So tomorrow morning I leave for home! :-) I haven't had hot water in three days so advance warning to my peoples back home. If I smell, it's not my fault! Working and living in Mongolia has been an experience of monumental highs and lows. Although it was difficult to imagine that I would ever adjust, it is now difficult to imagine leaving. Part of Mongolia returns home with me and I feel that I have accomplished all I wanted to acheive and more. I am looking forward to returning and sharing my experiences, pictures, and myself with my academic community [View Full Entry]

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Sunday We left the Golden Gobi in high spirits. We have a guy from Israel, a guy from Slovenia, a woman from German, a woman from Australia, and two women (including me) from the US. Beautiful landscapes stretch out all around us. The vast distances between blips of civilization are astounding. We saw lakes and lots of grazing animals: sheep, goats, cows, and herds of horses. The horses are half wild, grazing for most of the year and brought in on occasion when needed. Our driver Baira is very outgoing and loves to sing along to his music. He plays traditional [View Full Entry]

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Hello my peoples! Just got back from 9 days touring the Gobi Desert and Central Mongolia. In a word? AMAZING. There is nothing that I can mentally compare to the astounding beauty and mutability of the Mongolian landscape. We experienced forests, lush grasses, bleak plains, flaming cliffs, ice glaciers, golden sand dunes, and the more atypical desert landscape you might expect. All in all, the Gobi is an amazing place that cannot be defined or explained in any adequate form. But I'll do my best :-) Next time that is. Not enough time to go through the whole thing at this [View Full Entry]

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This Saturday has been one of the best days I've enjoyed since being here in Mongolia. I piled into a micro-bus with Carrie and some of the school kids and we headed to Terelj. Along the way, we instantly blew a tire and the experienced drivers (flat tires are notoriously common on Mongolian roads) had the tire changed in 5 minutes. Then we spent an hour winding through the beautiful countryside, eventually coming upon the Terelj valley. We paid the National Park costs and once inside the park immediately came upon a couple who waited on the side of the road [View Full Entry]

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So a couple of stories just to update my life in the recent week: Walking to work on Thursday I was suddenly accosted by a Mongolian man walking with his family. He grabbed me quite insistently by the hand and said “Sain bainuu! Hello!” As I was getting ready to say “no” to whatever it was he was planning on selling me, I was in for a surprise! “You are Canada?” “Uh, no American. The United States?” He nods vigorously, quite pleased. <insert Mongolian word for basketball, and he makes a clear demonstration of shooting a basketball> “Ah yes, I [View Full Entry]

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So last night I had the distinct pleasure of attending a traditional "horse-head fiddle" (morin khuur) concert. It was really really awesome and I was impressed by how the fiddle has the ability to sound native american at one stroke and then distinctly mongolian in the next. There was even a musician from the United States who played a melody about horses (he was very, VERY good) and he ended his performance by informing the audience that "I LOVE MONGOLIA!" (in Mongolian of course.) The audience was SO tickled by this and I was proud to be an American at that [View Full Entry]

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So last week we had a morning of snow! I also heard from the International Studies Coordinator at Evergreen that they got an inch of snow on April 19th, setting a record for latest recording of snow. Quite amazing to think how our climate is continuing to change. It's only going to get more intense from here on out I think. Here are some pictures of our snow day. [View Full Entry]

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Having just watched the Democrat speeches in North Carolina I feel that I need to take a minute to talk about the the elections. First of all, I am so excited and I feel so privileged to be alive in a time where an African American and a woman can run for President of the United States. Both democratic candidates spoke with admirable conviction and there's no doubt that they both are excellent public speakers. It's been a long time since I have felt motivated enough to lay aside my political cynicism. There is not a doubt in my mind that [View Full Entry]

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Okay so the visa thing worked out. Finally. My boss offered to take the train with me across the Chinese border for a day and then head back but in the end the organization just paid the fines. This trip to immigration (an extremely crowded and saturated with a general sense of "what the fuck do I do?") was far less traumatic as this time I had a translator so I actually knew what the hell was happening. Speaking of which, on the way to immigration I asked if Boska and Gala were married. They are ALWAYS together but of course [View Full Entry]

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Now I must admit that I am absolutely furious with my host organization right now. They decided today to check my passport and then take me to immigration where I found out that because I did not register within the first 7 days of my arrival I have to pay $200 plus a per day visa extension fee (bring it all to about $350.) Problem: If I pay that $350 that means for the next month that I am here I can do NOTHING except stay in a guesthouse, budget my food money, and basically stay in the city. I don't [View Full Entry]

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