Christmas: Mongolian Style Part 1

Wow! It is hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone. Some of you may be lamenting how quickly the festivities go by while others of you may be releaved that it is over. Whichever attitude you may have, allow us to share our Christmas time with you.

Our festivities began earlier in December when we purchased a small Christmas tree from one of the local stores. It is a great little tree about three feet tall! We bought a box of lights and a few ornaments to "spruce" it up a bit. It is amazing how much Christmas cheer a little tree can bring. Included in subsuquent packages were two stockings and a few more ornaments. All together, this little minagery helped us get more into the Christmas spirit.

However, as we all know, Christmas is about far more important things than just a few decorations. Christmas is about the time with family and friends. Unfortunately, since we are currently living on the other side of the planet we were unable to physically visit with our friends and family in the States. We were not able to attend any of the Christmas parties or drink any of the Egg Nog (not real upset about the Egg Not part), but we were able to spend some time with our new friends here. We actually did have a Christmas party at our home on the afternoon of Sunday December 20. We set this time as an opportunity to gather once again with our students from the two-week pracitcum course that we taught the end of November. Eight of our students were able to come! We were very excited to see them all again and to share a little more of our lives with them. Our teammates and one of our leaders were in attendance as well bringing our party total to 13 people and 1 cat. This is not bad at all when you consider how large our apartment is. This may not seem delightful to some of you (especially with those Christmas parties still fresh in you minds), but it was such a wonderful time! The close proximity aided in conversation. We ate homemade soup and stew (made with horse meat) for lunch and then had decorated Christmas cookies for desert. After several hours of visiting and showing pictures, we Americans shared some of our Christmas traditions, we all read a few portions of the Christmas story in both English and Mongolian, and sang two Christmas carols. Once we were all finished our students presented us with gifts. We were given a beautiful wolf picture painted onto leather as well as a leather pencil case and a leather key holder. No one really wanted to leave, but several of them had things they needed to do. Four of the students stayed to watch the Nativity Story movie on the big screen (we barrowed the company projector for the evening). Before everyone left, we set a time to get together with them again after the start of the new year. Several of them have continued to send us text messages and e-mails. We are very exctied to have these new friends and look forward to future opportunities to share with them!

Unfortunately, none of us thought to take pictures during the party. This is a really good picture of our students on the last day of our practicum session.

Following the Christmas party, we had our sights set on Christmas day and a three day weekend. We have been working very hard the past few months and were looking forward to a little time to rest and reflect. Our week was busy but went by without any problems. The anticipation continued to grow all week. Last year, Christmas was kind of a depressing time for us. This year, we got more giddy the closer it got. We may be far from home, but the joy this Christmas was overly abundant!

On Christmas Eve, we invited our teammates and Muhammad (one of our new friends) over to our apartment for dinner. We feasted on Italian Stallion (a dish of horse meat stewed with Italian seasonings and served on a piece of bread) and vegitables. We drank hot tea, played games, laughed, and shared the joy of the holiday together. This was also the first Christmas that Muhammad has ever celebrated before. What a treasure to be able to celebrate it with him for the first time!! We were all tired, so we parted around 8:30. We went to bed that night anticipating a good night's sleep and Christmas morning!

Christmas Cookie Time

Everybody loves cookies during Christmas time! Well, at least we do. Jennifer and I made a load of cookies this past weekend to have for a party with our former students. We will give more information about the party in a coming post. Not as many cookies were eaten during the party as we had expected. Don't get me wrong, the students enjoyed the cookies just as much as the next guy. Joshua enjoyed them even more if you can imagine that!

In the true spirit of Christmas (and because we didn't feel eating them all would be good for our health) we decided to share the remainder of the cookies with our Mongolian teachers and the men's group. These were all the leftover cookies. Unfortunately, a few of them did not last for long after the picture was taken.

We both took great joy in decorating the cookies. It is the small things that bring a lot of joy and bring back memories from our childhoods.

Cookies are fun and decorations are great, but we are reminded that the greatest part of the season is remembering whose birth we are celebrating. May we encourage you all to remember why you are celebrating. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Boxes, Oh How Exciting!

When we were living in TN, we almost dreaded going to the mailbox. It seemed all we ever got was junk mail or bills. Since we moved to Mongolia, our attitude has changed. We do not even have our own mailbox and physical mail is kind of scarce. We always love it when we find out that we have a card or a box! Yesterday afternoon we got a text message from one of the office ladies telling us that we had packages! Oh the joy! We dropped what we were doing and rushed off to our office to retrieve two boxes. We were thrilled! We had been given special instructions not to open one of the boxes until Christmas day, but the other box was fair game.

After a bit of effort (the box had been well sealed) Jennifer was able to open the package. It seemed like Christmas already! It is the little things from home that make life so enjoyable. We never knew how much sloppy joes and tacos would mean to us.

Our cat was even able to take part in all of the fun!

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Meat Market

Since we haven't blogged much in the past few weeks there is much that we need to catch up on. Therefore, it only makes sense to write two when we have time.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to go with one of our Mongolian friends out to the primary meat market in Ulaanbaatar. Unfortunately, we did not think to take the camera with us, so I will attempt to paint a mental picture for you.

Warning: This may be more vivid than you desire especially if you don't eat meat!

Odka, our Mongolian friend, picked us up early on Saturday morning. He was going to the market for his family anyway, so we had asked if we could go along too. He was happy to have us along. We left our house at about 7:30 am. The first rays of the sun had barely begun to lighten the sky. The air was cold and crisp. A thick haze of smoke, caused by the vast number of coal burning Gers and plants, lingered over the city. The smoke captured each ray and shattered its light across the sky. The colors of the sky ranged from a pale orange on the horizon to a deep grayish blue directly above us. The streets were fairly empty, so we made good time in getting to the market which is located at the northern edge of the city in the middle of a Ger district. The early light illuminated the numerous Gers on the surrounding hills belching forth their contribution to the haze. The market had already been open for a few hours by the time we arrived, so there was a considerable number of cars and people. Odka was able to find a spot large enough for his car. We were not far from the action. Upon exciting the car our breath became as thick as the smoke hung over our heads. The sounds and smells of our immediate environment were now quite clear. Massive trucks loaded down with the dead carcases of thousands of animals were clanking into the market every few minutes. The bellowing voices of the meat merchants boomed over the din of the surrounding crowd. The cold was evidenced by the large clouds of condensation that escaped their mouths. People, all bundled up in thick coats and hats, wondered around the trucks looking at the endless supply of meat. Some with handcarts made their way through the crowd with a yell or a push. I felt like we had just stepped into a picture out of a National Geographic magazine. We entered one of the buildings and purchased the quantity of meat that we wanted. While making our way back to the vehicle, we were not only threatened by an on-coming truck but we also saw an animal carcase that was still steaming. It was quite evident that this particular creature had been alive only a few moments before.

We purchased ten kilos of meat (about 22 pounds) while we were there. Five kilos were beef while the other five were horse. All together we spent about $20 for the lot. Not too bad for that much meat.

We Made It!

After two hectic weeks, we are finished with our teaching practicum. It is hard to believe that it has already come and gone, but we are relieved. It was one of the most challenging experiences that we have had since we arrived in Mongolia, but it was also a great time of learning and growth. We came to teach English. Now we feel more prepared to do that.

We started our class two weeks ago with twelve Mongolian English language teachers. When we finished on Friday we had thirteen students graduate. It was quite exciting to not only have everyone come the entire time but to also have more finish than started. That is very unusual for many of the programs here.

Our students had a wide range of experience. Several had been or were currently Russian language teachers. Some had been teaching for many years while others had only been teaching for one year. Regardless of what they had done and where they came from, all of them were equally enthusiastic about bettering their English abilities. They were such a joy to teach and work with! We saw everyone improve during the two weeks that we were with them. They taught us so many things about teaching. Having been with them has helped us be more prepared for our real classroom next semester.

During our time together we not only shared a lot about ourselves and our culture, but we were able to learn a lot more about Mongolia and its customs and traditions. During two of the activities in our second week we learned a lot about two Mongolian festivals, Наадам and Цагаан Сар. For those of you who can't read Cyrillic, the festivals are Naadam and Tsagaan Sar. We were very excited to learn more about Mongolian traditions and celebrations. It was even better that we were learning about them from people who celebrate them every year. It is one thing to read about something in a book or magazine and another to hear about it from someone who really cares. We could see in their eyes what each celebration meant to them.

Overall, we had a lot of fun together. The curriculum in our organization is focused on making the students talk a lot in English. In order to do this, the program has many activities and games that get the students up and talking to each other. Many of the activities are so fun that the students forget that they are in a class. Such was the case in the picture above. We actually had to create the activities for the last three days of our class. To emphasize three past verb tenses that we had been teaching, we had each student wear a stylish vest with a verb on it. One student stood in the middle with a paper "bopper." One student in the circle had to yell their verb in the appropriate tense and someone else's verb in the same tense before the "bopper" had a chance to smack them. All of us took part and had a lot of fun. We practiced and reinforced what had been taught without the students even realizing it.

We were able to be an influence on our students and to be a part of their lives for two weeks. Many of them opened up and shared some very deep things with us, and we were able to respond with an open heart and a smile. In turn, we were able to share much of our lives with them. On the final day of class, after the party and certificate presentation, our students refused to leave. They all sat down and told us how much they had enjoyed the class and that they were not ready for it to be over. We have invited them all to our house for a Christmas party later in the month. The class may be over, but, with luck, we can still be a part of their lives.

Keeping Busy

Needless to say, we have been really busy the last few weeks. For this reason, we have been a little negligent in updating the blog. It may be long in coming, but here it goes.


This past Monday we (Joshua, Jennifer, and our two teammates) finally began our two-week teaching practicum. It has been shuffled around several times because of the impact that H1N1 has made in Mongolia. It was finally decided a week from last Friday that we could have our practice class. We were nervous and felt a little under prepared, but we were set to teach. The Mongolian English teachers that had enrolled in the course all taught classes in the morning, so we had to adjust our class hours from the morning to the afternoon. We did not complain about this because it gave us more time in the morning to make final preperations for the day's class. However, this also means that we have a limited amount of time in the evening and night to be able to prepare and do other neccesities of life.
The class goes from 1 pm to 4:15 pm. The teaching load has been evenly divided between us and our teammates, but we still have a lot to prepare for each class. We have 14 students who are all great! They all have varying levels of English abilities, but all have improved during this past week. It is both exciting and encouraging that we are able to help each of them! It is so fun to see them learn and to take part in their joy. One of our leaders made a very interesting comment. She said that it is funny how we are able to help others because we learned something that we didn't even know we were learning. How awesome!
Our experince has been a rollercoaster of feelings. It is been stressful, exciting, frightning, discouraging, thrilling, uplifting, and overall tireing. However, we are where we are and are doing what we are doing for a purpose. We have been strengthened and encouraged. We still have a week to go before we are finished teaching. We all know that it is going to be difficult and tireing, but we are learning a lot. This time will be invaluable to us next semester when we are teaching every week.


In the next few days, we will be administering a test and grading our student's practice teaching times. These are all new experiences for us. Please remember us during this coming week.

After all of our class is over, we will update you on how it went.

Getting Chilly

You may remember that we had our first snow in September. Well, after that day, which was rather chilly, the temperature went back up. Up is a little relative. Our high temperatures ranged from the mid 40s to the mid 30s on a daily basis. However, about four weeks ago the temperature decided to drop rapidly. We are now lucky if the high temperture makes it into the double didgets. The high today was a balmy 4 degrees Farenhite. Although right now, at 3 in the afternoon, it feels like 13 below. The low for tonight is a teeth chattering 19 bellow. It is always a little unnerving when the Weather Channel says that the temperature will be "bitterly cold." We have the possiblity for snow in the morning with a daytime time high of 3.



The only problem about the cold is that our main mode of transportation from one place to another is walking. We bundle up as best as we can, but sometimes we just get cold regardless. Thankfully, all of the buildings have really good heat. Most of the time we are sweeting under our coats before we can get them off.



The one thing that we are dreding the most is the comming summer. Alabama and Illinios in the middle of summer are going to be our undoing. If you see us stuffing ice down our shirts during the summer you will all know why.

Жижиг Update

If you didn't remember, Жижиг (Jejeg) is the name of our cat. Being the proud cat owners that we are, we figured you all would like an update on our feline. Жижиг has quickly become part of our family. He can be a bit agrivating at times, but for the most part he is a good kitty. We think he has been good for both of us. He has made us laugh so much. He also likes to crawl up in our laps and take a nap.
Unfortunatly, because our schedule is so demanding, we have to leave him at home by himself a lot. We have turned our spare room into his room. The floor is littered with his toys, he has a nice box for a bed, his litter box, and food are all provided for him. However, he gets lonely, so whenever we are home he likes to spend time with us.

He just makes himself comfortable wherever he can find a place to lay. This includes our laps, stomaches, legs, arms, and feet. During the day, when we are home, he will crawl up with us and sleep, but we never know when he will wake up into play mode. Whenver he is not sleeping he usually wants to play.Even though he is generally a good kitty, he often needs to be reminded that he is not the master of the house. Sometimes we have to banish him to his room for a little while to teach him that he should not bite or play too rough.However, we don't think he has life too bad. The majority of his time is spent doing nothing,but we love him! He has brought us a lot of joy and laughter. He has helped us relieve a lot of stress and remember that life is not that bad.

Morning Surprises

Today we got up to a beautiful sunrise, ate breakfast, and prepared for language class like any other morning. We bundled up since the high temperature for the day was only supposed to be in the mid 30s and headed down the stairs. Much to our surprise, we discovered that our apartment building has a new indoor swimming pool! Actually, one couldn't get more than a good wade out of this body of water, but it was large enough to cover the entire floor between the stairs and the outside door. First, this was quite a sight for us since we were still partially asleep. At first we thought our eyes were playing tricks on us, but that would have been too easy. Second, after discovering that the pool before us was not a figment of our imaginations, we had to determine a means to cross over it. This was no small puddle of water. There were at least two inches by the time we left this morning. Thankfully, someone had strategically placed three large stones in the water making it possible for a person to cross from the staircase to the door without soaking their shoes. This was not the most stable means of walking, but it served its purpose. When we returned to our apartment building after class, we found that the pool had only grown in depth. Whereas it was only two inches when we left, it was at least three inches by the time we returned. By that time someone had set a bench on the floor as a means to ford our new body of water. This was much easier than the rocks but was still not as sturdy to walk on as we would have liked.

What caused this lake to form is unknown to us. We believe a pipe broke during the night causing the flood. Our only concern is the type of pipe that busted. When we returned home we noticed a distinct smell lingering above the water as well as things floating in the water. You can only imagine what that might mean.

Whatever the cause or type of water, we are not complaining. We are the adventures type, and this event only added variety and excitement to our day!

Round One

On Monday we taught our first real English class. We and our teammates were assigned several activities to lead during the three hour class. These activities are similar to some that we will be using regularly when we get into our actual class next semester. Monday provided us with some practice time under the watchful eye of our country curriculum director.

Nerves abounded and sleep fled, but we prepared as best as we could. On Monday, following our language lesson, we walked to the school where the class was to be held. We got there early enough to set up the room and do some last minute preparations. Slowly, our students arrived. We ended up having 17 Mongolian English teachers in attendance. This was a good number but less than what we were expecting. Our curriculum director began the lesson with the first activity and then handed it off to us for the remainder of the time.

The activities were fun and the students participated well! We did well considering it was our first time teaching in Mongolia. Some hindrances were pointed out, and some positive changes were suggested. Over all the experience was a good one, and it has prepared us more for our two week practicum class that we will be teaching in less than two weeks from now. Round two is just around the corner, and we have a lot of preparing to do!

Fun All Around!

When we set up this blog long before we left the US we thought that living in Mongolia would produce daily adventures, many of which we would convey to you on a regular basis. However, little did we know that life, even in Mongolia, has a day to day routine. Many of the things we do on a daily basis are adventurous by our normal standards, but in the two months that we have lived here they have simply become routine. Therefore, we often don't seem to have much to write about. We do try to update the blog as often as possible and do think of you all often. Please forgive us if we don't update as often as we would have originally liked.

Now, for the blog post! One of the primary aspects of our organization is team. We work in teams and do many things throughout the week within our team. Beyond our particular team, there is the greater Mongolia team. In order to promote greater teamwork and relationships between teachers we have monthly get-togethers. Some are for fun while others are more work related. These times are a great way for us to get together and share in what we are all doing. Normally, we do not see much of each other because the three teams here are spread across the city. One team is on the west side of town, another is on the east side of town, and the third (our team) is in the center of the city. Therefore, it takes time to get together, but it is well worth it!

On Sunday evening our whole team gathered at the west side's apartment for a pseudo-Halloween/Fall Festival Party. In the spirit of the festivity, all in attendance were asked to dress up. Needless to say, there was an interesting assortment of costumes. For dinner we had a baked potato bar and a yummy carrot salad. Afterwards, we had cake, cookies, and apples. The meal was topped off by homemade mulled apple cider! We played games, sang songs, and had a wonderful time of sharing together. Also, in attendance was a dear couple from the States. They were here for a short visit and where able to take part in the fun. Here are just a few of the crazy costumes, including ours. Try to guess who we are dressed as.
Amidst the stress of living and working in a foreign country, such activities bring a lot of joy and laughter. We are very thankful for our team and for their generosity and hospitality. They make life a little more interesting and fun!

Our New Addition

For those of you who follow our blog regularly, we apologize for our delay in posting something new. We have had a very hectic schedule, and it is only going to get busier. This has caused a good deal of stress and anxiety over the past week. However, we are trying to lean on each other and, most of all, the one who directed us here. In the midst of all our stress, we have an exciting announcement! We have a new addition to our family! No, we are not expecting a child (yet), but we adopted a cat. For those of you who know me (Joshua) well, this might come as a surprise. From the time of my youth, I have not been a big cat fan; however, once you hear our story you may understand the transformation.A couple weeks ago we visited a fellow teacher's house and played with her cat. We were already under a lot of stress and pressure, but being around the cat was surprisingly soothing to our nerves. After dinner that night Jennifer and I began talking about the possibility of getting a cat, but we made no plans to do so in the near future. Little did we know, our lot as pet less people was about to change. On our way home from language class a week and a half ago, we found a kitten in the stairwell of our apartment building. He was sitting on a high window ledge cold and frightened. The sight was more than we could bare. We had no desire to leave him out in the cold to die, so we took him to our apartment. He warmed himself by the radiator and ate a little food. It was not long before he stretched out on our laps to take a nice long snooze. Needless to say, we were both sunk. If leaving him out in the elements to begin with was not an option then sending him back out into them certainly wasn't. We verified with our landlord that we could have a pet and then began thinking of a name for our new kitty. Knowing that he is a Mongolian cat we decided he needed a Mongolian name, so we dubbed him Жижиг Баатар (it is pronounced Jeejeeg Baatar). It means Little Hero!
Not knowing how healthy or sick our new little fellow might be, we took him to the vet a few days after finding him. Along with our fellow cat owner,we went to the only vet in Mongolia. Thankfully our fellow teacher knew about it and where it is located. It was started by a group of foreigners who came to train Mongolians how to care for animals. It provided jobs and valuable information to many of the Mongolian herders. We learned that our kitty is in perfect health for his age and only needs a little more calcium in his diet. Being unfamiliar with the price of a vet in Mongolia, we prepared for the worst. However, his checkup, vaccination, and de-wormer medicine only cost us about $13. Those of you who own pets are probably picking yourselves up off the floor right now. This too was such a blessing because, as I am sure many of you can imagine, we are not swimming in Төгрөг (Mongolian currency). After his vet visit, we bought him some food, litter, and a few other accouterments to make his life more enjoyable.

He has been such a blessing! Having him has helped alleviate a lot of stress. Besides, we know that we rescued him from certain death. Pets are not a common thing in Mongolia. Many people have dogs but train them to be defensive attack animals, and cats are not widely liked at all. They are considered to be bad luck. It was evident when we found our cat that he had already been tormented and beaten. We feel like he was left on that window just for us. He has quickly become a very spoiled member of the family, but we think he is worth it!

New Creations

When we came to Mongolia we knew that we would experience and eat many new things. We were expecting a few familiar things as well. Turns out that we have seen and eaten a lot of familiar things, including pizza. You can not imagine how thrilled we were about that! Jennifer, being the masterful cook that she is, decided to make a pizza of her own for dinner a few days ago. I, having eaten her pizza before, was very excited about this idea. Our thoughts drifted to the toppings. What should we pile onto this masterful creation?

Remember my first sentence?

Feast your eyes on Jennifer's new creation which we have dubbed The Mongolian Steppe. Feel free to drool a little. It turns out that many of the things we are used to take on a different spin living in another country. The toppings on this bad boy included horse meat (yes, we do eat Trigger), onions, mushrooms, and cilantro. The thing was quite delicious!! However, I doubt many of you have ever considered horse meat on a pizza. We have had to adjust to many things, but this place is our home. We are able to make it feel that way by the things we do and make even though those things may be done differently. Different is not bad but beautiful. We are thankful for what we have and what has been provided to us.

I challenge all of you reading this to remember us and lift us up to the Father every time you eat pizza.

We are thankful for all of your support and need it every day!

Class Time

Every weekday from 9am till noon we gather around this table to fill our minds with the Mongolian language. Most days our heads hurt after class, but we also have a lot of fun too.
We have two wonderful language teachers who have been very patient with us. We have learned so much from them and are very thankful that they are our teachers.


At the end of every lesson we record what we learned that day so that we can listen to it later.

Who said you couldn't have a little fun while studying. Somedays laughing is the only way to maintain our sanity.

Country Pictures

Just a little taste of the country life, Mongolian style!