Goodbye Mongolia

I have been back in Canada for one week, and I think I am ready to write my goodbye post to Mongolia and all the phenomenal people I have worked with and met while I was there.  While I realize that six months is not a long time in the great scheme of life, it will remain some of my most special and significant memories.

It was where I learned to appreciate nature, and even more than that, feel grateful for and connected to this earth. Mongolia was so beautiful, and I am in awe of this planet.

It was where I felt free, and I mean really free, to throw around crazy ideas, to chase after elusive dreams…but no one thought they were crazy or elusive.  My flatmates past and present, the community in Mongolia, and the special few I was able to meet across Asia, are an amazingly supportive and inspiring set of people.  It is crazy to think that this support network is so physically far away from me now, yet still connected across the globe.

I know how to be a better hostess, friend, and listener.  I am reminded of what it truly means to be kind, to be generous, and to be genuinely caring.  My colleagues were an example of this every day.  Beyond creating a collaborative, comfortable work environment, they created a space for creativity, and a sense of continuous growth and opportunity. They treated me like a partner, a colleague, but also like family because they knew I was 8,217 kilometers away from my own.

I have more joy in life, more appreciation for the little things.  It’s important to relax and enjoy every day routine. If things don’t work out, everything will be okay, just like how in Mongolia, things rarely go as planned but end up fine or even better than expected.

I am reminded that my skills have value, and that one of these skills is adapting quickly to any challenge and overcoming it. Whether in Canada or abroad, I know I will succeed in whatever I set my mind to.  Again, having people in my professional life really believing in me and providing me with these challenges (code word: opportunities!) has been a huge blessing.

It is difficult to write into words how my internship with MCTIC and CCA has impacted me, but I know that I am a stronger worker and person because of it.  I will still miss napping on the Mongolian steppe, galloping on horses, and walking by the giant Chinggis Khan statue on my way to the grocery store.  I will miss the crazy cars and pedestrians on my way to work every morning, neither of who respect the rules of the road, the endless sunny and blue sky, and the friendly people.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to live and work in Mongolia and to have had the overwhelmingly positive experience that I did.  Adjusting back Canada is the next challenge, but I know that I will overcome that too.

As a quote on Facebook once said:  The best things in life haven’t happened yet.  This was true before Mongolia, and will be true after it.

Thank you to everyone who made this experience so special!
Until we meet again Mongolia 🙂

** For more information on how YOU can be a CCA intern, click here!

An Ode to Mongolia

The other day I was chatting with some wordly expats. I said Mongolia is the most beautiful place I have ever been too, and maybe the most beautiful country I will ever be to in my entire life.

Immediately I got a scoff in response.  “Have you ever been to Thailand? Or Provence in France?” I was asked incredulously. 

I stopped myself from replying, “Well no, but have you ever been more than a few hours outside of the city?”  

But who am I to judge. Everyone has different priorities, lengths of vacation time, etc.  Because here’s the thing, travelling Mongolia is a real commitment.  One must be prepared to spend 8+ hours (…I’ve heard of 1 to 3 day bus rides with barely a break and alternate drivers) in an uncomfortable, frankly a little bit unsafe van (no seat belts, high probability of breaking down), on unpaved bumpy roads that will test your motion sickness tolerance, with limited use of toilets or showers or wifi. And all this will cost you quite a bit of money to experience, especially in transportation costs.

Sounds tough, but if the above doesn’t happen, you’re probably not going far enough. The remote countryside is where true beauty lies.

How can I describe it….

Its endless. Like an ocean, except where time stands still. In place of waves is a horizon of undulating mountains, and unlike the cresting of a wave which lasts just seconds, I imagine the rise and falls of these mountain peaks lasting a millenia.



Time is at once present and non-existent. Its measured by sunrises and sunsets, and the passing of each brilliant season. But nothing is permanent. Wild animals migrate, and even bones eventually dissolve to dust. Even humans aren’t permanent. Nomadic, they pack their homes at any moment’s notice, disappearing without a trace.

The land is unblemished, untouched.  It looks like it has been unchanged for an eternity.  Dinosaurs once ruled those lands, but now archeologists struggle to find evidence of their graves. It seems to be a place where humans will also one day be extinct too, but the mountains will remain. 

Finally, it is a place that lifts the spirit, but lying on a grassy hillside, I equally feel myself melt into the earth. Its a connection with nature, or something deeper than nature…our origins.  The Mongolian countryside is a contemplative landscape. It makes one think of thoughts besides one’s self and every day realities.  Or is nature, in its simplest, most barren form the purest reality of life on earth?



















…..Anyway, remember the part about it being a contemplative landscape? CLEARLY it made me think a lot!  I don’t know why it has affected me so much, but in response to my conversation with the expat about Mongolia’s beauty and by indirect association, its special-ness, it is impossible to fully see every country and even more impossible to feel something in every country….but sometimes, as is the case with my personal experience with Mongolia, some things you just know.



Reminiscing…

Warm, sunny September with Baigal…taken my first few days in UB:

Baigal and I, my last month in UB when it was slightly colder haha (I’ll miss her so much!):

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I have the flu. My amazing boyfriend showered me with gifts even from Canada, and my roomies, after making sure I was ok, left for a party. I’m at home, trying to rest, but I am having troubled thoughts.

On this day of love, I am reminded of how much I love Mongolia. This place, its nature, its people, my work, the friends I have made here.

Then it hit me…I am leaving in two weeks.

I must apologize in advance if my posts become semi-depressive, but I am faced with a new and unexpected situation.

I have lived abroad before. Peru, one month. France, four months. Each time, I was so eager to return to Ottawa. Before I left Canada, I steeled myself, wondering how desperate I would be to come home after 6 months, the longest time I would have ever been away.

What I did not expect is how desperate I would be to stay.

Six months is too short. Life is too short. But in it there is so much joy and learning and kindness and love. Mentally preparing myself to leave is hard, but its made me realize in this life I have chosen, there will inevitably be many, many goodbyes.

But for every goodbye, there are new friendships, new memories, new awakenings, and new realizations. Most importantly, we must not forget that sad goodbyes also mean joyful reunions.

I haven’t even left yet, but I am already planning my return here.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Much love.

Dogsledding Weekend

Last weekend, I went on a 50 km dogsledding trip with some friends in Terelj National Park.

We travelled over the frozen Tuul river, cheeks windburned, our hearts beating fast.  Now, dogs are pretty much to be smart creatures.  Attach seven of them to a sled though, and their collective intelligence seems to diminish pretty significantly. They will run over rocks instead of the ice, get tangled around trunks and branches, crash into trunks and branches, run into each other, run over crazy ridges, bumps, and cracks, and what you can’t help but feel is a deliberate attempt to kill you by rushing past deep holes and through unfrozen patches of ice. I gotta admit though, it was really fun! It was especially funny seeing the dogs being so silly and hearing panicked yells, followed by hoots of laughter from everyone else after a total bail off a sled (sounds mean, but if you were there you would have laughed too!).

And those dogs love to run. I mean really, they do. Minutes before we took off, the dogs were revved and ready to go, pulling against the breaks, and making the most ghoulish sounds it was as if they had all turned into howling, angry ghosts. Before we could even completely remove the break, we were off!

Unfrozen river, solid section close to the bank just one meter away, ice cracking under paws…where should we go?

Naturally, they went right through the middle of the river where it is wettest, and freaking us out in process, getting the musher’s boots soaked as we hear the sound of cracking ice all around us!

That night, we stayed at our dog sledding guide’s parent’s ger, and had a lovely buuz dinner.  We even got the chance to make buuz, as they are the traditional meal served during the upcoming Lunar New Year, or Tsagaan Sar.

Where I slept.

Friendly family dog.

The makings of buuz.

Some of our hideous creations.  We made about 200 that night.

Morning goat/sheep count.

On the way back to UB, stopping by our sled dogs kennels for lunch.

When we got back to UB the next morning, we were lucky enough to visit the Ulaanbaatar Winter Festival, also on the Tuul River just outside the city!  It really reminds me of Winterlude/the Canal in Ottawa, just smaller with a lot more random animals, and cool sports such as ankle bone shooting, archery, dogsledding, and paragliding.

Ankle bone shooting contest: Throwing an ankle bone far across the ice in an attempt to hit a minuscule target.

All in all, it was a great weekend outside the city!

Living in the Second Most Polluted City in the World

Yes, I live in the second most polluted city in the world (details here). According to the article, the smog is so bad you can even see it from space. (I also live in the coldest capital in the world -yay- but that’s another story).

Don’t believe me? You MAY see a dark ribbon of thick smog in this before and after comparison. The first picture is flying over Mongolia…absolutely beautiful.

The second picture is flying into UB (not so picturesque).

And who knew “Smoke” was a form of weather?

And check out this last before and after of late summer and winter:

See that grey stuff? The neighborhood where I live is actually underneath there….We’ll just pretend its cloud and not toxic smog.

Edit: This just in! The before picture was the view from my apartment in September, and the after is the view that I snapped this morning. I promise you, it is not fog.

Not to scare you out of living here, but it can be pretttyyyyy ugly. Doesn’t matter though, I still love it! After all, you can always wear a mask.

So for folks back home, don’t forget to appreciate what we always take for granted in Canada – clean air!

Youth and Co-ops Turned New Years Self-Reflection Post

Funny how things work out. Back in winter semestre 2013, I took a seminar with an amazing bunch of classmates where we had to intern at an NGO. The internships were chosen for us, and we had to race to the whiteboard, primary school style, to sign up our names under the project/NGO we wanted to work for, first come first serve.

One sounded interesting to me at the time, and without much thought other than that, I bolted to that board to scrawl down my name under “the Canadian Co-operative Association – Youth Economic Empowerment.”

I never would have dreamed that a year later, I would be travelling with CCA to Mongolia. I also never would have thought that I would apply my youth research from that first internship helping to design a youth training program on Leadership in Governance in Mongolia, or use the concept for a Canada Grant (which we didn’t get unfortunately but I still learned lots from applying for it).

No, CCA didn’t have youth on their agenda in Mongolia. No, I didn’t push for it. It just…happened, and things came full circle.

I was going to talk about youth and co-ops in the context of Mongolia, but this post turned into a New Year’s post. I guess what I am trying to say is, life is delightfully unexpected.

After graduation and facing the WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THE REST OF MY LIFE conundrum, I never would have guessed that I would go to Mongolia and work with truly the best colleagues, fulfill a dream and do my first business trip visiting Vietnam, spend the first Christmas/New Years in four years with my amazing boyfriend Sebastian (in Japan/Mongolia, whodda thunk?!), AND met the most fantastic people here.

Where will you end up in 2015? And most importantly, who will you share it with?

You can never predict what will happen, but I hope that 2015 brings only positive change, luck, love, happiness, and delight for all of us – and for me, only a mild return case of the WHAT WILL I DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE attack 😛

Happy 2015!!!

Also, see pictures from the Youth Leadership in Governance training if you haven’t zoned out already :). It features in class training and a study tour visiting the Sor cashmere factory, the Tsagaan Alt Wool Shop, the Moncord Credit Union, and certificate awards. It was so cool being a co-coordinator (and trainer!) for my first capacity-building project from beginning to end.

Special Hanoi Edition: Women and Co-ops

Last month, I had the amazing opportunity to represent CCA and MCTIC at the International Co-operative Alliance Asia-Pacific’s “Enhancing the Role of Women in Co-operative Business” hosted by the Vietnamese Co-operative Alliance. From December 2-4, this event would provide women from all over the co-operative world (well, Asia to be specific) a common platform through which to make connections and share ideas, experiences, and knowledge. It was also really cool that my fellow counterpsrt/intern Tecla was able to attend as well, allowing us to also connect and mutually learn from each others’ CCA placements in Asia.

At the workshop, each co-op representative presented a country report detailing the co-operative movement, their co-op, and issues/success stories related to gender and took part in a study tour to visit the Minh Phuong textile women’s co-operative.

Unfortunately, I was the only representative able to come from Mongolia and the only presenting participant not originating from the Asia-Pacific region. I felt a lot of pressure to present MCTIC well, as this would not only leave a lasting impression of what I wanted to convey about MCTIC and their excellent work, but also inevitably of gender issues in Mongolia and the country itself.

I also felt a sense of immense privilege of having been able to attend the workshop while, as mentioned in the opening remarks of the event, most women do not get the opportunity to travel for work due to financial and daily constraints like having to care for the family, work, and other obligations. Especially as the only Western delegate, I really did feel over-privileged!

Nevertheless, I put in a lot of work into the country report and was able to answer the questions fired at me. I did wish we had more time to tie together our country reports and get to know each other better sooner with facilitated discussions on gender issues and co-ops.

I also learned a lot from the other representatives and reflected on what I learned in order to bring back any salient conclusions, recommendations, and observations back to MCTIC. I also couldn’t help but make comparisons (but in a constructive way!) For example, Mongolia’s co-op sector is quite small compared to other countries (even one with a Socialist history like Vietnam). In terms of gender equality, Mongolia is generally “more equal” according to the Global Gender Gap Index than most developing countries, but that also means that gender isn’t really seen as issue to the majority of people, even women!

This raises other questions, like how much should gender be a focus in development, and at which point does support for women become a bias for women? For example, in some project proposals for women quota-ed training, MCTIC confided that they would have trouble filling all the the training spots with women, but if there was no quota, then we wouldn’t have trouble filling in all the spots. Of course, this depends on many complex factors – But simplifying women-focused development projects to quotas isn’t the answer. On the other hand, there are some women-only co-op development projects that that have vastly improved the livelihoods of women and their families. For example, the Tsagaan Alt Wool Shop is famous for its high-quality products. A women’s co-op that was developed from the ground up with the help of an international NGO, its director said that the co-op’s success is owed to the fact that it is run and owned by women.

To wrap things up, the workshop did help me to critically rethink gender in the context of co-ops, and I had flashbacks of my gender theory and development class in university that helped me better understand the context of the event and my place in it.

MCTIC is seeking to improve its working knowledge of gender equality to incorporate it more in it’s work. They are hoping to train a gender officer for an upcoming project, so I hope that the knowledge I bring back from the event can help them – which was the whole reason why I was sent in the first place. But I am so lucky I was able to become closer to Tecla, and the other amazing women (Chin, Priyanka, Nor, Fieda, Reina aka Maam, big hugs!)

A Day in the Life of a CCA Intern in Mongolia

So, what’s it like to intern at the Mongolian Cooperative Training and Information Centee on behalf of the Canadian Co-operative Association?

Here’s what a general day is like, when I am not off with the team doing field work in the Gobi:

—

9:10 AM – Run out the door to work

Walk, walk, walk, check watch, walk faster

9:30 AM – Arrive at work, turn on my computer, check emails

10:00 AM – Correspond with potential funders, partners, maybe a Skype meeting with Kati at CCA HQ

11:00 AM – All-Staff meeting to discuss projects

11:30 PM – Do some translation and editing of documents

1:00-2:00 PM – Go out for lunch with the girls

2:00 PM – Work on a proposal for funding

4:00 PM – Work on a project component (designing invitations, developing activities for the training, etc)

5:00 PM – End of day!

—

Contrary to popular belief, most of my work is actually in an office.  However, I am blessed to be able to travel for work so often, and that every day is different.  It’s pretty to common to spend mornings, afternoons, or entire days at a conference, workshop, or training session (last week it was the Oyu Tolgoi mining office and the next day, the Asia Development Bank ).  Working with MCTIC is always an exciting learning experience and it has really made me want to gain more experience at an NGO.

Work Road Trip to the Gobi

A couple weeks ago, I went back to the Gobi, this time by a 12 hour car ride.

Not the most comfortable experience, but it was still really fun to spend time with my colleagues.

MCTIC was there to provide training and to act as a facilitator between creating a legal agreement for fodder between a large mining company and local herders.  If you’ve studied development you would know that 99% of the time, locals and mining officials don’t really mesh.  But I was so impressed by the entire process.  Discussion and debate was animated.  For the most part, participants were successful.  At the end of the first day, MCTIC drafted an agreement, which we went through line by line without the mining reps present and tweaked it until it was perfect.  Then, we passed it by vote.

It was great to see participatory development happening right before me. I also had the opportunity to interview some of the participants and why they joined a coop in the first place (video to come soon).  After a full day of discussion and a second day of training, we headed out to the Umnogobi Energy Centre (different from the first Energy Centre I went to in Dornogobi).  It was also built by Dazanravja and I am lucky enough to say that I visted both of the only Energy Centre’s in Mongolia.  Thanks MCTIC!

We stayed in a ger, star gazed (I saw four shooting stars!), played cards, and at sunrise, woke up with all the other Mongolians staying overnight to worship and absorb energy from the Gobi sun  from a holy peak at the Energy Centre.

Jubilation as the sun first peeked over the horizon, followed by beautiful singing, palms extended towards its warmth

It was a lovely and eye-opening work experience.  I am leaving for the Gobi this Thursday for some more field work, this time in monitoring and evaluation….I wonder what I’ll learn next 🙂

Tavan Bogd (Part 2 of Epic Adventure)

After another full day of driving, we entered this beautiful, picturesque valley:

The further we progressed, the more titanic, snowier, and colder it became. All the camels and sheet disappeared and were replaced by shaggy horses and yaks. And all of a sudden, we were in Tavan Bogd National Park.

View outside the Tuvan house we were staying at – unreal

 

Wow, right?

Somehow, Part 2 was even more eventful than Part 1, so here’s my list:

– we stayed with a lovely Tuvan family, another minority ethnic group of Mongolia who live primarily in Tavan Bogd

– once again, our gers weren’t ready so we did a 10 person + slumber party with the family and our guides

– the grandfather of the family was fluent in German as he had studied im Dresden 20 years ago….so random, considering we were pretty much at the end of the earth, only 50 ish km give or take from Kazakhstan, Russia, and China. My cousin had a great time conversing in German with him

– witnessing a mongolian brawl, fight, stitches

– no water for a day and a half

– did I mention, no showers?

– this last point is for you, Blaire’s mom! Lastly, I was so excited to go horseback riding since, if you’ve read one of my previous posts, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

This time was pretty fun, even though we almost got frostbite, it was -20 degrees Celsius, not counting the tearing wind, and when we finally got up to the top after 2 ish hours, we rode into a snowstorm and could not see the five Holy peaks, one of the greatest and most beautiful sites in all of Mongolia (apparently, anyway, since we didn’t see it)… then our guide wanted to have lunch on the top! Crazy. Needless to say we vetoed that decision and made our way down ASAP. Oh ya, and the horses were half wild and some made it their mission to throw people.

Grumpy horses

But I had no problems, and minus the cold, it was great!

The cold is no problem for this Canadian!

Overall, it was a challenging, exhilarating, beautiful, unbelievable trip. I wouldn’t change it for the world, except maybe for a hot shower or two.