“Stop Acting Like the Spring Sky”

It’s spring time in Mongolia, after a long winter Montrealers celebrate the coming of summer. In Mongolia spring brings sand storms, cold winds and “changeable” weather ranging from +20C to -20C in a matter of hours. I went to Terelj National Park today when I left in was sunny and hot, then it was freezing, and then it was beautiful again, now it’s snowing! My language teacher told me that if someone’s moody you can say that they are acting like the spring sky, I get it now.

Terelj Park is not far from Ulaanbaatar. A few of us volunteers went up for the day where we saw some domesticated camels, they’ve got the furry two humped variety here, we checked out Gϋnjiin Sϋm, a Buddhist monastery used as a meditation center by monks, and a famous rock formation called Turtle Rock. The view of the park from the top was beautiful, if anyone out there is inspired to meditate with some Mongolian Buddhist monks this seems like a good spot to do so!

Most monasteries were destroyed by the Russian’s during the soviet “influence”. Gϋnjiin Sϋm once walled six temples and a tower, for some reason the Russian’s didn’t destroy the main temple but everything else was demolished. Some of the few monasteries which survived Mongolia’s communist days are supposed to be magnificent and I’m excited to check them out. There’s your Mongolian cultural lesson for the day!

Exploring UB

The last week in Ulaanbaatar has been a combination of work related meeting and workshops, language classes, socializing with other volunteers and exploring Ulaanbaatar.

Last weekend started with a fashion show put on by the Foundation for Wool & Cashmere Development NGO which a couple of VSO volunteers are involved with. The clothes where modern, innovative designs that I’m sure I could only wish to afford! I’ve been trying to get my hands on some wool yarn to knit with but thus far everyone’s been telling me that it’s impossible unless you’re a mass manufacturer, I am determined to prevail though!

On Saturday I ended up at the Museum of Natural History. Dinosaur fossils have been excavated from several areas in the Gobi Desert for decades. There was a 3m tall 5 ton flesh-eating tarbosaurus, and the “world famous fighting dinosaurs” – a velociraptor with it’s teeth buried into a protocerotops buried alive when a sand dune collapsed on them 80 million years ago forever preserving the attack!

Sunday I walked just south of Ulaanbaatar with a few other volunteers and laboriously climbed a big hill on the top of which were some ovoos. Ovoos are big piles of rocks found on the top of mountains where Buddhists come to make offerings to spirits. In accordance to the tradition I walked around the ovoos clockwise three times, tossed an offering (another rock) and made a wish. We walked along the ridge of the hills for a bit sucking in the view of the steppe on one side and smoggy UB on the other and then walked through a forest on the other side to get down.

That night I went to Иx Монгол, a bar where I saw an awesome local band which uses traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing to perform wicked rock-ska-punk music. Their CD is supposed to be available for about $5.50 – if anyone’s interested email me!

On Tuesday a few of us caught the North Korean Circus’ last performance which was spectacular. The balancing acts and trapeze show were unlike anything I’ve even seen and with my stomach in my mouth I really felt that the performers were truly risking their lives to entertain me at times!

Those are my adventures as of yet, I’m in Ulaanbaatar for another 8 days with lots of plans so hopefully many more to come!

A Bit of Background

I’ve been living in Ulaanbaatar (UB) for one week now. It feels like a small lifetime that’s gone by in the wink of an eye. It’s an interesting place, only 18 years ago Mongolia was still a communist country under Soviet influence (if not rule) so it’s still very much under a transitional system working towards democracy and free markets.

Russian was the second language for decades so most people are bilingual, but English has recently emerged as the sought after language to learn. Yesterday at Bridge School International where I’ve been studying Mongolian a small graduation ceremony took place for a group of Mongolian students who’d invested their last four years in studying English, something you would have never found 20 years ago.

On the surface UB looks like any other developing world capital city I’ve been to. It’s polluted, there’s a rich core with museums, expensive boutiques, and government buildings surrounded by slums (in this case made up of gers – round traditionally nomadic felt houses); traffic clogs the streets, MTV plays on televisions in bars, stray dogs roam around, and street children (who live in the sewers here) know how to ask for money in English.

It’s a strange feeling, it’s apparent that I’m in a developing country but I have all the amenities available to me at home, I definitely know that I have yet to see “Mongolia”.

On April 3rd I’m off to the countryside to start work. I’m going to be staying in Hutul, a town of about 10,000 about 3.5 hours North from UB. I’m going to be working with an organization which focuses on empowering local women in the realms of education, secured livelihood and health awareness. The organization works with the help of several local volunteers and my job is going to be to build the capacities of these volunteers and the projects themselves. I’m being cautiously vague since my job description is not much more detailed and I doubt I’ll really understand and negotiate my role before spending at least a few weeks with the NGO.

One thing that I can say for sure is whatever it’s like it will be decisively Mongolian!

12 Hour Time Difference

I have never in my life considered myself a morning person. Nonetheless it’s 5:23am and I’ve already had breakfast, helped an ex-housemate move tons of luggage down 5 flights, and watched an episode of Family Guy. I manage to stay up as late as possible but haven’t been able to get more than 3-4 hours of broken sleep in the past 3 nights, today I go on the hunt for sleeping pills.

Today is also my first day of Mongolian language school, I should probably school be practicing the Cyrillic alphabet right now… I’m going to have a few weeks of language training here in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city where I presume to learn the basics and then move on to my placement in Hutul where I’ll have no choice but to pickup the vocabulary or be left stranded. Despite the pressure, I’m really excited to learn Mongolian.

In the next week I’m hoping that what I’m doing here will be revealed, I started getting more clues yesterday when I met staff and the VSO Program office here in UB. Sometimes I feel like I’m on a weird reality TV show with a TWIST, like one of those shows where you think you’re there for one reason and then DUN-DUN-DUHNNNN they’ve got video footage of that thing you did and you’re face-to-face with your mom, your 3rd grade school teacher and Jerry Springer having to explain why you didn’t just stop after the margarine ran out – and it’s like OH SNAP!

That’s not really how I feel but lack of sleep gets interesting after a while.