Life on the Steppe

Another couple weeks in and time has continued to fly. We’ve definitely found our rhythm of Mongolian class for 4 hours in the mornings, a break for lunch, and then another 3 hours of technical and/or cross-cultural training in the afternoons. On the whole, I think the classes have been as good as one could reasonably expect—especially the language training which I’ve been especially impressed with—though they certainly aren’t without their trying moments. For instance I’ve got a packet on the Mongolian health insurance system that could cure insomnia, and some of the advice we get on how to take of care of ourselves can get a little patronizing, but overall I think it’s been quite well run.

After class we all head back for dinner with our host families, who are in charge of all of our meals, and we’re supposed to be working on list of cultural and domestic activities meant to prepare us living on our own. Most are fairly inane or banal like learning games and cooking Mongolian food, but we’ve also got a few along the lines of herding sheep, observing an animal being slaughtered and learning the Mongolian waltz, which are going to be interesting to say the least (especially for those of you who know how well I can dance).

We’ve also started getting a few good stories under our belts from the last couple weekends. The first was the 13 mile hike that a group of did last week. It started with a hike to the nearby ruins and temples tucked into the hills, and ended with a trail-less ascent of the highest peak we could see from our town. Aside from the fantastic view from the top, my favorite highlight was the boulder fields we crossed that were littered with spiders the size of a silver dollar that would spin webs over every other crevasse.

A couple days ago we also had our first Mongolian karaoke session at the same place I went for my host sister’s 21st birthday—which, it turns out, is because it’s more or less the only night club in town. The main area is also exclusively decorated in red and green, including the lasers, which more or less makes it feel like a perennial disco Christmas party, though aside from that it’s actually surprisingly nice, all things considered. A group of the volunteers here in town all got together with our Mongolian teacher, Oogii, “Aw-gi”, (who I’ve actually gotten to know quite well since she is also a close friend of my host family), and a few of our host family siblings and parents, who we got to tag along for some dancing before moving upstairs to our own karaoke room. Unfortunately only a few songs in the power for the whole town went out, but we still had a great time hanging out by candle light waiting for the power to go back on before the police finally came and told us we should probably go. Undeterred however, we managed to pull some strings and have one of the volunteer’s host mothers open up her ДЭЛГYYP (“delguur”)—i.e. convenience store—for some snacks and drinks before migrating to one of the volunteer’s gers for the remainder of the evening.

We also got some mozzarella brought in from UB (Ulaanbaatar) the other day, so a bunch of the volunteers got together to make some pizza. We only got a couple slices each, but thanks to a good friend of mine who provided me with some last minute Italian seasoning and garlic powder they were still absolutely delicious.

Of course it hasn’t all been smooth sailing, however. On Saturday we played a few games of basketball against the business volunteers in almost 100° F heat, which left me with a skinned elbow, a bloody nose and a good case of dehydration despite drinking almost 3 liters of water while we were out there. More so than anything else though, it left me in desperate need of a shower—a real shower (i.e. the kind that doesn’t come from my lime green, plastic tumpen). However, I still had yet to activate my ATM card so that meant a trip to the bank in my sweaty athletic gear, towel in hand, to withdraw the fee I needed for the local bathhouse. Two banks, three attendants and 45 minutes later, I’m walking home in the midday heat, dirty as ever, because “activate an ATM card” never came up in any of the games of charades I’ve ever played.

There were also a few aesthetic details about Mongolia that I’ve realized I failed to mention in my last post. The first comes from the fact that until only a handful of decades ago, Mongolians never used to have anything that wouldn’t get eaten or biodegrade if they just threw it on the ground. This in turn has meant that it’s about as easy to find a public trashcan here as it is to find a blonde Mongolian. Consequently, my first morning here, I awoke from jetlag at about 4:00 am and decided to watch the sunrise. And as I looked across the field outside our dormitory, I noticed the ground was literally sparkling, giving this already picturesque scene a truly fantastic quality. That was of course until I realized they were the shards of countless broken vodka bottles… However, you would be surprised how quickly you get used to the broken glass. What takes a little longer is acclimating to the partially decayed quadruped jawbones and vertebrae speckled amongst the rest of the litter. And what almost certainly takes the longest of all is getting used to the post-slaughter piles of evacuated sheep-bowel contents that occasionally get wrung out along the side of the road. My apologies if you were planning on eating any time soon.

Rumor has it we’ve also had the first member of our M-21 group early terminate (ET). Most of us only knew him for a few days, but he was a cool guy, and hardly one that we would have expected to leave so early. Apparently though he was quite unhappy with the level of English he would be teaching and decided to leave before he got too far into things. I guess you just never know.

The weather has also gotten impressively volatile as of late as well. Contrasted with the early morning frost we had when I wrote my last post, we’ve recently been going through a bone-dry heat wave that regularly gets up to nearly 100° F as I mentioned before. It also comes with pretty spectacular, tree-bending wind, which I’ve heard is usually more characteristic of the spring here. Especially in the afternoons, you can sometimes watch small sandstorms blow in across the town stirring up a sandy haze and generating little dust devils on the corners of buildings. However today the wind finally blew in another cold front, and with it a mild thunderstorm that left us less than dry even after only the few minute walk back from playing frisbee in the park.

Overall though I’d say everyone’s been having a really enjoyable time, and we’ve got a few things coming up to look forward too. We’re about to have our summer holiday for Nadaam, the festival of the three manly sports, and the other volunteers are all coming back to our site for a view days so we can all spend some time together. I have no doubt it will provide some more stories worth sharing.

First Week In

Writing this now it’s very hard to believe I’ve only been here for a week. Probably because in that short period of time I’ve already met—and said good bye to most of—about 90 people, gone through a few dozen hours of language, culture and technical training, learned a new alphabet, and begun living with my host family here.

Pre-service training (PST) began with 5 days of the 75 of us living together in a dorm near the high school where we started our training. As you might expect, training initially consisted of learning the basic cultural norms and pleasantries, how to try to prevent, and inevitably deal with, our gastrointestinal maladies, what number to dial for a med-evac, and a general request that we employ our common sense whenever possible. However, we did also learn a few gems like how wrestling foreigners is something of a past time for certain ethanol-philic host country nationals (HCNs); how sometimes throwing rocks at a dog is the only way to keep it from biting you (hence why we’re all getting the rabies series—which I’m pretty sure now means I have virtually every vaccine I can possibly get); and how occasionally you have to take a hammer to the frozen stalagmite that’s been growing all winter in your outhouse.

However, if those represent the more trying aspects of service here, then the flipside has to be the people we’re working with. I can easily say I’ve liked every PCV, staff member, and HCN I’ve spent time with here so far, and that goes double for the six other male health Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) I roomed with for the first five days—one of whom for which this is quite impressively his first time outside the US. Currently the seven of us and the two female “healthies” are stationed with host families in apartments, houses and gers throughout the same city we did our initial five days in, alongside the half a dozen or so Community Economic Development volunteers (CEDs) with whom we’ll have cross-cultural training a couple times per week.

Unfortunately with the Peace Corps’ security policy, we’re not allowed to post the specific locations of PCVs, including ourselves, but I can say that we’re stationed south of Ulaanbataar (UB), and that the other Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteers and Community Youth Development (CYD) volunteers are also stationed to the south and east of UB. When I arrived I was surprised to find out that about 60% of the M-21s (i.e. the 21^st group to go to Mongolia) were here as TEFLs, and that only a handful of us are focused on health, CYD and CED. (Though I should note that almost everyone winds up working on something outside their specialty on the side.) Also I’ve found out that due to the “clustering” system they have here, it’s likely that I’ll be stationed in a larger city, likely an aimag (i.e. provincial) center, along with a volunteer from each of the other specialties. The idea is that grouped together we can help each other get access to more resources outside our specialty and more easily create inter-specialty projects. The company from my fellow PCVs will also undoubtedly be a plus, but being in a big city also means I’ll likely be living in an apartment and not in a ger, which I have mixed feelings about since I was looking forward to that experience.  Of course an apartment—though not without its own hardships (such as not being able to control the temperature in the winter)—may likely be less laborious since I’ll be spared having to haul water and coal/wood/dung, and having to use an outhouse, so I guess I’ll just have to see how I feel about it once I get there.

Currently for these three months of PST, I have my own room in my host family’s apartment, which is surprisingly nice, and being on the fourth floor, has a magnificent view of the surrounding area.  It’s close to the town center and the primary school (where we’re quite appropriately currently learning out “A, Б, Вs”), and despite the “soul-crushing” soviet architecture as one fellow PCV so aptly put it, the recently remodeled interior could be right out of the US—well, aside from the sparkly, periwinkle, floral relief wallpaper in my room. That might be a little hard to come by at home. But in terms of day to day living, the only real differences are the slightly limited cooking methods in the kitchen (just a hot plate for steaming and frying), the need to heat water in an electric kettle, and bathing in a large plastic basin called a tumpen.

Living with me are my retired host mother, 53, who used to be an accountant, and my host brother, 22, and sister, 20, both of whom are students. However, the other older brother, 28, who serves as a police officer, often visits with his wife and newborn, and the other sister, 30, who is studying in Singapore, will also be visiting for a few weeks this summer. Everyone has been very nice and accommodating, and my younger sister speaks enough English to communicate the basics, but without speaking well enough to rob me of my motivation to learn Mongolian. So far our activities have consisted largely of laughing at my attempts to speak Mongolian, laughing at my attempts to make Бyy3 (“boatz”, a type of steamed dumpling) and other Mongolian food, throwing around my frisbee and watching the world cup. Pretty par for the course from what I’ve heard.

And while the architecture may be less than inspired, the natural scenery here is absolutely gorgeous. Most days have been crisp and sunny, often with scattered clouds and the “big sky” effect of places with similar latitudes in the US like Montana and Idaho. Though the few days of rain we have had has made the smooth hills near our town a verdant green that gracefully rolls into the more distant, forested mountains. The high altitude, low humidity and northerly winds also give everything a crisp, fresh feeling, and while it has gotten cold enough to frost a few of these nights, I’ve felt well prepared for the cold and have actually been rather enjoying it (once the daily high is -5 F I may be singing a different tune though).

The food here has also been better than expected. Many of the larger towns, including where I am now, have decent access to fruits and vegetables, especially apples, oranges, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes and cabbage. However, they do seem to traditionally be used rather sparingly. Most meals consist chiefly of rice or a white flour noodle/dough base, some form of beef or mutton, and a rather mild seasoning. A bowl of candy, pieces of fried dough and slightly sweet biscuits are seem to be a staple in every kitchen. Basically it’s like a young, picky eater’s dream come true. The only thing of questionable palatability for me so far has been the “tu tset te”, or milk tea as it’s called in English. It’s basically just watered down, hot, salty milk that may or may not have had a tea bag dipped in it briefly. It was ok as a broth for a soup I had, but it’s kind of tough to drink straight up, especially once it gets into the tepid to cold range. The current PCVs say it’s an acquired taste. For now I’m playing the lactose intolerant card.

Anyway, I already have a few people I know want my address here, but for anyone else who wants it, or just wants to know what city I’m in, just email me at ned.lederer@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to let you know when I can. Questions and comments are also more than welcome. Hope everything is well for all of you back in The States, and I’m looking forward to sharing my next adventures with you sometime soon. 

Off Again

Let me start by apologizing for taking such a long hiatus with my updates. I have yet to close out my time in Vietnam with a final update as planned, though I'll mention that the highlights included leading a very creative sexual education tour, tying off my first sutures, and having BJ Novak (writer and actor on The Office) buy me breakfast in a Cambodian airport. For those of you interested, you can also view my photo album from the trip here: picasaweb.google.com/ned.lederer/Vietnam#

Now I'm off again for my 27 month assignment in Mongolia, beginning with three months of language, culture and community health training in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. I'll be working as a Health Specialist Volunteer, likely teaching sex education, nutrition and education to prevent sex trafficking, though I won't know where specifically I'm assigned until the end of the summer. While in training my address will be:

Jordan Ned Fosse Lederer, PCT

Post Office Box 1036

Central Post Office

Ulaanbaatar 15160

Mongolia (via China)

And I will post my long term location as soon as I can. I'll keep posting updates here and start a new online photo album as internet access permits.

If you have suggestions, questions or specific topics you would like me to cover while I'm in Mongolia, please feel free to email me at ned.lederer@gmail.com.