Pics from July and August

Here are a few more pictures from July and August. I'm working on getting more uploaded but it's taking some time. Enjoy. :)

Haircuts, Mid Service Training and Returning to Olgii

Well this past week the M19 group of Peace Corps volunteers had our mid service training. We had a resource fair for organizations in Mongolia that could be helpful in our work and in projects, sessions on cross sector (mixing work sectors such as youth development with health, TEFL with business, etc.), and shared our work and project experiences with each other. We were able to discuss what has worked, what hasn't been so successful and talk about our goals for our second year in Mongolia. It was interesting and useful and was also really nice to get most of our group together again and do some socialzing and networking.

After the training was over my site mate and I flew back to Olgii. We had a pretty early flight at 5 AM so needless to say, I am exhausted. Luckily work doesn't start back up again until Monday. This year with the M20 group, Olgii was lucky enough to receive two new Peace Corps volunteers. Scott and Ashlee are a married couple from California. Scott will be working as an English teacher at the school where my friend Agii works and Ashlee, a health volunteer, will be working for the health department. I met them today and spoke with them for a little while. It's very exciting to have two new volunteers in our town and I look forward to working on projects with them and getting to know them over the next year.

The pics above are from mid service training, I'll upload some more onto my flickr account soon. Some of my friends decided to take advtage of what I believe is the only golf course around and played nine holes. Also, as you can see in one of the pics. I finally cut my hair after around thirteen months. It's much easier to deal with now. :)

Tasty Cheeseburger Recipe, Real Mongolian 'Barbecue' and the Joys of Being Thrown in a River

On Friday morning, one of my coworkers came to my apartment and told me we'd be going out to the countryside children's camp for a couple days, leaving that afternoon. I ran a few errands, packed my things (including books, frisbee, etc.) in anticipation of spending a weekend with a bunch of kids, teaching, playing games, etc. After a two hour drive southwest we arrived at the camp. When we got out and started walking around I saw a few people here and there but quickly realized there were no children around. I talked to my coworkers and they informed me that we had come out to the camp to spend a 'holiday' or vacation weekend and we'd be sleeping in tents by the river and pretty much relaxing. I was pretty surprised but happy nonetheless. The weekend was filled with milk tea, water fights by the river between me and my coworker's seven year old son, a little dancing at the makeshift disco, a lot of reading, listening to music and relaxing in the sun, and a short hike up a small hill/mountain. On Saturday we had real 'Mongolian bbq' which is nothing like what you'd expect. Basically they take meat, season it with wine and some other spices, add potatoes, carrots, cabbage, etc. then heat up rocks in the middle of a fire, and put the rocks in with the meat, cover it and let it cook. It was really good and although I've been here for over a year, the first time I'd tried it. On Sunday in the afternoon before we left my coworkers decided that since I hadn't been in the river yet, they were going to put me in the river. I was picked up by five or six people and dragged over to the river and thrown in. I managed to pull two of them in with me but unfortunately I lost my glasses and was blind for most of the rest of the day. I have an extra pair but I'm hoping I can get the other one replaced in Ulaanbaatar next week when I'm in for a mid service training session with the other volunteers from my group.

Not much going on in Olgii outside of my weekend adventure. I'm going into the office this week to meet with my coworkers and practice my Kazakh. Another thing that came up that I'm interested in getting started soon is the idea of a website for Olgii. My friend Jason, who was a PCV in Hovd, helped to develop a website for that city which has a lot of good information for travelers. I'd like to do something similar and talk to some of the local hotels, businesses, tourist orgs, etc. about putting their information on the website. A decent amount of travelers and tourists make it out to Olgii in the summer and fall so it would probably be a helpful resource and would make navigating around Olgii and Bayan Olgii a bit easier, plus it could possibly get a bit more exposure for Olgii and educate the curious on what the Kazakh culture in Mongolia is all about. This isn't really related to my primary work assignment but I will probably start working on it with my friend Nurbol soon in my free time. I'm also hoping to meet with a local school before classes start to talk about helping out with some of their lessons and possibly organizing some life skills and English language clubs.

Here's a few pictures from the weekend in the countryside. I will get more of them uploaded to my Flickr account as soon as I can and then post up a slide show.