The long awaited struggle week.

So this past week has been quite the roller coaster.  I thought that I could keep off the bad times forever (I mean, there seemed to be something good to match every "bad" occurrence I had).  But this week, that wasn't the case.  It seemed that stress just took over everything in me this week.  So last week I got a dog (didn't mention it because I had a feeling something would happen...and yes, I did ask permission to keep her).  After having this gorgeous 2 month old puppy for a week (buying a ton of stuff for her, waking up in the middle of the night to take her out, training her....and she even got potty trained in a week),  I was told at the end of the week that I had to get rid of her.  In Mongolia, that means put her outside to die (there are no shelters, so animals are just outside if they have no owner).  So of course I had to put her out and then I spent much of Friday and Saturday crying (I've always wanted a dog and when I finally get one, I had to get rid of her...to die in the cold).  In addition to that,  it seems that my patience is running VERY thin with my counterparts (thank goodness break is next week).  I've always been the person to not be able to say no when people ask me for things (or say no jokingly but do it anyway).  At work, this translates to my counterparts always giving me their work to do (thus adding stress to my life) and me doing it because I "don't want to be mean".   This has been so since about week 2.   But I have been allowing it....until this week that is.  I kept getting frustrated, and, therefore, learned to say no to some things.  The problem with this, is that I waited too long to start doing it, so the smallest requests made me agitated.  Peace Corps warned us about these low points, but of course I thought that it would never happen.  Silly me.  I'm making it through with lots of chocolate though.

Despite the stress, there have been some shining moments of the week:

1. The Halloween party last weekend for the students at school 1.  Although the turnout wasn't the greatest, the students that came had A LOT of fun.
2. We (my site mates and I) had a hang out evening with a few of our Mongolian friends after the Halloween party.  It was so much fun to just sit and talk to them about random things.
3. We had an English Per For Mance (yes....that's how they put up the sign) at my school.  The students did presentations, dances, poems and sang songs.  It was phenomenal.  There were also some purely comedic moments (like the little girls doing a dance series and Candy Shop...yes, the 50 cent one...making an appearance in the song series).
4. My podcasts....they make my life all the time!
5. Talking through my problems with my friends from America...I love my friends.
6. Playing volleyball with my site mate's coworkers last night....it was wonderful.
7. The English class the foreign language teachers taught together about sports today.  That jeopardy game got intense!

That's it for this week.  Talk to you guys next week!!

So I named the puppy эмээ (Mongolian for grandma) but pronounced it Emi.  I decided on that name because the day I got her, she would pee every time she stood up.  She's the one in the back.  The puppy in front is чихэр (Mongolian for candy).  She is my site mate's puppy (and my puppy's sister).

Emee's first bath (I really miss the little terror!)

Mongolian Hospitality

So it seems my blog is slowly turning into a food appreciation blog (will stop soon....cooking new things is just so fun!!!).  The only new thing I made this week are these red bean burgers (vegan if anyone wanted to know):

 This week I also ordered a Kindle (yay!).  So now I will be reading my life away!  On Saturday, I discovered a new supermarket (just built) in my town...it was awesome!!! They had soy milk and pizza flavored pringles (these are HUGE deals....if only they had peanut butter and block cheese).

Now I will talk about the title of this blog post.  So Mongolians have this thing where no matter who walks into their homes (whether or not they expected them), they will treat them like royalty.  This week on my way home from work, I bumped into a teacher from my school (who I had never spoken to before) and she just invited me to come home with her.  I got to her home and she fed me enough for a family....literally.  She not only made me tea, but bought all sorts of goods for me to eat (bread, moloko, Mongolian "nutella", eggs, etc).  After the tea, I got a glass of seabuckthorn juice, followed by a cup of milk tea (all while stuffing me with moloko on bread or "nutella" on bread).   And because that wasn't enough, she also made me kimbop made with eggs, pickled veggies, and rice (it was great, but again....so much food).  I really appreciated this gesture (although I had to wobble home afterwards).  This is one of the many awesome things about Mongolia:  no matter who you are people are always hospitable when you enter their homes.

Well that's about it for this week.  Had a bout of sickness yesterday, but now I'm back in commission!

Sidenote:  Today my little brother turns 10!!!  I can't believe he's so old!!  Happy Birthday Pipsqueak!!!

Me and my friend, Urtaa, eating the bean burgers (we also had spring rolls with this)

Сонин юу байна? юмгүй (What's the news? There is nothing)

This week was preeetttty boring. Lol.  I just did the regular go to school and come home (and cook of course).  I spent a lot of time this week looking up recipes (mostly Jamaican....to see what I can make with the resources I have here.  I wish I had some cornmeal and scotch bonnet...then I could really do some damage!) and downloading books (Thinking I should get a Kindle so I don't have to read on my computer).  I started Month 2 of Insanity (and yes, it is, in fact, kicking my butt) on Sunday, also.  Outside of that, I've just been really tired and busy with work.  Now to spend time figuring out how I can get cumin, tumeric, cornmeal, scotch bonnet seeds (so I can just grow it and have an endless supply of scotch bonnet!), and a Kindle here!  Here are some pictures from this week!  Ta ta for now!!

Me with my pails to carry water (they was empty at this point)

Made escovitch fish this week (not the same without scotch bonnet pepper)

Frying it up (made brown stew fish out of these two the next day)!

The tail...my favorite part!

Made some cabbage and carrots to eat with it

Dinner is served!!

Made sweet and sour chicken (from scratch).  This is at my site mate's apartment

Our dinner!

My counterpart made me this nifty little thing!  It's so i can hold hot things.  How cute!

Thanks to Photobooth, this picture is backward.  But I gave the students a choice of what song they wanted to translate to Mongolian.  They chose "Never Say Never" by Bieber.  So here it is!

The class that translated the Bieber song (I look rough...but it's okay)!

Today for lunch...

I decided to get cabbage and carrots and glass noodles...

and made spring rolls!!

Of course they weren't complete without sweet chili sauce.

Peace Corps must read!

So I found this super funny post that all people who have any interest in Peace Corps (or are in, have been in Peace Corps) should read.  Check it out here.  See you guys tomorrow for my weekly post!

Food Experimentation Week!!

So this week has been interesting.  Although not too much happened,  I must say it was fun (and tiring).   So after my post on Thursday,  I went to school to play volleyball...and managed to continually injure myself!  First I jammed one finger, then, I hurt my hip, somehow.  And because that wasn't enough,  later in the game, I injured my thumb (felt a couple cracks, but it's not swollen, so not broken, right??  Although it does still hurt a week later...).  Then, as I was walking home (after a long game, leaving me to walk home in the dark), I twisted my ankle.  It was just tragedy day.  But I did go home and make a burrito (see pictures).  It was delicious (and I made another one for lunch the next day)!!

Friday marked the end of month 1 of Insanity for me (pure excitement!), but it also began a jam-packed weekend!  Since it was site visit weekend for us (Peace Corps regional directors come to check out our living situation/working situations), there was an M23 (we are M24s) who came to help out with our site visits.  We spent the weekend hanging out and giving him a tour of our city (also bragging about how awesome our site is).  It was a lot of fun!  And in regards to site visits?  The regional director said that my ger is one of the best gers they've seen (thanks to my HCA[host country agency]), he loved my family and teachers, and they love me too!!!  It felt good to know that my school thinks I'm doing what they need me to do (although they wish that I would talk more).

Now back to food week.  On Monday night, I decided to make fried chicken for my site mates.  It came out well (I know it's not that hard, but I'm still excited).  Then on Tuesday night I really decided to experiment.  Being the super Jamaican that I am (and being excited about all the spices I got in my package), I decided to make some Jerk Chicken in my ger stove.  And *drumroll* another success!!  I literally went all out to make it as authentic as possible (see pictures).  My whole ger  (and my fridge) still smells like jerk...and I love it.

On Wednesday, I woke up (still happy about my jerk chicken adventures) to snow everywhere!  It was so beautiful!!  And you know I just had to take pictures!!  The day continued on pretty well except for one minor disturbance (thank you world for having Murphy's law as one of your ruling laws).  Now you're probably wondering what that disturbance is, right?  So as I was walking (to meet my counterpart and a community member who I sometimes help with english for a GREAT dinner), a group of teenage boys looked at me and said "nigger, nigger, nigger (notice the er...not an a...and then they laughed)".  I stopped and told them not to say that to me and then they laughed and said "nigger".  This time, I was completely thrown off guard because they seemed to do it just to get a rise out of me (even after I said not to do it, they did it and laughed).  Although it threw me off, I wasn't as angry as I could have been.  I think the other everyday interactions I have with Mongolians helped that a lot.  There are some people (no matter where you go in the world) who do things just to get a rise.  Now maybe they didn't understand the depth of what they said, but they definitely understood that it was something that offended me, yet they continued with it.  But hey....what can you do but brush it off/educate, huh?

That's about it for the week.  Today I taught English to the English teachers (went great!  we did a composition and editing!) and to one of my counterparts' 10th grade daughter and her friend.  Those went pretty well also.  No volleyball tonight (so sad), so I guess it will be an early night.  Enjoy the pictures and talk to you next week!

My ger covered in snow

My dog hiding in her house.  She looked so cold!

The same view as the shot last week...now covered in snow.

My burrito!  I even made the tortilla from scratch.

My tiny burrito.  But it was so filling!

The ingredients for my jerk chicken.  Notice my sauce brush...lol

My ger stove and the Heineken...because what is jerk chicken if you don't pour on Heineken while it's cooking????

Chicken in the fire!

Pulled it out for a little bit to add sauce and Heineken

The plate at the end (could really use some greens...but I had to throw out my cabbage earlier that day because it went bad)

4 months? Already?!?!

So I've been in Mongolia for 4 months now.  I seriously can't believe it!!!  It feels like I was just in DC wondering what on earth was to come.  And now I've been here for 4 MONTHS!!!  And in addition to that,  I realized that this past Saturday marked 1 year since I sent in my Peace Corps Application.  It seems like such a short time, but when I was in the process, it felt like FOREVER!  This week seemed to just have been the week of shocking realizations.

Speaking of this week, nothing too spectacular happened since I last wrote.  I had a Lorre weekend (which was quite phenomenal other than the all day power outage on Sunday).  I rested, cleaned, and just had great alone time.

On Tuesday I got a package from back home.  It was like Christmas!!!  I was so excited.  I got socks (I somehow managed to only pack a few to come here) and spices/seasoning.  I'm sure I'm going to find so many new uses for most of the spices I got (who would've thought I would be so excited about spices???).

I also sent my first piece of mail to the states.  It was definitely a pretty penny (it was about $30 USD for a 1 pound box)!!  I totally didn't expect it.  But now I know.

Outside of that, nothing much happened this week.  I'm getting into the groove of things and it's pretty much routine now.  I did take a great picture on Saturday (it's now my desktop background) so I'll share that with you guys!

Ta ta for now!!