Alli and Mike in Mongolia

Beautiful America

2008-07-02T21:25:00.002+08:00

So thats that. We are home. It was a long trip and Alli and I are exhausted (Alli of course more than me). I have been trying to think about some things that I would like to say about our experience in the Peace Corps, we are officially out by the way, but what can be said about an experience of this magnitude? Did we make the right decision in joining? Yes, I can say that confidently. Alli and I did a lot of good things and tried to set as positive as an example as possible. There are at least a dozen people in the world now who dont hate Americans. So thats good. More than anything we are going to miss our friends who we have left behind in Mongolia, American, Mongolian, and a sprinkling of Swiss and German. - What now? Who knows. What we do know is that the baby, Sukhbataar (Axe Hero) Prelaske will be born at the end of January or begining of February. Alli is going to go back to school to become a Psychiatric Nurse, and I need to find a job, a job that pays money. Well that is about all. Im posting some new pics. This blog will still be in use though but it is changing to a new format to chronical the begining of our EVIL ARMY. Peace- Mike and Alli

Peace Corps Baby!

2008-06-23T07:24:00.002+08:00

Well for those of you who dont know I am sorry that you have to find out over our blog but we just found out on thusrday that Alli is pregnant and our Peace Corps adventure is about to be over. Of course we will be starting a much more exciting, infinatly longer, but just as smelly of an adventure with our impending Made in Mongolia baby. As per Peace Corps Policy we have about a week to pcak up our things and head back to America. Right now we are in UB but are heading back to Khovsgul today to pack up our Ger and say goodbye to our friends and host family, which we are really not looking forward to. Then on Thursday morning we fly back to UB to begin our Close of Service Medical Exams and should be heading back to the land of Cheeseburgers on Tuesday. Dont delete us yet though we still have some final thoughts and pictures to post on Thursday when we get back to UB.
Love Alli and Mike

2008-06-17T10:19:00.002+08:00

Well this has been a week. Alli and I both had a brutal case of the flu all week and are finally starting to feel better again. Being sick in Mongolia is a terrible thing, our only solace was that we were in an apartment insted of our ger. Now being sick sucks no matter where you are but without the comforts of home it is really a miserable experience. But all is well now and training is in full swing. The trainees are safely tucked away with their host families and all seems to be progressing normally. I have yet to visit my old host family, something that i feel horrible about, i will see them eventually though. Thats about all, nothing really exciting to report. -Scott I dont have your email. Victoria- Hello, how is school? Parents- See I am just as neglectful of my Mongolian parents as I am of you guys!
Love Alli and Mike

Orientation Days

2008-06-04T12:30:00.002+08:00

Well the new volunteers are here and in numbers, 65 of them in the new group. I was reading our blogs from this time last year and we said that we were about 50% sure that we made the right decision, we are still debating. Anywho, its crazy how fast perceptions change over the course of a year. I remember when we drove into Darkhan last year for the first time and thinking that this must be a joke, now they are going to take us to the real city, not the place that was used for nuclear weapons testing. Now however we look at Darkhan like a culinary paradise where we can make anything happen. I wish I could articulate this better but it is something that has to be experienced. Or as Fahd says "I would color it with detail but everything is just different shades of brown."

Happy Aniversary

2008-06-02T15:06:00.002+08:00

Its hard to believe that we have been here for a year now. I imagine that we have changed quite a bit, but in all honesty I feel the same. I dont know. Well thats enough about us. Tonight the new group of Volunteers arrive in UB and then head to a ger camp and then come up to Darkhan tomorrow. We are all really excited to get to meet them. I will write a post on wednesday about them once they witness the glorious Darkhan Hotel. MWAHAAHHHAAA

Darkhan Days

2008-05-21T13:59:00.002+08:00

Sorry it has been a while since we have posted but its starting to get alittle crazy around here preping for the new batch of volunteers. We made it to UB for our med check up (Paul has very gentle hands by the way) and for our dental checkup and cleaning AKA mouth torture by a mongolian. Just picture any horror movie with a dentist in it. We are all moved in to our apartment in Darkhan for training and tomorrow are going to the host families places to check them out for the arriving volunteers, I am going to have to eat a lot of tsuivan to check all of those jorlons. The apartment is great and its nice to have a TOILET! Its not nice to have cockroaches but I have declared war on them and have begun that war in earnest. My mother said that it is a war that I will never win, funny coming from the person who told me that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. So I;m going Taliban on their asses, there is going to be daily executions at the soccer stadium. No western music for the cockroaches, if they show themselves without proper atire they are stoned. Its going to be sick. There are going to be cockroach refugee camps in other apartments. I digress. The apartment is nice and big and we are in a good location right by our favorite restaurant. Ill try to post some pics soon. Love From Mongolia

Miracles Do Happen

2008-05-07T14:58:00.002+08:00

Well the seminar actualy happened and it went really well. Thanks to the help of Alli, Beth, Brenden, Fahd, Joe, Salomon and of course our translator Baska. About 15 kids ended up participating in it and I think (well I hope at least) that they got alitlle something out of it. My favorite part of the entire seminar was when Salomon and Fahd proceedd to to tell the kids that it was alright to lie during an interview as long as they thought themselves capable of making that lie true in the near future. So that is done and to celebrate Brenden, Fahd, and myself went up to Lake Hovsgul for the day and had a real good time. Next week Alli and I are leaving for UB to get our yearly med checkups and then off to Darkhan to get ready for the M19s who will be here in just about three weeks now.

The Seminar of Doom

2008-04-27T16:22:00.003+08:00

Well work is starting to wind down and at the same time speed up. For maybe the first time in the history of TEFL or CYD I am actually teaching more than a TEFL. Totally not what I signed up for, during CYD training all we did was practice making balloon animals. Which may sound easy but you go ahead and try to make a balloon sheep. This weekend I am putting on a seminar for graduating students and it is not going well so far. My original budget has been cut to a fraction of its former self and students keep ripping down the posters in school that I have made, oh and no one has signed up yet. Not gonna lie, Im freaking out about this whole thing. All is not lost however, Salomon and Fahd are coming up to help me teach the seminar and even if no one shows up it will still be fun. That and for the most part I have solved the crippling shortage of money that the seminar is suffering from, and most Mongolians wont sign up until the last possible moment. So who knows we still may pull this thing off. Did I mention that I have no idea how many people are going to show up? I mentioned that no one might show up, paradoxically that is not the worse senario. What is worse is if hundreds show up and I have no where to put them, this is a very real concern as my school has over 300 graduating students. Well stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to THE SEMINAR OF DOOM.

April, my arch nemeisis

2008-04-14T08:02:00.002+08:00

Hello everyone. Well I am officially on my way to turning thirty. Thirty! AHHHH. I had a nice birthday because of my wonderful wife and great site mates. We made a bunch of pizza and Joe and Brendon brought over a bottle of whisky, which is a nice change from vodka. Things are going pretty good here, I feel a bit more respected in town now due to my advanced age. My math may be a little off but I am older than 70% of the population. Alli and I only have about four weeks of work left before we leave for the capital to train for training the new volunteers, so we are pretty excited about that. It is going to be real nice to have a toilet for a month and a half. On that note.

OHH Spring

2008-04-08T09:27:00.002+08:00

Mongolia got us again. Just when you think winter has finally left, it plays a nasty little trick on you. The other day I was boasting about not having to make a fire in the morning for the first time since October. Of course MIke and I just happen to switch jobs during this week of blistfully warm weather (I had to chop wood, make fires and get water) and (mike was in charge of cooking, cleaning and dishes). So of course after my hands were beaten up and full of splinters we switched back--hahahaha it snowed today. We got about 3-4 inches of snow and Mike is once again enjoying making morning fires! Of course this does mean that he has to go back to swallowing my sometimes horrible cooking. I think I have gotten the best side of the deal all around.
Love Allie and Mike

Packing List- What not to bring

2008-04-07T07:52:00.002+08:00

Because of some emails and posts we decided to update the packing list with stuff you dont need to bring.
1. An extra sleeping bag- you get issued a great sleeping bag from PC. We live in a ger and have never had a problem with being cold (while we were in our sleeping bag).
2. Do not bring a bunch of clothes- the clothes that you bring should be versitile, casual and business. Do not waste space with a bunch of clothes. You are going to have to drag those suitcases with you around the world so only bring what you really want.
3. Survival gear- you are going to be fine! PC takes good care of you the first three months. You are not going to need iodine tablets or magnesium strips or flint or anything like that.
4. If you are a woman skirts are nice when you have to tinkle outside ( says alli)
5. Travel gimicks- this is the same as the "survival gear". you probably wont need a solar battery charger, or an emergency radio (all the stations are in mongolian anyway).

Well we have to go to work now. Have fun getting your stuff together.

Packing List

2008-04-04T18:58:00.002+08:00

Well its about that time for the new volunteers to start their packing. I cant believe that we have been here for allmost a year now. So because we had such a hard time packing and deciding what to bring we thought that we would give a little bit of advice to the M-19s. First of all pack two seperate bags, one of those bags is going to be kept in storage for the entirty of your training and you will not have access to it. In that bag put all of your winter stuff, you will not need it during training. The only clothes that you aregoing to need is something to sleep in two business casual outfits and two casual outfits, thats it, do not burden yourself with tons of crap during training. Besides for that here are a couple of things that we are really happy that we brought or that we really wished that we would have.
1. Our laptop- the best thing that we brought.
2. Camera- you are definatley going to want to bring this
3. A photo album- Mongolians love looking at pictures, you dont even understand.
4. really good shoes- you will be walking everywhere you go, do not cheap out on this!
5. Whatever over-the-counter meds you like- Nyquill, alkaseltzer... alkaseltzer saved my life last summer.
6. An iPod- if your married bring one for each of you because you will be split up during training
7. A knife- I brought a mid-sized buck and I use it for everything, but I also have a leatherman which is nice
8. Bring a gift for your host family. It can be anything- I brought my family a bunch of pictures of Chicago and assorted change and they liked them alot. They are not expecting anything huge.

Lets keep it real though, your going to be fine no matter what. Bring what makes you happy and make sure to bring a book, a big book. Looking forward to seeing you in june.

WTF?

2008-03-29T13:59:00.002+08:00

So the olympics are over. Guess who's students took 1st through 4th place in 11th, 9th, and 7th grades? I'll give you a hint, it wasnt my students. Alli's kids cleaned up 85' Bears style. It was sick, one of her girls beat the next closest student by 50 points on a 200 point test, and this was the best students from the entire state competing. If I didnt personally judge the competition I would have said something was going down here. So now her three kids that took 1st will go to UB for the national competition, we will keep you updated.

March Madness

2008-03-19T19:14:00.002+08:00

The Olympics are almost here and I dont mean that crap that is going to happen in Beijing. Im talking about the Regional Academic Olympics that grip Mongolia every March. This is a big deal people so listen up. MARCH MADNESS. There are Olympics in every subject and 3 students compete from each school in the state in their respective subjects. This is such a big deal that the students who are studying for the Olympics regularly dont go to school for about a month but instead spend about five hours a day studying thier subject. Next week Students from the entire Aimag will converge on Muren for the week to compete in the Olympics, coming from all over in a desperate search for fame and glory. -Oh and we finally got our internet working again. New pics too.

Mongolian Oprah

2008-03-18T12:10:00.002+08:00

-So I have a new TV show, now I dont mean to point fingers but when Alli got her TV show and she asked for help doing it her loving husband said "ÿes of course I will help because I love you". I wish that I had a loving husband like that.
-Iveelmaa's 4th birthday was on the ides of march and we had a real good time spoiling the crap out of her.
-Once again we thought that we were going to get our internet problems worked out but once again Mongolia defeated us in a spetacular manner. We actually have all of the components at our place but no one knows what to do with them all. Hopefully soon. We love and miss everyone- Mike and Alli

The Windy City

2008-03-12T14:28:00.000+08:00

Well it might be possible that we will once again get internet in our ger, let me stress the possible in that statement. Things are going well here Alli and I are pretty busy because of the upcoming English Olympics (a country wide English competition for students). I am determined to see my schools students beat hers this year, something which historically never happens.
The windy season is upon us. This was made clear to us as one of our windows was ripped off the top of our Ger and then sent flying through the air. Luckily for us Bymba was around and like everything else with a Ger he was able to fix it by cutting a new piece of glass and fitting it to our window, the guy is amazing. Now everything is bungee corded in place in preparation of the real wind that should be starting any day now. We were at Elizabeth’s house the other night and we asked her Hashaa family if our Ger would blow away and they laughed and laughed, “Maybe” was the reply.
I realized that we posted pictures of the Ice festival and didn’t say anything about it. Sorry. So we went to the Ice Festival the other week! It was cool. Get it! It was COOL. That was a play on words. Seriously though, it was freaking freezing, as you can imagine. We had a real good time, there was a horse sleigh race, Ice Sumo, and speed skating. Alli and I were able to take a sleigh ride and as you can tell from the pictures Lake Hovsgul is breathtaking. We are really looking forward to heading up there this summer. Hopefully we will get internet on Friday so keep your fingers crossed. Love Alli and Mike

PDM Baby!

2008-03-09T11:11:00.002+08:00

Sorry the posts have become infrequint but with no internet at the site now it is getting difficult to get things out. We just finished our Project Design and Managment seminar that was held in UB this past week. Now I know that we just got back from America 3 weeks ago but we have been gorging ourselves on everything that we can get our hands on. I think that my personal favorite this trip has been the ham and cheese croisant from Michelles bakery, I have eaten about 7 of them in the past three days. Asides from food things are going well, Alli and I are both begining to write grants to create new english resource rooms in our respective schools. The rooms are scheduled to be operating by the begining of next year. We are heading back to site today and hopefully we can take care of this internet thing this week. Oh yea new pictures posted!

Back in the Sadle

2008-02-21T11:00:00.002+08:00

We made it back, it was close though, the landing at Chingiss Khan Airport was a little rough. Im still not entirely convinced that we werent shot down. Funny story though we saw Brendan our sitemate at the Seoul Airport and he was on the same flight back to Mongolia with us, small world. Things are going well and the weather has gotten a lot nicer since we left which makes life in general much much nicer. We seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with our internet right now but as soon as we get them worked out we will send out emails and post a more detailed blog about whats going on right now. Love from Mongolia.

Still Here

2008-02-08T05:51:00.000+08:00

For all of our brothers and sisters in Mongolia we just wanted you to know that America is still beautiful and all of the food is twice as good as you remember. For everyone in America heed these words "EVERYDAY you wake up in America is a good day" I know that the news is constantly saying how awful everything is and that the world is coming to an end but fear not, you are still in America.
We only have a couple of days left before we head back to Mongolia and in preperation have been eating everything that we can get our hands on. Today we reached the concensus that there are no more cravings left to answer, we have sated every glutonus impulse our minds could concieve. Let me tell you how great that feels. Love Mike and Alli

Jim Campbell 1953-2008

2008-01-19T00:30:00.000+08:00

Yesterday morning Alli’s Father Jim passed away. He had been sick for years now and went painlessly surrounded by his family. He will definitely be missed by all who knew him.

Yaks, Planes, and Automobiles

2008-01-15T00:05:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone. Well as many of you know Alli and I are now in America. Unfortunatley Alli's Father Jim is very sick and we were called home. Jim is on his third liver now and has been plenty sick before so we are of course hoping for the best. He became sick while in Alabama during Christmas and remains in the hospital in Huntsville as they are unable to move him back to Chicago. So that is where we are now. The Peace Corps has been great in this emergency, Alli's family called the Office of Special Services last tuesday and we were on the next flight back to America. Muren to Ulaanbaatar to Beijing to Chicago to Nashville to Huntsville. It was a long trip 21 total hours in the plane, so just three hours short of what it would have been to take a Meeker from Muren to Ulaanbaatar. Those things really put everything in perspective. So thursday morning it was -35 in Mongolia and it was 70 when we landed in Nashville over a 100 degree swing! Oh and apparently we smelled real bad, Josh (Alli's brother) picked us up at the airport and he confirmed it, luckily not like "wow those kids smell" but more like "wow those kids smell like a fire".
Beijing you all will be interested to know is easily the most polluted place I have ever been, seen or heard about. It was a cloudless day and it looked like it was overcast, I am not exagerating one iota. However, as we were flying into Beijing we did get to see the Great Wall, it just snaked across the ridge of a mountain line underneath us. One of those moments you know that you will remember for the rest of your life. So keep Jim in your heart and we will keep you posted. Love Mike and Alli from beautiful beautiful America

Meet the Family

2008-01-07T17:09:00.000+08:00

We feel that it is about time that we introduced the people that have been keeping us alive for the past five months. Why we didn’t do this earlier we are not entirely sure, however, now we have a much greater appreciation for them and everybody else has a healthy degree of inquisitiveness on the subject. So it worked out well for everyone involved. Where to begin? Byambadorj, or Byamba- which means Saturday in Tibetan, how could you not like someone named Saturday? Byamba is 28 years old and works for an oil company at a local petrol station. His work schedule is unique; he works two days a week 24 hours a shift. He has his bachelors in Eco-tourism and management. He’s a great guy, my best friend here and makes sure that whatever we need we get. He beats me at everything we do except play chess and even that is close. Lately he has been bent on immigrating to Canada so that is what we have been doing, writing resumes and researching Canadian immigration law.
Dodoo- I am not positive what Dodoo means. Dodoo is also 28 years old and she is a Mongolian Language teacher at Alli’s school. Until recently Dodoo has been in Ulaanbaatar working on her master’s degree. Dodoo has a more normal schedule being a teacher and coupled with the child we don’t see her as much. She of course is as instrumental to us staying alive as Byamba is and has been teaching us how to cook Mongolian food and has been tutoring us in language.
Iveelmaa- or guardian angle in Mongolian is our little Mongolian child. She is three years old and we generally have no idea what she is saying at any time. This is a good thing because there is no way that we could say no to her. She has learned to communicate quite effectively with us though and knows how to get us to give her something to drink or eat, and she is not shy about telling us if what we gave her displeased her in the least bit. Apparently she has been speaking English to her parents at home but refuses to speak any English to us. Such is Mongolia.
Oh and there are a couple new pictures up. Bayertai!

Skype

2007-12-29T11:44:00.000+08:00

Hello Everyone!

While we were in UlaanBataar we were able to procure a headdset and we downloaded Skype. So now we can talk to anyone who has Skype for free. Our Skype name is amprelaske and we hope to hear from everyone. As it turns out we were supposed to be back in Muren by now but due to some bad weather conditions on friday we missed our flight home. So now we are leaving on sunday. Hard to believe but we really cant wait to get back to our ger, all of our care packages from Christmas being there helps too. While we are on the subject of care packages thank you to everyone who sent them, our site mate Elizibeth said that we have a ton and we cant wait to get back to open them. We will update later when we do.
Besides for eating a bunch of good food and seeing all of our friends we are just doing the same old stuff, avoiding drunks, watching for open man holes, eating mutton. Not much new. We are approching the holiday season here which includes Shin Jil (New Years), Tsaagan Tsar

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T15:10:00.000+08:00

Woo, sorry about that last post. I was siting down in a cafe writing when suddenly my stomach decided it was time to get the hell out of there. I just finished eating a philly cheese steak and it was amazing. UB is truely a different world. The volunteers call it the Republic of UlaanBataar which is completley surrounded by the country of Mongolia.Its funny how acurate that statement is. So Yesterday we had our PCV Christmas party. It was amazing. Briidget, a German ex-pat and UB bakery owner, opened her summer home to us. It was about a 45 minute drive outside of UB and really pretty. Briidget and the US ambassador provided us with pleanty to drink( wine, beer, eggnog) and wonderful food (ham,turkey, stuffing, all types of salads, cookies, cake and fresh baked bread). It was so wonderful for us all to be able to celebrate and be together- they were so generous. We are definatley lucky to have such a supportive ambassador here, he actually went on a wine run for us, pretty cool. Tonight and tomorrow we will do some more holiday celebrating utalizing the wonderful UB PCV's apartments. Tonight we will make the traditional meat and potato meal and tomorrow mike's wonderful sushi. The holidays have been tough but all of us being together here makes it much easier. We love and miss everybody. Have a wonderful and safe holiday! Love Mike and Alli

Back in UB

2007-12-22T16:10:00.000+08:00

Sorry it has been so long since we have talked to anyone. Last week we went to a tourist camp with our counterparts for In Service Training and we were out of cell phone range. We are now back in UB and will be here for the next week just relaxing and getting some work done. All is fine and as I am not feeling to well at this moment am goinig to have to cut this one short. We will write again soon. Love Mike and Alli

Plugged In

2007-12-09T20:33:00.000+08:00

Thats right baby we got internet in the ger now! Who would have ever guessed, I mean we don't have running water or a indoor toliet but we have the internet. So you will all be hearing alot more from us now that we dont have to risk hypothermia to send out an email. By the way it was -35 here today, a little brisk. Besides for that fantastic bit of news we just arrived back from a seminar that we helped teach in a small soum called Ihk Hul. It was a pretty little town that we will post some pictures of now that we have the internet in OUR GER! Well we litteraly just got home an hour ago and hooked this thing up so Im keeping this one short. Stay warm. Love Mike and Alli

The Other Red Meat

2007-12-03T10:47:00.000+08:00

Horse, its whats for dinner. While culinary exploration is an unofficial requirement for being a volunteer we never really though that we would indeed be eating horse, and not only horse meat but intestines as well. So not even two weeks after putting down her first steak Allison heroically sat down and ate some horse with me and our hashaa father Bymba. Horse is actually pretty tasty, just as tender as beef but it has a little more flavor. Nothing like a big bowl of horse.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T17:10:00.000+08:00

New pictures are posted!
Happy Thanksgiving!
This was a tough week for us. Luckily we only have to make it through one more Thanksgiving and two more Christmas and we are good. In lieu of family, friends, and good food we tried to have a little Thanksgiving of our own. We made mutton (which was all grizzle) and mashed potatoes and gravy(which turned out good) corn bread (which turned out real good) and our friend Nick brought over pumpkin pie and tapioca (which was also very good). Fortunately for us Nick doesn’t drink and the bottle of wine that we bought this time was not a bottle of vinegar so we were able to enjoy that as well.
We are homesick, that is for sure, but we will be ok. On the bright side I haven’t once thought about getting Alli pregnant so that we could come home. OK, maybe once, but no more than eight times did I think that.
Allie was able to share a bit of Thanksgiving with her students which they enjoyed. She also fed the English teachers at her school their first pumpkin pie. They loved it!!
We don’t do a whole lot of preaching on this blog, our goal is to give you an upbeat description of our daily trials, tribulations and cultural phenomenon’s that we deem appropriate. However, I hope that everyone that reads this makes the most out of the time that they have with their friends and family this holiday season, because not being able to do so really sucks. We just want everyone to know that we miss you and think of you often, and how much we appreciate those of you who make it possible for us to be here with your letters, emails, care packages, and thoughts. Happy Holidays.
Love Alli Mike and “Nick, Destroyer of Worlds and Crusher of Dreams” (our new cat).

Novemeber 20th

2007-11-20T13:04:00.000+08:00

As most of our loyal readers know last week we went to Erdenet to officially participate in teaching an English teachers seminar and unofficially to go on vacation for a week. I am happy to report the seminar went well and the collateral damage was kept to a minimum. While we were in Erdenet a monumental event occurred, Allison, my wife and a veg head for 15 years ate her first steak EVER. I swore a solemn vow 4 years ago that I would destroy the bunny loving, free spirit, everything has a right to live part of her, and that vow has now been fulfilled. My work here is done. She has officially crossed to the dark side (insert maniacal laugh here).
Now as many of our more insightful readers may be wondering (there are at least one or two of those) how did our poor butts afford steak and wonderful real ice cream and good steak at a restaurant no less, not one that I killed and butchered in some alley, again. Well luckily for us a benevolent force taking the form of our friend Salomon’s father blew into town and treated us to a culinary expedition that was literally the highlight of the last six months that we have been here. I’ve said it before and I’m sure that ill say it again, “the only thing better than steak is free steak”.
Aside from the copious amounts of food and drink consumed we were also indulging on the use of Salomon’s shower and toilet. It’s weird that after not really showering for a couple of months when you take a shower two days in a row you start to feel a little too clean. However, I never once felt like I was abusing the toilet, although surely I was. That seems to be an appropriate image to end this post on. More coming soon, love Alli and Mike.
P.S.
Before we left for Erdenet Allison had a Halloween party for her second grade class. I wish that you could have seen it because it was great. There was candy everywhere and she had the kids bob for apples then bob for candy in a bowl of flour. Hysterical. The culmination of the event was when Alli started throwing handfuls of candy into the air and the kids had never seen anything like it, they had no idea what to do with themselves, because maybe in only the most imaginative Spielberg like mind had an event like this taken place. We will hopefully be able to post some pictures of it.

Life Without Windows

2007-11-08T14:27:00.000+08:00

I have been thinking alot lately on the psychological impact that having a house without windows has been having on us, and I have come to the conclusion that it has no positive impact. Waking up in the morning and having to rely on artificial light (a flouresent tube) doesnt really get you set to tackle the day. Besides for that it makes us feel real isolated from the rest of the world. Even though we only have some felt between us and the world once you walk into the ger its like walking into a totally seperate world. Maybe ill expand on this another day, today Im just here to tell you that there are new pictures up. Stay warm.

Now We Have A TV Show

2007-11-05T15:09:00.000+08:00

Yep, we are now on TV. How could this have possibly happened you may be asking yourself? Well as it turns out it is a question thet we have asked ourselves. Last week a local TV station called Allis school and said that they wanted to put together a series on teaching english, her school then in turn asked Alli to do this and by default I was drug into it as well. Here is how the conversation went- Allis school-"How about doing english lessons on TV?"
Alli- "Sure that sounds like a good idea."
A's School- "Good, you will film tonight."
A- "What"
A's School- "Yes, each show has to be 30 minutes"
A- "What? Wait we cant tape tonight we dont have anything prepared."
A's School "Oh OK,you will tape tomorrow then."
And we did, we taped the first one on friday and tomorrow we will tape three more. They will run everyday for the next month on local TV.
On a completely different subject we are going to Erdenet on friday for a week to take part in a seminar that Alli and I will both be presenting at, and the best part is that we will be staying with our friend Salomon who has an apartment there. An apartment with a shower and toilet. It will be heaven. While we are there Salomons father will be visiting and we are looking forward to meeting him. Not much else going on besides for how cold its getting and the lack of daylight. The sun rises at about 8am and sets around 630pm now, and it only gets colder and darker from here. Stay warm out there-Mike and Alli

The Evolution of Gruel

2007-10-21T14:02:00.000+08:00

It starts off innocent enough. “Hey lets have soup tonight” someone says. “That sounds good” comes the reply. The soup is composed of the usual suspects, potatoes, carrots, onions, and meat-cow, horse, sheep, goat, yak, camel, or a mixture of. “That was good” she says, and this is where it begins. “We can even have it for lunch tomorrow”. “Good idea” he says like a fool. Fate, destiny, providence, whatever you call it has now taken over. Fast-forward to the next day, “I’m going to add some more water to the soup so that we can have it for dinner tonight too” she says. “Good idea” he says, lulled by the temptation of not having to cook. The soup however refuses to die at dinner and like all successful creatures upon this planet is forced to evolve. “We should add some rice to the soup for dinner because it is mostly broth now” she observes. “Good idea” he says with a vague feeling of dread wrapping its fingers around his stomach. He dismisses this as yet another round of splatter foot and continues unaware. The soup is now changing, while it is still soup it is now becoming something else, something terrible. The next day the soup is avoided for lunch by a tactful “Lets go out for lunch today”. At dinner the soup has now evolved, it is no longer soup, the rice has completely melded with the soup and is now mush. The prospect of eating this is grim and neither one of us has the cojones to dig right in, until. “Maybe if we heat it back up and add some cheese and hot sauce it wont be so bad”. It is now gruel, and then the inevitable, “Not bad for gruel eh?” “No, not bad for gruel.”

Wac-Evac

2007-10-16T15:52:00.000+08:00

Alli has been gone for a week now. It’s a good thing that she is coming back tomorrow because I’m losing my mind sitting in the ger by myself. I honestly don’t know how the single volunteers that are out in the hoodoo do it without going crazy. Well some do go crazy and since nothing crazy has been going on ill share some hoodoo legends about PCVs losing it. This first story is legend and I’m not positive if it actually happened but PCVs across the world have heard of it, the legend of the bagel lady. She lived in a ger out in the hoodoo and was an English teacher at her local school. Well one day she didn’t show up for work and then the next day and the day after that. Her work became worried and went to her ger but it was locked and no one answered so they decided to call Peace Corps office. PC came out to look for her and as it turns out she was in her ger and for the past three days she had been making hundreds of bagels and had them hanging up all over her ger. Needless to say she was wac-evac, and sent back to the states. The next story also has to do with an English teacher in the hoodoo, and this story I know is for real. Once a year our medical team visits all the volunteers to make sure that they are reasonably healthy and that they are not living in filth. Well one volunteer had integrated so well into his community that when our medical officer came out to visit him he refused to speak English to him at all and would only speak in Mongolian. He asked for a translator to speak to the medical officer, at which point he was sent home.
After living by myself here for only a week I am surprised that there are not more stories like these, but then again we all must have been crazy before we got here, we did volunteer for this after all.
The picture of the animal is actually a cross between a cow and a yak, kind of strange but very tasty.

2007-10-16T15:26:00.000+08:00

Sorry it has been so long since we have written. I guess we have been busy. Sorry no more funny stories at this time. We finally winterized our ger. I will do my best to explain the process. We added an extra layer of felt around the ger which probably took the least amount of time. However it did require undoing the ropes that go around the ger only to put them right back on. Then we put plastic going from the bottom rope to the ground. Then after Mike finally shoveled all the dirt with a handmade shovel, I put the dirt around the bottom of the ger- this helps with the air flow. Our hasha dad finished it off with wood to keep the dirt from going away. Total it only took 4 of us about 2-3 hours to do. Mike and I were exhausted! Luckily we did it just in time because later that day it snowed. Yes it snowed on October 5th. Looks like we in for an early winter. So far it seems like it helps the ger maintain heat a little better. I added pictures if my words are hard to follow. We still have not bought our winter clothes yet but that suddenly got put on the top of our priority list. However shopping here for clothes is not that much fun. I think it has something to do with the fact that we are almost twice the size of most Mongolians.
Mike, Elizabeth and their students are still working hard on their map project. It is gigantic and seems to be taking some time. Otherwise, Mike has been working a lot teaching students and teachers life skills and seems to really enjoy it.
I am currently in the capital where I have been for the last week. I am enjoying the food and shopping but also really looking forward to going back home to what seems like a small town.
Before I left Elizabeth and I taught 13 English teachers how to make American pizza. It was a wonderful English class. The pizza they made was fantastic and loaded with meat. Mike was so excited- he got to eat pizza all day without any of the work.
Will write more soon- we love and miss you- Allie and Mike

2007-09-25T16:52:00.000+08:00

I added a few new pictures. Click on flickr under picture post to view them. Allie

Outhouse

2007-09-25T15:18:00.000+08:00

Well fall is definitely here. The weather here is getting a lot colder and the wind is getting stronger. Good thing we are from Chicago and are used to the wind a little bit. Although in Chicago we didn't walk everywhere which makes a big difference. The last couple of days we have needed a fire going in the morning and at night to keep the Ger warm. The leaves on most of the trees have changed from green to yellow although none have fallen yet. Next weekend we will winterize our Ger which should help keep it warmer for the time being. When Mike left for U.B he did leave me a ready made fire- all I had to do was throw the match in. Unfortunately that didn't help when it was cold the next morning. My hasha family has been great though, I think they think I will starve and freeze while Mike is gone. They having been bringing me food, chopping wood for me and getting me water. Not to mention the teachers at school and our Mongolian friends have been checking in on me daily.
Not too much is new here so I will share a funny story. As many of you know we do not have indoor plumbing we have an outhouse (jorlon). Most of the outhouses here are built for Mongolians who on average are a lot shorter and smaller than us. Getting into the jorlons can sometimes be tricky. Most of the time you have to duck and step over the thresh hold at the same time. Doesn’t sound too tricky until you really need to use the bathroom. Last week I tripped while walking in and almost fell in luckily my body is bigger than the whole so I only fell in up to my thighs, but man was I scared.Oh course Mike laughed and laughed about it. Well this week it was Mike’s turn. While stepping into the jorlon he tripped. When he came running to tell me about it, I thought something really serious had happen from the look on his face. Come to find out he only lost his flip flop. Next thing I know, Mike is attaching rope to a hanger to try and get his flip flop back. I suggested many times that we could get him new flip flops for next summer, but that solution was unacceptable. So into the jorlon Mike goes with his homemade fishing equipment. Believe it or not he actually got it out. Of course then he didn’t know what to do with it because it needed to be cleaned. He put it outside hoping the rain would clean most of it. The next day however his flip flop was gone, the dogs obviously thought it was a toy. All that hard work down the drain.
This week our schools had sports day. At my school all the different classes wore different matching outfits for the occasion. It is a big day for the classes to show off their talent. First they all marched and did routines in unison. Then they continued to march for about 2 km out into this big field. In the field the different classes competed in 3 different activities; push ups, long and short distance running. It was amazing to watch. I mainly watched the 4th graders since they are most of my students. I watched a little girl do 50 pushups and a boy do 117, their upper body strength is incredible.
P.s- on the way to the post office I found Mike's flip flop clean with only a few bite marks. I had to find a stick to pick it up and carry it home. If that isn't love I don't know what is.
That’s about it! We love and miss you all—Allie and Mike

Meeker Mongolian for Micro Bus

2007-09-24T11:31:00.000+08:00

This particular meeker was built for 9, we had 17 adults in it. I am not a fantastic writer so I am not positive if I can describe what a terrible experience the ride from Murun to UlaanBataar was. Well first of all it took 24 hours in a meeker with 16 other people. Funny story- there was a drunk herdsman riding with us and when our meeker broke down for the first time around ten at night in the middle of nowwhere he asked me if I wanted to go into the woods and have sex with him. To which I refused. Apparently Im prettier than his sheep.
The entire trip was over unpaved roads and the part of the trip where there should have been a paved road the driver wouldnt drive on it because he was trying to save gas by cutting corners and going cross country.
We ended up breaking down a grand total of 6 times during the trip most likely because of the drivers refusal to drive over anything that resembled a road. After I arrived in UB I felt like I was still moving for about four hours. Today I feel better and have decided that I will fly back to Murun. I would rather die in a fiery plane crash than have to do that ever again. Thank you. Love Mike

9.18.07

2007-09-18T13:18:00.000+08:00

Sorry that the blogs have become less frequent we are still trying to get accustomed to our site and our new jobs. This weekend our other site mates that live in soums came in. Mike and the boys enjoyed a guy’s night, playing video games and watching star wars. Elizabeth and I enjoyed the break! Luckily Elizabeth is a fantastic cook. She made me tortilla chips, queso dip, quesadillas, and biscuits and gravy. For a minute I almost thought I was back in the states.
Finally, Mike has started work. I guess now we will have to share the housewife responsibilities although he was really starting to get good at it. He now will be busy; teaching life skills to both teachers and students, teaching English and leading a yoga class for teachers (thankfully Lavonne gave him a deck of yoga poses). Mike, Elizabeth (our site mate) and 18 10th graders are also working on a world map project. They are painting a world map on a wall that is 6 feet by 18 feet. It is amazing to watch the process and Mike is taking a lot of pictures along the way. They are hoping that they will have it done within the next month or two. We are all very excited to see how it turns out. I am still really enjoying teaching English. This week I have started team teaching with 3 of our English teachers. My schedule is a little crazy right now but I am really enjoying my Tuesdays off.
Wow, it has really started to get colder here. On Sunday morning we were able to see snow on the mountain peeks. The snow made me think that maybe I should learn how to make a fire. This weekend I learned, although it absolutely didn’t seem to last as long as the ones Mike makes. I am sure I will become much better at it throughout this year and if not it can be Mikes job. It doesn’t take long to heat up our ger but it loses heat really quickly. If it is cold we generally have to keep a fire going. I guess soon it will be time to buy some winter clothes.
It is amazing how much you don’t eat when it takes a long time to make anything. Usually for breakfast we have an apple, oatmeal or the wonderful biscotti Mel sent us with a nice cup of coffee. For lunch, we usually have a bowl of rice sometimes if we are feeling a little spicy we will put some carrots or potatoes in it. For dinner we frequently use the leftovers from lunch and make some type of soup. Our diets have significantly changed from how we ate in the states. We obviously eat a lot of rice, noodles, potatoes and carrots. So far it hasn’t really been that bad. We are learning to branch out a little and made pizza the other night for our hasha family (they had never eaten pizza before). Tonight we will try to make burritos.
That is all for now. We love and miss you all- Allie and Mike

Movin' on Up

2007-09-11T12:00:00.000+08:00

We got a refrigerator!!!!! We are so excited, it is probably hard to imagine our overwhelming excitement but we didn’t realize how much of a luxury it was. We can’t even explain to you how much it means to us to receive mail, emails and phone calls. It is like having Christmas everyday! Allie started work this week. She is supposed to wear a suit and heels to work. She is teaching teachers, 2nd, 4th and 8th grade students English. My name is now Allie Bagsh (or Allie teacher). The students here are amazing and very well behaved. They seem to have a lot of respect for their teachers. All of my students wear uniforms colored according to their grade. The teacher’s schedules are a little hard to figure out but luckily I have really nice counterparts that have basically held my hand throughout the process. I think my schedule changed 5 times this week and is still not set in stone, luckily I am pretty easy going and don’t mind change to much. The first classroom I walked into I was scared to death, I almost felt like I was a little kid again going to school for the first time. When I walked in to my amazement all the children stood up and in unison asked how I was doing or Sain Bain uu? A little overwhelming to have 40+ students confront you at once, but very cute. Mike said that they did the same thing in Nepal. The school system here is different than what I was accustomed to in the states. Here they have a split schedule- that is even grades go to school in the morning and odd to school in the afternoon. They have to do this because of the amount of students and space. The students also stay in the same class all day and the teachers move. I have also found it interesting that almost all of the schools are within the same 1 mile radius.
I think the best thing about going back to work this week is that Mike had the week off and became the housewife. I would come home to find him hand washing the laundry, cleaning or cooking us food everyday. I asked him if he was sitting at home eating bon bons and watching soap operas but it turns out he was eating mutton and throwing knifes.
It is a really interesting feeling to be a foreigner. It is really hard to describe how weird you feel being totally different and only being able to understand a very small amount of what is going on around you. Now that school has started and the kids are out in full force we do have a lot of people staring at us. Hopefully the more we become integrated into the community the less staring we will have. This morning I had about 10 kids walk me to school it was a very interesting conversation- they were all talking really fast and intermittently throwing in Allie Bagsh and the only thing I could reply is that I like bananas.
We are still enjoying Murun and all it has to offer. We now can use the internet just about whenever we want since it is only a 5 minute walk. We found really good tutors (our hasha family) so hopefully our Mongolian should continue to improve. There is a restaurant that serves really good schnitzel every Tuesday. At night we are able to see every star in the sky and the entire milky way and every morning we are able to wake up to the beautiful scenery of being surrounded by mountains. Life is good. We love and miss you all—Allie and Mike

Settling in

2007-08-30T14:33:00.000+08:00

We are adjusting well to our new home(ger) in Murun. We are learning how to do everything on our own (such as laundry, fetching water, cooking, food preparation, and cleaning). We didn’t realize how spoiled we were at our host families. Everything takes us a lot of time, everything is a process. We do have electricity and we are thankful for that but we can only use one electrical appliance at a time which makes cooking interesting. It also doesn’t help that we need to run our water purifier for about 5 hours a day. We are also learning how to live without a refrigerator. We didn’t realize how much we would miss it. It makes food gathering on a daily basis a little more time consuming. Soon we won’t have to worry though outside will provide us with natural refrigeration. We have basically become vegetarians only because we can’t store it. Poor Mike!! He can’t wait for winter.
There is a family of Americans here that run a farm on the edge of town. Yesterday, they were so kind in letting us pick all the American veggies (such as corn, green beans, peas, dill, lettuce, and zucchini) that we wanted. It was like Christmas in Aug. we haven’t seen many of these veggies since we left the states. We mainly eat potatoes, carrots, garlic and onions so one can imagine our excitement. For the next couple of days quite a bit of our time will be spent drying and freezing these veggies for the winter and spring. We have heard that in the spring time there is not a lot of food, so every little bit helps.
The weather here has been really nice although we can tell winter is approaching. It has been getting up to 70 during the day and dropping down to 40’s-50’s during the night. Luckily our ger has been staying really warm. We have only had to make a fire once so far. We have also been getting a lot of rain over night which always makes for an interesting morning. When it rains water tends to creep in under the sides and sometimes comes through the top opening of the ger. As far as maintaining the ger it is almost like a ship. There are ropes everywhere and every rope does something different. Alli and I are becoming expert knot tiers and know what just about every rope in the ger does. After we winterize our ger next month we should have a much more intimate knowledge because we will have to take the whole thing down and then put it back up. That’s all for now, we love and miss everyone. Alli and Mike

new pictures

2007-08-24T15:45:00.001+08:00

hey we uploaded some more pictures to Flickr.com hopefully this link will take you there.

Ger living

2007-08-24T14:44:00.000+08:00

Where to begin? First of all we are now actual Peace Corps Volunteers, the ambassador swore us in and now we have to protect the constitution. We decided to split the responsibilities so Alli is going to take care of the foreign enemies and I will handle the domestic ones.
Oh yea, now we live in a ger. Our first home together as a married couple. Minus all the creature comforts we are used to, it is actually pretty awesome. Our hasha family is around our age and very nice, Dodoj is a Mongolian language teacher at Alli’s school and Byamba is a driver/petrol worker. They also have a 3 year old daughter named Iveelmaa. Our ger is about 20 feet in diameter and is really cozy. We just finished getting it set up and it is starting to feel like home. Mainly we are just happy to have a home now after living out of our suitcases for the past three months. It is really interesting to decorate in a circle when our whole lives we have been accustomed to 4 walls. We are pleasantly surprised that all of our stuff fits into our ger. On the inside; we have a pretty big bed, a nice couch, a desk, bookshelf, 2 dressers, a table, a sink, a wood burning stove, and a pantry. Our ger floor is wood on top of the ground with carpets. We do have electricity and have heard that it will work most of the time. We do not have running water or indoor plumbing. The outhouse is 50 feet away. We are not quite sure how the ger is put together but we will find out soon when we take it all apart to winterize it. Everything we do now is a process. I am sure that the amount of time it takes us to do anything right now will shorten the more we do it. Our hasha has a very good location. We are close to the internet, post office, bank, mini grocery stores and water. (When we say close we mean within a 15 minute walk)
It is hard to believe that the summer is over and training is done, we are reasonably confident in our language and survival skills which is good. The real test will come once it starts getting cold out, right now it has been getting down into the 40s at night and is in the mid 60s during the day, but we can tell that the cold is coming. Supposedly Khovsgul is one of the coldest provinces in Mongolia; it gets down to about -50c here, that’s pretty cold. I asked someone why they don’t ice fish here because the fishing here is great. They said that it was because the ice on the lake freezes to 7feet thick. It would be tough to auger through that.
As far as work goes it doesn’t really start until September 3rd for us, Alli is teaching English and I am a social worker. We are really looking forward to starting work but we are enjoying our free time; settling in and exploring our new surroundings.
Love- Allie and Mike
For more directions on how to call contact one of our parents.
This is our new address:
Allie and/or Mike Prelaske
P.O box 162
Huvsgul, Murun
Delger Murun School Allie and/or Mike Prelaske
P.O box 162
XOBCГАЛ MӨPӨH
ДЭЛГУР МӨРӨН СУРГУУЛБ

UB BABY!

2007-08-15T13:07:00.000+08:00

Where to begin? Alli and I are know in UlaanBaatar or Red Hero in english. It is fantastic. Anything that you want here can be found for a price but after two and a half months in the hoodoo you will kill a man for a pizza and beer. The restaurant said that I didnt have to but i wasnt going to take any chances. Our first night here Alli, Salomon, Rachel, Phillip, Jim (tom bogway)thats big bear in mongol, jullie and I went to go get pizza. They actually had chilled beer mugs and brought out parmesian cheese and tabasco unsolicited. I had never been so happy in my life. It was just fantastic, just fantastic. Yesterday I had fried chicken and today a gyro. Tonight Alli and I are going to get a cheese burger, I am so excited. Tommorow our supervisors come into town and on saturday we swear in as actual volunteers. Then monday Alli and I fly out for Murun and our ger. I cant believe that we are going to be living in a ger. We will post our address as soon as we can. Much love from Mongolia. Bayertai

Mongolia's 'Switzerland'

2007-08-10T18:11:00.000+08:00

Well a lot has happened between the last time we were able to write a message. First and foremost we passed our language exams, which is good because Mike dosen't want to get on a plane anytime soon. We didn't do the best but we definitely weren't the worst, and most importantly we scored the same. After our tests there was a lot of celebrating and relaxing. It was really hard to say goodbye to our families, they were such a big part of our lives this summer. Mike seems to think I am as nice as his host mom and will continue to do and press his laundry- you would think after almost a year of marriage he would know that his hands are capable of laundry too.

I made American pizza for my family as a little going away gift. Quite the experience because I had no oven and only a ger stove. With a little hard work and elbow grease - mission accomplished. It was actually excellent by my standards but then again I like things with flavor and most importantly cheese. My parents thought it was ok I think mainly because it was so different. My siblings however loved it. It was a good thing because I take after my mother and don't know how much to cook so I ended up with 7 medium pizzas.It again was an amazing experience to watch them eat something that reminds me so much of home.

All of the trainees are back together, attending meetings and celebrating site announcements. Mike and I are so very excited to be able to live together again and in our own place. Who would have ever guessed that our first place would be a ger. Yes, Mike and I will be living in a 5 wall ger for the next 2 years. We hear that 5 wall gers are pretty spacious- well as spacious as 1 round room can be. We are really looking forward to the amazing experience. I can't say we weren't a little bit shocked and even a little bit scared. What doesn't kill us can only make us stronger, right. Since we are living in a ger we will also have a haasha family. This means essentially that our ger will be on someones property. Great news for us- we will have someone to show us how to survive Mongolian winters. From what we know it is a younger married couple with either no children or a baby. Our ger will be located in an aimeg center called Murun. It is a fly site(I should mention that neither of the 2 runways are paved)!! Mike is so excited. This means that we are ruffly a 30 hour drive to U.B but only a 1 hour flight. From what we hear we really lucked out it is supposed to be the Switzerland of Mongolia. The province has a lot of trees and water. Check it out on the internet for us we are pretty much going in blind. We do know that we have reliable internet access and might even have at the places we work. I am working at a Mathematics school(1900 children) teaching 5-10 grade. Mike is working at the other school(2500 children) in the city as a school social worker/after school director. Many things to look forward to. Sorry we are so vague right now but we don't have a ton of information.
We love and miss you all and will write more as soon. We love reading all of the emails and blog posts. We love and miss you all- Allie and Mike

Peace out

2007-08-02T17:19:00.000+08:00

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

Life in General

2007-07-21T14:23:00.000+08:00

OK first of all let me appologize about the picture thing. Last time I was here I started to post the pictures which takes about five to ten minutes per photo when something terrible started to happen. Twenty minutes before this I had just eaten a bowl of yogurt then my host mother gave me a giant bowl of hot soup to eat. By the time I got to the post office-where the internet is- I was not feeling so well. Which started the weeklong purge of everything that was in my body. Im OK now though.

What is our diet like? For breakfast I generally just eat some bread with butter and water. Everyonce in a while my host mother will fry me an egg in the morning. Lunch consists of soup for the most part. Very hot soup. Not hot spicy, boiling hot. Speaking of spices they are not used much here, at least in the food that I have been getting. Dinner can be anything but there is only a couple main dishes that are served consistantly. Buzz- which is like a steamed peirogi. Huushur which is like a deep fried peirogi, and tsuivan which is a noodle dish with meat. be tsuivand doortai.- I like tsuivan. My whole family knows this because it is the only thing that I can say.

A Trip to the Hoodoo and Naadam

2007-07-17T14:27:00.000+08:00

What a day! The trip started off by the family assembling a fleet of cars/taxis/ NGO trucks (which were both Mercedes) to take us out to the hoodoo. First stop of course was the delgor to pick up some vodka and then we were off. On the way we made the required stop at a Buddhist shrine (o-vOH) which in this case happened to be a giant tree(The mother tree or eej mod), we circled it three times as it is customary, left candy, threw rice and then threw some vodka on it. Trees love vodka, not a lot of people know that. Then we were off to the hoodoo. The hoodoo is like a Mongolian resort where Mongolians go to rest and visit with family. In this case my family owns a house out there with a volleyball court, basketball hoop and they have some animals as well. It is very nice and close to the river (gol) which is great for swimming. This house was very simple - 1 room with 3 beds and a cast iron stove where 5 people live. We went during Naadam so the experience is a little atypical but only a little. When we arrived we played some cards (khozor) with the family for about an hour and Mike’s team won. It was like Campbell Thanksgiving in July but of course we don’t understand the jokes and are probably the butt of them. Then we watched wrestling for about four hours and drank some vodka. Yes there was a T.V. in the middle of the countryside where they use solar electricity. However since Naadam is a long event they rigged a car battery to power the T.V. very resourceful. We then ate lunch. There is nothing like eating a hot bowl of meat soup with a steaming cup of milk tea (sUH-tei tsai) in 95 degree weather without air-conditioning. Mike wrestled a Mongolian for the first time, he was waiting till he found the tallest Mongolian in the city to wrestle, and one can only imagine what happened. There is video footage to follow. After that we all went down to the river and went swimming, the river is very clean by US standards and the water was very refreshing. We played a little volleyball (gar bom-bog) after swimming; Mongolian’s are excellent at volleyball. What else would follow but the slaughtering of a goat (ya-mAH) for dinner. After the goat was cooked we each received a red hot stone that was used to cook the goat from the inside to toss in our hands which we were informed is “good for the body.” The meal is called bOH-dog (a whole carcass of goat roasted with hot stones from the inside with entrails and bones first removed through the throat). We then had some intestine soup which was surprisingly good and some meat on the bone. Allie did eat both of those things by the way. Then the driver of our car (ma-shin) started passing some vodka around and we helped him finish the bottle before it really started raining and he had to drive us home. Once you open a bottle in Mongolia you have to finish it and we thought it best to help him do that. After an exciting ride home in a massive lightning storm my host father bought us all ice cream at Allie’s brother Bogy’s delgor and the day was done.
Naadam
sai-khan nAH-daj bain uh? Are you enjoying Naadam? This is the most common phrase heard during this entire week.
Mongolia’s celebration of the 3 manly sports; wrestling [bokh], horse racing and archery. This is interesting because women and young girls compete in everything except wrestling. While Mike was at labor camp I was able to enjoy the 2 days of festivities. I can only hope that my description does it justice. To get anywhere quickly in Mongolia one has to utilize the Mongolian transportation system. You basically start walking until you see any car which then becomes a taxi or meeker (mini van). The taxi then will pick up as many people as it can on the way. Closeness has developed a whole new meaning. I pick any seat except for the passengers seat which is known as the mother in law seat because of drivers penchant for swerving towards the passenger side in the event of an unavoidable accident. Arriving at Naadam I felt like a little kid in a candy store I wanted to see everything. The stadium where the wrestling takes place looks like a soccer stadium but much smaller. I was very excited to find out that you don’t have to pay to watch any of the events, especially on my Peace Corps budget. I spent most of the day trying to figure out what was going on and attempting to talk to my family through the dictionary. The wrestling matches go on for 2 days. The winners go onto Naadam in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia’s capital). After sitting through hours of wrestling I went out to watch archery. The archery grounds- a buildings backyard. On one side was the person shooting the arrow and on the other a group of men standing in front of the targets (little black and red canisters on the ground). Off to the horse races which only involves children aged 3-7. Distances vary according to the age of the horse – I witnessed horses that were 2 and 3 years old. The shortest distance is 15 km and the longest over 30km, simply amazing. The children ride bareback. After the horses take off everyone enjoys food ( mainly xUH-shUHr- elongated fried dumplings that are amazing) and drinking (soda and vodka). There are vendors that sell food and drinks like in America however there were several major differences. 1- the food was being prepared by the locals so I ran into many of my friends parents. 2- each vendor had a tent with a table and benches for you to sit down and enjoy your food which could last for several hours. At the end of a long day I went to my first Mongolian rock concert. I really wished I could understand Mongolian fluently but I really enjoyed the atmosphere and beats. Then I woke up and did it all again.

Naadam-mike

2007-07-13T10:05:00.000+08:00

Naadam is the mongolian national holiday that celebrates the three manly sports, wrestling, archery, and horseback riding. It is held from july 11-14 and everything in Mongolia stops for this holiday, everything. There is much drinking, that much is for sure. Families get together for the week since nobody works and it is generally just a weeklong party. Alli got to experience the naadam in our town which she will write about but i spent naadam at summer labor camp for CYD volunteers. Labor camp was actually a real good time. The seven of us and about 30 kids from at risk homes out in the hoodoo-(country side). We were there for four days and we stayed in gers which was very cool. I drank airag(fermented horse milk) for the first time and I also had regular horse milk, literally straight out of the horse. They were suprisingly good. Alli and I are going to write a long post this weekend which we hope to be able to post with some pictures. It is difficult because of the slow connection and rampant viruses on the computers here. Only three more weeks of training until we get our site placement whoo hoo.

Lost in Translation-Mike

2007-06-29T13:50:00.000+08:00

Well Alli and I were supposedto see each other this weekend but i just found out this morning that we have a survival test on saturday on our cooking skills so it looks like we wont see each other until our mid center days on the 4th. I do have a funny story though. "Sain Bain oo" means how are you in mongolian. Just yesterday our teacher was saying that we have to watch our pronunciation of "bain" because if you draw out the "a" it changes the meaning of the question slightly. So instead of asking how someone is doing your asking them, and i am not making this up, how are they pooping today. I swear to god. No wonder people look at me like im a lunatic. I told our teacher that would have been a good lesson on the first day of training not 4 weeks in. Sorry this one is so short but i gotta go.
Matt and Alli-congratulations happy to hear all is well.
Mom- good news about jazz

Throwing me to the fishes

2007-06-28T15:22:00.000+08:00

What a week. After writing last week Mike, a friend of ours and me went to that cafe to get a gamburger(mongolian word for hamburger). Mike looked like a little kid going to Disney world. So we walked into the cafe and sat down to wait, (pretty common thing in Mongolia as customer service is not a concept)and wait because Mike didn't want to leave in case they actually did have them. Well long story short no one ever came- no hamburgers for us. We ended up at another cafe and ran into 3 other Americans that are here with a mission group. We ate sharaven ( noodles, meat and veggies). One of my favorite meals.
On Sunday we climbed a mountain it was about a 4 hour hike. amazing view!! there was an ovoo on top of the smaller mountain which is a pile of rocks and offerings. While traveling a lot of Mongolians stop at these travel around it 3 times clock wise and then leave an offering. I can give more detail the more I learn. It will also make more sense when we get the pictures up.
This week was my first week teaching Mongolian children English. We had a class of 16 kids varying in age from 5-19 years old. Quite an experience to say the least. I taught them farm animals- names and noises, how to sing Old MacDonald and how to play a game. It was great. They are so excited to learn English. Students are much different here than in the states. Overall great success- don't worry we took pictures.
The run down of our schedule for the upcoming weeks. Next week Tuesday we have our mid- training language test. We all have alot of studying between now and then. Then on Wednesday all of the trainees are meeting up in a city for some more training and a 4th of July bbq. We, Mike and I, get to stay in a hotel for 2 nights- I am very excited because it has been almost 3 weeks since I have showered. Then we all split up again but we get another 3 day break from school in July sometime for Nadaam. A Mongolian national holiday with wrestling, horseback riding, archery and vodka. I can't wait some of the trainees are entering the wrestling competition. We have heard that everything closes down for almost a week for these festivities. We have training until the beginning of Aug. when we will get our site assignments. Then Mike and I get to live together assuming we pass training and actually become volunteers. A lot to look forward to- especially the shower.
Matt and Alli- Congrats- we can't wait to see pictures
Mel and Bri- about Jazz- what a relief. I am so glad the sunflowers are going to make it.
dad- hopefully all is better, we would love an update.
b- love the pictures of the ocean, absolutely beautiful. Glad to hear you can't be taken out by a wave.
Virginia- sorry Mike's phone conversation got cut off. Mike looked like he had been hit by a train. we will call again as soon as we can get to where we can buy phone cards.
Aunt cathy- so glad your wrist is better. we were sorry we missed you to.
Mike is coming to my som(neighborhood) tomorrow, he is bring the computer so we can write a longer blog about Mongolians and their culture without being rushed. Next week we will be able to get pictures on. Thanks for being patient.
father- aav husband- nohoor not to be confused with dog- nohoo
mother- aaj
older brother- akh

we love and miss you all- Alli and Mike

Cheeseburger in paradise

2007-06-23T12:09:00.000+08:00

Alli and I are at the Internet cafe right now together and in a couple of minutes we are going to check out this cafe that is supposed to have cheeseburgers. I dont want to get to excited because cafes tend to run out of stuff on a regular basis, or dont have what they say they have in the first place. Example- We went to a cafe two weeks ago that had a big picture of a pizza on the front of it and we walked in and tried to order a pizza and they were like "we dont have pizza you must be crazy". Just one example. So if this place actually has cheeseburgers ill freak. Then Im going to eat seven.
Things are definatley busy here we have tons of work to do but it helps the time go by. Alli is staying with me this weekend and we are going to learn how to make buzz tonight(mongolian pierogies). We recieved two packages so and made coffe for the first time in three weeks this morning. It was fantastic. Tommorrow we are going to make my host family mac and cheese, should be interesting.
-Brandon your last post was great I laughed all night.
-Grandma I am going to try to call you tonight, wait for me to finish speaking before you start because of the delay.
-Dad glad to hear that you are still married and didnt forget nancy's birthday.
-Mom send us some pictures on our email of the sunflowers.
-All parents, calling is tough and expensive. We are only going to be able to make a few phone calls until august 9th when we finish training. When we get sworn in as volunteers we will get a cell phone and you can call us whenever you want but for the next month and a half I will most likely only call grandma and alli will try to call lavonne. We love everyone and think of you often.

Week 2

2007-06-21T13:37:00.000+08:00

Sain Bain uu? This is the blog that Alli and I wrote together over the weekend. We will also be able to see each other this weekend. She covered some of this in her blog so if I repeat her, forget about it ohhh.
As a reward for making it through the first week with our host famillies Mike and I were able to see each other and had a sleep over. We feel like were 16 with our families. Mike came over to my Hasha and met my family, and we ate.. alot. everyday here is like being at grandmas, we are forced to eat until we are full and then presured to eat more. Its funny that the mongolian word for eat is "ead" so all we hear at the dinner table is ead ead oo ooo. ooo is drink. Alli's host family has cows so her mother goes out and gets fresh milk for every meal. As far as the booze goes neither of our host families drink, which is good.
Before we get to farahead of ourselves we just wanted to thank everyone who has been writing and sending care packages. They really make our day when we get something. We are sorry that our posts havent been that frequent but we are both over an hour walk away from the internet, and the other day I walked all the way here and it was down. And that sucked.
So what is life like here? Will the exact opposit of what our lives were like in the states work? Probably not huh? Our schedueles are pretty similar so this is for both of us. The roosters start crowing at 530 but that doesnt matter because the sun comes up at 430. We lay in bed and try to sleep but its like god is sitting outside your window. We get up and then go poop in a hole, then spend about an hour writing, doing homework, trying not to go crazy. We eat breakfast around 800 and leave for school around 820 because we both have a 30 min walk to school. Language from 900 til 100 walk 30 min home eat lunch walk 30 min back to school for our technical training. TEFL for Alli and CYD for Mike. School is done for the day around 530 then a 30 min walk home. We try to spend as much time as we can with our host families but our brains are usually mush by this time and we have tons of reading and studying to do. Dinner is usually at about 800 we hang with the fam until about 900 and then back to our rooms until we fall asleep at around 1000. Of course the sun doesnt set till 1100.
Its hard being split up but the days have been going fast and we can see each other on the weekends.
Oh yea on my way to Alli's last weekend I was on a reality tv show. It was like an "amazing race" show. Agroup of people were hitchhiking from moscow to beijing and just happend to be on the same road that i was walking down. One of the contestants saw me and asked if I spoke english and then started talking to me on camera. He was trying to hitch a ride with me to alli's neighbor hood and i told him that i havent seen my wife in a week and i wasnt going to get kicked out of my cab for letting him in. Then i told him to mind the dogs and was on my way.
Have to go now. Love Mike and Alli

We Found Each Other

2007-06-20T16:41:00.000+08:00

Happy Belated Father's Day- dad, Don and Brian! We love you and wish we could have been there to celebrate. Happy 50th Birthday fancy (disguised in case you don't want anyone to know)We wish we could have been there to celebrate and eat American food with you.
Sorry it has been a couple of days. Mikes aab(father) delivered him to my house on Saturday!!! I was outside sweating bullets hand washing my clothes and bamb in walks Mike and his aab. We had a great weekend. My family loved Mike and Mike loved my hch (mom) food. He was able to stay until Sunday night. We are both dropping weight quickly. I guess thats what no preservatives and walking everywhere does for you. I am however loving the food. Dairy products all day long.
Days are long but the weeks are moving fast. Today we didn't have afternoon class so my friends and I walked the 1 1/2 walk to use the Internet and I will be meeting up with Mike here in a little while. Next weekend we are going to climb one of the mountains near by, as long as my fear of heights dosen't get in the way.
I will try my best to give a description of what I see daily. In my som there are only dirt roads where animals and cars have the right away. There are quite a few Delgerrs (family stores) that have icecream and such. I walk to school with herds of cows- it is absolutely amazing. The sky seems endless and the sunlight is abundant. There are mountains in every direction. I/all the Americans are quite a sight for the Mongolians although the longer I am here the less they stop and stare at me. Also the more I am able to communicate with them the happier they get. The Mongolian children in my area are simply adorable and love to say hi and hello as I walk down the street.It is also not uncommon to see kids popin a squat anywhere, anytime. Time does not really exist here that I have noticed. It is morning, afternoon or evening. It is alot like the south- patience is a virture. Waiting for the cows and horses to pass takes up a good portion of my day. Yesterday I was able to see my mom and brother shave the sheep by hand. I was getting tired watching them. Dogs in Mongolia serve a purpose and are not to pet so learning down dog is an important phrase. I will try to prepare more for next time we write- we wrote a long blog but I gave it to Mike and have noticed that it hasn't made it online yet! If there is anything you would like to know about let us know... next time Mongolian culture. We miss everyone and love to hear from you- keep'm coming! Love Alli

Mongolian Diet-Mike

2007-06-14T13:48:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone. This is the first time that I have been able to get on the internet since we arrived here and I only have a couple of minutes left before I have to go back to class. Everything is going good, my host family is very nice. The mother and father are both retired and a 16 year old daughter still lives at home, allthough she is rarely there. They have about a half acre hasha which is planted with vegetables and fruit trees. My out house is nice which is good. We have been gone for two weeks now and I have lost 15 pounds. It might have something to do with the 35 minute walk to school then back for lunch then back to school then back home. Or that all my family makes is meat and rice or meat and noodles. Luckily they are both cooked well and they are good. Language lessons are definatley tough, after four hours of mongolian your head feels like it is about to explode. Patsy we just got your letter yesterday the 13th and you mailed it on the 21st of may. So that gives everyone some kind of time frame for mailing letters. I cant think off the top of my head if there is anything that I need in a package. Maybe some good toilet paper, this stuff is killing me.

-Allison, I hope that you are doing all right. I miss you. I can see your Bagh from my bedroom window and I look towards you every night. I love you so much. I will see you this weekend, if we do not talk meet me at your school at noon. Love Mike.

Host Family- Alli

2007-06-12T17:19:00.000+08:00

What a beautiful country. I am now at my host family's house north of Darkhan. Everyone is so incredibly nice and welcoming. The food is great. I have eaten a mixture of things and they are all good. My favorite is called suetend bota or rice in milk. I have not gotten sick yet and am feeling relatively well. My parents are retired. I have 1 sister and 4 brothers and 1 niece. We have a mixture of goats, cows, sheeps and a dog. We have a garden where they grow potatoes, onions and cucumbers. There is veggies!! My school is about a 25 minute walk from home. I am practicing alot of Mongolian both at school and at home. It is really hard to learn, especially the alphbet. A group of us walked about 1 1/2 hours to make phone calls and use the internet. I am now in the town where Mike is but have no idea where he is. We are planning to see each other sometime this weekend- although it is hard to make plans when there is no way to communicate. Until next time- Alli

Sain Bainuu

2007-06-08T20:22:00.001+08:00

Well everything is going good, and I know everybody has been patient for some details and I just happen to have some time. Right now Alli and I are in a town north of the capital city beginning our training. We along with the rest of the peace corps trainees [pct] are staying at an old soviet hotel in this town. We have it good because our room is relatively clean and bug free. Otherwise it is exactly what you would imagine an old soviet hotel to look like. Other pct's dont have it so good. Our day consists of breakfast around eight thirty then language training for an hour and a half then all types of other training till about six with an hour or two lunch break in there somewhere. It is overwhelming but we are dealing with it. On Sunday we move into our host families Hasha. A Hasha is basically a family compound that is surrounded by a small fence and usually has a guard dog which we are not to pet. It will be nice to get to a permanent location and not to have to live out of our back packs. Hopefully one of us will have access to the internet so we can update over the next week or two. Love Mike and Alli

Land of Blue Sky

2007-06-06T18:41:00.000+08:00

Whoever named Mongolia that was the most uncreative person in the world. But when you get out here and see it there really isnt a better way to describe it. The country is spectacular plain and simple. Alli and I are at a training site right now with the rest of our group of volunteers adjusting to Mongolia and learning about what we will be doing for the next three months. On sunday we all split up for our host families in different towns and to begin our training. Alli and I will be seperated but our host families only live about 5km away from each other so it isnt to bad. Our first night in Mongolia we stayed at a tourist ger camp and met the american ambasador the next morning, who seemed like a real nice guy.
Overall everything is going great here and we are almost 50% sure that we made the right decision to join the peace corps.

Pre-Service Training

2007-06-01T09:35:00.000+08:00

Well, we said all of our goodbyes and ate all of the White Castle that we could until it was time to go to Atlanta.Thank you to everyone for the gifts, thoughts and words of wisdom. We are lucky! The flight out was good and our first day of orientation was great. There are 48 other volunteers going to Mongolia with this group and they are all very nice. Training all day tommorrow then off to Seoul, South Korea where we are staying for a night. Can't wait to eat some sushi in Seoul. On a seperate note we can't believe that this whole thing is starting, kinda wierd. We are actually going to Mongolia!

Our Address until September

2007-05-16T23:27:00.000+08:00

Allison and/or Mike Prelaske,PCT
Энx Тайвны Корпус
Тов шуудан
Шуудангийи хайрцаг 1036
Улаанбаатар 13
Монгол улс

Allison and/ or Mike Prelaske,PCT
P.O. Box 1036
Central Post Office
Ulaanbaatar 13
MONGOLIA
(via China)

Anything that is sent to us with only the English version on it will reach us. However, we were told that if you include the Cyrillic version it will reach us quicker, a lot quicker.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

2007-05-15T23:54:00.000+08:00

Well, just sixteen days left before we head off to Atlanta for pre-service training. It's getting real close. Alli and I have both quit our jobs and are now finishing up our packing and really turning up the language lessons. As busy as we are getting ready, not working is very nice. Very very nice. Although we do miss our students, well, we miss most of them. Family time has been great! You know it's getting close when all of your family starts coming in from all over the place to see you "one last time" or to "say goodbye." As a matter of fact, seeing friends and family is about the only thing that we have left to do. So we will see you soon.