Non-TEFL PCV/CP PDM IST Outside UB and MORE!

Since our last post a few weeks ago, a lot has happened. We spent 4 days attending in-service training with our Mongolian counterparts at a hotel outside the capital Ulaanbaatar (UB), I went to Sukhbaatar (our training site) by train to speak at a chamber of commerce conference, Leslie presented two days of music therapy to social workers , and we both had a blast hanging out with all our best PC buds. I'll give you the skinny on the interesting parts of the technical.

Prodigal Son Returns to Sukhbaatar
After Thanksgiving, I had a week to fill with work I thought was going to be with my host agency in their UB office, but at the last minute I was invited to Sukhbaatar to present an activity on business ethics with two other PCVs, one of whom helped plan and organize the event. I replaced my pal Darren who had a last minute conflict. Thankfully, he had already prepared most of the materials ahead of time. The materials were supposed to be translated in Sukhbaatar, but the translator canceled at the last minute. Instead, I called our Mongolian tutor in Bayankhongor, bribed her to translate them, and after some email confusion, got them back in time for the presentation.

To get there, I took the slowest train on the face of the planet overnight Wednesday, arriving at 6 am Thursday. It was a sleeper car mostly to myself, which I got my money's worth out of. When I finally got into town, I got phone directions from Garrett, who I was staying with, then walked in the -30F morning frigidly across the street toward his place. With no one else on the street, I was greeted by a young police officer patrolling the area by foot. He asked why I was there, I told him in Mongolian and he said back to me, "Oh, yes. American. He lives right here." Then in English, he counted to four with a smile, pointing to where Garrett's apartment was on the fourth floor and wished me well.

The conference was long, but information-packed for the Selenge Province business delegates who attended. One interesting point I'll always remember is that one day they had to scrap the afternoon's programming because of a last minute scheduling conflict of the key speaker, so everyone had the afternoon off. The next day, probably half of the twenty participants showed up hungover, some didn't show at all and some went back to the hotel for lunch and didn't return. Good to know.

Also, by the fourth day, they were done hearing presentations through a translator. If I do something similar, I'll try not to do much presenting unless it's an activity. A half hour spoken presentation is over an hour, which is grueling for everyone involved.

Incidentally, my presentation went off well. I had them break into four groups and discuss scenarios. Prompted by questions, they discussed child labor, environmental impact, office supply theft, and gender equality. The answers were pretty standard, but it's interesting to note that most offices are made up of women, though most managers are men. No one really saw a problem with that.

Here I am writing my name on the board. You can see it written in both Latin and Cyrillic letters. In Cyrillic, I spell it phonetically, but on my ID it's spelled like "nah-tahng", which isn't very helpful in getting my attention from across a room.

As per custom for any gathering of people, we all sat for an amusing photo to remember the event. I posed Mongolian style for this one. Only Garrett (bot right) feigned a smile.

The best part of the trip, of course, was getting to spend some time with my host family. My host mom was thrilled to stuff my face for two hours and talk about everything that's happened since I left in August. We missed each other a lot. She was extremely peeved to know I wasn't going to be staying overnight there. My little host sister took a minute to warm up, but we had a good time counting in Mongolian while attending to her kindergarten homework and with her Barbies, especially the dirty blue outfits my mom sent for her over the summer, which have apparently seen a lot of play. I was sad to leave again.

I didn't have a chance to get over to Leslie's host folks, but we'll hopefully be back up there for Tsagaan Sar, the Mongolian lunar new year celebration that family oriented and lasts for weeks, much like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter all wrapped into one, with a little little Memorial Day in there too. Looking forward to that.

The train ride back to UB was shared with three other PCVs and wasn't much more exciting than the trip up, but we had a some good laughs. I enjoyed not being in a packed microbus with 20 other people meant for 11.

Music Therapy Workshop
Around the same time, Leslie presented to child protection social workers.

The first day, with the brilliant translation help of her program director, Enkhee, Leslie provided background on music therapy, defined it, described what therapists do, who can benefit from it and who is qualified to practice it.

The last half of the first day and all of the second day were mostly experiential. They walked through lyric analysis, music biographies, music assisted relaxation, and talked about improvisation.

They mostly had questions about music assisted relaxation and how to do it most effectively. The social workers mostly work with street children and children with special needs. There are few services for people with special needs, and most are usually left at home with no education. For example, the Downs Syndrome Society of Mongolia was just started about 3 years ago and only has about 30 members, even though there are many more people with the syndrome in the country.

She was really nervous before hand, but the seminar went so well. She was even asked to come back in March for update and refresher course. She was also asked to present 20 hrs to social work students to the one social work program in the country.

Non-TEFL PCV/CP PDM IST Outside UB
We spent four days with 19 other non-English teacher (Teaching English as a Foreign Language -TEFL) PCVs at a conference hotel just outside UB, whose name roughly translates as "Nook". It was almost the exact layout of the Darkhan Hotel four hours away, where all of our other trainings have been. Gotta love that Soviet flair for architecture.

With the aide of translators as needed, we were able to dissect the Peace Corps procedures and expectations with our counterparts so we all understood how project/program management is supposed to work. All presentations by PC staff were done in both languages and sometimes we were broken into separate language groups. Interestingly, Leslie's and my counterparts spoke the least amount of English out of all the other counterparts, but we got through everything really well. In fact, we were told constantly by the other counterparts that they were jealous of us. No pressure. Leslie and I spent a lot of time just with our counterparts, even rooming separately with them, which got us a lot of points with the PC staff and lots of flack from our fellow volunteers.

The focus of the training was program development and management (PDM). Though we all teach English in our communities and to our co-workers, those of us who aren't teaching children in schools are expected to work with our agencies to assess programs we can start, and then put together a plan of action. We're encouraged to think much more grass roots and to use our skills more than pockets to accomplish small to medium goals. The Peace Corps has a whole list of goals and objectives created by negotiations between our two governments mostly about training, so that's a good place for us to start talking. Sometimes these programs/projects involve grant writing and some dollars, and sometimes they just involve training and cooperation.

Just after the fall of communism here, many well-intentioned NGOs and governments through a lot of money at Mongolia without a lot of strings or training or oversight, but it didn't go well. Because of this, we're encouraged not to use the word "project" in either language because it usually means something big, involving lots of money and lots of corruption. In fact, the word in Mongolian is almost the same as "budget".

My counterpart, Undrah, and me outside the Nukht Hotel. Good times.

Leslie and her counterpart, Dogoo, on the bus ride home.

My trainer Cady and program director, Baagi, presenting about cross-cultural expectations of work

In this presentation, one person spoke in English while the other translated and vise versa.

Most sessions were very hands-on, as per the Peace Corps model. It's a form of teaching and learning that's very new here, but the results were compelling enough to get many people talking about taking this style back to their workplaces.

We were all assigned to get things from other people around the room. It was like herding cats as we literally pulled certain people with multiple skills in many directions at once.

We had a really great time bonding with our counterparts, hanging out with our American friends, and getting to know UB, but were glad to be home.

Here's our little Bayankhongor Airport. Just to the left of the building is where you pick up the luggage after your flight.

Now we're looking forward to putting all these new skills to use with our counterparts. In January, it's just down to Undrah and me as my other counterpart/manager is on maternity leave for 5 months. Fingers crossed.

SHOUT OUTS:
Shout out to Batjargal in Darkhan. He's an English student in Cady's class who's been following our blog for the past couple months. Hope to meet you soon!

Shot out to my dad, who just had another surgery, this time to repair his abdominal aorta with a stent. All's well after the surgery. I texted him from my phone to my brother's phone just before he underwent the endoscopic procedure last week. Technology is cool.