Ulaanbaatar

I'm in UB now, enjoying the company of friends, making new Peace Corps (M20) friends, enjoying delicious food, delicious beverages, and also trying to get a few of the details finished up on my projects. Life is good. Pics are from the past few days. I met up with friends from around PC Mongolia and also Nurbol from Olgii. I'm heading to Thailand soon and won't be on the internet much, as I'll be enjoying the company of my beautiful girlfriend Hanna, and the beautiful beaches of Koh Chang and Koh Phangan. :) I'll try to post pics from Thailand when I have some time. I hope everyone has a great holiday season. Happy holidays!

A sigh of relief....almost

Ok so the past two days have been really hectic but it seems as though I can breathe at least a small sigh of relief. Yesterday I met with my director (boss) and my friend, student, and part time translator, Gulim, we hashed out the details on the grant and on some of the costs, I made the necessary changes to the grant, and today we set up the joint bank account in which we will receive the grant funds. I need to complete a bit more paperwork, we're waiting on the grant to be translated into Mongolian by an English teacher who works at Bastama school(where I teach fifth and seventh grade English clubs), and I'll see how things go from there. There was a little confusion and some miscommunication on the bank account specifics but we got it straightened out with the help of Laura's counterpart Mara, a very nice, smart, hard working, and helpful English teacher. :)

Speaking of Laura, today I donated the majority of my English resources to her library. I had an assortment of movies, books, maps, crayons, colored pencils, markers, magazines, construction paper and numerous other English resources that I felt would be more effective in the English library, where students will have easy access to them. I have used a lot of these resources in my teaching but as things have slowed down recently with my classes, I felt it would be much better for them to all be placed in the library. Most of these resources were sent by friends and family from the U.S. and I just want everyone who sent supplies to know that they are being put to good use. :) I was in the library today making some copies and there were a lot of students there checking out books and looking for American Christmas materials (songs, books, movies, etc.). Things are going really well at Laura's library, I'm very happy for her and glad I was able to help out a little bit. I have been meaning to take pictures of the library so people back home can see what I'm talking about. I'll try to get that done today or tomorrow and get them posted up.

Anyways, I have to finish up editing and typing the UNICEF proposal tonight, I've been so busy the past two days I've had very little time to finish that. I will definitely have it finished and sent to UNICEF Mongolia before I head out on my trip to Thailand. Tomorrow I have to pack my stuff and clean my apartment up a little bit. Saturday morning I head to Ulaanbaatar, next week I have my flu shot and a dental appointment and I will be heading to Darhan for Christmas to visit my friend Cristiana and meet some of the M20s. After that, I head to Thailand for a little over three weeks of vacation with Hanna. More pics and updates to come, as always. Hope everyone is having a good holiday season so far. :)

When it rains, it pours

When it rains, it pours. I can't think of a more appropriate idiom or expression to explain what's happening to me right now, hahaha. I have been bored, frustrated, impatient, and waiting for things to happen over the past couple weeks. Suddenly, it's the week before I leave for vacation and I find myself busier than I've been in a long time, almost running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get things done. In addition to finding out that my grant has been conditionally approved, yesterday I received an email from the head of UNICEF Mongolia telling me that they are interested in possibly helping out with some projects in our community. My work finally lets me know that the aimag (province) government has decided to provide funding/support in the form of 30 million tugriks. This money, plus another 120 million from ngo World Vision, will go towards building a completely new children's 'palace' next year, provided we can get additional support and funding from UNICEF and/or other organizations. Marta, one of the English teachers at Bastama, where I teach a few English clubs, translated the children's center's project proposal into English for me today and I am currently editing and typing it. I'm hoping to finish and email it to UNICEF tonight.

I have a meeting in a few minutes with my boss and my student (and incredibly helpful translator and friend) Gulim to discuss the changes that need to be made to the grant. I need to check on some costs, clarify a few points, figure out how we'll have the grant translated into Mongolian, open up a joint bank account with my boss, fill out some SPA (small project assistance) paperwork, and get this all submitted to Peace Corps before Saturday morning. I'm going to dinner with Laura, Ashlee, Bek and a couple of travelers tonight. I'm hoping to talk about the projects a bit more and some other ideas to go with them, with Ashlee and Laura. I know that Laura's family and friends collected thousands of books to be sent to Olgii for her English library and we're looking for funding to have the books shipped..and I also have a number of friends and family members who are interested in contributing books or money towards projects here. Any books that can't be used in the English library will probably end up in the children's learning center. As soon as we figure out what our plan is and what we think is the top priority, I'll update my blog and send out some emails clarifying things.

More to come as things progress. Hope all is well. :)

Great News!!!

Ok so this is just a quick post to let people know that I received some great news today. My grant was conditionally approved! I have to make a few changes to some of the details and I need to have it translated into Mongolian. I am going to meet with my coworkers today to work out some more of the details and figure out how quickly we can have the translation done. I will be discussing options and ideas with Laura and Ashlee tonight at dinner as far as how friends and family back home can contribute to the project, to Laura's library, or to both. I'm leaving for UB on Saturday morning and I won't be back in Olgii for about a month so I need to get this done in the next few days. Wish me luck.

More to come soon! :)

Pics from the English Teaching Seminar

Here's a few pics from Laura's English teaching seminar. Laura went over the benefits of using games and activities in the classroom, curriculum and lesson planning, and I taught pronunciation and how to teach it to students. Thanks to Laura's counterpart, Mara, for taking pictures during the seminar and helping to keep things organized/defending us from the unexplainable wrath of the school director.

Christmas Cards, a Seminar for English Teachers, and Potential for New Projects

The past week has been interesting...I've spent a couple nights at my friend Bek's house and we've been discussing some ideas for when I come back from Thailand. Bek is an NGO worker and summer tour guide who I've known since August of last year. He's a really smart, motivated and hard working guy who's done a lot of good things for the community, especially the smaller towns outside of Olgii. He's worked with his organization to build three kindergartens, he's helped provide supplies for schools in the smaller soums(towns) and he recently opened up his own tourist ger camp in Olgii. He works with tourists in the summer and sometimes in the other seasons, taking them to Saxsai and other soums to show them eagle hunting, local Kazakh traditions, etc. and he's also starting to be involved in bringing ecotourism to Bayan Olgii. I've been to his home a few times and I've met his family, they are very nice and always happy to see me. His two daughters are so sweet and cute. This week I went to his house twice to have dinner, discuss project ideas, show him a little info on getting his company's website started, and help with his laptop a bit, getting him better antivirus software and hooking him up with some movies and tv shows. :)

Info on ecotourism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotourism (just in case you don't feel like typing in 'ecotourism' on Google.) ;)

We're talking about doing some health and English teaching training sessions and seminars in the smaller soums, helping provide some nomadic families with easier access to water in the areas where they spend the summer, and a few other ideas. I'm excited about what we'll be able to work on when I get back in January. It's looking like between teaching, my work at the children's center, helping with Laura's library, and these other potential projects, I'll be able to keep busy, be productive and get some good work done from January until I leave the country in July.

Also, I met with my friend Agii this past week, the English teacher who I worked with in February on the English olympiad. We're looking to do that again in February or March but this time we're going to expand it to include different subjects and different age groups, so more students will be able to participate. This weekend I'm going to be helping him with speaking portions on his private English lessons with intermediate and advanced students and I'll be helping out a couple days next week before I head to Ulaanbaatar. I'm really excited to go to UB and then to Thailand with Hanna but I'm a little sad, as I always am when I leave Olgii, to leave my students for so long. When I get back from vacation I want to make the most of my time and put as much as possible into the lessons and time I have with my students.

This past week I did lessons on Christmas with my seventh grade English clubs and we all made Christmas and holiday cards. The students seemed to really enjoy that and they do love singing traditional Christmas songs, which are really popular in Mongolia.

In other news, today Laura put on an English teaching seminar for Olgii's English teachers. It lasted all day and we had about nineteen teachers attend. I helped out, providing comic relief, candy, and even taught an hour on pronunciation. :) It was pretty fun and it seemed like the teachers enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. I'll put some pics of that up in my next post.

That's all for now, I'm sure I left something out but I'll update it when I think of it or before I head to Thailand. If you haven't checked out my 'snort monsters' videos yet, take a look, they are hilarious. Hope all is well!

7th Grade Snort Monsters Part 2 :)

Here's the second video...hope you enjoy it.

7th Grade Snort Monsters :)

Here's my latest video, it's of some of my seventh grade English club students playing a funny game. Check it out.

Reebok knockoffs, idle time, self doubt and and a video you can't help but smile at

^ Thanks to Laura, I am the proud new owner of a pretty sweet Reebok coat. It cost less than five bucks, hell of a deal.

One thing that you learn during Peace Corps Training, that has proven to be true time and time again, is that in Peace Corps service, the highs are really high and the lows are really low. When things are going well, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world. There have been moments over the past seventeen months where I've been so happy and it's made me realize just how much I love being here. It can be the smallest, seemingly trivial moments or occurrences that can turn an average day into the best day. On the other hand, when things go wrong or you have too much free time to spend in idle thought, things can feel pretty bad. For me personally it's often too easy to get down on myself and question my effectiveness as a Peace Corps volunteer. I keep reminding myself that this is a learning experience and that things don't always go as planned. Right now I feel as though I'm having one of the lower moments. Work has been slow, I've been teaching, but not as often. One of the biggest challenges I face with not being a traditional teacher is that I have to find my students or they have to find me. When something like the H1N1 flu causes school to be cancelled (including my voluntary classes), it makes it difficult to get back on track once I'm able to teach again. It's also bad timing because I'm a few weeks away from leaving site for a month for my vacation. I'm waiting (impatiently) to hear back on the two grants I applied for, I've had a hard time arranging meetings with student council members (many of whom are 11th graders getting ready to graduate and preparing to take multiple tests before they head off to college), my translator, best friend, and assistant is in Ulaanbaatar for job training, and I've just had too much idle time lately.

The best thing to do with idle time is to find different ways to be productive. I recently contacted a book foundation in the U.S. to help Laura out with her English library and they are supposed to be sending 30 lbs of books soon. I'm also going to be spending some time in the library, learning how things work so I can help out and work there a few days a week before I leave and hopefully when I get back in late January. I'm hoping to hear back about my grants before I leave for Thailand. Also, when I'm in UB I will be picking up the TIP (Trafficking in Persons) dvd and a number of English booklets and CD's (listening practice/conversations). My plan when I get back is to make copies of the TIP dvd, put on a few TIP seminars and distribute copies to all the schools in Olgii and other organizations, along with some more basic information on the topic. I'd also like to do the same with the English CD's, distribute them to English teachers throughout Olgii.

I'm also trying to get caught up on my reading as much as possible in my free time at home. I always feel a lot better when I rip through a few chapters of a good book instead of wasting time mindlessly browsing the internet. I'm currently reading 'Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam' by John L. Esposito, it's a good read so far, almost done. I've got a pretty good size pile of books I still need to get through before I leave and I'm also going to start looking through my Foreign Service Officer exam study guide this weekend.

Anyways, it's pretty late and I need to get some reading done and then get to sleep, I'll write more over the weekend or next week. In the meanwhile, take a look at this music video put together by the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon to raise breast cancer awareness. I dare you not to smile while watching it. :)

Nothing too Exciting

Work has been rather slow this week. I have been back to teaching my seventh grade English clubs on Mondays and Fridays and I'm supposed to begin my 5th grade lessons starting on Monday(I hope). I was supposed to have a meeting today with the student council but that never panned out. I wrote an email to a foundation in the U.S. that donates free books for PCV's and other groups throughout the world, hoping to hear back from them about getting new English books for Laura's English library and for the children's center. I gave out some HIV/AIDS (basic info and prevention) flyers to a couple schools yesterday and I've been brainstorming some new ideas to attempt when I get back from vacation in January. Not a whole lot to report at the moment but I'm hoping to get a bit more done and hear some feedback on my grant applications before I head to UB in a few weeks.

Here's a short video clip I uploaded today. It's footage from the opening ceremony parade of eagle festival in October. It's not the best quality, I really need to invest in a decent video camera. Not anything spectacular, but check it out.