Mongolia Nalgene Smalgene
This picture of my students and I at summer camp looks exactly like a picture taken of me with some of students at St. Augustine. The first time I saw it I thought... hey... that looks familiar! That must be my teacher pose! I need to take one in China too!
From my diary August 1: "This village is out far in the hills, in a valley where two rivers join together (or so it appears). When I pictured a 'Mongolian village' I didn't imagine these concrete, soviet utility blocks, reminiscent of a time where that seemed ideal; for a school, store, hospital and everything else. One for each village. Now this one is our primary school, a cubic leftover from a faded ideology. I just saw two cooks in one of the rooms in our school, it has no windows or plugs or furniture or anything, but they hang out there with their families sometimes. The paint is flaking off the outside and revealing other coats and concrete. Which seems to be a non-issue and that fact kind of brings it back to looking like a village again for me."
Diary August 5th: "I like to go down to the river in the mornings with my book. I stop on the way to buy a Russian ice cream cone for 10 cents that actually can take a longer time to eat than other ice creams and I usually end up sitting on my book and not really thinking about anything in length... but rather odd and random things for moments. For example, the next time I find a river to sit by I might throw a big rock into the middle of it if there wasn't one already because the sound of the water rushing over rocks in a river is one of the best parts of sitting by a river."
Diary August 9th: "It is past midnight and the sky is clear albeit the stars and the moon and it is exciting here at the kindergarten. One student taken to the hospital with a train of classmates funneling out of the doors. A hyperventilating fainting episode... and I've never actually had anyone faint in my arms before. They said it was from fatigue and unhealthy food. When it quieted down the kids went "back to work" and I stood out the open double doors beside our classroom. I grabbed onto the door frame above and let my middle swing back and forth, the wind was blowing Mongolian strong and wasn't too cold to be biting or hot to not be refreshing. It is so clean and freeing and I felt as though I was here in the kindergarten, at the gates, protecting my students; ready for the next bat of excitement. So when it ends tomorrow, they will scatter, just before I really began to feel at home in this place. I knew right away this would be tough to say goodbye to."
Diary August 5th: "I like to go down to the river in the mornings with my book. I stop on the way to buy a Russian ice cream cone for 10 cents that actually can take a longer time to eat than other ice creams and I usually end up sitting on my book and not really thinking about anything in length... but rather odd and random things for moments. For example, the next time I find a river to sit by I might throw a big rock into the middle of it if there wasn't one already because the sound of the water rushing over rocks in a river is one of the best parts of sitting by a river."Diary August 9th: "It is past midnight and the sky is clear albeit the stars and the moon and it is exciting here at the kindergarten. One student taken to the hospital with a train of classmates funneling out of the doors. A hyperventilating fainting episode... and I've never actually had anyone faint in my arms before. They said it was from fatigue and unhealthy food. When it quieted down the kids went "back to work" and I stood out the open double doors beside our classroom. I grabbed onto the door frame above and let my middle swing back and forth, the wind was blowing Mongolian strong and wasn't too cold to be biting or hot to not be refreshing. It is so clean and freeing and I felt as though I was here in the kindergarten, at the gates, protecting my students; ready for the next bat of excitement. So when it ends tomorrow, they will scatter, just before I really began to feel at home in this place. I knew right away this would be tough to say goodbye to."
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