I tend to overuse the word epic. So when something that is genuinely epic comes along, it is tough to beat the descriptions I've used for something that was pretty cool - but not epic(after all)!
Today is the first day of 14 days straight traveling in three of the 4 western provinces of Mongolia. My traveling colleague drew the short straw: traveling for two weeks, in the coldest part of winter, to the coldest provinces!
I, on the other hand, feel like I've won the lottery being able to come along. The trip is with the animal health officer, of a technical agricultural project I haven't had much to do with. The project struggles to communicate the amazing things they're doing due to being fairly technical, and the staff being fairly technical too.
So today I was up at 4.30am to catch a 7am flight. I was expecting one of our drivers to take me to the airport, but instead had a call from a taxi driver clearly not expecting a non-mongolian speaker. I rushed downstairs only to have him drive off as I got outside the door. I chased after him and got his attention...the next challenge was telling him where to go. I should know the word for airport..but expecting a work driver who had been briefed on the details, my brain wasn't in Mongolian speaking mode...so I named a few of the Mongolian airlines, and we were heading the right direction.
About 3km out from the airport, in a kind of no-man's land, in low negative thirties and pitch black and smoky from pollution, the car just stops. He wasn't out of petrol, but it was that kind of feeling where the car just comes to a gradual stop. The driver did what he could for about 15 minutes, with no luck. Then there was 15 minutes of unsuccessful hailing down a passing car before we eventually got a ride to the airport. Good thing I left ridiculously early!
After that everything has been great! At the airport the check-in lady was the neice of my traveling colleague, they hadn't seen each other for at least 10 years! Then, behind us was my colleague's old english teachers - who she hadn't seen for at least 8 years! Now they are living in our first-stop province - Gobi Altai. When we arrived their Australian friend was there to meet them - so another nice friend was made!
Arriving at the Mercy Corps office i discovered the local program officer has fantastic english...something she had never revealed before. And she is a cool person. We interviewed a few beneficiaries and put in place plans to see some more tomorrow. And some other work stuff went on, but now I'm too exhausted to get into the details! More on that tomorrow!
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