Less than 2 weeks!

Me being lead by my sister on one of their horses. YEE HAW


Justin and his family.


Justin and his crazy family! :) outisde of their home.

My family all outisde of my ger! *My Ger!!*

These are our beautiful Mongolian Language teachers! We would not survive Mongolia without them! They are great friends of ours!

me and Justin in Mongolian Lang. Class

My sister, Davasoren & my baby brother Davajargel--we took sooo many pictures and he NEVER opened his eyes (we ARE related!)

Justin and I right outside the school. He was walking me home.

My grandma (emee) and my brothers Davanem & Davajargel.


I've really enjoyed living in this little village & will miss it once our last 2 weeks are up, however Justin and I are very excited to begin our journey as teachers and move to our new home! We will be assigned new sites on August 15th (my b-day!!) and will have our "swearing -in" ceremony (graduation from being trainees, to actual Peace Corps Volunteers) on August 20th. Then we're off to start our next 2 years! We are both scared and excited at the same time. Up until now Peace Corps has been holding our hand thoughout our training. Once we are at our site, we will need to find new Mongolian friends and try to fit in as much as possible (to make our lives as foreigners easier). Finding Mongolians friends is very hard with our slow and limited knowledge of their langauge--but our language is definitely getting better!

I am really close to the other 10 americans that were placed in this village with me--so it will be very hard to separate from them. We've made some really good friendships.

Here's a funny story to cure this sappy mood I'm in...

So I received a pacakge from my lovely sister, Nita, last week. I got the package right before class and opened it up...it was soo exciting! However, opening it in class was kinda funny. It was stuffed with tampons-- no big deal, I just grabbed them all and stuffed them in my backpack so none would fall out of my opened package. (that wasn't the only great thing I received in that package, but we must move on with the story.) Class began and I sat at the back. I was observing a American teach an English Class...so I was taking notes. Well the teacher starts leading the class outside for an activity, so I get up and follow (leaving my backpack in class). When we get back inside from the activity, I notice that my backpack is open, my jacket is on the floor and my wallet is on top (I NEVER leave it on top). So I quickly checked my cash and nothing was missing. I calmed down and figured Justin came in and needed something from my bag.... Well at the end of class I was helping the teacher clean up the classroom when I find a tampon wrapper on the classroom floor (mongolians don't have tampons...at least not in my village), so I was very curious& embarrassed as to why one was on the floor. I check my backpack again and noticed that the candy I had in my backpack was missing and a tampon wraper was on the floor--- the conclusion was some kid was searching my backpack for candy, found the candy then saw all those colorful wrapped items and took one to try it out (probably has NO idea what it is--but it ISN'T candy!). It made me laugh-- even though pick pocketing is a serious thing here.