August 12, 2010
I am officially done with training!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wahooo!!!!!!! I had my TAP interview this morning along with my LPI. The TAP is basically an interview about how I did during training. That went fine. Then the LPI is the language test. That went ok. The lady said I did Dutchgwee, which is Mongolian for good job. I have my reservations still, I think that I answered all of her questions fine but I know that I have a lot more to learn.
Now that I am done I have the weekend to pack and prepare for the upcoming week! Today my site mates and I are going to have a belated birthday celebration for Shar/ a we are done party! I am looking forward to that! Shar’s mom sent her a cake mix for her birthday and we are going to cook it in a rice cooker….we’ll see how that turns out!
Tomorrow we are going to continue painting. There is an informal education school and the lady who runs it asked us to help. We are painting the new fence. It is a chain link fence, kinda odd to me that we are painting it but as long as it makes her happy. The painting process here is a bit different from America. For example we are painting with pieces of an old bed cushion. My sponge kept falling apart but it worked. There are like 60 some fence sections so it is going to take a while.
Yesterday, I got my Dell! Dell’s are traditional Mongolian dress. My dell is purple. It is really pretty! Mine is a skirt and a top. I’ll post pictures of it on facebook asap. I am planning on wearing it to my swearing in ceremony.
Ok let see what else has been going on the other weekend we took our families out to the hodoo (countryside) for an appreciation day. That was a lot of fun. We went to this camp where they just started a mine. The entire area seems like it might be a protected park. That doesn’t really make sense to me if they are both mining plus protecting the area..I am not really sure. There were about 40 people who came with us. All the American’s made food at home and brought it with us. I made onion rings. Let me just say that was an experience making them. I have never cried so much! Lol. Delgema, Benda, Anka, and her boyfriend all helped me in the morning making them. We had quite the assembly line! Anywho, the families made the meat for us. They killed a sheep ( I think it was a sheep) and prepared it with the hot rocks. I once again knew that I was going to get sick but at this point I didn’t care because the meat is really tasty.
The day was filled with every one eating. We had quite the spread. Potato salad, onion rings, fruit, juice, vodka, candy, veggies, cookies, etc… We also ending up playing the human knot. I was in charge of it and let me just say it was a sight for eyes! We had all sorts of people playing; Ashley’s Dad played, who is like 70, then we also had a bunch of kids. It took a while for them to figure out the game but in the end I think everyone really enjoyed it!
So now that I am leaving the town I suppose I will speak alittle bit about where I have been living the past couple of months! (PC didn’t want us to disclose this info while we lived here for safety reasons) I have been living in Ulzit. Ulzit is about a 30ish minute drive from UB. The town is quite small. It is known for its horses. They have a lot of breeders here that breed horses for Nadaam. There is a post office and it has one computer that I have been using all summer, yet it doesn’t send any mail international. There is one bar in town, which also doubles as the one and only restaurant. Overall the town is quaint. I have really enjoyed it here.
That being said I have a new address. For those of you sending me mail and or packages hold off for the next week or so until I know my new address. I will let y’all know as soon as I find it out!
I have to say this has been the most interesting and adventurous summer of my life. I have really enjoyed my host family and I am sad that I soon will have to say goodbye. My family has been really great. They gave me a going away present today. It was a framed Mongolian flag and a leather wallet with Mongolian designs on it. Then my rascal of a little brother drew me a picture! It was really sweet because he wrote on it that it was for his older sister. Too cute! Well now that my summer is over I do have to say that I have realized something really exciting…this is the FIRST August since Kindergarten that I am NOT going back to school. Pretty stoke about that!!!! OK off to pack…totally not looking forward to lugging all my stuff around Mongolia.
Za,
Brittany