I had a bit of a shock today. One of my students had been ill and we discovered today that he has Hepatitis A. We are looking into it, especially when it comes to the cafeteria. The food there has been less than desirable and we are concerned one of the employees may have it. The school nurse contacted the board of health and due to the fact it is only one student thus far there really isn't much they can do. My classroom and the cafeteria are being sterilized tonight and the employees tested. I should know by tomorrow if one of them has it too.

The poor kid, Khulan B., he went home on Tuesday with a fever and returned for the second half of school yesterday. He was falling asleep at his desk and we sent him to the nurses to lie down. Today we got the news. It sent Doogie and I into a bit of a tizzy but thank heavens we found out so quickly and the proper steps have been taken.

I had to send a newsletter home to the parents because they have been calling Doogie saying they asked their child what they learned today at school and the kids say "I don't know." They find it really easy to say that they don't understand due to the language barrier. I gently reminded the parents that this is an English speaking school and outlined what steps I have been taking to enforce new vocabulary and language skills. I also gave them some steps they can take at home to assist in their child learning English. It is just so frustrating as these students are all returning and have had one entire year of Enlish instruction already. It is also frustrating as everyone wants their kids to sit in the front. I have some I need to sit there due to bad eyesight as apparently in Mongolia no one goes to the eye doctor. There are also some who are smaller and those I need to keep my eye on. In a class of 26, all the parents want their child to sit at the front!

On the upside, some of the teaching staff took a trip to the countryside last weekend. It was a place called Terelj and it was beautiful. We rode horses, visited "Turtle Rock" and hiked up to a monastery. It was great to get out of Ulaanbaatar, even if it was just for one night.

The ger camp we stayed at was very nice indeed. Clean and welcoming. It was nice weather but got very cold at night. The wood burning stove did it's job too well! We were boiling at some points during the night. We stopped at a place on the way to Terelj where 100 monks hid in this stone cave. If you climbed to the top you were said to have good luck, as they were never caught. My immediate response at seeing the stone formation was to climb it. Once I got up there my fear of heights kicked in and needed help down. The rock has been climbed by hundreds of thousands of people and had become quite smooth. Pair that with bus loads of kids all clamoring around you with their "barger's brigade" attitude and I got very nervous. There also was a suspension bridge at the monastery that was quite shaky. It also made my stomach flutter! On day two I rode a horse whom I named Eeyore. He had the same attitude and kept giving me sideways glances that said "Leave me alone, woman!" The Mongolians just name the horses by their colour and the first one I rode was called "brown horse". In Mongolian is sounded similar to Chester to me so that then became his name. The horses are funny because they don't stop walking to poo but they stop if they have to pee. It's quite the mini version of Niagara Falls when that happens! We laughed and laughed the first time it happened.

On another plus side, we finally have hot water, well, what passes for hot water here. That also means our heat is on. No more freezing mornings!