Life in Mongolia

I have finished my work for today and am waiting for Linda to finish her English class in about fifteen minutes, so I thought I would write and tell you some of the more mundane and daily things I have not really written before:

Our apartment is small: we have the entrance which has the hangers for our heavy coats and hats and doors to the small bathroom and small bedroom. This hallway opens into the one room that is our kitchen, sitting room, and dining room. It is about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. The west end of this room is all a bay window and looks out over the center of Ulaanbaatar City. As you saw in the pictures we sent, the room is adequately furnished. We do have an old TV with channels mostly in Mongolian. Those in English are geared to a Russian and Australian audience.

Our bedroom has two beds that were made up when we arrived with a plywood mattress covered by a sheet and a comforter. We have since added high quality air mattresses (the only soft mattresses in the country) and pairs of sheets. We both brought our own pillows. The beds are pushed together with about one foot on either side. There is a closet about eighteen inches from the foot of the beds. It has enough space to hang only very basic clothing. There are a few small storage areas on the side and the too and two small drawers on the bottom. We have stored our suitcases on top of the closet and at the head of our beds. It is adequate for sleeping in, so we have no real complaint.

We do have an automatic washer which is in our small bathroom. It works quite well, but is filled with water direct from the outside water line which is not very clean (we have three filters for our drinking water and when we change them, they are very dirty). Our refrigerator and stove are very small. We cannot get a regular sheet cake pan in the oven. We do have a small microwave.

Starting the day with a bath is a bit time-consuming: we do get heated water from the main line from the power plant, but it is never hot enough for a good bath, so we heat water in a two-quart electric water heater while I check my laptop for new e-mails, news, and weather. I usually cook breakfast and eat it while I am at the computer. I usually let Linda sleep longer, and she often comes to the office after I do.

We walk the half mile to the office, and now our walking is on very slippery sidewalks (it has snowed the last two nights and we will probably not see clear sidewalks again until March). If Linda comes later now, I insist she comes by taxi.

We usually bring sandwiches or something we can carry in a small plastic container for lunch and eat in my office. Occasionally we will eat our lunch at a nearby restaurant. Within five minutes of our building we have an Indian restaurant, a European/Mongolian restaurant, a Ukrainian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a restaurant in the large Chinggis Khaan Hotel, and numerous small cafes we prefer not to enter.

Linda teaches an English class each Tuesday and Thursday and does not finish until about 7:30, and I always have enough work to keep me busy until then. We preside at a family home evening for three branches once in three weeks; the other Mondays I attend a returned missionary fireside. On these nights we get home at about 9:00 p.m. So, we have Wednesday and Friday nights to be at home and are occasionally invited out by friends.

We can buy almost any food we want here. It is imported and more expensive than in Utah. Needless to say, we do not buy Chinese milk anymore. One Mongolian company produces good pasteurized milk, but the taste is not quite what we are accustomed to.

We do have a housekeeper: we have hired one of the two female custodians at the headquarters building to come once a week after work. She cleans our apartment in about three or four hours. We pay her about $50 per month.

Occasionally we help people who are badly in need of food or clothing; but, we have to watch carefully for scams.

The traffic is terrible and pedestrians have no rights at all, so we have to be extremely careful in crossing a street, even when we have a green light and a policeman trying to control traffic.

With the colder weather, the air in the Ulaanbaatar basin is horrible, mostly due to people living in thousands of gers around the city trying to keep warm burning coal and anything else they can find to feed their fires. On bad days we wear surgical masks to and from the office.

We are not yet fully settled in--too many things are different; too many things are unpredictable.

Being here, though, is what we want right now; and the work and the people may it very much worthwhile.

We love you.
Love, Dad