Humanitarianism in Uliastai

Sure, there are no paved roads out of town, livestock regularly wander through town, and most of the toilets are holes in the ground. Mountains surround this place, and two vagrant rivers run through it. Walk a few miles out of town, and you could very well be a few miles from another living soul. But don’t be fooled; this is not the end of the earth. Or at least, if it is, it is a place populated not by dragons, but Samaritans.

Yesterday, after classes, I walked to the local Bolorjin Supermarket to buy eggs, applesauce, etc. and ran into Ulzii, the director of one of the local NGOs in town. Seeing her reminded me how many people there are here working for the betterment of this little town tucked into the Mongolian mountains.

Last February, two Japanese volunteers arrived in Uliastai, and after a few weeks of searching in earnest, I finally made their acquaintance. After a meeting with a potential sponsor for an upcoming seminar, Tsogoo (my amazing hashaa father) and I stopped in the post office to pick up a box I’d received. A girl was there getting packages, too, and I noticed the word リンゴ written on the side of her box. I turned to the girl and asked, “Nihonjin deshou ka?” She smiled in surprise and responded in the affirmative. And so began my friendship with Miho.

I had heard from Tuya, a woman I work with occasionally from the local museum on a few of the amazing projects she’s trying to start in the community, that one of the Japanese volunteers was teaching an origami class. Tuya signed me up, but I later found that the time conflicted with one of my clubs. The teacher of the origami class called me to let me know the other times she taught. She began speaking in Mongolian; I responded in Japanese. So began my friendship with Yumi.

Miho is a mid-wife working at the local hospital, while Yumi works at the Child and Youth Center helping organize programs for children in the community. Their presence here reminds me that, as I work to try to help the Mongolian people, I’m not alone. People from all over the world, from Japan and Australia to Korea and the Philippines, are here to help. And while, being American, I may have come a little farther than most, I’m reminded that the world isn’t nearly as big as it sometimes seems.

In the end, though, it isn’t the Japanese or Americans here that impress me: it is the Mongolians. Ulzii and Mongolians like her aren’t in this for the short-term; she’s here for the long haul, working tirelessly to help her fellow Mongolians—and unlike many of us who, despite our meager stipends, have had and continue to have a wealth of opportunities and resources to pull from, she is working with what little she has to achieve truly phenomenal, sustainable good in the community.

So when I look around this town and see the wandering livestock, the dirt roads, the outhouse toilets, I don’t despair. When I see the lonely mountains cradling the town, and the two rivers babbling through it, I don’t feel alone. There is an incredible amount of hope growing here, born partly out of international philanthropy, but mostly out of the hearts of the people who call Uliastai home. It’s a small town, but living here, I feel I’m part of something far larger, something bigger than the world: the aspirations of the Mongolian people for their beautiful, rugged, flourishing Mongolia.

Cheers,
Karen