Greetings, I can not figure out how to easily load more than a couple photos onto this blog. If someone knows please email me. So the photos that go with this blog are uploaded to my facebook page - can yo believe how techie I am. But here is the description to go with photos. If someone knows once again, please send me emails about how to get photos - probably a lot - and narrative onto 1 site for people to see.
I think I am officially moved in today. I will attach photos of my home. On the web Ulaanbaatar - UB from now on - is called a cosmopolitan city. Well it is in that it is the capital, is large for Mongolia and has lots of foreign restaurants and visitors. It is not cosmopolitan in that it is run down, dirty and dusty. UB has not been well kept up and if you were to judge it only by it's exterior you would think it is pretty bad. This is not true and one more time that judgement on form does not work. I like UB and the people have been fabulous. That being said in many ways it is like you step back 30 to 50 years but with cell phones and internet.
The outside of my apartment building looks shabby and even scary to me at first. The inside is fine. It is well protected as you can tell by all the doors. I am on the 8th floor and have nice views and the apartment is furnished adequately and my landlords are great.
Now the washing machine is another story, though I guess I am lucky to have a washing machine at all. As you can tell from the pictures it sits above the bath tub. You connect a hose from the tub to the washer and then fill it. Next add soap and clothes and turn it on. It rotates but much less forcefully than our machines. After it is done I can tell it worked by the dirty water still in the tub. Next I take the clothes out and rinse them using the bathtub and sink faucet - they are the same faucet that moves from sink to tub. Once I have rinsed them then I put them in the dryer side of my machine - both sides are quite small. Then I put a lid on the dryer tub and set it to spinning. It really does spin the water out. The water from the clothes empties into the tub, so you can see if you really got them clean. I didn't do too bad on my first load. From there you shake them out and put them on my drying racks that you see in the pictures. And from there the iron becomes your good friends. Those who know me well know I do not iron, but I am evolving. Ironing while watching BBC World News on my TV may become a regular event.
I will add more soon. Yesterday I was invited to go with a Mongolia and a Czech social worker to one of the national parks outside UB. We had a great time, ate lunch in a ger, hiked, rode horses, visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery and made new friends. I am too tired to add about that now and I need to do more laundry before work tomorrow. I will write about that within the next couple days.
