Closing Thoughts

Well, dear, loyal readers, it's almost time to head back home to an entirely different adventure called college. I bought (technically, my dad bought) my return ticket home a week ago, and I couldn't be more excited to be coming back home. But within that excitement, within that feeling, there's another emotion. I don't want to label it sadness, but it's a sort of reluctance to leave Mongolia. What can I say about that?

First of all, what made this trip an adventure? Because I was doing something new? Yes. While I had travelled to Mongolia before, I had never worked. Plus, I hadn't been here for three years, so much had changed. At first, life in Mongolia was so different than life in America. The rhythms, the events, the people, all different. Not really "different", but more "forgotton."

Last week, I took a walk around town, visiting places where I grew up. I took pictures of the apartments that I used to live in. The green apartment is where I lived from ages 2 to 6. And the blue apartment is where I lived from ages 6 to 8, when I moved to America.




A little side note: I loved taking the bus to work. Public transportation is such a good reflection of the various stages of human life. You've got tiny, bundles up babies to teenagers going to school to aged old-ladies for whom I always gave my seat. And I enjoyed trying to guess what the lives of the other passengers were like. But that's an impossible task because no one on the bus could have guessed what was happening in my life. I took these pictures when I was taking the bus downtown.





So, as the summer progressed, I made some wonderful friends. I enjoyed what I was doing. I was more in tune with the rhythm of life here. And during all of this, I would occasionally remember that I had a blog and write something on it that I hoped would be interesting to read.

Now, I've spent almost four months here in Mongolia, and I like it here. And that would explain why I feel a certain sadness about leaving. People don't like leaving places they like. Home is where the heart is. My heart used to be 100% in Mongolia, but then I moved to America. And before this summer my heart had adjusted to California. But, as the summer is ending, I leave a little bit of my heart here in Mongolia (seriously, I had a nosebleed a while back, so a little bit of my heart is literally here). I will miss Mongolia when I return to the U.S.

Thanks for reading everybody. until next summer, I bid this blog adieu.

A litte note

This summer was about working and relaxing and, I think most of all, spending time with my brother because I will go to college in the fall, and I will miss my brother very very much. My brother is very cool and funny and has humongous chipmunk cheeks, and I love him very much. Lately, I've been busy babysitting and playing over at our summerhouse, so this blog hasn't been updated much and probably won't be for the next couple of days. Plus, I don't think people are reading what I'm writing because, let's face it, they have lives.

But here's a picture I took of my brother when he was walking. I want to go hug him right now, but I can't because he's taking his nap.

Pictures of Life

These are just some interesting pictures that I've taken that I thought people would like to see.

The lady in the blue sweater is the Member of Parliament whose campaign I worked for:

This is a campaign event:


This is me at the above campaign event on top of a nearby mountain that I climbed to see the view. Nice view, huh?


I encountered this bone on the way up the mountain. I wonder how the animal died...


This is me after a hard day's work translating. (Notice the cool "press" badge)


This is my mom and me in front of the Parliament building where I also work. I like this picture because it makes me look tall.


I visited a Mongolian Military history museum. This here is a tank from World War 2.


This is at the same museum, and I am squishing a MIG fighter jet with my two fingers. That's right. I'm that strong.


These pictures are of Vladimir Lenin (the Statue). I found this statue when I was taking a walk with my friend before dinner. The first one is the statue. The second one is of me POSING with the Lenin statue. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised and pleased that people didn't tear this statue down when democracy came because I wouldn't have been able to take this cool picture had the statue been torn down.



So, there you go. Some interesting pictures with slightly unnecessary commentary. I'll post more pictures of life in Mongolia because I have much more free time now because I'm not working as much as I used to, and I'm entering a sort of "relax and enjoy the rest of summer" phase.

I'm a bad blog manager.

So, a while back a person named Baljinnyam who had a blog wrote a post saying that he was going to post a post with pictures. And he didn't for a long, long time. And he still hasn't. And now, to make matters worse, he's talking in the third person. Ok. First person: I promise that I'll post another post in fewer than three days, and THAT post will be the best one yet.

But here's a joke (that I read in the newspaper) to hold you over:

A man asks another man a question at the bus-stop: *The English part is supposed to be in Mongolian*
- What does "I don't know" mean?
- I don't know.
- Gosh! I've asked hundreds of people, and none of them know!

Hahaha. I know. Only a little funny. And a little dorky. But, oh well, I'm busy.

So Far

Whew.

There is a lot of movement in Mongolia. Much excitement.

So, as you may know, Mongolia's Parliamentary Election was on June 29th. This event was one of the main reasons that I am here. I had been working for a Member of Parliament on her re-election campaign, and I had been touring her district, translating for foreign journalists and supporting my candidate. The days leading up to the election were filled with campaign activities. On the day of the election, I was still quite busy translating for a reporter. So, throughout the day, we took photos, had interviews, and attended press conferences - I had a press badge, so I got into a bunch of places (I really liked that kind of access, made me feel special).

Before I get into the details of what happened, here is a brief (or as brief as I could make it while still making sense) explanation of Mongolia's political climate. Mongolia has many parties - 12 official ones, I think. The two main ones are called Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which has leftist leaning, socialist policies, and the Mongolian Democratic Party, which is more to the right. My party is called Civil Will Party, which is the third largest party and has anti corruption as its first issue while having center-right economic and social policies. MPRP has a very old history, dating back almost eighty years. The Democratic Party was started in 1990, during the fall of communism. So, during the election these two parties duke it out, while my party tries to keep (and hopefully increase) its two seats (out of 76) in Parliament. So, during the few days before the election, almost every single person, from the barely eligible to vote to the voters with more experience, with whom I talked said that they supported the Democratic Party. Plus, the Democratic Party, along with other smaller parties and independent candidates, was polling a lot higher than the MPRP because people believe that the MPRP is corrupt. However, the MPRP has a lot of support from the voters with more experience. To add to the mess, the two biggest parties had this idiotic (my personal opinion, but, hey, this is my personal blog) policy of dividing all the countries mining wealth with every single citizen. The Democratic Party promised to give 1 million Tugrugs (about $1000) to every single citizen, while the MPRP promised to give 1.5 million Tugrugs (about $1500), both without thinking about inflation or new citizens who would be born (would they get the money, too?).

So, the day of the election arrived, and the voting seemed to be going smoothly. Voting stations closed at 10 p.m. and the counting began. The counting continued for a long, long time, and, at around 3 a.m. all the data showed that the Democratic Party was winning. However, at around 5 a.m. the MPRP suddenly started winning by huge margins. And, early in the morning, the MPRP announced that they had won before all the counting was finished. They started celebrating and telling the citizens how happy they were. At noon, it was rumored that MPRP had won 50+ seats out of the 76. When I heard this, I thought to myself "Wait a minute. Hadn't the Democratic party been polling higher the entire time? Hadn't during the night, the Democratic party been winning?" Or something to that effect. I met up with my reporter dude, and we went over to party headquarters to see what was going on. There I saw on the news that people from the various smaller parties and from the Democratic party were marching on the MPRP headquarters, which is a seven story square building. This is when bigger things started happening. I grabbed my press badge and took a taxi over to the MPRP headquarter with my reporter friend. When we arrived, there was a three-man thick Police ring surrounding the MPRP building. People were throwing stones at the building and at the police; these stones were landing a couple of feet away from where I was standing. The reporter and I went past the policemen and were standing next to the MPRP building, taking pictures. About every twenty minutes, the crowd (which was growing larger and larger) rushed towards the building, screaming, "MPRP Leave!" When this happened, the police used their sticks to beat the crowd back. The only thing that the crown wanted was for the MPRP officials to come out and say something, for them to apologize and to acknowledge something. However, they didn't. Hence, the violence escalated and grew out of control. At around 5 p.m., the people rushed through and finally broke through. The police then started using tear gas to push the crowd back. At this point, all the windows of the MPRP building was broken, and stones and sticks and debris were strewn around the premises. When the police got violent, the majority of the crowd (including me) ran away, literally. We ran. I ran with my backpack over my head because stones were flying everywhere. I ran to my mom's office at the Foreign Ministry. When I got there, my uncle came over and picked up my mom and me because the Foreign Ministry is right across the street from the MPRP building. At home, we turned on the news and watched what happened. The rioters burned the MPRP building, angry over the corruption. Even more scary, people were getting hurt left and right, and the crowd was getting even wilder. Here, the police fired shots and dispersed the crowd using water guns. The rioters set the MPRP headquarters and one of the surrounding building alight. By 3 a.m. the next morning, the police had arrested over 800 people. The final tally so far: 5 dead, over 300 injured, and 800+ arrested. There are soldiers in the streets now, and the parliament is in an emergency session to decided what to do. Was there fraud? Should there be re-do? Who is to blame? These issues are being discussed.

Our family is glued to the TV, although only one TV channel is allowed to broadcast.



More Posts with pictures to come.

Here's one:



PICTURE CREDIT: Associated Press

Work

Hey. Excuse me for not posting something for a long time. I've just been really busy these past weeks.

My work is very satisfying. I do a variety of activities,
so I'm never at the same task for too long. I organize paperwork,
check files, and go on errands. Mostly, though, I translate.
A couple of days ago, I translated an entire pamphlet for the organization that I
work for! Our organization's stated main mission is to advance democracy and human rights. To that end, we do many other good things. We have programs
that range from those that help teenage mothers to helping recent migrants to providing scholarships for students who cannot pay their educational expenses. Yes. I like my work here. On the other hand, the campaign here is going full swing. Every few meters, there is a poster advertising some candidate. There is so much competition. However, our party is very underfunded compared to the other two major
ones. And that situation is frustrating.

On a funny note, a while back, I noticed a clothing store with a rather funny sign. It proclaims "looking good is not important, it is EVERYTHING." This has got to be absurd. First of all, why is the sign in English? Isn't this Mongolia? And, second of all, looking good is everything??? Oh well. I guess it is for some people.

Here's a picture:

Dude! Cool Stuff!

Hey!

Guess what?...

My mom was on Mongolian National TV! She was on this interview show called "Face-2-Face." The interesting thing is that the show is conducted in English (good, grammatically correct English, too) with Mongolian subtitles. Since my mom is a nuclear scientist, she was asked questions about energy, particularly Mongolia's energy future, and what she thinks should happen with Mongolia's huge uranium reserves. Currently, she is an advisor to the foreign minister, so she was asked questions in that capacity as well. She was also asked questions about Mongolia's higher education and how fast Mongolia's developing and what she likes to do in her free time.

All right, this post has almost nothing to do with me, but I was so proud of my mommy. :)

Here's a picture I took of the TV: