I cannot even begin to describe how incredibly happy I am. Granted the highs and lows here are inevitably crazy and unpredictable but I have definitely been having some great moments.

            Most of these moments had to do with practice teaching. Because my students were so young I decided to take the song approach to most of my lessons. We decided to focus on westernized holidays for the last week and one of the first was Valentine’s Day. I solo taught this lesson and killed it! We made Valentine’s Day cards and learned the Barney I Love You song. I told all of my students that we were going to sing it the next day. And when they did they knew all the words! It was adorable and made me feel like they were actually enjoying what they were learning.

            My second favorite moment was definitely our Halloween lesson on the last day of class. We started out by introducing all the different kinds of costumes each person typically wears and then we all proceeded to make our Halloween masks. I had my kids line up single file and come knock on the imaginary door to play pretend trick-or-treat. Each student went up and knocked on the creaky door and said trick-or-treat and then described what they were. Only after did they get the candy and they surprisingly got really into it. I was surprised by almost all of my students. They had a willingness and want to learn, even the youngest and unfocused kids of the bunch.

            Our last week of the summer we had family appreciation day and I was able to sing a bit of the Mongolian song I learned from my host family. William and I also made homemade deviled eggs, which were scarfed down because of how delicious they were.

            The last week I was in SukhBaatar was a blur. We went hiking everyday, finished our language classes, and our host siblings even threw us a surprise going away party. It was adorable. They even made us a vegetable cake because one of my site-mates is allergic to gluten. I was extremely sad to leave my family but excited to continue on this amazing journey.

            We finally headed to Darkhan for final center days where I learned I will be living in Bayankhongor Aimag (State), Bogd Soum (town). I will be living with a host family too! I am one of two volunteer out of all 87 of us who is living with a host family. I even found out that they have a heard of camels and participate in the annual winter camel race! They have a 6 year old son and a 1 year old daughter so I will definitely have my hands full. And now I am extremely thankful I have had experience nannying for so many years! Needless to say I am excited. But truth be told I am dreading the first week or so of inevitable awkwardness. The last few days of final center days I was able to meet my supervisor who is also my school director. She is adorable and calls me jijik jenny (small jenny) because the previous volunteer was Jenny. My soum is 5 hours away from the closest other volunteer which makes me a bit nervous but I know I will love it. I cannot even portray my emotions because I don’t even know myself.

            Not only did I get the site placement of my dreams but my 22 birthday was the cherry on top of the best summer I have had in some time. It started when entering the breakfast room my new aimag-mate, April, and my old soum volunteer, Jenny, surprised me with a piece of cake! Now this may not seem like much, but here that means you’re love, a lot! The day continued and by the end I was exhausted. I was able to celebrate that evening at the hotel with many other volunteers and I was surprised to receive my favorite beverages, watermelon, Pringles, bread, and even a solar shower! To see that this many people cared about me after only 2.5 months of knowing who I was is amazing and warms my heart.

            The next day we were off to UB and it was a madhouse. We are all staying in a universities dorms and it seems like I will never escape college. We were able to walk around for a short period, but it was mostly all of us lugging our baggage, including our winter bag up 9 flights of stairs due to having only one working elevator.

            But it was all worth it for today we swore in. I can now say I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! The ceremony was beautiful at the American Ambassadors’ Fortress, and yes that is what it is called. I was expecting a mote, but alas there was none.  I sang a beautiful Mongolian song called Mini Ardin Setgen Tsagaan with another volunteer, Bud. It loosely means my peoples hearts are pure. I was crazy nervous but received endless complements afterwards. One of our Mongolian trainers even came up to me and said the song made her cry. It was amazing to see so much support. And of course my supervisor was surprised and amazed to see I had a singing voice and decided I will sing on the first day of school. By now I am not surprised by these little things Mongolians assume.

            I fly out early tomorrow morning, 3:30 am, and am off to my soum! Unfortunately I don’t believe I will have internet for the next three months but I will try my best. I am attaching my new address just in case you want to be old school and send me a letter. Also I hear my new counterparts love American candy so feel free to send anything you would like. Lastly, if you do send anything I would love a picture of whoever you are and me or just you, doesn’t really matter, to show my new friends and family who you are!

            Much love from Mongolia!

I am so sorry this is so late but it has been crazy here! Mid-Center days were a blast! It was great seeing everyone, but I am very happy to get back to teaching. We went over a lot of safety and security information, which was helpful, but I am glad to be back in the real world and away from our peace corps bubble.

Naadam was amazing! My family had their own ger where we sold hoosher, a fried meat hot pocket type food, and soda. And man did they make bank! On the second day they even let me inside to help a bit when it was really busy! Naadam flew by too. We were able to see the ending of the horse races, wrestling, and archery. Not going to lie though it was a bit anticlimactic. Don’t get me wrong it was a blast, but I should have known that it would have been more Mongolian time zone than the fair-like atmosphere I was expecting. We even had a concert in the square where I sang my heart out without knowing any of the words. It was interesting to see the aftermath of Naadam as well. Even though the holiday technically ended on Friday stores were closed for most of the next week. Naadam ended with a bang too! We went to a concert in the middle of the town square where I danced and sang with Khatnaa, making up the words as I went along of course. We even created a dance circle at the end of it made up of a mixture of Mongolians and Americans.

Over the weekend we decided to go on an adventurous hike with CYD as well as TEFL. It turned out to be less adventure and more swimming, but it was a blast. We found the perfect tanning spot, but two Mongolian government workers told us we could not be up there. At first we thought we were in trouble because they were leading us somewhere unknown, but it turned out they were taking us to an epic swimming spot! I even jumped in with them! They were very surprised that we could all swim too, which was amusing. The water was skeptical but extremely refreshing. After a full day of tanning, swimming, and socializing I was happy to be home with my family. Sunday turned into one of those stay at home and never get out of bed except to pee days. I was a little down in the dumps just because the past couple of days had been so eventful. I have noticed too that I get homesick whenever I watch American movies, so I am consciously trying to listen to music as an alternative.

Last week went crazy fast as well. We began team teaching and not going to lie it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I imagined. For micro-teaching I had the more advanced students and it was fun, easy, and successful. This time around I have the lowest level students, ages 8-11. They are adorable and eager, but I never imagined it would be this hard to teach young students. I have been having trouble thinking of new and creative activities that they would understand how to do. The first week we focused on family. I found that the most successful lessons were the ones centered around vocabulary, which is great because it is the best to teach in my opinion because there are so many different things you can do. Overall it went fairly well and one of my students even gave me a lollipop! Friday came just in time. We even learned the Mongolian waltz, and I cannot wait to actually use it when I go to site.

It seems as though it is just a waiting game now for our site placement. Everything we are working on goes toward what we will be doing for the next two years, but the ironic part is that we have no idea what our circumstances will be. Everyday I get more and more excited, and more and more anxious. It is strange to know your future but nothing about what it will entail.

This weekend flew by as well. Everyday keeps going faster and faster. But I will never get tired of the beauty of this country. On Saturday I was able to go across the river with my sister and mom to visit my aunts ger. It was amazing. I don’t think I have seen anything so open and beautiful. There is simply no other way to explain it. Vastness is not the right word, but it is the first one that comes to mind. My sister and I wander the grounds and she even goes swimming for a bit. After we head back so I have enough time to shower before my interview with Darlene, the country director. The interview goes great! She is so relaxed and it was like I was speaking to a friend. This alone just brightens my day. Darlene is the type of person who could inspire anyone with two sentences. She is the type of person I aspire to be. If I could have just one quality of Darlene I would be happy. She has such a good outlook, a mix of positivity with realism and so much more.

Sunday was rough because my family’s grandfather passed away. It was hard to understand the way they deal with loss here, especially because I do not have the language to communicate that kind of sympathy yet. I ended up going into town for most of the day just to not be a burden on their family in such a difficult time. This definitely made me think of my grandfather and thankful that he is with my everyday in spirit. I know that I am blessed to have had such an influential grandfather and I hope that he is looking down on me with joy and pride. I miss him everyday, but know that he is smiling and waiting for me with a big bowl of ice cream he used to sneak me as a child. Love you Pop-pop.

The next couple of days have been interesting. Teaching has still been rough, harder actually because I have been more ambitious than usual. The ironic thing is that my lesson plans will probably be great for site, but are just too complex for my current younger students. A ger and tent popped up in my grandparents haasha, or yard, and my whole family is there cooking, crying, and reminiscing. Many people come and go throughout the day paying their respects to my grandmother and eating. I have definitely noticed that most events here revolve around food, and brings people together like nothing I have ever seen. I have tried to be as helpful as possible, but there is only so much I can do. It is amazing how strong my host mom is. She still goes about all of her daily activities as well as cooking for hundreds of people.

But the adventure continues on. I am now called RoJo in class, even my teachers have started to call me that too. I guess I will never outgrow nicknames, even in Mongolia. Life is good and beautiful and precious. I know I sound corny but when I am living simply, I tend to think simply as well. I could not be happier with my choices and my place in life. I wish you all the same. 

 

beautiful view from my haasha

 

Hike Dancing Adventures

 My city 

 

My hike dancing partner in crime

 

Tanning is a legitimate sport here

 Still can't get over this view

 

Carnivals Somewhat Exist here

 Naadam

 

Opening Ceremony

 My sister and I

 

My friends :)

 

Wrestling 

 

More dance hiking

 

I can row a boat. Be Jealous

 FROG!

 My sister, Khatnaa

 

Dead dog we found on our hike

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