Excellent Pictures

Saw a pick up truck with this bumper sticker this afternoon and had no idea what it meant...still think it is excellent though.

Health Insurance 2

Ten years ago I would have been one of the nuts at town hall meetings saying stupid things about not having a bureaucrat between me and my doctor and the government not doing anything right. Then, I lived in countries that had forms of national health insurance.

I went to the doctor for a minor condition here, saw a doctor without an appointment, and was finished in about 15 minutes. My insurance (which costs me about $55 a month) covered it. My cost including prescription: $4. No months of confusing statements from doctors, testing companies, hospitals, or insurance companies. No worries about pre-existing conditions. No worries about the expense. No hassles.

Others with more serious conditions have the same experience. In Japan it was the same.

In the US we have National Health Care for Seniors and if anyone suggested it be eliminated they would get thrown out of office because it is so popular. If it is good enough for the biggest consumers (seniors), why isn't it good enough for everyone else? Why do we need to spend 16% of GNP compared to 8% or less in most other countries? How will the US compete if it costs a lot more money to hire people there? Don't people see that Americans are no healthier than anyone else?

Ridiculously expensive, a lot more hassels, no better outcomes.

I don't get it.

The Flu

A kid at the school Sandy teaches at on Monday's got swine flu and all the school was shut down for a week. Given that the school has 24 students(yes only 24} it is not a big deal. I am guessing that this will start happening quite often this fall/winter.

UPDATE

A local high school was also shut for a week due to swine flu.

A Great Birthday

My birthday is August 20th and I got the best birthday gift, Naoko. No, she is not a mail order bride (although she is looking...)

She was a student who became a good friend to both Sandy and I. She came for a short visit (Japanese style vacation) and we laughed and reminisced. Of course, she does not drink much, so the first order of business was to get a little wine in her.

Happy Birthday to me!

Giving Gifts

While in Mongolia we bought gifts for friends, acquaintance, and neighbors. As I mentioned before, the neighbors are really cute and the kids are always so happy to see us. They have given us a few small gifts...fruit, tea etc. so we bought the kids a couple of small gifts to try to even things up. Of course an hour later the kids dropped by with more fruit and tea. A never ending gift-giving contest.

We also bought a little purse for this little girl at a shop we frequent.

Mongolia

We really did not know what to expect when we went to Mongolia. We thought the landscapes would be beautiful (they were nice), but we did not know about the star attraction: the people and culture. It is hard to sum up anything in few stupid blog entries, but I will write a few ideas.

Mongolia is one of the least populated countries on earth dominated by the nomadic people and lifestyle. In a modern era, it is hard to imagine packing up all of your belongings and moving every three months, but people do it here in less than a couple of hours. They live in gers, round huts with stoves in the middle, that do a remarkable job of keeping people warm in the brutal winters here.

The landscape is so vast and open it is hard to describe. Everywhere you look there are great plains filled with thousands of animals and a few people. The people are so welcoming and hardy they seem like they are from a long past world.

Even though the people are so different, they are so similar. They laugh a lot, they love their children, and they work and work and work.

Being a cheap guy, we went for a cheap tour. This meant we traveled with a really nice French family and stayed in gers that nomads had set up to host tourist. They were not fancy resorts or even resort gers. They were very basic but they had the one thing that the other options lacked: an option to spend time with families and get to know about the real life of these wonderful people.

Overall a very interesting trip.

Russians and China

It seems that the people really like and respect the Russians because they helped them build schools and built hospitals to help conquer a STD epidemic in the 1960's. I asked our guide about the purges, which killed about 5% of the population, and she said that people here are very forgiving. It seems strange that the statues of Stalin (update: make that Lenin) have been pulled down in most places, but they still stand proudly here.


The Chinese on the other hand are not well liked at all. I asked our guide and she said something about being cheated on roadways.

Genghis Khan/Chingis Khan

We visited the capital of Mongolia that Genghis Khan (pronounced and spelled here Chingis Khan). I have always known him as a brutal warlord with no redeeming qualities.

Here he is seen as a national hero who created a united Mongolia, reduced corruption, and encouraged religious tolerance. Our guide said that playing polo with the heads of those he conquered may have been a bit harsh, but she still respects him.

The monasetary in the town was nearly totally destroyed by the Soviets, but you could still see the remains of temples of various religions which seems to support the religious tolerance thing.

Another Children's Home

Yesterday we visited the Lotus Child Center to learn about the problems that children face here in Mongolia. There was a variety of reasons that children were left here of course. They range from simple abandonment to parental alcoholism or incarceration.

The children sometimes return to the family even if the circumstances are not good because the home can not take official custody of the child. If the parents want a child back to beg on the street, the center has no choice but to release them.

The home is run by the same organization that runs Baan Unrak, the home we volunteer with in Thailand. Owing to their state controlled past, the Mongolian government has much tighter controls here. I guess that can be a good thing, but the controls seem to be used to collect bribes instead of protect the children. Either way, an interesting day.

child predators

There is a real problem with street kids here. They said it is greatly improved in the last couple of years, but they are still here and they seem to terrorize women. Two days ago one of the boys started jabbing at a woman's white shirt with his chocolate ice cream bar. She had some ice cream he wanted. Finally she screamed threw the ice cream into the bushes and ran away. The boy laughed and grabbed the ice cream and gave it to his friend. Last night I saw a similar incident.As I mentioned on the previous post, there are people working on the problem, but there is still plenty of work to be done.

Camel Rides

We spent an hour or so out on sand dunes. Great views and a lot of fun.

A couple of billboards

Two billboards I found funny. One to warn about seat belts and one to encourage small boys to be transvestites (I think).

Places we Pooped

The quality of the toilets was a bit low, but the quality of the smells and worms was quite high.

Ballons with feet...yummy

Marmots are big plague carrying rodent like creatures. Sounds delicious, eh?

We were lucky enough to be staying at ger when a man came by to sell some of the 5 he had caught. They cut those little babies up and put all of the good stuff back in the skin which was left intact. Our driver ate the bladder raw and told us these were good for men, but only once a year. I call it Mongolian sushi.

The next night they prepared the marmot. In case you want to prepare one, the directions are quite simple. Fill up the skinned marmot with the meat and some really hot stones and wire shut the opening.

Next, take a blow torch and burn off all the hair. Be careful when lighting the blowtorch because you could have a small (3 foot gas ball) explosion like we had. As things get heated up, the hair of the marmot is scraped off. Slowly the marmot inflates until it looks like a balloon with little feet (a line I stole).

I had a small try of the live which tasted like you would expect. Pretty cool experience.

Which way do I go

The roads are remarkably bad here. They are more like multi-lane dirt paths that people drive ridiculously fast on until their cars break (which they do often). There are no signs (actually there was one and are guide said it was wrong), so you stop every 30 minutes to ask if you are on the right path. Given how sparesly populated the country is, I guess it should not be a surprise.

There are very few bridges, so you drive through streams and small rivers a lot. Because their heights change, sometimes you must get out and make sure you can make it through.

The surprising thing is we traveled for 6 days and did not get stuck once.

Talk about opposites

There is limited, meaning no, electricity in rural areas. What can you do all night?
The nomad life is about as low tech as you can get except when it comes to this area. Each home has a solar panel and a big satellite dish provided by the government. It is hard to believe, but everyone has at least 4 channels.

I asked the guide what TV shows they really like here and she said, "American Idol is huge! Everyone loves Simon Cowell".

Urine and Mares Milk

Health care is not really available when you live hours from a hospital, so people must take care of their own medical problems.

It seems that urine and mares milk can cure anything. We were staying at a ger where the 18 month old girl had a fever in the middle of the night. When the mother woke, she gave her some urine when she had nothing in her stomach (apparently this is important). A couple of hours later, the girl was better. Mare's milk, which is a staple of their diet, is used to treat a variety of diseases including broken bones (I have my doubts about that one).

On the plus side, if you can get to the hospital, the care is completely free.

Education

How can kids go to school when their homes move 4 times a year, they live 20 miles away from their school and it is always below 0 in winter? All the kids live in dormitories which are provided for free, including food and books, by the government. Not sure what the quality is, but the schools looked ok.


Holtolsuren is a 14 year old girl we had lunch with. She went to school and loved literature. She was certain she would be a teacher of literature in the future. Given her confidence, I believed her.
Another girl was 6 years old and her mother had not decided whether she would go to school. I think that they think that it is possible to be a nomad with no education, especially for a girl since she only needs to cook and clean. That said, no education means no choices.

Water and Bathing

It can be surprisingly easy to get water when you are out on the Steppes (kind of like grassland). Fill out a form and the government will drill a well and give you a manual pump. It may take a bit, but at least you get water. At least in principal. One place we stayed they brought buckets from a nearby lake each day to meet their needs.

Bathing on the other hand sucks. Water is not the big problem, finding a good place to bathe is because, as you see on an earlier post, the bathrooms are not suitable, well, for anything. Either way, you have to forget your modesty and bathe outside. I think in parts, but I am not sure. The second, and bigger problem, is the weather. During the summer it is cool, but bathing is doable. In winter, the mid day temperature in winter hovers around -10 Fahrenheit (-23 Celsius).

Bottom line on bathing, people do it 2 to 3 times a month in summer and once every month or two in winter. I was desperate to find a place to post a picture of this girl who we gave some jam to. I am guessing her bathing time was soon after we left.

Made It

We arrived safetly in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. There are a few interesting stories . We are off on our tour which will include traveling to monasteries, hot springs, a waterfall, a lake, a sand dune, horseback riding and camel riding. I am pretty sure this will be the last update for a few days.

Vacation

Heading off to Mongolia tomorrow. Why Mongolia? We saw a program on it and thought the people seemed interesting and the vistas beautiful. It will be strange to go from a densly populated country to one that is the size of Eastern Europe with a population of only 2.3 million nearly half of which are in the capital.

I have picked up a bad case of TBS (Talkative Bowel Syndrome) in Korea and I am hoping mutton and fermented mare's milk in Mongolia will cure me. My Korean sister in law seems to think it has nothing to do with kimchi. She says it is a genetic defect in all Snidero men. We will see.

Not sure if I will be able to post from there. If not, back on August 19th.

Giving

Our next door neighbor, who happens to work at my school, has the cutest kids. This morning the kids dropped off some sliced peaches. They are always are so excited to see us, and I think it is safe to say the feeling is mutual.

We have lived in cultures where gift giving was common, but it seems to be different here. People seem to do it because they get genuine pleasure from giving versus doing it strictly out of obligation. I did not understand this at all at first, so I generally felt bad when I got gifts. Now I get it.

There are other traditions of giving that are nice also. When you have a drink with others, you should allow others to pour your drink. This was also the case in Japan, and I thought it was a bit old fashion and maybe even foolish. Now that I have lived in Asia a while, I see it as a nice small way of social bonding. Of course this can lead to a lot more consumption of alcohol, but that is neither here nor there.

It's Still Great Being a Teacher

Today we finished the voluntary daily supplemental English conversation classes. The students had to prepare for class by reading an article I wrote and then answering some questions. They came to class and we would talk about the topic. Finally, they would write a paragraph or two about the topic. Between reading and writing the kids had to do about an hour and a half or homework per night, every night. I am shocked that there were not any complaints about the amount of homework they had.

I really looked forward to each class because the students were incredibly enthusiastic about the class. One of the two classes generally stayed an extra 45 minutes talking and laughing. I am really going to miss the time with them.

I wanted to recognize the students improvement, so I made up some certificates and gave out ice cream. The students wanted to say, "Thanks" so many of them wrote letters to me. Again, these are my favorite keepsakes.

It was a great finish to an outstanding few weeks.

Fight Hunger

According to Care:

• More than 840 million people in the world are malnourished — 799 million of them live in the developing world.
• More than 153 million of the world's malnourished people are children under the age of 5.
• Six million children under the age of 5 die every year as a result of hunger.

Messed up.

A simple way to do something is to visit the hungersite. On the home page is a button. Each time you click on it a cup and a half of rice is donated to a charity that serves poor people. The web site, which is supported by advertising, says it has given 657 million cups of food to charities. It seems to be legit. It won a webby, the most important award for web sites, in 2000.

I added a link for the site on the right side of my blog. If possible, click on the hunger site whenever you visit my blog.

Faux Pas A Plenty

As usual, I did some stupid things at last night's festival.

I usually am the leader when Sandy and I go out since, with typically crowded paths, I can blaze the way more easily. People here are a bit pushy on these paths (and when I say pushy I mean pushy in the way a bulldozer is to a stack of eggs). Either way, I make it easy for my dainty wife to walk on the paths. Last night I was clearing a path and a woman coming in the other direction cut in front of me. A second later she was stumbling away saying something about being shocked. I really didn't mean it and I am a bit embarrassed about it.

Faux Pas Part 2 occurred when I was enjoying some free hot tea and walking down the path. A minute later this woman, who was apparently enjoying some tea also, was muttering something to our friend in Korean. Apparently she was walking right behind me and she bumped into me and spilled her tea on her shirt. She scolded our friend, "Do see what the foreigner did to me!". I can't say that I feel too guilty about that one.

Aren't You Ashamed?

Last night we were heading to a festival and our friend drove through a red light. This is not so surprising since, given how many people drive through them, I think they are a suggestion to stop rather than a rule. A police car pulled next to us and called over the microphone to roll down the window. The officer started to scold our friend, "You ran a red light! How can you do this with foreigners in your car. Aren't you ashamed?".

Our friend did the laugh/apology and all was forgiven.