Greenhouse Sisters

4 June 2009

This morning it was warm and sunny. Joakim and I were officially handed over to Tungaa, ADRA Mongolia’s Education Coordinator. We went to the Bayankhonger Community College to see one of our youth enterprise project training sessions. This project runs two month vocational training courses throughout the province. The participants are between 16 and 30, and are selected by the local government according to their poverty or difficult family situation. This class is doing practical training in home gardening, food preservation and raising chickens. We visited the college garden area, full of mini-greenhouses (I really want to build one of these). The class followed us to the garden area. When they reached it they all put on little blue smocks/aprons and seemed to approach the new plants reverently.

The other class that is being conducted at the moment is in electrical appliance repairs. We drive to the local Black Market and wind our way through a maze of stalls to find a small workshop crammed with broken appliances and about 15 enthusastic boys and one girl. They are busy with screwdrivers, soldiering irons and other electrical appliance tools that I am unfamiliar with. One boy gets a vacuum to work while we are there, another fixes a tv. They are so absorbed in their work that they ignore me so I go snap happy. Most of them have rough faces and hands. Life looks like it has been hard for most of them. They smile and joke as they post for a group photo with the female teacher.

After lunch we visit the garden plot on the edge of town where the smock people are doing more practical training. They have a small chook house with a stove to keep the birds warm in winter. During our visit they are busy pulling water from the bucket well and planting out cabbage seedlings. In a nearby yard two sisters from the group have started their own garden next to their ger. They have made their own small greenhouse from heavy plastic and pipe offcuts. They have planted potatoes and are planning to put in broccoli. They have gorgeous smiles and are full of hope and enthusiasm. If this garden goes well they will expand it next year to provide more food for their families, and maybe even sell some.

The rest of the afternoon was free, so I entertained myself in my hotel room – glad for some quiet space after all the travel this week. I watched a dust storm blow in from the south-west. The wind became violent, the horizon went brown and the buildings over the other side of the road were hard to see. Dust blew hard against my window. I wondered where we would go for dinner, and if we had to walk. Then 10 minutes later the wind was gone, I could see sun on the hills in the distance and more cars were on the road. This environment is so harsh. It is amazing that the people we are working with can get anything to grow at all.