Goodbye Arvaiheer

My former counterpart in Arvaiheer just called to say she misses me, and it reminded me that I have a blog!  

I just couldn't leave Mongolia, so I extended my service another year.  I'm living in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, and teaching English at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology.
Here are some pictures from my last few weeks at site in Arvaiheer.  I still miss it so much.

In June, I did some summer English classes.  On the second to last day, I asked the summer school students what they wanted to do on Friday.  They told me, "It is our last day, so we want to cry."  Fortunately, they did not cry, and on the last day of class (and my last day as a volunteer in Arvaiheer), they surprised me with a gift and a little party.  They taught me how to play all the different forms of shagai (ankle bones) and laughed at how terrible I was at it.

Playing shagai.  It's serious business!

I posed for about 50 of these with various sets of students

Group photo

My students are the cutest

Teenager class putting together a map of the US earlier in the month

The younger class always got VERY animated about Taboo.

I never took many pictures of the town itself in the past two years.  It has changed a lot!  I tried to make up for it in the last few days....

The square

Fancy new fountain

Square and government building.  The UFO lights are new this year.

Trees!

View from in front of my school

My school's gym and my apartment building

On the left, the wedding palace.  On the right, my apartment.

View coming back from the shower house.  One I'm very familiar with in the Spring!

The main intersection

My counterpart's street

Approaching the market

The market, deserted on a Saturday

Market zoomed-in.  Didn't realize until I loaded this onto my computer that this taxi driver doesn't look happy about being in my photo.

Inside the dairy market

View from farther up

There's a lot of construction going on in the summer

An election was coming up around the time I was leaving, so these little campaign gers were all over town

My school had a little goodbye party for me and the two other teachers who were leaving.  They gave me some Mongolian clothes as a gift--the best part was that they let me go to the tailor and ask for what I wanted myself.  It took a lot of measuring (and a lot of public undressing), but I'm very happy with the result!

Goodbye party

At the goodbye party with my PCV friends who came to visit me!

My counterpart Oyuha and I spent my last day in Arvaiheer together.  She bought me some gifts and I gave her the things I couldn't bring with me.  We also got a professional traditional-dress picture taken, which is hilarious, but I need to find a way to scan it to get it up here!  Then she had me pose with my new Mongol shirt and her kids.

Kind of an odd family photo...

Taken with my phone as Oyuha and I got ready for our photo shoot.  Don't worry, she has a giant hat, too. 

And one more picture....

Realized I never added a picture of my beloved Mongolian Wrestlers calendar.  Each month has its own wrestler.  They're only sold in a neighboring province, Bayanhongor, so I forced my sitemate Marty to get one for me when he visited.  Turns out they didn't sell them in stores anymore, but he spotted one hanging in a karaoke bar.  He convinced the owner to sell it to him!  What a good sitemate :)

Anyway, after last night's phone call and looking at all these pictures, I'm feeling really nostalgic for Arvaiheer.  Going to stop before I get too misty-eyed!  I will update about my current placement soon.