Merry Christmas.

  As I have not posted for a while I thought I would add a few photos of our company christmas party.  

  The first one is one of our coworkers wearing the Santa's helper pig hat.  With my background as a caregiver of piggies, learning of this traditional garb was a very sentimental moment for me.

  I hope that this may be a Mongolian tradition.  It could be that at year end (Christmas is not a holiday here) in Buddhists lore, pigs give all the good little children presents.  Regardless of all that, the pig hat is quite attractive don't you think?  I would guess it is warm too.
The second picture is of Diana wearing her "new for Christmas" Mongolian shirt.  "She refused to model the pig hat" as we have no little children to give presents to here with us.  She had the blue shirt made here and I think she looks quite pretty. 

 She looks gooooood in Blue.

So from T&D in Mongolia,  

!!Merry Christmas!!

  Celebrate "Jesus' birthday" with us today.  

Have some Cake.

Tom

Still Life...

It happened again today. 

 While looking at an art display in the lobby of our favorite Thai restaurant across the street from the office the artist approached us and asked if we were Russian.  But this time our Finish friend stepped in speaking Mongolian and carried the ball (or in his case, "culiatha the hockey puck").  The artist is an older man who taught school from 1957 or so until he retired.  He had a few paintings which to me capture Mongolia still life.  I admired them wishing my camera could return so sentimental an image.  He had several children who now live in the US in various states and cities.

  I just read a post by some people I admire.  http://jungle-hut.blogspot.com/ I must admit I am guilty as charged.  We did drop JM and family off at Cha and leave them for two weeks.  Well I didn't. I was fixing the airplanes that they rode on and resetting the email system when someone jumped in too fast and it crashed.  Well actually Diana fixed the email most of the time.  However I too have a story to share about the first time at the Cha airstrip.  

 We had an event at a nearby airstrip which required the Mechanic (me) to go look at an airplane.  It required that 3 or 4 others go as well.  The airstrip in question was not so long and had a small hill on the departure end which had the effect of limiting the take off weight.  As I was the lightest and with lowest seniority I was "given" the opportunity to help out (take one for the team so to speak) by being shuttled to the Cha airstrip so the others would be able to belt in once, then ride home after picking me up without getting out of the airplane.  So, Much like the account in JM post I exited the airplane about three hours before dark and watched my ride home fly off toward a thunderstorm that looked pretty close. 

 Here are some things that went through my head:  The People (I had yet to get to know JP, and JM so didn't know their names) who speak english are not in the village now, and I Cant speak Yequana, Cant speak much Spanish, Don't have anything to eat or drink,  Where was that river?  could I find the airstrip again if I left it? did they say the village is about 5 miles down stream and across the river?  If I left now could I be there by dark and how would I get a ride across the river?  Do I even have my pocket knife?  Is that thunderstorm over the airstrip I just left?  IF it is will it move on in time for them to come back and get me or am I spending the night here?  You do realize that there are Tarantulas there that eat birds?  and snakes that eat people?  There are still wild tigers there that have been known to drag people off.  I saw the marks on the survivors we flew out of the jungle for medical help from time to time.

  And earth worms that you can make worm jerky out of?  Nearby were bugs whose bite will cause the cartilage in your nose to dissolve, or malaria, or yellow fever, or cause you to go blind.  And snakes and more snakes and more snakes.

  Regardless of how rosy a picture of life in Cha JM or JP or Jkids paint, it is not now or then a picnic.  I was somewhat concerned for the short term future of the Siberian Tom family bread winner.  

Enough suspence.  The plane came back and I had grilled chicken for supper with rice and a coke.

Bayartai  (good-bye)

Sheepskin caps

I think Diana would be happy staying in Mongolia if the situation was different.  Plans make such a difference in your attitude.  We arrived here with the intent and plan to help out for about 4 months.  Now about 7 weeks to go.  We are helping with business decisions while the local operations Director is off on a well deserved break.  We came and settled in planning on staying only that long.  Now if we were asked to stay longer we probably would but, it would not be an easy transition to make.  Relationships have been formed with the understanding that we are filling in we find ourselves looking at our staff as friends rather than employees.  So we enjoy a casual and fun office.  It would be hard to return and go back to an authoritarian role.

Yesterday I stopped by the store to pick up some essential weekend food.  Chipsies, Coke-a-Cola, and little breads, in the checkout line the Mongolian cashier lady and I were faced with a dilemma,  I obviously was not local.  So what language should she use tell me how much I owed.  Looking her in the eye I saw many traits of my friends from years ago in Venezuela.  The lady who helped cared for my friends home and children, Carmen could have been the checkout lady's sister.  My instincts said speak Castillano (uh Spanish that is) but I fought that instinct down (tongue tangled experience had shown that would be a low odds attempt at communication)  I waited to see what the cash register read so I could pay from the numbers.  She asked me if I needed a bag, (Costs extra) and I shook my head no.  Of course I didn't understand what she said in Mongolian but I knew her question from the situation.  Then she told me how much I owed Her, in Russian.  She laughed like it was a victory as I nodded and paid.  Yes I could understand and answer her "Correct change, that is correct Yes?   Thank you?"  Communication in the check out line can be a victory.

But wait this poses a question.  Do I now look more Russian than American.  Will people be calling me comrade when I return to the US.  Have I entered the zone described by Thomas Wolf where I can never go home again?  Destined to roam the world trying to get back to the memories I have which no longer are?  Or was it much simpler than that.  Could it be that Americans wear parkas with hoods and Russians have furry hats?  Humm probably.

Tom

Sardines

Sometimes things happen that are frustrating.  For instance I can't seem to get the paste function to work from my word processor to blogger.  For those of us who are grammatically and spelling challenged this is a catastrophe.  This is no doubt my problem but still it is frustrating as I have about 45 pages of text to share with you.  Oh how silly of me.  Drag and drop works.  Never, mind.

Here in Mongolia on weekends we have more free time.  We often walk around and look at the shops near out flat or explore for a restaurant that looks inviting.  Both are luxuries.  Near some of the shops where we like to buy food there are two young men who I suspect are homeless.  One has crippled feet and the other seems a little slow.  They often wash cars while people are eating or shopping to earn some money.  As it gets colder washing cars is a not so often thing and they have started asking for donations so they can eat.  This places us in an awkward position, we want to help but we also don't like being followed down the street by these young men asking for money every time we visit.  

When our children were in the boarding school 9 hours drive away where we lived before coming to Russia, I kept a few cans of Sardines in the console between the car seats.  When we encountered the children sent to beg along the gravel section of the only road between the two state capitols, I would give them a can of sardines.  Our thoughts were they could only eat them.  Cash could be diverted for addiction of others but food really has no value other than as food.

We have lived outside the US long enough to know that this kind of thing is more the norm than the exception in cities big enough to have a tourist population.  Still however this is a very convicting situation.  If I tell them I have no money to give them they know I have enough to not miss buying them a meal.  They ask for food and see my hands full of bags of food I just purchased and they know that I am not saying I can not but rather I will not.

Yesterday we encountered them again.  If we had thought far enough in the future we could have planned and purchased something to have given them but we hadn't.  So having not planned ahead we were faced with the hypocrisy.

Here Sardines are not that easy to find and we have no console to keep them in.  We will attempt to find a Mongolian equivalent to keep in the overcoat for next time.

Bayartai  (good-bye)

Mongolian pictures

Mongolia is a land full of scenic beauty and a rich heritage.  Here are a few examples of the things you can see in Mongolia.  Ok you are right one is a ringer.  Which one is not from Mongolia?  

If you chose the colorado mountain road you are correct.  Didn't you know that the John, Paul, Ringo, & George were from Mongolia?  Kinda fun isn't it?

Balled faced Plagiarism "cut and Paste"

In the last few days some news sites have reported the unfortunate event of a writer for some eastern US news something telling (on camera) European news reporter guy that he was using cut and paste to report on the Presidential elections.  Apparently he had been drinking something other than tea and proceeded to admit to using the works of others in his report.  I am curious how exactly do you report on any national event and not plagiarize someone.  How many ways can you say "The president of the United states of America once again tripped and fell down the stairs of Air-force one."?  Yes I remember Gerald Ford.  Fondly actually, he had the guts to veto anything that he didn't like.  One of the few American presidents Maybe the only one who was both VP and President without ever running for or being elected to either post.  So if you reported on that event which seemed to happen a lot in those days and, say some guy writing for the Podunk Mourning News used exactly the same words to do so, were either of you guilty of plagiarism?  I certainly don't know.  Is that worth taking a poll on?  No I guess not. 

Here is some news of great interest to someone, somewhere, which I have cut and pasted off of the elder son's facebook page.  He spells like me but looks more like Diana's Dad so the implications are clear.  He uses Spelling of words that I created years ago, so thus, he must be plagiarizing me, or, he is, due to the obvious DNA link through the creative spelling gene, my Son.

newsflash

Today at 3:05pm

de..dee..de..dee.dee.dede.dde.dde..de.dee..de, rip

sorry folks we still do not have the money for a teletype. today in the news, Monks brawl before religious ceremony, yes that is right folks, evedently today in JERUSALEM. Monks from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations were preparing for a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City when a disagreement led to a full-fledged fistfightAn unusual sight greeted Jerusalem police as they entered one of Christianity's holiest sites Sunday morning: dozens of monks punching and kicking each other in a massive brawl. Monks from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations were preparing for a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City when a disagreement led to a full-fledged fistfight.

Elsewhere, New nano coating boosts solar efficiency from 66% to 98%. look out there coal plants, looks like you will soon be a thing of the past. 

Rioters were found today trashing the dorm room of one d___ d______. They clame that this will become a monthly event until dave finishes the smash hit "world peace." D____ who was not at the sceen is unavilable for comment. 

Finally, one a______ v_______ has finally changed his diet habbits. He had spent the last year eatting only romin noddles, but has now increased his food suppliments to include pork and beans. and with that we will leave you all. goon night and farewell.

this is the 1337357 signing off.

-----------------------------------------

legal disclaimer (spelling of some words has been changed to protect the innocent)

Many of the words and groups of letters have been used previously by other persons to communicate ideas and information.  I give them total credit for all previously created materials.  I give the French total credit for impossible to spell English words.  I give the Germans credit for Zeppelins and acronymic auto company names.  I have included the picture of Zacki Cat as it adds Class to the Post.

Buyerteh

What do chickens say?

Yes this is getting to be a regular thing isn't it.  

Yesterday after I posted the picture of Diana and the Pizza restaurant, she decided to send it to some friends.  It seems she somehow attached the name of the picture rather than the picture to her first attempt and we received several Emails eluding to a senior moment on our part.  No, I still have some Months before I qualify to join AARP.

Ok so what about the talking chickens.  One of our friends (who knows who she is) said she would just do the chicken dance and make chicken sounds to order a meal so she didn't need to speak Mongolian.  That promoted us to so some checking on an important cultural issue.  What do Chickens say?

Here, (as in, In Mongolia)

Dogs say - Ho Ho

Cats say - meya meya

Horses say - eeehhaaa

Cows say - Umbooo

However Chickens don't seem to say anything.  This came as a bit of a shock to us.  Where in the world do they not know what chickens say.  PioPio, PeepPeep, cheepcheep, Bakkkbakkk or something equally interesting, do local chickens put the verbs first or last or change the endings depending on the gender or case or tense?  We wonder if there is a chance that chickens only migrate to mongolia in their "Post Tyson" frozen state.

Following a long heated discussion on this point we got stuck on the question of what did the "Little Red Hen" say?  Do our children still learn the moral of that childhood classic?  It was from a simpler time I guess.  I saw a Leninesque updated version once, it resulted in the Hen going to Jail for hoarding food.  When My father was young the US economy also had some issues.  Most americans then had a garden but some still starved and many went hungry, many more could have starved had it not been for the "Red Hens" across America who helped there neighbors because "they needed it".  The movie Grapes of Wrath has a graphic illustration of some of the ugliness that came out in people then.  It also sort of glorifies the socialist approach to those days.

  What the US history books don't seem to include is that during those same years several million Russians starved to death.  Sadly there the problem was the government taking all the Red Hens stored food and sharing it with the ones without.  The Hens were the ones that starved.

Do you remember how much canned food your Grandma had in the cupboard or cellar?  I do, Diana's Grandma passed on in 2000, we could still be living on what she had in the cellar.

ok yes he looks more like a Rooster than a Hen.

Pizza and pets

Saturday Diana and I decided we needed to get some new food for the acrobatic balloon fish.  We set off on foot across town in the direction we had been told there was a fish store.  We were walking in a westerly direction. 

Ulaanbaatar is not an exceptionally big city but it is several kilometers long and a couple wide.  After we walked a while we noticed a restaurant which confirmed we were headed in the correct direction.  Diana commented on how much easier mongolian is getting to read.

We were on a quest to find a different kind of fish food.  The internet is a wonderful thing at times and it has a wealth of information that at times seems useful.  We had discovered that some kinds of fish food cause goldfish to have problems retaining air in their neutral buoyancy bladders which results in them floating upside down towards the top of the tank.  We hoped to find a type of food that might not be so problematic for them.  We were successful in our quest and did find the "Angle-fish" store.  As you can see the pets are reasonably happy and mostly right side up, today.  

Darkness in the alley

Since I started blogin a few weeks ago, I have realized some bloggers tend to blog daily and there sites seem to fill up with interesting stuff and photos and such quickly.  I had intended to try to post weekly just thoughts and perspectives now and then. How much is too much and how little is too little.  If communicating is worth doing It should be done well but how well can a farm boy be expected to communicate.  I can make the sounds of dogs, cats,  cows, and pigs well enough but the arrogance to think I have something to write in a public forum that is something again. 

 I know I have written many Emails over the years since Diana Anthony Joshua and I first moved from our homeland into the unknown.  Some reported events were more interesting than others.  

One that comes to mind was the first t

ime my trash can was stolen from in front of my house.  It was a rusted-out 55 gal. barrel which had served to ship fuel to some remote place in the heart of the unknown and over time had rusted through.  It could no longer hold liquids but it was fine for trash.  In those capitalist run days in that nation the city still did a very nice job of picking up the trash weekly and the refuse workers were friendly and we thanked them with a bag of Mangos or some cookies from time to time.  All seemed right in the unknown.  

Until that fateful day when I put out the trash in the morning and by noon my trash and rusted out barrel were gone.  No big problem as I knew there were a supply of it's twin waiting to be converted from perforated, leaking, damaged, dented, cast aside barrels to wonderfully fresh orange trash cans.  It was a simple conversion requiring only turning the barrel over and cutting out the bottom.  They always leak on the bottom first.  Equipped with my new trash can I returned home and unloaded it by the handy little gate where the can slept.  By the time I entered the house through the 2 doors, 3 or 4 locks, and returned to the spot it had joined it's predecessor in the Bermuda triangle or similar land of vanquished, lost, and  wandering trash cans.  At the time it was kind of strange that people would steel a used barrel that had been used to ship AvGas which was rusted and had holes in it, from in front of my house in broad daylight no less.  Water from that barrel would be dangerous to drink it would always smell of 100LL avgas and it would leak so using it as a water reservoir for someone's home seemed unlikely, and who but a foreigner would bother with a barrel for trash.  Asi la vida I guess, such is life.  Our next trash can the "third brother Darrel" was attached to the wall with some aircraft control cable and thus saved from wandering the hinder-lands aimlessly for eternity with Darrel 1 and Darrel 2.  (names shamelessly pirated from The Newhart show long ago and far away)

Here we just carry the bags of trash to the spot by the building where the trash is left.  There are a number of recycling engineers there who promptly rip open the bags and sift though the refuse for any valued item we foolishly discarded.  They leave the rest for the trash truck guys to shovel into the truck.  Sometimes they burn part to keep warm at night.

Life can be hard and staying alive is tough, every bit of glass, plastic, metal, or bit with value is collected and carried off to be sold or traded to meet some need.  Men without an anchor wandering aimlessly without hope without a plan without a home.  One reacts with sadness and a helpless feeling.  Who am I to see people in this condition and not be able to help, to make a difference.  How dare I witness this without being able to feed, clothe, and heal.  Too many people out here in the unknown will never feel the global recession.  If it is cold tonight some will not make it through the night.  We read stories of our countrymen being reduced to living in their car.  Most out here in the unknown have never dared dream of ever being rich enough to own a car.  What do I have to offer, but this ache in my heart, this tear in my eye, this lump in my throat.  How do I share Hope with those who don't even realize that there is Hope and they too can know it.  

Second post

Out our office window you can see the Blue Sky office building is being built.  No connection with Blue Sky Aviation but the local papers seem to have made a connection and reported that the profits from Blue Sky Aviation humanitarian flights have funded the project.  It is a pretty building and it kind of resembles the Blue Sky Aviation logo.

One would think having something of note to share from somewhere as different as UlaanBaatar Mongolia would be a simple thing.  It would only require one to pay attention and remember the interesting parts.  

It snowed a little last week but it is mostly gone without a trace now.  Sorry no pictures.  We walk from the Flat to the office and each day is remarkably similar.  One day a man in a wheel chair was asking for help.  One day a young lady was selling pens trying to fund her education.  Most days the kids at the secondary school are playing on the sidewalk.  For the last 3 weeks we have watched the replacement of some heat pipes in a side street we walk past.  The day It  snowed I watched a rather expensive looking car spinning it's tires trying to go up a rather slight incline.  Too many young unemployed men standing around smoking, buying soda and liquor, spitting on the sidewalks.   Normal sights now, after only 4 weeks we are no longer noticing what makes life normal here.  

Just for emphasis the three major events this last week were: 

1. meeting a young man from the US who was here doing some training with a contingent of Mongolian peace keepers prior to there deployment.  We enjoyed visiting with him and spending the evening. 

2. We went to the home of one of our coworkers and had Dinner with them.  They are a mongolian family who have been working in and with the expat community for several years.  We had a nice meal of that old Mongolian favorite.  Tacos Coke-A-Cola and Brownies.  

3. Paul and Edith Brooks fish, who are living in the aquarium where we are staying, were starting to swim upside down.  (technically, some had stopped swimming and were just floating.)  Not being aquarium experts we were puzzled by their lethargic demeanor and following some contemplation deduced that there was a problem.  The decision was made that the water was probably causing this curious behavior.  Four (4) hours later with fresh water in the tank the fish seem happier and are easier to see as well.  Oddly enough the old water had gotten quite green over time.  This morning all fish were swimming in the normal way.  (Actually the floaters are resting on the counter top and we will report on there progress as they return to service.)

So enough for this installment of the roller-coster ride of interesting and fascinating events from our time in Mongolia.  I hope you can stand the suspense.  We will try to tame the wilder parts so our blog is fit to read without frightening small children and dogs.

Tom from Mongolia

The first log.

Hello,  "San-ban-oh."  The standard Greeting in Mongolian.  Hence the blog name, our friend John Luke (4) tells us that both the guards names here at the flat are, Sam Ben O.  Now you know.

Saturday with nothing to do.  We got the internet to work from the house this week so what else would one do but start a Blog.  After a year living in Siberia we are settling into life here in Mongolia.  Helping out in the Office during the day and enjoying the flat of some friends in the evenings.  Mongolia seems to be a friendly place and most people we encounter welcoming to strangers.  

Without sounding like a travel log I will say that we are exploring the local restaurants as our budget allows.  Travel out of the city is limited so we may not be able to include many photos of the landscape. Fall has arrived here and we have survived our first snow and the days are getting cooler.  Diana misses the Dogs which are often seen in Siberia.  In Ulaanbaatar we see few dogs and few are as big and woolly as those we had living in the forest behind our flat there.

No we are not living in the pictured Yurt.  The photo was take north of Ulaanbaatar at a tourist camp in the national park.  The landscape reminds me of the Utah side of the Rockies.  Blue Sky is often used as a business name here and you can see why.

Hoping all is well with you

Tom