Thanksgiving

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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