Swearing-In and Site Placement

Peace Corps is an exercise in detachment. The first and greatest tearing away is when you leave your home, family, and country for Peace Corps. Then you get put in alphabetical groups for the purpose of room and board and generally keeping track of you. After a few days you get put into new groups, which seem to be assigned randomly for the most part, and sent off to your training site, where you are now made to live with a Mongolian family. During that time, your group gets split into lower- and higher-level Mongolian language classes. Then after 11 weeks of getting to know those fellow trainees, your host families, and Mongolian teachers well, you get moved to your site and away from everyone you’ve ever met before. And you start all over again.

Final Center Days and Swearing-In

PST wrapped up in the beginning of August, during which time we had to undergo practice with local Mongolian students, the TAP (Trainee Assessment Packet, in which we have to assess ourselves and discuss it with Peace Corps trainers), and Mongolian language testing - after which we got two days of relaxation before leaving our training sites, and coming back to the Training Center for “Final Center Days.” I was excited but also knew I’d miss my training site, my Mongolian teachers, and my fellow trainees. Goodbye, S---!

The first Final Center Day ended very dramatically with our site announcements. We went to a park where there was a giant concrete map of Mongolia on the ground. Whenever someone got their placement, they went to stand on the corresponding part of the map. I was one of the last (of 66) people to find out where I was going, and it turned out that I was going to K--- sum. The rest of Final Center Days consisted of meeting and getting to know our new coworkers. I met Enkhtuyaa, my landlady / training manager.

The last Final Center Day, Friday August 19, was the Swearing-In Ceremony, accompanied by performances of traditional Mongolian songs and dances (performed by the trainees). Of course there were speeches too. The US ambassador to Mongolia gave a speech. I was also one of 3 volunteers who had to give speeches. Swearing-in is the pivotal point: prior to that, we were merely “trainees;” now we are called “Peace Corps Volunteers” (Энх Тайвны Корпусын Сайн Дурын Ажилтан).

That realization lasted a moment before we had to grab our stuff and leave. The dozen or so people that were staying nearby in Bulgan, Orkhon, and Selenge Provinces, or Darkhan itself, would be sent directly to their sites. The rest of us would be bused to the capital, Ulaanbaatar (UB) before being dispersed to our sites.

I was in UB for about 3 days, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. In UB, we had bureaucratic issues to take care of. We were also supposed to shop for whatever we couldn’t find at site, whatever that was - I only knew that it probably included most things I could think of. I also went to a small show by the Mongolian band Altan Urag.

On Monday August 22, I left for K--- in a car driven by Munkhjargal, the school’s social worker, with his wife, Enkhtuyaa, the training manager, who were also going to be my landlords. The trip took most of the day, mostly because we stopped several times. During one of these stops, I had my first taste of airag: Mongolia’s national beverage, an alcoholic drink made from horse milk. It tasted a bit like very watery unflavored yogurt. In all, we probably drove about 4 hours along one of Mongolia’s few paved highways. Mongolia doesn’t have a highway system that connects every part of the country. Some people had to fly to their sites; driving would have taken days. Most of the way, we saw only grass and hills, with a few random homes along the side of the road. The last hour or so of driving was along a dirt road which led to my site. My town doesn’t have any paved roads.

K---

When I arrived, I was greeted by Ouynbileg, an English teacher at my school, who is what Peace Corps calls my “Counterpart.” She and my landlords welcomed me to my new home:

My new home is a ger. It’s about 16 feet in diameter and 8 feet high in the center. It comes with a bed, tables, shelves, cupboards, an oven, a stove, a dry sink, and two cats. I inherited these cats from the previous PCV. One is called Amrag, meaning “lover.” The other cat is called Öör Muur, which means “the other cat.” Both of them quickly attached themselves to me. They hang around the ger all day, usually sleep inside it, and beg for food. The Other Cat also sits on my lap when I sit down, and follows me when I walk, and runs into my leg when I stop walking.

My training site, S--- was near the Russian border and surrounded by woods. My site is on the steppe, with almost no trees, and near the center of the country. This means it’s also nearly in the center of the continent, and about as far away as I can possibly get from the ocean anywhere in the world. This village (in Mongolian, sum) has about 3000 people, most of whom live in the countryside herding sheep and goats. Several hundred people live in the sum center, where the school, the hospital, the government buildings (and I) are located. I can walk around the entire village area in a couple of hours. I can also see the entire place from a large hill behind the school. Despite what Peace Corps’ information packet said, there is no internet access. To use the internet, I take an hour-long ride to a bigger, nearby sum. There also isn’t much you can buy here, even if you simply want groceries. To do that, again, you go to the next town. There are no foreigners here, other than me.

I have a great view of the sky, though!

On the first night, we got a windstorm, and Munkhjargal came in and showed me how to take down the stovepipe and close the flap covering the top of my ger. That week, we also got several rain showers. Gers are made of canvas and felt, which are not completely waterproof, so they inside gets damp. Don’t put your electronics near the wall. I don’t think I need to worry much about rain anymore though. We’ve already gotten snow, and it’s not going to get warmer. I’ll have to devote another entry to that process.