Life is very hectic over here at the moment, but since most of my friends have left the country I should have more time to update now. I keep planning to then other stuff gets in the way, sorry bout that.
Oookay trying to pick up from last time, Scott left the country a week and a half ago on the monday morn (on the designated day, incredibly). I had little time to do anything that week because Linda and I were tasked to getting the #18 School debating team up to scratch for a competition with some other schools that Saturday and Sunday.
So in all our free time we were researching the topics and we spent several hours after school each day practising with the team (1 boy, 4 girls, all 11th grade). The topics were issues such as biofuels, mining in the Antartic, cancelling third world dept, genetic modification etc, etc. Linda was fantastic and spurred us all along with her enthusiasm and knowledge and I tried to make input where I could. When the team saw the list of teams they would be up against on Saturday, they were terrified! All the teams were from private schools where they speak english in all classes at school (including maths, science etc) and the #18 team only spoke it for 4 or 5 hours a week. Despite all this they came up to me on Monday, thrilled; they had beaten the russian school and the 'Hobby' school (the school where the competition was held) and made it through to the rounds on Sunday which was a huge achievement since they had no teachers supporting them and all the judges were from the other competing schools. Unfortunately they were beaten by the american school on the Sunday but one girl was offered a place on the Mongolian debating team to compete internationally!
Last week after I had 'inherited' the bed off Ann, I discovered the sheer horror of bedbugs. I kept waking up to my arms, face, back, neck and feet being covered in bites, akin in nature to blisters and so bloody itchy that even midgie bites paled in comparison. Grrrrr I was not so happy. I managed to keep the worst effects at bay by medication from the lil goody bag my dad packed for me but on Monday I gave up and went to Chimge for help (I didn't really want to say and embarrass her) and she got some spray yesterday. Apparently the instructions were along the lines of "Spray the bed and room then evacuate the flat immediately for at least half an hour". So I had a lovely bite free night last night :). Sheer bliss.

Anyways, I had a very interesting and fun weekend. On Saturday the teachers had a day out to a mountain with a (Buddist) deity on the summit- a creature with an eagles' head eating a snake, with the volunteers invited. It turned to be all the female language teachers (although I have yet to meet a male language teacher now that I think about it), some retired female language teachers (one lady was the only female Mongolian to climb Everest and something of a celebrity), Linda, Grits (the German, German teacher) and myself.
Linda and I turned up at the school in time for the 9am get away on the mini bus, although (as Chimge predicted) we didn't actually leave until after 10am, typical Mongolian style. Again Mongolian style we crammed into the bus squeezing the extra bodies on the back seat eventually set off down the bumpy road out of the city, as the numerous vodka and wine bottles were passsed around to be held seperately to avoid breakage and several teachers got started on the beer. About an hour/ hour and a half later we pulled into a tourist gher camp beneath the mountain on a beautiful sunny day with a bitingly cold breeze. While the renting of a gher was negociated the rest of us took advantage of the toilet facilities, two old wooden cubicles with no doors facing away from the camp with a spectacular view looking down the valley, a long drop between the wooden floorboards and a really really nasty stench (fancy that!).
The gher however was lovely, a huge, ornate table in the middle next to a wood buring stove and four beds round the walls which seated the 15-20 people in our party comfortably. The teachers came very well prepared and immediately started preparing lunch on the table; Mongolian salami, cucumber, tomatoes, bread, a strange smokey, salty cheese and rice and they fried fat and meat on the stove. During lunch the first vodka bottle was passed round and poor Linda (who hasn't touched alcohol for 3 years) found that "No thanks" wasn't an accepted answer. Then we split into two groups, some teachers stayed in the gher while most (including the volunteers) went to climb the mountain which was going to be a 4 hour trek. As it happens in Mongolia things never turn out quite how you plan them, so instead we had a 6-7 hours leisurely wander up and down the 'mountain' which was really more of a hill. We stopped every few hundred metres for short breaks where we drank red wine and the Mongolians all sang songs (and they could all sing quite beautifully) until they decided that the volunteers should also perform, starting with me. I played along and raised my horrific singing voice to "Auld Lang Syne" thinking that I wouldn't have to be embarrassed as everyone had to sing, but somehow Grits and Linda managed to avoid the sing-song. On top of the mountain the teachers paid their respects to the shrine (huge and covered with strips of blue cloth) by throwing milk ("milk?! is that MILK?! where did they get the milk?!) onto the shrine and placing offerings of food and sweets at its base. Then we had a lengthy photographing session before realising it was soon going to be too dark to get down the mountain. When we eventually made it back to the gher after dark, the teachers who stayed behind had prepared dinner (same as luch except this time there was sausages and a watery soup made out of boiled animal bones) and more vodka was passed round and more singing ensued. We eventually got home around 10pm to collapse into bed.
The next morning we had a 10am start as Chimge had organised a trip to a national park. So we set off from Ulaan Baatar around 11ish with myself, Sete (a Mongolian working with New Choice), Linda, David (an Itailan I met at the embassy party, who has lived in the city for 6 years, who likes cheese and talking about cheese and other Italian foodstuffs), Katia (another Italian Linda and I met at a theatre who is working for an NGO to set up a program in the south-west) and Davids two poodles in Sete's car.
After about an hour of driving, talking (mainly about cheese and other foods) and farting on the poodles part we reached Tererlj (spelling?) National Park which has a massive rock shaped like a turtle. After 10 minutes we decided it was too touristy and we were put off by all the drunkards wandering round so we decided to go to see David's Dutch friend (who also loves cheese and making cheese) who lives 20 minutes up the road. We were stopped on the way there by a river and so had to wait for the Dutch dude to come and get us in his landrover (he said 5 minutes so we waited for half an hour). We eventually got to his place, a small, hut which seemed to have only 2 rooms, surrounded by ghers (a small sort-of-tourist camp).
Linda, David and myself went for a half hour ride round the valley (almost deserted apart from the huge herds of goats and their mounted sheperds). In the end Linda went on a half hour ride before turning back and David and I wanted to go for the full hour so we carried on. The Mongolian horses are an apsolute delight to ride, you don't kick them you say "chuu!" to make them go faster, they're quite small ponies but they're all go.
David and I carried on up the valley with our guide through a lovely wooded area till we reached the open ground and, finding that we where late (we needed to leave by 3pm and it was 2:50), simply had to gallop all the way back to the camp. Well I kind of decided that part being more experienced, as did our over-enthusiastic horses, David had never been past trot before but he did very well and managed to cling on and keep up. So we set off "chuu! chuu! chuu! chuu! chuu!!!" a lot of fun :). Arriving back at the camp we had pan after pan of potatoes and cheese (suprisingly delicious) and David and I bought some cheese. Well I didnt know I was buying it until I had to pay ("I bought cheese? When?! Why did I buy cheese?!") so I ended up with a massive chunk of delicious cheese which I have been eating for breakfast to even out the unpleasantness of the stale bread. We eventually left an hour late but made it back before a certain shop closed (Linda had to pick up a lot of pre-paid shopping). Linda stayed over at Chimge's that night so I helped with her packing and Sete arrived again at 4:30 to take her too the airport.
Not a lot else to tell, I went for a meal out with Sete and Katia last night, had a hotpot which is either Mongolian or Chinese and a lot of fun in a lovely place with a glowing tree. There was a powercut but we managed to pay and stumble out the door by the light of our phones.
Today is some sort of celebration of old, retired people so I've been invited along to something or other in about an hour, don't really know what it is, a teacher asked me along to it in a noisy crowed hall and the only part of the conversation I really caught was when she leaned in and whispered "...and drink beer!".
So I have to run, sorry to everyone who has sent me emails I will reply to them when I can.
Thats all for now.