This is a private blog and in no way reflects the views or position of the United States Government nor the United States Peace Corps.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Peace out

Time is counting down until we learn where we will be living for the next two years. We are so excited only 7 days left until we find out. Except that we will have to say goodbye to our host families and my Mongolian mom's cooking. We will find out what type of housing we will be living in (small house, ger, or apartment), where, and job assignments. A lot to look forward to. As a side note if anyone is planning on sending us anything please wait until we get our living assignment.
My daily diet differs a little bit from Mike because my parents have so many animals. I eat and drink a lot of dairy. Every meal my Mongolian mom goes out and milks the cows and the goats for our meals. I have even tried fermented sheeps milk. I am learning to love it especially the homemade yogart. The best part of eating yougart is licking the bowl when finished and it is perfectly acceptable and even expected. I drink between 4-5 cups of milk tea a day. It took a lot of getting used to especially sitting down to a nice hot cup of it when it is 95 degrees outside and I am already sweating. I am now able to distinguish between horse meat, mutten and beef- quite a step up from how I ate in the states. Almost everything that I eat in my house has been homemade, even though we own a store. I don't know how Mike and I will survive when we have to cook although I am sure Mike will figure it out. I made my family Mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. They loved American cheese, the little kids were eating it out of the package. It was great to be able to share a little bit of home with them and watch them enjoy it. I am going to make them pizza next week. A little tricky because we don't have an oven, but I will make it work.
I thought learning Mongolian was hard until I starting trying to teach Mongolian students English. Myself and another trainee, Cass, have a beginner class of 40-65 children aged 8-13. They are great!! Mongolian children at least from what we have experienced are really really well behaved. They hang on every and I mean every word that comes out of our mouths. They repeat everything, noises included. They also want to write down everything we put on the board. The disipline is astonishing, everyday I am more amazed. We taught them peace out- it is so cute. Everywhere I go in our soum I hear hello, hi, and peace out.
Thank you to everyone who has sent us mail and packages. I can't tell you how much we apprecite it. We practically cry every time we open any mail from the states. Frisbee in Mongolian translates to flying plate. We love and miss you all- alli and mike