Overdue Update

By Charlie

Here’s an exciting entry featuring numerous developments of the past two weeks.

Stealing the Internet

Having failed to steal the cable that feeds electricity to our building, the Mongolian cable theft mafia took their business south on Thursday. According to my new friend Luke, they apparently tried to steal a portion of the fiber optic cable that feeds the internet to Mongolia from China. This apparently happened near Choir, a little railroad town on the way to China. It was horrible. The international internet was out for most of the day. No e-mail. No web. It was dire.

My New Friend

Speaking of my new friend Luke, everyone should check his Mongolia news blog. If you want to know what’s going on in Mongolia, this blog is the best source. Luke is dialed in. He knows the deal.

I had dinner the other night with Luke, his wife Ariuna and her daughter Anoka. Ariuna and Anoka made wonderful khuushur, the best I’ve ever had. For those who don’t know, khuushur are the Mongolian version of fried dough and meat. Delicious with a couple cans of beer.

The entertainment was Anoka playing with a large balloon and three episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Anoka understands some English, but I doubt that she gets the humor of Larry David. Even so, she laughed along with us and further developed her understanding of life among the LA elite.

Ariuna speaks English very well. But without an understanding of Seinfeld and other American cultural subtleties, Curb Your Enthusiasm must be very hard for a Mongolian to understand. Luke did his best to explain what was going on in a scene where Larry David finally “takes a meeting” with Jason Alexander – who played George on Seinfeld, which was a show that Larry David created in real life, except Larry David is playing himself on this show and Jason Alexander is not playing George, but Jason can’t get any work because everyone thinks that he is George. Got that?

In any case, check Luke’s blog. He’s the man.

Rural Radio Developments

Thanks to Rachel for keeping this blog alive while I have been overcome by the craziness of life in The City of Felt. Fortunately, I’ve been silent because I’ve been busy, not because I have been depressed and unable to take a shower or to groom myself.

I am finally doing the work that I came here to do. I am helping the rural radio stations of Mongolia – an amazing and challenging experience. To make a long story short, I am working with substantial resources from The Asia Foundation to help these stations on several fronts. We are buying new equipment for the rural stations and bringing a small army of US public radio experts to help both the stations and the challenged national broadcaster.

The biggest news is that about 10 of these little stations met in UB last week and formed a rural radio association. Here’s the new president of the association, Batzorig (left). The other guy is Munkhdalai from Arvaiheer, who is celebrating the new association with a vodka shot. Bottoms up, my man!

The association formed at the end of a very good two-day conference sponsored by The Asia Foundation. The stations talked about their challenges and we discussed strategies for the future. We concluded the meetings with a toast and then this guy, Adyakhuu from Khentii, took the floor and lead a lively, impromptu debate on how to form the association.

This debate was one of the most exciting things I have witnessed in Mongolia. It ended with a vote that selected five regional directors for the association and the association president. CLICK THIS to hear what it sounded like as the association was formed. You will hear Kherlen, Adyakhuu and Naraa in that order. Naraa is reading the proposed regional composition of the association. The group decided to divide 21 different provinces into five regions, each with its own regional representative.

The best part about all of this is that the radio stations did this by themselves. The Asia Foundation encouraged everyone to work together, but it was the stations who decided that they needed to form a real organization.

During the meeting, I collected the essential data about all of the radio stations. CLICK THIS to see a spreadsheet with the data and pay special attention to the column with annual operating budgets.

This community radio renaissance is happening because of these two Asia Foundation people.

That’s Kherlen on the left. She has known all of the radio folks for years and has worked with them in the past. And that’s Bill Foerderer on the right. He is the new Asia Foundation Representative in UB. He arrived in January and has turned the organization around in just four months.

This is the entire radio group:

The real leaders are the three women standing behind Bill – Bumdari from Selenge in blue, Hishgee from Darkhan directly behind Bill, and Naraa from Dalanzadgad in dark green between Bill and me. These women are the soul of radio in Mongolia.

My former asshole bosses at MIAT and the newspaper are the worst and most corrupt people I have met in Mongolia (except, of course, for the Prime Minister). Naraa, Hishgee and Bumdari are the exact opposite: honest, hard working, devoted and wonderful.

Lenin’s Transmitting Station

The Asia Foundation, US Embassy and the Voice of America are trying a pilot project with Naraa and her Gobi Wave radio station in Dalanzadgad. We want to provide Gobi Wave with a very simple satellite downlink so that the people of Dalanzadgad can hear some international news and other programs in English. As part of that ambitious project, I visited the technical chief of Mongolian National Radio at the main transmitting station just eat of UB.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lenin still keeps his watchful eye on this outpost of Soviet engineering:

This is the central control room, or something:

This is the “switching room” for a long wave transmitter. WTF?

And here I am with the guy in charge, who has since turned out to be an incredible tool who cannot keep appointments or promises. Yet another in a long line of jackass big bosses. But on the day we took this picture, he was my friend.

More About Jimmy

Of course the biggest news of the past several weeks is that Jimmy Walker evacuated himself from UB last weekend. It’s been hard without him – especially because he has kept us posted via e-mail about the wonders of life in America. We happen to know that yesterday he enjoyed another hamburger.

Jimmy’s last week in UB featured a variety of farewell dinners and parties. This was the official party, held one week before his departure. And here is the Man of the Hour, ready to cut the cake:

And here’s the cake:

It says “Bayartai JIMMY.” Goodbye Jimmy. You may recall the cake that Jimmy bought us for Thanksgiving dinner (you will need password and username "mongolia" and "mongolia"). It said “Happy Thanksgiven.” Both cakes came from the same Japanese bakery.

By the way, the future president of Mongolia was also at this party.

Binderya is one of the more remarkable Mongolian youth we have met this year. Working as Jimmy’s weekend translator, Bindy acquired and practiced all the essential skills needed by any world leader.

Yet another good deed that Jimmy did for the people of Mongolia.