The first few weeks of The Journey....

July 5, 2013

Sain baina nuu! Hello! From Mongolia to all my friends and family.

So I have been here 1 month; however, I and all my Peace Corps (PC) friends feel as though we have been here a very long time. I think this is because there is a lot that is going all the time between Pre-service Training (PST) which includes language and technical skills training, spending time with our host families, getting to know our community and also spending time with our fellow current and past PC volunteer friends.  The fact that it feels as though we have been here a long time is somewhat comforting for me because it feels as though I have known my new friends a very long time so there is definitely a feeling of friendship and affection that is comforting. It is possible for one to feel lonely over here despite being surrounded by so many people all the time. Of course this is to be expected because I am experiencing a new country, new culture, new traditions and a huge language barrier. However, what can make the experience more “lonely” is when you realize this is not just a couple of weeks or months that you will be here, this is a 27 month experience in which you might not see your family and friends back home in the U.S and Mexico.

Let me move on to tell you about the language and culture. First, the language is hard! In fact, it is (according to Peace Corps) one of the hardest languages to learn from the countries that PC works in. I must say, I did not expect it to be as hard as it is, especially because everyone says if you speak two languages it is easier to learn more, however! I learned English just by leaving in the U.S when I was 7 years old. I just learned by speaking it...it is a different thing to learn it in the classroom, well at least that’s what I think. The one thing I can say is helping me with pronunciation is the fact that I speak Spanish, so that’s nice, but it will not do me any good unless I know what I am saying (sigh). ..Patience! I remind myself.  It is funny how this experience has made me lower my expectations...which is something we were warned about when we started training. I remember the first day we were asked to write where we expected to be with our language skills at the end of PST (which is mid August). I ( and a few others) a hopeful new trainee, said I would like to have an intermediate level of Mongolian good enough to carry on deeper conversations with Mongolian people and that this would make me feel pretty successful. Well my friends... this expectation has changed. With time here, you realize that just being able to carry on a basic conversation in Mongolian (i.e Hi, how are you? What’s your name? Are you married?-a usual Mongolian question when meeting someone) is a big success!  In addition, effectively coping with all the new cultural dos and don’ts, new daily routines, new rules, new personalities is also a huge success. So now, as I redefine what “success” is for me here in Mongolia for the next few months, if by the end of PST I can have a basic conversation, use my local resources to communicate and continue to grow my relationships with my new Mongolian friends, than I can say I am pretty successful. This is so interesting because if you live in the U.S you know that one is always being pushed to set the bar high but never to lower your expectations, thus this is humbling and has required me to put my pride aside and be humble enough to be okay with itty-bitty, baby steps.

Living in a new culture definitely takes you back to being a one year old infant and this is by no means an exaggeration. With a cultural and language barrier I have been dependent on locals for nearly all I do (showers and using the restroom included). I mentioned having a “Host Family, this is because the Peace Corps pairs us with a Mongolian host family for the first three months we are here. This is to help us integrate into our community, learn cultural norms and practice our language. Everyone has different experiences with their host families, I must say mine is pretty awesome and have done a great job at making me feel as though I am part of their family. So let me tell you about them; I have a host mom who asked me to call her “Bumbal” (a Lawyer and accomplished basketball player), a host grandma “Erden” and a host brother who really doesn’t live here, I think he attends university in UB, Mongolia’s capital. Aside from Bumbal and Erden there are many other family members all around my “aimag” (province) who we go visit often or who visit us, unannounced . Yes, always unannounced, quite different from the U.S I would say. This is one of the main traits of this culture; everyone is welcome always, no matter what. If you are at home doing whatever, everything gets dropped and your full attention goes to your visitor, just as they would do at their home if you showed up unannounced. So when someone visits your home here, it is custom to immediately offer a couple of staple items 1) hot/boiling hot tea 2) candy, any kind, other things might be bread, “ardl” (dry goat cheese) or a full meal which will usually be rice with sheep meat, potatoes and carrots or homemade noodles with sheep meat, potatoes and carrots. People that visit may be coming in for a few minutes or  several hours in any case usually they will at least have a cup of tea and a piece of candy.  This sense of community is what I find to be one of the most beautiful things about Mongolia. Everything comes second to community time, including work and being on time –which is one of the hardest things for Americans to acceptJ. For example, if there is a meeting at 1:00pm people might start getting to your meeting at 1:30 maybe 2:00pm or maybe not at all...and there is no huge dramatic explanation for this, maybe they took longer to have lunch with family that day or maybe they needed to finish something else first, in any case there is usually not a warning phone call and it’s pretty acceptable here. For example, everyday my afternoon training session starts at 2:30pm at which time my host mom also has to go back to work. One particular day she said she had to be at work at 2:00pm so I looked at the clock an reminded her it was 2:00pm and asked her if she had to go, she replied “yes o.k, I take nap” ( she speaks a little English).

Back to my family life here...so at 29 years old I have been babysat by my little host cousin who is 12 years old, she was sent by my host mom to watch me while she worked late (this is in part because PC told them they could not leave us alone, but that meant not going away on vacation and leave us alone, this was taken quite literally). I have also been taught to bathe is a “tum pun”, basically a plastic basin. Now, I have taken bucket showers before, but this is different. Here, first you wash your hair separately and usually first before the rest of your body. You do this by bending over the tum pun and you have someone pour the water on your head for you while you apply shampoo. Then you boil a little water and mix it with cold water in your tum pun (which would just perfectly fit a two year old if you sat him down, to give you an idea of the size).  Then you soak your sponge and soap and begin to basically sponge bathe then you bend over your tum pun to rinse your upper body; after, you will squat over your tum pun (at this point you are a pro because you do this every day to use the “noilth” (bathroom/outhouse) to wash your lower body. In my house particularly, this happens in the kitchen because that is an open space, which also happens to be the entrance to the house. I can do this in my room but it is preferable to do in the kitchen because there is no carpet and it is more convenient when you need to get more water to rinse from our big water containers, which we fill about 3 times a week when we go fetch water. Some houses in my soum have running water, we don’t. We get water from our local well.

During the week, I go to training from 9 to 1pm and then from 2:30pm to 5pm. On the weekends I spent most of my time with my family, aside from occasionally meeting with my PC friends to go for a hike. On the weekends we usually stay home, visit other family members, get visited by family members, go to the market or go on a picnic. The weekends are definitely a time for family gatherings one way or another.

My meals consist of mostly carbs and definitely sheep meat on 99% of my meals. My breakfast at 8:00am is usually boiling noddle soup, sheep meat,”oox” (fat) potatoes and carrots. My lunch is usually boiling rice, sheep meat potatoes and carrots or noodles, with sheep meat, oox potatoes and carrots. I do have a deal with my host mom, I exchange the fat in my plate for the potatoes in hers (she loves the fat and doesn’t really like the potatoes) all meals usually accompanied by a either boiling water, boiling tea or boiling milk tea. My family bought me Nescafe so I will sometimes have boiling coffee, not exaggerating about the boiling part by the way. 

Grandma usually makes our meals at the time of each meal. It is not usual to eat leftover food (not the main meals at least). Grandma makes just enough for breakfast and just enough for lunch and at my house we usually don’t have dinner because our breakfast and lunch is big which is a good thing given how tired all the carbs make me.

Another main trait of this culture is that your property is usually not just your property. If everyone can see it, it becomes community property. Even if they cannot see it but know you have it, they will probably ask you for it at which point it becomes their property too. Saying no, will probably offend them or rather confuse them. This is a two way deal though; they will also gladly share their stuff with you-no need to ask. You may wonder why is it that they don’t go out and get stuff, well, it’s because you have some so why get more-we can share. This takes time to get used to and it can be frustrating but if you just accept it, it’s easier and if you really think about it, is very beautiful how you get the cozy community feeling in everything Mongolians do. I have to say that in a lot of ways this culture reminds my  Mexican culture.

Along with not being the sole owner of your property here, you might also find that you are not the owner of your own time. Perhaps this applies more to my particular current living situation. You may daydream about the afternoon when you will get to go home and maybe read, relax, study etc..but little did you know you get home and you have enough time to have tea time with your family and get your shoes back on because it is time to go visit your uncle, cousin or uncle’s friend’s sister’s cousin (keeping track of who is related to whom here might prove nearly impossible in a short amount of time and memorizing the names?...I would say don’t try this until you have more knowledge of the language) etc. Spur of the moment visits happen often here and not going would be considered not polite to an extent and again you might make your family sad since they are really trying to include you in and family is first above all. Alone time here is not very well understood. Not to say people don’t have it but I would say it is not something so much needed, it might even be weird. This is another thing that might take some getting used to coming from a country where alone time and personal space is highly valued. I am definitely working on it and finding I am more used to it now. I find ways to find balance, which is key for an experience like this, I think.

Aside from the beauty of this culture, Mongolia has the most beautiful scenery. Big green mountains (hiking here is amazing) and fields and beautiful sunsets. It was not a lie when they told us about the weather here, it is so so unpredictable. You may wake up and it looks as though it will certainly rain hard but by midday the day has warmed up a bit maybe even to 80, however when you get out of class two hours later you may now need your rain coat, scarf and boots again. I now understand why for clothing here, layering up is the best thing to do; we shall see what the Winter brings though.

So I have shared some general experiences I’ve had this far, I hope most of it makes sense. There is a lot of happening all the time, it’s hard to put it all into words.

Training and my work here

As I briefly mentioned, my training is three months long. It consists of intense language training as well as technical training in my particular area which is “public health”. Every morning from 9am-1pm I have Mongolian training language and from 2:30 to 5:30 I have training in various health topics (Mongolia’s health status, health care system, needs assessments etc). So officially I have not started working in the community yet, I have however had the opportunity to work with my “Summer” counterparts during our joint training sessions. We have done a needs assessment and a few other activities. A humbling and eye opening experience to have the Mongolia language abilities of a 4 year old, having to use a dictionary, symbols and pretty much charades to communicate. It takes a lot of effort and patience from everyone Mongolians and Americans. But once you manage to create a product it is actually really cool how it can be accomplished and then you have a needs assessment of your local Health Department (which is where my practicum is) in the form of a poster created by Mongolians and Americans, written in Cyrillic and presented in two languages which equals Awesome! and the experience  reminds you of the reason you are here. 

We have thus far visited the local Department of Education and the local World Vision post. I was in the world vision group. They are doing great work and their main work is in four sections: Economy, Youth Development, Nutrition and Water Sanitation. In this post there are very few staff members ( all Mongolian) and a lot of work they do but they said having more staff would mean less money for the community so they manage. They repeated over and over again that their main goal is capacity building and that rather than giving or doing the work themselves they empower the community with the tools and skills to do it themselves, again , awesome. I of course asked if they work in the area of Human Trafficking and they said this is on their 5 year plan they are working on focused more on prevention before the issue gets out of hand in Mongolia (great!), for now preventing child labor in Mongolia is one of their objectives. Another thing there are excited about is their new program targeting disabled children, disabilities in children seems to be a growing issue here, most likely related to malnutrition or unhealthy health behaviors during pregnancy which they are also really working on. Actually, there is a huge push on the part of the Mongolian government to address Maternal and child mortality here, a lot of money is being allocated to this efforts. I left World Vision inspired and reminded again of why I am in this field.

As far as general health issues in Mongolia, they are trying to address smoking and heavy drinking. Drinking is a huge problem here; drinking vodka in particular is almost cultural so that might be part of the problem but definitely not all; it’s a complex issue which I need to learn more about.

My personal challenges

I have briefly mentioned some challenges already so I will just add that getting adjusted is like a small roller coaster. There are great days and not so great days, I guess is just like life in general. Every day I miss my family and friends, and some days my “normal life”. They are days I wish I had more control over my daily routine, days I wish I had a nice hot shower, fresh tropical fruit, enchiladas, days I wish I could do things my own way. Moments when getting home and having to communicate with my host family and having to think hard about how to say  just one word....or having to use the dictionary to put a small sentence together is very draining after being in training all day. Days in which language class is hard and a bit frustrating when I feel powerless because I question how I am going to ever do good work here without being fluent (thank God for my patient and caring language teachers). Days when I don’t want to fetch water and want to use a regular toilet and I don’t want to remember cultural norms.

I share this not with the intention of complaining, but rather with the intention of sharing my experience with honesty and allowing myself to be vulnerable while I experience this acculturation process.

Other cultural customs and experiences

• Here are a few other things I have learned about or experienced:
• So every morning, my host grandma goes out to our yard with a cup of milk tea and a spoon and throws spoonfuls of milk tea in all directions, north, south, east, west. It seems to be a type of offering , I would say common to the Buddhist religion but I do not want to assume.
• Remember I said you get offered candy everywhere you go? Well, you must first touch the bowl lightly with your right hand when they offere you candy and then take 1 piece of candy. This is like saying thank you I appreciate the gift.
• Also, it is customary to bring something whenever you visit someone, maybe a bag of candy, “ardl” or any kind of gift, usually food.
• If I accidentally step or touch another person’s leg or foot (like by accident) I must immediately shake their right hand with my right hand, which traditionally means “I am sorry, I don’t want to fight”. I do this quite often at home; I am always accidentally doing this at dinner or breakfast. Shaking the hand is taken very seriously.
• Another thing I must avoid is stepping or standing on any doors` over step, this is not polite to do and it is bad luck.
• Also, a big sigh of relief as you would do for example when you have been walking all day and you sit down and feel relieved, is not acceptable. This is like calling the evil spirits (more of a shamanistic idea) I was told after I did it. I haven’t really discussed religion other than to answer their questions; we are encouraged to approach the topic tactfully if at all, so I am not entirely sure about my family’s particular religion.
• When offered something, refusing is not really polite. You must at least take one piece of anything you are being offered as a sign of respect and appreciation.
• Great respect is giving to elders here; not only elderly but anyone older than you.
• Dogs here not really man’s best friend. It is more of a protector of your backyard or really just a regular animal. Mongolians think is weird how much Americans love their dogs. It is probably in part because most street dogs here are not your usual timid street dogs, people fear them. I have master the technique though, you are taught to pick a rock and pretend you are going to throw it as you shout “jov jov, hush hush”, the dog will turn away. You do this if you feel you might be attacked.
• Mongolians love pictures! They love seeing yours and showing you theirs, all of them.
• 98% of the time, you will get funny looks if you walk around like me and smile at strangers. Mongolians are not very emotional ( I have been told), especially if they don’t know you, they might think you are weird for smiling at them. I have had to learn this one, it’s hard though, I feel rude but in their eyes is more like “you don’t know me why are you smiling at me?”
• If you want to earn a cooperative co-worker, first talk about their personal life and be willing to talk about yours (i.e how old are you? Are you married? What are your hobbies? Where are you from?). The “let’s get down to business approach I don’t have time for friends” here, does not work.
• If you go into let’s say the bank and you patiently wait there for maybe 15 minutes for your turn, do not be surprised if you look away for a second and someone else has stepped right in to take your place literally walking in front you and yes, they saw you...and if you thought you had it figured out and thought you might walk up to the counter like others do (say at the phone store) to make sure no one cuts in line, you are mistaken. Any little space between you and another person is fair game for someone to walk right into and take your place even if you have been there and they saw you it does not matter. This has been one of those hard ones to accept and I look forward to working towards finding the system around this.
• Mongolian/Korean  “dramas” or novelas are awesomeJ.

There are probably some things I forgot to mention, I would have to share more later on or maybe when we meet again in the U.S. Read as much as you want if you have time. I hope that from this you get that Mongolia is a country rich in culture with beautiful landscapes, traditions and friendly caring loving people.

This experience can be hard but very rewarding, beautiful and...Just cool! I feel lucky, privileged and blessed and I am excited about the work I will be doing in the future. I hope to be able to share more soon now that I think I will have internet access more regularly.

For now, bayartai! (good bye: )