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
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