Mongolia

After a week in Mongolia, I finally have the time to update my blog. In the camp where I started working as a volunteer a week ago, there is no electricity, no shower, and certainly no internet access. Also my mobile phone doesn't work here, so SMS posting was also not possible.
The camp is about an hour by jeep from the capital Ulaanbaatar, half of which on dirt roads. We are with 20 volunteers, 7 girls from Japan, 2 girls and a guy from Korea, 2 couples and a single girl from Italy, a Swiss boy and girl, a French and an Irish girl. Ages range from 19 to 39, plus me (always the oldest, of course!) . The Mongolian kids are from 12 to 18 years old. Older than I expected, but there is another camp for the young kids (78 of them!) a bit further into the mountains. Our camp is situated in a green valley surrounded by hills and enveloped by a very big sky. The scenery is quite impressive. Much greener than I thought, and after every hill another valley. It just goes on and on. During the day it can get quite hot (over 30), but at night it can cool down to below 10 degrees Celsius, so extra blankets needed!
We all sleep in 3 gers, the typical round Mongolian nomad's tent. When it rains at night (only once so far) it makes a very nice surround-sound environment. (I should have recorded it!)
In the morning we work with the kids on a field where they grow vegetables. The work basically consists of weeding, pulling out all the wild flowers with your hands. No tools at all (except gloves)!
The conditions are quite primitive. The toilet is a 3m deep hole in the ground, with a wooden shack on top of it with one of the floor planks missing. During the first few days, the boys had to help digging the hole, and rebuild the shack to replace the older toilet which had filled up (ugh!).
As I saidm there is no shower, and water in general is very sparse. It is delivered daily with a small tank waggon from a well. We fill up 10 or so jerry cans, and do everything with that amount of water, cooking, washing, brushing teeth etc. Some people had bought bottled water in Ulaanbaatar before coming to the camp, but not me. But it's ok, you adjust.
The food is not Mongolian though. We cook in teams of 3, using basic supplies which are brought in once a week, from the supermarket in Ulaanbaatar. Among the supplies: lots of pasta and bread, tomato paste, smoked sausage, eggs, potatoes, carrots, Nutella, but no fruits at all!
A bit disappointing. I was prepared to eat mutton rice and drink tea with yak butter for a whole week, but none of that. Western camp food, and no fruit. Quite sad.
After 4 days of camp, we got two days off, for a short trip to the so called Little Gobi. The Gobi is a vast desert, but this area about 300 km West of Ulaanbaatar has only a small amount of sand dunes, with some rocky hills above it, and green grass with a lake nearby. On a hill overlooking this Little Gobi, Mongolian family with 4 gers and some horses, cows, a camel, and many goats and sheep were are hosts for two days. They actually had a tv in their ger! A solar panel and a satellite dish did the trick. A tv, but no fridge. Interesting how priorities can change...
Every morning they milk some cows, manage to make cheese and butter from it, and water the remaining milk down with hot water, which is then served as "milk tea" the national drink of Mongolia. The taste varies strongly, depending on where you get it. Sometimes it's quite nice, sometimes absolutely revolting.
Readily available is vodka, of course. And imported beer from Korea. Fruit 'juices' from China, like most other non-Mongolian stuff.
My physical condition has not been optimal. I still suffered from the slowly healing infections on my legs which where already hindering m,e for 2 weeks, but after one evening too close to a small stream with thousands of mosquitoes, infections started to spread all around my calfs. Then I also got a cold, and a fever, so I had to see a doctor, who prescribed antibiotics and 3 other types of medication which I dutifully swallow. It seems to have effect though. The infections are almost gone, and my skin is slowly rebuilding itself. Not the best place to be in this state though. I use tons of wet tissues everyday to try to keep myself clean.

There was a power failure just now. The whole internet cafe blacked out. Luckily I got into the habit of saving my posts as a draft regularly, so not too much was lost.
Anyway, I was saying that after the camp is over, in week, I will probably stay in Mongolia for a few days or a week, and then go back to China. Next week I will also try to upload some photos.