Erdenet Dance

You have probably heard enough about this since it has been plastered all over FaceBook, but here’s a little background on what sparked that Erdenet Dance video.

First and foremost my good friend/ fellow Mongol dog owner/ Mongolia Peace Corps volunteer and Gobi desert dweller, Corey Benov, introduced this video to me:

Many nights of dancing followed, but it wasn’t until I shared this video to my sitemates (other Peace Corps volunteers that live in Erdenet) that we decided to make our own video. Our goal was to highlight the best city in Mongolia, Erdenet ;), and for a bit of fun.

This is how it began in Katie’s words:

“One night, a few of us were at a volunteer’s apartment, painting the walls of a poorly ventilated room, listening to tunes, as we do.  A catchy song came on.  Somebody complimented it.  Gracie mentioned a fun video that a dancer made for the song, and we all gathered around the soft glow of YouTube to watch it.

“OH MY GOD THIS IS SO COOL LET’S DO IT HERE IN ERDENET,” we shrieked, possibly high on paint fumes.  “IT’LL BE EASY! IT WON’T TAKE LONG AT ALL!”

That was four months ago.”

(That was at my apartment and secretly, I knew that if I got them all high on paint fumes they would telepathically receive my idea and put it into motion…it worked. ;) )

THEN, to my amazement, the NEXT day, Katie sent out an email with a dance move we needed to learn and how much filming we needed to do per week to reach a projected deadline.

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:

It was a lot of hard work, mostly on Katie’s part, but we all did some dancing and got at least a couple Mongolians from each of our agencies involved, plus a ton of kiddos from our English conversation nights, and the orphans we visit weekly.

We also tried to include highlights from Erdenet; the Zax (Market), our neighborhoods, the schools/businesses where we work, a hockey rink, the orphanage we visit, our hot dog stand, the copper mine, the giant Buddha, the Russian/Mongolian friendship statue, some cows,  and a delguur (neighborhood grocery), just to name a few.

As the project revealed itself, we realized, this is pretty SWEET and think it's a unique example of what a peace corps volunteer's service is REALLY all about - the relationships we build with the people we work with and the experiences we share together. If we can do some english teaching/ business development/ health promotion on the side (which we all do a ton of as well) then we are doing our job well.

So watch it, share it, dance to it, and send us a response video ;)