Lotus Center

Yesterday, Friday, we went to visit a place I am interested in volunteering at. It is called the Lotus Center, and is a home and school for street kids. We went to see their New Year Concert, and get an idea of what they are all about. It was an interesting time, sad and happy together. The center gives a home to about 130 children, from babies to 21 years old. Didi, the woman who started the center, told us many of them come from the police, who have picked them up on the streets. She said they are homeless for different reasons. Abuse and alcohol trouble in the family, divorce and neither parent wants the child, some she said they haven't been able to learn anything about where they came from or why. Some are developmentally disabled.

The concert was great and cute, lots of little ones running around in various costumes, and even a guy dressed up like santa - a mongolian santa! It was nice to see they were all having fun - i think about little kids being abandoned and having such a hard time in their short lives so far, and it makes me amazed at how they smile and laugh and grab your hand even though you're just a stranger visiting. Everyone was dancing at the end and a little boy grabbed my hand and led me to the cirlce to be included with everyone else. Some little tiny ones threw their arms around our legs in a hug as they passed by us. One of the older girls introduced herself in english and handed me the tiniest cutest little baby I've seen in a long time. It was adorable, like a petite little mongolian gerber baby, the kind that melts your heart and (almost) makes you want to start a family asap. :) She was 3 months old, the girl told me, and pointed out her mother. It was such a good baby, and just looked up and clayt and I and blinked, drooled, smiled a little, and fell asleep in my arms. I gave her back to her mother, all compliments on such a perfectly beautiful baby.

As we had lunch with Didi and some of the other workers, Didi told us that the mother of the baby was one of the street children. She also told us that the baby has a hole in her heart. She said they will have to take her out of the country for an operation. Didi said that most people can't afford that, and so their children die. And now I can't stop thinking about that little baby and worrying about her. Clayt says he understood that they were going to take care of her. So I feel relieved, but sad to know that there are more like that.

In general its a pretty nice facility with a large staff and a good amount of resources. So, we're undecided about volunteering there, if our help might stretch further at another, smaller place. we'll keep you posted.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Darkhan – “A place you wouldn’t rush to see”

That is what one of our guidebooks had to say about Darkhan. Saturday morning we left for our visit. Principal Ali told us to be ready by 8:30 a.m., and they would pick us up at home, and they didn’t show up until 10:15. So began our adventure. We should have seen the forshadowing happening there…

It was a full bus and noone talked too much. But that was ok. I used an old calling card to scrape frost off the window and enjoyed the scenery. Once we were outside the city (which took about 20 minutes) there was nothing. Just mountains and hills and valleys, lots of dried grass and rocks and dirt, not too many trees. We saw cows with horns, goats, sheep, and herdsmen. We saw people walking in the distance alone or in pairs sometimes, up or down a hill, or across a field, from nowhere and to nowhere, it seemed. We made a pit stop halfway there, and the first thing I noticed as we stood there in the cold was that the air was fresh. It was so nice to take big deep breaths of cool fresh air! We haven’t done that since we got here! Back in the van, and we were on the road again. The trip took about 3 and a half hours.

We got to Darkhan, which is the third largest city in Mongolia but smaller than Jamestown New York! Lots of square, Russian buildings. Clayt and I marvel at the lack of suburbs here. Usually if you live in an inner city highrise you do not have a view of a beautiful landscape. Here, they all do. Its apartments and then country. No Burbs, not yet. We went to Darkhan as the guests of our school Director and Principal, both Turkish. We were visiting a Turkish-Mongolian high school, as our school principal worked in Darkhan at this school for 8 years. We were given rooms in the dormitory, which is split – one side for girls, one side for boys. They let clayt and I room together though (which I think was an exception, as all the Turkish couples slept separately) on the girls side.

We went into a Ger (the traditional Mongolian house) for dinner that was on the school property. I suppose it was used for guests and special events. It was interesting inside, and warm and cozy. We fit 25 people inside! We had a traditional dish from Uzbekistan. It was rice and whole bulbs of garlic, whole lemons, and beef, and some other spices. It was really really delicious! what was interesting was that of 25 people in that little Ger, Vergie and I were the only women! After dinner, we returned to the dorm building, and I saw our school director’s wife, Fatima. She said the women were going to eat, and then when they returned there would be a program for us. The Turkish guys had invited clayton to go play sports in the gym building, so I was left alone in my room until the women returned from having their dinner.

The after dinner entertainment was unforgettable. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Fatima introduced Vergie and I to all the Turkish women and girls and their children, and told me they were all very interested to meet me, as some have seen me at our school and said I look very nice, because I am always smiling. So we talked, and I showed them my photo album from home. then came the program. It was run by a little Mongolian girl student, maybe in 10th grade. She first sang an english song for us, Avril Lavigne "Complicated" and then she asked for volunteers to play a game. It was musical chairs. I came in third place. Those ladies are hardcore about musical chairs! Then another girl performed a song in Turkish. Then it was time for another game. This time they tied 2 baloons to each of our feet (so we all had 4 baloons) and told us to try to pop each other's baloons. Last person with baloons left was the winner. Then they blared the music (shakira) and we got vicious. I came in second place, but in my defense one of my baloons fell off my foot. :) There was some more danicng and horsing around, including a game which included wrapping scarves around your head as fast as possible to avoid a punishment. Oh and then they fed us a huge plate of dessert foods and tea. Clayt came back from his sports activities and sat in exile in our room, listening to our shrieks of laughter.

The next morning I went to breakfast with the women, and clayt went with the men. I ate at one of the women's home, and clayt ate in the cafeteria. After breakfast we went on a city tour. That was the most fun. First we went to visit a great big statue of Buddah. We found this to be really funny, and a great story for the future. What did you do for chirstmas? Our christmas eve was spent visiting a Buddah statue with a group of Muslim men! Talk about an interfaith dailogue! We both took turns spinning this giant prayer wheel, which apparently symbolizes the whole world. You take one of the handles and walk around it, spinning the wheel as you walk, and make a wish. We made our wishes, and they both came true! Maybe we should aim higher next time. World peace, end hunger, etc.

After seeing buddah we went to a city museum. It was pretty cool, and fully of googly-eyed stuffed animals. It had some artwork, musical instruments, some buddhist stuff, a few weapons, and a lifesize Ger, cut in half. It took about only half an hour to get through everything.

Our last stop was at the top of a small mountain (hill?). We were in a minibus, and it got stuck a little more than halfway up the hill. So, we got out and walked the rest. Clayt and I are out of shape! We were really winded by the time we got up there. But the view was awesome. You could see the whole city if you looked one way, and nothing but mountains and more mountains if you looked another way. At the top of the hill we were on was a shaman rock pile, which was cool to see. Lots of rocks, and lots of sticks sticking out of the top with blue ribbons tied all over them. It was freezing cold up there, but as you can see from the photo below, I was doing ok. At least my top half was. I need a pair of pants made of the same stuff my coat is made of! You can also see clayt in front of our Darkhan city view.


After the city tour there was rest time and then dinner and a quiz game show. This was a contest between the teachers of their school and ours. Clayt was one of the players for our school, and our team won! But, we think they let us, to be hospitable. Then clayt got to also participate in a game of musical chairs, in which he also came in third place.

After the game, Ali asked us to talk to the school kids about studying English. First it was the girls group, then the boys. There were some great questions for us such as "What do you think about life?" "What is funny to you?" "what are your bad habits?" as well as predictions for our future offspring: 2 girls, 2 boys. Absolutely.

The next morning it was back to home after breakfast. As of yesterday we've been here one month, and coming back from Darkhan, our apartment felt more like home than before. We had missed our bed, our bathtub, our tiny oven. It was a good first trip outside of the city, short enough and comfortable enough to not overwhelm us with vastness and barrenness that is so much of mongolia.

Clayt's Comments on Cold - 12/29/06

So, I know we have really beaten the “cold” thing to death. But let me relate to you another story of the epic cold that is Mongolia. When we arrived people told us that it was unseasonably warm. They said, “it will get a lot colder than this.” They would then laugh the ominous, sadistic laugh of one who can’t wait to see your eyelids frozen shut. Now that cold has come.

Jessie wears her scarf over her mouth and nose (coupled with her hood she looks like a fashionable snow ninja), and ice continues to form on the outside of her scarf as she breathes. It is an interesting phenomenon. It literally takes us about five minutes to equip for a trip outside and five minutes to get all of our cold weather gear off. That’s a little annoying.

Changing gears just a little bit, did any of you ever see that movie “The Call of The Wild”, or is it “White Fang”, or some other Jack London-related movie. It’s the one where the guy kills the dog and slices it open just so he can put his hands inside it to keep warm while he walks. That used to seem ridiculous… until I did the same thing yesterday.

Well, OK, I didn’t do that, but I thought about it. All right, I was never too serious about it, and the sight of blood makes me queasy. Hopefully I am never in a survivor, kill-or-be-killed situation. If I am, just start making my funeral arrangements, because I will be dead.

On that note, have a happy New Year! Just remember, we’ll have celebrated it first. We are so advanced here. Bow down to our magnificence.

Bits and Pieces -- 12/25/06

Lots has happened and I keep remembering things that I forgot to mention before, so I apologize if this entry jumps around a little.

Backtracking a tad. Like I mentioned before, we had teacher-parent conferences a few weeks ago. Our school is one of the most expensive schools here, although we have yet to figure out why. Anyways, our students are very rich, or have very rich parents. One of our students, actually he is in clayton’s 6th grade class, has a very famous mother. They call her the Diva of Mongolia – she is the most famous singer in Mongolia. Clayton got to meet her on parent-teacher day. Unfortunately, he had to tell her some bad news about her son, as his English is very poor and he doesn’t participate in class at all. She didn’t seem surprised though. In fact, it was told to us through the small English-speaking grapevine that he is her son from a first marriage, and has another son from her current marriage, and apparently the second son gets all the attention and etc., while the boy in Clayton’s class lives in the dormitory, even though his parents live in the same city! So, if that’s true, it’s a little sad. It would also explain his lack of drive or interest in his studies, if he’s not getting the support he needs from home.

Last Thursday night we went to dinner with one of the other American teachers, her name is Sheridan and she’s our age, and married to a Mongolian. We went to an Indian restaurant; apparently it is one of the best restaurants in the whole city. We looked at the drink menu, and saw something we couldn’t say no to – tequila. How many people can say they drank shots of Tequila in an Indian restaurant in Mongolia? It was too funny to not do. They came with lemon wedges and salt around the glass rims even! The food was awesome too. Unfortunately, I had been sick for about a day and a half before then, and was sick on the walk home. As clayt and I like to gracefully state it, I did something we call “contributing to the street art.” I was still pretty sick the next day, but thankfully it was exam day, (more on that later) so I didn’t have to do too much. Clayt made me some chicken broth soup with rice and crackers, as I hadn’t eaten anything in over 24 hours, and then put me to bed. That was at 3 in the afternoon, and I slept for over 3 hours solid! When I woke up, I felt 100 percent better! Apparently it was just a little bug, as one of the other teachers had gone home sick the day before I got sick with something similar. It’s a little bit scary to feel sick in a place like this. You know when you are sick, like with a sinus infection or the flu, you feel awful and you do whatever you can (or someone does for you) to make yourself comfortable – dvds, medicine, doctor visit, comfy bed, etc. The whole time I was sick I was just worried that if I didn’t feel better – then what? The options are not great here, and we don’t even know how to access them here! I have no idea if they have general doctor’s offices here, or where to buy medicine, or how to say “please no needles” in Mongolian. (apparently hepatitis is a big problem here, and they recommend travelers to bring their own needles, which we didn’t do)…. anyways, clayt and I are fairly resilient and haven’t had any major health issues so far.

Ok, exam day. This is the last day of the term, where the students stay in their homeroom classroom all day (from 9-12:30) and take timed exams in each of the subjects they study. I have 2 homeroom classes, first and second grade. Clayt has 4th grade. Since clayt’s class is small, they combined it with another class for the exams and put clayt in charge of one of my classes. I wanted to sit with the first graders, as I knew they would need the most help and supervision. So, I get to my class, and get settled, and then the principle comes in and tells me there is assigned seating, and they are mixing the first and second graders together. that means clayt and I both had to explain 2 different sets of directions to kids in English, who can’t hardly understand us in the first place. Secondly, they gave us bubble sheets for the kids to fill in. The first and second graders had no clue. I had almost gotten my students on the right page and had gotten them all to write their names on the tops, when the principle came in again and said never mind the bubble sheets, maybe they will be too hard for the small students. Mind you, this was all during the time they were supposed to be using to take their math exams. So, we got rid of the bubble sheets. Apparently the first and second graders have never taken a multiple choice exam before. Which isn’t that surprising, since the first graders can’t even read yet! I spent most of my time trying running from one student to another, trying to make them understand how to take the test. Some circled 2 answers, some circled all four, and some circled the number of the question!!! some drew pictures next to their names. It was really confusing to clayton and I how they expected the first graders to take science and computer tests that were multiple choice, when they can’t even read the questions. it will be interesting to see how they grade these exams. It was cute to watch the little ones take their tests though. During the math section there was a lot of counting on fingers. No shame in that, right?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

so here we are, at our weekly fun friday night activity -- sitting at the internet cafe trying to take care of business on really slow computers. Tomorrow we leave for Darhan, they are going to pick us up at 8:30 a.m., and it will be a three hour ride. We are both really excited to see whats out beyond the city, but we have heard bad things about the road we will be travelling. That is, it is a road in poor condition. The old director of our school last year was travelling on that road and was in a car accident and then passed away in the hospital. Don't worry, we will be on a bus with a local driving (which is helpful) and if there are seatbelts you can be sure that clayt and i both will be wearing them!

This next week we are teaching english at the school tuesday through thursday, to help the kids who are a little behind. So, hopefully while we are at the school we will be able to post a few pictures on this site for you, as there will be less people at the school clogging up the connection.

Before we left the states, we got a calling card (thanks Kim and Dave!!!) but after we got here we found we can't use it. I thought we could post the info here and you guys could use it to call us, as I know it must not be cheap. It is a 600 minute calling card, and its been used only once. the infor is below:
Call: 1-888-879-6330, Pin: 310-904-1197. Press 1 for English, and then press 2 to call outside of the US.

This was our last week of classes for this term. On tuesday our school had their christmas concert. It was an interesting affair. Pretty disorganized and chaotic (apparently noone thought a dress rehearsal might be a good idea) but everyone had a good time. Clayt was dressed up as santa, and the kids loved it. People wanted their picture taken with him, and the little ones either ran away from him, hugged him, or punched him in the stomach (my good first grade boys). He had a felt suit which he roasted in, and a homemade beard/mustache combo, and a hat with hair attached (it looked like white cotton ball dreds, like he was a rastafari santa) and we stuffed his top to give him a plumper stomach, but had to try hard to get it to not look like man-boobs. It was great. The kids for the most part knew right away that it was clayton, despite his protests. The highlight of the show, in my opinion, was when clayt had to go up on stage to give out awards to kids. As he went to step up onto the stage, he pretended to trip and fell into a forward roll. Everyone loved it! The students the next day were saying, Clayton teacher, you are santa clause! and they would tell me, Clayton teacher did this! and then they would demonstrate a trip and fall. It was cute.

Monday afternoon we went shopping to find a pair of boots for me, as my feet have been freezing here, even with thermal socks and whatnot. So I wanted to find a pair of the nice fuzzy lined boots that all the girls here wear. We were in a store looking at boots when an old man dressed in the traditional garb -- the felt dress coat thing and the colorful wrap around the waist and a big furry hat -- came up to clayton and started talking to clayt in mongolian. He asked, "Ruski?" we said, Nyet. And he talked some more and clayt said America, Washington DC and the guy said some stuff and laughed a lot. Then he shook clayt's hand, and then gave him a big hug, and then left. He turned and waved goodbye before he walked out the door.

The food here is interesting. I mean, there are plenty of foods familiar from home, but there are so many strange things we see each time we go to a grocery store. The meat department is what always gets us. There is no freezer aisle. There may be one standup freezer at the most. And that is in the more modern grocery stores. Those that are more like indoor markets have just tables set up with raw, unwrapped meat in piles. They have a table for lamb, beef, chicken and fish. The strangest thing we see in most of the grocery stores are the pigs and lambs heads wrapped in saranwrap. They still have their eyes, ears, teeth, everything! There are also lots and lots of cow tounges for sale. We have been searching for some tuna fish, but so far have only found cans with pictures of cute little lambs on them. Lamb in a can? we haven't felt that hungry yet. :) Then just 2 days ago we came home from school and walked into our apartment building to find a huge pile of meat (ok, animal carcasses, no skin, lots of bone) sitting outside of the elevator. It was piled probably as high as my chest, and on the top of the pile was something wrapped tightly in tarp and rope, and was distinctly shaped like a pig. feet and snout and all. The thing we notcied while we stood uncomfortably close to the meat mountain in our narrow hallway waiting for the elevator was that it wasn't frozen meat, wasn't wrapped, and was just sitting on the dirty nasty floor in the common area where everyone walks and spits. We are almost vegetarians at this point. Almost, but now quite. We don't cook much meat at home, as when we go to shop for meat we usually end up getting too grossed out to buy anything. Actually, I convinced clayt to buy 3 chicken legs last week. It was our first meat purchase. They were semi-frozen, not wrapped, but at least in a closed freezer thing. They are still in our freezer at home. Don't know if we will try them or not.

Gotta go now, but there's more to tell! It will have to wait for after our weekend Christmas trip. Hope you all have a great holiday and we'll be thinking of you.

Senbeno! (Hello!)

ok, so i just fell asleep at the internet cafe waiting for my computer to load this page so i can post a blog entry for you! We are going after school tomorrow to possibly get internet set up at home. Not faster, but then we will be able to call you guys using the net and it will be lots cheaper. We looked for more international calling cards today, and they were 8 minutes for $3, with no way to add more time. So, we said no thanks.

Quick note: here are our email addresses in case you need to contact us:
jsm.linguist@gmail.com
benign_indifference@yahoo.com

also, if you want to send us anything, you have to send it to the school, as we don't have an actual address for mail at our apartment. it would probably never reach us. to add to the list of nice things to get from home:
hair ties, kids storybooks, coloring books, US wall maps, markers, spices -- we can't find spices anywhere! (oregano, basil, cinnamon, onion powder, crushed pepper, etc.), colored paper, english grammar books, hmmm... thats all i can thiks of this time.

Lots has been happening here, and there is lots to tell you. This past saturday was a parent-teacher conference day at our school. Clayt and I both have never done this before. It was interesting to meet the parents of some of our students. They were receptive to the things we said, which is good. I was especially worried about meeting the parents of my 10th grade students, as there are 22 of them and I've only been here 2 weeks and don't know any of their names yet! But ut went well in general. The father of a girl in my second grade class said, "when the old teacher left (the one i replaced, she is on maternity leave) my daughter cried a lot, as she loved her teacher. But then she met you and now she is happy again and says she likes you even better." what a nice compliment!

and i'd like to take a moment to give elementary teachers a LOT of credit. Clayt and I are both exhausted some days because our students are energetic, very talkative, apparently hard of hearing, and tough to keep on task and off of each other. :) elementary school teachersw must all be saints.

Yes, at the end of this week we are going on a 3 day trip with the Turkish folks at our school. The city we will visit is called Darhan, but when they say it it sounds like Darkhan. Its north of here and there is another Turkish school in that city which we will visit. Seems like it will be fun, if for nothing other than the fact that we would love to see whats over these mountains that surround the city. When we flew in to Mogolia, it was pitch black so we haven't seen anything outside of the city yet.

We opened a bank account here, and on friday we went back to the bank to get the bankcard. We really feel like locals now. well, sort of. Anyways, the bank card has my photo on the back, and on the front under the card number is just my first name and middle initial! Its really strange, and i wonder if they just don't have any other customers named Jessica and figured that was enough? I don't know.

Yesterday after our parent meetings, we went to a fundraiser sort of thing, for scholarships for poor students who can't afford tuition at the turkish schools. It was kind of like a bake sale. It was all traditional turkish foods, so of course we loaded up on all of our favorites and even tried a few new things. After that we went to the student dorm building (more on that below) and played ping-pong with one of the dorm directors, Mehmet. He is the one who took us shopping our first weekend here when our luggage hadn't arrived yet. He's really good, so it was fun to play with him. Apparently he won a gold medal for ping pong in russia when he was 19. Its fun to say we played ping-pong with a gold medalist! He beat both of us easliy, and he said he wasn't playing well that day! :)

Clayt and I have been assigned dorm study hall duty, as most of the teachers are assigned one night. We have wednesday night, and we sit in their study hall room and help them with homework if they have any questions. There are almost 30 boys living at the dorm house, which is not too far from our apartment. It used to be a hotel, and during the day while the boys are in school, they use the main hall room for sort of a daycare for the children of the turkish teachers.

Thursday night Ali, the school director, alled us at home and invited us to his house to visit and meet his wife and son. So of course we said yes! His wife is really friendly and speaks english very well. Their son, Ahmet, is 2 years old and so cute. Ali's wife made us plates of Turkish desserts and tea, and we talked about cooking and she wants to teach me how to cook a few things. Maybe i will give it a try, as its never to late to start something new, right? :) It was nice to see their apartment, which is nice, but actually similar to ours. Same thin carpeting on the floor, same style, with funky wallpaper and everything, just like ours. I was suprised, as I thought the director of the school would have such a posh setup. He also said that in his district, like a neighborhood, most of the turkish people in the city live. He said they had wanted to find us an apartment in their neighborhood, but weren't able. Apparently the contract for our apartment is up in June, and he said they will move us then to their neighborhood hopefully. This is a suprise to us, but also kind of exciting. This means we will get to experience 2 apartments here, and 2 neighborhoods, etc. Seems like it will be a good thing.

Last night we went out with 2 of the other teachers (it was supposed to be 3, but we lost someone in the process of meeting up) and one of the teacher's husband, who is mongolian. We went to a pub first, and ejoyed sitting at really short tables drinking Cass beer (korea's finest) sitting under a really big fishtank built into the wall. There was one bathroom in the whole place (one i mean unisex, one toilet) and there was no toilet seat and no toilet paper and water (i hope) all over the floor. So we got to meet locals while waiting to use the restroom. People either tried to speak english to us or tried to cut us in line. Cutting is a big problem here, and they do it to every and anyone, without shame. After 3 or 4 beers there, we went to a nightclub called "Hollywood" and danced (me and the other 2 teachers, clayt and the other husband sat and talked of course) to 50 Cent and house techno music. A russian guy and mongolian lady (together married or something, not sure) started dancing with us, and for the next 20 minutes he kept trying to speak to me in russian, even though I kept saying nyet, american! nyet, american! then his woman would try to explain to me in mongolian. finally, we just had a dance-off (we all had pretty sweet moves), shook hands, and parted ways. It was a fun night.

In ulaanbaatar there are a lot of homeless children. we have heard about how they live in the sewer, and there are uncovered manholes everywhere, but hadn't seen any until yesterday. we were walking to the busstop to meet our friends and there in one of the manholes was a little boy sticking his head and hand out, asking for money or food, i don't know. Its a really strange, sad and scary thing to see. I just want to take them home and feed and bathe them. Clayt and I have started to look into volunteer opportunities here, and I just recentlty got an email back from one of the homeless children centers. So, hopefully i can call them this week and get involved somehow.

ok, last bit of info for today. Things here are generally cheap! Just wanted to give you an idea about that. Here are some prices:

Internet cafe - 1 hour for less than $.50
bus to anywhere in town - about $.20 for the nice bus, per person
taxi -- about $.25 per mile (and every car here is a taxi, its true!)
dinner at a nice restaurant with very big portions and drinking american sodas -- $10
breathing in horribly polluted air everytime you step outside -- priceless. :)

more soon! people here are very excited about New Years, as they don't celebrate Chirstmas. But, they celebrate New Years with lots of chirstmas decorations and Christmas trees. If you are rich here you can buy a fake christmas tree of any size and literally any color. The brighter the better. We've seen full sized neon orange christmas trees, as well as lime green, purple, electric blue, hot pink...but not too many evergreen. Weird.

You Daunt Me...

OK, so subtitling on movies here is a little ridiculous (not to mention the english phrases you'll find on consumer goods). I saw a clip of the movie "Cars" in which on car said to another (in subtitles) "You Daunt me!" I wonder if anyone has ever daunted me? Maybe before I leave Mongolia, I will be daunted. One of my fellow teachers is married to a large Mongolian man. He challenged me to a wrestling match when we go out tomorrow for drinks. If he was serious, I may be daunted. It depends on how much I drink.

Jessica and I are settling in nicely. We have a two-week break coming up and we are taking a brief trip with some of the Turkish teachers. We are going to a town about 80 km north... I can't remember the name. Ask Jessica for that. I look forward to getting out of the city for a little while.

I was asked today to play Santa at the holiday concert at the school. I guess I have the girth for it, and maybe the pedigree. We'll see how I do. The christmas spirit here is a little frenetic, but less acquisitive, so I guess that is a good thing. I haven't seen any De Beers commercials telling people that a diamond is better than saying I love you, so that is comforting.

Anyway, I'll let you know how the wrestling match goes...

Quick Comment

We asked at the school today and they said if you are going to send us things via snail mail, then send them to the Postal address. If you are going to use FedEx or something like that, then use the Physical address.

We went to the grocery store and we were able to buy 2 american movie DVDs (one still in the theatres!) for less than 5 dollars! I got Babel and Clayt got Talledega Nights. :) So let me know before you spend $9 each to see a movie in the theatre, I'll check it out and let you know if its any good... just another advantage of living in the future... we are so advanced... :)

Hearing from You!

Salih said he was able to call using 00976 before our number. It apparently works, because he was able to talk to us! We got calling cards finally on friday night, but they are a tad expensive, so until we find a better deal, our calls to the US will probably be limited.

This is the physical address of the school:
Ulaanbaatar Elite International School
UC 15, 8th khoroo, Bayanzurkh district, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

This is the Postal Address:
Ulaanbaatar Elite International School
P.O. Box 32 / 1 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

here's the phone too, just in case. Most people at the school speak english, if you ever need to get a hold of us in an emergency: Tel: +976 - 11 - 462606

We will clarify this week with the school which address you should use. I imagine it can't hurt to put both, but we will double check to see.

If you want to send us things from home, here is a tiny list of what we are missing at this point:

franks red hot sauce (that's for clayt)
stickers of any shape and size, our students are addicted to stickers
kids books -- easy paperback short english stories like fairytales or disney stories
american movies/dvds.
anything else you can think of that we can't right now. :)

more soon! we are waiting for a memory stick from the states to arrive before we can post photos. Hope you are all enjoying lots of holiday music, traffic and chaos. :)

PHONE NUMBERS!

Our home number is 456439.
Our Cell number is 999-361-72.

I don't know yet how to actually call these numbers from america. But, if you are resourceful, you should be able to type country code into google and find the country code for Mongolia. That will be dialed before our number. More info soon!

My Two Cents

Yep, its really cold. there are packs of dogs wandering about, and this morning as we walked to our bus stop, we cheered on a little puppy who dared to try to cross the street, me cheering/wincing while covering my eyes with my mittens to avoid seeing him squashed. He made it, thankfully or not.

Our apartment has a small kitchen, a living room a bedroom, and a bathroom split into two rooms. One is the size of a closet, and has just the toilet. The other has the bathtub (super deep, which is nice for hot baths) and the sink. The faucet for the sink swivels and is also the faucet for the bath. We have 2 front doors back to back, which is strange but makes us feel secure. All of the rooms have doors which is nice because we carry the space heater into whichever room we are in and shut the doors to trap as much heat as possible in with us.

Clayt is doing as good a job as can be expected with the tiny easy-bake sized oven in the kitchen. The food is pretty ok, and we are both big fans of the creamy cheese spread we've found to spread over our fake ritz crackers. There's lots of american stuff here in the city, I mean as far as brand names go -- halls cough drops, twix candy bars, and glade air spray.

The school is interesting. It is actually 2 schools in one building, and the school we work for is on the 4th floor. So after arriving to school with our bags and all our layers of clothing on, we climb four flights of stairs to start our day. The kids are great and terrible all at the same time. They are crazy and difficult to control, but so cute and lovable. They aren't afraid to run up to either of us and give us big hugs, and its only our third day! We can talk more about the school later, there is so much to tell! Importantly, we're enjoying it so far. Oh and all the 10th and 11th graders love the Pussycat Dolls. Great.

Jetlag has been a seroius problem for us (ok not that serious, not life threatening or anything) but i think we've finally got the hang of it. The first 5 days we fell asleep at like 6-7 pm and were waking up at 4 in the morning! Last night we were finally able to make ourselves stay up until 10, and that was all thanks to an awesome movie on tv in English (an american made for tv movie i think) called "Hercules." Shaun Astin was in it. Lots of terrible special effects, predictible plotline, we were hooked.

ok, enough of the boring details for now. sorry, thats my style, clayt writes the witty and thoughtprovoking things. deal with it. :) The mountains here are amazing. It makes me so happy every morning when I get to see the sun rise over the mountains and everything is pink and orange and i can see little smoke billows coming from the gers, it seems like a scene from a movie -- definitely a technicolor movie.

We have a phone in our apartment and a mongolian cell phone number, but I forgot to bring them with us to the internet cafe today. so I will post them soo, and hopefully will also post some help for how to call. And photos will come soon too. Remember when calling, we are 13 hours in the future. Don't act like you're not impressed. :)

The Eagle Has Landed

OK, so we finally made it to Mongolia. It is cold. It has earned its reputation. When you first hit the air (-22 when we came in at 7 am Dec 1), it feels like you've jumped into a swimming pool that is a lot colder than you expected. And it keeps feeling like this. Don't breath through your nose. With each breath you can feel all moisture inside freeze. Jessica said it feels like breathing in icicles. So there is that.

We've had very little internet access since we've been here, and our phone bill was apparently unpaid upon arrival, so our contact with the outside world has been non-existent. We've just found this little internet cafe near our house, so I assume we'll be posting from here. We'll get some pictures up as soon as we can. Suffice it to say that Ulaanbaatar is not a bastion of cleanliness and beauty. It does have its rugged charm though. Part of that Charm is that even the locals think it is something of a hell hole. I am excited to see the pristine countryside, for which everyone opines throughout the harsh winter.

Our apartment is interesting. I'll get into that more a bit later. Someone has spraypainted the following message on the side of the building:

Life is a death, death is a ...

I really wish they could have completed the puzzle. He probably just got to cold standing there pondering it and headed for one of the bar/car repair shops nearby.

Semi-Important Information

This is the website address of the school we will be teaching at:

http://www.ueis.edu.mn/

At the bottom of the main page, there is the mailing address for the school, as well as the phone and fax number. If you need to get a hold of us and can't via email, this is your "Plan B." We will also be using the school address as our mailing address. So all of you kind folks that want to send care packages, this is the address to mail to.

Also, we just learned recently what our teaching assignments will be, and the schedule looks like this:

1.grade 10 hours per week ( 10 students) :Jessica

2.grade 10 hours per week ( 9 students) : Jessica

4. grade 8 hours( 5 students) :Clayton

5.grade 8 hours ( 5 students):Clayton

6.grade 8 hours ( 6 students) :Clayton

10.grade 4 hours ( 22 students):Jessica

11.grade4 hours ( 14 students) : Jessica

So I get 28 hours and week and Clayt gets 24. Not bad! Everything is falling into place, slowly but surely. Our car has been deemed a "total loss" after the accident, which works out great for us -- no more car payments! And, after much distress and worrying, we learned last night that our wonderful friends Paul and Tia are moving into a new apartment and they will be taking our cats! We are so excited and grateful for this! They've promised to send us photos of them every month (was that a joke?) -- anyways, everything is going great. so far.

Goodbye Hedmans!

well, actually, we will see them this coming Sunday, but this past weekend was our last official visit to their home in Charlottesville. We brought Kazu with us, and he enjoyed the all-american experience. We had a big early thanksgiving dinner, went for a walk in the woods, took turns shooting a paint-ball gun, and playe d a hardcore game of badmitten, where small children mocked the failure of their own teammates. All in all, another awesome time. See photos below for proof!

Saying Goodbyes, Part 2

Saying Goodbyes, Part 1

So this past weekend was our goodbye weekend for Hilton. It involved all the great things we will misss for a year: stuffed shells made by dad, drinking beers and playing pool with dad and brian, spending time with mom and kevin, visiting with my big brother and his family, watching cable tv and sleeping in a real bed. :) This weekend its off to Jamestown for another round of goodbyes.

Here is Brian and Clayton at the fine Arlington Restaraunt Bar, in downtown Hilton.


Here I am enjoying a rest in the jungle during our thrilling game of billiards. best part -- this is at the Hilton Bowling Alley.


Here's dad, me and brian, all trying to look tall in front of the house.


me, mom and kevin at mom's house. Helen, the woman who lives with them, is out of view, asking Clayton for the 5th time how long we will stay in Mongolia (she's 96 years old.)


clayt and me with my big brother's kids -- nelson, sara and rachel.


Clayton here is taking advantage of an unhappy looking pumpkin. This is in the Willow Inn parking lot, in Hilton, after we ate our last Willow Burgers.


Here's Brian and I, looking good and feeling great at the Arlington Restaraunt.


Sorry this alot of photos and not a lot of text. We wanted to include some photos from our last month home on this blog too, because we will look at it too when we feel homesick and want to see your familiar faces! Only 20 days left! We finally have our health reports back from the doctor, and tomorrow will send them along to Mongolia, and they will begin our Visa processing, Everyday the apartment becomes more empty. The landlord told us today also that our apartment has been re-rented, which is good nes for us! It appears that everything is working out well so far. Lets keep our fingers crossed until our feet touch land in Mongolia!

Backtracking to this past weekend...

We had a great Halloween! A bunch of us went to a house party and then out to a bar in DC where we danced like maniacs. Just wanted to share the photos with you. Clayt and Paul were sorority sisters, Tia was a cat and I was supposed to be a nerd but everyone thought I wasl Velma. Also, several people asked me if i was supposed to be Ugly Betty. !!! No Comment.

the photo below is one of my former students from Japan, we helped him celebrate his first American Haloween. So, this is a photo of him at the bar with a guy dressed up as...read the name tag.......its just SO wrong...but a little funny?

Mongolia? You know its freezing there, right?

So, this is our first attempt at a blog. We'll see how it goes. Hmmm... i feel a little bit of pressure to say profound and insightful things, but for starters i'll just give some facts and ongoings with us right now.

Someone is coming to look at our apartment tonight in an hour and a half. So, naturally, i'm slacking a little when i should be cleaning out the cat box or something. Our apartment is so empty right now. I'll have to post before and after photos for you. We had a yard sale on saturday, and departed with many random items we have accumulated over the 5 years we've lived in this area. It feels weird and still doesn't seem real that in 29 days from now we're going to be on an airplane on our way to Mongolia.

BEFORE:


AFTER:



So, for the sake of those who didn't hear the whole story and just to recap, lets start at the beginning. Clayton and I want to join the Peace Corps. Once you are nominated for an assignment in a specific country, it usually takes about a year before you leave to begin your service. So, clayt and i decided that we should try to do something in that year. Nominations happen every three months, and the most recent nomination cycle is happening right now. This means if we are nominated this time, we would head somewhere else in about a year. If we are not nominated (they say only 40% of couples are nominated the first time) then it will be even longer before we go.

Clayt and i applied to teach English in a few different schools, in Turkey, Japan, China and Mongolia. We actually got in touch with this school through one of our friends Salih, who sent an email out to some turkish schools in various places, asking if they needed english teachers. then salih gave us the school director's email, and told us to send our resumes.

So, things progressed from there. We had to do some negotiating about the length of the contract, but in the end we agreed to something that satisfied everyone. Our contract is for one year. They will pay for our airfare, they will pay us a monthly salary, and they will also pay for our furnished apartment. Not bad!

We got our tickets in the mail yesterday -- we fly from DC to NY to Moscow to Ulaanbataar. Its only a total of 17.5 hours of flying, but we also have 10 hours of layover time. We leave november 29 at 2:30 pm and arrive December 1 at 6:30 a.m.

ok, thats all for now. I'll have clayt do the next posting and hopefully he will have something more exciting to say.
-- jessica