Travel Blog Mongolia

10 days of preparation seminar near Berlin – here we go!!!
Since Tuesday around 230 volunteers gather at the Werbellinsee and prepare themselves more or less for their 6-month of one-year stay somewhere around the world. This means a lot of exciting personalities, curiosities, questions and discussions….
It was also the first time to meet the other 5 boys and girls that are coming with me to Mongolia. We are a rather big group compared to the other going to somewhere in Asia.

Concerning the seminar itself I do not want to say too much – just that it is rather uninteresting having studied languages, culture and economics for the last 5 years. I really like the time here because of getting to know interesting new people, networking and preparing myself mentally for Ulaanbaatar. I had time to Google my school and see where the others are going. As well as writing with the two boys being already for 6 month in Mongolia and checking things like dealing with the money there, sport activities, fitness club (I even found one with climbing hall!), swimming pool and so on and so forth. Slowly the anticipation is coming and I am feeling ready to take off at the 12th of September ☺

Beside all the information about insurance, our sending organisation and other, very interesting was the advice we got from other volunteers, as the followings…

• Buy some camel socks
• Go to the Mongolian-German “Stammtisch” (German way of getting together)
• Plan your project early and stick to it! Time is running faster than you think it does! Make your point clear!
• Traffic – forget everything you’ve learned in Germany
• Most important: relax → Mongolians does it as well and being stressed does not help anyone then
• Bring a sleeping bag and a day pack → already done ☑︎
• Change things you do not like
• Do not be desperate when pupils do not come to class
• Stay calm when something is not going as you planned
• Be flexible concerning the courses
• Try to find colleagues with whom you can work nicely together and discuss your tasks
• Do not have fear concerning private taxis
• Be active, try to involve yourself, hang in there
• The mantra “don’t worry – just be surprised and amazed” will help in all kind of situations
• Ask pupils individually whether they are interested in a project
• Requestions things several time in order to know that the pupils did understand well
• Try to learn the names of some pupils by letting them write them down

We will see at the end of my stay what my advice will be for others 😉
The last four days, we experienced a lot about us, the other volunteers and the other cultures. Furthermore we were faced with the different expectations and with details about our direct sending organisation.
My one is the Goethe Institute – PASCH schools. This means in my Mongolian school German is the third language, which is learned on a voluntary basis. The pupils start with English, then learn Russian and can then choose between German and Japanese. In the context of this day we all learned more about our sending school.
My school is the school number 48 (as everything is counted in Mongolia as the Russians did). It is a gigantic school of 3.100 pupils ranging from the primary school up to class 11 or 12. It is called a middle school and it has as a particularity that you can choose a profile at some point in your school career, which means you will have one subject more often during the week than the others who do not have this profile subject. Furthermore I know I will have 186 colleagues and around 200 pupils learning German and two German teachers. These are just some neutral information and I will see how everything will be when I am there. More information and spreading my confusing thoughts would be too much here and totally boring for you.

So lets turn to some other little points…
The surrounding here is very nice! Swimming and Running is perfectly possible here but the whether is getting more autumn like so cold mornings and evenings…. (EJB Werbellinsee).
A bus driver gave me some insider information:

• 60m deep
• one of the biggest lakes in this area
• around 55km extent
• Kaiserbahnhof Johannisthal
• Biorama Aussichtsturm Johannistal
• Eating ice cream in this city
• Was a well-known area of brick manufacturers

The timetable is pretty full of stuff and I am very much looking forward to our free afternoon and evening on Tuesday!

Today is Saturday and I had the opportunity to go to the wedding of Hanna and Marten. I was very happy and pleased to get an invitation for this special event because I have not seen her since the marathon in Berlin last year. The wedding was wonderfully prepared and the location (the Heilig Kreuz Kirche near the Hallesches Tor) was picturesque, modern and old at the same time. Even I did not know a lot of people I felt very comfy and enjoyed it! A big congratulation to the recently married couple! All the best for you and enjoy your honeymoon in Sri Lanka!
I was chocked up when Hanna walked in with the song from Ed Sheeran “Tenerife Sea”! Emotional, lovely and overwhelming!

Before the wedding we had a workshop called “Power in teams and groups”. We discussed things as the term itself (the most important and a well-known definition from Max Weber is mentionable for example) and we simulated something where 2 groups had to build a tower with some limited devices as paper, glue and cord. Some of the members were blind and did not know what to do, others were able to see. Time was limited and the tower had to be stable. It was nice to see how some member (who saw everything and knew what to do) integrated the blind ones and gave them the feeling to understand what’s going on and how important they are. Maybe for one or the other of you something interesting to test with a group of people..

Coming to my last point… finally…. The Gießener Anzeiger writes occasionally about me. The first article is already published ☺ I am really happy for this collaboration to talk about my experience and spread them in different ways! Furthermore I would like to spread the programme “Kulturweit” to others so that they are able to apply for it!

Click here to read the article:
http://www.giessener-anzeiger.de/lokales/hochschule/giessener-studentin-maren-becker-wird-in-mongolei-ein-halbes-jahr-180-schueler-unterrichten_16099306.htm

Little hint for your:
Nice film about the other perspective. People from Africa talk about their view on volunteers coming there for a limited period of time and trying to “help” there:
BLICKWECHSEL: Kritische Perspektive der Gastländer auf den Freiwilligendienst
http://www.freiwilligenmagazin.de/filmprojekt-blickwechsel-kritische-perspektive-der-gastlaender-auf-freiwilligendienste/