Mongol experiences: Still in Mongolia

I just noticed that 6 months of experiences have occurred without a blog entry. I'm amazed at how quickly what was new, exciting, strange, frustrating and invigorating can become mundane and unnoticed. Periodic mental check-ins cleanse my senses, and I have 20/20 vision and better hearing for a time. For example, I've spoken about the traffic in the past and the 'all about me' type attitude people drive with. I now see this chaos more like the horse racing that occurs during Nadaam, the national holiday during which Mongolians display the country's 3 main sports: wrestling, archery and horse racing. The reality is that up until about 20 or so years ago, Mongolians were herders and the main mode of transportation was the horse. It appears to me that the riding on the steppes mentality is still strong and that the horses are now fueled by petrol instead of grass. Another recent reminder that the horse, be it motorized or biological, is king was watching transportation workers tossing ice and snow from the roads and onto the sidewalks making mounds that resembled hiking the AT.

We love getting together with our Mongolian friends for parties. They are so welcoming to us and love to sing, dance, make speeches and drink. We've learned, after a couple of forgettable experiences, how to pace ourselves and politely decline another round of vodka. Pam and I wish our Mongolian was better than it is so that we had a better understanding of what is being said, but work in an English dominant school greatly slows the progress. Our Mongolian friends do appreciate what we can say and our efforts.

We recently read in a UB newspaper that UB is the 2nd most polluted city in the world according to a UN study, if I remember correctly. It seems that this year is worse than last. Last year most mornings the sky was grey but turned blue by mid afternoon. This year that blue is not being seen much at all. As we flew into UB last week from Thailand, we were struck by how clear the sky was not more than 30 km outside of the city. It doesn't take long before our bodies begin to try and expel the pollution we breathe. Once the weather warms up, the pollution decreases immensely but winter here can begin in September and last until June.

Last night we celebrated a colleague's birthday and laughed about some of the topics of conversation that come about from living overseas. There was a long discussion about airports and illnesses that occurred while traveling in various countries. With the amount of traveling Pam and I have done over the past 6 months, we had plenty of moments to add to the conversation. We've traveled around Mongolia with our kids, Pam's sister and brother-in-law and my sister and a friend, spent fall break in Malaysia because I had to attend a conference in Kuala Lumpur for a graduate program that I enrolled in, and then we just returned from a wonderful 3 week vacation in Thailand where we divided our time between an island in southern Thailand, Bangkok and Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. It will probably not be the last time we visit Thailand because the country and its people are wonderful. We filled our time there snorkeling, riding elephants, whitewater rafting, petting tigers, taking a cooking class, relaxing and of course eating fantastic food and washing it down with very good beverages.

We've got a few more trips planned before the end of the school year. I'm headed to Jakarta in Feb. for a special ed conference where I'll be presenting a workshop. In March I'm headed to Shanghai for another conference that is required for my grad program. The conference precedes our spring break, so Pam and I will meet in Beijing and spend the week as tourists after I leave Shanghai. Then in April I'm returning to China for this year's soccer tournament.

We're now beginning to focus on this coming summer because Pam will be returning to HCC. We knew that 2 years was going to go by quickly, but this seems like we have been in hyperdrive. We should be back in Easthampton sometime in July, and then I'll return to UB at the beginning of August for one more year to complete the graduate program in international educational administration.