Mongolia at Last!

So I have been in Mongolia for 5 days, all of which have been extremely busy and amazing! We actually only spent one night in the Ger camp in Ulaanbaatar (UB). We got there in the dark, so the next morning was like Christmas when we walked outside and saw the incredible scenery. We were surrounded by mountains, or I guess you would call them really big hills. The Ger camp had a herd of horses, which just kind of chilled wherever, they weren't exactly fenced in. They were semi-wild, and wouldn't let anyone near them, but apparently are ridable... We had lunch with the US Ambassador at the Ger camp, which was pretty awesome, and then we got on the bus for our trip to Darkhan, where we are having orientation. Darkhan is the second largest city, with a population of about 80,000. It was a four hour bus ride, and it was pretty miserable. No AC, but at least there were windows that opened. Still the sun was really hot, and the wind here is really dry. The scenery was worth it though, and I actually stayed awake the whole time because I was too hot to sleep, so I guess that was the silver lining. :) We drove through UB, which was an interesting experience. Mongolia really is a developing country, the infrastructure is very poor / almost nonexistent. We were on a paved road for the drive to Darkhan, but only the major highways are paved, and they are only marginally two-lane, no shoulder whatsoever. In UB we drove through the Ger district, which is on the outskirts, and is the very poor section. There is trash everywhere, partially because it is REALLY windy here, and partially because they don't really have any sort of public trash service or sanitation or anything like that. And the people here are traditionally nomadic, and many still are, so they just kind of leave things where they are, and until recently most things they had were biodegradable, so it wasn't a big deal. It was a 4 hour bus ride, straight north, and as we got further north we began to see more farms and wooden houses, a lot of the drive we saw a lot of open land and Ger compounds. We would drive for like 20 minutes and see nothing but wide open space, and then occasionally we would see 3-4 Gers with a big herd of sheep, goats, cows and horses. No fences anywhere. It is indescribable. About half way to Darkhan we stopped at a "restaurant" to take a potty break, my first experience with an outhouse. There was no toilet paper, but luckily one of the current volunteers who was with us brought some, thank god. It was kind of a scary experience, but by the end of all this I will be really good at squatting!
On Sunday we will leave for our host communities where we will spend the summer doing language and technical training. My HC is Sukbaatar. We will live with host families for the 11 1/2 weeks we are there. I am so excited to meet my host family and actually get settled. Right now we are staying in a hotel, that by the standards here is really nice, but it is not somewhere I would ever stay in the US. It's amazing what you get used to after a few days though. The first night I wouldn't go in the bathroom without shoes on, and I was kind of scared to take a shower, but I've adjusted.
The food here is a lot better than I was expecting. There are actually lots of fruits and vegetables, not quite the variety at home, but there is cabbage, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and bananas, apples, plums, pineapples (not fresh), and oranges. There is also a lot of meat, and it's actually pretty good. I'm pretty pleased all-in-all. I'm a little scared of my host family eating situation though, because whenever people slaughter a sheep the innards are considered the best part, so if my family slaughters a sheep they will be serving the intestines, stomach, lungs, brains and eyeballs... I'm pretty sure I will never get up the nerve to try the eyeballs, but I pretty much feel obligated to at least try everything else.
Orientation has been really fun too... We have meetings all day long, we've started our language training, which is done by teachers who don't speak any English to us, so it's interesting, but it really forces you to be engaged, and we learn an incredible amount. We also have culture training, safety and security training and some technical training for our programs (mine is Economic Development). We will have more of all during our summer Pre-Service Training in our host communities.
There are a lot of current PVC's in Darkhan right now to help us, and some of them are actually posted here, and a bunch of them took some of us out to a club a few nights ago. It was so much fun! They have a lot of current American music here, and we were dancing with the Mongolians. They do the circle dance, which is funny, but they were really friendly. Some of the girls would pull one of us into the circle and dance with us. It's not like dancing in the US, where there is always some guy trying to hump you, everyone just dances. Drinking is a big thing here. They drink A LOT of vodka, and they don't believe in mixed drinks, they shoot it. And it's not good vodka, pretty much equivalent to Popov or Aristocrat. But it actually isn't as bad as I was expecting, it's drinkable. But the problem is that you can't leave a bottle unfinished, and there is ALWAYS another bottle... so I'm sure you can see how that creates a problem. They have a whole ceremony for taking shots too, which is pretty cool.
All in all, I am amazed by Mongolia. It is such an incredible country, and I really can't wait to get to Sukbaatar and actually get started. I had hoped that my site for my service (we go to our sites August 19th) would be out in the country so I could live in a Ger, but I have learned that all business volunteers are in Aimeg (province) centers, so I will be in or near a city. There is still a chance that I will live in a Ger, but it won't be out in the country. The upside is that I will have internet the whole time I'm here, and I get to travel a lot as a CED. So I will get to go out to the country to work with herders and farmers, and I can always go and visit another PVC who is posted out in the middle of nowhere. :)