Happy New Year

The past three weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur. First we had a Peace Corps In Service Training (IST) in a ger camp outside of UB. All PCVs brought their counterpart with them, and it was a mixture of cross-culture, safety and security, technical and language training. Also a great excuse for the M18s to party together at night, as it was the first time we all saw each other since August.
The ger camp where IST was held was an interesting experience… It was really beautiful, in the middle of Terelj National Park. There were houses and gers, and those of us who live in cities or aimeg centers were all assigned to the gers except for a few. I was one of the lucky ones (so I though) who stayed in a house, with a toilet and a shower. Unfortunately the electrical capacity of the ger camp didn’t come close to being able to support all the electric heaters and lights, so the first couple days the power went out about every 20 minutes. Living in a ger does have its benefits, mainly in that you can build a fire. One night the electricity in our house went out in the middle of the night, and we all woke up freezing cold. Once it came back on my electric heater went a little crazy and started exploding and shooting blue sparks at me while I huddled in the corner of my bed and screamed like a little girl. Luckily Amber was there to unplug it. Later, when the Mongolians came to check it out I had an interesting time explaining to them that the heater had been shooting fire at me, while they looked at me like I was crazy. They took the wall socket out and did something to the wires, and seemed to think that it was fine, but I made them take it away. I’m pretty sure they “replaced” it with the same one, but no more blue sparks so oh well.
IST was full of interesting happenings. On the second day I and several others had partied just a bit too hard the night before and skipped a language training session to take a nap. We all got our names called out at lunch and had to have a talking-to during which we were told that had it only been one or two of us to skip, no big deal. But since 15 of us decided a nap was more important, we were going to be punished. Our “punishment” was that we had to serve dinner to everyone that night, which actually turned out to be kind of fun, and of course we served the Country Director and all the other important people last (they brought it upon themselves…. Giving the delinquents power over their food may not have been the wisest of choices).
The four Mercy Corps PCVs and our counterparts also had a very enjoyable “meeting” one evening. I invited Uunee to come over to my house and have a couple drinks, which turned into all the Mercy Corps counterparts, some of whom may have slightly deceived their PCVs into thinking it was an actual meeting… After we all had a good laugh about that we went down to the main building and bonded over a couple bottles of vodka and of course the mandatory Mongolian singing by those of us who know a song (I, to my great shame, do not yet know a Mongolian song… but am working on it).
We also had a bachelorette party for Kim, who is now at home in America getting married. She will be returning, and bringing her new husband along with her (brave soul that he is). I’m convinced that there never has been nor ever will be a bachelorette party quite like this one. Who else but Peace Corps volunteers can be convinced (and I don’t think it took a whole lot…) into stripping down to Victoria’s Secret panties and dancing around in front of about 20 women? For free?? And they let us take pictures… I’m told they even rehearsed their routine. In costume.

After IST we all returned to UB and had a couple days to relax (though there is never much relaxing that happens in UB) before our Christmas party on the 23rd. Brigette, a German expat who owns a bakery in UB generously gave us the use of her summer home outside of UB for the party. She and the Ambassador were both extremely generous in providing us all the food and beverages we could possibly want. A lot of us spent the night out there, and though it was really cold, we all had a great time. The next morning we spent several hours cleaning up the giant mess we had made (and I'm sure the local Mongolians thought we were all crazy drunks as they watched us haul billions of beer cans and wine bottles to the dump). As the morning wore on people started to head back to UB, those of us who were left made some hamburgers on the grill (a delightful experience) and drank some of the left-over beer after warming it over the fire. Probably the only time in any of our lives we will complain of beer being too cold, but frozen beer is really hard to drink.
A few of us ended up spending a second night out there, and had a quiet Christmas Eve which was nice after all the partying of the previous few days. Christmas was also pretty quiet for me, which was nice. I cooked dinner for a few friends. I made roast chicken and potatoes and broccoli. I was sooo excited to eat broccoli, it's one of the vegetables I miss the most.
The day after Christmas all four of the Arkhangai PCVs braved the bus ride home together, and after some more practice at climbing somewhat gracefully over piles of boxes and bags of frozen meat to get to our seats we arrived home safe and sound. The next day was the Mercy Corps New Year's party.
Mongolians celebrate New Year's any time between Christmas and the 31st, and somehow there has been some confusion between the two holidays. Santa generally makes an appearance on New Year's, as do Christmas trees. One thing Peace Corps forgot to tell me before I came to Mongolia is that I should have brought a prom dress, because that is the attire for women at New Year's parties. I told Uunee I didn't have a dress, and she said it was OK, so I just went with the typically-American jeans and black tank top. I did wear my high heel sandals from the Summer though, and I think it's the first time any of my coworkers has seen me in high heels. When I got to the nightclub where our party was held I found all the women in a back room busily changing into their dresses and using liberal amounts of glitter. They decided that even though I didn't have a dress, so long as I had glitter in my hair, on my face, my back, arms and chest, I would be Ok. So I let them douse me in glitter and we were ready.
The party was really fun, with lots of strange games and dancing. I even got to waltz with Gambaa, my favorite Mongolian. Waltzing in Mongolia is a big deal, everyone knows how and especially in the countryside it is an integral part of any celebration. I learned how over the summer, and was actually pretty good at it, but all my skills have left me. But Gambaa generously drug me around the dance floor and tried to make me look like less of a fool. I'm not sure how well it worked, but oh well. Being American you are allowed to look like a fool. :)
Actual New Year's Eve was an interesting experience. It was something like the 4th of July with no city restrictions on fireworks. From my balcony I could see fireworks going off all over the ger districts, and even fireworks shooting past my head as my neighbors shot them off of their balconies. It made me glad I live in a concrete building. I was really surprised not to see any gers go up in flames.
Now it's just a countdown to Tsaagan Sar, the Lunar New Year which is a much bigger deal in Mongolia than our New Year. Tsaagan Sar is February 8th this year, and will consist of three days of visiting friends and family eating lots of buutz and drinking lots of vodka. Uunee has agreed to let me help her and her family make buutz, each family usually makes between 1,000 and 5,000 buutz so I'm sure they can use all the help they can get. And hopefully I will be able to perfect my buutz-pinching skills.

Note: I added some new pictures to the December file.