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?