Long Time Gone: Trading the countryside for urbane Ulaanbaatar

It was a long month in UB, but we're back in Bayankhongor now. Though we got a lot done while we were away and enjoyed lots of great food, fun company, and regular hot showers, it has been so good to be home.

Leslie
The initial purpose of our trip to Ulaanbaatar was for me to lead several trainings on music therapy, specifically for social workers and social work students. I was asked in January to create a training for social workers with Save the Children. It was very successful, greatly due to my Peace Corps CYD director, Enkhee, who has social work degrees from the U.S. and is capable of maneuvering the complicated subject of music therapy from the English language to Mongolian. At the Save the Children workshop, I was asked to return for a follow-up with the social workers and also to present a 20 hour workshop with the seniors at the Mongolian State University of Education Social Work program.
Though only one of those workshops worked out, due to scheduling issues with the Save the Children social workers, I was able to have a successful week with the students at the university!

Enkhee spent a couple mornings translating for the first workshop, but it was impossible to get her away for 20 hours with the students. Thanks to a previous volunteer, we met a remarkable woman named Tuul Sukhbaatar! Sukhbaatar means Axe Hero! (and the same guy the town we trained in and the Square in UB is named after) in Mongolian. You can imagine how hard core that makes her! I was lucky that she was willing to take her vacation time to help me out. Much like working with Enhkee, it was really easy to work with someone I adore so much.

*Note: Tuul will be starting her masters degree in conservation in the United States this fall! This, of course, means that I will connecting her with many of you! She's a blast! I'm glad she'll still be there when we are finished in Mongolia!

I did my best to make it an extremely experiential week for the students, so Tuul and I worked with the social work students on lyric analysis, musical biographies, song re-creations, and music relaxation. The students lead several experiences during the week! The next week Enkhee told me that when she met with the students they were very excited to share with her all they had learned.

The next step I would like to do on this project is to re-create similar workshops throughout the country, since training in the countryside (not UB) does not happen as often. In addition, a fellow PCV, Julia, would like to lead some experiences on drama therapy. Currently, the Center Against Violence has expressed an interest in our workshop for the social workers that work at the Women's Shelters in the provincial capitals!

If you want to know more about how music therapy may work in Mongolia check out Voices in May. Voices, the online World Forum for Music Therapy, has agreed to make Mongolia the country of the month in May. I will be writing the article on the history of music here and how, though there are no creative arts therapists in Mongolia it is primed for use of creative arts in therapy and social work. I'm thrilled for my first published article.














Nathan
While Leslie was doing her seminars, I was working on an internet project for my NGO, which is about half way done, but we need a lot of translation into English before it goes up. I can't wait to unveil it when it's done.

In the interest of setting up some sort of micro-financing partnership, I met with a guy from www.kiva.org. They have access to money and a partnership with a bank my NGO has already partnered with to give out micro loans, but they don't have a lot of vetted candidates to loan to. We have a ton of suitable recipients with no access to money. It seems we should be able to work something out. Lots of hoops to jump through first. We're hoping we'll be able to get Brother-in-law Stephen's Kiva credits our way.

Originally, I was only supposed to be in town for about three days while Leslie stayed to work. By the time we got back into UB from visiting our host families for Tsagaan Sar, though, we had both been pretty sick for almost two weeks. We got some antibiotics that didn't do the whole job, then I got some chest x-rays to rule TB, then we were both put back on another, longer round of antibiotics, which seem to have done the job. Also, because of the unexpectedly long stay, I only had about three outfits, so my clothes took a beating.

I was around a little longer than planned, but serendipitously, I was working for my NGO at the UB headquarters during a time when they were having some big discussions about an EU grant, and I eventually helped write parts of it. They kept me in town for an extra 10 days to help see it through. We're just in the beginning of the vetting process, so if it materializes, I'll elaborate on it more then, but potentially, it would invest in infrastructure and technical skills training for rural arts and peer-to-peer life skills education using Leslie's children's theater over three years. Leslie and I both had a lot of input, so fingers crossed for it to make it to the next stage. My programs director and country director at ADRA (a married Australian couple) are a real whizzes at the writing and planning, so even if it doesn't materialize, I at least got a lot out of the process.

I also found out that I was chosen to do training for the incoming volunteers. We'll be expecting them in 2 months, which surprisingly means we've been here 10 full months now. It will take me out of site again for 4-5 weeks during the summer and a weekend of training in May. No definite word on Leslie yet, but we both feel it's a done deal that she'll be training as well, as per her director Enkhee's recommendation. There have been a ton of budget cuts forcing the training to be much different than we experienced, so we're wondering how its all going to go down.

We grabbed some urban-themed photos from UB. These are mostly taken around Sukhbaatar Square, what may be considered the center of town. You can see the difference between UB and our countryside Bayankhongor, namely the big buildings and lots of cars. You might see in one shot that someone hates Chinese people enough to graffiti it in English. (My money is on Zero, the online handle of my buddy John. John, there are better ways.) You might also see there's a wall with the Beatles on it in front of a billboard advertising fresh milk. Imagine.



























A Night at the Opera
On Saturday night went to the opera to see Tosca. We brushed up on the story beforehand on the internet, though the programs (in English and Mongolian) had the same synopsis. Most of the arias were in Italian (except for one male lead who sang only in Mongolian) and the recitative was in Mongolian (except for the female lead, who sang only in Italian), though it was kind of hard to tell the difference. 1 of the male leads was just so awful it was nearly incomprehensible, but the other male lead and the female lead held their own. The costuming was beautiful and had a Mongolian flair to it especially in the sacristan's robe, which was was worn more like cinched and bloused Mongolian deel at the waist than a hanging monks' robe. The same guy wore a bald
cap and a big prostetic nose. It was a hoot.
The star of the night was the opera house itself. It reminded us of Stuart's Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio where we've performed. It was a quaint, small auditorium with about 400 seats and the interior was adorned with beautiful colors, traditional Mongolian designs, and charming lighting. The performers weren't amplified at all, and it was a treat to hear the pure voices with the orchestra, which sadly was often too heavy and/or out of tune, owing many troubles to the low brass and clarinet. Even still, the seats were cheap at 8,000MNT ($5.33) and we got our money's worth.






































The last month flew right off the calendar, and there's no letting up for now. As fun as our time was, it was not a vacation. After the hiatus from a comfortable bed and the 14 hour, punishing bus ride home, we are worn out. Also, even with per diem and help from Nathan's father, UB has so many good options for food and entertainment that our pockets are pretty bare. It should be a lean month ahead.