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.

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... :)