International Training Debut tomorrow

Little did I know that before the end of my second week of work, I would be co-training on a 2-day training for social workers and psychologists on Interventions with Child Sexual Abuse!  I will be co-training with my supervisor and Executive Director, Chimge.  I will be the only English speaker so Chimge will translate for me.  Thank goodness, I do have a significant knowledge and experience base with this subject and I have been researching for the last several days.  Chimge put an agenda together and I have filled in my parts.  Please send me your positive thoughts for a successful training!  Next week we are also doing another training on grant and proposal writing.  I am very comfortable with training and public speaking but this is a new audience for me.  After that, it is on to submitting a proposal researching health conditions and services in the ger districts.  This is closely related to all the research I have been doing so I am very excited about this.  I am working very hard, and enjoying it. Yeah!

I also have a fun thing going at one of the little markets I shop at.  Two of the people have started helping me learn Mongolian.  It is so fun.  The checker asked me if I wanted a bag in Mongolian and I tried to repeat the word for bag.  This let her and the security guard know that I wanted to learn, so they repeated the word until I pronounced it right.  Then I forgot it.  But she did the same thing with saying goodbye and that I remembered.  So I will sign off tonight in Mongolian – bayartai – goodbye. 

PS – Mongolia uses a Cyrillic script but that is way beyond me.  

Here are a couple photos of my work building and the road outside it; typical of the contrasts in UB.