Friday, April 18, 2008

Hard at Work

Darkhan one of the bigger towns in Mongolia and only a 40 minute drive from Hutul so I’ve been spending my week-ends here hanging out with the hub of VSO volunteers living in the city. It was interesting coming to Darkhan after my first week living in Hutul and talking to a colleague who was remarking on how quickly he ended up in a 9-5 routine in Darkhan. Not the case for me.

In Hutul I work for two organizations, my original mandate was to work for one headed by two women but upon arrival in Mongolia I found out that only weeks before my arrival the women had parted to create two NGOs so they could each head their own. My job description was already divided into two parts – building the capacity of the NGO it self as well as building the capacity of the national volunteers working for the NGO, the split meant that I would now be balancing those two initiatives between two organizations.

Both of my employers, N and D, are fulltime teachers and work in the mornings, so I don’t start work until 2pm the earliest. However, even then in the past couple of weeks I’ve only had a few days which could be considered an orientation to the work I’ll be doing. It’s difficult not to get wrapped up in that fact considering that I’m only here for another four and a half months with a lot of work to do but then I reflect on some of my best “meetings” these weeks such as getting invited to D’s home for dinner and discussing project ideas, or the discussion I had with N at lunch. They’re busy working mothers with great ideas but not a lot of time to invest in them but I’m hoping that we can get a momentum going soon.

Of course there’s still the question of what that momentum will look like. I was brought onto this project in the role of an advisor/capacity builder but it seems like other than a bit of fine tuning both the NGO’s are in need of fundraising more than anything, they have great ideas and know the community’s needs better than I ever could so there’s no point in me bringing in new project ideas, despite them asking for them, I think the best thing I can do is support what they already want to do, however without other NGOs, foreigner investors or organizations, or internet access to organizations to network with it will be interesting to see how I’ll manage that!

A 40 Minute Drive From Across the World in Cyberspace

I’ve been living in Hutul for two weeks now where I am stationed to work for the next four and a half months. Things move slowly in this strange world which is great for catching up on reading but a bit frustrating in regards to work.

I came with little expectations as one in development work is trained to do, but out of the few I had one was that I would have an apartment on arrival as promised. Unfortunately that was not the case, the apartment promised to me ended up being rented to someone else so I was stuck in the one hotel in town to start with. The hotel is owned by the cement factory in town, one out of three factories that the town exists for, the other two being one that builds train sleeper cars and a flour mill. As the cement factory “hotel” the residences are mainly factory workers, that in itself isn’t a problem, the problem was that the Friday I took residence there marked the beginning of a Mongolian writer’s competition which came to town, this week-end long competition did not take the regular form of a literary focused gathering as I would imagine it, instead it was a round the clock drinking and brawling competition on the grounds of my residence. There was one shared bathroom with a door that would not lock and at least 4-5 drunken men in the hallway at all times of the day often fighting to the point that even my employer had difficulties in visiting me let alone me getting out of that room.

Two days into this I met an Australian woman who sometimes comes through Hutul to keep an eye on a café-project that she’s trying to start up here. In sympathy for my housing crisis she offered me the pantry in her café to live in; I was ready to say yes despite the ridiculousness of the entire situation when my employer met up with us to let me know that an apartment had been found!

I started with only a mattress (i.e. pile of blankets wrapped around a thicker blanket) on the floor and nothing else but in the past few weeks my employers and neighbours have come together to temporarily donate furnisher, the only major thing missing now is a fridge which is taking a bit longer to scavenge.

I think the playground scene outside my apartment epitomizes the clashing or combination of modern, nomadic and communist eras. In the middle of the Soviet style apartment blocks the playground has some monkey bars, a sand box and concrete blogs painted to represent animals for the kids, and for the adults there are three pool tables that get covered with tarp at night after a long day of use. It’s an interesting image, often I look out and I’ll see kids skipping rope beside groups of men drinking around a pool table, traditionally grabbed elders on the benches chatting, pigs and skinny dogs scavenging for rubbish and at least one horse tied up to the monkey bars or a lamp post.

I can’t say that I’ve made too many friends being the only foreigner in town and having a very limited vocabulary, but the time I’ve spent with my neighbours has been especially great. They dream of visiting Amerik one day and think talking to me is a great opportunity to learn English, so we often sit together in the evenings with all our language resources at hand and generally manage to communicate with a lot of patience. Not matter what the level of communication though everyone here is really friendly.

The one other person I’ve met who speaks a bit of English is a man heavily into the meditative teachings of the “Supreme Master”. He owns the one vegetarian restaurant in town (which I am oh so fortunate to have here) and has been trying to indoctrinate me in the SM teachings while emphasizing that it’s not a religion or a cult. I’m not convinced but won’t go into it, however if you’re curious check out www.suprememasterTV.com, yes, modern prophets have their own TV station’s and websites in this fast paced technological world of ours. Enjoy your path to enlightenment!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

For the Animal Lovers

Before leaving for Mongolia I had to get 3 rabies shots at a price of $250 each, I love VSO for covering those costs. Ulaanbaatar is strife with stray dogs and the countryside is supposed to be even worse. Average or not, being a westerner I am terrified of being alone with one of these mongrels, on Tuesday afternoon I gained some confidence in the way I would deal with such a situation, and for a moment, relief that $750 will keep me from foaming at the mouth.

My journey beings with an invitation to Mongolica, a cheap good Mongolian restaurant with, lo and behold, vegetarian options! When I accepted the invitation the night before I evidently wasn’t paying too much attention its whereabouts. I soon learnt that it was a 30 minute bus ride westward from where I’m staying in the city center. I’ve been on two buses in UB so far and neither of them merited the horror stories I’d been told. On Tuesday I took my first bus alone. It was 6pm and I was scheduled to meet my friends at a roundabout called Sapporo at 6:30pm. I let 3 buses pass, all packed like sardines before finally sharpening my elbows and shoving onto one. The conductor fascinatingly found a way to get to me and the other new arrivals for the fare but I was trapped on the steps of the doorway with no where to go and more people getting on behind me at every stop. Finally after about 10 minutes I made it up the stairs where I got stuck in the middle of the bus with enough room for only one of my feet to stay on the ground, unable to grab onto anything, with one arm sticking straight up in the air, and a little girl about 4 years old clutching onto me for dear life. I’m still finding bruises from the ride!

I was a bit concerned about missing my stop since I couldn’t see out the dirty windows but being in such close quarters with everyone I managed to make some friends, especially with the two other people forming a circle around the little girl with me. I didn’t know how to ask “how far is Sapporo” in Mongolian so the best I could do it keep asking “энэ Sapporo уу?” which means “is Sapporo here?” every five minutes. It worked! I saw the landmark and it was time to get off, I even saw my friends outside the bus looking out for me… I finally dragged myself off the bus 4 stops later and a 15 minute walk away. I felt like I lost 20 pounds in sweat and couldn’t stop exclaiming these loud “ahhs” and “whews” for a little while, people must have thought I was insane!

However, the journey didn’t end there. Walking down this street feeling like the lightest, freest person in the world, I noticed a lot of stray dogs on the street. One dog coming up was staring me down and inching forward towards me, and although there were lots of people on the street I thought it prudent to remember what my Mongolian Security Briefing had specified about dealing with stray dogs, so I bent down and picked up a rock. Success- knowing the possibility of what could come the dog turned around and scuttled away! I walked for about 10 more seconds feeling very proud of myself when all of a sudden I felt something bite my calf! I turned around half expecting something to jump up and mangle me (don’t worry ma, that doesn’t happen), when this Mongolian guy jumps up and starts laughing! A good way to get my attention to say the least.

I felt much better once I was sitting at Mongolica at 7:30pm with my veggie dumplings, a telling of my story and a rock in my pocket.