Dusty Darkhan and a Spot of Rain!

April involved a few trips back and forth to begin working with the Health Department in Darkhan. My first visit back in September involved a 3 hour taxi ride sat next to a drunk. Luckily the journeys this time around have been less eventful, although the shared-taxi system baffles me still. When you arrive at the station, drivers fight over you to get you into their car, and then you wait for it to fill up - leaving a situation where several cars are all waiting for one more person. The wait can vary tremendously, and when the car is full there is still no gaurantee that the driver will leave immediately. Mongolia has taught me patience!


Darkhan is a dusty town devided into two parts - the old town and the new town. I have been staying the new town - its "pride and joy" (to quote the Lonely Planet guide) being a 16-storey apartment block - and working in the sand-paved old town. The walk between the the two is pleasant and makes a nice change from UB. The walk takes me past the new Buddha, a statue of a horseman playing the Morin Khuur (horse-head fiddle), and Mongolia's only suspension bridge that links the two (and which, for some reason, is lit up be purple lights at night).

Did I mention that Darkhan is dusty? The old town is paved with sand, which they sweep into neat piles and wait for the wind destroy the hard work.

And when the wind comes it whips up the dust and throws it straight in your face.

While in Darkhan I felt my first rain drops in seven months. I have heard stories from longer serving volunteers about actually missing rain and standing out in the first rains of the year. I wasn't that impressed, although Mongolia could certainly do with it.

My work there has been successful, if interrupted by a couple of trips back to UB. The manager of the health volunteering project I am working with is extremely keen and I'm confident we can make some positive changes quite soon. I will be returning to Darkhan this week to work there until the end of May. I have organised an apartment for myself, which just happens to be next door to my counterpart (the project manager), so I imagine my spare time might be taken up with teaching her son English.

I will take up running while in Darkhan. A group of VSO volunteers are planning to take part in the Gobi half-marathon in September. I'm looking forward to it already - it should be a fun trip, but my exercise while in Mongolia has been fairly limited, so I better start training!

More photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.guinness