It’s been awhile! I was going to post some stuff earlier,
but then the flash drive on which I was typing things up to post online got
destroyed, so I wasn’t able to post stuff on time. Now I think I’ll just go
ahead and post most of what I planned to, even though it’s late and some things may no
longer be relevant. But some major things have happened recently.
In January my school won the “Best School in the Province” title out of about 30 schools. We followed this up this week with a 2nd-place finish in the aimag English teachers' Olympics, & 4th & 5th-place finishes in the English Olympics for 11th-grade students.
We got a visit in early March from Katie, the previous volunteer
at my site. She was only here for a few days and I’d never met her before, but
I sure was glad I did! I’ve rarely gotten along so well with someone so
quickly. Maybe it’s because the Mongolians I live with don’t know English, and
the other volunteers don’t know the Mongolians at my site, but it was awesome
to be able to talk on and on about things and both know exactly who and what we
were talking about.
Finally, they’re filming a Mongolian reality show in my sum. The show is called Анхны
Алхам (First Step) and its
premise is sending a bunch of university students into the countryside to
practice-teach at my school. I wasn’t in the plan but since they’ve arrived
they’ve taken particular interest in me anyway. So far they’ve taken footage of
me sawing wood, chopping wood, fetching water, making a fire, making buuz, putting
on a deel, writing Mongolian script, singing, dancing, eating boov and drinking
airag, team-teaching, solo-teaching, observing teaching and giving feedback in
Mongolian, and giving an interview in Mongolian. If you’re not in Mongolia, though, it’ll
probably end up on Youtube soon.
Finally, and most importantly, my service has been extended. I’m going to be a third-year volunteer next year.
