Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all! I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas time. I hope you and your families have a great time.

Whilst a White Christmas may not happen, it’ll certainly be a very cold Christmas in Ulaanbaatar! There are a few signs of Christmas here (despite the fact that Mongolia is a Buddhist country). Most of the hotels and shopping centres have Christmas trees positioned by their entrances. Some buildings also have colourful lights wrapped around them. However, the locals are keen to point out that these decorations are not for Christmas, but are part of the build up for the New Year celebrations. Indeed, the local TV stations are running what Westerners would call ‘Christmas-themed’ programmes (with the hosts dressed as Father Christmas, sitting in front of log fires), but end the programmes with the message “Happy 31st” flashing across the screen!

As a special Christmas treat, I’m including video clips in this week’s blog entry. Have a look at my moment of fame, making it onto Erdenet regional TV! It’s a clip taken during last month’s visit to Erdenet with Amnesty International (see http://rob-in-mongolia.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-tour-with-amnesty-international.html for more details). I’m talking about the volunteering efforts that the local schoolchildren were doing in the city. Enjoy!

There's also a short clip of me talking to Darkhan's local TV channel. I'm speaking fluent Mongolia, and seem to have developed a rather feminine voice! (ok, it's Otgo the head of Amnesty Mongolia's volunteer programme who is translating)

As always, lots of love from Ulaanbaatar,

Robert

Phew, International Volunteer Day is done and dusted!

Phew – International Volunteer Day is done and dusted. It was great fun, a real showcase for Mongolia’s volunteer community. As an outsider looking in, I was really impressed with what Mongolia’s volunteers are doing. As International Volunteer Day was a couple of days after my last blog entry, there are a few more events for me to report on…

Ceremony for Chingeltei District’s Health Volunteers – A local health department had trained 19 volunteers to provide health education and basic treatment to the public. On Wednesday it was time to officially unveil the volunteers, so a ceremony was put on to celebrate their achievement. It was very touching to see the volunteers collect their ‘graduation’ certificates. They were all so humble. A really nice touch was that each volunteer was individually introduced to the audience, complete with a list of their likes and dislikes. “This is Bold, 44 years old, who likes going to the movies and eating buuz”! I think this volunteer scheme is a great idea, as the health volunteers free up the overworked doctors, allowing them to work in other areas.

The Grand Finale, a Cocktail Party - on the evening of the 5th many of Mongolia's volunteer community (both staff at volunteering organisations and the volunteers themselves) got together for a celebratory drinks party. However, due to funding difficulties the cocktails were sadly absent! We did however manage to get the head of Mongolia's UN Development Programme to come to speak to us. She delivered the UN Secretary General's message for the volunteering community (everyone listened very attentively). The evening was a success in so much as everyone had a good time, but I hope next year the International Volunteer Day team decide to run a different event (it just seemed a bit of a waste of money, when some of the organisations present would have probably prefered moeny for new office equipment rather than a nice evening of wining and dining).

Amnesty International's supermarket petition - the 10th of December is International Human Rights Day (the UN calendar is crazy, it seems to bunch everything together in December!). To mark this day, Amnesty International's volunteers went out into Ulaanbaatar to do a big petition-signing/fundraising drive. 30 volunteers were sent to 9 of the city's biggest supermarkets and set up stalls. I went along to our local Nomin Supermarket to help out (it was my job to get any foreigners who passed by to sign the petition). I really enjoyed getting back to running a campaign stall, it reminded me of the type of things I used to do when I was at university. Aside from just being there to help out the very kind volunteers, my main highlight was an exchange that I had from a member of the Russian Embassy staff who just happened to be passing through. She was very pleasant, but found it really strange that I would be bothering to campaign about human rights... On a side point, it seems that the only foreigners left in Ulaanbaatar at the moment either work as volunteers, embassy staff or in the mining companies. As temperatures are now averaging -15C a day, tourists are nowhere to be seen!

I hope all of your Christmas preparations are going well. Lots of love from Mongolia,

Robert

International Volunteer Day

There's been a real explosion of activity from the volunteering sector, which can only mean one thing - International Volunteer Day (5th Dec don't you know) is just round the corner! I've had a lot of fun the last couple of days, attending lots of events that have been run by various members of the volunteer network I work for. Here's my top 3:

World AIDS Day Art Exhibition- As some of you may know, the first of December is World AIDS Day. The National AIDS Foundation tried to publicise this to the wider community by running an art exhibition in a gallery not far from Parliament Square. The exhibition showcased the work of the city's students. I was very impressed with the standard and creativity of the various entries. All in all I think the day was a success, especially as a couple of national TV stations showed up.

Concert for the elderly and isolated - A really touching event. On Sunday the organisation Service for Peace ran its now annual cultural festival. The event aimed to provide an evening of enjoyment to many of Ulaanbaatar’s vulnerable and isolated people, and was run by volunteers. During the day 150 volunteers went out into the city's outskirts and gathered approximately 1000 disabled and elderly people, pretty impressive I think. Seeing the smiles on the audience's faces was really a beautiful sight - everyone had a great time.

International Disability Day - the 3rd of December was National Disability Day, so volunteers helped the Wheelchair Users Association celebrate through an event called “My Capital City”. 14 wheelchair-bound people visited various sites around the city (the City Council Office, the Mobicom mobile phone centre, the APU drinks factory and Tengis Movie Theatre). The aim of this was twofold: to illustrate how difficult it is for disabled people to access most buildings in the city, and to give the disabled people a chance to see parts of the city they do not usually get to see.

You can see photos of all these events at http://picasaweb.google.com/schliner/InternationalVolunteerDayEvents. Enjoy!

Tomorrow is International Volunteer Day itself, and we have a couple of things planned then. I'll tell you all about it next week...

Snowy Ulaanbaatar

Last Monday we had a big downpour of snow, which the locals say marks the start of winter. The city looks a lot pretty with it's new white blanket - all the dirt is hidden away underneath the snow. It's pretty chilly, so whilst it hasn't snowed since the city still remains covered. I love it! The only problem is that everything becomes a lot more slippery. For some unknown reason the Mongolian authorities have decided to build all new pavements with very flash paving stones (sometimes using polished marble). The only problem is that these stones give pedestrians no grip what so ever! For a country which is covered with snow/ice for almost a third of the year this seems absolute craziness. Oh well, "at least the pavements look nice"...

My colleagues and I are all gearing up for the most important date of the Mongolian volunteering calendar - International Volunteers Day (5th of December). All the different member organisations of the volunteer network that I work for are planning different events. Service for Peace will be getting its volunteers out on the streets to tell drivers to wear their seat belts. The Donors Association will be visiting university campuses to try to get more young people to sign up to be blood donors. The streets of Ulaanbaatar will be awash with volunteers - hopefully! The big climax of International Volunteers Day will be a cocktail party. I hasten to add that this was not my idea, but hey - maybe it will draw in the politicians and funders... Anyway, during the cocktail party we'll have an awards ceremony which will highlight the work that some Mongolian volunteers are doing. That at least will be a really good thing.

The Hair Cut - As I was beginning to feel self-conscious of the fact that during important meetings I constantly had to brush my hair out of my eyes I felt the time was right to get a hair cut. Thus, this Thursday I popped round to the girls' flat (four of the female VSO volunteers live together) and was 'treated' to a free hair cut. It was very kind of Ruth to volunteer her services. However I think she took too much off - I miss my long hair! Oh well, it will grow back in a month, and I suppose it made me look more smart for...

Trip to Parliament - On Friday I was lucky enough to be invited to a ceremony inside the main parliament building (an honour which not many Mongolians, let alone foreigners have had). The reason - one of the organisations I work with, the Mongolian Youth Federation, was helping to run the annual civic vow event. When Mongolians turn 16 years old, they are expected to pledge their allegiance to the nation and then receive their passport. The event I went to was a ceremonial version of this every day occurrence - one 16 year old from each region of Mongolia was invited to take part in a more formal version of this coming of age ceremony. The event itself was quite interesting. It was a real show of patriotism, with the crowd clutching their breast on several occasions. A brass band played the national anthem, some people recited poetry and a local film star came to sing some traditional songs. It's interesting to see how patriotic the youth of Mongolia are - quite a contrast to young people in the UK.
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Anyway, at the end of the ceremony I managed to have a quick peek around the Parliament building, and what a luxurious building it was! The place was filled with leather seats and full of beautiful artwork. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed anywhere near the main chamber where parliament gathers, but the outer quarters were still a sight for sore eyes...

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Right, back to the 'real world'. I hope all of you are well and are having fun. Best wishes from a slippy Ulaanbaatar,

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Robert

On Tour with Amnesty International Mongolia

This week I went back to one of my favourite pastimes – training young people to be campaigners! Amnesty International Mongolia very kindly invited me along to help them with some training they were doing in two schools in Mongolia, and I couldn’t refuse – I was active as a student with Amnesty back in the UK, and so was exited by the opportunity to help a similar Amnesty youth programme spread in Mongolia. Thus, I packed my bags and headed out with Otgo, Samboo and Gerlee for what proved to be an interesting experience…

We went to visit schools in second and third biggest cities in Mongolia, Erdenet and Darkhan (both to the north of Ulaanbaatar). The plan was to go to two schools and give a select group of the children training on volunteerism and campaigning. It was hoped that this training would lead to the creation of self-sustaining school campaigning groups (groups of children who would be running Amnesty campaigns in the local community). The training would give the young people the skills they would need to run a campaigning group effectively, and built up to one final activity – the youth would go out on the streets and do a campaign for real!

Erdenet – the first group we worked with, and as it turned out, the best. This was a fantastic group of young people who were a real pleasure to be with. The young people were really friendly and welcoming, and were very attentive during their training. They were very enthusiastic as well! One of the groups ran a campaign designed to get shopkeepers to stop selling alcohol to children (much to the displeasure of some shopkeepers!), whilst another group did a campaign about the global arms trade. My Amnesty colleagues and I left Erdenet with mixed emotions – we were sad to say goodbye to a group of really nice young people, but we believed that we had been successful – they should continue campaigning into the future. More generally speaking, Erdenet was a lovely place. Perhaps I was swayed by the blanket of white snow that was covering everything, but it just seemed such a nice, friendly city.

Darkhan – so far so good, but the group at Darkhan was more difficult! The children we ran a training for were from one of Mongolia’s top private schools, and the difference between them and the Erdenet state-school educated youth was instantly visible. Here follows a rant, for which I apologise in advance…

The children’s initial reaction was to be critical of the message we had to bring, and would always have excuses ready as to why they shouldn’t be helping the community out. We regularly encountered statements like “people who are poor are lazy, they can’t be helped”. Also, I was shocked at how rude and arrogant some of the children were. One example was when one young man spilt tea all over the floor and yet did not clean it up. When I (the white foreigner) went to clean it up he said I shouldn’t as it would bring shame to him and his class. Instead I should wait for the cleaner to come and sort it out…

I suppose it’s things like this that really stuck with me, but I shouldn’t let it cloud over the positives from the Darkhan training. The youth did some good campaigns (after a lot of persuasion), and the local media came to do a story on how young people were doing work for the local community. Thus, Amnesty/volunteerism in general got some coverage, which can only be a good thing.

Now I’m back in the big city of Ulaanbaatar. Otgo and I both said it was sad to end our adventure and return to our computer screens in our offices, but I can’t do training all the time I suppose!

November the 9th - Network Meeting Extraordinaire

The culmination of the hard work of the last few weeks occurred on the 9th of November. It was on that date that my colleagues and I hosted a large meeting for the members of the Mongolian Volunteer Network (the organisation that I work for). The aim of the meeting was to get the many member organisations together, and to encourage them to share their skills/experience with each other and create a plan for the future. With these aims in mind I think the meeting was a relative success. The first half of the day was filled with networking and skill-sharing events. Then the afternoon session contained discussions on the structure for the network (it's voting procedures, etc) and proposals for a plan for 2008.

Over 40 participants from 23 organisations came, which was a great turnout. We even managed to get the network meeting publicised in the local media, and a camera crew from TV 25 showed up to take some footage and do some interviews. We made the evening news! Whilst the event was fun, now the real work starts - I've got to get down and think about how DEMO (an NGO, and the current host of the network) and I can implement the suggestions that were made during the meeting.

Having said that, my mind is currently on other things. I've just finished the first day of a four day training event that Amnesty International Mongolia and I are running for two regional schools. Today was the turn of Erdenet Secondary, and on Wednesday we'll be heading off to Darkhan (one of my favourite places in Mongolia - see http://rob-in-mongolia.blogspot.com/2007/09/ive-properly-starting-to-settle-in-ive.html). So far it's be good fun (the participants are 14/15 years old, so full of energy!). As someone who was quite active with Amnesty international back in the UK, it's a real privilege to be able to help out the organisation in Mongolia. Anyway, I'll update you all about how the training went in the next weblog entry... Lots of love from an internet cafe in a very snowy Erdenet,

Robert

# Welcome to the House of Fun #

On Friday our house was transformed for a day into a house of fear, trepidation and toilet paper hanging from the ceiling. Yes, that’s right – we had a Hallowe'en Party! Jon, Jude and I invited our colleagues and friends along to our house party. Little did we know that almost everyone accepted our invitations… 40 Mongolians turned up. This made for a pretty good party! The Mongolians had never experienced a Hallowe'en party before (having only heard about them through American films/sitcoms). They were all pretty intrigued. They also loved the idea of having a house party. As many Mongolians still live in gers (tent houses), or live with their families, house parties are pretty tricky to organise. We all had a good time, and the house is still in one piece!

Preparing for Network Meeting – The work I’ve been doing for the last few weeks is close to its fruition. This coming Friday the 9th of November I’ll be helping to host an important meeting for the National Volunteer Network. The meeting will allow the 21 different member organisations to get to know each other better and share their skills. It will also contain two discussions. We’ll be looking at how to change the procedures of the network (the voting process, the amount of time one organisation can host the network, whether there is a need for a presidential figure), and will be planning the network’s 2008 strategy. We’ve encouraged some of the local press to come to cover the event, so if many turn up we’ll be raising the profile of volunteerism in Mongolia. I’ve managed to get the English language press to turn up too (The Mongol Messenger and the UB Post). Any articles they write may prove useful for future fundraising proposals. The attached photo has little to do with the meeting, besides from the fact that it's a view from the conference centre where the meeting will take place. Enjoy!

The COLD – yep, it’s starting to get pretty cold here in Ulaanbaatar. Last week’s average was -7C, and I’ve been told it’s just the start. By January the average will be -25C, and will sometimes hit -35C! The result of this cold is that many of Ulaanbaatar’s street children end up sleeping in the sewers. The children go to sleep next to the heating pipes that run underground. Whilst I’ve read about this problem, it was pretty shocking to see this first-hand, and actually see young people climb in and out of the manholes in the streets. I feel very lucky to have my warm room to return to everyday.

That’s me signing off for another week. Warm wishes from a cold Mongolia,

Robert

Adventures in the Gobi

I’ll get straight to the main highlight of the week – my three-day trip to the Gobi Desert! I was lucky enough to be taken to the Dornogobi (Eastern Gobi) region. One of the members of the network that I work for, the Mongolian Youth Federation, was doing a trip to see some of their countryside-based volunteers. They very kindly invited me along for the ride, so I couldn’t refuse…

Sleeper-train from Ulaanbaatar to Sainsand – Dornogobi is a good 1000 km from Ulaanbaatar, so we took an over-night train. Whilst it was a 10-hour journey, the time flew. My collegues and I were swapping songs (something Mongolians seem to love to do), and I had the chance to give my Mongolian a good work-out. Some time later we unfolded the beds in our train compartment, and went to sleep for a while. It was a lovely sleep, but oh too short – we arrived at our stop at 4am. However, I can’t complain too much, as the head of the Youth Federation kindly booked us into a local hotel, which we stopped off in for a few hours. After a hearty breakfast we began our trip to Dzunbayan, a small town in which some of the Mongolian Youth Federation’s volunteers are based. It was a 70-minute trek across the Gobi Desert. Luckily we were travelling in a sturdy Russian jeep, which had a lot of padding inside – necessary for all the bumps we went over. We got to our destination in one-piece, and what a place it was! I’d never seen anything like it. Dzubayan is now a bit of a ghost town, as many of the building are either left unoccupied or are falling to bits. The town used to be a big army base, but since the end of communism the army’s priorities changed and so the majority of the soldiers (and the jobs they brought with them) went away. Thus, in the space of a year the town’s population went from 12,000 to 2,000. This kind of situation is relatively common in Mongolia – it’s one of the few places in the world in which people are moving from towns into the countryside.

Visiting school / doing training – after settling into our youth hostel (which, bytheway, was absolutely freezing!), we made our way to the local school. It is here that the volunteers we came to see work. These volunteers are part of a programme which encourages well-trained teachers to go out to the countryside to support regional communities. They are needed as most of the well-educated people leave the regions to go to Ulaanbaatar, where real money can be made. It was a real pleasure to meet them, and to see the work that they do. They were really friendly, warm and committed people. After having a tour round the different classes (and the very well-behaved students!), I was privileged enough to run a training session for them. We looked at how to run group meetings effectively – as they are so far away from the Youth Federation’s headquarters, it seemed a good idea to help them to become more self-autonomous, and to give them more tools to decide/do things by themselves. It was well received, but despite my warnings the odd mobile phone still went off in the meeting (for some bizarre reason, it’s perfectly acceptable for people to interrupt any meeting, no matter how formal, to answer their mobile phone!). The day was rounded off with some celebrations organised by the school. The students sang songs, and did dances. Then the evening progressed into a disco (I would have never have guessed that Dr Dre would have such a following in the Gobi Desert!). It was so kind of the school to organise this – all for four people coming to visit…

Trip to army base – whilst I mentioned above that the majority of the army left Dzunbayan, there is still a small army base that remains. The town’s location, not far from the Chinese border, makes it still of some strategic importance (I think it’s fair to say that the Mongolians do not trust the Chinese, and so worry that a future invasion may occur. They think the only thing protecting them from the Chinese is that Russia, Mongolia’s neighbour to the North, would not take kindly to further Chinese expansion). Anyway, I digress. We got taken round the army base, and got to see the regiment’s museum. It was fascinating to see all the communist flags, and to see photos of meetings between Mongolian officers and those of other communist nations. However, perhaps most surprising was what the regiment is doing today. In recent years it has sent soldiers to serve in Iraq, supporting the Polish troops in the region. Back in the UK (correct me if I’m wrong) we never heard anything about the contribution that smaller countries are making to support the “War on Terror”.

Whilst all these activities were fun, the main highlight was just meeting the people. Their kindness really struck me, everywhere we went we were treated to the best food they had (even though most of the people were quite poor). I made many new friends, despite my lack of Mongolian language skills (although I’m sure the large amounts of vodka that were going round helped things run that little bit more smoothly). It was also interesting to see the life the people live – they are a small community that is surrounded by desert and a long way from the nearest town. Despite this/because of this, they seemed very happy. I’ve been invited to go back to Dzunbayan sometime next year, an invite I’d like to take up at some stage…

P.S. The locals were desperately looking for an English-language teacher (not necessarily with relevant qualifications!) to join their English language department, so if anyone’s interested get back to me. It would be an amazing experience – the chance to live in the Gobi for a few months doesn’t come every day - and you’d really help these very nice people out!

What a busy week!

All continues to go well in Mongolia. I'm glad that I've settled in well. Must be something to do with the fact that I'm being kept busy - I don't have much time to mooch around and get depressed, and as I've also got things to do it's easier to convince myself that I'm doing something useful. This week was particularly packed. My week of work and play included:

VSO conferences - This week has been full of VSO conferences. All the different VSO volunteers came to Ulaanbaatar (about 60% are based elsewhere), and were joined by the VSO office staff and the many representatives of the partner organisations that VSO works with. The future direction of VSO and the challenges faced by volunteers and their employers were both discussed. Also, all the different programme areas were reviewed (VSO Mongolia works in four main programme areas - health, education, secure livelihoods and national volunteering - my area!). I was privileged enough to be the volunteer representative for the national volunteering programme area review. I got to see both the planning and presentation stages of this review, and so got a unique inside view of how VSO formulates its future programme strategy, and how it presents this information to its partners and volunteers.

Trip to Hustai Park - On Saturday I made the very bumpy trip to Hustai Park, a national park about 100 kilometres from Ulaanbaatar. It was a great day! We left in a very old Russian jeep, which whilst not being very comfortable, was just the thing for the dirt tracks outside the capital city (getting around Mongolia is a long process, as tarmac only seems to exist in Ulaanbaatar). After 3 hours we arrived at our destination, and began our search for wildlife. Our primary aim was to spot some Przewalski horses, the only wild horses left in the world (the only horses not to have been bred by man for man made purposes - as a result they have 26 chromosomes, as opposed to the standard 24). After a short drive through the park we spotted something in the distance... What luck, a group of 10 horses! They were very beautiful.

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After spending an hour with the horses, we made our way through the outskirts of the park. Whilst I thought the main highlight of the trip had already come, I was happily mistaken. We can across a group of herders who were taking their livestock to the abattoirs in Ulaanbaatar. Four people were transporting over 1000 yaks and 500 sheep - what a sight! Not only that, but they had two camels with them, to help with the transportation of their belongings. My first chance to be up-close with camels! They are beautiful creatures, their faces full of expression - the photo here being a prime example! It was good to talk with the herders (we had a guide with us to help with translation). It turned out they had travelled from the Gobi region, so had been transporting their herd for 5 weeks already. It's difficult to imagine having to transport things over such a long distance, but this is everyday life for many Mongolians. Anyway, you can see some photos of the trip at http://picasaweb.google.com/schliner/TripToHustaiPark - hope you enjoy them!

The Rugby World Cup Final - Last night (or to be more precise this morning) I and some of the other VSO volunteers stayed up to watch the Big Match - the Rugby World Cup Final, England Vs South Africa. We managed to find out that the match was being broadcast on TV5 Asie (a French international TV station), so went round to a friend's house to watch the game. The pre-match build up was the best bit, as all of us had to stay up until 3am local time for the kick-off. However, I now wish I didn't bother staying up - it was a pretty awful game in my opinion! Anyway, at least I had some fellow English people to commiserate with, and the South African volunteer was very humble in victory...

As you can see, I've managed to fit a lot in. However, I'm now feeling pretty exhausted. Early night for me tonight! Best wishes,

Robert

The road goes on...

Wow - two months down! The time seems to be flying at the moment, which I suppose is a good sign. I'm being kept quite busy at work, which suits me just fine (makes me feel like I'm being useful and stops me moping around). Outside of work, I've managed to make some friends, so have a good group of people to relax with. My flat's pretty sorted now, having even managed to get a toilet seat for our bathroom - luxury! So, what have I been up to the last seven days? Well, whilst this week was a bit more packed, I managed to fit in two more visits to different network member organisations.

The first trip was to DEMO, the Democracy Education Centre. DEMO does lots of interesting work, focusing on three main areas - to promote democratic ideals amongst secondary school children, to build the capacity of Mongolian non-governmental organisations, and to provide training to young people involved in politics. It was this final area that really caught my imagination- DEMO runs sessions for the youth members of all political parties, in the hope that the young people will work together across party lines, and build up long term friendships for each other. This way DEMO hopes that politics will be run with a spirit of cooperation and respect in the future. Perhaps this is something that could be replicated in the UK?

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On Wednesday I went to the Second Hospital, and after 10 minutes stumbled across what I was looking for - the Mongolian Blood Donors Association's headquarters. I say 'stumbled' because the headquarters are little more than a small room. After talking with the director, it became apparent that the association is in need of some assistance. They don't have a permanent office space, they only have one staff member (the director, who incidentally volunteers her time - there is no money available to pay for her salary) and don't have a computer. Despite all these problems the association does fantastic stuff! They manage to encourage people in the many different regions of Mongolia to donate their blood, which is no easy feat considering the land area that has to be covered (Mongolia is the largest landlocked country in the world). Whilst the need for blood is not always met, the work of the National Blood Donors Association has saved many lives. During the same visit I was privileged to meet some of the more experienced blood donors, who had interesting stories to tell. I felt very lucky to shake hands with Mongolia's oldest blood donor (who can be seen in the photo below, second from the right).

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October the 11th was the National Day for the Blind, so I made the trip up to the Trade Union Centre to see what was going on (and to also view the assistance that some National AIDS Foundation volunteers were offering to the event). I had a great time. The main bulk of the day was focused raising awareness about blind people, and giving the general public advice on how to care for their sight. The hall was packed with stalls, many of which had blind people showcasing some of the work they do (the majority worked in the field of handicrafts or food production). However, the stall that really caught my attention was the one run by the Association of Blind Masseurs. Whilst it was a slight abuse of my work time, my host for the day insisted that I have not one, but two massages! I tell you what - the masseurs were fantastic! However, the Mongolian style of massage is very strong and forceful. At one point the masseur grabbed hold of my neck and in one swift motion pushed it to the other side of my body. CRACK! I had never heard such a sound, or thought that my body could produce it! Feeling very relaxed I then went to see a concert organised by blind performers. I was very impressed - the singers were fantastic, and the piano players also deserve a mention. All in all the day was great, one of the best I've had in Mongolia so far. Work can be tough sometimes...

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That's me signing off until next weekend. Hope you all have a good week ahead, take care of yourselves,

sas

Robert

A first glimpse of Mongolian winter...

Woke up this morning and looked outside my window… snow! My first glimpse of snow in Mongolia. I guess that’s it, winter is going to set in soon. Luckily enough my wardrobe is well stocked with jumpers, hats and gloves, so the cold temperatures don’t seem as daunting as they once were (thanks to all of you who donated to my winter clothing fund!). I was very excited by the snow, but was soon brought down to earth by my flatmate Jon. He’s from a cold part of Canada and so is used to it all – he was very blasé!

Trips to different Mongolian organisations – this week I had the pleasure of going to visit four more of the network member organisations (see last week’s entry for more details). First up was Dayartugs (which literally means “it’s perfect”). Dayartugs are a very small, newly established NGO, which aims to promote volunteerism amongst Mongolian young people. Dayartugs is working on many projects, despite the fact that they only have three staff members, all of which work voluntarily. Second was the Liberal Women’s Brain Pool, an organisation set up after the fall of communism to promote women’s ideas. Whilst some of the work that the organisation deals with is linked specifically to helping women (especially in the field of political participation), the organisation was keen to point out the many other areas that it has worked on. I was very impressed by the mobile library scheme that they have set up, designed to improve literacy in rural areas.

Thursday’s visit was to the Ethics and Motherland Association. I got the chance to talk to their passionate director, Ulaankhuu, who explained to me the association’s mission – to promote respect for Mongolia and to build a sense of community amongst young people (things that have been damaged in the years since the fall of communism). Last but not least was a trip to see Service for Peace. Service for Peace are an international organisation that use local volunteers to do community projects. The volunteers believe that a peaceful society can be built if everyone works together for the good of all. All the organisations are doing fantastic things, despite facing financial constraints – I’m very impressed with Mongolian organisations so far!

Visit to school’s anniversary concert – I’ve made friends with a Mongolian student and was lucky enough to be taken out to Ulaanbaatar’s very grand wrestling palace. Unfortunately I was not there to see wrestling, but on the other hand I got to see something that not many other foreigners would see – the Number 16 School’s 65th Anniversary celebrations! What an extravaganza it was. The wrestling stadium was packed with cheering young people, all proud to celebrate their school’s history. Different classes took charge of different stages of the evening (and even the teachers joined in at the end), so there were a real variety of events. We were treated to gymnastic performances, dances and songs. It was a great event, and left a big impression on me – not many young people in the UK would have such pride in their school, and not many schools would dare attempt such a grandiose occasion (even for their 100th birthday!).

That’s it for another week. Just before I sign off I’d like to say thanks for everyone’s comments left on the blog, and any emails you’ve been sending me. It always cheers me up to receive comments/news from all of you (even if I don’t reply straight away!). Best wishes to everyone,

Robert

Job + House = Sorted!

I’ve properly starting to settle in – I’ve now moved into my new house and have had my first week in my work placement. It’s been a pretty tiring week, but fun at the same time.

The House – Last Friday I made the big move from the temporary accommodation of the Chinngis Guest House to my new appartment. I’m still pretty central, just a 20 minute walk from the parliament square. I’m sharing the flat with two other VSO volunteers, Jude and Jon. They’re both from Canada, and are both friendly! The accommodation is very nice – we’ve got comfortable rooms and a largish living room. We’ve even got a washing machine! The only annoyance is that my appartment is on the very top of the tower block, on the ninth floor. Very handily there is a lift, but it only works from 7am until 10:30pm. Thus, every time I stay out late I’ll have a nice but of exercise waiting for me on my return! I’ll be living in this place for the rest of my stay in Mongolia.

The Job – That’s right, I’ve now left the cocoon of VSO’s induction training and have entered the world of work! Tie and shirt in hand, I walked into my office for the first day in the job… Just in case you don’t know, I’ll be spending the next 11 months working for the Mongolian National Volunteer Network. The network is a collection of organisations, all of which involve Mongolian volunteers in their activities. While much is still to be finalised, my role will be twofold: to help the network work more effectively, and meet the needs of the different member organisations as they arise. There are 21 groups that have taken up membership with the network. I’ve already met 3 of them this week (the Mongolian Youth Federation, the Mongolian Red Cross and the Mongolian Scouts) and over the coming weeks I’ll be visiting the rest of the network members.

Visit to Darkhan – on Tuesday I made the trip up to Mongolia’s second city, Darkhan. This trip was in aid of another aspect of my work – to support volunteering schemes that my fellow VSO volunteers set up. Amar (my line-manager) thought that it would be a good idea to view two such volunteer projects first-hand. Thus I headed up to Darkhan to see the work of two volunteers, Glen and Alain, who are really doing fantastic things. Glen has successfully created a scheme in which local volunteers deliver health education to local communities, thus taking pressure off the already overstretched doctors. Alain, on the other hand, has managed to encourage local English teachers to give free lessons to underprivileged children in isolated areas. Not only was it great to see these projects, but it was also lovely to visit Darkhan – a real contrast to Ulaanbaatar. For a start, the city was clean and quiet. Drivers even stopped at zebra crossings! As I’m not really used to the big city lifestyle I think I might be popping into Darkhan every now and again…

Going deeper into Mongolian culture...

Apologies about the slight time delay on this latest update, but I've been living with a Mongolian family for the last three days (away from such modern things as the internet). It was a great experience, I felt I got a real taste of what life was like for a Mongolian family. However, this taste was somehow reduced by my limited grasp of the local language. Whilst my Mongolian is improving I can only really speak at people, and find it very difficult to understand what people are saying to me. Thus, to avoid having a monologue for 72 hours, I relied heavily on the very nice grandson of the family, Bud (who spoke perfect English). Through him I got to learn a lot about the life of the family. In particular, it was great to have chats with the grandfather of the family, Baatar, who used to be one of the top officials in the North of Mongolia. I asked him many questions about the past and present. It was particularly interesting to hear his thoughts on Western society - a society doomed to failure according to him (Westerners are fixated on making money and too reliant on finite resources). Whilst the homestay is now over I hope to stay in touch with Baatar and the rest of the family.

Prior to the home stay I was busy doing lots of things in the centre of Ulaanbaatar. Here's this week's top three:

The Winter Palace - Last Thursday we were taken to the Winter residence of the previous religious leader of Mongolia, the Bogd Khan. The place was beautiful - the buildings are exquisitely designed, and the contents even more so. Every room was filled with Mongolian art and a variety of jewel encrusted clothing. However, it was quite modest for a palace, with the living quarters being quite small. The most unusual thing about the palace is that it is located in the middle of an industrial district. It was quite strange to have a palace surrounded by building sites, but such is life in the ever changing city of Ulaanbaatar!

My first run-in with the police! - Ok, not so dramatic as I make it sound, but nevertheless quite noteworthy! After a hard week of training all of us volunteers went to one of Ulaanbaatar's main nightclubs, "Strings". We were having a great time, dancing away to the live band that was playing. The Mongolians were looking starry eyed as they watched me display my dancing talents on the dance floor(!). Suddenly, the power was cut and the band had to go off stage. We went back to our table, disappointed but waiting for the power to come back on. After a while we thought we go to order some more drinks from the bar. However, the barmen didn't want to serve us drinks... It was at this point that we noticed the police standing by the main entrance. After talking to some of the locals (who could speak English), we gathered that the police were enacting an old law that forbade places to open after midnight. However, I say "old law" because it is so rarely enforced - otherwise all of Ulaanbaatar's nightclubs wouldn't exist. After sitting around for a few minutes we saw the management "coming to an agreement with the police". The police left and everything resumed as normal. Interesting to see how things work here...

Visit to the Lotus School for Street Children - A trip for all the new volunteers. We were taken to a school on the outskirts of the city, not far from the airport. The school specialises on giving the many street children who live in Mongolia's capital a basic education. It was a really heartwarming trip. Watching all the children being cared for, and viewing their enthusiasm to learn (and their curiosity at seeing a bunch of foreigners come to visit) really touched me. As you can see from the photo I made a friend! The school is looking for males to get involved in the school's activities (all the staff are female - the boys don't have any real male role models), so I'm thinking of giving up a Saturday here and there. I might run a football class for some of the boys, would be good fun I think!

I'll write some more this weekend, for now though lots of love to you all,

Robert

Ups and Downs

I’m writing this entry after a fantastic day in the countryside (more of that later). As a result I'm on a bit of a high, so I'll probably be writing in a positive style throughout. However, if I'm being honest this week has been pretty tough. My Grandmother, Elizabeth Slinn, died on Monday. It's been hard to be away from the family at this time, but the other volunteers have been of great support to me. The availability of long distance communication these days has also made things that little bit easier. I’ve also been kept quite busy, which always helps. The language classes at Bridge College continue, and we've also had plenty of talks from a variety of guest speakers.

Talk from the Gender Equality Alliance – On Tuesday we were privileged to be present at a talk given by the director of the Mongolian Gender Equality Alliance. The presenter gave us an overview of what life is like for men and women in Mongolia today. It was interesting to hear that in many ways women fare better in Mongolia than men. The rate of male unemployment is considerably higher than that of females. There are several factors that explain this, notably that men are encouraged to finish their education earlier and are also more likely to be involved in dangerous labour, leaving many with long-term injuries. However, whilst women fare better in more basic employment, men dominate the top jobs, both in business and political spheres. For example, only 6 of the 67 MPs in Mongolia are women. This is a marked decrease from communist times, when quotas were in place to ensure that women held between 35-40% of the seats available.

Trip to the countryside with local ethnologist – one of the best experiences in Mongolia so far! All of us volunteers spent a day with one of Mongolia's best-known ethnologists. We were driven to the countryside outside Ulaanbaatar and were dropped off completely unannounced at a gir in the middle of a mountain range. I think this was an exercise created by the ethnologist, designed to show Mongolian culture up close - he had spent the 40 minute journey explaining to us how all Mongolians are very hospitable and see all land as common. True to form the household invited all 12 of us into their gir and gave us all a cup of Mongolian "milk tea" (a type of salty, fatty tea - see picture below). The family was so welcoming, it was truly heartwarming to see their hospitality.

After having a very nice lunch (fear not, we provided the food!), we had a question and answer session with the ethnologist, with topics ranging from the survival of nomadic culture to the local shamanistic religions that many Mongolians follow. I was particularly interested to hear how the nomads survived during the communist era - I would have expected the local communist authorities to have forced the farming population to collectivise and become more productive. However, the ethnologist explained that this could not happen in Mongolia, mainly because of public sympathy for the nomadic lifestyle and the fact that it would have simply been too difficult for the authorities to track down all the nomads! The subject of shamanistic religions is something I will write about in a future post - we have a talk on Mongolia's religions organised in 2 weeks' time, so I'll be able to give you all a better picture then. After these very interesting discussions we rounded the day off with a walk in the local countryside. I've taken some nice shots of this trip, so if you've got a moment please have a look at my web album (http://picasaweb.google.com/schliner/ThirdWeek).

So what does the new week bring? Well, this coming Monday I’ll find out a bit more about the job I’ll be doing for the next 11 months (working for the Mongolian National Volunteering Network). Whilst I’m enjoying the in-country training it’ll be good to get stuck in to work and start contributing. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you all the ins and outs in my next post. For now though, best wishes,

Robert