Some More Photos

Here are 2 nice photos of sunset as seen from our living room window. Can you imagine how it looks in the countryside, without all of the buildings and smog in the way?



This is a picture of our apartment building from the outside. Our living room and bedroom look out the opposite way, we are on the 8th floor, so just a little below the crane you see.


This a picture of one of the many road obstacles we encounter - a giant rock or piece of concrete, just in the middle of the road. Yes, thats a road. So if there's a car coming the other way and we are in a taxi coming home, we must wait for the other car to get around the big rock first. The potholes here make the winter western NY potholes look miniscule.


this is my favorite cereal here. Its like kix, but chocolate. And they don't need any flashy name, they just call it how they see it - although clayt and i are wondering why on 2 different types of cereal of this kind here there are rabbits involved in the making of the little round brown balls... i don't care, they taste yummy. :)

Mongolia is great...for getting sick!

Yes, as of today we have been in Mongolia for 2 months now. Its the longest either of us has ever been out of the country. I am at home today, with a day off thanks to a case of "severe tonsillitis." I know, several of you have said it seems like I've been sick most of the time since I got here, and I suppose its true. Don't ask me why. Clayt says it has something to do with Natural Selection at work, but I'm trying my best to fight it.

It started saturday morning, and that night I let my friend Sheridan see my throat. She said oh gross, that is NOT good. And then her mongolian husband had a look, and then asked if he could take a picture of it. and i had a fever. So, the school doctor came on sunday afternoon, looked at my throat, looked horrified and said things under her breath in Mongolian, and then asked to look again, and then looked horrified again. So I went to work yesterday, but I couldn't really talk above a whisper.

By now I was pretty miserable as I hadn't been able to eat anything solid (and very little liguid) since saturday night. So the school doctor took me and clayt to the hospital. The hospitals here are very interesting. First of all, I don't think there is any appointment system, and again no lines or waiting your turn. I've been to 2 different hospitals so far (I went to the russian hospital for my pink eye a while back and this time it was a korean hospital) and they had pretty much the same sort of system. There are doors with pictures over them for the different types of doctors. Like a picture of an eyeball, or and ear, or an x-ray, so you know which door you need to get into. Then you wait outside that door, hovering, waiting for it to open so you can thrust your little slip of paper into the nurse's hand before the other patients, kinda land-grab style. So, the school doctor did the dirty work of pushing in and getting my slip of paper handed over.

The doctor was nice and he spoke a little english. He looked in my throat and said, "Oh my god." That was not comforting!!! I was starting to really worry, afraid they might try to take my tonsils out right there. Sheridan's husband Amrah just had his tonsils out, and was awake for the whole procedure! In fact, they had him holding a tray under his mouth to catch the blood. So, with that knowledge, I was ready to kick him if he came at me with a knife. :) He just scraped the tonsils and then slabbed something disgusting on them, and them sprayed them with air, me gagging and writhing in my chair like a torture victim the whole time. Whew! the worst was over. But then he said I wouldn't get better unless I got an injection. So we had to go to the "injection room" where some lady gave me a shot in the butt. There was a pharmacy in the hospital, and so we went there first, and the school doctor bought the medicine and new needles, and this is what the nurse used to give me my shot. I haven't had a shot in the butt since i was like 5 years old!

Ok, so then we could go home. but the nurse said (via translator over the telephone) she would be back at 10 pm to give me another shot. and then she came this morning at 10 a.m. to give me another shot. I thought that was the end of it, but she showed me 3 more needles and 3 more doses of meds. Damn it! So she'll be back tonight - tea for her, and a shot in the butt for me. At least they seem to be working well, as I feel better today. But my butt is so sore. :)

Contact Update and WishList

For those of you wanting to get a hold of us via snail mail, send letters and packages to:

Jessica and Clayton Maring
Ulaanbaatar Elite International School
P.O. Box 32 / 1 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Tel: +976 - 11 - 462606

Its always good to include the phone number, even though so far we have been able to pick up packages before they call us, which is usually the day after we pick them up. We can talk to you all for free if you have a Skype account -- it is free to sign up and the connection is good -- it means we can talk to you over the internet. If you want help with it, just send us an email. Even if you can't get an account, we can call you with ours and its still pretty cheap.

So, we've been asked a lot lately what kinds of things we need or would like. So, I've made a list of things that would be great to have, but we certainly don't want you to feel like you have to send all or any of them. The best thing is hearing from you with a phone call or email. But, here's the list. :)

carmex (lip balm stuff)
tylenol -- they don't have it here!
body lotion for very dry skin - (aveeno is good, or Udderly Smooth cream)
Ramen Noodles -- the cup-o-soup things here are aweful, and ramen is cheap and light to ship!
Mac and Cheese
socks - any kind, as long as they're thick and long
a wire wisk
a potatoe peeler -- we have one, and its crap.
dust spray or dust wipes -- everything in the house is covered in coal dust, and i have to dust all the time
cough syrup - any kind
coloring books
markers - any kind, any colors - even just colored pencils here are soooo expensive - $20 for a 24 pack of crappy colored pencils. like we said, its weird what things here are expensive.
Airborne -- cold fighting tablets
colored paper - any colors, and sizes
recipes for things made from scratch - cakes, breads, pastas, meatloaf, something with rice...

after this weekend we will post more photos for you to see.

The Most Popular Band in Mongolia and other musical notes...

This is our friend, Tsogoo, mentioned in the post below.

This past Saturday Jessica and I saw the most popular band in Mongolia live, up close and personal. Yes, we saw The Lemons. Along with The Lemons (no translation, they just call themselves "The Lemons" in English), we saw a cavalcade of other prominent Mongolian performers. Unfortunately, among them were a few R&B artists (with ultra-smooth dance moves and dramatic heart-grabbing), a rap group, and many commercials for a local radio station. In fairness, it was the radio station’s 2nd anniversary shindig, and they did pour out free Champaign (irrespective of age). There were a few high points. Another band, The Pilots (again, no translation), was pretty good. This band consists of the younger brothers of The Lemons. The Lemons, also, turned out to be pretty good. They started a little too pop rock, but later shifted to more aggressive rock.

Toward the end of the show, there were about 25 people on stage (I don’t know why since only four were involved in producing the music). Mind you, this was not a large venue. It was roughly equivalent to standing on a basketball court the short way. But nevermind that. On to more exciting events. While the band was between songs the MC asked (using amplified social pressure) Jessica and I to come up on stage. He then asked us why we are in Mongolia, and if we like the radio station. As the band played the intro to “Creep” by Radiohead, the MC asked me how I liked the show. I said, “I liked The Pilots, I like The Lemons… and I love Mongolia!” The last part was suggested in my ear by Jessica, and was quite a popular sentiment.

The next day, our friend Tsogoo, who invited us to the show the previous night, came to our house with his friend. His friend is also our neighbor. He doesn’t speak any English. He does, however, love Pink Floyd. Tsogoo and our neighbor then proceeded to play the solos (and only the solos) to quite a variety of Pink Floyd songs on their guitars. The neighbor is only about 17, but can rip off an impressive David Gilmour solo. Why do they play just the solos? Because neither of them can sing. Oh well. I hadn’t expected to hear the solo from Atom Heart Mother Suite while in Mongolia. Well, not live anyway. Quite a treat. Man I miss my too-@#$%ing-big-for-USPS bass.

A Little Sunshine goes a long way

Today was the first day that it started to get light out on our way to work. This was very exciting to us foreign teachers, as it seems like its always dark here, only light for a few hours a day. Maybe today was just less hazy or cloudy or something, but it cheered us up some, as though we might finally start to believe that winter won't last forever. :)

Today we also went to visit with a guy who works at Mercy Corps, located really close to our house. Looks like at least clayt and maybe me too will be doing some cool volunteer work for them. I'll let clayt tell you the details later. But it felt good to finally have a step in a positive direction, as we have been looking for volunteer opportunities since we got here.

Maybe we mentioned this before, but it just really struck me today how any and every car in this country is a taxi cab! We have only been in an actual taxi maybe 3 or 4 times since we got here, and we need a ride often. You just stick out your hand, and someone almost instantly pulls over and pops open their door for you. Sometimes its a nice car, sometimes its a junker, but they are always running on empty. So we get to try our little mongolian vocab on random locals. sometimes they speak a little english, sometimes they try and try to talk to us in mongolian. Which leads me to an interesting exchange we had with a driver the other day. I have been sick with a pretty bad cold for the past week, and as we were taking a ride home the other day I was coughing lots. He asked in English if I was sick, and then told me there is a great medicine in mongolia that would help me. He said it was "Ooo-reen." We said oh, where can we buy it? He said you can get it anywhere, everyone has it. We realized he was saying "Urine." He said yes, its very good when you are sick, and swore he drank his own every morning before breakfast. I did not take his advice.

Last thursday we decided to go to the grocery store to get some food for dinner. Just at the first floor (actually a little below the first floor) our elevator borke down. I mean, it got stuck and wouldn't open at all. The elevators here are tiny, and we were stuck in there with 2 young guys, and they were drunk. They thought the whole situation was hillarious. They were laughing and talking to people through the crack in the doors and smoking cigarettes. They spoke a tiny bit of English and thought we were pretty funny too. There were many attempts to force the doors open by clayt and the guys, and after each failed attempt the one guy would say in a really forlorn way "one two three, Noooooo." The landlady's daughter (who's like 9) was trying to do something with a wire coat hanger to free us. The boys inside broke some cables that made the inside doors lose their spring. Sometimes there was nobody outside the elevator at all, and it was really quiet. We were in there for almost exactly one hour before the landlady came and open the doors in about 30 seconds. Just another day in Mongolia.

Last little story for today. Tuesday we were on our way home from work and saw these two guys fighting on the side of the street. One was obviously not holding his alcohol as well as the other, and was getting beat pretty bad. Guy 1 fell down, and Guy 2 kicked Guy 1 right in the face, and then in the stomach. I was worried, as I thought he was going to kill him or something. They took a few more swings at each other once Guy 1 got back up. Then Guy 2 got Guy 1's hat off the ground, and put it on for him. He straightened out Guy 1's jacket. Then they sat down on the curb together, and stayed that way. With friends like that........ :)

Our Saturday Night

Jess and I decided to go out Saturday night. Friday night consisted of some world-class ping pong with a turkish guy who once won a gold medal in Russia (what kind of gold medal, who knows? More than I've won for ping pong). So Saturday we would see some Mongolian nightlife. We started at a place that didn't have much going on (it was next to a place at which we once saw a fake deer in a pit of balloons - some sort of insane christmas decoration). We left and went to another somewhat nameless place. It was decorated with some flair, and had buttons on the boothe wall (all Mongolian bars have boothes) that called your server. I know this because I was trying to figure our what the button did, when server came and politely let me know that I was continuing to call her. We played a little "our past trivia" in which many of you played a role and generally had a nice conversation.

Then the night began.

It started with a severely inebriated man falling off his bar stool and right onto his face on the dirty tile floor. He layed there for a while while the bouncer exhorted him to get up. The bouncer was having a difficult time lifting him off the floor, so I helped him (honorary samaritan bouncer). To my surprise they did not throw him out in the subzero temperatures, but put him in an empty booth and a server dabbed his bloody lip with a napkin. For the next 30 minutes or so, he slipped in and out of consciousness; taking his lucid (and I use that term loosely) moments to yell in full voice and falsetto. We decided to buy him a bottle of water. He sipped the water, then spit it out. Apparently the water had some effect and the man got to his unsteady feet. The staff took this opportunity to push him out the door. Oh he tried to fall to the ground, but there were to many hands on him.

Next, I met a young man in the bathroom who decided to test his English out while we did our business. An opportune time. He turned out to be an interesting enough guy. Jessica and I sat with him and his girlfriend for a while. He is studying to be a doctor and he has a love of expensive watches. We talked for a while and then he and his girlfriend decided to sing us some traditional Mongolian songs. He started somewhat softly, but really hit some uncomfortably loud crescendos. This was the first sign he was getting rather drunk. This devolved into him making out with his girlfriend (again, uncomfortable), then some staring into space with a vague, somewhat slackjawed look. Three uncomfortable strikes and you are out. We decided to leave.

It was about 2:30 AM, but in lieu of heading home we decided to check out a local nightclub, The Haifa Nightclub. Why name your club after an Israeli city? No answers inside, just really loud techno music and sickeningly long periods of strobe light. When we got there I drank my first beer quit quickly. So quickly in fact that the server brought a flashlight over and checked under the table to see if I had hidden it. From this point, Jessica danced well, I danced ridiculously, and we got lots of people to make a dance circle. I pulled out my best breakdancing. I picked up a very small Mongolian lady (possibly a dwarf) and swung her around. I also pretended to dirty dance behind a rather sketchy character that was harrassing many of the females on the dance floor. A Kung Fu fight (or some such martial art. don't hold me to Kung Fu) almost broke out. We went home at 5:30 am. I didn't even feel the skin-stinging Mongolian wind chill on the way home.

Peace and Love don't Push and Shove...

a great quote someone told clayt and apparently they've never heard it here. We are in the land of pushes and shoves. Like we said before, there is a lot of cutting. We have been cut in line at the grocery store, the bank, the market and the post office. People simply without shame walk up and if you are at a window of some sort (like at the bank) people just come up beside you and (sometimes actually pushing you out of the way) put their documents or merchandise or whatever on top of or in front of yours. Its pretty irritating. The guidebook tells us its to be expected, and its just the way it is here. It also said getting mad or making a fuss doesn't do anything, and if you can't beat them, join them. We haven't joined them, but we've developed a sort of system, where i stand in line with my elbows out and clayt sort of circles me or stands on one side, so noone can pass us. If we are close to the front of the line or almost to the window, we stick out our hands so they really can't get close. Its the same on the bus and other places. People push you and shove you to get on the bus before you and get off the bus before you. I think, hey, jerk, I'm getting off too! Trouble is, if you let enough people off in front of you, you may miss your chance to get off, as sometimes the bus doesn't stop at all, just slows down alot. If you are trying to walk into or out of a store, there is no concept of letting the other person get through the doorway before you also try to get through. We find it to be really rude, but clayt reminds me that what we think defines rude is a cultural thing. Their ideas of rude are different. If they hit your feet in any way, they stop to say sorry and shake your hand.

anyways, in the spirit of blending in or something like that, I fought back (in my little timid way) over the weekend. We were in line at a supermarket sort of place, and there was only one line open, making it kind of long and perfect for cutters. We had just gotten in line and these two ladies with a shopping cart came up, and the one tried to just come and butt her shpping cart into line in front of us. So, I just pushed her cart away with my hand. I didn't say anything, I just pushed her cart enough to make it face in the opposite direction. And then she just got in line behind us. No dirty looks or anything! After a year of this clayt and I are going to be agressive city folks i think. Watch out cutters! Or maybe we will be the cutters. Uh-oh.

These troops know how to move

We cannot take it any longer. We must show you what we are forced to watch on television. What you will see below is some sort of military drill. Make no mistake, the music is coming from the television. The drill is set to the musical genious infamous early 90's group K7. Note the soldier who falls off the foot bridge. I hope these troops are among the Coalition of the Willing. I think moral would be boosted if they would pump early 90's music into Iraq, you know, for both troops and civilian Iraqi's.

Our Advancements are Supreme

Today we got internet at home! This means cheap phone calls, more photos, and videos to come! I bought a notebook at the store yesterday that says "made with future technology" -- you bet. Anyways, I'm going to try to post a video clip below. Its of my first grade students singing a song in class. Don't let them fool you, they are monsters in disguise. :)

Photos -- An eclectic bunch of them

Here are some photos with captions. Today we went to the Post Office and got a package from Paul and Tia -- thanks guys!!! We were so excited to see that the postal service does in fact work here, so go ahead and give it a try! If you have sent something small like a letter or card, it is most likely in the PO Box, which we don't have a key for. We can collect things like that next week when school starts again. Enjoy the photos!

This is clayt in Darkhan, at the foot of the steps leading up to Buddah. The blue ribbons tied all over the gargoyles are shaman ribbons.

In this picture you can see a little bit of Darkhan city, and the hill we climbed mentioned below in an earlier entry, and you can see where the bus quit on us.

This was in a museum in Darkhan, and the caption said it was a skull and bone of a "Bull." We are skeptical, as it looks like a Dinosaur to us... any experts out there?

Dinner Christmas Eve at our favorite "Northern India" restaurant. Just to show you we are alive and well, not wasting away.

And here is clayt, also christmas eve, after eating a yummy nontraditional christmas meal.

Here i am with a Santa guy at the sqaure in the city. We aren't sure why he was there, but he charged us 300 tugrugs for the photo op, and hugged me nice and close for the picture. This gives you sort of an idea about their traditional clothing in the winter -- the older people and people from the poorer districts - the Ger Districts - wear these long silk coats with fur and felt linings, and a long sash tied around their middle. They come in all sorts of colors, and clayt insists that he needs to get one.

This is the slipper room at the school dorm we stayed at in Darkhan. I haven't seen so many slippers all together before! They don't wear shoes inside, only slippers. So this is where they go when not in use.

This is the view from the teacher's room at our school. The sky is clear here almost every day.
The cars at the bootom of the picture are on a driver's ed course, and its always entertaining to watch the drivers practice during our breaks -- they must avoid cones, stray dogs, and other drivers.

This is the view from our living room and bedroom windows. The crane has not moved since we arrived, and I like to think of it as my own fire escape ladder. You can see an ice skating rink in the background, also entertaining to watch as kids wipe out or wipe each other out. The building right behind the crane is an auto shop AND and Finland Beer Bar.

This is the man, Chinggis Khan. This is a really huge and impressive statue of him, sort of like the Lincoln Memorial. This is at (sorry for the spelling, not sure) Sukhbaatar Square.

Here is clayt in our chilly living room. We put the couch clayt is sitting on in front of a door that goes onto a balcony to try to stop the draft. Then we covered the couch with a blanket because it was too cold to sit on. Then we had to put a blanket under it, as the freezing air was still sneaking in from under the couch. The tiny white thing is our beloved space heater.

Here is the kitchen. You can see our tiny washing machine (which works awesomely!) that drains into the sink, the dear little scrappy oven, and our little fridge (with a freezer inside, one like a real mini-fridge has, just a frozen little box with a door).

You don't know what you're missing...

...until you sing karaoke in your own private room with comfy couches, 2 microphones and 2 tamborines. Granted we didn't get started until about 1 in the morning. They had a very interesting collection of English songs, everything from Backstreet Boys to Rage Against the Machine. For my debut song, I of course sang "Africa" by Toto and thought of one of our last nights in Jamestown at Steve's house... Clayt sang Meatloaf's "Paradies by the dashboard light" with me, as well as Metallica's "Unforgiven Too." Clayt also accompanied Amrah in singing some mongolian songs, but since he couldn't even read the lyrics, he just sang backup - a bunch of ohs, oooooh, aaaahs, and etc. Karaoke is awesome, and this might be the start of an addiction for us, as there has been talk of going back for more tonight...

we went ice skating today near our house. We both only wiped out once, altough my life flashed before my eyes several times as young kids whizzed by pushing and pulling each other around, yanking on jacket backs and scarves... Actually at one point clayt was in front of me and I was skating and pushing him and next thing I know there is a little girl behind me handing on to my coat, and then a little boy hanging on to the back of her - we had our own congo line on ice! Good stuff.

and photos will be posted soon! I promise there will be more photos on this site before the end of the week. Tomorrow we will go to the post office to see if any packages have arrived for us, and if we are successful, then we will have a way to get photos on here.

Bringing in the new year...dangerously...

So, yesterday we got up very late. We had survived our first Mongolian Karaoke experience. It lasted until about 5:30 am. It was as ridiculous as it sounds. Maybe more on that at a later date.

After we woke up in the early afternoon we went to get some pizza. There is a place that makes a reasonable facsimile of pizza (you just have to get used to pepperoni that tastes more like ham). On our way home we stopped at a street vendor selling fireworks. Apparently, giving small oranges and boxed cakes is customary on New Years in addition to lighting off a small nuclear arsenal of explosives. We decided to forego the oranges and cakes, choosing instead to celebrate with some
fireworks.

OK, one firework: the Wizard Horse. Jessica got a "party popper" as well, which throws confetti. But it was the Wizard Horse, with its mystical name and many warnings about safe use that was truly intriguing. I mean, come on, it is a horse that is a wizard. The actual device looked like one of those rockets on the Tom and Jerry cartoons. It portended greatness.

We made it home safely with the Wizard Horse and prepared to go to dinner with our friends Amra and Sheridan. On the way to dinner we passed a giant statue of young Buddha (Maybe 60ft tall). Even such a peaceful being looks menacing at that size. Like maybe he would just decide to crush you. Luckily, he stayed put.

We first tried a restaurant out of the city. The place was shaped like a giant ger. It was quite impressive, with metallic dragons on the support beams and adorned cattle skulls on the wall. Unfortunately the cook had left. In hindsight, it seamed odd that no one else was in the restaurant.

We headed back into the city, and back under the cloud of palpable pollution. You can feel an immediate difference in your respiratory health when you take your first breath. We settled on Los Banditos, Mongolia's only Mexican and Indian Restaurant! It turned out to be much better than I expected.

After dinner we headed home. Amra and Sheridan had to leave for Korea the next day at about 6:30 am. Before they left for the night, we pulled out the Wizard Horse. It was time to let it out to gallop magically across the sky. Oh yes, it would be magnificent. After some adjustment and readjustment I took out the matches and set it off. Everyone scrambled as the wick spit and hissed to life. Then it raced toward the sky and exploded into a halo of colored sparks. It was the largest firework I had ever lit off. I instantly regretted only buying one. But that was just the beginning of the night’s light show.

About an hour after we got home the clocked flipped to midnight and 2007 arrived. Instantly we could hear the report of explosives outside. When we looked out our window there were fireworks near and in the distance throughout the sky. From the building next to us, people were firing roman candles and other fireworks off their balconies. Then fireworks began appearing from below us. People from our building were firing from balconies beneath us. This continued for at least 1/2 an hour. It was quite a sight, if you could forget the certain death that a fire on a floor below us would cause. This is compounded by the fact that there are no smoke alarms in our building. Yeah.

Jessica fired her party popper, which was more impressive than expected, and we rushed from window to window to watch everyone firing their incendiary projectiles. It quite jovial, hopeful, and exciting.

We hope all of you had memorable New Years Eves, minus the fire hazards, of course.