Kindy and Lotus...

Spent the morning at Liz's Kindergarten No 10 which is set up to provide day care for children with special needs.  I loved it.  We had two AusAid officials pop over from Beijing to touch base with what AusAid and AYAD are doing in Mongolia.  Liz and I were both chosen to show our workplaces.  Met some very gorgeous children at Kindy no 10 with very complex health needs.  Hope to spend some time out there again soon.  Had an awesome conversation in Mongolian with a young boy with Down Syndrome on a pretend telephone!  At least my language lessons got me that far!  It was hard to witness some of the disabilities the children had due to the fact that in Australia there would have been more early intervention and progress made health wise.  To see so many children in the one place with such severe and multiple disabilities was a tad confronting.

I spent a lot of the day thinking about the distribution of wealth in Ulaanbaatar and the different standards of living that I've witnessed here.  The courtyard that we live in has two massive hummers and a brand new BMW 4WD parked next to an open man hole.  In this man hole two old men live that spend their days going through the rubbish left on the side of the road while swigging on bottles of vodka that cost less than a bottle of spring water.  I know we also have issues with distribution of wealth in Australia however here it is way more obvious and part of the everyday scenery.  Here's an article on homeless people in UB that set up their homes in the underground tunnels that support the heating and sewer system...

http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/mongolian-homeless-living-underground-in-sewers.html

After kindy no 10 we drove over to Lotus.  It's school holidays at the moment so Lotus was pumping with energy.  I don't officially start at Lotus until Monday so it was good to meet quite a few of the kids and house mothers before I settle in next week.

Lotus cherubs!

 Friday night drinks at Ix Mongol...

the crowd singing along with the live band