An incredible weekend and our first day of training!

Hmmmmm I haven't written in a while...SOOOO much happened this weekend!

Saturday we went out to the countryside, had traditional feasts, and hiked up a mountain to the Buddhist temple and worship sites. It was pretty cool and absolutely beautiful. It was a little tense with the language barrier and not knowing much about each other so I just started joking with them even when I had no idea what they were saying. Laughter works pretty well to break the ice! I think they made fun of me a lot but I just dished it back and we all had a good time. They gave us fermented horse milk....absolutely disgusting....I stuck to tea. The Buddhist temple was at a site where an entire monestary and village once existed but was destroyed by the Communists so there were some pretty interesting ruins.  We spent the entire day in a ger (a nomadic house) at the countryside and had a good time getting to know each other and break the ice!

Sunday we went to church and then to the children's orphanage which are linked together. It was actually really nice! I expected some run down dingy place...but it was actually nicer than the hospitals! Maybe because an American owns the orphanage and US dollars go a lot further in Mongolia. The kids are amazing...soooo cute. I want to adopt a Mongolian child now!! A couple of them spoke English and wanted to show me all kinds of things. They were cute and I hope I get to go back and spend more time with them! Then we went to the EMS center again and this time got to ride with an ambulance for a couple hours observing calls etc. It was pretty cool but pretty eye opening....nothing is urgent...they just kind of get there when they do.  Traffic is terrible and pretty much everything is solved with a shot or a pill...only a woman having a baby was transferred to the hospital. After that we met up with Togosoo (Talk-saw) and Tahtah for dinner....they are 22 and 26 and the three of us get along great! Togosoo is awesome...she speaks great English and is a chem engineer doing biochem research with medical background so we have a lot to talk about. She is translating for us this week and then she is taking me shopping apparently!

Today was our first day of training...and we taught CPR all afternoon which was awesome because that is the part I am most involved in. The people were pretty interested and really into learning everything they could...which is awesome because even though their healthcare is terrible they are sooooo ready and willing to try anything to improve it. The rest of the week should go quite smoothly I believe!

It's kind of weird but although I am in a totally foreign country and things are REALLY different...I don't feel the culture shock that I expected!