First Full Day in UB

I arrived at my apartment around midnight and met my landlord briefly before being left to my own devices. I gave up trying to remember where I had packed pajamas and settled for brushing my teeth before heading to bed. I did wake up every two hours as my American body clock tried to reassert the notion that during the day only naps are appropriate, but I managed to get about 6 or 7 hours.

This morning I set to the task of unpacking and trying to figure out where things will be placed long-term. I have the unexpected luxury/dilemma that the second bedroom is an office...the desk is a nice plus, but I had hoped to get a roommate for at least part of my time here. I suppose I could always drag the couch in there, but that seems a bit iffy.

So after a bit of orientating myself with the apartment, Amgalan from ACMS (the American Center for Mongolian Studies) arrived to help me set up the internet. After she dropped me back home, I discovered that the internet did not, in fact, work. After a confusing meeting with a IT guy, internet connection was achieved (hence this blog post). It was now almost two o'clock, and I was supposed to meet my friend and university sponsor at 3. I had purchased a new SIM card, but my cell phone refuses to turn on. I'm not sure if it needs to recharge fully after you take out the battery to put in a new SIM card, or if its successful turn-on yesterday was merely a taunt as it died. I figured a 1998 Nokia 3210 wasn't likely to last me the whole ten months, but I had hoped for a few weeks in the beginning here.

So, picture a tragic figure heading off into the distance...cell-phone deprived, running a little later than she had planned, and on her way to a location that googlemaps Ulaanbaatar had seemed pretty sure of. One hour later, the few people I'd struck up the nerve to ask gave me rather unhelpful wavings of "not the way you're going, but that other way." I stopped back at the ACMS to write Bulgaa a quick note of apology, and when I started looking around more on googlemaps I discovered something troubling. The Mongolian University of Arts and Culture in Mongolian is written as Соёл Урлагын Их Сургууль. Googlemaps had two veeeeery different locations for the English translation compared to the Mongolian language name. The English one lists the correct address (according to the official website), but the Mongolian one actually looks like it's on the right street. This is all further confused by the fact that Baga Toiruu Street makes a big U-turn, so it's hard to say exactly where 26 Baga Toiruu Street is supposed to be.

As I'm writing this, Bulgaa wrote back to me that the Mongolian named location on googlemaps is the correct one. So I walked all around the Chinese embassy, blistered my feet, and bled through one precious sock in the completely wrong area with a broken cell phone.


For many reasons besides my general incompetence though, Mongolia humbles me. I am sitting in a beautiful apartment, safe and warm, with a fridge full of eggs for omelettes and an internet connection which I will use shortly to skype with my parents. Coming home, tired and footsore and embarrassed, I carried my new shiny bag of groceries past a pair of Mongolians collecting empty bottles which they will recycle to earn some cash. If they're lucky, they'll have someplace inside to sleep tonight. I've arrived just as the weather turns chilly, and it rained off and on today which hasn't improved on it.

I definitely in comparison am incredibly privileged. Even on a graduate student's income, I've received enough support from my universities, the federal government and my family enough to live a cozy life in pursuit of my work on the protection of cultural heritage. I know the large degree of unemployment is just one of many factors that requires cultural heritage organizations to seek outside funding in order to better preserve Mongolian language and culture, but it does make it hard to prioritize new museum exhibits when every day I've seen people struggling to eat. Mongolia and Mongolians face a lot of challenges, and the big buzz around new money from mining may not make any of them easier. I've just got to do my best to learn and share their experiences. But that's tomorrow's challenge.