Museum Opens...

A few weeks ago, the new museum was officially opened. This building has been around here for a long time, even way back when David first came to see Tuva without us. It took them a long time to finish the inside I guess. Emma and I went to the grandopening but as you can see the place was surrounded by police, every few feet there was someone guarding it. They had prayer flags hung in all the trees and the streets were blocked off around it too. We weren't brave enough to go in- we didn't see anyone else go in except one bus load of important city people all dressed up to the hilt. I didn't think we were quite famous enough to get in that day:)

David and Emma went one day though, nothing is new- they just have moved all the items from the old museum into the new one. I'm sure they will add some more things eventually- they are only using one of three floors. It is a nice building and it is just across the street from us (a few buildings down from Emma's school). Sometimes the sun reflects so brightly off the golden top. We were told that once they opened we would be without heat! I guess the few times they tried turning it all on the surrounding area had no heat... so we were glad that it didn't open when it was scheduled to (new year's) as we feared the cold! We think some of our (still frequent) power outages are caused by the museum. We don't notice any difference in our heat now that it is open so maybe they fixed the problem- or maybe it is because it is even in the -10's :) The inside pictures are from the last time we went to the old museum. (shaman's outfit, drum and the inside of a yurt which they have set up in the museum)

New Friends

We had a busy weekend getting to know some new people. Yesterday we went for supper at Edward, Aldynai and Tumiin's house. I forgot to take pictures:( Edward brought us there in a taxi..funny thing was as we turned in to their place Emma said "Hey! We used to live here!" It's true- they live in the same building that we lived in when we first came to Kyzyl- just 3 floors above where we were! We thought that Edward looked familiar... maybe we had seen him last August! It was Men's Day on Saturday so they gave David a book on the history of Tuva. Aldynai made salted fish/potato/beet salad and Manti (meat perogy kind of things)- very yummy. We were telling them how we feel like we are just with Canadians when we are with them, even though there is the language barrier and cultural differences they are so easy to be with.

Today we went for a winter walk with our new Mongolian friends. The Mongolian Consular- Argiohuul (don't really know how to spell some of these names:) and his grandaughters Dolgamaar and Togi met us at the park near the Buddhist Temple. It was cold but bearable. They brought a sled for Huddy and Josiah to ride on which helped a lot. We had a lot of fun, good chats and good sights. It was so nice to be in the woods and we even had sunshine- perfect day.

Warm Weather and English Club

We have really been enjoying the warmer weather (-20's). It still is cold but our clothes and faces can handle this kind of cold... The kids actually want to go outside for a walk or to go down the slide etc. whereas when it was -40C they weren't at all interested, they just wanted to get back inside. The pictures are from a walk down to the frozen river.

Yesterday we had our 3rd English Club here at our house. We have a one hour English lesson and then we sit around talking and drinking tea/eating cookies. It is a fun group of people. The oldest is a 34 year old man and the youngest is a 10 year old boy and then there are a bunch of women in between. They are pretty talkative which makes it a lot easier. I really enjoy teaching them and I think it will be even more fun as time goes on. Tonight we were practicing saying W's as it is a sound they really have trouble with. Last week we did the "Th" sound as they don't have that one either.

Our hope is just that we will get to know some more people through our English Club and it is working. The only man in our group (Edward) just loves talking to us (in russian as his english is very basic). His only day off this month is Saturday so he asked if we could spend the day with them tomorrow, so we will head there after the boys naps and stay for dinner and probably late into the evening. He is an accountant and his wife teaches with Sayanna at the college.

And the Mongolian family (who live at the Mongolian embassy) invited us to go for a walk in the park with them on Sunday! And the college (where Sayanna works) has invited us to come next Friday to show pictures of Canada and for David to talk to the students about families (in russian). So, we will have lots of opportunities to get to know people on a deeper level this next week which is just what we were hoping for.

Just a few more pics from our walk the other day... yesterday was pretty warm too, maybe spring is on its way!

It was an exciting week in the baby department... Our co-workers (David and Christy) had a baby boy! And David's sister Sara had a baby girl! We are so excited about these little ones... You can see pictures of the babies if you click on their links at right.

“Permission for Temporary Residency”

That is what we are hoping to apply for as soon as all our paper work comes in. If we were to get it we would be able to stay and work in Russia for 3 years without having to leave or renew visas etc. All other visa options for those wanting to live or work in Russia are much more temporary (3 months in the country then a mandatory 3 months out of the country etc.), much more expensive and overall just a big hassle.

So what’s the hold up? We have been waiting for our “criminal records check” to arrive from Canada. You may remember the fingerprinting that we did back in Nov. for them. Well, we just found out that, although my check came back negative, that is I am not a criminal, David’s fingerprints were rejected due to poor quality and a few other inconsistencies.

David will redo the fingerprints and send them back to Canada, but there is no guarantee that they won’t be rejected again and with the “120 day approximate” processing time (the RCMP is very busy) there is no guarantee that we will get everything back in time to apply and get an answer before our current visas expire (July 24th) or before the 70 spot quota for our area is filled (David asked the other day and there are about 30 spots left. Including our co-workers we will need 10 of those).

If we do not get the Temporary Residency before July 24th then we will have to return to our home country (Canada) to be able to apply for new visas. If that happens we would want to time our 3 month intervals so that we can be here in January 2009 to try again for the Residency thing (we would have to do all that “invasive” paper work again).

It is all very confusing. Of course a visit with family and friends would be wonderful but we really feel that having to return home would just take the wind out of our sails of Language and Culture study. We are really hoping to start full-time Tuvan Language study this summer; kicking things off with a month (or 2 or 3) stay in a “yurt”, living and working along side the Tuvan people.
The hardest thing for me is just the unknown. Should I be looking for plane tickets/planning our summer in Canada or should we try to nail down our plans for around here for the summer!? I'm imagining not knowing until days before our visas expire whether we are going home or not and being excited about the wrong one:)

A Warmish Walk

It was really warm out today, maybe -22C? so Emma and I wandered around town to all our favorite places. It has been quite a while since we have walked for fun. When it is -40C you can hardly open your eyes and you don't go anywhere that you don't have to. We only had one thing we had to do- find some Heinz ketchup. (we were successful)

We really enjoyed the warm sun. You can see my hair still frosted up a bit but normally I come back home with really white hair:) Maybe this means that spring is coming?!?

We wore the Canada hats that my dad sent cause we were being tourists for the day:) It was great fun.

Ulan Bator

Ulan Bator is sort of like a mix between Moscow and Kyzyl. It is big and has good stores (Sony Store, North Face etc.) and many excellent restaurants. It is like Kyzyl because it is so poor and dirty and run-down. We didn't really feel safe there. There are many foreigners there and they are ready for them. There are many good hotels and hostels and tour agencies ready to bring you around exploring Mongolia. You won't find anything like that here.

They are also ready to get $. When we arrived we were told by our friends who live there that the taxi ride to the guesthouse should cost about 6-8,000 tugrugs. When we arrived at the guesthouse the taxi driver asked for $30 or 30,000 tugrugs! David told him what we were expecting it to cost (the driver spoke Russian so we could communicate with him) and the driver explained how it was late and it was hard to find the place and on and on. Luckily all we had was 20,000 but we sure did get ripped off... We didn't use that guy again!

We really felt like everyone was staring at us there and I clutched my bag pretty tightly in my arm:) When we came out of the Irish Pub we were bombarded with little children begging for money. They asked in Russian. They asked in English. And even in German. They had been well trained and knew that most of the patrons at that restaurant would be wealthy and foreign. They followed us for blocks. Hard to know what to do in situations like that- do they really need it? Do they get the money or is some adult watching them?

Anyway, it was a nice place to stock up on some american goods but it wasn't a very comfortable or relaxing place to be.

Made me thankful for how the Tuvans treat us- they know we are different but they don't often beg for money or just stand around us in a circle staring at us. We didn't get any pictures of the downtown because I didn't want to pull out my camera- I like it too much to risk losing it:) These pictures were taken from the taxi when we were heading back to the guesthouse.

The Mongolian Ger

This yurt is right in front of where we stayed- this man opens the gate and does grounds keeping etc.

the doors always open to the south on a yurt

In Mongolian they are called a Ger, in Russian they are called Yurta, in Tuvan they are called өг but I'll stick with the English name- Yurt. These pictures are from the big city of Ulan Bator. We were pretty suprised at how many people live in Yurts. They are a huge part of the culture here in Tuva too but here in the city of Kyzyl no one lives in a yurt- the only yurts we've seen in Kyzyl are put up for show. But in Ulan Bator a city of over 1 million people, there are still people living in yurts like they do out in the country side. In the bottom picture you can see that there are 12? yurts (they are hard to see but you can count the smoke stacks:) and only 4 houses. Of course there are many apartment buildings closer to the center of the city so I'm sure the number of people living in yurts is way less than apartments or houses.

We were hoping that this summer we would be able to live in a yurt here in Tuva so that we can better understand the Tuvan culture but as we are currently unsure if we will be able to be here this summer, we will probably have to hold off on those plans:( It was nice to get a preview in Mongolia of life in a yurt though we didn't actually get to go inside one- we probably could have if we had asked but our time there was so short that we didn't think about such things. (we were just thinking about peanut butter and beef jerky :)

Anyway, speaking of Mongolia.... we had 3 Mongolians over tonight! We started a little English Club. We have a little English lesson, try to converse in English and of course have tea and cookies. So far it is a pretty small little group of kids aged 10-15 but there are some adults that are hoping to come regularly too. We could have a different aged group every night of the week but we are hoping to keep it to one night a week. For us it is just a great way of getting to know more people and of course getting to know the culture a bit more. For them, they have a chance to use their English! It is kind of like us and our french...we learned it in school but because we didn't know anyone that spoke french we never got into speaking it. These kids and their parents are so glad to have some real English speaking people around for them to get into conversation with. Anyway, the Mongolian girls are the best English speakers yet though they are still just at the basic level. They also speak Mongolian and Russian. Pretty impressive that they would want to work on a third language. For the Tuvans, English is their third language of course too. Some of the reasons they listed tonight for wanting to learn English were to be able to understand their music and to be able to play more computer games:)

I'll post more about Ulan Bator tomorrow.

Mi Casa, Su Casa

Yesterday morning, Josiah, Hudson and I (David) went down to the office to work. When I unlocked the door it seemed that I must have forgotten to completely lock it last time because the key only needed to turn once instead of three times. Well, as soon as I opened the door I realized that it wasn’t me that left the door that way. There was a man sleeping on my desk! I saw a few beer bottles and thought maybe he was a bum (but how did he get in without damaging the door?) I entered and said “Hello!?” In a kind of surprised, accusative voice and from the room to my left two very sleepy, obviously just woken young women appeared looking rather guilty. I said, politely but firmly, “What on earth are you doing in my apartment?” Avoiding my question they tried to wake up the man. I said “should I be calling the police?” they again deferred me to the guy asleep on the desk. I woke him up said the same things to him (well, first I had to answer his question of “where am I?” with “in my apartment!!!!”).

It turns out that this guy is the actual owner of the apartment. He explained something about getting into to town late, going to a wedding, and being drunk. He asked me please not to tell his sister (that would be the landlady that we have had so much trouble with). He mentioned something about one of the girls being someone’s fiancé and that his sister would kill him if she found out. I was walking around inspecting the place trying to see if anything was damaged or stolen. They had used our tea and sugar and honey and stuff. All the dishes were dirty, there were bottles and cigarette butts around and the place was dirtier and stinkier than usual but nothing seemed to be missing or damaged. He apologized, admitted that it was wrong and that he shouldn’t have done it and assured me that it would never happen again. I asked for the key and how he could assure me that he would never do something irrational while drunk again!? But generally I really didn’t know what to say or do. I said things like “what were you thinking” or “How can I trust you not to do it again?” or “you can’t just come in to someone’s apartment like that?!” or “what kind of landlord rents out a place and then just goes and sleeps in it and uses the other persons stuff whenever he wants!!?”

At first I thought that I should call the police but when I found out who he was the thought passed… not sure why… other than the fact that I wasn’t sure what the number was:). I thought I should go to one of the neighbors and ask them what they would do (and for the number for the police). Then I thought I should call his sister (the acting landlady) but when he begged me not to I decided I probably wouldn’t. I thought about how to get some guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again or how I should be really firm, strict, mean etc. But I wasn’t. I wondered what my partner would do if he were here.

After some more questioning and me expressing my general state of shock at what he had done I got his name and number and asked him to meet me the next day to discuss, among other things, the installation of a telephone line.

After they left I realized that two tea cups were missing and that they had been using the computer! They had moved things around- used the bulletin board as a blind for the window, did a crossword puzzle and from the looks of it washed their shoes in the tub.

I took it as a positive sign when he showed up the next day for our planned meeting. Sitting at the desk he had been sleeping on, we had a good talk and he seems genuinely ashamed of his behavior. I asked him to tell me honestly how long (or how many times) he had been there and what the computer was used for etc. I explained to him how I felt about what he did and that because I do not trust him I would be changing the locks. He seemed to think that would be a good idea. We then went together to the telephone company to complete the necessary paper work for installing a phone line in the apartment.

Please think about this guy and our future relationship and dealings with him. He is young (early 20's), definitely not on the best path in life and not making the wisest of choices (obviously). Our contract on the apartment ends on March 24th. We have such an exciting history with this place though… I would hate to give it up:)

Just some more pics from the journey down to Ulan-Batar, Mongolia. Our friend told us that we would see people out in the hills with their livestock or even all by themselves walking with nothing, no buildings or anything anywhere in sight and she was right! I kept thinking- where did that person come from? Where are they going? Aren't they freezing?

The last picture with the elderly lady is close to where we stayed in the city- I'll write about Ulan-Batar later.

We had an interesting day today- I guess I should write about it now but I'm too tired right now. More funny problems at the office apartment. Basically some uninvited guests- and I don't just mean the cockroaches.

Remind you of anything???

I can't remember if this was in Russia or Mongolia. And I didn't think about it till I was looking at the pictures at home but does this not remind you of a certain rock formation near Thunder Bay??! Maybe it is his wife:) Dresses are less defined:)

(The Canadian One)

Language Progress

After the two train trips we had a bit of a break in Ulan-Ude. We have friends who work there so it was nice to see them and relax in the almost american style hotel that we've stayed in before. It was nice to have a bathtub and normal toilet for a few days:)

We also had language evaluations done there. They went really well- I even enjoyed the interview which suprised me. It was relaxed and maybe because of increased language skills it wasn't so uncomfortable to be talking in russian with a microphone in front of me. Anyway.. I went first cause I knew David would be a hard act to follow:) And the results...

David has reached the required level which allows him to teach and stop doing full-time russian study!!! Yay!!! He did it!!! And I have progressed pretty good too, considering I'm only at lesson 49 and David is up to lesson 115. The plan is for me to up my studies to full time and then, hopefully by this summer, we will start learning Tuvan! I won't be even close to where David is (few get to the speaking level he is at anyway..) but I will have a more comfortable grip on the language before starting another language. David could start learning Tuvan now but with my learning style it is so much better if we can both at least start together so he is going to wait for me- how sweet:) And with him needing to do less language study, I'll have more time to get my studying time in.

We really are thrilled- sometimes we've wondered if we would ever get anywhere with this tricky language but now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Encourages and motivates me to keep going now that I can see progress and an end in sight. (Not to say that we will ever stop studying russian- I'm not sure there is anyone (russians included) who have it all figured out:)

Thanks for encouraging us along the way with our language studies and telling us we could do it- you were right!!!

Lake Baikal

Back to our journey... These pics are from the train ride from Irkutsk to Ulan-Ude (still in Siberia). Lake Baikal is of course the largest (volume wise:) freshwater lake in the world. Do you remember the photos from last time we were there? I hope we can go there sometime in the summer... I'm sure it is beautiful!
One of the most interesting parts of this trip is when the fishermen (or their wives or friends) come on the train selling hot or cold salted fish. You don't feel bad getting the stinky omul fish and having your train compartment and clothes stink like fish for the remainder of the journey because everybody does it! It would be a bad journey for those who don't like the smell.... We got some (we decided on the cold variety) and we were suprised how much we liked it. Especially Josiah loved it- think he ate a whole fish by himself! We enjoyed that meal as it was a nice change from our instant ramen noodles.