Hello Froberg Students!

Greetings from Mongolia!  Hello Sam and Mr. Price's class, and Hello Beckie and Mr. Miller's class!  My name is Marilyn, and I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I live in Mongolia, which is on the other side of the world!




Mongolia is a country about the size of Alaska that is located in Asia between China and Russia.  The population of Mongolia is about 3 million people.  I live in a small town in Eastern Mongolia named Chinggis City, where about 17,000 people live.  My town is named after the great Mongolian war hero, Chinggis Khaan (often called Genghis Khan in the US). There are about 10 foreigners in my town, and 2 other Peace Corps Volunteers.  I often go days without seeing another non-Mongolian person, so my Mongolian friends are really important to me!

I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, which means that I represent the U.S. while I work in Mongolia.  I get a small living stipend each month, and the agency I work for does not pay me.  I work at the Health Department for my province, which is named Khentii.  At work, I often talk with my Mongolian coworkers, teach English classes, and help with health training classes for children, teens, and adults.


Mongolia is a very interesting place to live! Mongolia has a nomadic culture, since the main way of life for hundreds of years was herding, and families would travel around the lands with their animals.  This is much less common now, although some people do still live a nomadic life.  Many people in my town live in a ger, which is a circular tent made with wooden poles and felted wool layers.



A Mongolian ger in the countryside--an entire family will live together in one ger!  For more beautiful pictures of gers, check out this website: http://www.ottsworld.com/blogs/mongolian-gers/






The inside of a ger. You can see the wooden poles that form the basis for the ceiling, and the criss-cross wooden pieces that form the sides.  Two wooden poles hold the ger up from the center, and there is a wood stove to heat the ger.




Here is a diagram of how a ger is constructed.  It is easy to set up, take down, and transport.  Mongolian people have been living in gers since before the time of Chinggis Khaan in the twelfth century!



Mongolian winters are very cold and long.  For the past few months, it has usually been below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, even during the middle of the day.  It can sometimes get as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit!  I am sure you can understand how cold this weather is with the extreme cold in the United States this winter--now imagine if you lived in a tent in this cold weather!  Summers in Mongolia are hot during the day and cool at night.  In the spring, there are often large windstorms that blow sand and dirt in the air.  The weather is pretty extreme, but the beautiful blue Mongolian sky makes up for it!


A picture of the Mongolian sky and a Buddhist statue I took on a hike this past summer.  Almost every day is clear, bright, and sunny in Mongolia!


The next Mongolian holiday is this Friday, January 31st--the beginning of the lunar new year.  In Mongolian, this holiday is called Tsagaan Sar, or White Month.  It is a time to visit family, exchange gifts, eat traditional Mongolian foods, and celebrate the beginning of spring and a new year.  So, happy Tsagaan Sar and I hope you all have a wonderful Year of the Horse!

Happy Holidays from Mongolia!

The end of the year in Mongolia is a time of holidays and celebration, but it is still quite different from the U.S. holidays.  Since Mongolia is a mostly Buddhist country, Christmas is not really recognized as a separate holiday from New Years.  This means that about the last 2 weeks of December are filled with work and city-wide parties to celebrate New Years, and all sorts of Christmas decorations and traditions are sort of thrown in as well.



So, I started out December by attending Peace Corps Mongolia's In-Service Training (IST), which most Peace Corps volunteers attend after being at site for about 3 months.  Since we have spent these 3 months getting used to our sites, getting to know our coworkers, and starting to understand our work expectations, it is a good time to have a training about how to maximize volunteer effectiveness.  All of the volunteers in my group attended, and each volunteer brought one coworker with them.  For all health and youth development volunteers (there are 16 of us all together), there was an additional 2 day workshop about peer education programs.  I invited my coworker Baasandorj (she is the Infectious Disease Specialist at my health department) to the peer education workshop, and Zoloo (she is a dentist and the Hygiene Specialist for the health department) to the main IST.

Going to IST meant that I took a trip to Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, and by far the largest population center.  About one third of the population of Mongolia lives in UB, which has a population of about 1 million people.  It is basically the hub of all goods and information in Mongolia--most things come through UB when they enter the country.  This all means that I got to eat real pizza for the first time in 3 months, as well as Indian food, burgers, Mexican food, and all sorts of great food that is difficult or impossible to get in my town, Chinggis City!  I saw my fellow volunteers for the first time in three months--there are 42 of us in my group, and I had only seen my site mates Hannah and Halee since I moved to Khentii in the middle of August.  As you can imagine, I spent as much time as possible with my friends at restaurants, shops, and our hostels, and so I ended up spending a lot of money.  But it was worth every tugrik!  It was great to see everyone, to catch up and swap stories, and most of all to speak English to so many different people!


The week-long IST was held at a hotel about 45 minutes-1 hour outside of UB, up in the mountains that surround the city.  It was absolutely beautiful out!  Sometimes it was difficult to concentrate on the sessions because the beautiful outdoors were so nice to look at through the windows.  We did not have much time to enjoy the outdoors, since there was a lot of material to cover--most days our sessions would begin at 8am breakfast and would not be finished until after 7 or 8pm!  We did manage to have a fun snow ball fight one night, even though the snow was very powdery since there is not much water in the air here to make more moisture-heavy, packable snow.

The amazing view from the front of the hotel.

The great Mongolian blue sky, beautful mountains, snow, and crisp cold air--what an amazing place!

This is the 8 Health volunteers in my group--we survived our first 6 months in Mongolia! From left to right: Jerome, Laura, Brittany, Kelbe, me!, Sarah, Cedell, and Ryan in the front.  I miss these guys when I am at site! It was great to reconnect and spend time together during IST.



After IST, I headed back to site and prepared for the next big happening--my site mates and I hosted a weekend-long Christmas celebration.  This mostly consisted of constantly eating lots and lots of food, which we broke up by going ice skating, singing at a karaoke bar (in Asia it is common for karaoke bars to actually be many private rooms, so we could sing American songs to our hearts content), walking from one ger/apartment to another, taking lots of pictures, exchanging presents, and holding a Christmas talent pageant.  It was all lots of fun, and I really appreciated all of the volunteers who made the trip to Chinggis City.  Here are some highlights:

Eating lots of food!  We had veggies and ranch dip (Halee's family sent her dry ranch packets, which mix perfectly with Mongolian yogurt!), cheese and crackers from UB, and lots and lots of chocolate!

We made mulled wine in my rice cooker--it actually turned out pretty tasty!

While we had our big Christmas dinner in my apartment, Krista was much better at doing the cooking than I was.  I kept getting distracted by the great food and company! Here is Krista checking on the chicken, which we baked in my toaster oven. Delicious!

Hannah is tired of mashing the potatoes.  

My site mates and I! I love these ladies--we spend lots of time together, watching movies and shows, discussing books, cooking and eating out, and enjoying the company of fellow English speakers.  I can't imagine what Chinggis City would be like without my site mates! Halee, on the left, is an English teacher at one of our complex schools (elementary and high school together), and she is from California. Hannah is a youth development/social worker at the tech school in town, and she grew up in China, but her parents are from Michigan.  I am so lucky to have such a good relationship with my site mates!

This is Marcus, the cool Canadian hockey coach that lives in town.  He loves coffee as much as I do!  The four of us are the only young foreigners in my town, so we get together whenever we can.

After our feast, we played a fun game--each balloon as a strip of paper inside with instructions.  Everyone has to grab a balloon, pop it by sitting on it, and then do whatever the paper says.  I had to walk around and act like a zombie!

Hannah was supposed to act like a frightened puppy--a common sight in Mongolia, where dogs are mostly unclaimed and quickly learn to be wary of people.

 Marcus had to wear his socks on his ears!

The gang that made it to Khentii Christmas--and now I know I can fit at least 10 people on my bed!

We had a white elephant gift exchange.  I actually got a cool present--some drink mixes, a good daughter quote-book, and a pencil case.  No complaints from me!

 On to the talent portion of the night--Jake played a song on the flute he was given at site!

Rae-Ann, frustrated by the long wait for the next act, composed a haiku about how we should get going.

Jake and Ryan performed a wonderful rendition of 'I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.'

 Halee, Hannah, and I created a puppet show about the Christmas Caterpillar (we created him too). Halee was the narrator, and Hannah and I were puppeteers.  Halee has a video, which might be available on our facebook pages at some point.


There were many great moments of the weekend that I didn't capture.  It was very difficult being away from our families during the holidays, but getting together and having some fun made it easier to handle.  I was lucky enough to be able to Skype with my family on their Christmas morning, my Christmas evening, and that made me feel like I was still a part of the family Christmas.  Overall, I feel like a had a great first Christmas in Mongolia!

My Skype date with my family--It was around midnight Christmas evening in Mongolia, and about 10am Christmas morning in Illinois!




'Shin Jil,' or New Year's, is a big holiday in Mongolia.  Basically every workplace will host a nice party at some point in the week or two before New Years Day, and everyone will attend.  It is important to look very nice (wearing something sparkly is best), and many Mongolian women will get their nails and hair done especially for the party.  I did my best to glam it up for the big event, and I had a blast!  My health department's party included a nice dinner, drinks, karaoke, and lots of dancing.  I drank wine and champagne--and of course a few shots of vodka, although I managed to only pretend to take most of the shots I was offered, a common technique here where vodka is an important part of many events--and tried my best to learn how to Mongolian waltz. I taught my coworkers the Macarena (they loved it!) and I sang 'Call Me Maybe' for my karaoke song (...they thanked me, but I don't think Mongolia is ready for Call Me Maybe yet).  I think it is a sign of how well adjusted I am to life in Mongolia that I didn't think anything of my coworker's shiny gold suit or the other fashion and decoration choices that you probably wouldn't see at a fancy American party.  I have to admit that I love the sparkly Mongolian style!

My supervisor, Dashnamjilmaa, and I at the Christmas tree!  Dashaa is quite tall for a Mongolian woman.

When we arrived, we each received a glass of wine, a card with our table number, and an order to stand for a photo.  Mongolians don't always smile for pictures, but I always do!

Everyone seated at my table!  The neat thing about Mongolian workplace events is that everyone is invited--the director, the health workers, the janitors, the front desk guards--and everyone is treated equally.  Within the workplace there is a pretty strict hierarchy, but outside of work tasks people do not let their job titles define their relationships.  It seems like a very nice system.  Everyone is proud of the work that they do.  And everyone gets to dress up and celebrate together!

Unroo (Unurbayar) and Urnaa (Uransaikhan) were our lovely emcees for the night.  They kept everything moving forward and gave out nice presents!

After the first course, it was time for the first round of champagne!

 And then some dancing--I love watching the Mongolian waltz, and I tried to learn during the party.  But I am terribly clumsy and slow!  It doesn't help that it seems like all Mongolians are very good, and so they don't expect me to not know how to dance!

Then Santa arrived!  I'm not quite sure why Santa is blue, he just is. Maybe because blue is a sacred color for Mongolians.  Or maybe because it looks cool.  Also, here is my coworker wearing a shiny gold suit. If I was giving out awards, He would win for best outfit!

Then it was time to start hip-hop dancing--we all got in a circle and danced together. This got more and more interesting as more alcohol was consumed!

 After dinner, each table performed a karaoke song for Santa!

I contributed as much as I could to karaoke--it is difficult to do karaoke on a song you don't know in English, and even more difficult if the song is in Mongolian!  There are maybe 5 or so songs about New Years that were favorites, so I got pretty decent with those songs by the end of the night.

Then it was time for presents--some people got camel wool lined blankets as an award for something (I don't know what exactly).  Santa presented them and 'sniffed' each person as well as shaking their hands--basically the Mongolian equivalent of kissing someone on both cheeks.  It is mainly done by the elderly to their younger family members, but Santa gets to sniff anyone!

One of the camel wool blanket recipients--Hannah has one of these blankets and says its pretty warm.  I might just invest in one soon!

I got a picture with Santa! Later, Santa (when he was out of costume) taught me how to waltz.  He didn't seem to mind that I messed up a whole bunch!  He really had the Christmas/New Years spirit.

Three of my coworkers with perfect Mongolian picture taking skills--volunteers call it Mongol Steel.  I can't take a non-smiling picture without looking sad or confused, but Mongolians often take serious pictures!

The ladies of my office room (we are in charge of public health trainings) with Santa.   From left to right: Dashaa, my supervisor and Non-Communicable Disease Specialist; Zoloo, Dentist and Hygiene Specialist; Baaskaa, Infectious Disease Specialist; Tsendjav, who has been on maternity leave since I have been here so I don't know her specialty; and me, resident Peace Corps Volunteer!  There are two positions that I think are open as of now--Children and Youth Specialist and Fitness/Healthy Lifestyles Specialist, who will also be in my room.

The Khentii Health Department staff--Happy New Year!

 Time for more champagne!

My camera died when we were getting gifts, but I got mine before it died.  I got a pair of yak wool socks!  Mongolian socks are much warmer than any American socks I have, and much cheaper in comparison.

So, then my camera died so I have no pictures of the last part of the night, when many of my coworkers were quite intoxicated and singing loudly to Mongolian karaoke songs and waltzing around in circles.  Maybe its better that I don't have picture evidence of it, now that I think about it.  But I had a great time, and I am looking forward to the next time my work hosts a nice party.  We got towards the end of the night and still had more champagne, so then we just drank all of the rest and then I walked home with my supervisor, who is also my next door neighbor!

New Years in Mongolia is very different from Lunar New Year, which is called White Month, or Tsagaan Sar.  This holiday occurs at the end of January, and is a time to visit family and friends at their homes.  I am sure that I will have a lot to tell about my Tsagaan Sar experiences, so if Christmas/New Years seemed too much like a big party and not enough about spending time with family, that is because they happen at different times of the year for Mongolians!


These have been the big events that have happened in December.  I have not had much work to do at the health department, since there were important end-of-the-year reports due, and I cannot help my coworkers with them.  Now that January has started, they will be hopefully many more opportunities for me to get involved in planning and attending health trainings with my coworkers.  I also have several English classes that have just begun or will begin by next week.  I think it will be good for me to be busy, it will keep my mind off of the cold months to come!


I hope you have all had wonderful holidays, and are re-energized and ready to return to work or school.  Until next time!

My Apologies

I am sorry for the long break since my last post.  I have been preoccupied with other things in my life and haven't had the right moment to write a blog entry!  When I started my blog, I decided that I would endeavor to give a full picture of my life, while still trying to stay positive.  I have had a rough past few months for many reasons, and so I didn't feel that I could do a blog post justice and keep with my main goals.  I hope to be better about this in the future, and find the positives even when day to day life has made me a little glum.

That being said, I am feeling very happy and well settled even on the eve of most important family day of all, Christmas.  I am very sad to be so far away from my family and our many awesome traditions this time of year, but I believe we have done our best to keep in touch.  No one ever told me that Peace Corps will be easy, and as my site mate says, everything that is difficult (or cold) builds character.  Man, are we going to have so much character by the end of the winter!!

I will spend the next month catching all of my readers up on my last few months in Mongolia.  I have grown more accustomed to my surroundings and work, and I also attended several neat events, from the renaming of my town (I now live in Chinggis City!) to a great week of Peace Corps training with my coworker, Zoloo.
Since Mongolia is a Buddhist country, Christmas is not a big holiday here, but rather gets lumped in with the glitz and parties of New Years.  I plan on spending my Christmas baking, spending time with friends, and maybe rolling into work for a few hours!  My office has a big New Years party (which is called Shin Jil) on Friday, so I will use my relaxing time on Christmas to paint my nails and assemble a sparkly and snazzy outfit for the party.

I would love to have some snail mail or email pen pals, so please let me know if you want to get some mail from Mongolia!  Send me a message or email if interested, or otherwise my mother has my contact information.

And to end, here is a picture of me and my friends this past weekend, when my site mates and I hosted a Christmas celebration.  We had a great time, and now I know I can fit 10 people on my bed!

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a happy, sparkly New Year!

***Drumroll.........Site Announcement Time!!

It is now the last week of Pre-Service Training.  All of the Mongolia PC Trainees are in Darkhan for our final week of training, which is region and site specific.  Our supervisors also have a two day conference in Darkhan this week, and we all meet our supervisors before travelling back to our site together, where they help us get settled in at our new living quarters.

This tumultuous week started early Monday morning, when I left my host family's house for the last time, all of my bags packed.  When we were at home, my host mom said something like, "wow, you have a lot of stuff!" in Mongolian.  After the four of us left home (first my эмээ, my grandmother, said goodbye and sniffed me, then we were out the door) and saw some of the other trainees' piles of belongings, they decided that my amount of bags was just fine.  I am going to miss my host family so much!!!  They have all been so great, and it was so sad to say goodbye.  However, I am sure we will keep in touch--I have been away from home for about 38 hours, and my host mom has already callled me 5 times.  She is so caring and concerned about me living alone, and wants to make sure I am doing alright and that I am happy.  I couldn't have asked for a better host mom and host family!

My host family and I at Selenge Aimag's second Naadam celebration!  I finally have at least one picture with all four of us in it!!  Also, we noticed after we took this picture that we had arranged ourselves in height order.  Oops!

I am going to miss moments like this, when my mom does something crazy, like put these nasty looking seeds with their gooey excretions on her face as part of a new beauty routine.  My host family is always laughing and joking, and this made me feel able to make jokes and feel like part of the family.  My mom loved to joke with people that I got super drunk and she was shocked (I drank 1 shot of vodka on two separate occasions and that was is) and I always had to repeat some funny thing I said to everyone who came over to visit.  I am really going to miss the easygoing atmosphere at my host family's house.

I will also miss Sukhbaatar and the surrounding area--what a beautiful place!

And now, on to the information that you actually want to hear about:  my site placement!  I have been waiting (not so) patiently all summer to find out where in Mongolia I will be living and working for the next two years, and I finally know a lot more of the details about my site!

After leaving my host family and arriving in Darkhan Monday morning, we all went over to the school in Darkhan where our sessions are held.  In the late morning, we were given our language proficiency results.  I scored at the Intermediate Low level, which is one step up from our necessary minimum of Novice High!  I am happy with this, and hope to really improve my Mongolian at my site as well.

Then we had a lunch break, and several sessions in the afternoon before walking to the nearby Darkhan Children's Park.  There is a gigantic map of Mongolia, drawn out with concrete raised borders delineating each aimag and a big wooden square marking each aimag center (each provincial capitol).  The map was so large that you had to shout to the people in the neighboring aimags, and I couldn't even see my friend Jerome, who was standing on the other side of the map (and he is over 6 feet tall, so it takes quite a bit of space to hide him).  To start out, all of the trainees grouped together, nervously waiting to hear their fates for the next two years.  Then, one by one, each site was announced with a pause before a trainee name was shouted out, and one by one, we were escorted (none of us had any clue where to go!) to our place on the map, and got a big packet of information about our host country agency (HCA for short), our village (soum/сум), our housing arrangements (apartment/байр, Mongolian ger/гэр, or wooden house/модон байшин), and other information including current volunteers in the area.

I am going to be living in Ondorkhaan Soum, which is the aimag center of Hentii Aimag, which means that it is the largest town in the province (tallying in at around 16,000-17,000 people).  Hentii Aimag is known as the birthplace of Chinggis Khaan, who is believed to have been born in the mountainous northern part of Hentii.  Ondorkhaan is located about 6 hours east of Ulaanbaatar, and a paved road connects the two, making travel much easier and comfortable.  I will be living in a Soviet block apartment somewhat near the Health Department, and I am excited for the prospect of hot water!

Hentii Aimag is located just east of Ulaanbaatar.  On this map, you can see that Ondorkhaan is at the edge of the mountainous region of Mongolia, where the mountains border the steppes (flat prairie-type land) of Eastern Mongolia.  Directly to the south of Hentii is the Gobi Desert, which covers the entire southern section of the country and includes about 60% of Mongolian land mass.  

I am working at the Ondorkhaan Health Department, which is in charge of consolidating information for and helping to supply resources to the entire aimag, as well as working to improve the health in Ondorkhaan Soum.  I have a very general idea of what I will be doing at site, and I will learn more when I meet and talk with my supervisor later this week, and when I begin work next week.  I know that I will be working with several different people at the health department, helping to plan, implement, and evaluate health programs, holding trainings for health department and hospital workers, teaching english a few hours a week, and other tasks as well.  I will be working at the health department about 30 hours a week, and will spend at least 10 hours working on other secondary projects in my town, which I can pick out depending on my interests, the needs of the community, and the available resources.  

From all that I have heard about Hentii Aimag and what was included in the information I was given, I am very excited to move to Ondorkhaan and start to work in the Health sector!!  There will be many more updates to come about my new home in the future!  

For now, I am preparing for meeting my supervisor on Thursday (eeeeeek!) and I am one of three trainees that will be giving a speech at our swearing-in ceremony on Saturday, when we officially become volunteers, so I am working on and worrying about that as well.  I am so pumped to head to UB and on to Hentii this weekend, and hopefully I can pick up some things that I have been told are scarce in Ondorkhaan.  

I will update again as soon as I can about swearing in and moving to Ondorkhaan!  I am sad that I will no longer be with all of the great friends I have made during pre-service training, but I am also excited to hear about what life is like in so many different areas of Mongolia.

Until next time!

Trip to the Russian Border Park

Hello!  Сайна байна уу!  It is the last day in July, and I have been in Mongolia for over two months already!  The time has really flown by.  I have about a week and a half left of pre-service training and a language proficiency exam at the end of training.  Then, on August 12^th, I will leave my host family for the last time and return to Darkhan, where all of the incoming volunteers’ sites will be announced an we will have a week of site-specific training and preparation before all moving across the country.  This summer has been a wild ride of ups and downs, and I have made many great friends along the way.  It will be sad to say goodbye for now to Sukhbaatar and my host family, as well as my fellow Peace Corps trainees.  I will try to update you all when I learn my language proficiency score (we are supposed to reach a novice-high level, which is basically general introductory conversation skills and about a 100 word vocabulary) and my site placement.  I am so excited to find out where I will live and what organization I will work with for the next two years! 

But back to my current adventures.  This past weekend my family took a trip to a park at the Russian border, a favorite picnic and sightseeing location in the area.  The park is mostly on the cliffs at the edge of a plateau, and offers astounding views of the lower river valley, where the Orkhon and Selenge rivers join together before flowing north to Lake Baikal in Russia.  I have seen the point of these rivers before from a different angle, but the view of the entire valley from the park was beautiful.  

Here is a distant view of a road that illustrates how it is easy for one path to split into several, where drivers decide which path will be the smoothest, least damaging option.

A few days before going to the Russian park, we drove to an Ovoo (Buddhist shrine) on the top of a small mountain by Sukhbaatar.

The main path to the Russian Border: fairly nice for an unpaved road!

For some reason, driving on this precarious frontage road was the driver's choice.  You can see the main road off to the left, so it definitely still existed for this stretch....Some things about Mongolian driving I may never understand.

We arrived at the park, and started our climb up to the plateau edge, where the main section of the park is located.

Up and up!

A cliff that sort of looks like a face! People were climbing to the top as well, you can see one person on the top in this photo.

Chinggis Khaan and his wife!

A re-creation of what Chinggis Khaan's cave home could have been like.

Me, with Sukhbaatar (a great war hero from the 1920s), a gun, and a buddy of his.  The 'gun' was extremely heavy, because it is made out of steel and concrete!

A naked baby statue, where many people were taking pictures of the statue with their naked babies.  Therefore, I did not touch this statue when I took a picture with it!

My Mongolian host mom putting an offering on a large Ovoo at the park.

My host sister posing with the amazing view behind her--this picture is an amazing thing in itself, because my sister never wants to take pictures!

My family (according to my mother, Lorre is my little sister) at the edge of the cliff--we had to jump over a little space in the rocks to get to this ledge.

The view of the rivers joining from the Russian Border Park!

A panoramic of the great view.

Lorre was wearing a dress, and my sister thought it was hilarious when the wind blew her dress up and Lorre attempted, Marilyn Monroe style, to keep it down.

The second Mongolian horse I have 'ridden' since arriving!

This girl is sitting on a reindeer statue. There is a community far north in Mongolia that raises reindeer, and it is apparently an amazing place to visit.  I hope I have the chance while I am here!

My host brother with an awesome eagle statue in the background.  Eagles are used for hunting in the far west region of Mongolia, where most of the ethnic Kazakh Mongolians live.

My brother and sister playing a game where you get hit in the head with a bottle if you are incorrect--I refuse to play with my sister because she gets too excited/violent after a few rounds.  They kept it all in good fun this time around!

Me and the view!

I have a lot of assignments and studying to do before my language exam next week, so I probably will not post again until next Thursday or Friday.  Until then, I hope everyone is doing well!

For the first year in as long as I can remember, I am going to miss my county fair.  To everyone working at the Boone County Fair in Illinois this year, good luck!  I know it will be a hard week for me, even thinking about the fair makes me really homesick.  The fair is always a time to see everyone that you don't normally see, and it finishes up the summer with a finality that even my big transition can barely equal.  But most of all, it is about the family and friends that I get to spend an entire week hanging out with and working with.  Of course, I could really go for a taco from the stand by the Livestock Show Arena, some mozzarella sticks, and several ice cream sundaes.  You all will just have to enjoy them for me!

Until then, see you later!  Дараа Улзье!