Hillary President Don't.

JM - That is what our cab driver said today. He also said, "Osama Bin Laden... Boom!" in reference to a chinese hotel being built that he apparently hates. He was jovial and spoke a little english, and then tried to talk to us with a mix of crazy gestures, hungarian, russian and mongolian.

We got the package from my mom today, so a big thanks to her for that. She also sent hers express mail, and it got here in less than 12 days. No word yet on the whereabouts of Char's big shipment of goodies, or the x-mas card from jo and dan. We think they'll arrive eventually, as our friend just finally received a book from the states that was sent back in November.

School is going well and we have spring break next week. This term has been a real adventure for us, and we wish our break would be longer, but I think everyone thinks that way. We will do some travelling over the break, so we'll post a blog after then.

Saturday we had parent teacher conferences. They went well in general. The father of 2 of our students invited us to their house for dinner on Sunday. He said he would call between one and two, and then he come pick us up. They showed up at 12:30, without a phone call. This is how it goes in Mongolia. So, we went to their house, to see how real mongolians live. In our opinion, they were not living the typical mongolian lifestyle. Their apartment building was gated and had a guard. They lived on the 6th floor, but their aparment was the size of a house, and even had 2 floors. 3 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, an office, dining room, kitchen, huge living room, patio and play room (with a full sized piano). They also had a maid. It was a beautiful place, and we had homemade chicken soup with rice, salad, steak, scotch, merlot, coca-cola, buuz (traditional mongolian dumplings), dried fruits, candies cookies and cakes. They had the fine china out with the extra forks and everything. Maybe for some of our friends at home this doesn't seem like a big deal. But, compared to how most of the people here are living, its very very exorbident. While we ate and chatted, the maid washed the dishes. Some of them clanked in the sink, and both the mother and father spoke to her harshly in mongolian, then carried on with the conversation. They are really nice people and their kids are sweet. It was our first time riding in a Lexus SUV, with tv screens on the backs of the seats and cordless headphones. So it was an eye-opening experience for us, to see what life is like at home for some of our students. Bedrooms bigger than ours and several flatscreen computers and tvs, a maid to heat up soup and serve it to you whenever you like...

Here is a photo of clayt and amrah playing a game of some sort of poker.


And here are some things that are on our bathroom doors to indicate what you should do where. We have tried without success to remove them. I think they've been painted over. It looks real classy.