The Beginning to Now(ish)

June 2010.

I’m sorry to get to you readers so late in my training process, but I’ve been busy adjusting to new diets, new culture, new families, and being in school constantly. Well, I’ll start from the beginning. On June 3, 2010 I flew to San Francisco for staging, which was a lot of awkward meetings and conversations with new people, or the handful of those I met on Facebook. We were placed in a large room where we had several classes, activities, and lectures on what being a Peace Corps trainee and Volunteer means. I learned the phrase “The best job you’ll ever hate” to describe the Peace Corps and the experience one has during his/her two years.

The next day was spent in airports and airplanes. My favorite memory would be playing a drinking game during the movie Leap Year with my seat partners, Cody and Alyssa (I say it’s is my favorite memory because the game killed 2 hours of the flight for me). When we finally arrived in UB, Mongolia, the weather was rainy which is good luck in Mongolian culture (good first sign).

After waiting for 140 pieces of luggage, we all walked single file through tunnel made of current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). What a greeting! After chatting with some of them, we had an hour drive to Zuunmond to a dormitory and school for orientation week. I, as well as the other 74 Peace Corps Trainees, attended the Peace Corps Orientation, which consisted of several lectures on safety, Peace Corps policies, and language classes. The trainers (current PCVs) threw a dance party for us (and I immediately thought I was at WWW camp again). The coolest part of orientation, besides the frequent tea breaks, had to have been from the first day, the Mongolian students dancing and playing the horse fiddle.

Overall, Peace Corps orientation was a fun and informative. The last day of orientation we each were given a sheet of paper with our host family’s information: names, how many dogs they have, interests, what they live in (ger or house), and occupations of the family members. My family consists of my grandfather (ovoo) Mondoon, my father (aav) Chuluunbaatar, my mother (eej) Mongi, my little brother (duu) Bojo, and my little sister (duu) Chuluuntsetseg. They all live in a Ger and often times different family members will drop in and stay for a week or two (which was interesting because the first week I was there I met a new family member every morning). We were also told what city group we would be in for training; mine was Bagakhangai

After some sappy goodbyes, we all split up in our different city groups and left the start the next phase of the adventure.