Summer 2012

My Journey began in my home of Rochester,New York, from there I took a flight to San Francisco.  We had a 22 hour layover in South Korea, after which we finally arrived in Mongolia on Saturday June 2nd, 2012. 

Mongolian Immigration in UB

Training Facility (School #4)

This summer was as busy as busy gets. I arrived in June, upon arrival we had a week of orientation. Afterwards we were sent to our training sites. Peace Corps Mongolia has 4 different sectors, Health, TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), Community Youth Development and Community Economic Development. I'm a Health Volunteer so my site was in the Aimag center (Provincial Capital) of Sukhabaatar in Selenge Aimag (Province). We were all assigned a host family to help integrate us into Mongolian culture and language. Training was Monday-Friday 9am-5:30pm. Mongolian Language sessions were from 9am-1pm and we would break for lunch, afterwards from 2:30pm-4pm on Mondays we would have Mongolian Culture Sessions. Tuesday-Friday was Health Sector Technical Training.

M23 Health Volunteers

 Mid-Center Days marked the half way point of training, it was 1 week long and was held in the second largest city of Darkhan. Soon after Mid-Center days we celebrated the national holiday, Naadam. After Naadam we had another 3 weeks of training. We concluded with final center days, similar to Mid-Center days, it was held in the same location and lasted for 1 week. Our permanent   sites were announced on the first day.  At the end of final center days we were sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers. Our swearing in ceremony included speeches given by distinguished guest (U.S. Embassy Representative) as well as our new Country Director Darlene Grant. Each sector performed by dancing or singing.(Health Sector Performance). Soon after swearing in, actually immediately after we were sent to site. Since my site is designated as a fly site, we had to remain in the capital for 5 days. During that time I learned how to salsa dance from a German Ex-Pat and Mongolian, saw an alternative Mongolian rock band perform, and had the best mozzarella, tomato, basil pizza ever (In Mongolia)! As hectic as this summer was I wouldn't change anything. I met some pretty amazing people, went to some beautiful places and had a blast. God is good

Darkhan

Swearing-In Ceremony At Left- Darlene Grant (New Country Director) At Right-Me (New Peace Corps Volunteer)