It's been a looooooong week!

Hello from Mongolia!

Sorry it has been so long since our last post. Once again we have been busy and the internet has been down.

Monday and Tuesday were spent at the maternity hospital again. We saw more C-sections and we decided that two natural births was enough (otherwise we would never have children). There wasn't much to do since not many women were in labour, and after mastering the blood pressure pump, we sort of just sat there. That was until we discovered that we could chill in the neonatal ward (or so we thought). On Monday, we chilled there for a bit and sang Lady Gaga to the premies when they cried to soothe them. It was surprisingly effective. When a nurse saw Jess looking longingly at two newborn twins, she passed them to her. Both at the same time, it was amazing! Mathilda was happy to watch from a distance. Then Jess brought one to a mother, where we watched the baby we had been with all day breast feed for the first time. The next day we found out that we weren't supposed to be in there because of the risk of spreading infection (which is ironic because they are the least sterile place we have ever seen... there was a moth in the operating room and a nurse sneezed on the gauze used in surgeries). That was when we texted Tsene and send: Time to switch hospitals.

(Right now Mathilda is blowing bubbles with Ali's 5 year old nephew, who is super cute. It is a big moment for Mathilda, she usually doesn't like children. Sorry... had pause to join in the fun. Bubble are fun for all age groups.)

On Tuesday night we went to the Grand Khan (obviously) for another night of fun and beer drinking. That we met our new friend Rachel from Orange County, California and three other friends from the UK (whose names we will confirm tonight.) Ok.. so we have another Artemis story. Mathilda was sitting next to her at one point and overheard her talking to Scott (our friend from Napa, California). Scott had asked her how old she was and she refused to tell him and after he said "Why??" she responded with "One never tells their age." So Mathilda says, "well actually, that is only something that older people do, you are young, so what do you have to be embarrassed about?" and Artemis said "you're American, you wouldn't understand". At that, Mathilda said "actually, I am Canadian" and Artemis said "it's the same thing..." then she said something about them both being "shit", which we both didn't properly hear because Jess was further away and Mathilda was looking at Jess in awe while trying to restrain herself from punching Artemis. later that night we found out that when Paige had introduced herself to Artemis and told her she was American, Artemis replied "obviously..." and walked away. There have been many similar stories. Nevertheless, Artemis' presence brings more laughter than anything else so we are thankful for her presence. The game is on at 2:30 a.m. here so unlike some of the crazy boys (and Catherine), we did not stay for that.

On Wednesday we went to Shastin Central Hospital (fun fact: hospital in Mongolian is 'emeleg'). We are working with a cardiovascular surgeon whose name we can't spell (we will show you a picture of it later). He has two 5th year med students (whose names we can't figure out either). They are cute but can't speak English and are a little clueless. We came too late on Wednesday(because Tsene had to go to the airport before showing the bus route to the hospital) and all the surgeries had finished for the day. We went around the hospital and got info on the patients that would be operated on the next day. That night, we went out with Scott and Catherine (guess where?). I don't know if we mentioned this already, but Catherine is from Ireland and is really funny. That night was very productive, since we convinced Scott to come on our Gobi trip (Jessica from Shanghai had backed out). He was reluctant because he wanted to be in the city for his 20th birthday so he could party. Instead he will be on a sand dune... no comparison if you ask us. We also found out that the guy who we had known as Ben for the last week, is actually named Bank. This was Catherine's fault. Even on the directory of phone numbers that PA gave us, his name was Ben. In case you didn't know, Ben/Bank is from Thailand, and walks around with an iPhone and a Blackberry and makes 1000 pound bets on every football game. Catherine alternates between calling him Ben and Banks (she says that Bank is too hard with her Irish accent...)

Thursday morning we accidentally slept in (due to being out late) and had to rush to Cafe Amsterdam to fill up for the day (we accidentally had another mutton encounter with the med students the previous day). We actually made it to the hospital (which is quite far away) by 8:30. Surgery didn't end up starting until 9:30. Our first surgery was a phlebectomy, which we saw a total of 2.5 seconds of. This was because there was a group of 8 volunteers who are part of the 2-week special ( a program that PA does), who came in and had to have a turn watching. We went around looking for other surgeries and came across Lawrence who tried to get us into the room he was in where they were fixing an aneurysm and doing an appendectomy. We are confused as to why there were two surgeries on two different patients going on in the same OR. However, due to the language barrier, we were unable to explain that we had permission to be there and got kicked out. We then went back to our doctor and saw him removing tumors from blood vessels in a woman's leg.

That afternoon we had to go to the bank to exchange travellers cheques/take out money. We got caught in a major downpour. We had to go to the money exchange place and then to then to Michele's French Bakery to pick up breakfast for the next morning. We got really soaked. We noticed that people would purposely swerve into the puddles to splash pedestrians. Ali later told us that this happened whenever it rained. The streets are still flooded from the rain. Our cab driver on our way home was really funny. He kept asking us if we spoke Russian or Korean and was making jokes about Canada and told us he was friends with Celine Dion. That night, we were exhausted and Mathilda was feeling a little sick. Ali, made us (especially for Thilde) chicken soup. It was delicious. (Thanks Ali!)

Today (Friday) we made it to the hospital by 9:00 and saw the coolest surgery yet. It was on a 9 year old boy who had a congenital heart deffect called PDA (patent ductus arteriosis). Lawrence and Amy (not the Amy that we have previously mentioned), who are both in med school, explained us the condition and the procedure in depth. We really like them. They are from UK (and therefore sound really cool when they say "Patent Ductus Arteriosis"). Later in the morning we saw another phlebectomy and then took the afternoon off to go to the Khongor Tour office with Matt and Scott to book our trip. We then went back to the appartment and helped (sort of.. we suck) Ingu make dinner. She is an awesome cook! Then we wrote this while we played with the little boy (Ali's nephew).

The next blog should be far more exciting, as we have a crazy next few days planned. Tonight we are going to the Grand Khan for a goodbye party for about 15 volunteers who are leaving this weekend (including Catherine :( ). Tomorrow we are going horseback riding at Terelj National Park in the Mongolian countryside with Projects Abroad. Sunday is the beginning of the Naddam Festival, which is an annual festival in UB and is the biggest one in Mongolia. We are going to the oppening ceremonies and then taking a bus out to the countryside to watch horse racing. The horse racing, as well as archery and wrestling competitions continue until Tueday night. It is a national holiday so we don't have work. There are so many tourists here for the festival. If you go to the State Department Store it looks just as caucasian as Canada. Next week we will be working at Shastin again and then on Saturday we are leaving for our 8 day, 7 night trip to the Gobi for sand dunes, waterfalls, camels, horses, monestaries and fishing. We will be staying in gers the whole time. (fyi, a ger is a nomadic hut.. google image it)

That's all for now. Comment please. If you don't how, ask someone who already commented. We really enjoy comments. We will post pictures after Nadaam.