The Year That Keeps On Newing

Lunch Guests for "Tsagaan Sar" (Lunar New Year)

Happy New Year, Everyone! ... Again... 😆 I say this because we're just recently wrapped up a big holiday season in Mongolia, the Lunar New Year. This entailed a two week break from school and one week off of work... but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

During the Christmas break I was able to try the nation's one and only skiing place (so far?I heard rumor that there is or will be a new one). It was tiny but nearby and cheap (rental + ticket = about $12 for 3 hours) and was fun to get on a board again for the first time in a while. Unfortunately I had to go solo, as Yaejin's condition is not advisable for learning to ski or board for the first time!  Given the size and temperature of the place, the three hour timespan was enough for me, but I think it would be a good place to teach people how to do it! I hope i'll get a chance to try that some time. 

On January 3 I started on as a consultant/trainer for the local branch of the English curriculum we used to teach in Japan. I enjoy getting out a little bit and having a bus ride + walk for a change of scenery and feeling of independence (since I still haven't been able to get my driver's license until my green card is returned to me from its updates) -- though starting in the dead of winter was a little extreme, perhaps! This company has ties with the ministry, and will prove helpful in streamlining my green card renewals and presumably help Yaejin's case for getting into the U.S. each time we return now that I have an official salaried job. 
My expectation was that I would only be on part-time and thus well able to handle it along with my current teaching and language classes, but on my first day they hit me with "And we have two teacher training seminars at the end of this month, we'd like for you to be part of the training for that." So that meant I had to jump in pretty fully in order to be up to speed on presenting/co-teaching those events just 3 weeks later.  The first was a teachers' "Refresher Training" and the second, a two-day "Foundation Training." The presentations were divided between me and the two other trainers who have been working here.  Ultimately they turned out fairly well and I enjoyed being a part of it -- meeting new people, doing stage presentation, answering questions, feeling well-enough equipped due to the strong training we enjoyed at the kindergarten in Japan, etc. The Mongolian branch of the company hasn't had any native speakers on staff, so that itself can strengthen the perception of the curriculum among potential clients.  Anyway, it was a fun, tiring time. 

Teachers doing a group practice activity
during our second, 2-day training seminar.

After these events I shifted focus to going through the company's official training path, and have also been providing advice/feedback for video recordings of client teachers' classes. I had planned to do an in-person visit as well, which will be a good chance to see more sides of Mongolian life, but that plan was met with a delay, as I'll get to shortly. 

Young adults helping make dumplings. We ended up with about 400 I think.

From the beginning of February began Tsagaan Sar! Yaejin organized a dumpling stuffing party at our house (getting some of the "youth" / young adults to help cut, stuff, fold, and freeze the dumplings to be steamed for each visit we were to receive as part of the holiday celebrations. On the first day we went to three homes and had two couples come to ours (total 4 "meal/teatime" visits).  It was nice to get to know our fellow church members like that -- we've been invited here and there, and had some of them over once or twice, but since our regular church gathering is still not taking place my interactions with them tend to be pretty limited. I teach their kids. However, it naturally was also quite exhausting to spend the entire day doing visits at tables filled with food and snacks! In order to go to each home, and have each of them come to ours, it turned out to be a pretty full week, although not quite as packed as that first day. I enjoyed getting to connect with each family, but by the end of the week I felt like I needed an empty day, and I was ready to eat something other than dumplings and pasta- / potato- / fruit- salads! In that regard I benefitted from Yaejin's multi-cultural heritage, however, as she made more Chinese/Korean style dumplings rather than the Mongolian version that we had everywhere else.  It's been long enough now that I wouldn't mind having all of those things again, come to think of it.....

The Mongolian families always had this stack of  curd cakes present
 -- which I happily ignored.

A big, varied meal at our neighbors'!

The next week I continued most of my curriculum work online, and school was on break, so I was able to recover with half-days of work. However, this leads to the newest little hurdle for us. On Thursday the entire church went out together to go sledding on a long, gently sloping hill. Fun was had by all, but after about an hour I was pretty much done with it. A few of the younger teenagers (13-15) were trying to stand on the sleds, so I tried amusing myself with that as well. After several times doing so with varying success it went wrong. When i felt myself starting to lose control I would just step off of the sled and slide on the snow, not wanting to fall over. For some reason, this particular time doing so resulted not in my foot sliding on the snow as before, but sticking fast into it while the rest of me kept sliding on the sled. I twisted awkwardly and fell, with severe pain in my ankle. I also thought I had heard a sound, but couldn't be sure if that had been my body, or just the sled colliding with my boot, or something else entirely -- even my imagination?  Anyway, the pain lasted for longer than I've experienced with sprains in the past, and I was seriously concerned, but the guys with me asked if I could wiggle my toes without pain, and I could. So they all started opining that it was probably a really bad sprain, and those swell up too and can take a long time to heal, but probably no damage to the bone. Believing this, I hobbled about on crutches, resumed teaching, and even had started standing on it some before deciding that a week without the swelling fully going down probably warranted a doctor's input and went to the hospital, hoping to get a brace or some advice. 

When the doctor bent my foot up and down and side to side, everything felt fine. But when he applied pressure to the sides the "bump" of my ankle really hurt. So he had me get an x-ray and the next thing I know they were wrapping my leg up in green casting, as there was a fracture after all. So that's been frustrating. I can't take out the trash, go to stores, carry much at once, and it takes me longer to get things around the house -- all while Yaejin is 4-months pregnant! I later caught a stomach bug and was truly pathetic for about 30 hours. A fine pair we make now, but at least I didn't cause damage by trying to walk on it, and the cast will come off in a few weeks and I'll be able to help out more as she gets bigger! 

Other than that, things are going along as well as ever. We continue to feel good about our connection with the young "youth" adults and my 11-14 year-old students. This week the parents are invited to watch our classes, so that is a new and exciting thing for everyone.  

Of course, the Ukraine news has rocked the world and troubled us all. Many Mongolians take the position that Putin is justified and Ukraine was asking for trouble by flirting with NATO when they know Russia can't allow that, etc.  Mongolians are generally very positive toward Russia. I was surprised, therefore, to hear that a Russian person living over here was assaulted by some locals in some misplaced attempt to enact punishment on "you Russians think you can just have your way with other countries."  The police contacted our school's Russian teacher to warn her to be careful in public with such sentiments flying about.. so it seems that the Mongolians are quite divided on the topic.

The news also has given me a strange awareness of my own national identity, which I also experienced some after the Afghan withdrawal. Generally I hadn't considered my nationality as a huge factor in my day to day life, fancying myself a good unique individual. This experience of questioning the moral intentions of America's actions, however, has given me a strange sense of guilt or frustration. Almost like a chip off of some confidence I hadn't realized i possessed. That isn't to say I know for certain how we should have responded, but feeling like "terrible things are happening to people and my country is not attempting to stop it" was a kind of overwhelming consternation for those instances. It's a new insight into the whole realm of how one's nationality (unchosen) can affect the psyche. I would love to learn more about that, since it's so unfamiliar to me, rejecting the notion of monolithic national traits. But that is a conversation for another time.  Yet another reminder that our primary citizenship is not meant to be the earthly kingdom on our passports, but the Kingdom of Christ to come. In that Kingdom I am copatriot and brother to many Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Afghani, Americans, and on and on.