Mongolia

Here's my journal that I kept during our 'remote trip' to the Mongolian countryside. We left on the morning of October 25^th, and it took 4 and a half days of straight driving to get to the most western province of Mongolia, Bayan-Olggi. Our team consisted of Suzanne and I, plus 2 Mongolian vets, a driver/mechanic, and a translator. Once here, we did a training day for the veterinarians every other day in a different county, leaving a day in between to spend some time seeing the area, and for travel. Our last day of training was November 7th 2009. On the morning of November 8th, we left for Ulaanbaatar (the capital). That day, we got a 'tractor pull' through a 4 foot deep river that cut 200 km off our journey. Then, after traveling 2000km over 8 days (snow and transmission rebuilding were the source of the delay), including being towed 100km by a diesel delivery truck and sleeping in 2 gers, and also spending 2 nights in a military base, we finally got to UB. There are more details about the drive back that made it memorable, but this post has already turned into a bit of a novel, so I will leave it at that. Let's just say that it is very nice to be back in civilization and I really appreciate our apartment and a hot shower.

I am now in UB, and I will be spending the last 4 days of our time in Mongolia working on the continuing education curriculum for veterinarians. Sometimes during our time in the countryside, it felt as though we weren't really necessary for the training to happen, and we were just along for the ride. As much as we felt this way, I think our presence out in the countryside was still very valuable. I think that it is very encouraging for the Mongolian veterinarians to have a foreigher come all the way around the world just to help them be better vets. Also, I think our encouragement to the rest of our team in their faith was also an asset that is difficult to measure. In any case, I know the work that I am doing now is very beneficial and necessary, as this CE material will be used to train vets here in Mongolia for many more years to come.

October 26^th 2009

Today is our second day of driving, and also is our last day of seeing any paved highway. From now on, any driving outside of any major town (and inside any town besides the province center) will be on dirt roads. I have no idea how our driver (Toodoo) knows where we are going, or where to turn. Any given route that we take has about 5 or more parallel paths, and you can just choose whichever one looks the smoothest.

This morning, we also came to realize just how important the horse is to Mongolian society. As we were driving, we came across a big temple dedicated to the horse. It was a pretty grand structure, considering the surroundings (a lot of nothingness) and also seemed to be a place where the local people brought their horse skulls, so that their equine friends go to horse heaven. There was also a ger near the premises, where the 'groundskeeper' of the temple lived. Before we left, I went out of sight behind the temple to empty my bladder before we got back in the van (There was plenty of horse manure around, so I figured I was safe) but apparently that was very disrespectful, and our team leader got an earful from the groundskeeper before we left. I guess that horses have more urinary and fecal freedom than us mere humans.

October 27^th 2009

Today is my 25^th birthday, and is also our third day on the road. I had been told that Mongolians don't really celebrate birthdays the way that North Americans do, so I wasn't expecting much. Over breakfast, I still got a birthday cake which was a twinkie, with matches for candles. The rest of my day was spent driving, and admiring the Mongolian countryside.

November 1^st 2009

Today was our meeting with the second group of veterinarians, and it went very well. Our meetings with the vets start out with me giving a brief review of how to perform an epidural, and then going over the replacement of vaginal and uterine prolapses. These are things that are pretty standard in the Canadian vet school curriculum, especially for large animal vets. But as one of the Americans working in the V.E.T.net office remarked "Their Mongolian vet school only costs about $600 a year, and they get what they pay for." So most of the what I would consider "basic veterinary skills" are taught by V.E.T.net during one week CE courses in the capital city, and also by these remote trips to the countryside.

After my presentation, the vets are given a survey about how they feel V.E.T.net has helped them, and how has their relationship with the herders changed since they started working with V.E.T.net. I would have thought that their answers would include 'better veterinary knowledge' or 'more veterinary skills' , but it seems that the majority of the vets feel that they have gained the most through access to better quality veterinary drugs. Before V.E.T.net was formed, most of the drugs that the vets used were imported from either Russia or China, and most of those had little or no active ingredient in them at all. So one of the biggest advances made by this organization was the purchase of a chromatography machine that could test drugs to determine if they were any good or not. Once they found out that most of the drugs the vets were using were basically water, they began to source quality drugs from Europe, Britain, and America. Now that the vets have access to quality drugs, they feel that their clients (herders) have much more trust in them and are more willing to listen to them and their management ideas.

While at this particular town, we stayed with the family of one of the veterinarians. His wife was a medical doctor at the local hospital, so they were one of the most educated families in the town. Our first night there, we got in quite late, but they still cooked a nice meal for us and even had a glass of yak milk for Suzanne and me. It was quite sweet, and tasted kinda like the milk that is left over after you eat a bowl of lucky charms. This milk was from their 2 yaks, who right now produce about 3L a day between the 2 of them, who now only get milked once a day because it is getting late into fall. My dairy instincts kicked in and I asked if I could help milk them the next day. So the next day, after I had given my presentation, our team leader Boldoo informed me that the yaks would be milked soon, and I should go to the house to help. So I got to the house, and walked through the gate right behind one of the yak that wandered down from the mountains, just like she does every day, just in time for her daily milking. The daughter then had a plate of potato skins from the night before (potatoes being the biggest source of plant life in their diet) that she fed to the yak, which probably provides a good chunk of her daily nutrition, judging from the grass that is left at this time of year. While the yak was lured over to the other end of the yard with the potato skins (the corner where the milking would take place) the other yak was waiting patiently at the second entrance to the yard, waiting for her share of the potato skins. After she was let into the yard and fed her potato skins, the milking process began.

The yak calf to the 1^st mother yak was let out of its home in the yard, and allowed to nurse briefly from mom. This is the Mongolian version of the 'milking preparation routine'. After the milk started to flow, the calf was taken from its mother and tied to the fence, while the stool was put in place and the vet's wife (I can never remember these Mongolian names) milked into a bucket placed between her knees. I asked if I could help, but was told that this one was angry, and I could try with the next one. After the first yak was milked, the calf was untied, and was allowed to nurse whatever was left. The preparation routine was then performed on the next mother yak, and then I donned the milking apron and attempted to give it a go. Apparently this yak did not appreciate my Canadian smell, and would not let me come anywhere near her udder, so the apron was given back, and she had no problem letting someone more familiar milk her dry.

The family that we were staying with lived quite close to the school, and because it was a Sunday the kids had no school. During the whole yak milking episode, Suzanne and I could see some kids playing basketball in the schoolyard. So after lunch (the vet meeting was still going on, but was all in Mongolian, and was mostly administrative stuff at this point) Suzanne and I went to see if we could play some basketball. There was about 20 kids there, from about 7 to 18 years old, all just shooting around. So when we showed up, 2 of the older kids right away offered to play some 2-on-2. Suzanne and I had not played very much basketball lately, and these kids were all practiced up, and obviously in better shape than us (sitting in a van 8 hours a day doesn't do much for your aerobic capacity), but we still managed to beat them 11-9. It was kinda funny to be able to tell Suzanne "Let's run a pick and roll" out loud and still score easily, because these kids spoke barely any English (besides knowing the score). I felt like Karl Malone & John Stockton. They should have known the pick and roll is coming, but they still couldn't stop us! Also, I think they got at least 3 points on us because after they got one of our rebounds, they didn't bring it out past the 3 point line before they shot. They just went up for the shot right away. That's one way to get ahead! I would have told them that's not how you play, but I figured the language barrier was too much. Besides, I scored that way a couple times myself near the end.

After our first win in international play, Suzanne and I thought we should involve all the kids and play some 'bump'. Anyone who has played basketball in Canada knows how to play this game, and we thought it would be pretty easy to explain to a bunch of kids, despite not knowing each other's language. We figured if Suzanne and I just gave a bit of a demonstration, the kids would figure it out and we could have fun playing. After about 45 minutes of trying to show every kid that they need to get their own rebound, and they had to keep shooting until they scored, we eventually played a game with over half the kids knowing the rules. It was pretty fun, to play with all the kids, and see most of the kids figure out the rules.

November 2^nd, 2009

Last night we drove to the capital of the province and got a hotel. The place looked nice enough, and we were all excited that they had showers (none of us had showered since we left U.B. 8 days ago). Once we opened the door to our room however, the cold air made it seem as if we may as well be opening the door to outside. The hotel lady came by and said they hadn't started the fire to run the central heat yet, but would do that soon. After our sleep under all the covers, as well as an extra sleeping bag and each of us in our sleeping bag liners, it was obvious that 'soon' was relative, and she certainly did not mean during this night. The showers were also a letdown; our translator Baigaala had a shower, and said it was warm for the first 30 seconds, and then turned cold. With our room freezing already, a cold shower was not worth being that cold.

November 4^th 2009

This morning we woke up to one of the vets from yesterday's training pounding on our door. It's time to go milk the camel. So we drove over to his sister's house, and out behind the house in their pen were the camels. The milking routine for the camels was similar to the yak routine, but this time even the owner was unsuccessful in getting any milk. I guess there were too many visitors, and neither camel would let their milk down. We were still invited inside for our 'breakfast', which looks a lot like the food that seems to take permanent residence on the kitchen table of every Mongolian family: cookies, dried yogurt(hard as a rock, and not that tasty), this fried bread stuff(also not that tasty) and plenty of store-bought candies. When we are offered a breakfast like this, I often resort to the stash of goodies in my bag whenever I get the chance. Even the store bought cookies don't really do much to fill my appetite. We also got offered some fermented camel's milk, which actually tasted a little like yogurt, but quite a bit more sour.

We then left for the day's adventures with all the vets from the previous days' training, which was heading down to the river. As we were driving out there, we came across a jeep that had tried to cross the river, but had got stuck about one tenth of the way across. Luckily our convoy consisted of about 20 people, mostly men. Still, I didn't think that 15 people, all standing on ice, would be able to help this stuck jeep very much, but apparently I was wrong.

Once we got to our destination, we were treated to a picnic of 'kaz' and also more toasts to the foreigners and vodka. 'Kaz' has become I think my favorite Mongolian food so far. We first tried it here at this village, which is about 120km from Russia, 120km from China, and 200km from Kazakhstan (although it doesn't actually share a border with Kazakhstan.) And in this town, as well as all over the province where we are doing this training, there are many ethnic Kazaks, with this 'kaz' being one of their culturally distinct dishes. Basically, kaz is made by taking one horse rib with all the meat, and salting it. Then, you take the salted rib and stuff it inside a chunk of small intestine, and then you fill the intestine with however much fat you need to make it tight inside and then boil it. I think if I had known what this little treat was made of before I tried it for the first time, it would not have become my favorite Mongolian food. At least now that I'm aware of what it's made of, I make sure to take the outside 'peel' off before chowing down.

After our picnic, we began the activities. We started with a tug-of-war tournament, and then we started with the wrestling competition. It was a pretty amusing scene; a bunch of grown men wrestling each other down by the river, and having the time of their life doing it too.

November 6^th 2009

Yesterday we did the training in the province center, a town of about 40,000 people, so we stayed there again last night. This morning, we got a fairly early start to the day to climb a cliff that overlooks the town. It was a great view, and it felt like we could see the whole valley. Once we got down, we went for a bit of a drive, and went to visit a local guy who is renowned for his skill in training eagles to hunt. We all got a turn holding the eagle on our arm, while he had his little 'eagle cap' on, which served the purpose of blinding him while he was wearing it. While he was on your arm, you could lift him up into the wind, and he would spread his wings like he was soaring. It was pretty amazing to see him spread his wings so close to me. After our eagle adventure, we got back to the town and went to a Mongolian museum, and once we got out, we got to experience the first snowfall of the year. Normally in Canada, the beginning of a snowfall does nothing to hinder a 200km drive over flat prairie. But, when there is no paved road, and part of finding your way involves seeing where the last guy drove, a little snow can be bad news. After lunch, the ground was starting to turn white, and we were told that by 2pm, the city would be 'quarantined' and nobody would be allowed to leave, due to the danger of driving while its snowing. So while it is against official V.E.T.net policy to drive while it is snowing, if we didn't get out now, we might be stuck in this town for 2 or 3 days. And while I thought regular Mongolian driving was slow, adding a couple inches of snow to the mix slows progress even more. So after one flat tire and getting lost a couple times, we finally made it to the next town safe and sound.

November 7^th 2009

Last night we slept at one of the local veterinarian's house, and our training today was supposed to start at 10am. We woke up around 8:30, with most of the rest of our team still sleeping. Suz and I decided to start munching on some of the cheerios we had in our bag, because it didn't seem like we were going to get breakfast this morning. We then did our morning devotion with our whole team, which was then finished around 9:40, and then I thought we would get ready to go. But then our hosts (both the husband and wife are vets who were planning on attending the training) started serving the milk tea, and everyone starting to eat. I thought it was a little late to start breakfast, but just sat down with the rest of them. After we had all finished our tea and had some food, Baigaala (our translator) said that it was 5 after 10, and we should go soon. Hearing this, I stood up and put on my jacket, but realized that no one else had followed. "We have to start the van and let it warm up first. There is no hurry" was the reply. As I write this, it is now 10:52, and it looks like we will now get started with the morning's events, which were scheduled to start at 10. There was no apology or explanation as to why we were late, nor were any of the vets visibly annoyed that they had wasted almost an hour of their time. I seemed to be the only one that even noticed what time it really was. Also, one vet just walked in. Right on time. I think their concept of time management and appointments would drive me nuts, but to them, that is how the world works. I suppose that is how the majority of the world operates, and it is only us 'high-powered North Americans' who get stressed out when someone 'wastes' 10 minutes of our time. I think there is a happy medium in there somewhere, where you keep appointments and actually get things accomplished in a day, but at the same time are not always stressed. Today is our last day of training, and I think it went very well. There was one vet who had quite a bit of experience with uterine prolapses, and he had some helpful hints. Also, a couple of them were quite interested in Canadian dairy cattle, and we talked about breed differences, so it was a more interactive session.