Chinggis Khaan

Possibly the most famous Mongolian ever. He was born around a thousand years ago, into a nomadic tribe which lived around north and central Mongolia. As a young man he became leader of his tribe, and then leader of the clan of tribes that his own tribe traded and fought alongside. There were several of these clans moving around the flat lands east of the Himalyas and the Altai Mountains, on the high flat lands of the steppe. However they were all being attacked by tribes from the east, towards China, and so they combined together under one leader, Chinggis Khaan, who so became the first king of Mongolia. ("Khaan" means "king".)

Under Chinggis' rule, the Mongolian people came to rule of the land all the way from the Black Sea in the west to the Pacific coast in the east, a much much bigger empire than any other in history. Chinggis died at the age of 45, but his sons continued to rule. It is his grandson, Kublai Khaan, that Marco Polo met when he travelled overland from Venice.

This statue is being built to mark the site where Chinggis was elected chief of all the Mongolian clans. It is absolutely massive, and truly breathtaking, especially when you stand close to it. We passed it on a trip out to the countryside on Friday. To mark the end of our language lessons, one of the teachers invited us to her ger, about an hour's drive from the city. We had a fabulous day - climinging hills, riding horses, singing songs .... Her husband cooked us "hoshoor", which is joints of mutton cooked in a big metal container - they roast stones in the fire, and then put layers of stone and mutton in the container, then seal the lid and sit it in the embers for another hour. Everyone wolfed it down. I had cheese sandwiches. Felt a bit left out ....

Visiting a ger

We went out on a trip last weekend with a Mongolian ethnologist, who arranged for us to visit a family in a ger. Ulaanbaatar is a big,sprawling city, but it is surrounded by hills and very quickly you are out in the countryside. The valleys are flat-bottomed and very dry - long ago, this was part of an inland sea, so I'm guessing that's why between the mountains it is so flat.
Gers are round, white tents, which are designed to be solid and stable enough to withstand the constant winds, warm enough to withstand temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius, but also easy to take apart and transport so that, when your animals have used up all the grazing locally, you can move on to fress grass. A "journey" in old Mongolian writing is about 10 miles, the distance you could go with your carts and animals in a day. Everyone refers to their house as a "ger", even if they live in a flat in the city.
We trundled over the grassland through the mountains for a good hour before our ethnoligist decided that the family he was looking for had packed up and moved on .... so we just stopped at the next ger we came to and the lady invited us to spend the day. It was really fascinating - how everything is stored, how everything is laid out and arranged, the rituals of who sits where .... The door of the ger is always to the south, and inside there is always a Buddhist alter, which is always at the north side. The husband sits beside the altar; the wife sits on the east side, which is also where all the kitchen stuff is. The children or guests sit on the west. She was really chatty, and sang us some Mongolian folk songs while she made us tea. She was making dried cheese when we got there, and gave us some to eat with our picnic. Her children had all left home and gone to Ulaanbaatar or Australia, and husband was away racing a horse. We had a great day going for walks and talking to her (through the ethnologist, who interpreted).
At about 4pm, her husband reappeared. The horse was an orphan and so was a favourite - apparently orphans in Mongolian families are always favourite children - and it had come in the top 5, so he was well pleased. We offered him some of the cake we'd brought for a picnic, and he took it outside and fed it to the horse, and then brought the horse to the ger door so we could admire it. It was amazing to see the telepathy between them. The horse just looked embarrassed at all the attention and tried to hide behind him.
There are gers everywhere - in the city, there are huge "ger districts" where people who have migrated from the countryside have set up their ger on the outskirts of town. I think now half the population of Mongolia lives in the valley of Ulaanbaatar. You can climb up a hill and see the whole city at once - and then imagine a massive country, the size of western Europe, with that many people scattered across it ........

Ulaanbaatar

I'm here for 5 weeks to learn as much of the language as I can, and to attend various meetings and workshops about education and related issues. Every morning we are up at 6.30am to catch the bus to college, where we have 3 1/2 hours of language lessons. Then we get the bus to a restaurant for lunch. In the afternoon we have presentations from people such as the Mongolian police about the crimes that foreigners commit or are victims of, and how to avoid this; or from someone from the Ministry of Education about school attendance and school drop-out; or from other volunteers about the kinds of projects they've been involved in, and problems and successes they've had. It's a bit intense, but inbetween times it is great to get out and explore Ulaanbaatar.

The city is large (about the size of Dunfermline, or maybe slightly larger?). There is a grid of streets and concrete buildings, mostly built in the Soviet style (Mongolia was a Soviet-governed country from the 1920s until 1991, when there was a peaceful revolution). There is still plenty evidence of the Russian influence - we drive past a statue of Lenin every day. However these days it is very congested, with constant traffic jams, dust and fumes. Despite this, there is lots to explore. Yesterday I walked out to the foot of the mountains - Ulaanbaatar is on a flat plain, surrounded by low hills. There is a giant Buddha statue, about 100 feet high, all painted gold. It is beautiful, and yesterday evening the room that is at the base of the statue, underneath the Buddha, was open.

Inside was a tiny museum of treasures - golden statues of different gods, ancient vases, books wrapped in silk embroidered scarves. There were offerings of sugar and incense in front of some of them. People were coming in to bow at the altar and touch the glass in front of the statues. A young monk was watching over the place. I'd been to the statue before, as it is at the beginning of tracks that lead up to the hills. I've seen lots of birds of prey up there - I thought they were eagles as they were huge, but local people say no. I wonder what size the eagles are ....

Introduction

Hello. This blog will describe my work and experiences as a teacher with Voluntary Service Overseas (V.S.O.) in Choibalsan, Mongolia. I am here to work with teachers at a Kindergarten, to help develop interactive teaching methods. I am also here to learn about a very different part of the world, to see how people cope with very extreme weather conditions, and to make new friends. I will try to update this blog once or twice a month, but internet connections are also affected by weather and interruptions in the power supply ....

If you would like to post questions, my colleagues and I will answer them as quickly as possible. You many need to wait a few days or a couple of weeks, but please be patient! I'm sure there will be many similarities as well as many differences in life for Scottish and Mongolian pupils. The first thing I've discovered is that the summer holidays are 3 months long, as it is very difficult to carry on working in the intense heat - for days on end it is over 40 degrees Celsius .... But we don't have a Christmas holiday, as this is a Buddhist country. Och well!!

Best regards for now from Ulaanbaatar,
Lesley Harrison.