Happy Haircut!

Many of you know that I have had a great fear of finding someone to cut my hair here in Mongolia.  Many of  the "ooschin" shops look delapidated and questionable.  I have been so reluctant to get my hair cut, that I went from February 13 (in Rochester) until July 25 (when visiting Rochester again!).  I decided that I couldn't go from July 25, 2010, until May 2011, so I stepped out in bravery.

I have become friends with Gunjee and I've liked her short haircut.  So, last week we made plans to visit her ooschin (hairdresser).  She was happy to do so, and we made plans for today.  As I took the bus across town to meet her, I looked out the window and noticed one salon named "Destroy".  I had to chuckle to myself, wondering if they were trying to say that when you leave their place, you'll destroy everyone with your good looks....or what?! 

So, here's the result:

And, all for a whopping $3.75 USD (5000 Tugriks).

We Should Live On Veggies (yeah, tell that to my men!)

I was amazed when I left a vegetable stand last week with this nice little harvest, all for around $1.25 USD (1600 Tugricks).

Ten-Twenty Years Ago

Part of the homework for our workshops includes written essays.  A recent question led many of the teachers which are our students to write about conditions in Mongolia during the changeover in 1991.  Our students range in age from 22-47 years old, so some of them actually remember when the Soviets left in 1991.  Conditions were difficult with the changeover since Socialism wasn't here to help them any longer.  Instead, the nation was now independent, and just as a toddler wobbles and falls over when learning to walk, so Mongolia had much wobbling as they learned to develop an infrastructure and get supplies imported as well as produced right here in their motherland.  We have read many heart-wrenching stories from our students.  Let me share some incidences:

One woman who is our age, had to endure her husband moving to Korea since there were no jobs here for him.  He went to work in Korea to provide for their family.  They were separated for two years while he earned enough money to send back to them. 

Another woman remembers standing in long lines to receive the rations handed out.  Rations included bread, some meat, butter, potatoes and vodka (of all things!).  Food was scarce and money was more scarce.

Today I read an amazing essay from a woman under 30 years old.  She remembers being a college student right here in Ulaanbaatar in 2000.  She was out of money and food.  There was nowhere to turn.  There were no money transfers set up within Mongolia...at least from the city where her parents lived.  She had informed her parents of her upcoming need and they had arranged for her sister to fly to UB with food and money.  However, the flight was cancelled and she ran out of food and money before her sister could come.  She writes that she lived off of very little food for two days, and there was great joy when her sister finally arrived. 

Many of these students' essays have made me empathize, laugh, or cry.  Even though their English isn't perfect (hey, we're working on it!), they can express themselves deeply.  What a joy to get to know them on a deeper level through their writing.

A little cultural insight: in the last photo, notice the two students who very easily communicate while standing closely together.  It is very natural to not need "personal space" as we Americans do.  When I walk with another woman (Mongolian), we walk arm-in-arm...it's totally natural to them.  It's how Heather (our third daughter) likes to walk with me, so it's a very nice feeling!

Laughing While Teaching

Okay, so you might say we just have a lot of fun teaching.  Here's Kevin, playing "Einstein", and Gillian--our co-teacher interviewing him.  This was all part of a class we taught last week.  As you can see, the date on our camera has been changed to show the day of the month, then the month (so, it was really October 5, not May 10!).  The camera must've automatically done that according to the culture (since that's how they write their dates on this side of the world!). 

We have a lot of fun with the teachers we conduct workshops for, and we teach them to have fun classes, too.  There's a quote one of our students shared this past week: "A bad doctor will kill his patients one by one, but a bad teacher kills all students simultaneously." 

This Friday, we'll have some more fun with our teachers.  Using the projector our organization has, we'll project a movie on our living room wall as we snack on Mongolian and American food.

Yes, I'm Still Alive!

Dear Tami (and others who are wondering if we're still alive in Mongolia, since I have slowed down on my blogging!):  I can't totally pinpoint why I haven't been blogging as much as usual.  I think partially because I'm more busy with people (a good thing), and because sometimes things happen that are fabulous, and good, but I don't know if I should blog about them since they are the result of personal conversations, ya' know?  English teaching is going great, and we love our students.  I'll blog about that soon!

A fun relationship that is developing:

Our daughter had a car accident in Rochester.  The car was in our name, and it had to be totalled-out (nobody was hurt...just one of those things that would cost more to fix than the car was worth).  Since the car title held our names, the title had to be sent to us in Mongolia.  We took care of the necessary paperwork (that in itself is a full blog, but it would be quite boring; suffice it to say that it's interesting looking for a notary and then to find one on the first floor of our apartment building once we found out how to spell and say the word in Mongolian, and then to communicate with her as to what we needed).

Once the paperwork was all in order, I had to hunt down the best way to ship the title, etc., back to the U.S. safely.  I decided on UPS (yep, you've got it--the big, brown trucks which are also in the U.S.!).  Papers in hand, I went to the office which I had "accidentally" run across about four days earlier while shopping in our area--so the office is only about a 15-minute walk from our apartment.  While working on the transaction, I struck up a conversation (in English!) with the two Mongolian women behind the counter.  They were very business-like and distant until I complimented both of them on their use of English.  The conversation turned into a social event for them.  More talking continued.  (Don't worry, I was the only customer in the office).  There seemed to be an interest in improving their English, and I offered to get together with them on a casual basis (not lessons...just conversation and discuss new words and culture).  They both brightened and gave me their "name cards" (business cards) and put my phone number into their phones. 

Since then, Nara and I have gotten together three times.  Mongolians have trouble with pronouncing "p", "v", "f" and "w".  We work on that together and end up laughing.  She teaches me a new Mongolian word or two when we get together, and we usually laugh at my pronunciation, too! 

Yesterday, we had our third time together.  She invited me to a "black tie" event that she's been planning...the 10th Anniversary of UPS in Mongolia.  So, the three of us are going to this fancy event in a couple weeks.  I'm so excited!

What's more exciting is the conversations we have.  May this relationship, a result of a car accident, be one of those things that show He works "all things together for good."