Travel Blog Mongolia

My host family

I live together with the parents, who do own a tailor’s shop around the corner and 3 children. Two boys (aged 7 ad 14) and a 10-year-old girl. Up to know I could not remember the names, but I try to let them write their names down. Too many names and truely for a foreigner very complicated!
They are very shy, but that is the Mongolian way to be. Swenja (my coordinator from the Goethe Institute) told me why: Because on the countryside they have to live together in a so-called yurts and there you do not really have a lot of privacy there. Even some of my pupils do live in yurts in the city.
And it is pretty normal that people go to the country-side for several days and leave the kids at home, more or less alone :O They wrote me a letter in Mongolian and the 14-year-old boy tried to translate it into German – FAIL. Thanks Suvdaa! She translated it quickly for me and I understood that the parents will be away just for 2 days. Am I their babysitter now or not?… I turned out not to be their babysitter as a woman came and cooked for them and stayed overnight. Strange thing but normally the kids get up on their on, get ready for school in time and even cook and clean the house. So very independent at such a young age! Not imaginable in Germany!
They are very friendly and calm but not really being able to communicate with each other does not make life easy! But with hands and feet it will work out!

School Life / Teachers Life:

I work together with two German teachers Ancha (26 years old) and Enche (older than Ancha;)). Talking each day a bit more about their life and my life they revealed their salary. And I was totally shocked because they earn around 400.000 Tugrik / Month, which is about 180-200€ depending on the exchange rate. This is pretty much nothing compared how much teachers in Germany own and even we as volunteers earn more than they do. The amount of the salary does not matter whether they have children or not. Furthermore they have to teach around 19 hours / week and if there is not enough to do they get fired. Pretty insecure job :O
What a precarious situation!!!

In school the head of the cafeteria opened that she would love to cook for me an extra meal! I just have to tell the German teachers what I would like to eat and when and they prepare it – that’s absolutely awesome because I can’t even understand what I can choose 😀 I tried Buuz, which is a round thing made of dough and stuffed with meat. Because they know that foreigners are not used to eat meat from morning to evening they handed me salad with the Buuz ☺

Strange moment when I got to know some of the important personnel in school one of the lady’s gave me Mongolian cheese to try and this was disgusting! So no cheese for the next 5-month (ok in some supermarkets you even get German cheese, but just this rubber-like sliced cheese)…

Smog:

We were told that there will be a lot of smog in UB, especially in winter because the capital lies in a basin surrounded by mountains which means the smog will not disappear when not being windy!
Furthermore the particulate matter emission is extremely high. The standard value is around 40ppm and UB has sometimes values around 800ppm, sometimes the machines indicates 999 ppm which means the scale is not able to show the real rate because it is over the value which is measurable! Cheers to our health :O

Good to know as well in such a big city that there is no German Sunday! The shops are open until 11pm normally every day, there might be some exceptions but not many…

Most important for us Germans is it to get an extension of our Visa, which means several administrative formalities at the community of the khoroo (district) you live in. Then I went to the hospital to do (again) and HIV Test and a tuberculosis test. The second one was not possible in this hospital because the machine was broken, so we decided not to do it and hope that the immigration office next week will accept everything. Strange experience and I hate hospitals. Thank God that Ancha was with me and to the immigration office I will go with Beree (from the Goethe Institut) next Tuesday…. Maybe 😉 Another particularity of the Mongolian life! Things can change any minute 😀 This week there were already 5 or 6 changes within the last minute done at school!

For more information please feel free to click here:

Infos on Mongolian Economy of the Department of Foreign Affaires

Air pollution in different cities
Traffic:

As others told us we should forget what we learned about German traffic, I was pretty curious about this part! As I have already lived in two foreign cities for a longer time I know even in western countries this can be very different from the German well-ordered system!
You have to be careful and watch out even if the traffic light is green that no car will hit you accidentally: D At first sight I did not get when cars are honking but after having sit in a care twice I do understand. You honk when a car comes too close to yours to avoid to get hit and if you would like to turn into another street you honk to point out that you are coming and you would like to turn into this street! Crazy! Some more facts: the steering wheel is left or right and at the back seats you do not belt on 😉
There is a public traffic system but the busses are brimmed and you have to be careful because of pickpockets, especially as foreigner… So you better take a taxi and even there you have to be careful. Normally as Mongolian you just stand next to the street and hold out your arm until a car stops and picks you up!

PS: Mongolian Hospital (I nearly forgot or better wanted to forget about it)
I need to do a HIV and Tuberculosis test to get my 5 month residence permit, so Anchaa and I went to the nearest hospital.
HIV Test could be done there, but tuberculosis…. no the machine is broken, sorry. After calling Beree (who will go with me to the Immigration Office next week), we decided just to do the HIV test. No sooner said, than done! Strange to not understand them at all, weird hospital (which I even do not like in Germany) and then the incompetence of the nurse who tried to get blood out of the vein of my hand and sticked if out or whatever… big fat bruise on my hand was the result of it… Thank youuuuu!