Mongolian cartoons

Last week in cross-culture class, or “XC” as Peace Corps likes to call it, Bagh 1 reviewed a few Mongolian political cartoons. The cartoons give a fun overview of current Mongolian viewpoints of socialism, corruption, and development.

Cartoon 1:

The caption says: “On second thought, maybe we need a forklift.” The four stones say: Tax, Corruption, Red Tape, and Donations.

The cartoon speaks to development within Mongolia. Mongolians are trying to make progress in terms of development, but corruption and taxes are crushing much of the progress. Even though donations are wanted and needed, they are burdened by a lot of red tape. Progress is slow, even with donations. Mongolians seek help, but from who? Who is the man asking for help with a forklift – foreigners, NGOs, banks?

Cartoon 2:

Basically, this cartoon is a cynical look at corruption in Mongolia. The politician is influencing the voters to vote for him in many… ways… We didn’t get into talking about what the bribes or influences are in Mongolia.

Cartoon 3:

Guess what the inflation rate is in Mongolia, right now? 18%… yeah. This cartoon signifies that the government doesn’t care about the results, only the image their actions portray. For example, in the last election a party guaranteed a double in certain sectors’ salaries, like teachers. The salaries increased, but two years later the cost of food goods doubled. I wonder how much attention is paid to macroeconomics in MN.

Cartoon 4:

This cartoon can signify many things in Mongolia.
• The forks and spoons still rely on the shovel – meaning that Mongolia still relies on its agricultural sector and herders. The shovel proud to be providing sustenance for the others.
• There are fewer vocational schools and more universities as the years go by. There’s a decreasing amount of agricultural workers. More Mongolians are moving to Ulaanbaatar – towards urbanization trends.

Cartoon 5:

The caption says: “At least in the cage we were able to eat.” The two birds are standing outside of the “Cage of Socialism.” During the 1990s the majority of Mongolians had thoughts that life was better with socialism. Everyone had guaranteed healthcare, food, etc… with a socialist government. When Mongolia became a democracy, the people lost all the Russian support that they’d heavily relied upon for much of the 20th century. Many people were very poor during the 1990s and wanted a socialist government back in power. As time has progressed, Mongolians have learned how to function within a non-socialist context. The feelings of want for a socialist government have slowly decreased. Now many Mongolians think they are “on the right way now,” through democracy. Although, it depends who you talk to.

Until next time… write me a letter

Mongolian food – carbs, yoghurt, and fat

Home-cooked Mongolian food is usually a mix of different carbohydrates. I haven’t eaten fruit in the past 2 weeks. On the first day at my host family I ate grapes, peaches, and an apple. Since then – no fruit. But then again, that may be my fault as well. I’m too nervous/scared to ask/tell my host family what I would prefer to eat. I just eat what they put in front of me. If I don’t like something, then I just don’t eat a lot of it – silently indicating that I don’t like the food. However, I haven’t come across any dish that I dislike enough not to eat a good portion of it. Here’s what I’ve eaten within the past few days:

Yesterday:

• Breakfast – “The usual” 2.5 pieces of white bread spread with opom and sugar
• Lunch – Noodle dish with a few pieces of meat and fat; water from my distiller
• Dinner – Boiled eggs with green onion; water from my distiller
• After dinner snack – Yogurt, 1 piece of white bread with opom
• Before bed – A glass of warm milk

The day before:

• Breakfast – MN “French Toast” – Eggs & green onion fried around bread; Instant coffee
• Lunch – Rice soup; water from my distiller
• Dinner – 2 pieces of white bread with butter and jam; Noodle soup
• After dinner snack – Yogurt

The day before the day before:

• Breakfast – MN “French Toast – w/o the green onions
• Lunch – Rice dish with a few pieces of meat
• Dinner – Rice soup; a piece of MN chocolate

My favorite Mongolian food: fresh yogurt and opom

From what I’ve experienced, Mongolian food is usually served hot, if not near boiling. My family thinks I’m funny for drinking room temperature water in my Nalgene bottle at every meal. My host family claims that cold water makes me tired; I have to disagree. Typical Mongolian foods are:

• Hosher – Like an American hot pocket, with meat, fat, and various vegetables
• Boat – Like a dumpling, but much bigger. Most have meat and fat inside. Boats can be found in soup or standing alone. Bagh 1 had a boat-making dinner last night. Check out my boat:

Photo of boats made by Americans

• Soup – Flour soup, noodle soup, rice soup
• Fried … - Fried potatoes, fried vegetables, fried rice, fried noodles
• Fresh yogurt! – My favorite. My mom buys fresh cow milk from a neighbor, then makes her own yogurt – so good! Mongolians put sugar or jam in yogurt. It is delicious plain, or with sugar and/or jam.
• Opom – A spread that is made from cows’ milk. I think opom is the stage after yogurt, more curdled. Another one of my favorites. My mom makes opom fresh, too.
• Arriel – Not sure how to describe it – it is hardened yogurt -> opom -> arriel
• Candy – A candy bowl is offered to guests, it’s polite to take some
• Meat fat – it’s a special food here. many people like to eat it
• Many more… I’m sure I’m forgetting, I’ll fill you in later

Check out Flickr for more photos of MN food.

In Ulaanbaatar (the capitol), I can get a wide variety of foods at restaurants and grocery stores – but who knows when I will ever travel there. Plus, the Western food will be well out of my Peace Corps budget. Even if I was in UB, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford the Western food. Also, in larger aimag centres there is a wide variety of food. When I’m in Darkhan next week, I’ll be filling up on non-carb-y food and spicy food.

Many business centres that employ Peace Corps business and health volunteers have begun to emphasize growing new and different crops in MN. Vegetables like broccoli, lettuce, etc… have been newly recognized in MN as vegetables. Along with the introduction of new veggies – new recipes and health classes have been offered. The seeds originally come from America and the MN farmers buy them. However, now MNs have begun seeding their own plants.

Last night Bagh 1 had a dinner get-together at Zaneta’s house. Instead of language class in the afternoon, we took a trip to the market with our language teachers. We made our own boat recipe, created a budget for the ingredients, went to the market, and bought everything – talking in MN! It was fun. We went to Zaneta’s house to make 100+ boats, which took over 3.5 hours. We had a boat feast! We made 3 different types of boats: meat, veggie, and rice.

Check out Flickr to see photos from the boat-making party.

Making a Mongolian traditional dish: boats

I guess the MN food posting isn’t that interesting to you, or is it? What do you want to know about MN? I’ll try to post more interesting things that I’ve learned within my cross-cultural class. The next post will showcase a few Mongolian political cartoons.

Peace Corps CED program – What is it?

The Community Economic Development (CED) program in Mongolia follows the same basic outline of every Peace Corps CED program internationally. “CED is a process by which communities enhance the quality of life of their residents by creating new community and business wealth. It is an integrated, holistic strategy that works at the community level to build citizens’ capacity to take control of their own economic futures.” Let’s go with the key words: sustainable, capacity-building, and grassroots.

Contrast between community and traditional economic development

Community Economic Development:

• Economic vision comes from residents seeking improvement
• Perspective is long-term, sustainable, and fair to citizens
• Focus on the development process
• Overall goal is the development of people and communities
• Objectives:
  • Create jobs and benefits for residents
  • Improve income distribution
  • Produce goods and services for residents
  • Invest community resources in self-sustaining activities
  • Revitalize depressed local communities
• Resources start with local people and local material resources
• Expertise supplements local expertise and talent with outsiders

Traditional Economic Development:

• Economic vision comes from investors seeking profit
• Perspective is on short-term profit
• Focus on products and results
• Overall goal is economic growth in general
• Objectives:
  • Short-term profits
  • Produce economic activity
  • Invest community resources in whatever is most profitable
  • Promote growth in a cost-effective manner
• Resources use the least costly human and material resources
• Expertise supplements outside expertise with local people’s experience and talents

Over the summer, I’ll go to a CED technical training session every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon. The past two weeks have been very interesting in my technical training sessions. The first session CED volunteers visited the Sukhbaatar market to observe how businesses are run in MN. The small market IS what a business consists of in MN. A small stand at a local market is a Mongolian small- to medium-sized business. During the market observation, we had a translator to every four people. We asked questions about different aspects of their businesses to gather information.

From the market observation, the CED volunteers learned many new things about MN business. Overall, there is a lack of salesmanship and competition within local MN businesses. Some of this is a result of the recent change to a democracy from communism. Within the market, the stores that sell the same items, such as shoes, toiletries, or clothing, are all placed around each other. The price for a bar of soap is the same at each and every stand. The salespeople stand or sit around their stand without paying attention to the customers that are passing. If I was interested in an item, I had to call, or sometimes “beg”, a salesperson to assist me. Sometimes the salespeople look quite annoyed to help a customer.

The entrance to the Sukhbaatar Market (market = 3AX in MN)

In Sukhbaatar, the most famous local items are sourdough bread, smoked fish, and honey. During another CED session, we visited a local bread-maker. The bread “factory” employs 8 people and is run from a side room to the owner’s house. The factory produces about 700-800 loaves of bread per week and sells both wholesale and retail. The bread factory runs 24 hours a day. Though, I’m not sure what that means for the employee work schedule. The owner gave us each a fresh loaf of bread. I took it home and gave it to my host mother. (Maybe this wasn’t a good idea – considering how many carbohydrates I already eat. It might’ve encouraged my mom to cook more carb-enduced meals. I’ll write more on Mongolian food in the next post.)

This past week was very eventful in the CED program. Our group of 8 was split in half to have a practicum at the local Sukhbaatar Chamber of Commerce. Tuesday, my group worked at the school with translators. At our placement sites, most CED volunteers will have at least a part-time translator. During the session, we learned special tips for working with an interpreter on the job. I have a feeling that my English will get worse as my time in Mongolia passes. I will be speaking in jargon-free, simple sentence structure English to my translator and basic Mongolian to the rest of the population.

Tuesday, the other four CED volunteers went to the Chamber of Commerce for their practicum. The director of the Chamber of Commerce instructed each of them to research a different topic about a farming tool from China. The group said it was pretty simple, besides the frustration of dealing with the slow technology. And the fact that none of them know anything about farming. They felt they should have done background research, but time didn’t permit that. Or the Internet speed.

On Wednesday, my group visited the Chamber of Commerce thinking that we would be given a similar research assignment. Were we wrong. The director wasn’t at the office that afternoon, so we worked with a part-time manager/translator, instead. Our task was to teach an impromptu class on “How to Use the Internet.” Our group was quite surprised to be given this task – considering how broad it is. We had three students to instruct on “How to Use the Internet” and two working computers. One of the other CED volunteers has extensive knowledge about the Internet from working at a marketing agency in the interactive/design/development department, and I have some knowledge from my internships. Honestly, though, anyone who has ever used the Internet could have taught this class. I’m talking basic, basic, basic.

We taught the three students where to find the Internet Explorer and Firefox icons on the desktop. We taught how to type in an address in the address bar. We taught how to search on Google.MN for a specific topic – for our class we choose “education.” Then, more specifically, we choose “education Ulaanbaatar university,” for the search terms. We had the students try a search on their own, and I think they all got the hang of it. Those tasks took about 45-60 minutes.

After that, we didn’t really know what to teach for a beginners’ class on “How to Use the Internet.” We asked the students what they wanted to know – their response: how to send an e-mail. Before we could do that, we had to set them up with an e-mail account. Yahoo! Mail is very popular with Mongolians, so we had them fill out the form for a Yahoo! account. The form had fields like: name, birthday, username, and password. Yahoo! would only accept writing in English, not Cyrillic – so that took the students a little longer than normal to figure out. 45 minutes later – all students had their on-line forms filled out. We pressed “Send” – but guess what? The page had timed out. Of course. Why didn’t we think of that? …

The result was that one out of three students accomplished obtaining an e-mail account. She wanted to send an e-mail – but didn’t have anyone’s address. A CED volunteer offered for her to send him an e-mail in Mongolian, and then he would translate it and write her back. How nice. The situation was a little frustrating because it took so much time to teach tasks that I could do in about 2 minutes. However, now there are three more Mongolians who know how to “use” the Internet… wohoo. Plus, we have experience on teaching random tasks with the help of a translator.

Speaking of “Wohoo,” I could really go for some cold chocolate milk, like Yoo-hoo. In my next post, I’ll tell you about Mongolian food and the carbohydrates in all its glory.

Host community walks to the Russian border and falls in a manhole

News travels fast around a small Mongolian town! I’ll fill you in on what the Mongolians in Sukhbaatar are talking about this summer: The Americans. Anything and everything we do, including where we walk and who we visit, is observed by the Mongolian townspeople. The gossip going around is that Bagh 5 Americans had a party and Bagh 1 Americans accidentally walked to the Russian border.

Bagh 5 had a get together this past weekend. The big news from the Bagh 5 party is that an American woman fell into a manhole. How does this happen, you may ask? Well… in Mongolia, especially in Darkhan and Ulaanbaatar, the manhole covers are stolen and sold as scrap metal. You have to be careful not to trip and fall into one, no joke. The manholes are quite deep, usually filled with trash and sewage. In Darkhan, on the way to training sessions, I would pass two dozen manholes without covers. If you spot a manhole with a cover on it, you wonder why it’s still there. Back to the gossip… the American woman that fell into the manhole last weekend is alright. One leg fell into the manhole, and then she caught herself and obtained a few deep cuts.

Hanging out at the local store before the hike

Bagh 1 Americans, including myself, went on a leisurely hike last Sunday to search for a green park that has a view of the Russian border. The morning started off with beautiful weather, blue skies and a nice breeze. We were instructed by one of our PC trainers if we hiked north about 2.5 miles, we could find this “so-called” park. The hike north was very pleasant: we walked through herds of shoats (herd with goats and sheep), walked through a herd of cows, and stopped every so often to take a photograph or two.

Shoats grazing in the forefront of an old Soviet factory

An hour and a half into the hike the group decided that we had to be getting close to something at that point. Low and behold – we spotted a tall, white building amongst the forestry. The building didn’t look like a park; nevertheless, we decided to check it out. We were motioned by guards to enter the area. The guards began questioning us in Mongolian – we didn’t exactly know what was going on.

The group just stood there trying to speak in broken Mongolian, while the guards leisurely perused our Mongolian-English phrasebooks. For 30 minutes, we stood there – not knowing at all what was happening. It was stressful for some people in the group, but I wasn’t really worried during the situation.

Finally, the guards let us turn around and hike back to Sukhbaatar.

We stopped on the way home for a lunch break in a field. On Monday, we found out that where we were was the Russian border and there is a park around that area. However, we never got to the park. After the ordeal with the guards, the whole group just wanted to go home. It turns out the guards just wanted to see identification to enter the nearby park. Yet, no one in the group could figure out what the guards wanted.

A view of the hike

Last week on Thursday, it was my first time to get sick in Mongolia. I didn’t want to tell my host family that I was feeling sick. My family might’ve been offended, thinking that I got sick from their food. However, my little brother noticed I felt bad because I went to the outhouse 2 times in a row, with just a two minute interval. Plus, I was wearing my Northface fleece, jeans, a baseball cap, and two layers of socks – while all of my family was wearing shorts and t-shirts. I had a pounding headache and the chills.

My little brother started asking if I felt sick and if it was an emergency. We communicate with this Mongolian/English phrase book that the Peace Corps gave both the family and me. My mom made me hot tea and massaged my scalp. Then she gave me an extra winter blanket and made a fire for me in the wood-burning stove. They tried to give me some medicine, but I had some Aleve gel caps that seemed to do the trick. Peace Corps restricts volunteers from accepting any sort of medicine from our families. All of our medicine has to be from our PC medical kit or from what we choose at the store. We can’t have any random herbal concoctions if we don’t know what’s in it.

I’ll have more news for you this weekend. Maybe, I’ll write something about Mongolian food or the Community Economic Development program. How is everyone at home? Please send me any interesting news.

Week 1 in Sukbaatar, my host community

The first week in Sukbaatar has been very boring/interesting/fun all at the same time. The language is difficult, the food is great (for now), and I walk 4 miles a day to and from training!

Sukbaatar is broken up into 5 areas or “baghs.” In my area, there are the 8 CED volunteers and 4 Health volunteers. The other Health volunteers and the CYD group live in another area – at least an hour walk away. Sukbaatar has a population of around 22,000 Mongolians.

On Saturday, June 7, the entire M19 group left Darkhan to travel to our separate host communities. Traveling north, the Sukbaatar group made a mandatory stop at a Tibetan Buddhist area. It is said that if you don’t stop along the roadside, walk around the pile of rocks three times, and then place your own rock on the pile – that you will have bad luck. Every car that passes the holy area usually stops to place a rock on the pile. All across Mongolia you will see these random piles of rocks alongside the road with blue ribbons tied to them.

As our bus approached Sukbaatar, everyone was very worried about meeting their host family. I only knew about 2 lines, “Hello, how are you?” and “What is your name?” Once in Sukbaatar, our group met our host families at the school for a welcoming ceremony. The local “mayor” greeted our group. We passed around a bowl of mare’s milk during the ceremony. We dispersed to our separate families until Monday morning when school began at 9 a.m.

On Sunday, my mom and brother took me into town to get on the Internet and to see the local market. My mom asked me to point at what I liked to eat, that way she would know what to cook for me. That night, my mom handed me a stack of CDs to look through. I picked out my favorite ones. My family and I watched a Mariah Carey concert on T.V. and played a Mongolian card game. I’ve played this game about 6 times already, and still haven’t figured out the rules. The family also played a game with sheep ankle bones, a tradition in Mongolia. I still haven’t figured out the rules completely to that game either.

My family has a garden, which they tend to every evening – carrying water with a bucket and taking the weeds out. My brother (who claims he is 17) likes basketball. He and I watched a Lakers game the other night together on T.V. He plays basketball everyday and night in our yard.

There is no running water at our house. The family fetches water from the local supply and stores it in big basins outside. I bathe in a small tub with a combination of boiled hot water and room temperature water. The second night, my host mom washed my hair for me in the tub. The “tub” is the size of a small sink – I can only stand in it or beside it. I’ve only bathed twice since I’ve been in Sukbaatar. We have an outhouse with a 10 foot deep hole at the bottom. It’s a squat toilet – just a hole in the ground. So far, I haven’t had to go out there in the middle of the night.

The typical day consists of:

• 5:30 a.m. Sunrise
• 5:30 a.m. – 7:30 a.m. Lay in bed and wonder if I should wake up and study/workout/read or if I should go back to sleep
• 7:30 a.m. officially wake up and get ready for school. Take a trip to the outhouse, eat breakfast (eggs, instant coffee, and white bread), brush teeth, wash face, put on sunscreen, iron clothes
• 8:30 a.m. Walk 1 mile to school
• 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Mongolian language
• 1 p.m. Walk 1 mile back home
• 1:30 p.m. Eat lunch, nap, study
• 2 p.m. Walk 1 mile back to school
• 2:30 p.m. – 5:30 CED training, 3 days/week: Tues, Wed, and Fri
• 5:30 p.m. – 9/10 p.m. Walk home, eat dinner, study, hang out with the family, get ready for bed
• 9/10 p.m. Go to sleep

Exciting, huh? There are 2 cross-cultural sessions each week that take the place of a couple hours of language training in the morning. I live the farthest away from the school than any volunteer. My host family is really cool. They let me be alone when I want to be alone. Some families hound the PC volunteer every 5 seconds with questions or attention. I’m glad my host family just lets me be.

Cow crossing the dirt road

On the walk to school, there are random goats, cows, and horses grazing around the city. I pass a taxi stand, a few basic stores, political offices that play Britney Spears, and an elementary school. The other day, I had to walk through a heard of cows in order to get to my house. I was extra careful to make sure that one didn’t kick me as I passed.

Until next week…

Three training days in Darkhan

For the past 3 days I’ve been in the city of Darkhan, MN training for the PC. I’ve attended many sessions including cross-cultural, medical, language, and safety and security. I’ll tell you a few interesting bits about each of the different sessions.

Cross-cultural

• Mongolians drink vodka shots as a main form of alcohol. If I don’t want to be “highly encouraged” to drink all the time, I need to politely refuse alcohol from the beginning of my stay. As the time goes by, I can accept drinks every once and a while.
• Mongolians politely accept items from another person with the right hand. If you are passed a candy dish or a dish that serves white food, you should touch the plate first, before taking a piece of food.
• Don’t point a single finger at a person, but your entire hand. It is more polite if you point with you whole hand.
• If you spill milk, you should touch the milk with you middle finger, then touch your middle finger to your forehead.
• When men take the first vodka shot of the evening/drinking session, they should take the ring finger of the right hand, dip the finger into the vodka, and then flick it into the air. This practice comes from the time of Ghengis Khaan, when (I think) one of his close friends was poisoned with vodka. He started wearing a ring that would detect poison. The vodka should roll down the finger to the ring, in order for the ring to change color to show the detection of poison.

Medical

• I will get diarrhea while in Mongolia.
• We received a diarrhea “flow chart” in order to track our “flows.” This will determine what type of diarrhea we have and what treatment we will receive.
• The plague DOES exist in Mongolia. I hope I won’t get it.
• I have a water distiller that takes 4 hours to create 1 gallon of distilled water.

Language

• I’ve learned sentences/terms like:
  • Hi. How are you?
  • I am good, How are you?
  • What is your name?
  • My name is …
  • I like/don’t like … (rice, meat, fat, water, egg, fruit, vegetables)
  • Bathroom
  • Toilet paper
  • Mother, father, sister, brother
  • That/This is my mother, father, etc…

• This is the only language I know moving into my host family tomorrow!
• The language classes are really fun! The teachers only speak in Mongolian to us, no English at all. I have two female teachers who are Mongolian.
• We play games during our language class! It’s not the typical, boring “repeat after the teacher” sort of class.
• Peace Corps provides 30,000 tugriks per month for each person to continue their language training after training. I’m very happy about that. I will definitely continue my language training.

Safety and security

• Peace Corps number one priority is our safety.
• We have a 24 hour emergency phone number to call if anything happens.
• During training we will learn many techniques to deal with safety and security issues.

I meet my host family tomorrow! I will travel from the city of Darkhan to Sukbataar, just 20km from the Russian border. My host family has:

• Mother
• Father
• Son: Age 25
• Daughters: 21, 20, 17
• 2 year old male cousin
• No pets

The family only knows a little bit of English. This will be quite good for my Mongolian language learning. My host family is part of my cultural adoption process. They are required to teach us certain things each week, such as: how to fetch water, how to play traditional MN games, how to toast in Mongolian, how to winterize a ger, how to build a fire, etc…

It might be awkward for the first few weeks, considering that I only know 2 or 3 Mongolian phrases! Hopefully, I will become really good friends with the daughters that are my age.

I begin my all day sessions on Monday from 9 am – 6 pm. Each week I will be in class M-F all day. I will only have access to Internet when I go into the city on Saturday. An Internet café is probably about a 40 minute walk away from my house. I will probably only be able to check e-mails and update my blog on Saturday afternoons, if I am able to get go the Interwebs…

Please send me e-mails and letters! Love you all! Thanks for all of your support.