"What do you mean bucket?"

So I find myself back in my town. Apparently PC was not fully aware that I was doing the seminar, despite the fact that I was totally open about it and what not. Oh well. What will be will be. The only really sucky part is the fact that I can no longer go on my vacation. I was bummed but then since there was nothing I could do about it I just let it go. So I find myself back in the soum, and I have to say that life is rather boring and slow. I’ve gone from working about 10hour days, to teaching like 3 40minuet classes a day. I have nothing to do. Luckily the weather is gorgeous!!!!! I walk about an hour every day. The other day I found myself finally climbing to the top of the mountain next to my home, and visiting the Buddhist shrine. It was so beautiful up there. I will have to borrow a camera one of these days and take pictures.

We recently had some visitors from Thailand who are going to help our school with a greenhouse project. I served as an informal translator. They seemed so shocked that I lived without running water, and had to bucket bath. This also seemed to shock the one American teacher at the Seminar. They couldn’t quite grasp the concept. So I present to you…

~The Art of the Bucket Bath~

First, buy a bucket. Mine is neon pink and about 50cm in diameter, and 7cm in height. You can go for something in a different color. Unfortunately there are no larger sizes. Next, go to the well and get water. If you are lucky, time the trip to coincide with your 11th grade boys’ trips to the well as the will inevitably offer to carry your water back to your house. If not you will have to roll the giant water canister all the way home, and pull you back out trying to lift it over the door frame into your ger. If you have electricity, the next step is to fill your instant water boiler with water and boil it. (Note: if you don’t have one of these yet, get one. They are glorious!). If there is no electricity, make a fire and heat water on the stove. First you must wash your hair. If you are efficient you can accomplish this with a grand total of 2 cups of water. One to wet your hair, and one to rinse. Then throw out the dirty hair infested water. Next fill your bucket with about two inches of water. Squat next to the bucket (remember you have no table) and wash face, ears, neck, and upper torso. Then sit in the bucket, and wash your lower torso. Finally stand in the bucket and wash your legs and feet. TADAAAAA!!!! That’s it! You are now, more or less, so fresh and so clean clean! Throw out this water, rinse your bucket, and you are completely done.

A Mongolian Children's Folk Tale

Once upon a time there were four animal friends walking in the forest. A wolf, a fox, a hedgehog, and a rabbit. Suddenly, they found a bottle of vodka in the middle of the road! However, they thought that the bottle was too small to share amongst the four of them, so they decided that whoever got drunk the quickest would be allowed to drink the entire bottle themself.

"I get drunk after just one taste of vodka," said the wolf.
"I get drunk after just one smell of vodka," said the fox.
"I get drunk after just one look at vodka," said the hedgehog.
"I get drunk after just hearing about vodka," slurred the rabbit.

So the rabbit won and got to drink the entire bottle of vodka by himself. THE END.


Discuss.

"Ashgui dee" = GREAT!

Mongolian doctors....seriously....way to give me all that crazy unnecessary stress.

Apparently DC took a look at the images, and snuffed. "Humph, that little thing. It's nothing. 85% of people have such things in their kidneys. The pain was most likely from a low grade urinary tract infection, with some sand in there somewhere. Nothing to fret about, simply keep pushing fluids."

:::faints:::

However, all this worrying has made me reassess all the crazy stressfulness that is my life here in Mongolia. I don't need it. I will have to talk to the seminar people, and if they can't cut back my hours then I'm going back to the soum, or just taking a vacation and visiting Dornod and other friends.

Being healthy is such a nice thing.

Celebrated Gregory's birthday yesterday with my boyfriend. We had surprisingly delicious and cheep cake, instant noodles, and shared a beer. It was nice.

Tomorrow Never Knows...

...and apparently neither do the doctors here.

One says blood clot, one says cyst, still another says tumor...is it new, have I had it from before?

I'm tired.

Tomorrow is Gregory's birthday and I miss him.

I'm going back to the countryside tomorrow until we hear from Washington, and there are three possible answers:
1. Nothing to worry about just forget it for now/take such-and-such a medicine/etc.
2. We want to know more go to Bangkok.
3. We want to know more, we are medically separating you from PC and bringing you back to America.

I know being healthy is what is most important, I know this. But I'm just hoping and praying that they at the very least let me finish ... I only got 4 months.

Fingers Crossed.

Waiter, there is too much pepper in my paprikosh

Typing is difficult. I'm tired from not eating, from the drugs they gave me, from waking up extra early to be on time only to end up waiting for the Mongolians, and from the fact that I'm ready for all this to be over!!!!

I got my CT this morning. It would have been unremarkable if it wasn't for the fact that they exploded my vein. Okay explosion is an exaggeration, but they didn't put the catheter into my arm enough so when they started pumping the meds through the IV it burnt for a second before starting to gush out of my arm and all over the last of my clean shirts!!! (Thank goodness for the free box at Peace Corps, hooray free new shirt!) So I look at it for a minuet..."Hmmmmm, I don't know if this is what should be happening..." and begin frantically waving as this was our prearranged signal for something is wrong. The doctor comes in and asks whats wrong..."Ummmm... this" I say and point to my gushing arm trying not to pass out, and trying not to forget my Mongolian as they didn't know English, and my Mongolian is the same as my "interpreter's" English. So that arm gets de-IVd and swaddled up, and the other arm gets stuck...and immediately starts gushing blood! The nurse called over the doctor, he jiggles it around in my arm for a painful but thankfully brief moment, and voila! Its it...the scan finishes with out a hitch!

However, when it inevitably came time to analyze the image, we were told to come back after noon...O_o...seriously? You guys just exploded my arm..."I know you are not the official doctor but can you tell me what you think." "Well there is a mass, you can see right there" Okay, okay, we are not going to punch out the doctor. "Yes I know, but can you tell me exactly what you think it might be...should I worry?" "I will have the results for you after 12 o'clock" ... "Ooookaaay. See you later than." :::sigh resignedly and weakly shake head:::

But that's okay. Physically I feel much better. I'm on some kinda antibiotics specifically designed for the urinary system. This afternoon I will meet with the Urologist who should be able to give me answers.

Okay, pushing buttons has become too difficult. Will update again later.

The Mongolian word for Kindney is "Boor"

Yey! My kidneys, liver, bladder, etc. etc. are working perfectly!

I know this because of the IVP test. Which did not hurt at all!!! This may be because I am just such a beast at taking pain. But most likely its probably because they slipped me some drugs, which knocked me out and uber dilated my eyes for quite a while. In the wait for the results to be processed I was taken out to a restaurant and fed a bacon cheeseburger! Yum! Then we went back to the hospital to find out the news...

Boo! There is a low density mass in my right kidney. Maybe a blood clot??? We are calling it a blood clot, but who knows. No one...hence another trip to the doctors office! I'm actually starting to like it over there. They have these nifty Korean water dispensers that instead of Dixie cups have these flat paper cups that sorta slot open to put water inside...more like a mini envelope than a cup. It really space efficient.

Also a theory has developed as to how I got said "blood clot" in my kidney. I got accidentally knocked into a pile of luggage/boxes about 2 weeks ago. I noticed the bruise on my arm that night, but then had forgotten all about it by the time my killer pains had started the next day. Hm...maybe, maybe. The majority of kidney blood clots come from internal bleeding due to trauma, which will eventually go away by itself. However, it never hurts to double check. So after my CT scan tomorrow I also get to go visit a urologist!!!!

All of this is actually really interesting, and makes me miss my forensic anthropology days. The body is fascinating.

We all make mistakes aka "You have beautiful testicles"

Every week I teach a new group of teachers, and part of my introduction is a mini speech, that is half in English and half Mongolian. It gets us acquainted really quick, bonds us as teachers and foreign language learners, and is funny. So here is my intro speech ^_^.

Hi! My name is Cassandra, but you can call me Cass, Anu, or Teacher. But please, please, please do not call me bagsh (teacher). I am not a bagsh, I am a teacher. You are not bagshnar, you are teachers. If your students call you bagsh they are thinking in ... Mongolian. If they call you "Teacher" then they are thinking in ... English! And that makes the learning process easier. Now, I know and understand Mongolian, but because this is a Speaking and Listening class, we want to use English as much as possible. If you don't know a word, use a different word, or describe what you are talking about. When I first moved into my ger I didn't know the word orts (felt flap that covers the hole in the roof of the ger). So one day it starts raining and water is coming into the hole in my ger, and I run next door and yell "Migaa akhaa, tuslaarai, geriin malgai yaj khaakh ve?" ("Migaa brother, help, how do I close the ger's hat?) :::pause for laughter::: I didn't know the correct word, but by using words I did know he was able to understand me. So lets us as much English as we can. Also, I know that we are all teachers, but we never stop learning. All of you are here because you want to improve your English. And because this is the speaking class it is important that you speak! Don't be shy! Don't be afraid to make mistakes! I make mistakes all the time! Once I was talking with this women, and she had such beautiful eyebrows that I wanted to tell her, so I said, "Egchee ta yamar saikhan tomsogtoi!" ("Sister, you have beautiful testicles") :::pause for laughter::: She looks and me very strangely and asks, "Tomsog gej uu?" ("Did you say testicles?") :::pause again for laughter::: I thought for a second before I realized my mistake. "Ugui, ugui, ugui, tomsog bish! Homsog! Ta yamar saikhan homsogtoi!" ("No, no, no, not testicles! Eyebrows! You have beautiful eyebrows") :::pause yet again for laughter::: So you see, its okay to make mistakes! We can do it! So now instead of me just standing here and introducing myself to you, I want you to ask me questions. What do you want to know about me?

So that's my into speech. Awesome huh? The testicles story is true. I also told a man that I ate a person's head and eyes. This is because the words for sheep and person (hun hoon) are sooooo similar! In fact I hate the Cyrillic vowels: Ү, У, Ө, and О...they are soooo similar. My ear is starting to hear the difference (after 2 years), however my mouth refuses to cooperate. Stupid American mouth.