My wonderful and creative wife wrote a story about her photo class for JPG Magazine. If enough people vote for it online they’ll put it in their print edition so it’d be awesome if you clicked on the little green thumbs up after you read it. You’ve read about her class on my blog a lot so I hope you enjoy this look at it from her perspective.
We’re back home, safe and sound in Erdenet. After a few days of editing one of the episodes and saying goodbye to friends, followed by a couple more days of dealing with an immigration mess with my visa, we’re exhausted and happy to be back. More pictures and stories to come. For right now, we’re gonna get some sleep in our own bed.
In the mean time, here’s a picture that Kim took of a dog we saw in UB. It has shoes on. :)
Yesterday I took a bus to UB to start editing the TV programs. Here’s a little glimpse of what traveling here is like.
-Two days ago it was 78 degrees. Yesterday there was a blizzard. Yes, a blizzard on May 27th.
-The heaters in the bus didn’t work so it was like spending 7 hours in a shaking fridge. I wrapped myself in my bath towel.
-Though there was a blizzard it didn’t stop the driver from having one hand on the wheel and the other on his cell phone or cigarette.
-And my personal favorite…when approaching a line of cars stopped at a blinking train track crossing, the BUS driver guns it around the line of cars and across the tracks, weaving between the guards and blinking signals.
I almost kissed the ground when I got off the bus.
My parents’ church, St. John’s Lutheran in Orange, was kind enough to send a gift to that enabled us to buy 35 children’s Bibles and 20 full Bibles for the church, and a New Testament commentary, a church history book, and two theology books for the pastor and the church leadership here.
Think about how many Bibles or theological books you have sitting at home on your shelves. I know I have many, and worse, a lot of them are unread. Back home people are philosophizing over minutae and debating over terms like “contextualization” (which is needed in many cases to correct error). Out here books and Bibles themselves are luxuries.
They don’t have many materials in their own language and those they do have are often very expensive because they have to be printed in another country. It’s awesome to be able to give things that we take so horribly for granted to people whose access to them is so hindered. I was so stoked when the pastor saw the church history book and his eyes lit up and he said, “I’ve been looking for that one!” Though I get a similar feeling when I find a book on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble, I can’t really relate with what he was feeling.
I’m happy that their gift will help not only an immediate need in the church, but the next generation of Christians in Mongolia as well, by giving Bibles to families and giving teachers more study materials.
God is good.
We had Kim’s students’ photography exhibit last weekend. The three weeks leading up to it were hectic for Kim; full of selecting the photos, mounting the 254 photos, getting her students to name them, and writing a presentation she was to give at the cultural center an hour before the exhibit. Our apartment became a FEMA zone cluttered with cutting boards, foam board scraps, and boxes and bags of photos.
The end result was amazing though.
But, of course, it didn’t go as smoothly as planned - nothing here does. It seems any time there is a big event we’re doing or are apart of here, the cultural weirdness gets heightened and bad things happen. It’s not Murphy’s Law, it’s M*ngolian Law.
For example, the night before the exhibit we went to the cultural center with a bunch of the students and a couple friends to hang the photos on the walls. As we’re walking through the busy front doors a man decides to *punch the bag of photos* and then yell at us for being foreigners because “he is a M*ngolian”. Thankfully, none of the photos of his country were damaged.
Then, as we were re-hanging some of the photos the next day, Kim left her presentation speech out on a table in clear plastic folder. At some point in the preparation she went to practice her speech only to find someone had stolen the plastic sleeve it was in. Thankfully, they left the speech.
Then, after spending hours writing said presentation, the time came for her to give it. In the midst of all of the craziness of setting up her own exhibit she was going to do a favor for the man who runs the center by speaking to a class of his students. Turns out he completely forgot that he had asked her to do that. Why? Because he had been drinking when he originally asked her and didn’t remember. Thankfully that left her with more time to set up.
So yeah, those kind of things happen occasionally out here but they tend to happen in bulk around special events.
The exhibit itself was wonderful though. The students’ parents came and got to see their work and tell us how proud of their children they were. The students got to share their work and talent with friends and strangers. Our good M*ngolian friend said that he cried as he looked at the pictures because he was so moved. A lot of M*ngolians got to see an art form and perspective they don’t usually get to see.
I hadn’t noticed it until we had all of the photos laid out in our apartment but what the students had done, however unconsciously, was capture and told a really unique story. All good art tells a story. A good song, a good book, a good painting; they tell stories. What the students had done with what Kim had taught them was tell their stories - the story of what it looks like to grow up at such a turbulent time in an emerging country, where there is a distinct tension between tradition and modern influence. So, there were pictures of gers and high rises; herders and business men; elderly M*ngolians in traditional dress and teens that look like they’re off the streets of New York. It’s a perspective special to this place, this time, and these kids.
I’m really proud of the students and their great work, but I’m even more proud of Kim for giving them the tools to tell their stories - stories which we’ll hopefully be able to share with you in an exhibit back in the States.
One of the walls of photos.
Chinzorig answering questions about one of his pictures.
Kim, some of her students, and the celebatory cake afterward.
Thanks to Jonathan for this Wall Street Journal article. It gives an excellent view of how the economic crisis looks in our little corner of the world.
“Mongolian nomads’ troubles show that the ravages of the economic crisis have spread to even the most remote parts of the world. More than a quarter of the households in Mongolia — which has a population of about 2.6 million — earn a living raising animals…
…In recent years, commercial banks started competing to extend credit to herders, who typically earn significant cash just twice a year — in the spring through cashmere and wool sales, and in the autumn through sales of animal skins and meat. The money helped families get through the times in between, usually at a cost of between 2% and 3% in interest per month.
Troubles began when demand for cashmere started falling after the U.S. slipped into recession in late 2007. By last June, the price for cashmere in Mongolia had fallen by more than 33% from a year earlier, hitting about 28,000 togrog, or $19, a kilogram. Prices have dropped further. “Everyone says now that we are just taking care of banks’ animals,” says Janchiv Nyambuv, a 65-year-old herder who borrowed 500,000 togrogs, or $350, that he must repay in May…
…Mr. Sodnomdarjaa says he and his wife are determined to repay the loan and plan to look for construction or mining work. These days, the couple cares for other families’ camels. Their only regular compensation is the right to milk the herd. About half the milk, they drink. The other half they sell. Two months’ earnings are about enough to buy a sack of flour.
“The kids want to eat meat, but we have nothing to give them,” says Mr. Sodnomdarjaa.”
