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!