One Month Into It!

4th Blog Entry 7-03-2010

My first month of Piece Corps Reflection!

Today marks 1 month since I started my Peace Corps Training experience. I have started the day by going for a walk with a fellow trainee. The rest of the day I have been home doing my sunday chores on saturday. Tomorrow the trainees and our mongolia families will travel to a river nearby for a B-B-Q. Everyone is making a dish. I decided that I wanted to explore making the home made bread the my Mongolian makes without an oven...(straight old school) I had to mix and the loaf rise next to heat and once it got to a certain point I put it on a covered fire. I made a whole grain loaf, a bit different from my mongolian moms normal loaf. However, everyone in town including my fellow trainees agree she has (my mom) has the best bread. I got a some washing done today also. My method is to use the cycle on a machine to turn the hell(dirt) out of my clothes and then I rinse them in my tumpbin which is followed by hanging them in the sun. I often have to scare the baby cafes away because the dirt pile they play in is right in front of my cabin very close to the clothes line. (LOL)They usually behave well though. Ok so this morning my friend Angie had a cow run into her kitchen and I dragged out by it horns...(These kinds of things are pretty normal now)
I have been doing a lot of reading here in Mongolia. I read the “The shack” by paul young in like 5 days on top of training . Books are like my television. Mongolians watch television, but I, at this point understand three to four words here and there. I started reading “Roots” by Alex Haley. I am on page 300 in sum-thin...LOL... This book is deep. I started watching the series with my friend Krystal but I realized the book was better so I did not finish watching it with. She kind of put my on. I had the book for a while, it was giving to me by an amazing person named Dr. Krystal Moore while on the Alex Haley Farm. The days of “FREEDOM SCHOOL”... Anyway, the book is serious and really dramatic! I also started book that will help my english teaching here in Mongolia. They give all trainees this book in preparation for Practice Teaching, which is the next phase on training and learning. I will give more details on Practice teaching later.
Next wednesday our group will travel to Zummond for mid-summer days. There we will receive our last series of shots and take care of some business. Also all 75 of us will be back together so the trainers have planned some summer fun.(always welcomed in my book)I so excited about hearing about other trainees experiences thus far. I am currently trying to learn a mongolian song Hopefully I can focus on that during the next few nights also. This last month has been a great learning experience that I know will help a lot in the future. Did I mention... Mongolia is beautiful, minus the random dust storms in the summer time.

This is a Double** 7-10-2010

Our 4th of July celebration was amazing. The day started with getting up eating breakfast, and meeting at the school with my friends and our mongolian families. We were suppose to leave at 10am but we ended up leaving closer to 12 noon...LOL(CP time ain't go nothing on this!) My bread was a failure but my fellow americans had more success at their 4th food dishes. Some of them made apple hosher, monto, carrot salad, fruit salad and even onion rings and french fries! Our families had us put in 5,000 tugs, which is probably the equivalent to $3.00 to $4.00's. They bought to goats and all kinds of other Mongolian foods and snacks that we ate. The goats were slaughtered, skinned and hot-rocked (cooked) right in front of us. This was awesome! Although I do not eat meat this was awesome to see.
First they took the goats off of the truck. (*My apologies to the animal lover!) They simply held it and clocked it in the middle of the head and knocked it out with one pop of a hammer. Then they split its belly and reached in barehanded and stopped the heart. After stopping the heart, they started skinning the animal with a knife. They slit at certain points and held skin while pressed with their fist. After the animal was fully skinned they cut it into pieces and cooked it with hot rocks. It was like a pressure cooker kind of machine. Carrots and potatoes were included which were very flavorful in the end. ( I have Pictures)
The celebration was at the river. This scene was awesome...(the work of the creators hands). All of the volunteers along with our families played Frisbee, volleyball, baseball and soccer. However, soccer took place toward the end and I did not play. I found a spot in one of the vans and got some sleep just before leaving. The day was beautiful... Oh I almost forgot! So once the meat was almost ready the families and PCV's all gathered. Our Language Training Coordinators told us that our families wanted to tell us “Happy 4th of July” and how glad they were to host us. WE ALL SAID THANKS and shared/sang the American National Anthem. Its was really the first time I got all emotional sining this song...(LOL) I felt proud to be American! We had a good day!
Yesterday I returned from mid-summer days in Zummond. They were great. I got to see all 75 of my fellow volunteers. We started with 76...(Its a part of PC life) Anyway, It was a great time. We got the last of our shots from medical and had some sessions. On thursday the trainers gave a B-B-Q. We had a huge salad with lettuce.(This was a first for me in mongolia) We had cabobs veggie and regular! There was cool-aid and watermelon. The trainers did there thang! This was followed by a dodge-ball tournament. It was fun. The trainers and trainees divided up by training sites and played against one another. We did not when, but it is sicking how close our group had become. (That fish bowl helped @ 4th of July B-B-Q) Friday we left mid-summer days and headed home. It is so good to be back with my host family. There is no place like home...(LOL) (Shout to my CHI_TOWN FOLK)
Peac3 and Love
CLIFTON A. HURT