Since When Are There Reindeer in Mongolia?

So I mentioned to Mary that there may be reindeer involved in my trip up north to Khovsgol province. She was a little surprised by this fact so I have decided to answer her question here in the blog so everyone can learn about the Reindeer Tribes of northern Mongolia. There used to be a large number of reindeer in Mongolia but due to deforestation, their numbers are being threatened. The Mongolian reindeer herders are also being forced to eat some of their own herd as their food supplies dwindle. The number of reindeer has dropped to about 700 and I think I saw about 20. I will have to go back to look for the other 680.

Lake Khovsgol

For the next ten days I will be going up north to Lake Khovsgol. I won't have internet during this time so I will blog all about the trip when I get back. I am very excited for the trip, I think there will be more camels involved.

Hot Pot

Last night I went out for Hot Pot with some friends. Turns out Hot Pot is the Chinese version of Fondue.

Mongolian Karaoke

More Hiking

No camels this time. Just goats.

The Black Market

The Black Market in UB is quite the place. I went for the first time on Saturday. Anything you could possibly think about buying and somethings you couldn't are for sale. I was tempted to buy a real bear rug. It was a little dusty and I don't have a good dry cleaners here in Mongolia so I abstained.

This Week at the Hospital

I had my first week at the hospital. It was quite an experience. The hospital is a little creepy and doesn't inspire much confidence in the Mongolian health care system. The hospital is housed in a run down Soviet era building. Please enjoy the photo of one of the operating rooms. It looks more like an experimental facility run by one of the evil X-Men than a real hospital.

Some of the weird, not so sanitary and not so safe things that go on in the hospital.

1) No one wears closed toes shoes (except for me) and most of the women wear heals while performing surgery.
2) Either smoking is allowed inside or the ban is just not enforced. During a surgery, another surgeon strolls in and stands over the patient with a cigarette between his lips.
3) Gloves are simply not popular.
4) Sometimes the doctors lose patients. By this I don't mean that the patients die on the table. I mean that the doctors don't know where they are.

There is a large upside to the ridiculous sketchy-ness of UB's Hospital #3. I watched and assisted 11 surgeries this week. The surgeries included a heart bypass, varicose vein removal, sympathetic nerve repair, a bladderectomy and a hernia removal. The doctors let me do quite a lot in the operating room including ventilating patients during surgery, IVs and preparing medicines. It's awesome.

Hiking

I went hiking outside of UB with some friends on Sunday.
It rained.
Then it was nice.
Then it rained some more.
Then it hailed.
Then we found a camel wandering in the woods.
It spat on Alex(the guy in the photo) twice.
It was a great day.

Also, I would specifically like Greg to notice the distinct difference between me and the camel.

National Museum and Folk Concert

On Saturday I went to the National Museum of Mongolia to kill some time. Luckily, the museum was definitely worth visiting. An entire floor is dedicated to the different clothing of the 20 or so different ethnic groups. The museum also included a large section of prehistoric tools, a wing dedicated to the rule of Genghis Khan and quite a bit of information on the years of Soviet control. After the museum, I met the rest of the volunteers in my program and went to a folk music concert. The concert was definitely designed with Western tourists in mind but was still fun.

First Day in UB

I arrived in UB in the morning and shortly there after I met my host family. I met the father, the daughter who is 9, and the son who is 18. They are very nice although don't speak very much English. The apartment is very nice and the best part is I have Belle sheets. Trying to tell them where I am going is always an interesting activity.

Later in the day I got quite a tour of UB. We visited several of the main attractions including the main monastery and the Parliament. The city is a very strange place, the Mongolians really like to start building very large buildings but very rarely like to finish them. There is quite a nice layer of dust covering the entire city. The only problem with the first day was that I learned I don't like Mongolian food, should make for an interesting 4 months. Also, the woman standing next to me is Stephanie, a volunteer from Berlin.

Getting to Mongolia

So I left from Denver on Wednesday to go to Ulaanbaatar. I flew from Denver to San Francisco to Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. The trip was relatively easy with the exception of the 13 hour layover in Beijing. I spent most of the time hanging out in one of the two Starbucks in the airport. My favorite part of the layover was dinner. I went to a Thai restaurant where the current special was "Fungus is Hot Pot". Needless to say, I didn't order that. After the 13 hours, I got onto the flight to Ulaanbaatar and I don't think there were more than 4 or 5 Mongolians on the flight. The guy sitting next to me was from Birmingham, Alabama. After all that I made it to UB with no problems.