Erin and a year in the land of the blue sky

Thursday, December 9, 2010

views on my way to work...

the blue wall on the right is Lotus school

the lovely view from the back door at Lotus school... scenic not so much!

Lotus school

little shop near my bus stop

my footpath

The orphanage

view from my bus stop

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Hot house ladies hit the print...

AusAid news No 46 December 3rd 2010

Monday, December 6, 2010

Right now my cross cultural communication consists of one of the house mothers and myself sitting at my desk with Mongolian/English phrasebooks trying to piece together a conversation with each other. In the end we just point at the phrase we are failing at saying and both laugh awkwardly. Note to self : organise more language lessons…

sweet dalla and I in chilling in my office

Pollution...

Five weeks in and the pollution has just started to bother me. I hadn’t really noticed it before as I think it had just quietly snuck up behind me without me realising. After leaving UB this weekend for Darkhan and having the time to actually breathe mostly fresh air I feel like I’ve smoked ten packs of cigarettes for breakfast. You can even see the smog seep out of your clothes when you put them in the washing machine.

For anyone who is interested in the situation here in Ulaanbaatar here is one explanation:

http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/ulaanbaatar-s-air-pollution-crisis-summertime-complacency-won-t-solve-the-wintertime-problem

power plant # 4

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Friday, Saturday, Sunday = Darkhan adventures

A group of us caught the train Friday night to visit Waz (a fellow AYAD) and spent some time with him there before he returns back to Oz in the middle of December. Waz is crazy fun and we all knew that we were in for a great weekend. Cheese, chats, shopping, wine, d-floor action, mafia, drunken snow wrestling and bircher muesli followed...

train from UB - Darkhan

cabin love

Darkhan

lounge room love

d-floor love

Friday, December 3, 2010

Lotus lovelies...

Traffic in UB is usually fairly chaotic but this morning it was beyond ridiculous. Sitting in my office at work I am still feeling sick from my bus journey. The ride from the flower centre to peace bridge usually takes about five minutes and today it was more like thirty five. The bus was also full so standing up made the ride even more interesting. It took about an hour to get to work today which is about double the time it normally takes. Mix in with that pollution, constant beeping of horns, a bus that is bunny hopping along an icy jam packed road and me with a shoulder injury from the previous nights snowboarding trip trying to hold onto whatever handle I can find…not so fun. However walking into my new office at the school made that journey totally worth it as sitting at the desk was my old mate Ankhaa.

He was there helping one of the teachers with the morning milk for the kids at school. I really need to find something for this little man to do with his day. I’m really looking forward to having the new Mongolian social worker on board as there is only so far I can communicate with the basic sentences I have learnt so far. Lotus are in the process of employing a local social worker who also speaks English. They did previously have one but she left just before I arrived. Slowly slowly I keep telling myself…all in good time.

It is now the end of the second week of my time here at Lotus and I feel that things are beginning to fall into place. I am beginning to get to know the kids more and feel comfortable walking around the school and into classrooms. I like having my office at the school as I get to see the kids more during the day and they get used to seeing my face more. The school here is reception to year five and all the children that attend are from Lotus. After year five they then move into various other schools around UB. From reception to year five Mongolian children have the same teacher. The children at Lotus have very strong bonds with their classroom teachers. I think this system works well if the child has a good relationship with their teacher however I feel sorry for those children who don’t particularly like their teacher. I think the stability for the Lotus kids is really great. The teachers here at Lotus are all a lot older and I think most of them are actually retired. Most of the house mothers are older too and provide such a motherly role to the Lotus children. I can’t wait to start working with the house mothers and discuss the behaviours they see when the children are back at the orphanage. There is such a huge opportunity for a stronger therapeutic approach to the children living here. Slowly slowly right!

Loving my office drop-ins...