Life On The Other Side Of The World

Life on the other side of the world. Excitement, adventure and challenge: all things I wanted and have already gotten in Mongolia. I keep wondering how I got here and just what I was thinking in the first place. I took off from San Antonio at 2:50pm on August 23rd. After a quick hello from Danny (an interesting friend who makes me pasta) at the airport, I flew to Dallas and LAX. I met some of the students on my group and we waited for the ticket counter to open at 10:00pm. Our flight to Beijing took about 12 hours, which is less than I initially thought, and the Chinese movies were pretty priceless with strange green furry animals that helped children with their self-esteem. When we got to Beijing we were so fried that we watched re-runs of Olympic archery since it was 4am and we had to wait until 7:30. As we descended into Ulaanbaatar you could start to make out the white gers (yurts- you know the rational nomadic tents) dotting the countryside, which was spectacular.

We hit the ground running at 10:30 am on the 25th, shortly after we arrived, beginning our classes right away with orientations and a great Mongolian meal. Afterwards we went down to the main square where the problems of a third world country are obvious with a brand new multimillion dollar hotel across a pothole ridden street from the lavish government building. The streets are littered with garbage and, despite what is supposed to be obvious poverty for a country whose average family lives on five dollars a week, there are brand new SUV’s all over the road and these people can afford five dollar a gallon gas, and they are all dressed in brand new name brand clothing. Anyway more about that in the future; the reason we were down at the square was to see the celebration of Mongolia’s first Olympic athletes to win medals (two gold and two silver). The celebration was quite the show. I was interviewed by a very well spoken unusually talk Mongolian guy for one of the local TV stations in Ulaanbaatar (UB). We also witnessed the sever drunkenness that pervades this culture.

Mongolian’s drink vodka like water at the dinner table, where everyone has a glass and several bottles are polished off in a single meal. In the square however, drunken men were trying to break dance, which was entertaining for a while until we all realized that we had barely slept in the last 48 hours. Just walking out of the square I saw more bottles of vodka than I see in recycling bins in Grinnell in a month. We went back the hostel, which was nicer than I expected (indoor plumbing and electricity), and I crashed for the night.

The 26th was mostly another orientation day at the educational site, which is about an hour walk or a ten cent bus ride from the hostel. The educational site is in an apartment building where one of these large family apartments was converted into a few offices and classrooms. The people running the program are all fantastic from the program director who grew up in the soviet controlled era and her husband who owns a 160 pound dog to the ex-military college teacher and the young kid who’s studying to be a lawyer. After a day of being warned about flies laying eggs in people’s eyes and marmots carrying the plague (yes the black plague) a group of us went out the local Ukrainian restaurant. No joke the Mongolian waitresses were dressed in traditional Ukrainian outfit and there was imported Ukrainian vodka (go figure) but that’s where the authenticity ended. The meal was pretty good though and our only major problem was when we asked for the check and the waiter brought the table a single glass of tea. Knowing a little language will certainly go a long way.

The morning of the 27th me and two guys from the program went to breakfast at this 24 hour place around the corner from our hostel where the menus were all in Mongolian, so we just pointed at something on the menu and ended up with spaghetti for breakfast. After that experience I was looking forward to my first day of intensive Mongolian (60 hours total for the program). Now, I haven’t properly studied a language in over seven years, and apparently Mongolian is ranked as one of the most difficult languages to learn. Turns out that even though the language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, Mongolian pronounces all the letters differently from Russian much to the disappointment of the one girl on my program who had studied Russian. Language class really takes in out of you, so to split the day up we went to the U.S. Embassy. We have a pretty nice embassy, and we got to meet the ambassador, whose rosy perspective on Mongolia’s political, economic, and social situations was a little stomach churning. At the end of the day we went to see a performance of traditional Mongolian performing arts, which included dancing, throat singing, and contortion acts that were absolutely amazing. After the performance a group of us ate at the Seoul restaurant, which is probably the most expensive restaurant in town costing me $14.50 for dinner. The food was not worth the money, but seeing the Japanese ambassador and saying I had been there was.

Thursday the 28th was a day not soon to be forgotten. I was walking from my hostel to the bus stop at about 7:00AM and four men jumped me in the alley and mugged me. It was a very opportunistic incident, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were definitely drunk and thought they could mug the foreigner for some money. They didn’t have any weapons and were sorely disappointed to find that I only had about $1.50 in my wallet, which they cordially gave back to me after they were done. I managed to wrestle my camera back from them and they ran away. I’m completely fine because I was prepared, my wallet was a decoy for just such a mugging, but I still can’t believe it happened. People here were horrified. Mongolians cannot believe the crime rate because they have never had problems like this before and have no idea how to deal with it. Anyways I had to go to the police station and fill out a report via translator with the “department of crimes against foreigners.” Even the police were shocked about a group attack on a foreigner. Later I caught up with my group at the American Center for Mongolian Studies, which is for students studying in Mongolia from abroad. I got to see a former SIT student turned Fulbright scholar give a presentation on NGO’s and ethics, which was good thought it was strange that the entire crowd was foreigners like the performance a few nights before.

Friday the 29th was fantastic. The language course is unbelievable difficult trying to learn Mongolian from two native professors who speak practically no English (talk about immersion). Five hours of language class can really take its toll, and I was thinking in class today about some things I’ve notice about the population here. They are relatively young as a society, which over 60% of the people being under 35. They also smoke like it’s going out of style. Cigarettes are everywhere: they are on every restaurant menu, in every shop, and they are street vendors on every corner selling them out of boxes. The streets themselves are horrible. Everyone drives SUV’s because they have to drive on streets that are just a series of pot holes with no traffic signs and just a few lights. Thus no one obeys any sort of driving laws and rush hour here is probably the safest time of the day because the gridlock is so bad that cars are facing backwards in oncoming lanes of traffic as they try to maneuver to side alleys and on sidewalks. Crossing the street is probably the most dangerous thing in this town, and drivers never yield to pedestrians. Just a few observations I was rolling over in my head as I tried to decipher my teacher’s statements in Mongolian. After class though, our group got to go to the Black Market, so named because in the Soviet era you were not allowed to hold a second job (plus you can get some shady stuff there-think old Soviet weapons). The market was huge and filled with random stuff ranging from pots to stationary to clothing to milk curd to toys. I bought a pair of riding boots, which I need for the countryside. They were really frustrated with me because I needed such a large size and they really didn’t have anything. After a half- hour I finally found a pair and talked the guy down about ten dollars from the original price. The food in the market was the best though, I could tell what any of it was, but I’m pretty sure that there were about 3000 types of curd there in all colors and shapes. I spent about three hours just wandering around negotiating and enjoying the people who are very friendly and don’t pressure you about buying. That night my SIT group bonded in the traditional manner: over vodka. My group is filled with some really great people, and I thank god that they are because this place is a far cry from the States. I still can’t believe I’m here; Mongolia is so great, and I’m so glad I made it here. Looking forward to my first home stay in the country. It will be in the far north in a nomadic camp that will take two days by van after a flight to the regional capital from UB. My host family speaks no English and the only transportation once I get there will be by horse. I can’t wait. On top of that my program added a third home stay to my semester, so I will be staying in a second nomadic camp in a few weeks that is out on the steppe by the Gobi desert (my third home stay is in UB later in the semester). This is going to be amazing.