School Vacation / Fourth of July

As most of the world knows now, it's July, and thus well into summer. The Mongolian school year ends at the beginning of June / end of May, much like the American school year. And also much like the American school year, this originated for agricultural reasons. Summer is the busiest time of year not only for farmers (originally the majority of the US population), whose crops are growing, but also for herders, who have lots of young animals running around. In both cases, it was assumed that kids should help their parents, and so everything else was planned around it.

Horses, young and old

A lot of Peace Corps volunteers have therefore gone home for vacation or migrated to UB to enjoy its many luxuries. I didn't and had no fixed plans, so I was talked into running a summer English club back in my village. Not about to miss out on Fourth of July for that reason, I then talked my students into having a 4th of July party (it didn't take much talking). They raised the funds and bought the supplies. The original grand vision included fireworks and baseball - both of which are obscure out here - but at least we had marshmallows! So we started a fire and roasted sausages and marshmallows on pieces of abandoned wire.

Mongolian kids' weenie roast

That this took place is a small success and a bit of a miracle. The Fourth was very stormy, to the point that the wind began peeling the canvas cover off some gers, sending me running to my counterpart's house in anxiety that my home was falling apart. Actually, nothing structural was affected, and my stuff didn't even get wet. And by about 8:00 the weather cleared, allowing our party to take place anyway.

My ger on July 4

The rest of the country, meanwhile is gearing up for Naadam, the biggest sporting event of the year, and now I'm in UB running through hoops to get a Chinese visa, which promises to provide more material for blogging eventually.