No News is Good News

To pull out another cliche, time certainly does fly when you're having fun!

Actually, it flies when you're not having a whole lot of fun as well!

The last three weeks can be summed up as amazing - I have travelled 10 hours west on a 5 day trip, I have travelled 12 hours east for 5 days for work's annual meeting, I have visited training for Children with a Disability, I have celebrated a Mongolian birthday with wonderful friends in UB. I have made lots of plans for exciting projects at work, and even acheived a couple of things already, including a poster that has been printed and distributed!

In the "not so much fun" department are all of the above as well - travelling anywhere is tough in Mongolia, travelling 12 hours crammed between a metal rod and a drunk old Mongolian guy is not nearly as pleasant as it sounds. Celebrating a birthday with no mobile, internet and barely an english speaker has it's frustrations. Attending a work conference with a huge amount of interesting information and presentations, all in Mongolian, is frustrating. Working with people from a different culture, in fact across cultures (US, Macedonian and Mongolian) is very challenging.

Looking forward there are more trips in the works - heading west for a work trip, no details known, but should be next week - to the Kazakh region of Mongolia; then Naadam in early July - the Mongolian equivalent of Christmas, with wrestling, horse riding and archery; then hopefully off to Russia for 10 days or so!

Work is super-busy. Mongolians are notorious for leaving things til the last minute, and there are some pressing deadlines coming up. I am discovering, at least in my workplace, the last-minute thing is because they only just finished meeting another deadline, not because they were twiddling their fingers. With Naadam coming up there is a week of office shutdown, and most people, including me, are taking leave either side - the equivalent of trying to do something between mid December and mid January - but worse, because this is the only 12 weeks or so of the year that you can go outside! The catch is that, this is the only time of year you can do stuff outside - so there are lots of community events to plan and hold, lots of travelling to the provinces to work on projects, and lots of foreign visitors and events including the Rally and the Derby coming in!

Children's Day - June 1

June 1 is a public holiday in Mongolia - Children's Day.

The celebrations are quite literal - everyone, it seems absolutely everyone, hits the streets with their kids. The kids are spoilt rotten with lollies, bananas, toys, games and various events such as singing competitions.

Sukhbataar Square, a huge open space in front of the Parliament building (which my house is behind) hosted thousands of people (it felt like it, anyway).

It's a great excuse for a mid-week holiday (Wednesday); and the weather put on a perfect show for the first day of summer. Following some torrential rain early last week, and warm weather since, the city has just popped out in green - trees are covered in leaves, grass is popping up everywhere and looks overgrown in plenty of places - it was snowing two weeks ago!

Man, it was packed...and more people streaming in constantly.

It's all a bit much for some of us...at least he had his Thomas shirt on.

The French Bistro under our apartment (we're the at the top) - outdoorish eating area now open. Awnings are going up on outdoor areas all around the place now that it's warming up.

UB is so beautiful at the moment. There were definitely not leaves on these trees a month ago when we arrived.

Cool Soviet style building next to our local supermarket, with a big statue of a random guy out the front.

More roadworks around the corner from our place...the street is now just a big hole.