This morning the team spent time with beneficiaries at the local school. The small business training did coaching for a group of women who participated in ADRA training between one to two years ago. The health trainer (also a paediatrician) did free health checks for the women – very popular as she is still there working through the queue (I am writing at mid-day). Nat and I stayed with Tungaa and observed a focus group with the children who had participated in the literacy classes. The group of kids ranged in age from about 9 to 19. The 19 year old girl had dropped out of school at Grade two and was now coming back to the Non-formal Education Centre to finish her schooling. She was beautiful, with a lovely smile and seemed to be confident, but she spoke about eh bullying and teasing they get when they come to the classes because the NFE operates out of one of the classrooms at the local primary and high school. Because of the social challenges many of the older kids choose to continue their lessons through the NFE rather than join a mainstream school class.
At the end of the focus group Natalie distributed another set of books. Each child could chose a book for themselves and the literacy teacher would add the rest of the set to the class library. The youngest girl in the group (nine years old) was very shy. She only whispered answers to questions when Tungaa specifically asked for her response and her face was always serious. When the books where spread out for their choice she went over to a pile and found a big book of fairy stories. It was the kind of book Alesia would love – a big, bright drawing of a princess on the front. This little girl picked it up as if it was something precious and fragile. She flipped through a few pages, looked around to see if anyone else was interested in the book, then hugged it to her chest and sat down. She had a gorgeous little smile – a mixture of happiness and disbelief. After a few minutes contemplating the cover she opened the book and started to read, her mouth silently sounding out the words.
The books that we are giving out are funded entirely through private donations. We have an arrangement with a printing company in UB who provides the books to us at cost price. Books alone can’t address many of the issues these kids face, but after working hard in their literacy class over the past months it is great to be able to reward that effort by sharing books and then watching how eager they are to read them. Go stand in front of the bookshelf in your house. Imagine if you couldn’t walk to the local library, or Boarders, and pick up a new book when you wanted. I can’t imagine my life without books (half of the 25 boxes we shipped to Mongolia were full of books). So it is great to be able to share a small part of the pleasure of books with these kids.
The lunch saga
Our hotel had no food at lunch time so we went to a restaurant up the street. Tungaa went first to check out vegetarian options for me and Nat and we were summoned when a suitable place was found. We sat down and the waitress brought Natalie and I a salad of cucumber, tomato and dill. We thought that the meals for the others would follow, so we started on our salads. When we finished the others were still waiting. Then the waitress brought out two bowls of vegetable soup for me and Natalie. We thought that the meals for the others would follow, so we started out soup. When we finished the others were still waiting. We all sat for a while, then the waitress brought out two plates. We thought that at last the food for the others was coming. No. The waitress gave Natalie and I a plate each of additional salad and handmade Nori/California rolls. This is the most preferential vegetarian service I have ever seen! We felt bad for the others (who were starting to fade) so offered the plates to them. Our driver only ever eats meat, but he hoed in enthusiastically. Finally plates of rice and meat stew arrived for the others – which they demolished in about two minutes. Apparently the cook at the restaurant was a graduate of ADRA’s Youth Enterprise Project from two years ago. Maybe he was saying thank you to a new ADRA director!
After lunch we walked around the central part of Uliastai visiting businesses operated by graduates of ADRA’s Youth Enterprise or Family Education vocational training. We visited a lady who makes bread every night. She rents a few shelves in a small store and sells the bread there during the day. She is a widow with two children (I think one is in the Family Education literacy class) and before learning how to bake through the ADRA program she had no means of earning income for her family.
We visited three hair-dressing salons. The salons are owned by local real estate barons (as is real estate al over the world) and each hair-dresser rents a chair. They rent their chair for $1.50 a day. A wash and blow-dry costs 50cents. Being a group of ladies who had spent four nights without access to showers we all decided that getting our hair washed and blow dried would be a good thing. The woman who did Natalie’s hair is a great success story. Two years ago she and her siblings were basically homeless. They are orphans. She refused a loan from the then ADRA Country Director to buy a ger. Instead she did hair-dressing training through the Youth Enterprise Program and has joined with two other women to run a very busy little hair salon near the Uliastai Black Market. I think she has since upgraded her qualifications and has a steady stream of client through her chair. Her goal now is to get her Level 1 hair-dressing certificate (you start at Level 3).
After getting our hair done for 50 cents (I could do this every day!) we visited the ADA office here, which focuses on our MED program. We met some members of an MED Self Help Group (described in an earlier blog) who were either current or recent participants in the Family Education program. It was good to see the overlap of the programs. The 19 year old from the morning session with the literacy students is a member of this self-help group. During winter they make felt products to sell and during summer they help each other grow potatoes, carrots and cabbage. As a group they can pool their savings and give each other small loans. The other business we visited was a bakery run by vocational training graduates. They have a contract to provide bread to the school lunch program. When we arrived they had fresh bread just coming out of the oven. It smelled, and tasted, fantastic.
