The temperature is dropping, snow has been falling, travel between aimags (provinces) has been shut down, and school and classes are cancelled until further notice. The arrival of winter combined with strange occurrences and the rapid influx of 'flu masks' has a lot of Mongolian Peace Corps volunteers wondering if this is the end. *cue ominous music* To be continued...... Hahaha, well I'm sure it doesn't help that the books 'The Zombie Survival Guide' and 'World War Z' have been circulating around Peace Corps Mongolia for the past few months. We've received a few emails from Peace Corps staff and Peace Corps medical officers keeping us updated on the craziness and chaos that the flu has created. Apparently there are confirmed cases of H1N1 in 17 of Mongolia's 21 aimags. Bazaar markets are closed, secondary schools and kindergartens had their school breaks extended for two weeks, and entertainment activities (discos, movie theaters, shows, plays) are closed.
Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be getting H1N1 and regular flu vaccinations in the next month or so and a lot of us who aren't teaching in colleges or working in health facilities and hospitals are trying to find ways to keep ourselves busy and keep from going crazy. I haven't been able to teach any lessons or have any meetings with groups of children so I'm focusing on finishing my grant for the learning center, finding new methods of funding for projects through Peace Corps, reading, exercising, and day dreaming of my trip to Thailand next month. I'm also going to be trying to get some work done on the Olgii website and helping my friend Travis with his Peace Corps merit badges website. The merit badges project is pretty cool and interesting one. I'll be posting the link for that as soon as it's approved by the country director. Also, I'm currently reading 'Rogue States' by Noam Chomsky. It's a pretty good book, a bit depressing to read but it has some good information. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in political science or international relations.
My good friend Nurbol just got some great news. He applied to get a job working with Ezniz airlines last month, took the test and had an interview. He just got the call today that they want to hire him so this week he will be leaving for UB and doing training for a little over a month. I'm not sure if he'll stay working in UB after that or if he'll come back to Olgii to work. I'm very happy for him because he's smart, talented and hard working and he's been looking for a job for quite a while now but I'm sad because he's my best friend in Olgii and he's been so helpful with my work projects. Hopefully I will be able to see him when I'm in Ulaanbaatar next month. Best of luck with the new job Nurbol!
I will be posting the link to the Olgii website as soon as I make some more progress. I hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy back home or wherever you may be at the moment. :)
Here's a slideshow with some of my latest pictures. I'm getting more uploaded as I find time.
Enjoy.
*Above 'zombie' pictures are not mine, I just found them in a google image search. ^_^*
No comments:
Post a Comment