Time has passed incredibly quickly. Up until this weekend things had been pretty hectic - arrive and straight away we were finding somewhere to live, moved in two days later, then language lessons for two weeks, then start work!
In terms of a general wrap up - housemates and house is great, the weather has warmed up tremendously - still with the odd snow shower of a morning, but have had as warm as 27 degrees one day last week! Today I went out in shorts :) I am slowly finding things to eat, my diet doesn't have the same variety it did in Oz - gluten free is not "in" here yet (as an aside, vegetarianism definitely IS - there is almost a vego/vegan restauarant on every corner it seems - this has come up pretty quickly I'm told, so maybe gluten/dariy/soy/capsicum/olive free will be the next fad...I won't hold my breath :) My mongolian has stalled...although I am remembering more words at the rate of about one a day - today I used the words for "big", "small" and "book" - add in hello and thankyou, along with left/right/straight/stop (for taxis) and that is about my readily-available-in-brain vocabulary range at the moment.
Last week was my first week of work on Mongolia - also my first week of full time work in 5 weeks or so and the first time being in an office full time (rather than working from home) since January...so quite a shock to the system!
I am working in the Civil Society Department of Mercy Corps Mongolia - a team of 6 + me. Mercy Corps also has an Economic Development department - you should get the gist of their focusses from their titles (along with other typical organisational departments like Finance (4 pple), HR (1 person) etc). The Economic Dev Dept is much bigger (around 20 staff). The plan, I think, is that I will work where I can with each of the staffmembers on their projects - being such a small team these guys work amazingly hard, and each part of a program is pretty much handled by one person.
Projects I'll be working on include the funding we get from the UK group The Adventurists who run the amazing Mongol Rally (London to Ulaanbaatar in a tiny car) and Mongol Derby (1000km horse race across the steppe) - checkout
http://www.theadventurists.com/ to see cool pics and info about these adventures.
Other projects include enhancing social interaction of PWDs (People with Disabilities) - I am quickly becoming aware of the nightmare it is for people with a disability to get around mongolia, and especially the capital city. Over the last couple of years Mercy Corps projects got a heap of legislation passed into law...now the challenge is getting that law put into action - there is very little, generally speaking in all areas of life, effort to obey laws or penalties for not doing so.
Office culture here is a bit different to in Australia. There is not the slightest idea of work/life balance. My office hours are 8:30-5:30. Most staff are there until 6:30/7pm, and arrive around 8am. They work through lunch. I am going to try and encourage some greater efficiency/less work hours ideas, but if past AYAD volunteers experiences are anything to go by these efforts will be in vain.
The projects at work are all in the countryside - which means frequent trips to various locations, which hopefully I will be a part of. Friday afternoon saw talk of a two day trip this week for a colleague and I - fingers crossed it goes ahead!
Outside of work life is quickly being filled with the sorts of everyday things that fill life at home - housekeeping type duties, eating, finding time to exercise...also the not-so-usual activities: Mongolian language lessons will be taking up 2-3 hours from next week. Last week on Wednesday afternoon we were told it was International Museum Day 'today', so we quickly made plans to head along to Chojin Lama Temple museum that evening - one of the other AYADs from my intake is working there, so I was keen to visit her workplace, as well as see the great museum. There seems to be no lack of birthdays, house-warmings, farewells etc to celebrate come the weekend....not necessarily my scene, but a late night or two doesn't hurt occassionally :)
As the weather is warming up everyone - expats and mongols alike - are keen to head out to the countryside come the weekend. A lack of gear saw me miss out on a two day hike this weekend, but if I can help it I will be getting out there and seeing the real Mongolia as much as possible while summer lasts.
This was evident when I went along to a Mongolian church that does real-time english translations (you get a little radio and tune in to listen to the guy translating into english!). I am super keen to get involved in a church here - I am certain this will happen come winter, at the moment many church-goers are away of a weekend - as I have been too, and will be. I heard an inspiring sermon on the church in Mongolia - this year is 20 years since Christianity first came to Mongolia. It is now around 2.5% of the population and they have a goal of 10% by 2020. This was a long and involved sermon - we didn't finish the service until after 1pm...and there was no morning-tea for that boost of energy pre-message! (shout out to Lakeside :) To and from work I see a large, fancy Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) headquarters - a daily reminder of some of the challenges facing the spread of Christianity in Mongolia. In the city, there is a new Mormon Church right next door to a Buddhist worship centre, across the road from one of the seediest nightclubs...
As great as Mongolia is so far with all its interesting discoveries, I am definitely missing many things from Australia; not the least of which is all my friends and family. With life being busy here I haven't been in touch as much as I would like to - thanks for all your prayers and support, looking back on how things here have turned out I am mightily blessed!
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