I am now an official volunteer, with an actual home, an actual stipend, and an actual job. At some times this is a little overwhelming, being completely on my own where I am the only non-Mongolian in almost every situation. I have been a minority before, but never quite so different from everyone else. Still, my coworkers and neighbors have made me feel welcome in this new place, which has been a real comfort. I am sure I will feel better and better about it as time goes on, I make more friends, and my Mongolian language skills increase.
First, let me tell a little about the Swearing-In Ceremony and Darkhan Final Center Days. After a full week of sessions preparing us for our new sites, and joint sessions with our supervisors, it was time (and we were definitely all ready) for pre-service training to come to an end. At the completion of PST, Peace Corps Volunteers are sworn in as official PC Volunteers and representatives of the US government. The swearing in itself only takes about 5 minutes, but the ceremony was a special time for us, for our trainers, for our host families that could make the trip, and for our new supervisors. We had representatives from the Mongolian Department of Education and the Department of Health, as well as the US ambassador to Mongolia and of course the Peace Corps Country Director. They all gave speeches about how important PC volunteers are, and things to keep in mind during our years of service. Then, we were officially sworn in and got to shake hands with the ambassador. After that we had a small talent show--three volunteers gave speeches in Mongolian about their experiences in PST (I was one of them! It was a great honor), we had a picture slide show of everyone's summer, and then several groups sang Mongolian songs, played Mongolian instruments, or danced Mongolian dances. The 8 health volunteers sang a funny Mongolian song called 'The Rendezvous' or 'The Date,' about a woman who is mad at a man for not coming to their date after they ran into each other on their camels and agreed to meet up. The song ends with the man saying, "I'm married!" and the women are left to be righteously pissed off. We did alright, but other groups and individuals had amazing performances that the Mongolian crowd went wild for. After everyone who had learned something was finished, we all sang a group song and took a group picture. Then it was time to say goodbye to our visiting host families for the last time, and head back to the hotel for lunch with the ambassador, then loading everything up and leaving for Ulaanbaatar.
It is crazy for me to think that I have known all of my fellow volunteers for less than 3 months, because I feel like I have known some of them for years. They have been an amazing wealth of support for me, since most of my friends and family are asleep when I am awake! This makes it a bit difficult to have regular conversations. It helps so much to have other people that can relate to what you are going through, because they are also going through it. I look forward to meeting up with my fellow volunteers over the next two years, and spending way to much money on phone units to call and text them whenever I need some advice or just need to commiserate.
After the swearing in ceremony, everyone started their journey to their final site--for most of us, this meant staying in Ulaanbaatar for a night or two. I managed to buy some oatmeal and have a great lunch of Indian food, and I was reunited with my second bag of luggage which I hadn't seen since I left the airport back in the beginning of June. When my supervisor was ready to go, we loaded down a car with all of my worldly possessions and 7 people (it's Mongolia, there are always tons of people in one car) and made the 6-ish hour ride to Khentii Aimag, Ondorkhaan soum, my home for the next two years.
We made it to our apartment building (my supervisor is my next door neighbor) around 1 am last Monday morning, and quickly unloaded all of my stuff. I immediately went back to sleep, and didn't wake up until late morning. When I woke up, I realized that the water was out--and I was super thirsty. So, I decided to explore and find a shop to buy something to drink. I found a shop nearby, but when I was at the cash register, I realized I only had about 400 tugriks in my wallet (about 25 cents) and so I gave back my juice and tried to find a bank. I didn't notice the ATM on the opposite side of the store's building (my duh! moment for the day), and so I gave up after 20 minutes of trying to follow the cashier's directions with no luck. I came back home, and my supervisor's eldest daughter (she is about 15) came to my apartment with bread, a fried egg, cucumber slices, and tea and I was finally not thirsty! She told me the water was out for the day for repairs, and that her mom would take me to work that afternoon.
I put on some nicer clothes, and we walked to the Khentii Health Department--a good 30 minute walk from my apartment building. I met some of my coworkers, but many people were out of the office--it is very common for Mongolians to take long vacations after Naadam (July 10-11) until the school year starts (September 1), either to spend more time with their families, go to the countryside, or take a trip somewhere. My supervisor is currently on vacation until September 5, so I have used the past week at work to get to know my coworkers, or counterparts as Peace Corps calls them, better. It seems that everyone's work is slow at the moment since so many people across the country are not at work, and so there is not much for me to do. I have spent a lot of my time looking up information about my province online, and trying to prepare information on important health topics and English language lessons while I have the free time.
I am looking forward to when I am busier at work, which I am sure will happen soon. I will keep you updated on what I am up to, and post pictures of my apartment and of Ondorkhaan hopefully later this week! I am at work now, and I don't have any of my pictures with me so you will have to wait until my next blog post!
First, let me tell a little about the Swearing-In Ceremony and Darkhan Final Center Days. After a full week of sessions preparing us for our new sites, and joint sessions with our supervisors, it was time (and we were definitely all ready) for pre-service training to come to an end. At the completion of PST, Peace Corps Volunteers are sworn in as official PC Volunteers and representatives of the US government. The swearing in itself only takes about 5 minutes, but the ceremony was a special time for us, for our trainers, for our host families that could make the trip, and for our new supervisors. We had representatives from the Mongolian Department of Education and the Department of Health, as well as the US ambassador to Mongolia and of course the Peace Corps Country Director. They all gave speeches about how important PC volunteers are, and things to keep in mind during our years of service. Then, we were officially sworn in and got to shake hands with the ambassador. After that we had a small talent show--three volunteers gave speeches in Mongolian about their experiences in PST (I was one of them! It was a great honor), we had a picture slide show of everyone's summer, and then several groups sang Mongolian songs, played Mongolian instruments, or danced Mongolian dances. The 8 health volunteers sang a funny Mongolian song called 'The Rendezvous' or 'The Date,' about a woman who is mad at a man for not coming to their date after they ran into each other on their camels and agreed to meet up. The song ends with the man saying, "I'm married!" and the women are left to be righteously pissed off. We did alright, but other groups and individuals had amazing performances that the Mongolian crowd went wild for. After everyone who had learned something was finished, we all sang a group song and took a group picture. Then it was time to say goodbye to our visiting host families for the last time, and head back to the hotel for lunch with the ambassador, then loading everything up and leaving for Ulaanbaatar.
The health group before the ceremony--all rocking our awesome Mongol deels!
A kind-of-poor picture of me giving my speech. I talked about how great the summer has been, and how thankful I am for all the help I received. I shared a funny story about mispronouncing 'come buy hooshor!' which I talked about in my Naadam blog post. Everyone thought that part was hilarious, which was good--they actually understood what I was talking about!
Our group performance of 'The Date.' Our language teachers found the costumes for us, and we had to make some last minute adjustments to our lineup--since there are 6 women and 2 men in our group, 2 women were 'men' for the song. I was originally a man, but switched to being a woman because I could fit into the woman's costume (barely). Some things in Mongolia are 'one size fits all' but they are actually the size of your average ten year old. For example: chairs at any school, even high schools; baby forks and spoons that are actually not for babies; and these costumes. Anyway, the song was a lot of fun, and I was glad when it was over so that I could breathe again!
All of the M24s: we are the 24th group of Peace Corps volunteers to be sworn into service in Mongolia!
It is crazy for me to think that I have known all of my fellow volunteers for less than 3 months, because I feel like I have known some of them for years. They have been an amazing wealth of support for me, since most of my friends and family are asleep when I am awake! This makes it a bit difficult to have regular conversations. It helps so much to have other people that can relate to what you are going through, because they are also going through it. I look forward to meeting up with my fellow volunteers over the next two years, and spending way to much money on phone units to call and text them whenever I need some advice or just need to commiserate.
After the swearing in ceremony, everyone started their journey to their final site--for most of us, this meant staying in Ulaanbaatar for a night or two. I managed to buy some oatmeal and have a great lunch of Indian food, and I was reunited with my second bag of luggage which I hadn't seen since I left the airport back in the beginning of June. When my supervisor was ready to go, we loaded down a car with all of my worldly possessions and 7 people (it's Mongolia, there are always tons of people in one car) and made the 6-ish hour ride to Khentii Aimag, Ondorkhaan soum, my home for the next two years.
We made it to our apartment building (my supervisor is my next door neighbor) around 1 am last Monday morning, and quickly unloaded all of my stuff. I immediately went back to sleep, and didn't wake up until late morning. When I woke up, I realized that the water was out--and I was super thirsty. So, I decided to explore and find a shop to buy something to drink. I found a shop nearby, but when I was at the cash register, I realized I only had about 400 tugriks in my wallet (about 25 cents) and so I gave back my juice and tried to find a bank. I didn't notice the ATM on the opposite side of the store's building (my duh! moment for the day), and so I gave up after 20 minutes of trying to follow the cashier's directions with no luck. I came back home, and my supervisor's eldest daughter (she is about 15) came to my apartment with bread, a fried egg, cucumber slices, and tea and I was finally not thirsty! She told me the water was out for the day for repairs, and that her mom would take me to work that afternoon.
I put on some nicer clothes, and we walked to the Khentii Health Department--a good 30 minute walk from my apartment building. I met some of my coworkers, but many people were out of the office--it is very common for Mongolians to take long vacations after Naadam (July 10-11) until the school year starts (September 1), either to spend more time with their families, go to the countryside, or take a trip somewhere. My supervisor is currently on vacation until September 5, so I have used the past week at work to get to know my coworkers, or counterparts as Peace Corps calls them, better. It seems that everyone's work is slow at the moment since so many people across the country are not at work, and so there is not much for me to do. I have spent a lot of my time looking up information about my province online, and trying to prepare information on important health topics and English language lessons while I have the free time.
I am looking forward to when I am busier at work, which I am sure will happen soon. I will keep you updated on what I am up to, and post pictures of my apartment and of Ondorkhaan hopefully later this week! I am at work now, and I don't have any of my pictures with me so you will have to wait until my next blog post!
Yay Marilyn!!! -Molly :)
ReplyDelete