Interesting article on the Peace Corps in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion and a look at what Afghanistan was like before the past few decades of violence and turmoil.
More stories from Peace Corps Afghanistan..
Be Excellent To Each Other. A blog by Matthew Becker.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Remembering the 70s: Peace Corps Afghanistan
http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/remembering-the-70s/2009/10/09/the-peace-corps-in-afghanistan/
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Veteran's Day and the Marine Corps Birthday
Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and today is the 234th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Oooorah! Semper Fi Marines!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Peace Corps in the News
Here's a few articles I found in the news today that are related to Peace Corps.
Michael McCaskey, the current CEO and Chairman of the Chicago Bears was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia.
This month the Peace Corps is celebrating 'National Native American Heritage Month'. There are currently sixteen Peace Corps volunteers serving in fourteen different countries who identify themselves as having Native American heritage.
Muriel Johnston, an 85 year old woman from Florida, is the oldest serving Peace Corps volunteer, currently working as a health volunteer in Morocco. Here's an article on secretary of state Hillary Clinton praising her service.
H1N1 > Mongolia
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. ^_^*
Friday, November 6, 2009
Pics from Halloween
Our plans for a Halloween party event for Olgii's students were cut short because of the H1N1 zombie plague epidemic but the Peace Corps volunteers in Olgii still managed to have a little shindig at Laura's place with our friend Kala. We had some kinda makeshift costumes and played a few games, ate some dinner. It was a good time. Here's a few pics.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
H1N1 Zombie Infestation and Other News
^ Here's a cow sneaking into my apartment complex. This is just one of the many enjoyable and entertaining daily occurrences that come with living in Mongolia. Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in updates. I've been sorta busy with typing grants, attempting to fix computers at the children's center, and trying my best to avoid catching the H1N1 flu, or as I like to call it, the zombie infestation that has gripped Mongolia over the past few weeks.
Due to an apparently large number of confirmed cases of H1N1, Mongolia has closed schools around the country. People are donning masks everywhere, the slightest hint of a cough or sneeze brings looks of terror, and the students seem to be on a school break with no end in sight. I've heard it called a 'quarantine' by some and I haven't been able to conduct any classes or meetings with my students. The only benefit to this is that I have had more time to work on the projects I've been planning the past few months. I recently submitted a grant to UNICEF on behalf of the student joint council. The grant is from the '2009 San Marino-Alexander Bodini Foundation Children's Awards' and is worth $20,000. Here's a link with some more information on the awards:
The student council put together a great proposal for the grant, I edited and submitted the grant proposal, and provided a letter of recommendation last week. The award is a huge sum of money and would provide the student council with a huge opportunity and improved access to more resources. The students are interested in providing for a completely brand new children's palace (center) if possible, increased and improved vaccinations for Olgii's youth, and improved education in terms of the dangers of smoking alcoholism, and increasing cultural appreciation and awareness. I just received an email back from a lady from UNICEF today and she told me that our nomination had been submitted. According to the information provided on the website, we should be hearing back within less than two weeks. Wish us luck!
In related news, I'm finishing up the grant to Peace Corps for the children's learning and advisement center. Recently Peace Corps staff were in Olgii to do our scheduled site visit and I had an opportunity to sit down with Peace Corps and most of my coworkers at the children's center. Both the Peace Corps staff members were very positive and encouraging in regards to the project and the children's center workers seem anxious to get started. I am hoping to submit the grant before the weekend and hear back from Peace Corps soon so I can make any necessary revisions or changes. Let's hope for the best. If the grant gets approved, I'm hoping to start construction in early December before I leave for my vacation in Thailand. If things go as planned, the center could be open as early as March. Wish me luck in that as well. :)
In unrelated news, I recently sat down with my good friend Nurbol and discussed the possibility of me learning the Russian language starting soon. I have enjoyed learning Kazakh but I almost feel as if I'm at a standstill in my language abilities and it's difficult for me to stay enthusiastic and motivated, knowing that I'm going to be leaving Olgii in nine months or so. I really enjoy the Kazakh language and though I'm often the most skeptical of my own abilities, I think I've learned quite a bit. I think it would be fun to start learning the basics of Russian and get a good start in the language over my last few months in the country. If I ever find myself working in a post soviet state again or even Russia itself, it would be hugely beneficial. Nurbol speaks Russian fluently and is more than happy to start teaching me whenever I would like to start. I'll discuss that more when the time comes.
We celebrate American holidays quite a bit differently here as you may have seen from my Thanksgiving and Christmas pics from last year but we still do our best to have a good time and enjoy ourselves. Halloween was this past Saturday and we dressed up in some somewhat creative costumes (given our lack of costume and party stores) and played some games. I'll get pics of that onto Flickr as soon as I can. More updates and pics to come as things progress. Hope all is well back home and you're doing your best to avoid the H1N1 zombie plague infestation epidemic. ;-)
Video of the week, how about a little old school grunge.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Winter is Coming *shivering*
Winter appears to have made its way back to Mongolia or is at least right around the corner. The temperatures have been dropping, the days are getting shorter and negative 40 degree temperatures are coming. In addition, to make the impending winter more exciting, the H1N1 'epidemic' appears to have caused a bit of chaos in Mongolia. School was cancelled this week and has been cancelled for next week. I wasn't allowed to conduct any of my classes at the children's center this week and since there is no school next week as well, I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to teach. In other work related adventures, I'm attempting to reformat one of the work computers at the moment. I backed up all the documents, pictures, etc. today and I'm hoping to reformat and set the computer up with antivirus, antispyware, etc. that my mom gave me a while back. I think one thing I need to do before I leave next year is have a few sessions showing my coworkers how to keep the computers updated and protected.
I purchased my ticket to Thailand for my vacation trip in December. I'm really excited about that, only two months away.
Not a whole lot going on right now to discuss but I added a few new pics to my Flickr account. I just realized I didn't upload more pictures from the eagle festival so I'll try and get that done soon.
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