Christmas in Mongolia

Phew. The Christmas season in Ulaanbaatar has been surprisingly festive, and very busy.

On the musical side, the most popular song of the season is by far this annoying ditty by Abba. The "Happy New Year" part of the chorus must also be topping the ringtone charts, if my colleague's phones are anything to go by.

Around the start of December "New Year Trees" started popping up in front of the big stores, then in front of the bigger buildings, and then a huge one in the main square! "New Year" decorations, almost exactly the same as our christmas decorations, with the notable exception of anything christian, are everywhere.

Almost everything is exactly the same, but called "new year such and such" rather than "christmas such and such".

The undoubted highlight of the new year season is the work new year party. There is huge pressure on every female to be dressed to their absolute best for this occasion. In the early weeks of December office talk is dominated by what dress you are going to where, how you are going to do your hair and so on. It was made clear that anything other than a dress and some makeup would be totally unacceptable on my part, so I went with it and did my best to get into the festive spirit. The terrible task of shopping for a dress, in a foreign country where women are 90% the size of sticks and shop assistants are the opposite of helpful was put off a few times - until the Sunday before the party, the last possible day to find the dress. An awesome friend with great taste came along to help me out. Miraculously we found two dresses and couldn't pick between the two. Figuring I would not want to go dress shopping again for another 24 years I decided to get both.

Me with my team at the work party. Half these guys finished their contracts two days later :(

The two dress scenario worked out perfectly as the night after my epic work party was a fancy party for the aussie volunteers in town - so I ended up wearing a dress two nights in a row!

Me and some of the aussie volunteer crew.

What's left of my intake. Intake 30 started as 6 + one partner. Now we are two down, another has finished her assignment but staying around and it won't be long until the next one leaves. Farewells are the curse of the AYAD adventure.

These two parties were in the week before Christmas. Three days of this week were spent at work conference - around 100 staff, including all the guys who work in the field offices around the countryside, were bought together for various strategic discussions and updates etc. This was a good chance to evaluate how my assignment can fit in, meet some of the english speaking field staff and suss out some good provinces to try and get myself to in my last 14 weeks!!!!

So three days of conference, two bit parties, then Friday night was a latish night farewelling my colleagues whose contracts finished up...notably the team leader who had been at MCM for about 6 years. Although most of the conversation was in Mongolian it was a really pleasant night.

Which brings us to Christmas eve. My intake and our housemates had a late lunch at one of the fancier cafes in town, newly opened and exchanged secret santa gifts. We then moved to the ballet theatre to watch the aptly scheduled Nutcracker.

This was followed by mulled wine at one of the aussie's homes and then some essential ice-cream + ovaltine + christmas movies in a smaller group - Home Alone 2. Christmas day was going to bed super late after skyping home early in the morning before tales had to leave for work, sleeping in, rushing to church with some other volunteers then back home to get ready for a big lunch at my apartment. The invite said to start at 3pm.

This was taken pretty liberally by some and we didn't start eating until almost 6, but boy what a feast! A former chef prepared the most delicious roast beef and juus - the result of 6 months stock-collecting; there was mac and cheese, vegies, salad, bolognese, bruschetta and more...dessert featured a trifle, cakes and ice cream. Starts had included tasmanian cheese and pizza shapes smuggled in!

It was a beautiful meal with lots of friends - about 50 people over the course of the afternoon crammed into our apartment to share the day together. The night finished off with an essential Love Actually viewing and finally some sleep.

This was after spending two weeks out of three during december in the countryside. So a busy time...perhaps for the best, keeping busy helps you forget to remember what you're missing out on back home!

This week I am on holiday, although so far its been busy with cleaning and errands. Tomorrow I am off to Khentii - to a region close to the russian border (we needed to get border permits) where Chinggis Khan (Gengis) is believed to have been born. Today it is a region with buriat people - an ethnic group close to Mongolians, mostly found in Russia around Chita and Ulan Ude. More on that when I get back :)

One of Mercy Corps' projects brings US farmers to Mongolia for three weeks or so to share their knowledge and teach some new skills so farmers can diversify their activities.

Below is an interview with Greg Higgins who recently came to teach sausage making.

You can also check out the blog he kept while in Mongolia: Higgins in Mongolia Blog

Source: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-18297-hotseat_greg_higgins.html

Chef Greg Higgins knows his way around a sausage. One of the forefathers of local, sustainable dining in Portland—which he has been dishing up at his eponymous downtown restaurant Higgins for almost 18 years—he was curing meat and serving up charcuterie plates when most of the city’s rock-star cooks were still in Pampers. But when aid agency Mercy Corps asked him to spend three weeks teaching sausage- and charcuterie-making to cooks in Mongolia, he didn’t know if he was up to the task. “Basically, there’s next to no pork over there,” Higgins says. “I was thinking, I’ve got an extensive background in real artisanal charcuterie—I’m not so sure how that’s going to work with the products they have.”

But to Mongolia he went, keeping an online diary for wweek.com along the way (you can read it all here). And after being regaled with Higgins’ tales of smoked camel hams, goat-meat hotdogs, battling antiquated Soviet equipment and downing large amounts of vodka for the past month, we had to sit down for a post-mortem on his travels.

WW: What were your expectations going into this project? Greg Higgins: Well, my expectations weren’t really high food-wise. Food there is OK, it’s nothing special. Very little seasoning—onion, salt, a little pepper—and the sausage tradition is really archaic, old Russian, so I didn’t feel it was going to be that hard to come up with [new] ideas.

You ended up having to substitute things like camel, yak and goat for pork in your sausages—what did they taste like? Really, really good. The reason pork is king in the world of sausage-making is that there are five categories of fat in any given pig, and those categories of fats have different applications, create different texture, etc. Within most other livestock—cow, sheep—there’s only one or two types of fat, and they don’t emulsify and don’t create the mouth feel you get out of pork fat. So that was my biggest fear: How was I going to get these fats to stay in suspension so it wasn’t that dry, drippy, grainy sausage that you don’t wanna have? But in reality there’s so much protein content, those animals are so healthy—I imagine the protein content in those animals is triple or quadruple even the pasture-raised meat I get here. So what that allowed us to do was achieve emulsions you couldn’t get with run-of-the-mill meat. So that meant the textures held and the flavors were really good…. The camel ham was absolutely delicious. Was it richer flavor? Sure, it didn’t taste like a cute little pig, but I think if you served that product here, people would love it.

Did people enjoy the new food you introduced them to? Oh yeah, I think it was pretty fun. And then some of the stuff was slapstick. The onion-ring thing [in this blog post, Higgins described making American food for his hosts], that was witch-doctor material. They were just absolutely flabbergasted by a commonplace ingredient—I went and bought some cornstarch, which is really the secret to a crispy batter. We made corn dogs and onion rings, and the locals were just ecstatic. Go figure.

And the meats? Do you think they will keep making them now that you’ve left? I’m absolutely certain the ham-curing and smoking process they’ll continue, because that’s very manageable. And in their world, they have a surplus of certain products. Fat—they don’t know what to do with all the fat. The idea that you would actually render all the fat and cook with it was radical. They have a lot of legs from goats and sheep they don’t know what to do with, ’cause it’s stronger-flavored meat, so I taught them to make hams with those and they were very excited. They have a lot of organ meat, so almost everywhere one of the requests was, “Can we put organ meat in it?”

Do you feel like ultimately you’ve achieved something? I’m sure we did. I achieved for myself, personally, learning what their challenges are, what their limitations are, and I’ve got a picture of what the potential is—I mean it’s immense, sitting on a resource like all that quality meat in that quantity…. So one of my projects is to put together a care package of products that should be available there in the form of small tools: good thermometers, simple brine injectors, the proper cure salts…. I think the tradition of the meats is so strong that I can’t see it going away. And I can only see that as people do better economically, there will be a point where it’ll differentiate—someone will make better stuff and someone will say, “Their stuff is better. Why is that better?”

The Future of Mongolia

There's plenty of potential for Mongolians to achieve great things...unfortunately currently corruption and a lack of leadership are holding the country back.

Pollution is a major problem - not just in the capital Ulaanbaatar, where it ranks second in the world, but now increasingly in rural towns where populations are growing and governments buy old power stations from neighbouring countries, cause they're cheap. They're cheap for a reason!

3 Words: Michael Jackson Medley

The Morin Khuur is the most famous traditional Mongolian instrument. A two stringed violin, with a carved horse shape head - the name literally means horse head fiddle. It is amazing the sounds these guys get from these two strings.

On Friday night I went to a special concert by the National Morin Khuur Ensemble. As we found our seats and turned out eyes to our programmes there was a collective gasp of excitement. Well, more staggered gasps of excitement and sharing with the person sitting next to you the finale: Michael Jackson Medley.

The concert was fantastic, probably aided by the building suspense of what this Michael Jackson medley would be! The program was a tribute to north and south american composers - a typically Mongolian stroke of randomness. Seeing the Mongolian instruments playing these familiar, and some not so familiar, but definitely foreign pieces was amazing.

At one point there was a special performance by a famous 'Pop Diva'. This woman always wears sunglasses and appears at special events...while popular among Mongolians, most foreigners get the feeling they're not quite getting the point of her presence...

And then finally it was time for the anticipated Jackson Medley - it didn't disappoint! The band were amazing, the received a rousing applause and many standing ovations - sparking an encore - in which they played the jackson medley again! This time there was a full standing ovation.

Arkhangai Province Work Trip

Last week I went on a work trip with my counterpart B to Arkhangai province (or Arkhangai aimag, in Mongolian). http://mercycorps.org.mn/images/Arkhangai.gif The province (aimag) is the highlighted area, the main city ('aimag centre') - Tsesterleg - being about 6 hours drive west of the capital, Ulaanbaatar (the black circle).

This region is famous for the best dairy products and having lots and lots of trees - a rarity in Mongolia. There was a very noticable presence of wooden buildings - homes and sheds in the countryside and oddly a lot of basketball hoops and goal posts dotted across now empty valleys - I'm guessing families must move to these locations in the summer. The aimag is well developed thanks to its proximity to UB (Ulaanbaatar). There is now paved road all the way from UB to the aimag centre - an amazing blessing.

On the way to the aimag centre we stopped in the ancient capital of Kharkhorum. There isn't much here now: grand plans of relocating the capital back here, a shiny new museum and a reconstructed temple - plus lots of tourists hoping to find more in summer, keep the economy buzzing. There are also a couple of ancient turtle rocks, and a very realistic phallic rock - popular with tourists.

The plan was to get some lunch (we had tsuivan - a mongolian noodle dish) and visit a Mongol Derby funded project. The wonder of modern technology meant that the project leader's phone couldn't be reached, so we had a brief stop at the ancient temple and continued on our journey.

Some pictures from the temple:

The next day we set off on a 4 hour drive to an isolated "soum centre" called Kharkhan - population 2000. Aimag is equivalent to a state or province, they have an "aimag centre" or largish town of population somewhere from 10,000 to 40,000. Below this the aimags/provinces are divided up into "soums" which have a "soum centre" - or town - with populations of a few thousand. Below the soum are "baghs" - or communities/villages - which will be literally a single building in the middle of nowhere where community forums are held every few months, herders come to vote and that's about it.

The project here is a felt making business. The family make the large felt covers for gers - important for insulating the gers in winter. The owner of the business makes these in summer in an old factory building. He wanted something to do in winter so applied for a grant to buy some processing equipment to make smaller felt items - specifically felt boot linings herders wear in winter.

At some stage a frozen wolf appeared. This was very very popular with the men around, including our driver. Numerous pictures were taken in all kinds of poses. Great care was taken to adjust the animals ears and get everything just right. Apparently 'chinese' will pay alot for an intact animal like this.

Day three we visited a bakery that has employed 6 new people as part of a project called Social Safety Nets addressing people displaced by natural disaster and global financial crisis. The products were delicious - a rarity in Mongolia.

This bakery is famous for making a special kind of fried big biscuit that is arranged in layers for Mongolia's lunar new year celebrations called Tsagaan Tsaar, and used at special occasions like weddings, funerals and hair cutting ceremonies (when children, particularly boys, are a certain age their hair is cut for the first time in a special family ceremony - different reports say 2 or 4 years old).

The biscuits are arranged in odd-numbered layers - even numbered layers are very bad. The layers represent different kinds of positive things- eg. happiness. Older people have more layers.

In the afternoon we visited three groups - a carpenter, a sewing cooperative and a massage centre for people with disabilities and the elderly.

Day four was time to come home. My colleague's son had become unwell and needed some kind of small surgery while we were away, so of course she was in a hurry to get back and pretty stressed out. During the day she heard that the surgery was done and all was good.

We were ready to leave at 7am - pitch black. The early start heading east was a great idea - we were driving into the sunrise which was amazingly beautiful. We stopped in Kharkhorum again, this time we were able to visit two projects - a dairy production business and a sewing group.

The dairy business purchased equipment to hygienically process and package milk to sell in their region. The owner runs a few small shops in the town and sells his milk in these outlets along with another shop he has a contract for.

He explained that there is little milk around in winter, Mongolian cows only calve in the spring - so there is lots of milk and lots competition to sell it in the summer - but its very hot and not very hygienic.

In winter herders freeze their milk to use at the lunar new year celebration (Tsaagan Tsaar) in February.

The sewing business us run by a lady called Dumaa - a very sweet, gentle lady. They make gorgeous felt items like hats, bags, boots. There is a popular felt shop in UB called Tsagaan Alt, frequented by my crowd of volunteers - we found out Dumaa sells her items to this shop.

The cooperative shares a building with the local World Vision office. I found it interesting to hear that in the summer world vision repainted the outside but since the cooperative had a sign up saying they had received a grant from a rival development agency - Mercy Corps - they didn't paint the cooperative's half of the building!

Back in the Big Smoke

Ulaanbaatar isn't the prettiest city, or the biggest city, or the coolest city. It is really barely a city by world standards; but never has the term 'big smoke' more applied to a city than here. Mongolia has the honour of having the second most polluted air in the world- and not by much.

Never before has tiny Mongolia stood out so much on a world map - you'll have no trouble spotting this little country with its contrasting red on this world air pollution map The Herald put together:

Link to Map

Click on the map then hover over Mongolia for a second and you'll see that figure of 279. Hover over Australia and you'll see 13. That's quite a difference!

This is the measurement of PM10 particles - the tiny particles that lodge in your lungs and cause all kinds of health problems..many of which aren't really known yet as this air pollution is a new problem for the world, relatively speaking.

Why this whinge again?

I got back from a fantastic trip to the countryside yesterday. The pollution starts to be visible about an hour out of the city. As you hit the city you enter this big grey cloud where you can't see more than about 200 metres ahead. Then your perception changes and it seems to get better...but your eyes get a bit watery, and your throat gets a bit scratchy. And you can smell smoke everywhere - not just in bars! (And you have plenty of time to observe these reactions as you're stopped in traffic!).

The least densely populated country in the world, with the most pristine environment and a culture that relies extraordinarily on nature has (almost) the most polluted air. Who would've thought?