1. Red Cross love love loves the word support.
2. UB has horrible roads. Think of how bad a dirt road is, but it is made of pavement. You must own and SUV so your car does not get eaten by the roads.
3. Mongolians are HORRIBLE drivers. If you were ever afraid in a NYC taxi, you would probably have a panic attack here.
4. I have yet to see street signs in UB, this should make finding things quite interesting.
5. Mongolians drive on the correct side of the road, but cars can have steering wheels on either side.
6. I will fit in quite nicely here... well minus the blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin. But I love meat, carbs and milk. Three staples of the Mongolian diet.
On my to do list: Learn some Mongolian and learn to use chopsticks.
So last night I went to bed at 5:30. No joke. I was planning on taking a nap and then getting up for dinner and working on my remarks for today's presentation. Well I slept til about 8. I woke up and did not feel like getting out of bed...and I didn't. I'm still not sleeping great but it is getting better. I was wide awake by 5am, which was totally necessary since I did not have a plan about what I was going to say.
Bilgee (the IFRC driver) was picking me up at 730 to leave for the Preparedness for Climate Change Workshop. When Bilgee found out that I did not eat breakfast because they open at 730, he insisted that I go back inside and eat, we could be late. He is this big Mongolian guy but like a teddy bear. He speaks a little English, but always says my name when he speaks to me (maybe so it sounds like he can speak more English lol). Yesterday he showed me all around the office, where things were and who people are. He is the man.
So we picked up Solongo at her apartment and headed out of UB. The further you get out of the center of the city the worse it gets. Infrastructure is just miserable. Buildings are so old, coal fired power plants very close to the city. The main reason UB floods is not because of the amount of rain, but because the infrastructure is so awful. Once you make it to the outskirts you get to the ger district aka the slums. Herders who moved to UB for a better life just set up their gers (portable dwelling used by nomads) outside the city and started working. Some of them were eventually able to build homes. But there is very limited access to electricity and water, and very poor sanitation. Solongo told me some of them have to walk 5k to get water. But they see this as a better life than herding.
Once you get past the ger district they are building fancy summer homes. There is even a golf course.
The workshop was held at the International Children’s Centre in the Mongolian countryside. Children come there during their summer holiday for week long camps. Qinghui stayed at the camp last night so he met us for my breakfast number 2 with Bord and his colleague from the IFRC DM team, and Karen, part of the Beijing team.
We then had a meeting in a ger. In all my reading about Mongolia, the always mention gers. So I am glad I got to go in one the second day I was able to go in one.
Then off to the workshop.
It was difficult not knowing Mongolian, but Solongo translated for me. In the morning the head of the early warning department of the meteorological agency talked about disasters in Mongolia and their early warning system, which is not spectacular. Then we got a highly technical talk from the advisor for the meteorological department. For you C&S’s reading he talked about radiative forcing and that stupid energy balance equation. Remember in=out? Lunch break. All the kids were lined up for lunch as we were leaving. They all looked at me as if I was some type of novelty. But they all were saying ‘hello’ to me! Then on to part two with a talk about health issues and climate change. My turn! I talked for about 20 minutes about what climate change is and why we should care while Solongo translated for me. Then a video from Bec at the Climate Centre and some group work brainstorming ideas about what role the Red Cross can play in the climate change issue. Back into UB to have dinner with Qinghui, Solongo, and Tony from the Finnish IRFC who is visiting Mongolia for about 10 days.
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