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!!

What a week!

This week hasn't been as slow as the past 2 weeks.  The three main events of the week are:

1. My site mates and I decided we would go camping...except it decided to snow on Saturday.  Thus, we decided to "camp" in a ger (not mine, but my other site mate's).  We watched movies, built a fort, ate food, and played night crawlers (for those of you who don't watch "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", like me, it's a game where you get into your sleeping bag...with your face in the bottom...and crawl around like worms.  It was quite intense.  Here are some pictures of the snow and the indoor camping ventures.



Getting ready for night crawlers





The Fort!





The Mountains covered in snow...from my hashaa





More snow pics





last one


2. Next was the wedding!  One of the teachers at my school had a wedding and all of my coworkers and I went on Sunday.  I asked my hashaa mom what to wear and she told me to wear my deel.  When we met at school, I was the only one in a deel (everyone else wore jeans or other casual clothes...they told me that deels are supposed to be worn, but they chose warmth instead...lol).  When we got to the wedding, it was nothing like I thought it would be!  I learned that weddings here are 3 days long (Day 1 for Family, Day 2 for Coworkers, and day 3 for Friends) and there was no official ceremony.  Instead, it was a get together in the home where the guests along with the bride and groom enjoy food and chatter.  I was told that weddings typically have 3 rounds of dishes (vegetable soup, flour soup, and buuz...this one had vegetable soup and a chicken and rice dish), fruits, vegetable, cookies, and candy.  And of course, what celebration is complete without airag (and the "Mongolian vodka", and bottled vodka"...this time they added cherry wine)?  There is also always sheep's back served at weddings. After the eating and a few rounds of airag, the toasts began.  Everyone was offered the golden bowl of airag and had to sing a song.  I almost got away with not having to sing a Mongolian song (they told me to sing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion....and for everyone who knows me, you know I hate public singing!  I was so embarrassed!) until the people who knew of the one Mongolian song I partially knew asked me to sing it.  So 2 songs...for the girl who hates singing in public.  Thank goodness that most singing events in Mongolia turns into sing alongs!!  It was a great night.





The groom!





The school's training manager with the golden airag bowl!





The passing of the vodka!





The bride (after her change) sharing Mongolian vodka to pass.





3 of my coworkers!





The bride and groom looking at each other.





The bride changed back so that her and the groom match!





And again





The sheep's back


3. But then the next day, I woke up feeling awful!  I felt weak and nauseous and decided to go to work anyway.  I ended up getting to work and being sent home because I felt so awful.  I spent the day not eating or drinking and just staying in bed (until later that evening of course....because I was too stubborn to not do Insanity...I did take it slow though).  And although I felt much better the next day, my stomach continued to be a little funky until today.
4. The final thing happened today.  Nothing too big, but as I was walking around town, a group of teenage boys called out to me by saying "What's up nigga".  Although that should of been a teachable moment, I was so shocked that I turned around and gave them a death glare accompanied by a head shake.

This week has been pretty great overall.  I have been spending a lot of time alone, but loving it.  I started listening to podcasts (NFL...to catch up on what I've missed so far this season and The Read by Kid Fury...because I need to catch up on the shade I've been missing from not having youtube) and it's made everything so much funnier.  

Well that's it!  I'm getting ready to go play volleyball with the teachers at my school.  Bye ya'll!!!

NONONO - Pumpin Blood (Official Video)

Discovered this song all of 2 hours ago...Can't stop playing it. So why not share?