Roy-G-Biv ... host family time is almost up, about one week left ... I'm getting oddly sentimental about it. I'm gonna really miss my sister Enkjargal ("Peace and Happiness" --talk about a great name), she has been my anchor through all of this and the biggest help in my Mongolian language acquisition. At the tender age of 12 she is more of an adult than I am at times.
Practice teaching has been a trip, not overly horrid. I now know that I can do it, I will just have to work at it, but its fun. And I love all my students they are totally worth it.
In just about 2 weeks I will know where I will be living for the next two years and with whom. I'm really gonna miss all of my site mates. I'm attempting to memorize every moment with them. It's silly really. This parting aches me more than my leaving America. I think its the Mongolia factor. Everything here feels so familiar yet is utterly different than anything I know.
I've not been homesick yet, but at times I really wish that the people I love back in the states could be here experiencing this with me. It been only 2 months or so and I've changed so much. I can't even begin to imagine what type of person I will be come two years from now. Its exciting and frightening at the same time. When you live in a world where "real" showers are a distant memory, and a slightly cold drink is heaven its hard to believe that a place like America is real.
My life before Mongolia seems like a dream, or a minor preface that leads up to now. For all that I have a lot of new and frightening insecurities one thing I don't doubt is that I am right where I belong. I absolutely love it here.
Although I could do without the CBE (chronic baas explosions) O_o, hahahah, oh the glory indoor plumming would be.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Letters from Home
I got a letter from home finally. It was so nice. Both my dad and my sister Meredith wrote me letters. I wrote one to Meredith but am too poor to send it via snail mail right now, and as it has the update of my life I will just type it up for everyone so enjoy!
21 July 2007
Dear Meredith,
Today I did laundry... for about 4 hours ... then I helped to cook lunch over a dung fire ... then I took a 5 hour nap. It was a slow day, until my uber drunk neighbor/uncle showed up. We had to call the ambulance. They gave him some injection and then left. I hung out with him for a bit and learned some interesting facts about myself, mainly that my eyes are blue, my hair is yellow, and I am most certainly NOT from America.
The other day Jacob and I were walking in the dinge and met a baby bear from the visiting circus. It suckled my fingers, pseudo clawed my arm, bit Jacob in the thigh and tried to eat my little sister. Its name was Mishka. It was really cute.
I have stared practice teaching. There are 60 or so kids in my class, including my little bro. They were all given English names. My brother's is Busta. There is also a Snoop, Shakira, Bubba, Mary-Kate, and my personal favorite: a girl named Bean. The are all painfully cute especially when they leave class with their accented "Peace Out"s.
My group elected me to give a speech at our family day/swearing in. I t will be 2 mins long and in Mongolian. My Mongolian is only decent, but apparently my eratically awkward gestures and need to say odd things qualified me to represent the Heraldo bunch. Oh I also learned how to say "I saw Blue, It was glorious." Which is made even funnier by the fact that the Mongolian word for blue and boob is the same (hoohk) as well as the word for this certain type of pastry and genitalia (boov). Mongolian is fun like that, especially when and extra "a" can turn the word "and" (bas) in to the word "poop" (baas).
Also, Jurassic Park island does exist. It is about a 30 min walk to the west...just wade across the river, walk about 50 years and it looks just like JP O_o. I would have been more freaked out if I wasn't being consumed by mosquitoes, or attempting to contain my hysterics at the site of Chris walking in front of me with his boxer briefs converted into a banana hammock and his long sleeve, button up shirt tucked into them. I kid you not.
It is now the next morning. Last night I was awoken by a blood curddling scream and shrieking in Mongolian. So I do what anyone would do, I go investigate (and if life were a horror film I would be totally dead by now). It was my aunt... a bug had crawled into her ear and was eating her brain or something. The doctors were called again, but this time relayed instruction to my mostly naked eej (mom). A bit of veggie oil and 3 matchsticks later and things were fine. Thank goodness I had janked Jacob's sweatshirt earlier in the week as I slept with the hood up and tied. I still need what little I have left of my brain.
I will most likely type this up instead of mailing it to you as I permanently lost my purse (on Friday the 13th O_o), and subsequently all my money, peace corps identification, flash drive, i-Pod, Lonely Plant Book, and a roll of soft tp. Talk about suck city USA (or Mongol rather, which you are right to call it as it is infact the Mongolian word for Mongolia). Thank goodness my camera was in my school bag. Pictures of me and Mishka will eventually be sent.
Well now I must learn all of the body pats for tomorrows class, then Allie is coming over at 2 so we can lesson plan for the week. Catch you on the flip side!
Haiir,
Cassandra
P.S. When do you go to England?
21 July 2007
Dear Meredith,
Today I did laundry... for about 4 hours ... then I helped to cook lunch over a dung fire ... then I took a 5 hour nap. It was a slow day, until my uber drunk neighbor/uncle showed up. We had to call the ambulance. They gave him some injection and then left. I hung out with him for a bit and learned some interesting facts about myself, mainly that my eyes are blue, my hair is yellow, and I am most certainly NOT from America.
The other day Jacob and I were walking in the dinge and met a baby bear from the visiting circus. It suckled my fingers, pseudo clawed my arm, bit Jacob in the thigh and tried to eat my little sister. Its name was Mishka. It was really cute.
I have stared practice teaching. There are 60 or so kids in my class, including my little bro. They were all given English names. My brother's is Busta. There is also a Snoop, Shakira, Bubba, Mary-Kate, and my personal favorite: a girl named Bean. The are all painfully cute especially when they leave class with their accented "Peace Out"s.
My group elected me to give a speech at our family day/swearing in. I t will be 2 mins long and in Mongolian. My Mongolian is only decent, but apparently my eratically awkward gestures and need to say odd things qualified me to represent the Heraldo bunch. Oh I also learned how to say "I saw Blue, It was glorious." Which is made even funnier by the fact that the Mongolian word for blue and boob is the same (hoohk) as well as the word for this certain type of pastry and genitalia (boov). Mongolian is fun like that, especially when and extra "a" can turn the word "and" (bas) in to the word "poop" (baas).
Also, Jurassic Park island does exist. It is about a 30 min walk to the west...just wade across the river, walk about 50 years and it looks just like JP O_o. I would have been more freaked out if I wasn't being consumed by mosquitoes, or attempting to contain my hysterics at the site of Chris walking in front of me with his boxer briefs converted into a banana hammock and his long sleeve, button up shirt tucked into them. I kid you not.
It is now the next morning. Last night I was awoken by a blood curddling scream and shrieking in Mongolian. So I do what anyone would do, I go investigate (and if life were a horror film I would be totally dead by now). It was my aunt... a bug had crawled into her ear and was eating her brain or something. The doctors were called again, but this time relayed instruction to my mostly naked eej (mom). A bit of veggie oil and 3 matchsticks later and things were fine. Thank goodness I had janked Jacob's sweatshirt earlier in the week as I slept with the hood up and tied. I still need what little I have left of my brain.
I will most likely type this up instead of mailing it to you as I permanently lost my purse (on Friday the 13th O_o), and subsequently all my money, peace corps identification, flash drive, i-Pod, Lonely Plant Book, and a roll of soft tp. Talk about suck city USA (or Mongol rather, which you are right to call it as it is infact the Mongolian word for Mongolia). Thank goodness my camera was in my school bag. Pictures of me and Mishka will eventually be sent.
Well now I must learn all of the body pats for tomorrows class, then Allie is coming over at 2 so we can lesson plan for the week. Catch you on the flip side!
Haiir,
Cassandra
P.S. When do you go to England?
Friday, July 13, 2007
quick update
this will be in list for as i only have 5 mins since the line was so long and i have to be home for dinner in an hour
cool things ive done:
took a shower!!!!!!!!!!!! in a real shower!!!!!!
ate blow torched goat
ate sheep tongue, nose, and an eyeball
learned a mongolian dance and poem
meet BX (mongolia's equivilant of justin timberlake)
things im worried about:
site placement in a month
learning enough mongolian to survive on my own
teaching (which starts on monday for me O_o)
things i really miss:
english
family and friends
slurpees
being really clean
drinks other than water, tea, or milk
things i absolutly love about mongolia:
the sky
the people (so nice and accepting)
the food
how everyone (except me) manages to look like they stepped from the pages of a magazine
how novel and exciting everything is
how the sun sets at 10:30pm
things i would love to have if you want to send me:
bathroom supplies (lotion, shampoos, tampons, soap, etc)
school supplies (any and all as we wont get any for teaching O_o)
baby wipes
hand sanitizer
soft tp
pictures
books
dvds (as i have access to players here but no shower, crazy huh)
bug repellant
a pillow
recipies (that involve basic food stuffs)
spices/luxury food goods
any thing else
NOTE
I will be in UB in about a month and will be able to buy and send things then if anyone wants me to get them anything (within reason) let me know what and where to send it to and i will see what i can do
okay all ... time to catch a machine back to Heraldo (my town ^_^) before the fam gets worried
peace! ^_^v
Cassandra
cool things ive done:
took a shower!!!!!!!!!!!! in a real shower!!!!!!
ate blow torched goat
ate sheep tongue, nose, and an eyeball
learned a mongolian dance and poem
meet BX (mongolia's equivilant of justin timberlake)
things im worried about:
site placement in a month
learning enough mongolian to survive on my own
teaching (which starts on monday for me O_o)
things i really miss:
english
family and friends
slurpees
being really clean
drinks other than water, tea, or milk
things i absolutly love about mongolia:
the sky
the people (so nice and accepting)
the food
how everyone (except me) manages to look like they stepped from the pages of a magazine
how novel and exciting everything is
how the sun sets at 10:30pm
things i would love to have if you want to send me:
bathroom supplies (lotion, shampoos, tampons, soap, etc)
school supplies (any and all as we wont get any for teaching O_o)
baby wipes
hand sanitizer
soft tp
pictures
books
dvds (as i have access to players here but no shower, crazy huh)
bug repellant
a pillow
recipies (that involve basic food stuffs)
spices/luxury food goods
any thing else
NOTE
I will be in UB in about a month and will be able to buy and send things then if anyone wants me to get them anything (within reason) let me know what and where to send it to and i will see what i can do
okay all ... time to catch a machine back to Heraldo (my town ^_^) before the fam gets worried
peace! ^_^v
Cassandra
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