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June 2012

Tiffany Witkowski's three days at Child Protection and Detention Centers   (published in Mongolia)

June 20, 2012 by   Comments (0)

When I’ve arrived to the center, a lot of children were running all over the place. They seem curious about me, come to me and ask for some questions, in Mongolian but in English too! They were all really cute.

During these two days, I’ve made some activities with them and for the most of them they really enjoyed it!

The “Jungle Speed” card playing with older ones was so funny and all of them wanted to play again and again. With younger ones, I’ve made some pencil drawing. All of them gave me their creations and a little girl writes me a short message to tell me how nice it was to spend this time altogether and want me to come again…

The second day, because all of us seem to be very punchy, I’ve decided to go for a gymnastic and dance day. They were excited and enjoyed to get exercise and, as well, they used me up! What a good time in music it was with them.

 

I’ve already just gave them a little bit of my time and they gave me so much more than this, their smile and their happiness. What a nice moment it was. Thank you to all of them!

 

Stuff comment...

Tiffany Witkowski was one of the creative volunteer. She also spent one day at the detention center with kids. Her contribution was a expression of her love to the kids and generosity. It was fun and everyone felt warm in their heart during “Playdo” activity. 

 

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Our Law and Human rights volunteer Arthad Kurlekar   (published in Mongolia)

June 20, 2012 by   Comments (0)

Arthad Kurlekar is a student of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences

Indian Media and Legal Awareness

 

The Indian Media is blatantly oblivious to the importance of legal awareness. There is only one publication magazine Legal Era for the purpose of dissemination of legal events through out the country. Newspapers or the mainstream media have very little technical knowledge of new laws. As India is a common law country judgments are important. Newspapers often commit a red herring fallacy as they decide to pick up a line from the judgment and blast it as the headline out of context. Debates or editorials are far less researched upon and are done without in depth knowledge. In a debate pertaining to in camera trials, which mean that the media is banned from those trials, a so called expert went against the idea as he though in-camera meant that the trial would be recorded. This is the level which legal awareness has come down to.

Misinformation is on the rise. Lack of awareness is still preferable to a false pretense of awareness. Prominent newspapers like the Times of India do not have staff qualified enough to differentiate the ‘obiter dictum ‘from the judgment and the ‘ratio- descidendi’ of the judgment and still opine on the obiter comment made, saying that the Supreme Court ‘ruled’ which makes the reader believe that the Supreme Court has made it a law whereas the truth is that it still is obiter.

Law holds a principle ‘ignorentiajuris non-excusat’ that is ignorance of law is not an excuse. Law presumes that everybody knows the law after it has been passed. It is the job of the media to fill up the gap between this legal fiction of knowledge of the law and the reality of the public not knowing of it. Thus the job of the media or newspapers or magazines is not only to report and make people are but a tougher job of providing them with unbiased, true reflection of the situation.

“Breaking News” is a board which flashes on Indian news channels everyday. The objectivity has been sacrificed for sensationalism. What remains of it is the shepherd wolf story. Nobody knows what actually is breaking news and what has been put up as breaking news. This gives rise to 2 broad streams of thought. 1. People who do not trust the media and thus remain oblivious to the world. 2. People who trust the media and are misinformed.

The Media has a positive influence on the public as well. During the JessiccaLal Murder case it was public awareness through media that  was crucial on the public situation. Media is a driving force in the Indian Society. Expanding the legal awareness in people is important function of the media which at present time Indian Media fails to perform substantially.

 Arthad's volunteer experience with Projects Abroad

My internship experience here is the first time theoretical knowledge gained in the classroom at my University was going to be tested. On the first day here I was introduced to the Head of the International Law Department Soyolmaa. She very kindly accepted me as an intern and so began a new experience of practical application of my theoretical knowledge.

I was assigned work in Comparative Contract Law. Munkhtuya (the researcher whose intern I was) initially gave me summarization work. I took articles published around the world and summarized and analyzed them. At first I was unsure of the purpose of the exercise and thus was slow. Gradually as I understood the nature of work I got adapted to doing more work in lesser time.

I found the work culture at the National Legal Institute very different and nice from most other academic institutions. At this institute I found everybody very friendly and co-operative to one another. Though there were some researchers fluent with English I had some problem communicating with those who were not so proficient, my negligible knowledge of Mongolian being the reason. But everybody was patient with me and tried to explain unclear elements as hard as they could until I understood them.

Moreover though contracts is not one of my most favorite subjects, my interest in Comparative Law and constant support provided by Munkhtuya and Soyolmaa (my supervisor) helped me a lot. In the later part of my internship I had a slightly difficult task: taking a holistic approach to the issue of e-contracts and making my own analysis of the various recommendations. The principles of Common Law taught by my professor and the reference material provided by Munkhtuya came to good use in this task.

Overall my time at the Institute taught me a lot, refined my research skills and made me apply the various doctrines of common law learnt in class to make a comparative analysis. I had come with an expectation and hope to learn new things. My experience here far exceeded my expectation. I am very grateful to Soyolmaa for giving me this opportunity and Munkhtuya for providing constant guidance and support throughout my time here.

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UB Never Sleeps   (published in Mongolia)

June 18, 2012 by   Comments (0)

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Ahh man. It's so excellent! The water at my host family's apartment is almost warm! After two or so weeks of freezing showers, this is such a refreshing change! No more headaches from taking icy showers. Just felt the need to share, ahaha. 
 
One reason why I really appreciate almost-warm showers is because of the four day trip I took with four other volunteers the weekend before last. It was so incredible. Not only was the countryside gorgeous, but the five of us who went all had a really good traveling chemistry. Which is good, because we were almost alway in very close quarters to one another. The first day, we met at the Golden Gobi hostel at8:30 am, and had a really nice breakfast (if not slightly confusing, I've never had carrot slaw on toast with an egg, but it wasn't half bad! Although not my first choice.) then headed out around 9:30, and were introduced to our bright and energetic guide, Tsetsge, and our driver, Jaral.  
 
The first day, we visited Hustai National Park, home of the indigenous and ancient wild horses of Mongolia (some sort of impossibly long Russian last name for their technical name....pryzne...something). We spotted a few small herds of about five or six horses, as well as a herd of deer and innumerable marmots darting into their hillside holes. After that, we were in the car for quite awhile until we arrived at our first nights accommodation; an extra ger of a recently married couple, along with a few gers belonging to the husbands's brothers. His brothers had some kids that we made fast friends with, especially Léa. We spent this first night lined up in our sleeping bags on the floor, and unfortunately Ian discovered what an active sleeper I am. 
 
The second day, we headed out to Kharkhorum, the first Mongolian capital city, established in the 13th century. We mostly hung around the Erdze monastery, where most of the history was hanging out anyway, although we did visit the turtle rock, as well as the phallic rock (which you had to touch on the head and walk around three times for good luck). I believe we also went to see some of the famous large stupas, which were commemorated for notable bogd khans (I believe) during the socialist era in Mongolia (as Buddhism was not allowed to be openly practiced during that time) with many religious scarves tied together or on a rock pile across the road, which you walk around three times clockwise, also for luck. Then as we were driving to our place of rest for the evening (about a six hour trip by Mongolian roads at this point), we had a bit of a medical issue with one of the girls on the trip, who suffered from a fairly serious anxiety attack and started to hyperventilate. Fortunately, she couldn't have been in a better van, for this to happen, as three of us on the trip were medical oriented volunteers (one of whom is a practicing doctor in Italy) as well as on if the other women on the trip was a practicing nurse on a naval base before.  So, that went by quite well, considering. We stopped at a hospital for awhile, then hit the road again, and managed to get to the ger camp we were staying at that night. The stars out there were utterly fantastic. Literally, the sky became so crowded with them, I could no longer distinguish even the most basic and vibrant of constellations.
 
The third day we found out that we were actually within walking distance of the Orkhon waterfall, so many of us took an early morning preliminary walk over there. Absolutely beautiful. After breakfast, we actually hiked down into the pool that the waterfall feeds into. Most of us went swimming/bathing in the pool, even though it was absolutely freezing! Finally, a point of pride for growing up in Minnesota, and taking pleasure  often jumping into cold bodies of water for fun! Though the majority of my group was from Canada... so not too much to gloat about, hahah. After swimming, we went horseback riding.  Man, galloping those guys through the steppe was so invigorating, just feeling them go and go and go, without having to worry about traffic or landmarks getting in the way...exhilarating is about the only word for it. 
 
The fourth and final day, we stayed with a family who as camped at the edge of the Gobi, though I couldnt say exactly where. The daughters in this family were much more shy than the family of the first night, but they were eager to show off some of their English to us. After breakfast, we went out camel riding, which was really interesting! They're much more rotund than horses, but their spines feel much more pronounced, and ride right on up into your buttcrack. Their gait is also a lot more fluid than a horse's, though there may be some who would be inclined to disagree. Afterwards, we made the long ride back to UB. 
 
Since then, I've been going to my placement, but I've also managed to catch a few movies with some of the other volunteers or co workers. We went out to see "Prometheus" (which we were unfortunately not too impressed with, although the costuming and make-up were well done) and "Men in Black III" also. One thing I find really interesting about movies here (to explain quick, new non-Mongolian releases in the theaters are kept in the original language with subtitles, versus movies on tv, which are dubbed over) is that "Doctor" gets literally transliterated, instead of using the Mongolian word "emch." initially, I thought that they only did that when it was a title, but it's also used in the sense of a medical doctor. Ah well. There also seems to be little distinction between the sounds of "p" and "f" (as seen when my host mom counts "one, two, tree, fouw, pie..." [her english counting is still better than my mongolian, ahaha!]). 
 
And to sum up my touristy activities, yesterday we visited the Chojin Lama Temple Museum behind the sky tower. It's definitely a must-see. A really well preserved Mongolian Buddhist temple with English labels and explanations for many of the artifacts there. The art associated with Buddhism is so entrancing. It's heavily based on Tibetian Buddhism (from my understanding, there is a lot of back and forth between them. I've heard that "dalai lama" is a title that came from Mongolia). There are so many deities associated with it though, that I wasn't even remotely aware of, especially the intimidating blue and red protectors. Gombo, I think her name is, being among 
my favorites. 
 
Speaking of the back and forth of Tibetian and Mongolian buddhism, is what a cultural melting pot Mongolia is. Now, don't get me wrong, I think that 94% of the population is the same ethnicity,versus the US where there is more ethnic diversity, but we don't typically incorporate those cultural elements within our own "American" culture, instead insisting on conformity if there is a desire to be associated with the US. (cinco de mayo and st. Patty's do not count, for obvious reasons). Here though, products, services, music, television, film, comes from so many outside sources in addition to mongolians producing a good deal of their own media (so it's not the case that they are just borrowing from other cultures in order to make up for a lack of their own content), but are quite eager to take in what they like from the outside cultures, while maintaining a strong sense of national pride, and unabashedness. Similarly, how well Westernized notions and classic Mongolian ones meet together, it seems so fluid, despite being such conflicting ideas, as we typically like to see thing, stateside. 
 
As a final thought, the Mongolian prime minister elections are coming up just around the bend. June 28th is the day, I believe.  I've been seeing rallies of people dining pink hats, carrying banners of blue white and green with the soyombo in a rose, or the icon of Mongolia in a silhouette as a horse and rider. One has some sort of information base in a ger right outside of my apartment building, which would be really cool and interesting if they weren't blaring their political schpeil starting a 7am every morning. Ok, still interesting, but perhaps not so cool. Though it was really interesting to see the actual candidate there this morning on my way to my placement, giving a rallying speech. The political ads here are really interesting...unfortunately the only words I can catch on to are "Mongol" and "Ulaanbaatar". There is also some kind of youth movement, I think, called "I <3 New UB." I don't know exactly what it is they do, but you can find them on Facebook. "Smile in UB"
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days before countryside.....   (published in Mongolia)

June 10, 2012 by   Comments (1)

This will be my last post for a while as im not sure when i will see the internet again . i am off to the countryside tomorrow with the orphanage to go to camp. Now it is all a bit confusing as at first i was with the older kids and then they7 had to go to the detention centre so i went with the younger kids but was supposed to go back to the older kids when they went to camp but not the younger kids are all going to camp and the older kids arent going to camp until end of june so i will be going with the younger kids. (haha not sure if i will go back to the older kids or not, not really sure what is going on im just taking it an minute at a time as that is how quick it takes for people in mongolia to change their whole plan) but this is good as i am now going with another volunteer with the younger kids and we are going to share a rented room so i wont be alone not knowing what is going on!

as i sit here there is a mongolian guy sat next to me singing along happily to some english music which is quite nice if only he could perhaps sing a little better! the music here is well different.. some of it is actually quite catchy and sometimes you here english music with the mongolians singing along and i am pretty sure they have no idea what they are sining about. this morning i decided to go for a walk and as i put something in a bin i managed to cut myself on it, now if you were able to see the state of the bins and infact everything here you would understand why i quickly whipped out my hand sanitiser and rubbed it over the cut and yes it stung like hell but hopefully i stopped am infection, haha and im not exaggerating.

yesterday i was in the city centre with another voluteer waiting for a bus back when we saw a car lightly hit a pedestrian. however this was completely blown out of proportion by the driver not the pedestrian. the guy got out of his car and grabbed to pedestrian by the collar and there was lots of shouting as he pointed to a dent in his car. now yes there was a dent in the car but if the car had hit the pedestrian with a force that was big enough to make that dent i am pretty sure that the poor guy would be more injured than he was. this ended with all the other mongolians at the bus stop going over and pushing and shouting at the driver. the driver then diappeared and when he came back the pedestrians were gone so he looked pretty peed off. all the drivers here are absolute nutters, they drive with one hand on the horn and the other driving the car, there is a ridiculous amount of beeping and when you cross the road you really do put your life in danger. no one indicates and everyone swerves all over the place.

i will try write soon

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Mongolian Traditional Contortion   (published in Mongolia)

June 8, 2012 by   Comments (0)

Contortion is an unusual form of acrobatic display which involves dramatic flexing and bending of human body. This difficult performing art has a long and deep rooted tradition in Mongolia.

Mongolian traditional contortion is a form of acrobatics involving dramatic bending and flexing of the human body into complicated positions including the human knot, head-sit, splits and dislocations. Contortion is often part of acrobatics and circus acts. In general, "contortionists" have unusual natural flexibility, which is then enhanced through acrobatic training, or they put themselves through intense, vigorous and painful training to gain this flexibility.

 In Mongolia, many people (mainly girls) learn contortion because of a passion or as a career as it is considered a nationally respected art form that holds cultural importance. This is practiced mostly by females who begin training in early childhood; for those who become contortionists a career rarely lasts past the age of 40.  

Contortion displays the beauty and flexibility of the human body, incorporating elements of Mongolian dance and Buddhist fine arts. It is performed at some rituals as well as festive events.

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Adventures across the board   (published in Mongolia)

June 8, 2012 by   Comments (1)

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As I have written this, I'll have seen a total of 12 vaginal births, and 6C-sections (3 today, and 3 on monday) from beginning to end. It's all been a wonderful learning experience, and I've been upgraded from just observing to moving IV stands, opening and closing doors, turning on and shutting off the vacuum, dressing the patients in their surgery gowns, and helping mothers hold their newborns to their breast because the nurse that was doing that had to dash away for a sec to grab something.

 
 Haha, that list sounds much more glorified than it actually is.  But just being allowed to observe is such an honor. The surgeries are particularly interesting to me, as it allows me to test my retention from Human Anatomy, recalling the various layers of skin, fat, mesenchyme, abdominal muscles, and finally, uterus. It is a little eerie, though, (haha, surprisingly, not so much the seeing the innards of a person part) to see the patient is breathing all the while, having personally only worked on cutting apart stiff, formaldehyde-dunked cats. It is also intriguing, and each time, I am a little baffled at how smoothly the skin glides apart under the scalpel, how the cutting of thick dermis sounds oddly like cutting through paper, and how when a wedge of skin is cut away for the initial incision, it is no longer a part of the whole living entity it once was a part of, the elasticity lost, while it still manages to retain its color and general texture. 
 
Then beyond that, the actual birth from a C-Section is so brief, I would estimate from the initial incision to the baby being removed is maybe all of 10-15minutes, if even that. The clean up and suturing, not so surprisingly takes quite awhile by contrast. 
 
One thing that absolutely delights me about the operating room is how jovial the doctors are. Everyone works well together, and usually a few chuckles had over course of the operation. 
 
Moving away from the mildly gruesome descriptions above, I've gotten a chance to go out exploring UB a bit more with my fellow volunteers, as well as go briefly into the countryside. Last Friday was a national holiday here, Mother and Child Day, which could perhaps be likened to Christmas--many gifts are exchanged, and most people get the day off of work, in addition to traffic being an absolute nightmare. Anyway, some other volunteers and I went out to the country to go horseback riding. Unfortunately, it rained nearly the entire ride, and hailed for a good deal of it. The mountains were more beautiful for it, and it was still very fun. 
 
Saturday, we went to the opera house to see Mozart's "The Magic Flute." It was delightful. The songs were in German, and the dialogue, which I think was added, was in Mongolian. I had very little idea as to what was going on. The costumes were an amusing, but well-executed fusion of Chinese, mongolian, Arabic, and classical medieval aesthetics, and the sets could be described as...abstract. At some point towards the end, Da Vinci's Ventrusian Man was used for the background.  The curtain call was perhaps my favorite part of the entire thing though. Papageno and Papagena walk on stage with a flock of tiny children in chubby duck suits, none of them with any idea as to what to do, and being all the more adorable for it. It was so unprecedented and cute, I nearly died! It was also pretty cool, during curtain call that members of the audience just walked on stage when their favorite actor took their bow to hand off flowers or other token of admiration. 
 
Sunday was perhaps my favorite day of the weekend, because that's when we went out to the wrestling palace. It seemed to be a fairly small ordeal, only about 50 fighters, and tickets cost only 1000 tugrik (less than a dollar). That was so much fun to watch. Having done a bit of prior reading, as well as being decently familiar with grappling martial arts, it was fun to catch on to who is doing what and how well. Mongolian wrestling is similar to modern Judo in that the primary focus is in the take-down, but it's so much meaner! Which makes it all the better. 
 
This weekend, I'll be taking a four day trek with a group of friends from the volunteer group out to Kharkhorum, the capital city of the 13th century...Kublai Khan's era, if I remember correctly. We'll also be hitting a part of the Gobi desert (and ride some camels out there as well) and the Orkhon waterfall, and also a wildlife reserve where a restoration of the native wild horses of Mongolia is taking place. All in all, I'm reasonably ridiculously excited. 
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Another day in Mongolia   (published in Mongolia)

June 6, 2012 by   Comments (2)

I thought i would just write a bit more as i have nothing to do this evening and alot has happened since i last wrote.

i started a new placement with 0-3 year olds and i am working with 2-3 who i must say are extremely cute except one..... and of course there is always one who deoesnt follow the i suppose stereotype. this little girl from the moment i stepped into the room has not liked me, she gave me the most evil look i have ever seen and it has continued. Yesterday i seemed to be her punch bag and today i was here spitting post. i tried everything to get here to stop and just ended up ignoring her and playing with the other children, despite having spit literally running down my face and over my clothes (not a very pleasant experience), this finally resulted in the nurse seeing her do this and her being sepereted from us for a bit and so of course the scowling continued when she came back. the other kids are very very sweet and i generally have three of them on my lap and one upset because they cant fit on.

last time i wrote how random the weather is here and it continued to be more random, as i left work yesterday i ended up walking home in a hail storm (started as i walked out the door to go home) and by the time i got home i was dripping. now it would have been ok if it had continued to hail or rain but oh no as soon as i got into the flat i looked out the window and it was glorious sunshine, you can imagine my anger!

on sunday we went to see some mongolian wrestling which was very entertaining, there was this one stick thin boy who was certainly not older than myself who was against this rather.... chubby man and at first you think oh that poor boy has no chance in hell of ever winning but i admire that boy as he bloody well beat him and he went on to place, not sure where as there was lots of mongolian singing and some dancing and not really sure how else to explain it but it was good. an added bonus is that it was only 1000 T which in english money is ....  50p. bearing in mind that a bus here is 400 T which is about 20p, if only the buses in england were that cheap!

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First week in UB city   (published in Mongolia)

June 4, 2012 by  

Ok i know i am in trouble from some of you reading as i havent kept in contact but you have to understand that a sign may say that there is internet in the shop but when you go in it can be anything from a supermarket to a hair salon and my mongolian isnt that good yet, so i cant ask where in the shop it is. however i noticed today while walking back from work that this place is literally around the corner from where i am staying Bargin!!! So first impressions of mongolia .... different. when i got here it was really hot for the first day then it was really cold the next, then it rained and was freezing ( not very happy that day as got soaked by a wall of water as a car drove past :( ) and now i am sun burnt so go figure.

i started my placement last tuesdsay and i like it there, the kids are 5-17 (placement was changed when i got here) i am teaching english but finding a bit challenging as my dictionary doesnt have all the words in it for what i am trying to say but they are very patient with me and seem to find it funny haha! however from tomorrow i will not be there for a week or two as they are having renovations done to their building so i am at another place but not sure yet where so will update soon.

the food ..... as most of you will know i am a very fussy eater and that might be an understatement but here i am getting better i am able to eat most of the meals i am served which all look and taste the same really, generally mutton or beef or another meat (never too sure what i am eating) with noodles, carrots, onions and cabbage. its just the broths that i find hard to eat but if you are with the family you just have to grit your teeth and eat.

i must admit i miss all the nice food from home and mum if you are reading as soon as i come home i would like a big roast dinner on the table with all the extras!

i suppose i should end it there as most of you will be asleep by now so i will TRY write once a week if i have time but i may be going to a camp with my first placement in a couple of weeks and not sure communication will be easy from there!

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