Murun

The first moment I came in Murun I was picked up by the husband from Tungsuu (my volunteering employer) and he brought me to their home. There it appeared that Tugsuu had a baby, whom she was taking care of all the time, and I had my first experience with the Mongolian houses. (for the middle class) A house consists of two rooms with in the separating wall, or in the gate between the rooms, a big oven, which serves as the central heating. The whole family lives in these two rooms, and normally there is one room for guests and the kitchen and one room as the living room with one or maybe two beds and a tv. It's weird to see the LSD tv and the microwave and other modern stuff in that really old and poor looking house. I got my first milk tea too, which is milk, hot water, salt and grass-like tea. So when I took the first sip and expected tea the taste was really hard to understand and hard to like. That milk tea taste was the first day all day in my head when I was eating or drinking something. After a short chat Nora came in, she was another volunteer from Germany, 25 years old and volunteering after her teachers graduation to improve her experience. We went to our first class, which was almost fully improvised with some short stories Nora pull out of the internet because there was no lesson books or workbooks to work with and we, or moreover she, taught one girl, either 25, able to speak some little sentences. Then I was brought to my hotel where I would stay my two months and where I would teach the staff to stay there for free. The first week was a lot of improvisation and going from here to there in my lessons, because my strategy was to have a good time and be more a friend of the students than the teacher. I would learn them stuff while just talking to them and be one of them, because I was not a qualified teacher and not very good at English and they could learn enough with this nice and friendly way, I thought. Then quite soon this approach had to change, because one of my students from "Best Idea" the volunteering project, was helping me at the hotel, to translate my lessons, because she was one of the students who could understand English quite well, she told me, but had more hard times to speak. She happened to be a quite bossy and a bit arrogant girl, who was interfering in my lessons at Edelweis (the hotel), like when I helped the staff with the pronunciation, she went doing that too and there was no room any more for me to do it. The annoying part was that she is bossy (and actually doesn't even do the pronunciation well) so that the nice and happy atmosphere I tried to create in class turned into the real drilling and class atmosphere. That next week I adapted more to here and to my other lessons at Best Idea, which where still a struggle, or even a bit more that in the beginning, because I had everyday an other mix of students, going from almost confident speakers to people who had to learn the alphabet at first. Without any material I was actually impossible to help everybody with the same amounts and to make progression, because just the talking, which was my first idea, of course didn't work with all these different levels and mostly people who didn't know or hadn't the confidence to talk. I went to the restaurant and walked around with Nora one or two days that week, because she taught a restaurant and we didn't really see each other. At first side I found Nora the typical teacher and a bit with the west-above-others attitude, but that changed drastically when I got to know her better, especially that second weekend when we went to the Tsaatan people together, which I have described earlier, and at the end she felt as one of the best friends or the best friend I made on this journey so far. She turned out to be a very crazy and daring person, with just a very little shame, and a person one can laugh with very easily. That first encounter of her shamelessness was when we stopped in the middle of nowhere with the driver and she just put her pants out knelled and peed right next to the car in my sight, me seeing her naked but and really praising her for this random and relaxed move. Our first Friday night there was music at the restaurant and she just invited me to go dancing in the middle of the room with al the mongolians watching, and when we did it all those mongolians came to the dance floor too. Two days after our trip she had her birthday and that night there was a comedian at her restaurant, we drunk some beers, got a bit tipsy (she already was when I arrived) and just went on the dance floor together like that first night, and this time we gt a applause and a lot people went dancing with us too. Later when the music stopped we went drinking vodka on a table and she was just teasing me saying they had to pour my glass every time I drunk the shot, we laughed a lot and had a very great time but sadly i don't really remember the last part and heard from her the next morning that I was brought home, wearing her top, because I was just falling asleep at the table.
Then sadly Nora left because she went on with her travels, and I was there alone again. It feels a bit weird sometimes walking around in murun, just like i am a animal in a zoo; everybody yelling hello at me, pointing, and laughing, especially when I answer them. Making local friends is like that just not really easy, because for some people I am the (trying to be) teacher and for the people on the street i am a sight and mostly scary. The people that make contact by saying hello mostly just want to have fu and be cool for their friends (attracting the tiger in the zoo) and the others look a bit scared or troubled when i am the first one to say something. That next weekend I went to the brother of Tugsuu in a little town. Tugsuu hadn't told about me and I came there as a surprise but stood there whole weekend. They couldn't speak any english but they are a very nice and loving family. The little kids taught me some mongolian and the father happened to be music teacher and taught me the Muur, when I asked him to. I missed these people, especially the little girl, when I had to go back. Then the following weekend I went Hiking on my own, one day to a near 1700m hill (but murun itself lays at 1300m) and it was a very tough but cool experience, to get the most out of my legs and walk there in the big wide open and nature. I could be alone in the peacefull silence and sing or talk to myself aloud whenever want (and stop with that whenever i want) and sung very loud "yellow" from coldplay when I entered a vast field of little yellow flowers smelling like herbs, after the dirt, rocks and little grass the last four weeks. I experience that i act more like a real teacher now at best idea, and it doesn't feel good, but i have to because it is the only way to learn them something. Last week I met a group of Americans, who are here for a american organisation "peace corps" sending volunteers for 3 years to a lot of different countries. It was really weird and special to meet them at as cool special Olympics event (for handicapped children) after having the idea that i'm the only foreigner in town for thee weeks. They are nice but they are are group here for several years and with their american slang it is hard to understand them sometimes ad to get into the group. One of the guys is a nice guy and he likes to hike. we are planning to a more-days tours the coming weeks.
It is finally getting warm here and I think I will wear my short pants for the first time tomorrow. I will hike some tonight and the a lot more to get in a good shape for the bigger hikes and just for myself. The next blog will be in three weeks, when I am boarding to china!