jason's party and horse fun

What a crazy couple of days.

Yesterday was Jason’s birthday. I don’t want to give away too many details about the day since Big Brother seems to read this blog, but I will give you the minor sidenotes. Here goes:

It started with ridiculous amounts of food and cake.
A few games of innocent basketball and whiffle ball.
Ended with Jason being flown to Thailand because he broke his arm wrestling.

It was quite the birthday for him. Hopefully we will get to see him in Darkhan and that everything works out ok. It was quite the scare for all of us. All in all it was a crazy day.

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Tomorrow is our mid LPI (language proficiency test). I will officially be ranked as riding the short bus to the language school. It’s alright though. It leaves much room for improvement before the final test that is actually graded.

Today was interesting. We went to class all a little shook up from what happened to Jason the night before. We had a few hours of language and then called it quits. Since the test is tomorrow we did not have technical training. I know I still needed some time to study a bit more, so Yoomie and I said we would meet up later. I came home, got to talk to Nick for over an hour, which was incredible, and then went over. We went to the market and bought a few items on our own. It was pretty rad being able to actually ask how much things cost and understand the response. Yay for slowly integrating! We bought some fresh bread, flavored tea, earrings, cabbage, and called it a day. The electricity was out all day so we couldn’t cook much. Anywho, when we got back, Andrea joined the study party. We had a great couple of hours just getting down some of the basic tenses of the verbs, going over easy phrases, etc.

After dinner, we walked outside and discussed everything from tattoos to marriage. It was great to just hang out and get to know my fellow volunteers a little better. I really enjoy these girls. We seem to be the three goofy, easily amused bunch. I am pretty sure we cried from laughing so hard at least 12 times. So there we were drinking some tea, sitting on the steps leading to Yoomie’s porch, starring at the mountains and having a great conversation when suddenly, her gate flings open and Mr. Ed walks in.

I kid you not, some random horse uses his head, nudges the gate wide open, walks through, looks at us, and without the slightest bit of hesitation, walks into the yard and starts munching away on Yoomie’s grass. We were in complete shock. I of course had a 2 second rebound rate until I was leaping off the porch and at the side of the horse. I was braiding its mane, petting its nose, and considered jumping on it’s back and going for a ride. It was incredible. Perfect way to end a good day.

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I got home as the sun was setting at 9:20 pm to find my mom dragging in some homemade screen door. Its great to watch my family rig things since the big bro is away studying in the capital. So it’s just us. The 3 women doing it all. Pretty exciting. The beauty is that fixing things around the house is where I am most experienced. (thanks mom!) After tossing my backpack full of Mongolian books down on my bed, I hear some ruckus coming from the entry area. I walk out to find my mom wedging this screen onto the back of the door. It was suck. So I jump in on the fun, grab a hammer and rip the hinge straight out of the wall. We move it down about an inch so the screen will clear the top of the doorframe, and nail everything back in. It was a great bonding moment because the tools that I was forced to use were some sort of mini sledgehammer and broken pieces of a real hammer. Classic. But we laughed, called ourselves men, dusted off our hands and called it a night.

Now I am off to bed to get up and take the test tomorrow. Then I must pack cause we leave for Darkhan on Wednesday morning.

Lots to do.

Hope everyone is well.

Love love love.
kimba