My friend Jason modeling safe transportation for the East Coast
To all my friends and family in the furious path (or midst) of Irene, I hope you're all staying safe and haven't yet had to resort to flushing the toilet with stockpiled water from the tub.
The only thing we're in danger of on this side of the pond is some general depression brought on by the lack of anything resembling typical summer weather. As September is coming up this week, all of us over here can't help but lament at least a little about a severely modest June-August bloc that had more than its fair share of chilly rain and clouds. Wah-wah.
1 August officially marked 1 year of full-time employment at the magazine in Amsterdam. Fittingly, I wasn't at the magazine at the time; my girlfriend and I decided to participate in a two-week Habitat for Humanity build-project in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, that took place the first two weeks of August.
The trip was inspired, in part, by my girlfriend becoming eligible this summer for her company's incredible 1-month, travel + lodging paid, sabbatical program. She'd done some work for HFH before in the States and we liked the idea of taking up part of the month with some kind of charitable work. As it worked out, I wasn't able to go traveling the rest of the month with her - funny that other companies (especially monthly magazines) are less inclined to let employees take a month of vacation at once. But my half of the trip was still absolutely amazing and unforgettable.
Building houses for two weeks certainly wasn't a warm & fuzzy holiday. We worked most days from 8am to 3:30pm with short breaks for snacks, water and lunch. The sun spent a lot of time being high and hot, but in reality I doubt it reached 90F and there was some shade available, especially once we had walls and a ceiling up.
Our group of 13 was split into two groups after it was discovered the first build day that there just simply weren't enough tasks or ability by the Mongonlian only-speaking lead builder to divide the labor to keep everyone busy. So we worked on two separate houses the first week. The houses are pretty simple, I suppose: single-family homes with four walls, a ceiling and a two-sided roof; wood-frame walls with styrofoam and fiberglass insulation; red brick exterior; either cement or wood floors; two to three windows and a door; minimal electricity and no running water.
But all the families were upgrading their living conditions drastically, either from tiny shacks or gers, the traditional round mobile home used by herders and other Mongolians living in the countryside. These felt and wood tents are handy for a nomadic lifestyle, but are terribly inefficient and therefore expensive to maintain for more permanent, urban dwelling. The Habitat houses are a big improvement. We were also told the next generation of HFH house in Mongolia is expected to be much more Green and efficient than the current model. Pretty cool.
Also pretty cool was that the families we were building for were very much present the whole time. Sometimes, if they were able, they'd help with various tasks like moving bricks or mixing cement, and others they'd offer us traditional consumables like meat and potato soup or fermented mare's milk. We essentially finished the first two houses we worked on at the end of the first week, so we were lucky enough to attend a dedication ceremony/party at each house at the end of the second week.
These were pretty emotional and moving. Having the families welcome us into their wallpapered and furnished 'homes' that we had seen on the first day as nothing but cement foundation and dirt floor was truly fulfilling and heart-warming experience. I get it now, President Carter.
During the middle weekend, our group took a 1.5-hour bus ride out of downtown UB up into the foothills and moderate mountains of Terelj National Park. We spent two nights in a camp of gers, went for a horseback ride, an incredibly steep but beautiful hike and spent most of a day traversing a 13th-century museum complex in the countryside: gers set up and decorated as they would have been while Genghis Khan was in power.
But in the countryside with the museum, we saw a number of 'modern' gers and natives herding cattle, goats, etc. You could see the person's whole life: their family, their home, their livelihood, their recreation (more or less) - all in the space of 1oo square meters or so. Despite the expansive sky and landscape, the world seemed very small looking at these people.
I've posted my pictures in galleries on the facebook. You can look at them by clicking on the public links here and here. There's still much more of the Mongolia story to tell and gaps to fill in, but I'm not sure which direction to go at the moment. If you, reader(s), have anything specific you'd like to hear about, leave a comment and I'll write a follow-up post. Sooner than two months from now, I promise.
