Yaks, Planes, and Automobiles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.