"work" and other fun things

It's been a mad few weeks since officially starting at Lotus. Even so, I've only spent a few days at the Centre itself! I feel like a bit of a cop out but there's so much going on right now that it hasn't mattered so much. At the moment I'm working with another volunteer, Olivia (another Aussie). She started volunteering at Lotus and was managing donor relations and things like that. Now she's become the director of the organisation set up specifically to oversee the Lotus building project at Gatchuurt.  Lotus is building a new centre over the otherside of UB. Currently we're out in the west, close to the airport in Yarmag.The project has been going for 3 or 4 years now, the building season in Mongolia is very short as the ground takes ages to thaw from the winter, then it begins to freeze again barely a breath after summer!


Olivia grabbed me as soon as I started and have been doing whatever comes my way since. So far I've begun an grant application for USD$25,000 to buy a small bus, planned the welcoming party for the new centre and developed a kindergarten program for the youngest kids. We're yet to find volunteers to teach the kids...but it's there, ready to go as soon as we've got someone! Most of the volunteering in Mongolia is done by foreigners. We'd really love some Mongolian volunteers but there's not yet the culture, nor the cash to be able to 'afford' to do so here.


Speaking of kids. Here are some pictures:

Dalai, one of the two youngest children at Lotus

Boys at the Lotus primary school ready for the performance!

One of the gorgeous dancers at Lotus.

Didi's friend (also named Didi!) showing Dalai her picture

Aruna and I at the new Gatchuurt site, cleaning for the day.

I went to the new Gatchuurt site a couple of weeks ago to help with some of the clean up. It had been snowing A LOT the days before my visit so it was quite a spectacular welcome!

It was a long cold walk back to the bus stop!

One of my fellow AYAD's (Jessy) is doing her assignment at Arts Council Mongolia. Yep, cool. Naturally she gets invites to all the coolest things in UB, being friends with her has real benefits (aside from her being very lovely!) like being invited to go with her! We went to the opening of an exhibition of a Mongolian calligraphy artist.  He makes beautiful pictures using the old Mongolian script which is amazing to start with! Unfortunately, none of his works were for sale.

This is the old script for "witch"

Jessy also managed to bag us some tickets to the opening night of the French/German film festival. We saw the Mongolian premier of The Two Horses of Chinggis Khan (apparently it premiered in the States 2 years ago). The movie's director also directed The Cave of the Yellow Dog  and The Weeping Camel. The movie was beautiful but to top it off the director and the starring actress were at the premier too!!

Did I mention that it's cold? Oh yeah. It's getting colder, but I am reminded time and again that it's going to get worse. I can't WAIT!!! In the words of an infamous...dude. Currently we're averaging about -15 to -20 in the day time. It's much worse at night. Thankfully most apartments in UB are centrally heated. Most of the time it's actually too hot! I get home and strip off into a t-shirt and trackies. I work up a sweat in the morning as my layers build and build in preparation for the cold.The colder weather also means the pollution is getting much worse. I had a few pics in my first post of the haze over UB, I haven't been back up to that monument but I'm certain that the smog has thickened significantly. Another AYAD shared this on Facebook:


"In Sydney, dangerous airborne particulate matter (ie. air pollution) is considered high when it exceeds 50 micrograms/cubic metre, 80% of the time its below 24. In the capital of Mongolia it sits around 280 micrograms/cubic metre. Holy Crap!" 


Holy crap indeed! Here's a link to a map where Mongolia is pretty hard to miss. I'm pretty sure Mongolia isn't overly proud of its reputation.

Frozen condensation. Note to self: wear waterproof mascara

Several of us went felting a few weekends ago. It was so much fun, but hard work!! We washed, bashed, smashed and willed our wool into shape, chanting a mantra "please felting, please felting, please felting..." I have to go back again, I made some nice things; a little scarf and something else I haven't determined yet. But many of the others made slippers and I am insanely jealous of how awesome they are, I am totally going back for more!

Showing our true colours

Sharon with the world's biggest boot!

 

I've not long come back from a whirlwind trip to China to correct my visa. It was very last minute! One minute I was sitting in the office thinking...hmm...my tourist visa runs out pretty soon, next I'm on the trans-Mongolian train to Erlian, China with my counterpart, Bolor (pronounced "Boldra"). It was an amazing experience from start to finish.

The journey takes 12 hours from Ulaanbaatar to Zamin Uud, the Mongolian border town less than 10kms from Erlian. The train is gorgeous. Nothing fancy but so well organised, comfortable and warm.  Each carriage has about half a dozen sleeper coupes, each with 4 beds, which are surprisingly comfortable.  You get fresh linen and a small towel, tea and coffee. There's no food available so you have to stock up before hand.  The carriages are also heated individually by coal fire! And the hot water urn is wood fired! I nearly died of time-warped glee! Sleeping is a cinch as you're gently rocked to sleep by the movement of the carriage and the monotonous sound of the wheels on the tracks. I fell in serious love with this train. Even the direct drop toilet.

Our 4 sleeper coupe

Wood-fired urn!

The train at the Mongolian border town, Zamin Uud

You're woken up about 30 mins before arriving at Zamin Uud, all the linen is quickly whisked off the bed and a line quickly forms outside the loos. From Zamin Uud, Bolor and I got in a 4WD cab..thing. I didn't really understand what was going on all the time but I just went along with it. The driver (along with 3 other passengers, it was a tight squeeze in the back!) drove us to the Chinese border, not 5 minutes from the train. The wind was amazing. Sheets of snow blew across the car. I was surprised the poor border blokes were able to stay vertical!

Horrendous gale force winds at the China/Mongolia border

Although the Mongolian and Chinese towns are close together, the customs process is pretty arduous so a 10 km journey takes about 2-3 hours.  The driver took us to the first customs point where all the passengers and their luggage bundle out of the car to Mongolian customs. I officially exited Mongolia on the day my visa expired!  The driver waits on the other side, then you and your luggage pile back in the same car with the same passengers. Next stop, Chinese border. Out again with all your luggage. Then back in the car one last time when the driver drops passengers at various hotels.

Erlian, China!

I have to admit I was pretty excited to be going to China for the simple fact that I bloody love Chinese food...naturally! I was beside myself when Bolor suggested we have hotpot for lunch. We seriously over-ordered and when we asked to take the remains home we got several plastic bags. We only took the solids. Another exciting prospect was fresh air. If it weren't so bloody cold I would have sucked it in with gay abandon.  Blue skies and sunshine does not = balmy Autumn day. I also rejoiced and the abundance cabs easily identifiable by their clear, cab-like markings and the empty streets! I said to Bolor "there are so many buildings...but where are the people? And the cars?". Of course she just laughed at me. Erlian is a relative ghost town compared to UB. And people actually obey the traffic signals. Amazing!

Our hot pot spread...so much deliciousness

Clear skies and roads!

We stayed at the Erlian International hotel. It was pretty nice! On the 3rd floor, I mean the ENTIRE 3rd floor, was the most amazing karaoke set up I've ever seen. A real boudoir! Mirrored walls and floors, multicoloured fluro lights, fancy booze, private rooms...and some pretty, er, "nice" looking ladies to keep the lads entertained. Until 6 in the morning. Our room was on the 4th floor. It was fairly horrendous all night long, thankfully Bolor and I were so exhausted from shopping allllll day we slept through the worst of it. Oh yeah. Shopping. So much shopping.

The Karaoke floor of our hotel, mirrored corridors and all

Stuff is exponentially cheaper to buy in China.  Normally Bolor and Didi go a couple of times a year to stock up on new clothes, towels, shoes, socks, undies...everything! It costs a LOT of money to provide for nearly 100 growing kids.  When I first arrived in UB Bolor and Didi were about to embark on a 'couple of days' of shopping in Beijing. A couple turned into 10! And it's not as fun and glamorous as it sounds. In our 5 days we shopped everyday buying massive quantities of everything. We hauled as much as we could on a small trolley and in our arms, we made several trips to the market in a day. Bolor said that this Erlian trip was easy, stress free compared to Beijing where the markets open early - like 4am - and close early and are rammed with people so it's a nightmare to get around. Erlian is made even easier to shop as most people speak Mongolian. My brain was frazzled trying to speak to the shopkeepers in some kind of Chinese-Mongolian hybrid. I gave up in the end and just let Bolor do all the talking.

Beanies anyone?

A trip to China would be incomplete without some Chinglish

As well as winter clothes and shoes we were in charge of buying more furniture for the new site. It's going to look amazing when everything is finished, assembled and occupied! Bolor and I went around a massive furniture display centre looking for kid sized stuff.  We bought a fair bit and it seems that I was quite a novelty in Erlian...so yeah, I made some new friends as you can tell by the amount of cheese in the photos following.

Me, Bolor and our new besties at the furniture shop

Our room quickly filled with black plastic bags laden with all sorts of goodies. I wondered the whole time how on earth we were going to get the stuff back to Mongolia. I mean, the carriages were quite roomy and had a surprising amount of storage space...but this was out of the ordinary. We were going to need a couple of extra tickets!

Did someone say retail therapy?

On our last day in Erlian, Bolor asked me to wait with the trolley whilst she quickly went into a shop. She came back with a man and explained that he would come to our hotel and wrap everything for us! That explained the purchase the previous night of masses of scotch tape and bags.  

It seemed that word had spread that we had a packing party as two more guys rocked up at our door to help. The men squashed everything together into the bags then wrapped meters of tape around each bundle until we had half a dozen giant black nuggets of shopping.  I discovered later (I'm getting used to my constant lag in useful knowledge) that the guys were from a freight company who we would pay to take our stuff across the border and deliver to Lotus.

Shopping all over our room

Three guys and 7 industrial rolls of packing tape later

Thankfully we didn't have to go through the cab-guy customs malarkey to cross back over the boarder. Instead we boarded the train at Erlian station. Despite having sent our giant nuggets on their merry way Bolor and I were still laden with the personal shopping we'd done after the packing. I thought customs would be a breeze, but I was so sorely mistaken. Imagine about 800 people trying to get their luggage through two security points, each with its own x-ray machine, no lines, no rules...just go. To add to the chaos, not everyone who shops in Erlian (as so many Mongolians do) organises for some guys to wrap and stack their wares so people have mountains of luggage! I was glad to make it through alive and with all my limbs.


The women, a mother and daughter, we shared our coupe with had been shopping too...along with most of their extended family. Their family and shopping were spread throughout the rest of the carriage! The family was preparing for the upcoming wedding of the daugther in our coupe and the return of another daughter from 6 years in Japan.  They had bought everything to fill a new home and throw a giant party. Then they bought about 6 boxes of fruit from the sellers at the train station. There was no space left so the boxes at first sat on the beds until we went to sleep when they took up the remaining space on the floor. Which wasn't much!

Fruit, everywhere!

The 10km journey back to Zamin Uud took about an hour. Then Mongolian customs boarded the train to collect, stamp and redistribute our passports. After an hour of being locked in, we were finally free to wander about Zamin Uud and grab some dinner. Bolor and I bought some bread, pickles and strass from the supermarket then stopped by the tracks to purchase some delicious homemade buuz (dumplings).

Zamin Uud by night

The coal fires smoking out Zamin Uud on our return journey

Track-side buuz, pickles, strass and bread for dinner

I didn't get to see much of the scenery on the way to China so I was happy to be woken up in time to see the famous Mongolian "steppe" landscape, blanketed in snow.  I really couldn't capture the beauty with my little point and shoot through the grubby windows...but take it from me, it's breath taking.

Horse, horse, horse, horse!

Ax

the longest fornight...mega post

Moments before gorging on home cooked "yum"

The last fortnight has felt like the longest two weeks of my life. It feels like I've been here 2 months already! Perhaps it's because we've barely had a chance to take a breath since landing. I think a lot has had to do with the confusing and exhausting process of trying to find a place to live. But after quite a lot of bilingual negotiation and a few hiccups, including but not limited to flooding our downstairs neighbour's bathroom and our washing machine becoming 'unearthed' and shocking us after every wash cycle (we googled it), Lauren, Jess and I have settled nicely into Grandma's flat! After nearly two weeks of eating out almost every meal it was nice to finally have some home cooked grub accompanied by some cheap vodka.  It seems that drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes are just about the cheapest things to do here. Vodka is about AUD$5 for a litre and cigarettes can be as cheap as AUD$1 or so.

I've been really surprised just how expensive it is here. Prices for most things compare to Australia which, when on a volunteer allowance of about 1/4 of what I'd normally earn at home, makes it even more difficult to fork out the money to buy fresh fruit and veg. A kilo of laundry powder is about AUD$20, 12 rolls of toilet paper cost about AUD$8.50. It's incredible! You have to shop around to find the best bargains but as the temperature drops, motivation to go and find good prices drops too. I've never done this before but out of curiosity I actually compared inflation rates for Aus and Mongolia!

Anyway...enough of that. We've been up to some fun stuff this week! We've started Mongolian lessons. Our teacher, Orna, comes to our flat every morning for 3 hours. We'd been warned before that Mongolian is one of the hardest languages to learn for native English speakers.  No shit. For one, they have about a million different vowel sounds! OK. Maybe that's an exaggeration. But there are three types: front, back and neutral vowels. The difference is barely audible for English speakers. The clearest difference (and by clear I mean muddy) is between the Y (front, "ooh") and the y (back, "oh"). Yep. Nightmare. There are also 8 noun cases. I don't even know what that means! Anyone? Anyone?


Here's a video Ben took of Orna sounding out the Mongolian alphabet. God help us.



And if you were worried that we'd forget about all the 'important' Australian days off, never fear for we celebrated Cup day in style! We had a sweep and some had "champagne" (from Russia) with "strawberries" (from a jar). I kept with beer. I drew NIWOT who did well for about 2 minutes then died in the arse. Andrew, another AYAD drew Dunaden AND Red Cadeaux. Cheater.

Ying and Morgan wearing the felt hats they MADE!

Watching the race action!

Andrew, the cheater/winner

I think this is a "Monster Head" fiddle

We also went to see Altan Urag, a Mongolian "Traditional Folk Rock" band at Ikh Mongol pub. Apparently all the musicians are 'classically' trained in Mongolian traditional instruments. They are amazing! But, as is normal for Mongolia, they played about 5 songs and were done in about 25 minutes! After much googling I discovered they made the soundtrack for the movie Mongol and have played at Fujirock festival.

Awesome lady drummer

Perhaps the best thing we've done so far was visit 3 generations of a Mongolian nomad family. The whole day was amazing, I couldn't wipe the silly grin from my face. Along the way we stopped by the roadside where a man stood with two magnificent eagles! At this point I thought I'd wet myself with excitement. Thankfully I held it together! In the western Aimags (provinces) of Mongolia, particularly Bayan Ulgii the Kazakh people have, for centuries, trained eagles to hunt rabbit, fox, marmot and wolves. Unfortunately the eagles we saw were not the real deal. But I was excited all the same. I am hoping to go to the annual eagle hunters festival at the end of my assignment. I can't believe I am IN this country!

Our driver. I've decided he doubles as a wrestler

Guy with the eagles

This is how I felt

Me, holding it together. Just

The scenery here is amazing. Breathtaking. Even now that everything is dead and brown from the cold. You can't tell from the pics above, but it was so cold I nearly lost my fingers! We drove for about 90 minutes out of the city, towards Terelj National Park and away from the smog of the city. The roads here (even in the city) are terrible. And the drivers are really aggressive, no one really pays any attention to the rules. I'm not sure there are any. I wish I knew our driver's name because he is super awesome, but an aggressive driver like the rest! He speaks a few words of English but says them with brute force, like each one has been smashed out of him "GOOD. MORNING." and "BYE. JESSY." His daughter came with us on the day trip, she is absolutely gorgeous, and despite his brutish manner, he turns into a marshmallow when she's around.


After about 40 minutes on a relatively "sealed" road, we took a seemingly random turn off onto a dirt path. We had to meet a man that would show us where the family had set up their winter camp. I guess he was leading the way.

Our convoy heading out onto the steppe

Beautiful, semi-frozen river

Mongolian Horses!

Real Mongolian Cowboys

Just imagine when it's green!

Getting sniffed

We arrived at the camp at about 12.30 and were greeted by the grandparents in the most touching manner. We got sniffed! It sounds strange, but it was actually so lovely! I nearly cried...but I cry all the time.  Mongolians greeting one another rarely kiss each other on the cheek. An older person will often grasp the head of one younger during the greeting and smell their hair or face. Nice huh? I hope I smelt good. We were invited into the main ger (which literally means "home") and drank hot, slightly salty, milky tea. It was really delicious. It was made even more delicious by the offering of little nugget-y doughnut things that you could slather with sweetened butter. Mmmmmm. I also tried the dried curds "aarool". They're really, really hard and are quite...aromatic. I wish I could have liked them, I really wanted to, but it's really quite pungent like sour milk. Oh well, it's an acquired taste.

Drinking tea. Doughnuts and aarool on the table.

Roar!

Nomad families have a winter and a summer camp. The winter ones are usually more sheltered, tending to be closer to the base of hills that provide some solace from the cold and the wind.  They also have more permanent shelters for their animals. Their dogs are gorgeous! But not for patting. They are strictly guard dogs. Other AYADs have told me how when going into the country side to visit nomad families, you do NOT go to the loo at night, the dogs will attack you as they'll take you for a stranger, or a wolf. It was really hard to suppress my urge to go and roll around with them. They look like lions!


I had my first taste of proper horhog! It was actually quite delicious! You'll remember from an earlier blog I linked y'all to a recipe. Most of the veggies were "optional" and are usually left out. But as we brought all the ingredients with us, there was no shortage of potato, carrot, mushroom and even bok choy. Of course there was a large quantity of mutton, but it really wasn't as strong tasting as I had imagined! Horhog is the real version of a Mongolian BBQ. They heat up stones in the fire then put them into the pot with the raw meat, top it with all the veg then cook it for about 2 hours on top of the burner.                                                                                                      

Horhog

Fishing out the stones

The highlight of the whole day was meeting and talking to the grandfather. He and his wife are Khazakh Christians and had religious iconography all over their ger.  Compared to the ger where all the cooking was happening, the grandparent's was far more ornate, the wall (after all there's only one wall!) was adorned with beautiful Khazakh embroidery as well as family photos. The grandfather was half deaf and spoke no English so much of our communication was in a Mongolian/English sign hybrid. He started rummaging around his few belongings and pulled out a carefully wrapped Canadian magazine published by the Royal Ontario Museum. He showed me the front cover which pictured a fox pelt. I admired it for a while, not knowing if I could or should look through the pages. Grandpa helped me out. He opened the magazine to the main article in which he featured! I learned that about 10 years ago a charitable organisation sponsored his grand daughter to go to Canada to have surgery for her congenital heart disease. A few years later, a Canadian Professor visited the family and as a thank you the grand father gave him a fox pelt that he had killed, skinned and cured himself. The pelt is now a part of the ROM Asian History collection. Amazing! The grandfather was understandably very proud of the magazine even though he couldn't read a word of it. His grand daughter has since been invited back to Canada to study at the Professor's university when she is old enough.

Grand father and his magazine

The most amazing boots in the world

This place, it's people and their hospitality has taken my breath away! I still have to pinch myself now and then to remember that I'm actually HERE!

Looking back over the ger camp from the hillside

The well

Oh yeah! We stopped of at the GIANT Chinggis Khaan statue on the way home. It was getting really dark and it was bone shattering cold. I'll be back during the daytime to climb up the horse. But here he is in all his glory.

Phew!! Ax