Hello friends and family -
I hope that my sporadic journal entries are fun to read, sorry I haven't been better. Erin and I are in the city of Ulanbator, Mongolia. It's spring here (May 21st) but still cold. In fact it was -12 deg C last night (~10 deg F). Erin and I are staying in a ger. A ger is a big tent that Mongolians live in. Mongolians are known as one of the most nomadic people in the world. The set up tent somewhere, doesn't matter where, and stay for however long they want. So they sleep and live in these gers. It's a circular/conical tent made of canvas or wool. Ours is wool. No running water of course. We have a coal stove in the middle to keep us warm at night (and each other). It's actually quite romantic. This country is rather beautiful, vast, and some would say desolate. But our first impressions have been so good. The people are amazing, but they need help. The government is a new democracy (communism fell here about 15 years ago) and things are rough going for many Mongolians. There is a problem with alcohol (as with most places where the winter is so long and harsh). We went to a alcohol recovery meeting last night, really cool actually. They love foreigns and I truly feel like they got a lot of hope and encouragement from us.
The health care system here is also terrible and unemployment is a big problem. Good things are going on, but it seems like NGOs and Christians organizations are rowing upstream.
Today we spend the day building. We made a fence for a member of the community here who has had much stolen and damaged in her yard from drunkards. It was hard work in the cold wind and intense sun. The cool weather is actually kind of nice. Most of us on the team are enjoying it. There are so many street kids. Just walking down the main street here, we encounter at least a dozen kids begging for food or money, young kids. We do what we can but it's not much. Kind of depressing really, we want to help so much but not knowing much about the culture, the government, the scams, etc... we don't really know what the best thing to do is.
We're in Ulanbator now and will head to a smaller city called Erdenet next week. We've seen things that I thought my eyes would never see. The Gobi desert is so dead, and dry. I thought Phoenix was a desert, but the Gobi desert makes Phoenix look like an Oasis !! The people just outside the city (like 500 meters from the city) are so traditional. The men wear the wool clothes that look like dresses and are almost all nomadic farmers looking for decent grass for the cattle or sheep. They have this thing here called throat singing. I'm not sure if the Mongols are the only ones who do this but it is amazing !! We've heard some people do it and you would never guess the sound they make comes from their mouths. It's both extremely deep and high pitched at the same time. WOW, this place is like another world not another country. This is the 21st country I've been to and I think the most different, But I like it. China was kind of hard because of the sense of oppression that we al felt there.
Okay, enough rambling. Thanks for all your emails and such, they mean som much to Erin and I, it's great to get to hear from you. I need to go now, it costs 600 Tugrigs/hour for the internet !! Check the conversion online :)
with much love,
Josh and Erin
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