Somewhere between Winter and Spring

This was part of the herd of camels I came across on my hike. Super random.

My friend Tsoodol is holding is grandbaby in the back row. All of his kids
and grandkids came to visit for the holiday Tsagan Sar. I stayed out thier
for 5 days in this ger with some of his family.

This is a portion of the river i walked on, on my hike.
You can see how deep the river is still frozen. Most parts,
the ice is still a few feet thick... Most...

This is the amazing sledding hill I built during Tsagan Sar out in the country
side with Tsoodol's family.

I took a large piece of tin from the roof of the barn and made this sled. And
yes, thats a book on my bag. I did alot of sledding and reading over the
5 days.

Yeah... most of the ice was frozen. I was fortunate enough to find a portion that
 wasn't completely frozen. And yes, that is an impression of my butt behind the
foot prints.

I walked about 4 kilometers on the frozen river in shorts. The weather was
amazing. And yes I am still a fashion trend setter over here in Mongolia.

This was from our Broomball Tournament in UB against the US Embassy.

They had a massive competition at the Military base. One of the games was
who could break a sheep thigh bone, with one hard blow or punch. This is my
schools gym teacher. He broke his first try. It was kinda cool.

I wanted a picture with the camels so badly, that I mounted my camera in a
nearby tree and used the timer. I then carefully got a decent distance away and
this is how it turned out. 

So Tsoodol's dog had 10 puppies. We built them a large dog house and
threw some old blankets in it. This also took up some of my time during
Tsagan Sar.

I enjoyed reading a book and watching them run around and play. By the 5th
day they really began to warm up to me.

So my students had a competition at the military base
and I went along to take photos. Glad I didnt miss my
students dress up like soldiers and play with old Soviet
guns and rocket launchers. Even though nothing was
loaded, it still really felt uncomfortable when they pointed
stuff at me.

So Im really considering splurging and buying a fox fur hat like this. This is
my friends hat and my "Mongol Steel Face"

I got a bit too close for comfort after my photo shoot and the camel gave me
its power stance and began grunting and making crazy faces at me. That was
 my cue to get out of there

See, they were smiling, but my face was one that was quite mortified

On the plus side, I found where the entire stock of PP7's went after the video game
GoldenEye

This was the brave puppy that would run in circles around me, but wouldn't
let me pet her

I snuck away from the group with a fellow teacher, and we got inside the tanks
 and took turns taking pictures. Real Mature I know

So these are all the Dormitory Workers at my school. It was Tsagan Sar, and
they insisted on a photo shoot of them at 9am.

This was the Mongolian teacher I worked with at the Seminar down in the
Gobi. She was really a great lady

This was most of the Teachers that attended the seminar, and all the Peace Corps
Volunteers that went down to help

This was my team for the Broomball tournament. I bought my team eyeblack
for intimidation purposes, but i could only find women's makeup that was a
deep purple.

This was at a students competition. They played this finger game. I just thought
it was funny because it looked like everyone is flipping everyone off. I think the
right side of the class actually was

Then of couse that had to sing songs.... for entirely too long.

After an evening of celebration after the seminar in the Gobi,
I decided we should make a human pyramid. Im still not sure
why i decided this would be fun. It was actually quite painful.