Travel Blog Mongolia

#kulturweitseminar

It is nearly half time of my stay here (2nd December is the half time mark) and we had our mid term seminar to talk about our projects and about how we do feel, whether there are problems or whatever. This is why our dear fellows from Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan took the long journey to Mongolia ☺

To sum it up very quickly the seminar was clouded by several little challenging events such as that half of the participants got very sick at the end of the seminar and nobody knows why… Seemed to be a king of strange virus… The hostel seemed more than a sick bed at the en -_- Moreover there was too little time for reflexion and cultural exchange.
But not to be negative all the time (as Malte tries to beat out of me!) we had an appointment at the German embassy to talk to the ambassador Mr Thiedemann and the cultural attaché Christian Seiffert about our program, about the relations between Mongolia and Germany and about the current political things going on. This was a very nice event and even more surprised was I about the fact that Christian thought of me and brought me a flyer of the new climbing wall (actually a very tiny thing but better than nothing), which opened here recently. This is definitely on my Mongolian bucket list.
And of course the best day was Wednesday where we had our trop on the countryside to see the huge Dschinggis Khaan Statue and to go horse riding and visit a monastery in the middle of the mountains. Here some of the photos we took of this week!

#readingGoetheInstitute

Monday the 16th: Munu called me (she works in the Goethe Insitut) and asked whether I could read some German parts of Erich Fromm’s “Haben oder Sein” (English title is: To have or to Be). I said yes straitly by not knowing whether the trainer of our seminar would let me go. This problem was solved right after the seminar began and even I did not know anything of the book and the text (which is not very easy, neither to read nor to understand) I had a great time and enjoyed every moment of it. I got positive feedback concerning my reading aloud skills (yea Mom you hear it correctly :D) – always nice to hear. How good this feels to be spontaneous, and to plunge into a little adventure like this, to be able to present a great (still up to date) oeuvre. There are also plans for a second lecture in cooperation with the German Embassy about a book from Precht, we will see when this will be! I am absolutely over the moon to be able to participate in those kind of things. But well lets see when the second reading will take place. Up to now just an idea.

#OtherCuriositiesAboutOtherCountries

Because we were faced with our fellow volunteers coming from other nice countries in central Asia, we were also faced with other cultural particularities. Here some which stayed in my mind!

• In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, temperatures can rise up to 60 degree Celsius in summer :O

• In Tashkent you have to wash all the dried fruits and everything with boiled water, otherwise you might get the runs 😀

• Almaty (Kazakhstan) is expensive and the sponsorship from kulturweit is not enough to live there.

• In Tadzhikistan and Kazakhstan women are not greeted at all, sometimes just by putting the left hand on the heart.

• Vodka is the most popular alcohol in central Asia.

• In Tadzhikistan men will get shaved under constraint when they have a beard! Police men get them let them get shaved and they have to pay a fine.

• Bishkek seemed very green on all the pictures Malin showed us. Somethin nobody had expected before.

#firstdownphase

This week I think was my first real down phase due to several things coming up and that are getting on my nerves 😀 I think this was on the one hand due to the reflections we made and on the other hand due to other problems emerging during the week. But now the worst time is over and I will talk with at least with my teachers concerning their fear that I work too less, I will have a feedback round with the Goethe Institute and my teachers, I will try to solve my problems with the mates of my shared flat where I moved out before coming to UB and at least I try to solve my hesitations about Christmas and how I wants to make it a nice and calm Christmas without stress and stubborn unreasonable people. As my cultural studies back in Germany contained a nice model about the different adaptations phases abroad and also being back home, I really now how to cope with those down phases. Even if you always think that you will never have it while still being in the honeymoon phase, it hits you worse when it comes to this phase. But yeah trying to keep calm and phase the problems in a considered way is the very best for all person involved and lucky me to have the weekend to think about it! Thanks to Kirsten and Jessy for your kind and warm words! I really appreciate this 😉 And also for my mom and Josefa to have open ears and bear up my long sermon about it 😀

Who wants to get an impression of Mongolia and UB clicks HERE to see Lennarts pictures ☺