Before Choibalsan

"I miss you guys!  I have to be very brief; I'm in a strange internet cafe during lunch break. I'm going to Choibalsan.  It's the easternmost Aimag center in Mongolia.  I will have four sitemates, and they're all very cool.  There will also be three more within an hour and a half-long bus ride.  I hear that the city is extraordinarily flat and boring.  It was supposedly the site of a major Russian uranium mine, so it's mainly post-Soviet concrete-block buildings. I'm basically going to Siberia, (just a few hundred km south which is nothing here) except where they speak Mongolian.  On the plus side, it is on a special cargo train line to Siberia.  This means that it has the second-best food supplies in the country after Ulaan Baator.  All of us there have to live in apartments which have their plusses in comfort and their minuses in less of a neighborly experience to integrate with the community.  At least one of my counterparts lives in my building though.  They say that I will have internet at school, but I'm not sure about whether I can get it at home yet.   It's a three-year old school with six brand-new English teachers.  They want to become a school that specializes in foreign languages, and it seems that that's pretty much up to me.  Ahhh, I have to play piano at the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow!  The US ambassador and the Mongolian Foreign Minister will be there.  Sigh.  Lots of stress.  I'm very excited though.  Also, it's a 14 hour bus ride from UB to my site, so that will be fun.  I would encourage visitors to take advantage of the twice-a-week $100 (each way) flights.  I would, of course, spend part of your trip with you in UB, and we could go to the sites of some of my best friends here who live near UB in gers.  It would be pretty great.  Ach, have to go practice for tomorrow.  Bye!"

Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 12:41 AM