m not bitter or anything. This was the point where I knew I could go no further.

            I know what you are thinking… Rojo why don’t you just get off your fully voluptuous ass and do something about it? Three problems arise with this quest. One: most Mongolians in my soum think it is weird and odd if you run or work out in public if you are not playing a sport. Most of them don’t need to so they don’t understand. Two: I hate working out alone. It is one of my many weaknesses and I have yet to find a way to accomplish it. I have P90X and Insanity but what fun is it if you do it alone in your ger, which has no windows and is somewhat depressing when working out. Three: I have no motivation. I look in my tiny mirror where you can see one body part at a time and think why don’t I work out all the time! But then that tiny voice pops into my head saying, why bother? It’s not like you are going out clubbing tonight or like anyone is going to see you naked for another year. The evil voice of laziness also keeps chiming in that I could always just get a personal trainer when I get back to the states, but I also want to have a rockin’ bod when I get back too.

            
           So here I am reaching out to all my friends, family, and random people my family has passed my blog to, who I don’t know or don’t remember but I’m sure you are all nice people (sorry for the profanity and racy language grandma), for advice, help, or encouragement of any kind. So I need help. And real help too. I don’t mean that bullshit of “oh, you’re perfect the way you are” “you are beautiful at any size” blah blah blah. I want to be in the prime of my physical fitness when I get back to America, but I can’t seem to get past my mind to reach serenity, or something like that that sounds like an inspirational quote. 

Sincerely the blonde, blue eyed, white, Peace Corps volunteer out in pursuing her dream of going from chubby to chunky to normal, and maybe even back to backup girl at the bar in case the hot girl turns you down status for when I get back.

Rojo