A very Gobi birthday

Back in January, I got a text from my friend Stephanie asking if I'd be interested in helping her out with a seminar in her aimag (Middle Gobi) over Spring Break. I said "absolutely!" because my birthday happened to be at the same time and I didn't really want to sit around in my soum by myself for my birthday. I may do that for all other holidays, but since my birthday falls on a break, I was planning on inviting myself somewhere else anyway. The best part about this setup is that I got to keep my vacation days and use business leave instead. Perfect!

After making my way to UB with a surprisingly well-behaved cat in tow (she's getting spayed because suffering through her in heat once was more than enough), I learned that the bus tickets to our destination were sold out and three of us were left without tickets and in need of a plan. We met at 7:45 the next morning, got seats on a Russian van that left at 2pm, then wandered the Black Market for about 5 hours, still with the cat. Around 2, we got a call from another PCV who had managed to get a seat on the bus who told us that people were almost rioting to get seats on the bus. Since there were three nearly empty vans, our driver agreed to help out and pick up more people. There were already 8 people on the van but somehow we managed to squeeze 9 more people in. 17 people on a 7 hour drive on potentially the worst road in Mongolia. Getting thrown around like a rag doll is actually better when you're squished in like sardines because there's less room to move

not my picture, it's linked to the source, but this is similar to the van I took

After surviving the horrendous trip, it was time for the 2012 Dundgovi Teachers' Seminar - put on by three Dundgovi PCVs and five PCVs from other aimags. I co-led the Resource Development session with one of Stephanie's CPs which happened to be the exact same session that we participated in during IST back in December - no point in reinventing the wheel, right? I was the second session in a two day seminar, so I had hours and hours to kill while still needing to behave and be professional. Luckily, one session gave the idea of having a class race to think of words beginning with a certain letter - we spent at least two hours trying to come up with verbs that begin with the letter 'n'. Don't worry, we were judgemental of ourselves. When the seminar wrapped up, we gave all of the participants certificates and they gave us presents in return - the foreign language methodologist gave us information on the aimag and Dundgovi pins and the participants were really sweet and got us presents too: pens, chocolate bars, and baby photo albums. The boys got normal albums, just us ladies got the baby ones. It's possible the store was just out of normal ones, but we wonder if they weren't trying to tell us something. Silly Mongolians.

group photo

PCV contingent and Dundgovi FLM

Once the seminar was over, it was BIRTHDAY TIME. We had to celebrate the day before because my 4 fellow non-Dundgovi PCVs had to leave on my actual birthday. Alas. We went out to eat at a restaurant that had WIFI and CHICKEN versions of Mongolian meals. It was a big deal. We bought an absurd amount of alcohol (don't worry, didn't drink it all), played games, and made a very quick trip to the only nightclub in town. We were there for maybe 30 minutes, but apparently that was plenty of time to drop my phone in the toilet and send it to a rice-covered time-out for two days in order to dry out. Yanaa. My birthday proper was spent mainly recovering from the night before and having a plethora of Skype conversations with PCVs that couldn't make it out for the seminar and people back home. A little sushi, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and Bridget Jones's Diary to round out the day, and there you have Ashley's birthday 2012.

I stuck around Dundgovi for a few more days, mainly sightseeing, shopping, and helping the PCVs there with a spelling bee competition they had going on. The city would be much prettier if most of the buildings weren't the exact same color as the endless sand surrounding it. Luckily there are a few buildings painted bright colors that liven up the landscape a little bit.

Mandalgovi theater with Khar Ovoo in the background

view from Khar Ovoo

so apparently the Gobi Desert is sandy?

Steph and me in front of the largest morin khuur (horse fiddle) in Mongolia

Then to round out a complete Gobi Desert experience, on my last day there, a sandstorm struck. It was nasty. Sand got all in our hair, coated our faces, and generally got everywhere. We were eating lunch, had an "oh crap, look outside" moment, then proceeded to play the Da Rude "Sandstorm" song and take pictures/videos.