This week has been so miserably hot. It's our second to last week of training, so we are all getting a little antsy and unfocused... add that to the unbearable heat and we are like a bunch of 5th graders who don't want to pay attention. The heat wouldn't be so bad if it would at least cool off at night, but the past few nights it has stayed hot and still, which makes it almost impossible to sleep. Mongolians wear wet towels on their heads when it is hot like this, and our LCFs keep telling us that if you don't wear a wet towel on your head, your head will get hot and then your stomach will hurt and you will be miserable, which pretty much sums up how we have all been feeling lately. So yesterday Cady and I went to the market and bought some 100 Tugrik towels, and today we have been wearing them on our heads. It actually does help quite a bit. Even though all the Mongolians are doing the same thing, they laugh at us. I don't really blame them because it does look quite ridiculous, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I am actually quite amazed at how effective a wet towel on your head is. It's almost like a little personal AC system around your face, because it catches any bit of breeze and cools down the air. It's delightful.
Hopefully it will cool down next week, I don't know if I can take the heat much longer. My family doesn't even own a fan, which I find a bit absurd. We have a toilet and a shower and a GIANT flat screen TV, but no fan. A few nights ago, at 4 in the morning when I could not sleep because I was lying in a pool of my own sweat, I opened the door to my room and then the door to this little balcony thing upstairs, so I could get some cross breeze. It was actually working quite well until Undarmaa came upstairs and closed the balcony door.
My parents have been gone all this week, they went to the Hudoo last Sunday and won't be back until this Sunday (maybe, who knows when they will really come back...) It's been interesting having just me and Undarmaa in the house. The first night the parents were gone she had a friend over until about 4:30 a.m. and was outside in the Hashaa laughing and carrying on and woke me up. I had to go outside and tell her to be quite so I could sleep. The next day I was giving her a hard time about it, she seemed really worried that I would tell her parents. I told her that I wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure she gave me a bribe, just to be sure... We were out of sugar, and I told her that I was going over to the market anyway after class because I had to go to the bank (the PC didn't pay us on time last week, which was really annoying because I walked to the bank 3 different days before I got my money...) So I told her that I would buy sugar if she gave me money. So she gave me the money for a kilo of sugar, and then she gave me 500 extra Tugriks. I asked her what it was for, and she just said "you take." It felt a bit like a bribe...
Tomorrow we are going to Amerbaysalon (not sure of the spelling..) It's one of the Buddhist Monasteries that the Soviets didn't destroy back in the 20's. I'm really excited to go, even though it will be a 3 hour Mikr ride there. I think the PC is trying to get us used to the "Mongolian Way" of travel, which basically means cramming as many people as possible into the vehicle. We get one Mikr for 17 people, not including the driver... I think that means we will have 5 people on each bench seat and two up front. In America the seats would hold 2 or 3 people. So that should be interesting. And we will probably have to have the windows closed for at least part of the trip, because it is a dirt road.
I'm really excited that training is so close to being over. I hope next week goes by quickly! I'm also excited to go to UB. We are the first training class in a long time to swear in in UB. All the PCVs are worried about us, because UB is really crazy, there is a lot of crime and the drunk Mongolians are even more prevalent there apparently. I'm a little worried about some of us too... some of us don't always practice the best judgement... Hopefully we will all make it through though. I think we may be one of the first classes in awhile not to have any ETs (early termination) before swearing in. Unless something happens between now and August 18th, we will make it through with everyone!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Three Weeks to Go!!
In two short weeks I will no longer be living in Sukhbaatar. The thought blows my mind and excites me. I can’t wait until August 9th when we find out our sites. We have all started talking about where we think we will go/where we want to go. I have no idea where I think I will go. The married couples kind of have some idea, because their sites have to have a position for both (most of the couples are in different sectors), so they have some idea, and from what we have been told their sites are pretty much already determined. As for the rest of us, two days or so before site announcements are made two PC staffers will lock themselves in a room and go through out site placement questionnaires and throw darts at the map…. Then we spend several days in Darkhan and then a few days in UB and then we swear in and off to site we go!! I’m really hoping for Hovsgol, which is the Aimeg where Hovsgol Lake (the largest body of water in Mongolia) is. It’s in the Highland region, in the northern/center. I wouldn’t mind going to Erdenet, which is the 3rd/2nd (depending on who you ask) largest city, and it’s in the center region, connected to Darkhan and UB by railroad. In Mongolia there is only one railroad, from Russia to China going through Sukhbaatar, Darkhan and UB. Erdenet has a branch that connects it to Darkhan. I kind of want to stay in the central part of Mongolia, but really I think I will be happy wherever. Every site has good points and bad points. I just can’t wait to find out. The Peace Corps keeps us in the dark as much as possible. It’s like telling us things before they happen is the ultimate sin. For instance, we found out on Friday that on Sunday apparently we are having a big thing at the school where all our families are supposed to come and we are learning to Waltz (Waltzing in Mongolia is a required skill, Mongolians learn it in gym class from when they are little, and apparently it is the thing to do out in the country and really at any gathering) and to sing some Mongolian songs (also a required skill) and we are playing Volleyball. My parents aren’t going to be able to come, because apparently they are going out to the Hudoo (countryside) on Saturday and will be gone for a week. It’s just me and Undarmaa for a whole week. That’s pretty much the status quo in my house anyway, my Dad is always gone and I’m not sure where my Mom goes all day. I have still yet to figure out what exactly my parents do, but it gets sketchier all the time. Another trainee’s parents said that my parents deal in contraband between Russia and China, which wouldn’t really surprise me.
I am getting along a lot better with my family recently, I can actually talk to them sometimes. Last week it seemed like a lot of things clicked with the language. We switched around our language classes after the Mid-LPI’s (and last week was the first week we had language again, after a week in Darkhan and then Nadaam). I love my new class, Sukhbaatar had 5 people who scored Novice-High, and we are all in a class together along with Salomon. Ganaa is our teacher, and she is really good. She doesn’t speak ANY English to us, I’m pretty sure she is nearly fluent, but she is really good at her job, which is to teach us Mongolian in Mongolian. I really miss Tuya, my old teacher. She was so cute and sweet, and a really great teacher (obviously since our class had three Novice-Highs), but Ganaa is really great too. She speaks a lot faster, which is helpful because it’s more like speaking to my family or any other Mongolian that I speak to, so I feel like my understanding is getting a lot better. She is also teaching us a lot more grammar, so now I can actually form compound sentences!!! So exciting! I am nervous that the real LPI is in two weeks. I’m really hoping to be at least an Intermediate-Low, which I think I will be able to do.
Last Tuesday night Cady spent the night at my house. We were over at her house after class, and her Dad had had a little too much vodka with his friends, and was being kind of obnoxious and making us uncomfortable. We were sitting in Cady’s room talking, and he kept coming in and he would just sit down and go on and on about how he was bad, and Cady’s mom was bad, and Enknaron (Cady’s little sister) was bad etc. etc. It was weird. He had kind of been that way the night before too, so we left and went to my house and Cady just spent the night. Her Dad was supposed to leave the next day to go back to Mandel Soum to build a house, so we figured if she just left that night, the next day he would be gone and it would be all good. Her Dad is so much fun when he isn’t drunk, but sometimes he just over-indulges and he is not fun at that point. It’s sad, because when he isn’t drunk he will talk to us and teach us Mongolian. He actually didn’t leave the next day, because apparently the train didn’t come… That night he was sober and he talked to me and Cady for like half and hour. He is really good at speaking to non-native speakers, and we could understand what he was saying and actually have a real conversation.
When we got to my house my Mom and my brother were there. It was around dinner time, and my Mom told us that she doesn’t know how to cook, so she didn’t know what we were going to do about dinner. So Cady and I said we would cook. We made fried rice, which turned out to be delicious, but my family was very unsure about it while we were cooking. Living with a host family makes you feel like you are about 5. The Peace Corps tells them that they have to teach us how to cook, wash clothes and other “life skills,” such as chopping wood, so they get the idea that we are completely incompetent. When Undarmaa has me help her cut up meat or potatoes she is constantly telling me that I’m doing it wrong, and I wish I could tell her that I have lived by myself for four years. I have cooked my own food, washed my own clothes etc, just not the “Mongolian Way.” But, of course, I don’t have the language skills to say that, so I just have to let her teach me how to cut things. And every family cuts and cooks things differently, but all of them believe that their way is the right way (same as America), so it’s pretty much a lose-lose situation for us Americans. Oh well. So Cady and I made fried rice, but the problem was I don’t know how to cook rice, all I’ve ever cooked is instant rice, something which they definitely do not have here. Undarmaa was gone, she was at the Circus that was in town (more about that later…) So I asked Batusken (my 13 year old brother who has recently made more frequent appearances) to show us, and first he laughed at me for not knowing how to cook rice, but then he actually didn’t really know either. So he went in to the living room and asked my Mom, and she told him I guess, so we got the rice cooking and then Cady and I made some scrambled eggs to put in the fried rice, and then we fried some potatoes to put in. While we were in the process, Batusken came back into the kitchen and apparently thought things were going awry so went into the living room and told my Mom. She then came into the kitchen and saw what we were doing, and, I guess, thought things were, in fact, going awry and promptly started to eat some mayonnaise bread. I guess she was pretty sure our “American Rice Meal” was not going to turn out well. But we continued cooking. Then my Dad came in and started worrying about the rice, and tried to explain to us that it needed to boil and then we needed to turn off the burner and let it set for awhile. But it had already boiled, which he didn’t know, so after he turned the burner back up we turned it down again. Everything turned out fine, and my family seemed to enjoy the “American Fried Rice.” My favorite part was that I got to cut the meat, so I was able to trim it and I didn’t have to pick through the meal for the pieces that were mostly fat (as is usual). It was delicious! When Undarmaa came home I told her that there was a plate for her in the microwave, and she seemed really happy that I had cooked and she didn’t have to.
The circus was basically a big round tent that they set up in the square. Cady and I saw it when we went in to go to the bank, and the tickets were 6,000 Tugriks, which we obviously can’t afford on our budget (that would be about a weeks worth of our budget) But luckily, in Sukhbaatar everything is televised. So after Undarmaa came home, she called us down from my room and we watched the whole circus on TV. It was pretty cool at first, they had some contortionists, and other interesting acts. Then they got to the animal part, which was really sad. In America there are restrictions on what you can do to animals, but here there are not. The first act was a tiger that they made run around in a wheel, kind of like a rat, which was kind of lame. Then they brought out a bear and made it do some gymnastic stuff on bars. The saddest part was when they brought out two bears, with boxing gloves and muzzles on and made them fight. Undarmaa and Batusken were cracking up, but it was sad. The people would grab the bears and push them together, and then the bears didn’t know when to stop and they just kept going at it. It felt like some sort of Mexican cock fight.
After the bears they brought out a baby elephant that looked kind of motley and had a girl ride around on it for while. It wasn’t really anything special, and the elephant looked sad and unkempt. I’m glad that I didn’t pay to go see the circus. I wouldn’t want to support it. I can’t even imagine how they treat those animals while people aren’t looking. There is no concept whatsoever about treating animals well here. Animals are tools and that’s that.
On Friday after we got out of class I went over to Cady’s house to work on our case study that we have to present on Monday for CED. When her Mom came home from work she told us that we were going to drink a bottle of vodka. Cady’s Mom works 14 hour days, usually 7 days a week. That’s pretty common here for Mongolian women. Cady’s Mom works two jobs, she works at a pharmacy and also at a family clinic, and her husband doesn’t really do anything. I guess in the summer he goes and builds houses. He told us that he has built 8 houses, 3 of which are in Cady’s Hashaa; her house, her uncle’s house, and then the house that Jim lives in (I’m not sure how his family is related to Cady’s, but they are). So obviously, he doesn’t work a whole lot. It seems to be pretty common that the women work their asses off and the men don’t do a whole lot but drink. Cady’s Mom brought one of her friends over, and the four of us drank a bottle of vodka together. Then Cady’s Mom and her friend went to the Delguur to get another bottle. Before she left, Cady’s Mom asked Cady for some shorts. She said she needed some to go to the Delguur, and Cady went in her room and said she didn’t have any other shorts than the one’s she was wearing, so her Mom said she would take those. So Cady took off her shorts and gave them to her Mom. It was so funny! I wonder if Cady will get her shorts back….
I had told Undarmaa that I would be home by midnight, and Cady’s Mom wasn’t coming back from the Delguur, so I had her and her 19 year old brother, Nabaa, walk me home. Nabaa goes to school in UB to be a Chemistry teacher, but this summer he is working in Darkhan. Apparently a few days ago he got mugged and they took all his clothes, so he had to come back to Sukhbaatar so his Mom could buy him new clothes. The things that happen here are so very strange.
The CED Group and our Trainers
Ganaa (LCF), Salomon, Alta (our CED Technical Coordinator), Jim, Me, Vita (our PCV trainer for the first half of PST), Cady, Segi (LCF), Fahd, Tuya (LCF), Jason, Melissa, Natalie
I am getting along a lot better with my family recently, I can actually talk to them sometimes. Last week it seemed like a lot of things clicked with the language. We switched around our language classes after the Mid-LPI’s (and last week was the first week we had language again, after a week in Darkhan and then Nadaam). I love my new class, Sukhbaatar had 5 people who scored Novice-High, and we are all in a class together along with Salomon. Ganaa is our teacher, and she is really good. She doesn’t speak ANY English to us, I’m pretty sure she is nearly fluent, but she is really good at her job, which is to teach us Mongolian in Mongolian. I really miss Tuya, my old teacher. She was so cute and sweet, and a really great teacher (obviously since our class had three Novice-Highs), but Ganaa is really great too. She speaks a lot faster, which is helpful because it’s more like speaking to my family or any other Mongolian that I speak to, so I feel like my understanding is getting a lot better. She is also teaching us a lot more grammar, so now I can actually form compound sentences!!! So exciting! I am nervous that the real LPI is in two weeks. I’m really hoping to be at least an Intermediate-Low, which I think I will be able to do.
Last Tuesday night Cady spent the night at my house. We were over at her house after class, and her Dad had had a little too much vodka with his friends, and was being kind of obnoxious and making us uncomfortable. We were sitting in Cady’s room talking, and he kept coming in and he would just sit down and go on and on about how he was bad, and Cady’s mom was bad, and Enknaron (Cady’s little sister) was bad etc. etc. It was weird. He had kind of been that way the night before too, so we left and went to my house and Cady just spent the night. Her Dad was supposed to leave the next day to go back to Mandel Soum to build a house, so we figured if she just left that night, the next day he would be gone and it would be all good. Her Dad is so much fun when he isn’t drunk, but sometimes he just over-indulges and he is not fun at that point. It’s sad, because when he isn’t drunk he will talk to us and teach us Mongolian. He actually didn’t leave the next day, because apparently the train didn’t come… That night he was sober and he talked to me and Cady for like half and hour. He is really good at speaking to non-native speakers, and we could understand what he was saying and actually have a real conversation.
When we got to my house my Mom and my brother were there. It was around dinner time, and my Mom told us that she doesn’t know how to cook, so she didn’t know what we were going to do about dinner. So Cady and I said we would cook. We made fried rice, which turned out to be delicious, but my family was very unsure about it while we were cooking. Living with a host family makes you feel like you are about 5. The Peace Corps tells them that they have to teach us how to cook, wash clothes and other “life skills,” such as chopping wood, so they get the idea that we are completely incompetent. When Undarmaa has me help her cut up meat or potatoes she is constantly telling me that I’m doing it wrong, and I wish I could tell her that I have lived by myself for four years. I have cooked my own food, washed my own clothes etc, just not the “Mongolian Way.” But, of course, I don’t have the language skills to say that, so I just have to let her teach me how to cut things. And every family cuts and cooks things differently, but all of them believe that their way is the right way (same as America), so it’s pretty much a lose-lose situation for us Americans. Oh well. So Cady and I made fried rice, but the problem was I don’t know how to cook rice, all I’ve ever cooked is instant rice, something which they definitely do not have here. Undarmaa was gone, she was at the Circus that was in town (more about that later…) So I asked Batusken (my 13 year old brother who has recently made more frequent appearances) to show us, and first he laughed at me for not knowing how to cook rice, but then he actually didn’t really know either. So he went in to the living room and asked my Mom, and she told him I guess, so we got the rice cooking and then Cady and I made some scrambled eggs to put in the fried rice, and then we fried some potatoes to put in. While we were in the process, Batusken came back into the kitchen and apparently thought things were going awry so went into the living room and told my Mom. She then came into the kitchen and saw what we were doing, and, I guess, thought things were, in fact, going awry and promptly started to eat some mayonnaise bread. I guess she was pretty sure our “American Rice Meal” was not going to turn out well. But we continued cooking. Then my Dad came in and started worrying about the rice, and tried to explain to us that it needed to boil and then we needed to turn off the burner and let it set for awhile. But it had already boiled, which he didn’t know, so after he turned the burner back up we turned it down again. Everything turned out fine, and my family seemed to enjoy the “American Fried Rice.” My favorite part was that I got to cut the meat, so I was able to trim it and I didn’t have to pick through the meal for the pieces that were mostly fat (as is usual). It was delicious! When Undarmaa came home I told her that there was a plate for her in the microwave, and she seemed really happy that I had cooked and she didn’t have to.
The circus was basically a big round tent that they set up in the square. Cady and I saw it when we went in to go to the bank, and the tickets were 6,000 Tugriks, which we obviously can’t afford on our budget (that would be about a weeks worth of our budget) But luckily, in Sukhbaatar everything is televised. So after Undarmaa came home, she called us down from my room and we watched the whole circus on TV. It was pretty cool at first, they had some contortionists, and other interesting acts. Then they got to the animal part, which was really sad. In America there are restrictions on what you can do to animals, but here there are not. The first act was a tiger that they made run around in a wheel, kind of like a rat, which was kind of lame. Then they brought out a bear and made it do some gymnastic stuff on bars. The saddest part was when they brought out two bears, with boxing gloves and muzzles on and made them fight. Undarmaa and Batusken were cracking up, but it was sad. The people would grab the bears and push them together, and then the bears didn’t know when to stop and they just kept going at it. It felt like some sort of Mexican cock fight.
After the bears they brought out a baby elephant that looked kind of motley and had a girl ride around on it for while. It wasn’t really anything special, and the elephant looked sad and unkempt. I’m glad that I didn’t pay to go see the circus. I wouldn’t want to support it. I can’t even imagine how they treat those animals while people aren’t looking. There is no concept whatsoever about treating animals well here. Animals are tools and that’s that.
On Friday after we got out of class I went over to Cady’s house to work on our case study that we have to present on Monday for CED. When her Mom came home from work she told us that we were going to drink a bottle of vodka. Cady’s Mom works 14 hour days, usually 7 days a week. That’s pretty common here for Mongolian women. Cady’s Mom works two jobs, she works at a pharmacy and also at a family clinic, and her husband doesn’t really do anything. I guess in the summer he goes and builds houses. He told us that he has built 8 houses, 3 of which are in Cady’s Hashaa; her house, her uncle’s house, and then the house that Jim lives in (I’m not sure how his family is related to Cady’s, but they are). So obviously, he doesn’t work a whole lot. It seems to be pretty common that the women work their asses off and the men don’t do a whole lot but drink. Cady’s Mom brought one of her friends over, and the four of us drank a bottle of vodka together. Then Cady’s Mom and her friend went to the Delguur to get another bottle. Before she left, Cady’s Mom asked Cady for some shorts. She said she needed some to go to the Delguur, and Cady went in her room and said she didn’t have any other shorts than the one’s she was wearing, so her Mom said she would take those. So Cady took off her shorts and gave them to her Mom. It was so funny! I wonder if Cady will get her shorts back….
I had told Undarmaa that I would be home by midnight, and Cady’s Mom wasn’t coming back from the Delguur, so I had her and her 19 year old brother, Nabaa, walk me home. Nabaa goes to school in UB to be a Chemistry teacher, but this summer he is working in Darkhan. Apparently a few days ago he got mugged and they took all his clothes, so he had to come back to Sukhbaatar so his Mom could buy him new clothes. The things that happen here are so very strange.
The CED Group and our Trainers
Ganaa (LCF), Salomon, Alta (our CED Technical Coordinator), Jim, Me, Vita (our PCV trainer for the first half of PST), Cady, Segi (LCF), Fahd, Tuya (LCF), Jason, Melissa, Natalie
Thursday, July 12, 2007
The Week of the Dead Sheep
Nadaam has been quite an experience. Monday was the first day, and my Dad took Cady and I out to Bagh 5 for the horse races. Apparently my family has an SUV that I didn’t know about, all of a sudden my Dad was driving around in it. My family has several out-buildings, and I think the SUV is kept there, and maybe they just take it out for special occasions or something… But he drove us out in the SUV, when we got there there wasn’t going to be a race for awhile, so he took us out to see the Mother Tree, which is this huge tree that has something to do with Chinggis Khan, I haven’t figured out exactly what, my Dad was trying to explain, but of course I only speak limited Mongolian so it didn’t work out so well… But the tree is a really big deal. It’s a sort of Ovoo (usually a pile of rocks that you have to stop at when you see and circle three times clockwise and usually leave an offering) The tree is covered with Khadags, which are silk scarves that symbolize the blessings and wishes of good luck. We walked around the tree three times, and my Dad would go up to the tree and part the Khadags that were covering it and put his head against the tree and pray each time he walked around it. From what I gathered the tree has been around for 800 years (that is how old Chinggis Khan is), although during communism they weren’t allowed to practice Buddhism, so for 80 years it was just a tree. I’m kind of surprised the Russians didn’t cut it down or something like that when they were purging all the Monks and Monasteries.
Me and Cady at the Mother Tree
The Mother Tree
After we visited the Mother Tree my Dad took us out to his Mom’s house, who lives in the outskirts of Bagh 5. He took us there because she had slaughtered a sheep, and it was lunch time. He was going to get us some Nadaam Hoshur, but I told him the PC said we weren’t allowed to eat it because people use bad meat or they make the Hoshur several days before and it will make you really sick. So we went out to Grandma’s house, and she had indeed slaughtered a sheep but I guess it wasn’t ready to eat yet so we just had some homemade yogurt and some homemade bread. I love my Grandma’s yogurt, it is so delicious!! After we ate my Dad took us back out to the horse races, and we had missed one of the races, but there was another one in like 45 minutes, so we hung out. Peter’s Mom had a Hoshur stand, and a bunch of the other Trainees were there, so we hung out there for awhile. Then Peter’s Dad showed up with someone’s horse, and was letting us get on and take pictures and stuff. I asked if I could go for a little ride, and he let me so I took it for a little trot. I think I caused quite a stir among the Mongolians!
Nadaam was really unorganized, and no one really knew what was going on at what time, even the Mongolians didn’t seem to know anything. Finally we saw a bunch of people gathering at what we assumed to be the start line, so we walked over, but of course as we were getting close all the Mongolians were leaving and going back to where all the food tents were. We could see the race kind of off in the distance, they had already started. It was the 2 year old race, and the riders are little kids, and most of them were bareback. The race was really long, the only parts you can see are the start and the finish, they ride out for like 4 km (I think) and then come back. So we stood around waiting, and finally we saw people gathering at a different place, so we went and it turned out to be the finish line. We saw them all come in, looking pretty tired. I don’t know how those kids can hang on for such a long race, bareback no less!! And the race horses are really skinny, I think part of the training is to not let them eat very much and make them sweat a lot. They award prizes to the first 5 and then to the last place finisher. They didn’t award the prizes right away though, on Tuesday at the end of Nadaam they all came to the stadium in town and were awarded their prizes. They gave away bikes and TV’s and DVD players and a couple of the winners got dirt bikes. The award ceremony was pretty cool. All the little kids came on their race horses, and the winner would sing a song and then all the kids got a sip of Aireg and poured some on their horse and then they took a victory lap around the stadium. Sometimes they would do so carrying their TV or DVD player on their horse, which was pretty funny.
After the racing on Monday night my family slaughtered a sheep. I think nearly every family slaughters a sheep or a goat during Nadaam. My family didn’t blowtorch it like Salomon’s did though. We hog-tied it and threw it in the back of the SUV and took it over to my Mom’s parents’ house. They slaughter them differently here than we do in the US. Two guys held the legs out while the sheep was on it’s back, and then a third guy cut a little hole right below the sternum and stuck his arm in and pulled the aorta out of the heart. It took him several minutes to find the aorta though, he had his arm in the sheep and was feeling around. What really surprised me was the sheep wasn’t making any noise, it was just kind of writhing its head around, obviously in some pain. Finally the guy got the aorta and then the sheep was dead in like 30 seconds. Then he skinned it and cut off the feet and cut it open and started taking out all the organs. In Mongolia the innards are considered the best part. My Dad kept telling me I was going to eat them, and I told him I would eat a little bit. But I was a little scared. I had told him how Salomon got sick after eating the goat that his family slaughtered, so I think that helped my case. The guy who was butchering the sheep took out all the organs and Grandma and my Aunt took the bucket and cleaned out the stomach and the intestines and then boiled the liver, heart, kidneys, lungs and stomach. They guy who was butchering took all the blood out of the sheep and put it in another bucket which they later mixed with flour and chopped onion. They hung the meat up on the side of the house, where I’m pretty sure it stayed all night. Then the next day two bags full of it were delivered to my house… and I’m pretty sure I’ve been eating it ever since. I was a little worried about eating meat that had hung out all night, but I figure it can’t be much worse than all the other meat I eat here, which sits out in the meat room at the market for a whole day, and who knows when it was really slaughtered…
Me, my host Dad and Dinner
When the innards were finished boiling they took them out and cut them up and everybody dug in. I ate a little piece of the liver, which was OK, and a piece of the heart. The heart was the best part, it actually tasted like tender meat (something that you really just don’t get here) and then I ate a really tiny piece of the lung. The lung was gross, it was squishy and slimy. They tried to get me to eat some of the Kidney, but I had had about enough innards to last me for quite some time. I think the reason they like the innards so much is that they are tender. I never saw what they did with the blood/flour/onion mixture, but Cady’s family also slaughtered a sheep that night, and then on Wednesday I was over there and her dad pulled out a plate of innards and microwaved them (gross!) and he kept saying it was the blood. Cady saw her family make the same mixture with the blood that my family did, and we figured out that they then stuffed it inside the intestines to make a sort of blood sausage. I don’t think I could eat that. Innards just kind of gross me out, and intestines full of blood definitely gross me out!
On Tuesday we had class again, and then a really pointless “administrative” session, and after that we went to the Stadium to watch some of the wrestling. When we got there nothing was going on, and then for about 2 hours they were doing the racing awards, and finally they got to the wrestling. It was the final round, so there were only 8 guys left. They all came out on the field and did the eagle dance and then all 4 matches went on at the same time. The rules of Nadaam wrestling here are that once a body part other than a hand or foot touches the ground you lose. And it’s single elimination. The next round was the 4 winners of the first round, and one of the matches went really quickly, but then two of the guys were taking for ever! They were just kind of standing there leaning against each other not really doing anything. That went on for like half an hour, they would lean for awhile and then break, repeat repeat repeat. Then finally they did a coin flip, and the winner of the coin flip got to have his arms on top, and then it went pretty fast after that.
The Eagle Dance
The final round took forever too. Cady and I left because we were bored, and we later heard that there was a bit of a scandal. Apparently one of the guys was the hometown favorite, and it got to the point of the coin toss and the other guy won the toss, and the crowd started to boo and hiss and people started leaving, and then the hometown boy lost, and the crowd started going out on the infield and more people left. But then somehow the hometown boy ended up winning or something, there was some talk about a bribe. I don’t really know what went on, something scandalous.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were UB Nadaam, so pretty much all that happens is people watch TV. I watched some TV on Wednesday morning with my family. It was just opening ceremonies, and I sat in the living room and was writing in my journal and watching, and then my Dad yelled at me for not watching, so that was the end of writing in my journal… They have also been making some weird food. When I came downstairs on Wednesday morning there was a big plate of weird yellowish stuff. At first I thought it was this thing that some trainee’s families have made that is gelatin with fat and meat and maybe some cucumbers or something in it. I was terrified! But it turned out to be made with raisins and this creamy stuff that usually we put on bread with sugar, which my Dad had heated up. It was actually not too bad, kind of sweet, but the texture was weird. My Dad also pulled out a plate of the sheep ribs and started eating huge pieces of fat and putting it in his Milk Tea. He knows that I don’t like fat, because every time we are cooking or there is fat around I say I don’t like it. So he didn’t try to make me eat any of the sheep fat. I did have some Milk Tea, I’ve had it a few times. It’s actually pretty good. Some people make it with a lot of salt, which makes it kind of gross, but when it’s not salty it tastes pretty much like heavy milk with a little tea in it.
Me and Cady at the Mother Tree
The Mother Tree
After we visited the Mother Tree my Dad took us out to his Mom’s house, who lives in the outskirts of Bagh 5. He took us there because she had slaughtered a sheep, and it was lunch time. He was going to get us some Nadaam Hoshur, but I told him the PC said we weren’t allowed to eat it because people use bad meat or they make the Hoshur several days before and it will make you really sick. So we went out to Grandma’s house, and she had indeed slaughtered a sheep but I guess it wasn’t ready to eat yet so we just had some homemade yogurt and some homemade bread. I love my Grandma’s yogurt, it is so delicious!! After we ate my Dad took us back out to the horse races, and we had missed one of the races, but there was another one in like 45 minutes, so we hung out. Peter’s Mom had a Hoshur stand, and a bunch of the other Trainees were there, so we hung out there for awhile. Then Peter’s Dad showed up with someone’s horse, and was letting us get on and take pictures and stuff. I asked if I could go for a little ride, and he let me so I took it for a little trot. I think I caused quite a stir among the Mongolians!
Nadaam was really unorganized, and no one really knew what was going on at what time, even the Mongolians didn’t seem to know anything. Finally we saw a bunch of people gathering at what we assumed to be the start line, so we walked over, but of course as we were getting close all the Mongolians were leaving and going back to where all the food tents were. We could see the race kind of off in the distance, they had already started. It was the 2 year old race, and the riders are little kids, and most of them were bareback. The race was really long, the only parts you can see are the start and the finish, they ride out for like 4 km (I think) and then come back. So we stood around waiting, and finally we saw people gathering at a different place, so we went and it turned out to be the finish line. We saw them all come in, looking pretty tired. I don’t know how those kids can hang on for such a long race, bareback no less!! And the race horses are really skinny, I think part of the training is to not let them eat very much and make them sweat a lot. They award prizes to the first 5 and then to the last place finisher. They didn’t award the prizes right away though, on Tuesday at the end of Nadaam they all came to the stadium in town and were awarded their prizes. They gave away bikes and TV’s and DVD players and a couple of the winners got dirt bikes. The award ceremony was pretty cool. All the little kids came on their race horses, and the winner would sing a song and then all the kids got a sip of Aireg and poured some on their horse and then they took a victory lap around the stadium. Sometimes they would do so carrying their TV or DVD player on their horse, which was pretty funny.
After the racing on Monday night my family slaughtered a sheep. I think nearly every family slaughters a sheep or a goat during Nadaam. My family didn’t blowtorch it like Salomon’s did though. We hog-tied it and threw it in the back of the SUV and took it over to my Mom’s parents’ house. They slaughter them differently here than we do in the US. Two guys held the legs out while the sheep was on it’s back, and then a third guy cut a little hole right below the sternum and stuck his arm in and pulled the aorta out of the heart. It took him several minutes to find the aorta though, he had his arm in the sheep and was feeling around. What really surprised me was the sheep wasn’t making any noise, it was just kind of writhing its head around, obviously in some pain. Finally the guy got the aorta and then the sheep was dead in like 30 seconds. Then he skinned it and cut off the feet and cut it open and started taking out all the organs. In Mongolia the innards are considered the best part. My Dad kept telling me I was going to eat them, and I told him I would eat a little bit. But I was a little scared. I had told him how Salomon got sick after eating the goat that his family slaughtered, so I think that helped my case. The guy who was butchering the sheep took out all the organs and Grandma and my Aunt took the bucket and cleaned out the stomach and the intestines and then boiled the liver, heart, kidneys, lungs and stomach. They guy who was butchering took all the blood out of the sheep and put it in another bucket which they later mixed with flour and chopped onion. They hung the meat up on the side of the house, where I’m pretty sure it stayed all night. Then the next day two bags full of it were delivered to my house… and I’m pretty sure I’ve been eating it ever since. I was a little worried about eating meat that had hung out all night, but I figure it can’t be much worse than all the other meat I eat here, which sits out in the meat room at the market for a whole day, and who knows when it was really slaughtered…
Me, my host Dad and Dinner
When the innards were finished boiling they took them out and cut them up and everybody dug in. I ate a little piece of the liver, which was OK, and a piece of the heart. The heart was the best part, it actually tasted like tender meat (something that you really just don’t get here) and then I ate a really tiny piece of the lung. The lung was gross, it was squishy and slimy. They tried to get me to eat some of the Kidney, but I had had about enough innards to last me for quite some time. I think the reason they like the innards so much is that they are tender. I never saw what they did with the blood/flour/onion mixture, but Cady’s family also slaughtered a sheep that night, and then on Wednesday I was over there and her dad pulled out a plate of innards and microwaved them (gross!) and he kept saying it was the blood. Cady saw her family make the same mixture with the blood that my family did, and we figured out that they then stuffed it inside the intestines to make a sort of blood sausage. I don’t think I could eat that. Innards just kind of gross me out, and intestines full of blood definitely gross me out!
On Tuesday we had class again, and then a really pointless “administrative” session, and after that we went to the Stadium to watch some of the wrestling. When we got there nothing was going on, and then for about 2 hours they were doing the racing awards, and finally they got to the wrestling. It was the final round, so there were only 8 guys left. They all came out on the field and did the eagle dance and then all 4 matches went on at the same time. The rules of Nadaam wrestling here are that once a body part other than a hand or foot touches the ground you lose. And it’s single elimination. The next round was the 4 winners of the first round, and one of the matches went really quickly, but then two of the guys were taking for ever! They were just kind of standing there leaning against each other not really doing anything. That went on for like half an hour, they would lean for awhile and then break, repeat repeat repeat. Then finally they did a coin flip, and the winner of the coin flip got to have his arms on top, and then it went pretty fast after that.
The Eagle Dance
The final round took forever too. Cady and I left because we were bored, and we later heard that there was a bit of a scandal. Apparently one of the guys was the hometown favorite, and it got to the point of the coin toss and the other guy won the toss, and the crowd started to boo and hiss and people started leaving, and then the hometown boy lost, and the crowd started going out on the infield and more people left. But then somehow the hometown boy ended up winning or something, there was some talk about a bribe. I don’t really know what went on, something scandalous.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were UB Nadaam, so pretty much all that happens is people watch TV. I watched some TV on Wednesday morning with my family. It was just opening ceremonies, and I sat in the living room and was writing in my journal and watching, and then my Dad yelled at me for not watching, so that was the end of writing in my journal… They have also been making some weird food. When I came downstairs on Wednesday morning there was a big plate of weird yellowish stuff. At first I thought it was this thing that some trainee’s families have made that is gelatin with fat and meat and maybe some cucumbers or something in it. I was terrified! But it turned out to be made with raisins and this creamy stuff that usually we put on bread with sugar, which my Dad had heated up. It was actually not too bad, kind of sweet, but the texture was weird. My Dad also pulled out a plate of the sheep ribs and started eating huge pieces of fat and putting it in his Milk Tea. He knows that I don’t like fat, because every time we are cooking or there is fat around I say I don’t like it. So he didn’t try to make me eat any of the sheep fat. I did have some Milk Tea, I’ve had it a few times. It’s actually pretty good. Some people make it with a lot of salt, which makes it kind of gross, but when it’s not salty it tastes pretty much like heavy milk with a little tea in it.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
One Month down.
This past week has been a nice change of pace. We had our Mid-LPI on Tuesday, which went really well for me, and really for all of us who are training in Sukhbaatar. Then Wednesday we left for Darkhan for mid-center days. It was the 4th, so that evening we had a basketball game between the trainees and the current PCV’s who were in town, then they had a dinner for us of pizza, hot dogs and watermelon. It was great! The pizza was kind of the Mongolian take on pizza, and the hotdogs were a little different, but it was so nice to eat semi-American food! All the trainees were in Darkhan, and we had a nice celebration of America’s birthday, including a singing of the national anthem. :) There were plans to make our own impromptu fireworks out of toilet paper, but that never materialized, which is probably a good thing.
It was really good to see all the trainees who are in different towns! We hadn’t seen each other in almost a month. We were only in Darkhan for two nights though, and pretty much all day the three days we were there we had training sessions. Some of them were pretty entertaining (such as the hour and a half long session on condom safety during which we did skits where we all had to display our competence in putting a condom on a plastic penis, those were quite entertaining!) , but some were really freaking boring (such as the “grammar hammer” an hour and a half of extremely dry English grammar). It may have been made worse by the fact that it was really hot and we all partied pretty hard both nights so the early morning sessions were a little rough… I had kind of a scary experience one of the nights. We were down in the hotel bar and I went to use the bathroom. There are two toilets in the bathroom, each behind its own door, but only one of them is ever really used. The other one doesn’t have a light and seems more like where they store buckets and stuff. But I really had to pee and the good one was taken. So after waiting a few minutes I decided to brave the other one. So I went in and closed the door, and then when I tried to come back out I realized that there was no door knob on the inside… I didn’t close it all the way, but doors in Mongolia don’t always function quite like they should. So there I was trying to pry the door open from the top where it wasn’t shut all the way, but I guess I had pushed it closed a little more firmly than I should have, because I could NOT get it open!! After prying on it for a few minutes I decided I would just bang on it and someone would be bound to come along at some point and hear me, which eventually they did. Unfortunately I hadn’t quite thought ahead enough to not have my head directly in front of said door, so when Justin came along and saved me he pushed the door into my head. Two days later and I still have a bit of a bump on my forehead… but at least I wasn’t stuck in the bathroom of the Darkhan Hotel bar all night!
This week is Nadaam. I’m a little disappointed because Monday and Tuesday are the Sukhbaatar Nadaam, and we have some class. Today we only had language class from 8-9:30, and we are free the rest of the day so we can watch wrestling and then the horse races in the afternoon. My family said that we are all going out to Bagh 5 for the horse racing at 2. They have races all day long, and they divide them up into age groups. I'm not exactly sure how it works, there is some sort of track, but I think it's more of a cross-country race. Tuya said this morning that at 4 there is a race that "comes in" and one that "goes out" and the one that goes out at 4 comes back at 6. Two hours seems like an awfully long race...
Yesterday evening I went over to Solomon’s host family’s house where they were blow-torching a goat. They had slaughtered it and then they put hot stones and some onions and stuff inside it and then blow-torched it for like 4 hours. I didn’t get to see them slaughter it, but the whole blow-torching thing was interesting. Then when it was “done” they took the rocks out and passed them around. I’m not sure what the significance of that is, but you just take it and kind of “hot-potato” it between your hands, and then the Mongolians licked their hands after the rocks were cool. Then they took the innards out and ladled out the juice that had accumulated, put it in bowls and passed it around. It tasted like watery grease. I left before they got to passing around the innards and eating the rest of it. (Luckily, because Solomon was late for class today because he ate some goat and then spent a lot of time in the outhouse this morning...) I really have no interest in eating innards, and I also wasn’t too interested in eating propane saturated goat skin and fat. I think that is the true “Mongolian BBQ,” during the summer they cook a lot of animals by blow-torch. Goats, sheep and marmots.
I finally did get a key to my house last Tuesday! When I came home from going to lunch with Cady and going to the internet, Undarmaa sullenly handed me a key. I would love to know where that key came from, because last Monday my mom was pretty adamant that they didn’t have one for me, and she would have to go to Russia or UB to get one because there is nowhere in the Selenge Aimeg to get a key made (something I find slightly hard to believe…). But at least I no longer have to worry about being locked out of the house!
It was really good to see all the trainees who are in different towns! We hadn’t seen each other in almost a month. We were only in Darkhan for two nights though, and pretty much all day the three days we were there we had training sessions. Some of them were pretty entertaining (such as the hour and a half long session on condom safety during which we did skits where we all had to display our competence in putting a condom on a plastic penis, those were quite entertaining!) , but some were really freaking boring (such as the “grammar hammer” an hour and a half of extremely dry English grammar). It may have been made worse by the fact that it was really hot and we all partied pretty hard both nights so the early morning sessions were a little rough… I had kind of a scary experience one of the nights. We were down in the hotel bar and I went to use the bathroom. There are two toilets in the bathroom, each behind its own door, but only one of them is ever really used. The other one doesn’t have a light and seems more like where they store buckets and stuff. But I really had to pee and the good one was taken. So after waiting a few minutes I decided to brave the other one. So I went in and closed the door, and then when I tried to come back out I realized that there was no door knob on the inside… I didn’t close it all the way, but doors in Mongolia don’t always function quite like they should. So there I was trying to pry the door open from the top where it wasn’t shut all the way, but I guess I had pushed it closed a little more firmly than I should have, because I could NOT get it open!! After prying on it for a few minutes I decided I would just bang on it and someone would be bound to come along at some point and hear me, which eventually they did. Unfortunately I hadn’t quite thought ahead enough to not have my head directly in front of said door, so when Justin came along and saved me he pushed the door into my head. Two days later and I still have a bit of a bump on my forehead… but at least I wasn’t stuck in the bathroom of the Darkhan Hotel bar all night!
This week is Nadaam. I’m a little disappointed because Monday and Tuesday are the Sukhbaatar Nadaam, and we have some class. Today we only had language class from 8-9:30, and we are free the rest of the day so we can watch wrestling and then the horse races in the afternoon. My family said that we are all going out to Bagh 5 for the horse racing at 2. They have races all day long, and they divide them up into age groups. I'm not exactly sure how it works, there is some sort of track, but I think it's more of a cross-country race. Tuya said this morning that at 4 there is a race that "comes in" and one that "goes out" and the one that goes out at 4 comes back at 6. Two hours seems like an awfully long race...
Yesterday evening I went over to Solomon’s host family’s house where they were blow-torching a goat. They had slaughtered it and then they put hot stones and some onions and stuff inside it and then blow-torched it for like 4 hours. I didn’t get to see them slaughter it, but the whole blow-torching thing was interesting. Then when it was “done” they took the rocks out and passed them around. I’m not sure what the significance of that is, but you just take it and kind of “hot-potato” it between your hands, and then the Mongolians licked their hands after the rocks were cool. Then they took the innards out and ladled out the juice that had accumulated, put it in bowls and passed it around. It tasted like watery grease. I left before they got to passing around the innards and eating the rest of it. (Luckily, because Solomon was late for class today because he ate some goat and then spent a lot of time in the outhouse this morning...) I really have no interest in eating innards, and I also wasn’t too interested in eating propane saturated goat skin and fat. I think that is the true “Mongolian BBQ,” during the summer they cook a lot of animals by blow-torch. Goats, sheep and marmots.
I finally did get a key to my house last Tuesday! When I came home from going to lunch with Cady and going to the internet, Undarmaa sullenly handed me a key. I would love to know where that key came from, because last Monday my mom was pretty adamant that they didn’t have one for me, and she would have to go to Russia or UB to get one because there is nowhere in the Selenge Aimeg to get a key made (something I find slightly hard to believe…). But at least I no longer have to worry about being locked out of the house!
Monday, July 2, 2007
Oh Yahnaa!!
One of my new favorite expressions ever is "oh yahnaa" It means "oops" or "oh no" I'm not exactly sure what the context in which you are supposed to use it is... But the day that Tuya (my language teacher) taught us the expression I tried it out on my family when I dropped something on the floor and they all busted out laughing at me. I'm really not sure why, but now it is sort of a running joke. Anytime something isn't going quite right I just say "Oh Yahnaa" and everybody laughs.
It worked especially well one night when my parents had some friends over and we were drinking beer, my Dad walked in with a giant bottle of Chinggis Vodka and set it in the middle of the table. I exclaimed "Oh Yahnaa" and looked terrified (in Mongolia once a bottle is opened it MUST be finished, and there is ALWAYS another bottle) So I guess my Dad made my sister go exchange the vodka for a case of beer, which is much more manageable. I'm lucky in that my family doesn't really drink too much. Although last week my Mom had friends over pretty much every night to drink. One night it was wine, and the other night it was beer. I'm glad they don't seem to have a great affinity for Vodka, because that is dangerous stuff...
This past weekend was pretty crazy... Saturday we learned how to chop wood, build a fire and cook some Mongolian dishes. All the parents had a meeting on Thursday with our LCF's and decided whose houses we were going to. Half of the group came to my house, which was really fun. Friday after classes we went to the market to buy all the food we needed (we had to buy meat, which was a little scary. Luckily our LCFs were with us to help) and then Saturday morning we all learned how to chop wood and then build a fire. My family has a second building which used to be a Delguur (small store) but is now closed, but it has a wood fire stove in it so we cooked out there. We made tsoyvin which is a really delicious noodle/vegetable mix that is sort of stir fried, a lot like Pad Thai, and montain buutz which are steamed dumplings with meat in them, and also tomstae hooshor which are basically handmade hotpockets with potatoes in them. We ended up with way more food than we could eat. The Peace Corps gave us a budget of 1,500 Tugriks each, which for my group added up to 12,000 Tugriks (or $12) and we could have fed about 20 people. After we were done cooking I made my Dad come out to help us eat some of the food, and he brought a bottle of Mongolian Aireg out that his Mom had made. Aireg is a word for Vodka, and Mongolian Aireg is the famous fermented Mare's milk. It is actually pretty good. It tastes a little like Sake, and is not very strong.
Sunday was a crazy day too...
Today we had our Mid-LPI (language proficiency interview) which went really well. It was kind of intimidating, we went in one by one and had to have a conversation with the tester in Mongolian. We weren't really sure what to expect, Tuya gave us a list of questions that we have learned, so we studied that a lot, but the interview wasn't quite like that. I went in and Naraa told me to tell her about my family, and then tell her about myself and then ask her questions. I did pretty well, but she said my grammar was a little off. Mongolian is a really challenging language because most of the meaning comes from endings to verbs and nouns, and the ending depends on which vowels are used in the verb stem etc... It's hard to keep it all straight. And native speakers drop syllables and vowels when speaking conversationally, so it's really hard to understand what is actually being said when half the word is missing!
I'm glad the LPI is over though, and tomorrow we get to go to Darkhan for Mid-Center Days, supposedly they are having a BBQ for us tomorrow for the 4th and they are going to make us Hamburgers!! We are all pretty excited about that. Then next week is Nadaam, so we don't have class very much and it's pretty much a week-long party from what we hear. I'm a little worried about getting locked out of my house, as I don't have a key yet and I have been locked out twice in the past two days... but hopefully that issue is getting resolved today...
It worked especially well one night when my parents had some friends over and we were drinking beer, my Dad walked in with a giant bottle of Chinggis Vodka and set it in the middle of the table. I exclaimed "Oh Yahnaa" and looked terrified (in Mongolia once a bottle is opened it MUST be finished, and there is ALWAYS another bottle) So I guess my Dad made my sister go exchange the vodka for a case of beer, which is much more manageable. I'm lucky in that my family doesn't really drink too much. Although last week my Mom had friends over pretty much every night to drink. One night it was wine, and the other night it was beer. I'm glad they don't seem to have a great affinity for Vodka, because that is dangerous stuff...
This past weekend was pretty crazy... Saturday we learned how to chop wood, build a fire and cook some Mongolian dishes. All the parents had a meeting on Thursday with our LCF's and decided whose houses we were going to. Half of the group came to my house, which was really fun. Friday after classes we went to the market to buy all the food we needed (we had to buy meat, which was a little scary. Luckily our LCFs were with us to help) and then Saturday morning we all learned how to chop wood and then build a fire. My family has a second building which used to be a Delguur (small store) but is now closed, but it has a wood fire stove in it so we cooked out there. We made tsoyvin which is a really delicious noodle/vegetable mix that is sort of stir fried, a lot like Pad Thai, and montain buutz which are steamed dumplings with meat in them, and also tomstae hooshor which are basically handmade hotpockets with potatoes in them. We ended up with way more food than we could eat. The Peace Corps gave us a budget of 1,500 Tugriks each, which for my group added up to 12,000 Tugriks (or $12) and we could have fed about 20 people. After we were done cooking I made my Dad come out to help us eat some of the food, and he brought a bottle of Mongolian Aireg out that his Mom had made. Aireg is a word for Vodka, and Mongolian Aireg is the famous fermented Mare's milk. It is actually pretty good. It tastes a little like Sake, and is not very strong.
Sunday was a crazy day too...
Today we had our Mid-LPI (language proficiency interview) which went really well. It was kind of intimidating, we went in one by one and had to have a conversation with the tester in Mongolian. We weren't really sure what to expect, Tuya gave us a list of questions that we have learned, so we studied that a lot, but the interview wasn't quite like that. I went in and Naraa told me to tell her about my family, and then tell her about myself and then ask her questions. I did pretty well, but she said my grammar was a little off. Mongolian is a really challenging language because most of the meaning comes from endings to verbs and nouns, and the ending depends on which vowels are used in the verb stem etc... It's hard to keep it all straight. And native speakers drop syllables and vowels when speaking conversationally, so it's really hard to understand what is actually being said when half the word is missing!
I'm glad the LPI is over though, and tomorrow we get to go to Darkhan for Mid-Center Days, supposedly they are having a BBQ for us tomorrow for the 4th and they are going to make us Hamburgers!! We are all pretty excited about that. Then next week is Nadaam, so we don't have class very much and it's pretty much a week-long party from what we hear. I'm a little worried about getting locked out of my house, as I don't have a key yet and I have been locked out twice in the past two days... but hopefully that issue is getting resolved today...
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