Darkhan days (K is silent)

Tomorrow morning I board a bus to meet my host family. I’ll be living with this family for the next three months, learning the language and culture – and eating their food. I won’t have running water. I may have electricity, but it may not be available throughout the entire day. My host father is the deputy governor of my soum or village. I’ll have two younger sisters, a mother and a guard dog. There will be 4 other volunteers in my city, two who will be living in a ger. Ger, by the way, is not pronounced like grrrrrr, which you may have heard me say a time or two. While it’s much more fun to say grrrrr, it actually rhymes with hair. But I won’t be in one for the first three months. I can’t say for the following two years. I think I’ll be living in a little wooden house. But I’ll be learning to build a fire and take care of a ger, just in case I’m placed in one.
There won’t be any Internet in my town, but throughout training I’ll be traveling to Darkhan, Ulaanbaatar (known as UB) and other larger towns, so I may be able to update occasionally. And right before my birthday (July 2) I think I’ll be getting a cell phone. I know, I know … Peace Corps, third-world country and cell phone … you’re thinking one of these things don’t belong. But it’s the cheapest form of communication. It may not work regularly in my town, but when I go to larger cities, people from the states can call and it’s free for me and cheap for you. ;-) There are web sites where you can buy phone cards. I heard from one volunteer that her mother found some for 5 or 10 cents a minute.
So those are the plans as of tomorrow. As for how the past week has been, I thought I’d give a quick rundown.

Language
It’s actually a very fun language to learn. There are lots of gurgles, grunts and strange tongue positionings. But it sounds very strong and powerful. So when I say "I like eggs," you’ll listen to me. "I like eggs," by the way, sounds like "Be unduck dorshtay." The only problem with the language is that everyone speaks it a little differently. So every time I say one phrase, I’m corrected. When I say that particular version to another teacher, I’m once again corrected, etc. But they do know what I’m trying to say. So I think I’ll be fine. I have quite the arsenal of topics to take to my host family. I can ask their age and name, tell them I like or dislike about 5 different foods, and tell them the age of my family members. Michael, you are now known to me as duu (younger sibling) and you are aravan dooroo (14).

Vaccinations
I think I’d talk about this since no Peace Corps volunteers whose web sites I followed included this. In one week I’ve had 7 vaccinations. Hepatitis A and B, rabies, Japanese encephilitis, meningitis, typhoid and tetanus. Wednesday I’ll get three more. Then a few more later in service, for a grand total of 16. See, we’re lucky here in Mongolia – anyone serving in the tropics not only has to deal with beaches and sunshine, but they get triple the shots. I was quite nervous about the first ones. But now I feel like a pro. The shots themselves are not what I remember as a screaming toddler. With the first five I didn’t feel a thing. Today was the tetanus shot, however, and I feel like someone punched me in the arm. Nothing really worth writing home (or on the web page) about, but it’s nice to have something to whine about. I am also a walking pharmacy. I have every kind of drug known to man. Peace Corps takes care of us.

Bathrooms
Some people’s favorite topic. But it’s really not that exciting. Toilet paper and toilet seats are a gamble. To flush them you pull the plug. In the school there are no doors in the women’s room. They’re basically very short urinals with a small wall to separate. But since you’re not sitting on the seatless toilet but leaning forward, bracing on your knees, everyone is staring at everyone else. The only strange thing about the hotel bathrooms is the design of the bowl. There is only water in the hole, which is in the far front. And there is a shelf above the hole (and therefore the water) that kind of catches whatever you throw at it. But it’s probably good for PCVs because we spent about an hour discussing bodily excretions with our health practitioner. He was making sure we knew how to describe whatever we may observe, so he could diagnose us over the phone. The toilets make it easy to do so. ;-)

Weather
It’s pretty nice here. But very unpredictable. And it changes quickly. The morning is usually chilly – in the 50s. But occasionally it’ll drop lower. But it could be in the mid 80s by noon. Then the clouds might make and appearance and cool things off. Twice it’s rained for about two hours, bringing lots of wind and fairly cold temps. Then three hours later it’ll be back in the mid 70s. The days are long, though. Sunrise is around 6 a.m. and it doesn’t set until 10 or 10:30.

Best things about Mongolia (so far)
The kids are the cutest ever. And they will play anything and everything with you.
The air is incredibly clean and clear. Now that my cold is gone and I can breathe again, I’m loving it.
Everything is super cheap. I’m paying fifty cents for an hour on the Internet. My dinner tonight, which was a huge plate of spaghetti, was $1.50. (I know, an American meal. But it’s my last before three months of very traditional Mongolian food. Give me a break).

Odds and ends
Name of nicest restaurant we ate in – Texas Pub
Name of store near pub – Lucky (with Britney Spears pictured on the sign)
Queen of table tennis (according to a huge sign in town) – Anna Kournikova.
Best meal – A dish I had at a Chinese restaurant
Two translations on the menu at said restaurant – The egg fries the fish; Black mushrooms rape
Most random occurrence – While jogging with a friend, a bird flew by and slapped me in the face with its wing
Graffiti – New Kids on the Block, Donnie Wahlberg, Boyzone