A Mongolian Tale: Dust, it’s everywhere

August 3, 2006, Dornogovi Province, Republic of Mongolia

Morning.

The sun’s rays wake me at 6:00 AM, and I feel very thirsty. I pick my self out of bed and look to the bunk above me. Andy is fast asleep. I look out the window and pause in awe at the sight before me. All I can see, for as far as I can see, is a terrain covered with bright orange sand. The sand is everywhere. In fact, it is inside the train cabins and in my nose as well. That would explain the dehydration. I remember someone telling me this would be the case. It was probably Michael during one of our Extrarefreshments.

The #3 Express is running two and half hours late as a result of our border crossing delay. This doesn’t affect me as I stand in the hall admiring the outdoors through the windows. I don’t recall how much time goes by until Andy wakes up, but he interrupts my daze and we continue to the bar car for breakfast. A newly decorated car has been exchanged for the previous one. It has fantastic carved wooden panels with swords and arrows hanging on the walls. A nice Mongolian welcome. Andy and I sit and order the only thing on the menu: Fried eggs, toast and a glass of tea. This is the most expensive meal we will ever have on the trip.

Shortly after breakfast the train stops at a small town in the middle of the Gobi. We step out and are greeted by dozens of children selling cookies and bottled water. I imagine that every time a train stops the whole town comes to the station to make a little spare change. Andy buys one bottle and verbally struggles for his change as I wander off to take some pictures. There are probably up to 30 houses in my view, and beyond that pure golden desert. How must it be to live here? I won’t find out. The conductor calls out and we hop back on the train. The train idles onward towards the north.

I have been traveling by train for over 24 hours. It surely beats any amount of time on a plane, but I will happily say goodbye to the #3 before sundown. I cannot fathom staying on the train for the entire trip to Moscow. Some of my fellow passengers are doing just that and will only experience Ulaan Baatar for about 15 minutes and no more. This will be true for all the stops they shall make until reaching the Russian capital. I await a warm shower and a comfortable bed.

It is 4:00 PM and the train is curving through rolling hills. The topography has changed to a darker tanned soil speckled with green bushes. We must be getting near. I can just picture Ulaan Baatar appearing over one of these hills. And it does, after about 20 of them. It is a large city spread over a vast valley. There are no tall buildings or structures but I can make out the tall cooling towers from one of its four coal power plants: Power Plant #3. Nearing the city I notice that the city is composed not only of fixed concrete buildings but also of portable canvas gers that sprinkle the outskirts. I begin to get that anxious feeling to get off the train and begin exploring.

The train halts at the station. Andy and I gather all of our belongings and step off the train for one last time. The day is sunny but the air is cool and dry, and it should be at 1600 meters above sea level. We try to find our friend Michael who was stepping out with his group for a weekend in Ulaan Baatar before catching a different train onwards, but they get lost in the hoard of people awaiting relatives and shipments. Andy and I continue to the exit to find our friend’s driver, which should be waiting near the “Big TV.”

Sure enough, there is a big screen at the entrance to the station and I catch a glimpse of a man holding up a sign with our names on it. I greet him and he helps us place our belongings in the car. I approach the right side of the car, thinking I would sit in the front passenger side, but I find the driver beats me to it. He opens the door and I discover a steering wheel. I look across to the left side and find none. This confuses me since people are driving on the right side of the road, but I find out later that a lot of cars come from Japan. So you have a city where drivers drive on the right side of the road but can opt to ride on the left or right of their cars. Brilliant! Maybe…

Communication with the driver is nonexistent as my Mongolian is as good as his English. He drives to a hotel near the station that has been arranged for us. The Jiguur Grand Hotel on Chinggis Khann ave. appears very decent, with advertised Internet and spa. This is a lot more than we needed at a price that was a little above our budget. We decide to stay the night but scout other options downtown. We leave our belongings and the driver takes us to meet our friend and an interpreter to negotiate prices for our trip. This would be the first of several meetings with several people. Our adventure had just begun.

Panama Project Tales: Day 3

June 28, 2006, Corozal Farm, Cocle

A rooster wakes me up at around 4:00 AM and the sun is nowhere in sight. Surely, this rooster is blind. I try to sleep some more until the sun actually decides to rise at around 5:45 AM. It was probably awoken by the rooster as well, but managed to hold out a little longer than me. I get up and start to notice the pain and cramps that the inclined sleep on hard soil provoked. Walking over to the dinning area I notice some people are still asleep, most of them in carefully placed hammocks. I have never been able to sleep on those death traps, so I’ll take the painful floor any day.

The community has been wide-awake cooking breakfast for us. Today’s meal is boiled yucca and eggs. “Yucca?” Asks Nicole from the small state of Connecticut in the United States. I imagine most of the group will be tasting new flavors on this trip. Yucca is a tough root that can be eaten boiled or fried or mashed. It’s fairly starchy and a good source of carbohydrates. Everyone tastes their breakfast and seem content with the meal. I gather the group enjoys the yucca, so far.

After breakfast, we are divided into several groups to take on different tasks. One Spanish speaker will be placed in each group to translate for the rest of the members. The translators included myself, Michael, Annie, and Marta, a Spanish speaker from Spain. I don’t recall exactly what the other groups are arranged to do, but it includes cleaning brush and collecting wood around the farm. My group is composed of Polly, Matt, Whitney, and Zoë. Whitney hails from Connecticut and I would find out her work ethic includes chatting and singing to keep energetic. It’s curious, since Panamanian farmers use a series of yelps to animate their work for the same purpose. Zoë comes from England and her work ethic involves a witty humor bursting with sarcasm. We are set to clean the banana plantation of dead and sick leaves. And so we climb down the muddy hill with machetes in hand.

The Bananas trees are sad and dirty. Their leaves are brown with a fungus and the ground overridden with weeds. Our job is to clean up this scene. The weeds must be cut up or pulled from the ground and collected, while dead or sick banana leaves must be cut and collected. Nicolas explains that leaves that are partially sick can be cut at just that point to prevent spreading the fungus. Almost like amputating a gangrenous limb. We divvy up the jobs in such a manner that while one cuts the other collects the organic waste. I put on my fingerless gloves and grab a machete.

I cut my finger while wearing fingerless gloves. It is not a deep wound, almost like a nasty paper cut, but it is bleeding. I forfeit the machete and realize that fingerless gloves are useless in this scenario. Also it seems much safer to gather stuff that has already been cut. I take a break to go back up the hill to wash out my minor wound. Nicolas had foreseen such instances and brought with him a first aid kit. Thankfully, so had I and a few other group members. I protect the cut with a bandage and feel fit to get back to work. I return and happily proceed to pick up organic trash.

It’s lunchtime. We are exhausted and welcome rest. At the top of the hill we are served yucca with egg and onions this time. To most, it seems like the same meal we had for breakfast, but no, this one includes onions. That’s half an extra ingredient! Desert includes fresh papaya and sweet mango. We take a relaxing and quite break. But we suddenly realize that only half the day has gone by and that’s when Nicolas calls us back to work.

This time we rotate our shifts and are set to fortify the walls of a fishpond. The job seems simple enough, take dirt from the inside and reinforce the walls on the perimeter. Of course, no one takes into the account the backbreaking job that is digging and the amount of earth it takes. We do the job happily yelping away with the local kids, some of who are a third my age and can work much better than me. Most of them begin helping on the farm as young as 4 years old! They don’t have good access to a formal education. Otherwise, their parents tell me, they would be in school instead of the fields. They tell me that the Ministry of Education isn’t doing its job out here and it seems it doesn’t really care.

Jubencio, Treasurer of the farm, tells me that they have a small shack that operates as the school for the entire community up to grade six. Education is compulsory in the Republic of Panama, but one cannot go to a school that has no teacher. Apparently, the teacher is not from the community and she arrives and goes as she pleases even though she has accommodations. Jubencio explains that on a particular week that the teacher actually chooses to show up, she only teaches on three days; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I ask him if they have petitioned the authorities. He describes their ordeal, which included several appeals to the Ministry. The community’s appeals are futile, as the teacher is connected with members in the Ministry, therefore she is untouchable. Such is life in the tropics.

It is 4:00 PM and Nicolas whistles us to stop working. We sort our tools and head for the river. It is cold, but very refreshing. Most take this opportunity not only to relax, but also to wash themselves and their clothes. In a short moment, rain begins to pour. That could have helped during the working hours, I think to myself. We leave the river as dusk begins to creep in. At the top of the hill we change into almost-dry clothes and hang our wet ones. In this humidity nothing is ever really dry. We gather at the table and stare at the white stalks of yucca on the plates. It’s dinnertime.