I stand out because I don’t look like anyone else here and because I don’t wear a uniform. It took a few weeks for everyone to get used to seeing me around, but now I have many friends here and people are so wonderful to me.
Another community that I needed to integrate into was the teaching community at my school. There are three wonderful Mongolian teachers who also teach English at the police academy. It took us a couple of weeks to learn each other’s teaching styles, but they all speak English very well and they have been a great help to me. Each time I teach an English class, I plan different lessons and games for my students, but I always have a Mongolian co-teacher with me to help teach English and to express what I am trying to say in Mongolian so that my students can understand and learn.
Lastly, I am still working on integrating into Mongolia in general. One thing that really helps with this is studying Mongolian. I take two to four Mongolian classes each week and I try to learn twenty new words every day. As a result, I have been learning quickly, and it is so fun and rewarding when I can say something in Mongolian and people understand what I am saying. Another thing that has helped me integrate into Mongolia is learning my way around the city, Ulaanbaatar. It is always confusing when navigating new places, but after just a short amount of time, it becomes easy to get around. I live on the eastern side of the city. It is only five miles away, but for Ulaanbaatar, five miles is a long way. However, I am lucky to live so far from the city center because I have gotten to know a different side of the city and I feel like I understand Ulaanbaatar pretty well already.
