Tarialin, Khovsgol – 26 February

Tarialin, Khovsgol – 26 February
Meetings, meetings, meetings. I am tired just from sitting and focusing on each speaker even though I have no idea what they are saying. Occasionally I peak at Jon’s notes to get the gist. I have rediscovered basic principles of good chair design – a basic wooden chair will be comfortable if it has some curve in the backrest. After spending two hours wriggling in a fancy rigidly upright chair I am now seeing out the shabby ones that look more comfortable. The mountains around the soum are breathtaking. My wide-angle lens can’t do them justice, so I either need a new lens or I have to invest in some panorama software. Today we have been listening to feedback from focus groups made up of the small enterprise clients that ADRA is working with in this town. They are mainly women. There is a mix of ages and mix of western and traditional clothing. The smell in the room is a mixture of dust and dairy – a slightly sweet-sour milky smell.

Sovd, the ADRA coordinator here, has outdone me in the fashion stakes. She is wearing a glittering black skirt and jacket, with a matching headband and a regal white coat with a voluminous fur trim. I am wearing denim, camel wool and polar fleece. It is quite warm today. I stood outside in the sun to call Chris without gloves or hat and my jacket was open. Granted I am still wearing thermal leggings, two pairs of socks, fur-lined knee-high boots, thermal singlet and camel-hair jumper. But it is small steps toward spring that matter.

We visited two local shops after lunch for some bottled water. They guys brought prunes. The box was marked “California Prunes”. They were nice and moist, but I am happy to remain irregular with the toilets I have to use here. Mobile phone etiquette is different here – during the meeting I hear samples of many Mongolian ring tones. There has been mobile access here since 2003, with three different companies just in this soum (about 6000 people). I am over 11 hours drive from UB and I have good mobile access – I am also told there is an internet café somewhere in town. Communications has outpaced other forms of development. This morning the governor read a survey to us where the top four needs identified by residents were: Quality foodstuffs (amen); goods and services; employment opportunities; reliable health care.

The ADRA project we are monitoring is a microenterprise development project. ADRA is working in partnership with a local non-bank financial institution (think credit cooperative, part NGO) to provide small business training and access to loans to people who can’t access credit by other means. The project works through groups called “self help groups”. These are between 5 to 15 people and act as small informal community organizations. They save while undergoing training, then group members take small loans. ADRA provides the training and the mentoring and coaching through a training centre (operated by Sovd) and the credit cooperative provides the loans. It is a good partnership because usually commercial banks are more interested in profits and won’t give loans to people without any assets for collateral. Our partner here is interested in community development and is not backed by a bank, so their motives are to improve the lives of the local people. For those interested in how it works, they have a collection of shareholders in UB who provide the loan capital, who then in turn get paid dividends based on the interest earned on the small loans. They currently have 260 clients. ARA is currently working with over 150 small business in this soum (and more in other parts of Mongolia). The program is successful – I met one woman who had grown her business through five loan cycles. Contact me if you want further information on getting involved, as much of our work in this area is funded through small private donations (blatant fund-raising plug is finished now).

Food
I didn’t have high hopes for lunch, so was able to be surprised by a local version of nori rolls. Apparently Koreans eat something similar and it has become known here. My chief source of vegetable nutrition comes in a bottle of pickled vegetables – mainly carrot and capsicum. I have had some on every meal so far. My meals are working out much cheaper than the meat eaters – lunch was only 70 cents today.

Living
What would you rather have, power or plumbing? I won’t be washing properly all week as I am sharing the room with three male ADRA workers (it is a very big room – with beds around the walls). The only washing facilities are a was stand in the corner. This has a small reservoir at the top that is filled with water from a bucket. There is a tap at the base of this reservoir that you turn when you want running water. The water falls into the sink and flows out the drain and into a bucket that is in a cupboard below the sink. This is adequate for washing, but unlike men I can’t really strip to my waist for a wash in full view of everyone. The best I will be able to do is have a quick splash when I happen to be the only person in the room. I will be taking a bag of dirty clothes home and high anticipation of shower.

I am writing while sitting in front of 24 Mongolians. We are holding a focus group discussion about the MED program and the chat is animated. After four hours this morning pretending I was participating in other meetings I have decided to sit this out and just take a few pictures. More on the MED program. The big problem identified by the small business operators (so far we have heard from over 50 of them) is being able to buy fixed assets of equipment to operate or expand their businesses. They have ideas, skills and access to credit through ADRA and the credit cooperative, but technical equipment is usually only available 12 hours away in UB. One more interesting point, in this group of 25 only seven of them don’t have mobile phones, and only seven of them do not have loans (not the same seven I presume – that was Jon’s titbit of translation for me from the meeting). I also learned how they are encouraged to save. The credit cooperative is not a bank, so can’t take deposits. Instead they have set up a share scheme where small business operators can buy shares with their savings and get a higher interest return than they would from putting their savings in the bank.

Dinner and ping pong
We had ordered fried fish for dinner but it is best to have low expectations. Our plates were an excellent surprise. We had freshwater fish, de-boned and stuffed with chopped onion. This was laid on a bed of fried sliced potatoes. The side were more nori rolls, a pile of carrot and cabbage salad and a pile of rice with some drips of tomato sauce tastefully dabbed on the top. Wonderful! Jon and I were impressed anyway. After dinner we invited ourselves into a place with a table-tennis table. Then a strange thing game of table tennis started that had none of the rules I am familiar with. I played when I was told to (and played badly). They are still playing now. Jon and I came back. He is reading “War and Peace” in the original Russian and French (as you do). I found a quiet corner for a dab down and will read my low brow travel book before hopefully a good night’s sleep.