LEAVING MONGOLIA

It was the last Saturday of March and I was wide awake before sun up. It was the 28th of March and I had a ticket to Ghana that afternoon. There was still some time sheets and work to do at the office before I finished packing so I decided to go over early and take care of the office stuff. It was a typical cold Mongolian morning but the wind was not blowing and the snow was coming down ever so gently. You could smell the coal being burned in the small stoves in the center of the Gers in Ulaanbaatar and I knew I was really going to miss being with the people I had enjoyed working with so much over the past three months.



Friday evening had been a lot of fun with the Development Solutions staff and their boss Serjmaa having a party for me in their new office and giving me a special Mongolian gift that I shall always treasure.

CHF had a 6 o'clock party and a few more gifts and lots of fun. Then Glenn and Brian, on their own nickel, took all of the staff of both groups out for dinner and drinks. In Mongolia you will find no CHF parties starting before 6 and you will find no CHF money being spent for party time, but the staff along with Glenn and Brian do have a lot of fun, even in the midst of major transitions in program as they go from USAID to USAG funding and the funding has very different expectations for services to be delivered to the Ger community.



One could say this group knew how to work hard and party hard but in the three months I spent in Mongolia, I never saw anyone of the staff get out of control with the partying. The staff are very competitive so when it comes to volleyball, basketball, and ping pong, the competitive spirit comes very close to getting out of control.

"The mission of CHF and the new non profit, Development Solutions, that has been spun off of CHF, are involved in very important work in this country. Less than 20 years ago, it was a part of the Soviet Union and sits right between the worlds two largest communist countries. It is a new Democracy rushing into an Urban environment and out of its Nomadic culture of herders raising their sheep and goats on the open range of Mongolia. Transition into Democracy and Capitalism have brought widespread joblessness and other social issues but the people are totally committed to making it work, so it is great the U.S. and CHF are doing what can be done to make it happen.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to get to know the wonderful people of Mongolia and to see up close and personal the terrific work CHF is doing in working with people in a country experiencing enormous social and economic transition in a very challenging and fragile environment.
I will miss a great deal the staff of Development Solutions and CHF in Mongolia and will always be appreciative of the energies of Barbara at CHF headquarters for facilitating the experience and to Mike for allowing it to happen.