Breaking it in!

So I’ve now been here in Mongolia for three weeks… crazy, how slow time can go :-)

Life in Mongolia, or to be more specific, life in camp, is repetitive. Everyday is almost exactly the same, the only thing that changes is the weather. Camp life is as follows: Wake up, Eat (Breakfast), Work, Eat (Lunch), Work, Gym, Eat (Dinner), Drink, Bed and then the next day as a reward, you do exactly the same thing for 13 days straight. It’s Awesome, really awesome. On top of the 10hr/day, 13 days straight of work, our meals consist of fat with a side of meat, my walls in my dorm room are so thin I can hear my neighbor fart, when the internet is actually working I can get a call home for about 5min till the connection is lost, and if that doesn’t sell you on how unbelievably happy I am, I have not had a hot water shower in three short weeks.

With all this joyous talk aside, and hopefully you have been able to weed out my sarcasm, things here in Mongolia are going well. The best part of this experience is the work (one thing I’d thought I’d never say), everyday I am learning and continually getting reminders of how much stuff I do not know. The flotation cells are going in, I think there are 9 in already. This week I was able to watch them move the Sag Mill Shells and install them, that was pretty cool. I’m learning on how everything is installed. I’ve been impressed on how fast equipment is being installed, everyday I see changes to the plant. Nearly all the concrete has been set. I’m helping my boss with getting the Concentrator Bagging Plant design and construction up and running, we hope to set its foundation by end of September. Two days ago, we had our first frost, so winter is going to come quick and we need all our foundations done as soon as possible or the price will go up 30-40% for winter concrete. I’m putting together a slide show presentation of some of the equipment, I’ll send it out when I am done.

On a side note, I’ve made a few friends here with the Fire Wardens and Paramedics on site, and weekly I get the low down of what’s really going on in this little town I like to call OT (we do have 14,000 people living here). One of the more amusing stories I’ve heard, first I’ll give you a little history about this camp. When I say the food here absolutely sucks, I’m being kind, forget about missing your families, you want out of here after 8weeks so you can get a decent meal. Also, there are several small Mongolian towns about an hour outside camp, yes, there are people who chose to live literally in the middle of nowhere. This Sunday I’ll be visiting one of them. So you can imagine my surprise when I was told that there were six men arrested for trespassing onto the OT camp and this is the kicker, when asked why they were trespassing, they told my buddy, it was for the food, I guess three crappy meals a day is better than none. Only in OT would the locals being trying to get in and the Westerners trying to get out. This story certainly made feel like an ungrateful Westerner Snob, we get a huge uplift in pay for “roughing it out here” and from the locals perspective they feel this is living the life. Definitely puts things in perspective.

Anyways, that’s it for now folks, off to the doctor, I’ve seemed to have come down with a sinus infection, got to love the sandstorms and dust here :-)

-S writing from a Mongolian Ger