The following posts are events occurring between June 9th and July 18th.  Our soum is small, like really really small.  Internet is a laughable resource, but we are back in Darkhan so I will attempt to update the interwebs on the events that have transpired since I last had access to this blessed phenomenon of the 21st century.  Pay attention.

Yesterday I found out about the host family I'll be staying with and today I finally go to live with them for the next three months.  I'll be staying with a woman and her three sons, ages 15, 19, and 27.  According to the paper the Peace Corps gave me on the my host family my host mom is a clerk/gardener while her sons are students.  They have 2-3 "tied dogs."  I'll soon find out he paper left out many major details.  So we set off, me and my new smaller Peace Corps family to be dropped off with our host families.  My soum is small with a population of about 2,000 people and its an hour away from Darkhan.  I soon found out that destinations off the main road had no one way of reaching them.  Our driver turned off the pavement wherever he seemed fit and things got very bumpy.  My soum is beautiful.  A small town of wooden houses and hashaas (fenced in yards) it is nestled between rolling hills and alongside a river.  One by one we dropped off one another with their families, each time we would walk in and see each other off, say hello to the family and carry things to the new volunteers room.  I was the last to be dropped off, there would be no one familiar for me to say goodbye to.

My host mom and brother Jarra, 19 greeted me and carried my things inside.  They set my bags down in a simple room with nothing but a desk, a bed, and a zip up closet adorned with images of rainbows, woodland creatures, a whale, and apparently Ronald McDonald on a park bench.  Jarra turned to me and said "Welcome to our home."  They served me tea and Jarra attempted to communicate with the very little Mongolian I knew and the very little English he knew.  He took me outside and gestured towards a nearby hill.  We both climbed the steep hill and got a beautiful sprawling view of the town.  We attempted to make small talk but most conversations ended with "sorry" or "I don't understand".  As I stood up on the hill looking down at my new home with my new brother next to me whom I couldn't understand, my situation finally hit me and I suddenly felt very alone.  As if sensing my unnerved feeling Jarra gestured back down the hill.  When we arrived back inisde I attempted to start unpacking.  When Jarra saw the pictures I pulled from my bag he gestured towards them eagerly.  My host mom appeared and we all sat down while I showed them my life at home.  Jarra was particularly impressed by my pick up truck and photos of NASCAR, while my host mother asked a lot of questions about the pictures Mom gave me of the kitchen, house, and Christmas tree.  Jarra then showed me a school yearbook of his and then took me into a room with only a pinpong table and shows me a large stack of medals hanging on the wall.  Jarra and his whole family apparently excel at pingpong, volleyball, and chess and he enthusiastically let me know we'd be playing all three a lot.  I could only shoot nervous glances at the pingpong table.  Finally at around 9'o clock we sat down to eat dinner some kind of meat and noodle stew which was very filling.  Now tired and very full I began thumbing my pocket dictionary to exclaim that I was going to get ready for bed when suddenly Jarra stood up and gestured for me to put my jacket on.  "We go to cows now."  What do you mean we go to cows now, I thought.  That is not "some gardening".  So I put on my sweatshirt and we "went to cows".  As we went back into the evening the hill we had just climbed was now covered with about some 40 cows.  Jarra gestured, and we walked behind them clapping and yelling them driving them towards a big gate in back of our hashaa.  When the last cow finally crossed through the gate suddenly we both noticed a lone calf was still outside the gate.  Jarra and the calf seemed to notice each other at the same time, the calf froze and Jarra slowely crept towards it.  Suddenly the calf turned and sprinted, Jarra leapt through the air and tackled the calf and hauled it up under his arms.  He casually walked passed me and tossed the calf over the gate into the pen.  Thats how I met Jarra.