A culinery revelation and a new home

Hey all!

Well I did it. I managed to survive language school with my sanity intact. That is no mean feat I assure you. Every morning I would wake up and instead of feeling happy and looking forward to the day I would wake up and wonder what fresh hell would be delivered upon me. It's not that I'm not learning anything, quite the opposite in fact, I'm constantly learning new ways to stop my mind from melting in the face of all the bewildering pronunciations and the bane of my existence, grammar. In the afternoon we would all head off to our one-on-one tutelage with a student. Fate had ordained that I would be assigned a girl named Bolorchimeg. She was perfectly nice but spoke next to no English (at least I think she didn't, perhaps she was just toying with me). "But hold on" I hear you cry, "you're learning Mongolian, she doesn't necessarily need to speak English". Whilst that may technically be true it resulted in the continuation of our teachers' draconian methods, namely "I am going to say something, you will repeat it, AND get it right or I will prolong your embarrassing agony by repeating it a futher fifty times". Thankfully, my time in purgatory eventually came to an end and on Friday September 4th 2009, I emerged from language school blinking and squinting in the harsh glare of the sun, looking like a guy who has been mentally pummeled for 2 weeks. I did get a nice certificate out of it though, and I will reluctantly admit that my Mongolian has improved as a result of my time in this Guantanamo-esque language school.

The weekend was fairly hectic as it was the end of our in-country training and everyone would be moving out of the guesthouse and into their new homes. For some people this meant travelling a very long way. Apparently Mongolia is a pretty big country, who knew? I was due to move into my new place on Saturday the 5th and I would be sharing with Ruth, the volunteer whom I am replacing, until her two year 'stint' ended the following Thursday. In the end, I didn't move in until Sunday, but this meant I was free to enjoy my Saturday. I spent the afternoon visiting the Mongolian Women's Farmers Association and agrovating their guard dog so that I could get a good picture. Luckily for me it was chained up otherwise the headlines would have read 'Fool torn apart after annoying an already irate animal'.
In the evening most of our volunteer intake group, and a few more established guys, went out for dinner. Now there is something you must understand about my mindset at this juncture. I, like all the new volunteers, had been living on a meagre diet for three weeks due to our budget. The previous day we had all been paid our living allowance (although I recieved far less than I was expecting due to an annoying length of time between when VSO pays their share, and CYPPD pays theirs), and so on Saturday I was looking forward to a meal of moderate extravagence. Imagine my horror then, when I was told that we would be going to a vegetarian restaurant. That's right, you heard me correctly, a vegetarian restaurant. The thought of it filled me with a sense of dread the likes of which I have never felt before. My gastronomic dreams for the evening were dashed in one apocolpytic sentence...or so I though at the time. Never let it be said that life doesn't throw you pleasant surprises. It turns out that tofu isn't so bad after all! What was once a disturbing abboration of nature to be scoffed at from afar, transformed into a delicious sortayed (if thats how you spell it) dish. It was a moment of revelation comparable only to St Pauls vision on the road to Damascus (that's right, a biblical reference!). I am officially a tofu convert. Anyway, that's enough hyperbole for the moment, moving on.

I moved into my home for the year on Sunday, September 6th. My flat is on the ground floor of a large Soviet (big and grey) style apartment block. It is a pretty decent size, particularly for one person. When you enter, you come into a hall-way where I imagine I will be keeping my shoes and possibly drying my clothes. A door at the end of the small hall leads into the apartment proper. There is another hallway (which makes the first one seem a little unnecessary) which leads into the living room on the left, and towards the bedroom and bathroom on the right. There is no partition between this hallway and the living room and there are a number of cables snaking across it, the purpose and source of which I have yet to determine. The living room also has the kitchen attached in an open plan design. The kitchen is at one end of the room (which is pretty big), a table sort of acts as a dividing line between the two. There is a couch which, whilst not being the best couch in the world, is certainly not the worst. There is also a television but it doesn't work very well. It can pick up a fair few channels but they are mostly Russian, Chinese, or Mongolia. However, it does get BBC world news which is great. The screen is red and blurry but you can just about make it out. I don't think I will be watching it much though.
The bedroom is at the opposite end of the apartment. It is a good size and has a queen size bed. The only trouble is there isn't much in the way of a mattress. Ruth has been sleeping on a ger blanket, which isn't very thick or comfortable but she didn't mind as she wasn't going to be living there for very long. I am hoping my landlady will find me one. If not then I am sure it will be good for my back! The bedroom also has fitted cupboards but they are a bit loose and unstable, still, better than nothing! Until today I have been sleeping on the couch cusion in the spare room. Ruth has moved out now so I will finally be able to sleep in a proper bed!
The toilet and bathroom are in seperate rooms and I was delighted to discover that the shower is awesome (when there is hot water).

So I have learnt two things since my last post -

1/ Tofu is not the enemy.
2/ Whoever decorated my apartment really likes the colour green.

I also started work this week but I will save that for my next post. I am heading to the Gobi desert tomorrow so you can look forward to hearing about that as well. I hope you all realise how lucky you are!