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
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