Lazy Sunday afternoon

Hello again from Ulaanbaatar! It's Sunday afternoon here (making it around 10 PM Saturday on the West coast) and I have Mark's computer for the next few hours so it's time for another installment of Mongoliosity. I am pleased to announce that on Thursday afternoon our science-and-ed based orientation came to a close and the law and policy group was able to meet with the Securing our Future (SOF) project manager for the first time. She is very motivated and well connected with the Who's-Who in UB, so I think she'll be an excellent manager to work for.

I haven't written anything much on the content of our orientation yet, so (despite its being over already) I'll mention a few interesting details. Our four-day orientation focused on teaching us the basics of freshwater ecology in Mongolia. The background information we received was valuable to each of the associates, but obviously more so for the science and education associates. (In case I haven't made it clear, there are three different types of "associates," as they call us, involved in the SOF program this summer--Law and Policy, Science, and Education. L&P associates, like me, will mostly be researching selected topics; Science will be out in the field most of the summer doing water quality sampling and analysis; and Ed folks will split their time between UB and the countryside at various schools, demonstrating for science teachers something called a benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) water quality test.) The first two days we were cooped up in a small conference room in a hotel near Sukhbaatar Square, but on Wednesday we all took a van out to a site on the Tuul River a few km outside of UB and spent the day assessing the physical habitat of the river site and running BMI tests. Running a BMI test involves thoroughly disturbing the rocks and sediment in the river bed at a particular point in the river and catching the benthic macroinvertebrates (bugs) that are kicked up in fine mesh net. Once the "kick" part of the test is complete, then the tedious part begins (or fun part, depending on your perspective): identifying each of the bugs at the order level and counting them. Woo. We looked at lots of stoneflies and mayflies, let me tell you. We also had quite a few runs-in with stray dogs, goat herds, grazing cattle, wild (?) horses, and curious onlookers. All in all, it was pretty fun.

Thursday we went to the National University of Mongolia (commonly known as NUM--num num!) to hear a lecture on Mongolian ecology from a delightful gentleman from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Right before lunch we examined specimens that we'd collected the day before under microscopes. It was a pleasant combination.

In the afternoon the L&P folks split from the others and our boss presented us with a list of research topics that TAF wants more information on and I am particularly interested in one that deals with government majority-share ownership in mining operations in Mongolia. The research will involve looking both at Mongolian laws on ownership and government structure and at cases in which other governments have attempted similar actions. I don't know much beyond that preliminary description; more details will follow in future posts.

On Friday the law and policy associates attended a multi-stakeholder meeting hosted by TAF at the UB Hotel. Several dozen representatives from Mongolian NGOs and community-based organizations were also in attendance. Aside from an introduction by TAF's country representative in Mongolia, and a short closing statement by my boss, the meeting was conducted entirely in Mongolian. This required us non-Mongolian speakers to hold an ear piece in our ears for roughly three hours in order to follow a simultaneous English translation. I found the whole process to be intriguing but also slightly frustrating, as I am still relatively uninitiated into the world of Mongolian mining policy and the translation was spotty at points. Oh, and holding that damn ear piece in place for hours on end became fairly annoying. I think my ears were too small for it; other people seemed to have no trouble just wedging it in and leaving it there, but mine fell out the second I took my hand off of it.

Yesterday I ventured forth into UB to do some more exploring on my own. This city is chock-full of delightful surprises if you just take a little time to root them out. As I wandered down Baga Toiruu aimlessly, I happened upon a little bakery called Backerei Conditorei Cafe which served tasty sandwiches, fresh-baked pastries, and hot, sumptuous brewed coffee. Real coffee!! Marvelous.

Hm, I'm not sure that there's any real flow or continuity to this post. I apologize. But in that spirit, now seems an appropriate time to end it, with no warning or concluding thoughts whatsoever. Bye for now!