Pictures from the weekend in Nugunur

I added a bunch of pics from the weekend to the Facebook album Mongolia 2009 part 3 so check that link out again. Also started a new album with the rest of the pics. I'll put the link here and in my picture albums list.

Mongolia 2009 part 4
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053327&id=72206395&l=fd76bde51c

Like I said the weekend was a lot of fun. We left Olgii Friday afternoon around five, in a jeep packed with twelve people. It was raining all day and started to sleet and snow as we drove out of Olgii. It took about three hours to get to Nuganur and the weather there was much nicer. We spent the first night at one of Sabid's uncle's houses, drank tea, ate dinner, hung out with the kids a bit and then went to bed. The next day we moved our stuff over to Halat's house, another one of Sabid's uncles. We hung out there for a bit and then took off in a jeep to the countryside to go fishing. We walked down the river for a while and the guys spent a lot of time checking out a few spots with no luck before we finally found a spot where we could see quite a few fish. Laura and I mostly chilled, read our books, and enjoyed the sun and warm weather while the guys we were with fished. After a few hours they caught one fish, then eventually five. We went to a nearby ger for some tea and snacks, went back out and spent a few more hours on the river. Eventually one of the guys brought out a big net and they managed to catch over thirty fish in about thirty minutes, after catching six over the course of the day using fishing poles, lines and spears.

We had some more food at the ger and then headed back to town. We relaxed at Halat's house for a while, drank some tea, ate a little bit of meat and soup and then went to bed. The next day was very nice as well and we woke up pretty early to catch a ride back to Olgii. The weather was perfect on the way back and the van wasn't as crowded or uncomfortable as the jeep we had taken there. I slept most of the ride and in about three hours we got back home. That afternoon I had my home visit from Peace Corps, everything was fine, no issues. I'd like a working fridge if possible but I managed to survive the past 9 months without one, I'm sure I can make due another 16. :)

In the afternoon on Sunday we went to our friend Janka's party. She's an English teacher who works at Laura's school and Laura, Rike and I are good friends with her. She just recently completed her masters in Ulaanbaatar and is going to Kazakhstan for the summer. There was a lot of good food and drink at the party and we all had a good time.

This week I'll be doing some more meeting with my coworkers and the student council to discuss projects and doing my usual teaching. More updates as things progress.

NPCA blog of the day

So I just received a comment from Erica Burman of the National Peace Corps Association and I guess my blog was the Peace Corps 'blog of the day' on the NPCA's Twitter feed. I thought that was pretty cool. :)

Here's the message she left and the link.

Congrats Matt! You're the "Peace Corps Volunteer Blog of the Day" on the National Peace Corps Association's Twitter Feed (http://twitter.com/pcorpsconnect).

The weekend in the country side was a lot of fun, very beautiful area. I took over a hundred pictures and will get them up as soon as I can. Happy late Mother's Day!!

Interesting hidden restaurants, upcoming adventures, and new opportunities

Interesting hidden restaurants: On Tuesday I went to my office and met up with a lady named Ainur, who is a local dance and performance instructor. She works with the children's center because most of her students are young children and because she uses the dul club(run by the children's center). Anyways, she's a very nice lady, in her early 40's. I have spoken with her a few times and she has kept asking me to meet her at the office so she can take me somewhere. What I always got from the conversations was that she wanted me to go with her to lunch but I wasn't sure on the details. Things kept coming up but I ran into her Monday after she'd just gotten back from a trip to China. She told me to meet her at the office. Of course, being the idiot that I can be sometimes, I totally spaced it, forgot and was rushing to get dressed when she called me fifteen minutes after I was supposed to meet her. I eventually got to the office and after apologizing a few times and jokingly trying to explain that I am just trying to adjust for 'Mongolian time', we left the office and started walking towards the bazaar.

We went down a side street just before the entrance to the bazaar and through some alleys I'd never been through where there were lots of shops, auto shops, and some construction going on. We eventually came to a small guanz (cafe) and she told me to sit down and have some tv. Then she took off her jacket, put on an apron and went into the kitchen, started yelling at people, cleaning things, preparing food, etc. It was pretty entertaining to listen to and watch. There were a few other people in the cafe eating dishes that looked quite different from what I'm used to seeing in Mongolian or Kazakh cafes. Eventually I was brought a 'salad' with hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, mayo, and a few other things. After I finished the salad I was brought a dish that looked very similar to Chinese food we eat back home. It was beef, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, noodles, potatoes, peppers, and some spicy red sauce served with white rice. The food was delicious and I ate the whole plate, drank some more tea and sat down to talk with Ainur for a bit before leaving. Turns out, she is 'Uyghur', a Chinese ethnic minority similar to Kazakhs. The food is also Chinese Uyghur food, the only restaurant in all Olgii that serves it. Before Tuesday I had no idea that she also managed a restaurant, let alone one that serves food very different from what you can get here. So anyways, she wouldn't let me pay for my meal and told me to come by whenever for tea or lunch. I want to bring Laura and some of my other friends to check it out when they come visit Olgii. It was definitely an interesting and unexpected experience and a wonderful way to spend an afternoon before teaching.


Upcoming adventures: Tonight I am heading out to a soum in the countryside called Nogunur. Laura and I are going out tonight with her host brother Sabid, staying with some of his relatives, fishing on Saturday and coming back on Sunday. It's been a while since I've been out to the countryside and I have only been fishing once since I came to Mongolia. I think it will be nice to get away from Olgii for a little bit and be out in the beautiful countryside. It's actually kinda chilly and raining in Olgii right now but hopefully tomorrow will bring better weather. Even if the weather isn't so great, I'm sure we'll have a good time with the Sabid's family. Also, next weekend (which happens to be my 27th birthday) Laura, Rike and I are going to Hovd. We are just going to see the other Peace Corps volunteers and celebrate my birthday (and Rike's which is the 18th). It should be pretty fun to hang out with the Hovd volunteers again, especially since a couple of them are leaving Mongolia in the next two months and we probably won't be able to see them again.


New opportunities: Since I first came to Olgii and started working at the children's center, one thing that has always bugged me is the lack of a real place for kids to spend free time, have access to fun and educational resources, have meetings, or just hang out and not be bothered by adults. Initially my first thoughts on a solution this problem, being a new and relatively inexperienced development volunteer, were that Olgii need's a new children's center, similar to the YMCA's, Boys and Girls Clubs, etc. that we have back home. Once I realized that a project of this magnitude would take years to complete and a vast sum of money, I started thinking of other solutions and ideas that might be more realistic and attainable. I really liked the idea for the project that Laura is working on at her school. She is currently putting together a small library and English resource room that, when completed, will have hundreds and hundreds of books, a computer and printer, and will be a place for students to hang out, study, do homework and practice English. I was thinking that something similar to this would be a great way to improve the children's center.

The children's center currently consists of four offices in a section of the Olgii soum government office and the dul club, the large room where I teach my bigger classes and used to play sports and games with my students. I spoke to Gulim, one of my students and a student council member, about the children's center donating one of the offices for a resource or children's room. We spoke to my boss about the idea and she also presented it to the other student council members. Everyone thinks it's a good idea but unfortunately my boss said the children's center can't give up a room for this. The next idea was to see about a local school donating a classroom. This is a great idea but I'd prefer it be in a neutral location so that students from all schools have access to it and know it's available. Then, Doman and Gulim came up with a really good idea, one that might work.

The dul club is a large room with a bunch of chairs, benches, a stage, and a lights setup. It's basically a multifunctional room where different teachers and groups hold different functions. I teach English there sometimes, Ainur teaches dance there, the tae kwon do classes are there, student council has meetings and events there, the soum government and police use it as a meeting space at times. I never thought of it as an option because it's used by so many groups and I want a place where the students can come whenever during the day and use without being kicked out or bugged by adults. Doman and Gulim proposed sectioning off the back area of the dul club and putting up some new walls with a door, fitting the area with electricity and internet access(when we get computers) and making it the new children's recreation/learning/meeting space. They showed me some of the walls that had been built in other parts of the government building to make new rooms and it actually seems very feasible. If we did it the way we have talked about, the area would be a really good size and bigger than two or three offices together in the children's center.

Next week we are going to have some meetings and discuss the costs/labor associated with the construction and see what we can come up with to get things started. If we can make some progress in the next couple weeks as far as meetings, planning and ideas I think I can start putting together a list of what we'll need, how much it will cost and where we can turn to for the funding and resources. I'd like to get as much of the planning and number crunching done as I can before I leave for my vacation. That way maybe things can get started while I'm gone or at least we'll have a good start for when I get back. I'm definitely going to be writing grant proposals for the Peace Corps if we can come up with a concrete plan and I'll be talking to other ngo's and potential donors.

I'm very excited about this project possibility and I think if it is successful it will significantly improve the children's center and provide Olgii's children with a much needed resource/learning/recreation center. I'll write more as meetings progress. Wish me luck!

Hope all is well back home, I'm still loving life in western Mongolia. Cheers.

New pictures!

Above pics are me goofing around with some of my student's on the Nauryz holiday, hanging out with one of the costumed members of the Nauryz parade and with my friend Agii at the English olympiad. I owe the success of the project to Agii. He helped me with so much and without him it wouldn't have come together nearly as smoothly as it did.

Yesterday I was able to transfer pics from my camera's memory cards to my flash drive and get them onto my computer, thanks to a local photo and copy shop. I uploaded a lot of them onto Facebook and here are the links:

Mongolia 2009 part 2, new pics added to the album...now 60 total

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050468&id=72206395&l=40cdd51f35

Mongolia 2009 part 3, new album with pics from the English olympiad

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052360&id=72206395&l=0a10f832f3

You can just copy and paste these links into the URL or go down my blog to the section for the links to my facebook albums and click on the top two. I posted the links in that section as well.

Dancing

I can't believe I didn't see this video until a few days ago. This is one of the coolest videos I've ever seen.

Great success!

Well today we had the first (hopefully annual) 'Olgii English usage and General Knowledge Olympiad' and I have to say, things went very well. I woke up at 8:00 today and went to the hosting school, met with Agii and we spent the the whole day up until 2:00 preparing everything and getting ready. All of the schools participated and sent a team of four students. The setup was really great and even though we started about a half hour late(pretty good for Mongolia actually) and the first couple events proved to be a bit more challenging than we expected, overall it was a success. The students had a hard time with the general knowledge questions but a few outstanding students did very well. In the students' defense, they didn't have much time to prepare and we probably didn't provide them with good enough preparation or study materials. Next time I think it would be very beneficial to provide the students with a quality study guide. The vocabulary section was also a little confusing and difficult for many of the students but they still seemed to learn from it and enjoy the challenge. The grammar section, the singing presentations, and the 'words of wisdom'(proverbs) sections went very well and the judges, students, and participants definitely enjoyed them.

I was a judge and also the host or presenter for the whole thing and I really had a blast. Two of the local private schools secured 1st and 2nd place as expected but a public school fought their way into third place and came very close to winning. The winning students received framed certificates, cash prizes, and some really nice English books we ordered from Ulaanbaatar. I was able to speak to some of my students after the competition ended and they seemed very happy to have participated. I was very proud of my students and all the students that competed and I hope that we can improve on any of the issues and make next year's competition even better. I'd like to leave next year knowing that the students and teachers will continue to organize this competition each year without the assistance of a PCV.

In other good news, I spoke to the director of School 4 (public school that hosted the comp) and they are very interested in having me help out next school year. They have some hours available for senior students and we talked about the possibility of doing some more practical English classes or clubs. I'm also interested in doing some career planning, study abroad learning sessions, and TOEFL test prep classes. Many of the students here are very interested in studying abroad but have very little idea of where or how to go about pursuing these goals. This summer I will be meeting with the director and Agii to discuss how I can help the school starting in September. If I can spend my second year teaching and helping out a local school in addition to my work at the children's center I think I can get a lot of good things done and have a positive influence on a larger number of students.

Anyways, I took many more pictures today and I hope to get them up asap. I am going to a shop tomorrow in hopes of using their card reader to put my pics on my flash drive. If I can do that I will post the pics up before the end of the weekend. Hope all is well back home, pics coming soon!

All right stop what ya doin...cause I'm about to ruin, the image and the style that ya used to

Greetings followers, fans, friends and family members of Matt Becker. I apologize for the long delay in updates. A couple weeks ago I was sick with what felt like strep throat for about seven days. I was in bed and didn't do any work or teaching the whole week. After a few days when I wasn't getting any better I spoke to Peace Corps medical and I was able to start some antibiotics. Those really seemed to help and within a few days of starting them I started feeling better. Once I was back to my normal Matt Becker self I got back to the planning and coordinating for the competition I'm working on with my friend Agii and of course my usual teaching and tutoring. Teaching hasn't been as busy because many of my students are preparing for Mongolia's annual English 'Olympics' competition. The competition is actually today and tomorrow and students from all over Mongolia participate. It’s a pretty big deal and many of the students put a lot of effort into doing well in the Olympics. I have found it quite amusing that because of this my classes have been less busy(less students). My students, who are studying for an ENGLISH competition, seem to have completely forgotten the fact that they have a native English speaking American teacher available to help them any time of the day. I did have three students come to me for help and even one English teacher but the rest of my students seem to be lost on this fact.

Speaking of competitions, some of my students who are on the Olgii student council came to me a few weeks ago after finding out that I was organizing my competition. They told me that they wanted to organize an English or spelling competition and asked me to help out. I of course offered my help and gave them as much input and advice as I could. Surprisingly, they didn’t ask me for much assistance other than for some ideas and tips. A week and a half later, they told me their competition was going to be in a few days. I was surprised that they had everything organized so quickly. They asked me to come to the competition to be a judge and I agreed. I showed up to my work the day of the comp and was very impressed and excited to see a large group of students, a very well organized setup, and two of my best students very much in control of the situation. The girls, Gulim and Asem, who have been my students since August, worked together with the other student council members, various students and World Vision (NGO) to set everything up and get the necessary funding and supplies.

Students from seven of Olgii’s ten schools were present and competing. The comp consisted of teams of students who had to complete a variety of tasks, mostly in English, which is many of the students’ third or fourth language. Each team had to give a team introduction in English, there was a spelling bee section, an English song section, an art section (judges would describe something in English and the students had to draw what it was), and a writing composition and speaking section. The competition lasted a couple hours and both the participants and spectators seemed to really enjoy it. A few of my students were in the competition and they did very well. Myself and another English teacher, my friend Kulshat, were the judges. I had a blast judging the competition, watching all the students compete, and seeing how well my students did in putting together the whole event. I was so proud of my students and it was one of the best days I’ve had since I came to Mongolia.

Going back to the comp that I am organizing….almost everything is finished as far as the planning and organizing goes. The comp is next Friday and will involve teams from nine of Olgii’s ten schools. We have computers, a projector, a giant room with desks, tables and chairs to use, funding for the prizes and refreshments and we’ve made flyers advertising everything. Last week Agii and I went to all the schools and gave the directors invitations and explained the details. This week we just have to pick up the supplies and finalize the questions and curriculum. We are calling it Olgii’s first annual English practice and usage Olympiad. The purpose is to encourage and motivate students in their English language and general knowledge learning, to make it more fun and interesting and to introduce practical uses of the language instead of them just having grammar pounded into their head all year long. Laura has told me that some of her students are really excited and preparing for it and I’ve had a few of my students asking me about it as well. I’m very excited to see how everything goes and to see how well the students perform. I will be sure to take pictures and post up the outcome when it’s finished.

Speaking of pictures, my camera is currently having some issues. The autorun feature isn’t working with my laptop so I haven’t been able to move any of my pics from my camera to my computer. Matt + technology + Mongolia = nothing good. As soon as this problem is fixed I will post up many more pictures. The weather has been great in Olgii lately, it’s warming up, the ice on the river is completely thawed and summer is right around the corner. I’m really looking forward to my trip home this summer and seeing my family and friends for a few weeks. I hope everyone is doing well back home, take care.