Visiting Arvaiheer was definitely worth it. My office hired a driver for me so I had the car to myself. Drivers usually cruise around trying to fill every possible inch of a vehicle before leaving town here in Mongolia. The trip only took six hours on mostly paved roads and I had a great fried chicken meal when I got there. No restaurants serve chicken in Arkhangai and Peace Corps medical has lifted the ban of eating it. I then checked into the my friend Laura's office. She works for the Gobi Initiative, another Mercy Corps operation. Their offices have a lot more people and are more established. Most have them have a few English speakers so it's easier for volunteers to get stuff done. I don't even have a dedicated translator so I can't interact much with clients. They're working on finding me someone though. The visit was worthwhile, because I learned more about their operation and the kinds of activities and trainings they do. Laura has been involved in two trade fairs and brought a county fair feeling to both. I'll be working on one for my aimag most of next year and I got plenty of advice and examples to take back with me to Arkhangai.
On Friday, we went to the Loar's (Sierra and Jesse) ger to watch a movie and eat pizza. Apparently Laura and her husband, Hector, do this every week. Jesse made the dough and we each got to cook our own pizza in an electric wok. When we arrived there was an exchange of goods that the Loar's had just brought back to UB. Living in Mongolia outside of UB is kind of like being in prison. You're always waiting for a package from your family or ordering contraband deliveries.
I took my first Mongolian bus from Arvaiheer to UB on Saturday. I got there on time and waited an hour and a half for the bus, aisles included, to fill with people and cargo. This was a more typical Mongolian travel experience, but at least I had enough leg room. This trip took eight hours on good roads and my ipod lasted the whole way thanks to my tune juice. I got a cab to the UB Guesthouse, which except for being really hard to find the first time, is a great place to stay. They have hot showers, free DVDs and internet, laundry service, and a plethora of foreigners to talk to. Sadly, they lack sexy, sexy dancers.
This is my first trip to UB since July and on that trip we were sheparded around by our trainers. Now I really have a chance to explore the city and, believe it or not, I can find my way around pretty well. I've been working most of the day, so I haven't been able to do many tourist things. I'll have to wait until I'm actually on vacation. At Mercy Corps headquarters, I've learned more about the whole program and now I realize why RASP doesn't have the same programs as Gobi. We're a much younger program and our offices are smaller. I'm hopping to bring some of Gobi's methods and input to my office though. That's how volunteers can help, because the two programs don't really talk to each other enough.
I'll have more to say about UB after our Thanksgiving dinner at the country director's apartment tonight. A few things that have struck me so far are all the contrasts that exist between UB and the rest of the country and within the city itself. First, to understand how important UB is to the country you'd have to put the 20 largest cities in the US into one and place it around St. Louis. Everything in the country goes through UB including most roads and rail lines. It's the only place you can get luxury items like real cheese and coke light (diet coke) so every volunteer comes here with a shopping list.
The contrasts within the city are small, like a guy in a del selling time on a mobile phone, or just odd like Los Bandidos the Mexican/Indian Restaurant, Strings the club with the incredible Philipino cover band named Nightshift, and Marco Polo the Italian restaurant with the strip club upstairs (so I hear). There's also the fact that most service workers speak English so when I ordered "sharsen toomc" at Dublin Irish pub the Mongolian waiter replied "yes, french fries".
The driver picked me up early so I didn't have time to burn pictures, but I'll take more and put up some galleries next week. For now, you'll have to enjoy this picture my friend Amazing Ben made of me as Ghengis Khan.
Priceless.
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