I'm a PCV!

Hi all! It's official--I am a PCV and no longer a trainee. We swore in on Friday. Right now I'm sitting outside on the porch of a cafe that has free wireless, enjoying a beautiful sunny day. As my training sitemate Eric would say, it's a real bluebird of a day. Swearing in was quite the event. There were several official speeches and then the M21s put on performances. There were 4 people who gave short speeches in Mongolian. Other people did traditional Mongolian dances and sang Mongolian songs. I didn't do any of that. It was beyond my talents. But it was fun to watch. So, I passed my language test with a novice high. After our Mongolian teacher told us how we were the worst site, our site had the highest scores as a group. 50% of us scored intermediate low. Our teachers were very proud. Last Sunday I found out where my permanent site is. Because of PC rules, I can't publicly post the name of the town, but I am in an aimag center (like a state capital) in the very far north east of Mongolia. The aimag borders Russia and China. It is steppe land, famous for it's gazelle population. It was a total surprise, but I am very happy. There are 2 other M21s in the same town as me, and 5 M20s. And two of my training sitemates, Jason and Pico, are in soums (small towns) in the north. If there were roads, it would only take them 3 or 4 hours to get to my town, but because there are no roads, it'll take 6 or 7 hours. My town is pretty big, about 30,000, so there is good shopping. And because we're on the Russian border, we can get real cheese, which I am extraordinarily excited about. All the organic milk in Mongolia, and they haven't mastered the art of cheesemaking! I will be teaching at 2-year vocational college. The students "major" in things like mining, shoemaking, tailoring, cosmetology, etc. It looks like I will be doing a lot of teacher training. There are 3 English teachers besides me who are my counterparts. I'll solo teach a couple English classes and team teach with the other English teachers. I will also be teaching English to the other faculty members. There are 50 total faculty members. There are also a couple Korean volunteers who teach something with computers at my college. I should have plenty to do. I leave UB tomorrow. We are driving to my site in a college vehicle. I'm going with my supervisor and 2 teachers from the college. If all goes well, it'll be a 14-hour drive. My supervisor doesn't speak much English, so I'm hoping the teachers speak more. I'm going to exhaust my Mongolian repertoire in the first 15 minutes. Well, my battery is running low, so I need to wrap it up. My next post will be from the far east!

Training is almost over!

Hello all! So, training is almost over. We leave our training sites on Sunday and all come together again for a couple more days of training and then we go to UB for swearing in. We find out Sunday where our permanent sites are going to be. Everyone is quite anxious and ready to start their permanent assignments. I know I am. We have Mongolian language tests and our final evaluations on Friday. I'm not sure how I'm going to do on the language test. I think I know enough to live by myself but not carry on any deep conversations. I can shop by myself and navigate transportation, so I think I'll be ok. If you fail the language test, the PC pays for a tutor for you at your site. If you pass the language test (and they're looking for us to be at high novice level), then a tutor is still a good idea but PC won't pay for it. So there is a certain advantage to not passing. Of course, I will do my best! Last weekend we had a community appreciation event and a host family celebration. For the community appreciation event, we painted lines on the concrete volleyball court outside the elementary school. We also painted a bench and some tires that are stuck in the ground as an obstacle course. We had an American bbq for our host family celebration. We had German potato salad, baked beans, a green salad (with broccoli and actual lettuce!), and hamburgers. The families thought it was great! I went to UB with a few other trainees and our language teachers on Saturday to shop for the bbq. We had a great time in UB. We ate dinner there and had pizza and french fries. It was a real treat! It was kind of expensive though, on a PC budget. Well, I've got to go. I'm helping with dinner tonight. We're having tsuivan, which is a common Mongolian dish which has--surprise, surprise--cabbage, mutton, and carrots. Hopefully for my next post, I'll be at my permanent site! P.S. The picture is me with my host family (minus my host sister, Bolormaa). We took this picture for the PC certificate I gave to my family.