Being a Woman in Mining - Part I

Something interesting happened to me the other day and it got me thinking.  A friend from home gave me a great compliment, and frankly I don’t know if I’m deserving of it.  I was telling her what it’s like being a woman here at site and how certain things tend to bother me at times. I was telling her that one of the biggest things that upset me is how the Mongolian women get treated by their own men and at times by the expats.  Sure I’m a woman working in a male dominated industry, and I’m the minority, and to a certain degree I’ve always felt that since I am part of the minority, I should conform to my environment, at least to a certain extent.  I’m a believer of ‘why should the majority have to change for one person, or a small group of people.’  This mentality is correct if the majority is in the right.  But if history has taught me anything, this is not always the case.  I’ve been asked by several female friends from home to write an entry on what it is like being a woman at site and for some advice. I have avoided this topic, because some of my true feelings on this matter have been kept to myself, and can be easily misinterpreted and are somewhat controversial.  I will write this entry in two parts; part one will be my thoughts and advice on being a female expat on an international assignment, and second part will be about the women of Mongolia and what I have learned from them. 

The compliment my friend gave me was, ‘Good for me and all the other ladies in the office that you're out there, paving the way.  It'll be tough on all of us, but hey, you're making it easier for the next woman that works with all the people you work with, and some woman made it easier (by some degree!) by coming before us.’  I don’t know if I’m paving the way for anyone; I don’t know if I am being a good example for mining woman at all and you can all judge if I am, after I explain my approach.  But I do agree with me friend on that there were woman who did this before me and they certainly deserve some if not all the credit.  No doubt in my mind, that women who worked at site twenty years ago had to go through a great deal more then what I have to go through, which is really very minimal in comparison.  When I finished school in 2006 and started working as an Engineer in the office; when I mentioned that I was interested in going to site, I had two opposite opinions from my senior co-workers, some of them were thrilled that a young engineer is willing to go to site and encouraged this, then there were the others that said I’d probably not be able to go, telling me it’s very rare for women to be sent to site. Really? Is it really that rare? Or is it that there simply has never been a great deal of women in the mining industry, so it is simply considered rare because we never had the numbers.  It’s probably a bit of both but I thank the females who came before me, for allowing me to be even given this opportunity. 

Now don’t get me wrong, this industry is not for the faint at heart. It’s mentally and physically demanding. The days are long, and the rotation are weeks/months apart.  If you are a soft person (meaning you like comfort), man or woman, maybe being a mining expat is not in the cards.  But for the women thinking of doing this line of work, there are a few things you should be aware of before you agree to take an assignment:

1. If you are a woman who is not prepared to turn in her high heels shoes and nice clothes for steel-toe boots and PPE,
2. Not prepared to overhear crude jokes without jokingly laughing them off,
3. Not prepared to be in the TRUE presence of men (meaning they don’t hold their tongue for the benefit of your ears)

Then you are probably not prepared to come to site.  If I can give advice to any woman thinking of coming to a CAMP site, especially international, make sure the three things I listed above do not bother you or you can at least live with them and to make sure you know your bottom line very clearly.  What I mean by ‘your bottom line,’ is make sure you know exactly when someone crosses your line of what is acceptable and what is not, make it clear when they went too far, and remember above all, to choose you battles wisely (and by the way, with some of the experiences I’ve gained here, the three things I listed above are not worth trying to correct, even if they hurt your feelings and you are in the right, don’t waste your breath, YOU don’t need to like it, but you will need to move on from them).  If you choose to come to site, and if you do choose to have these battles, then you will have few friends and if you can live with that decision, then good for you but at least be aware of this.  Just remember, no one wants to be around someone who makes everyone conform to their beliefs or worst yet, makes them walk on eggshells, this is not the attention you want to bring upon yourself when you are the new kid on the bloke.  But at the end of the day, the one making the decision is the one that has to live with it and only the individual can make those decisions.  If you are not sure what your line is, sit back for a while, don’t do or say anything to drastic, take in your new environment and it will be become clear to you.

The off jokes, the swearing, the demanding work environment, are some of the reasons I like working here.  I like working in an environment where I can say what I’m thinking and do not need to sugar coat it. I like it that I work with people that are ‘what you see is what you get,’ even if I don’t like what I see, at least I know what I’m going to get, there is honesty in that.  It has been brought to my attention that I have a worst trucker mouth then most of my male counterparts (this has been pointed out to me a couple times), which is the truth.  I know sarcasm can be the lowest form of humor but it’s still the humor I choose to use.  For the most part, I enjoy my new co-workers even if what they say or do, are things I don’t agree with at all times.  The ‘bottom line’ I have established for myself is somewhat grey.  Most of my closer friends here know it pretty well and once in a while they’ll cross it, mostly to get a rise out of me, and they succeed everytime. 

I hope people are not misinterpreting me and think I’m changing who I am to gain my co-workers respect. Honestly, changing who you are, will rarely gain you respect.  I’m merely compromising.  And you must compromise to fit into a formula that is already set or at least isolate the variables that can be changed.  Frankly, gaining peoples respect is not why I’m here; I’m here to learn, gain site experience and go home; this is my goal.  If I earn the respect of most of my co-workers then this is a bonus and something that can only help my career.  My end goal is what has helped me establish my bottom line.  What am I willing to let go or compromise to achieve what I came out here for; this is a question I encounter regularly.  I see this being no different than being in a relationship, what are you willing to accept about your spouse to remain happily married, cause your end goal is to remain happily married (well I hope it would be).  And just like everything, this goes both ways, I’m not the only one comprising.  Everyone has their deal breakers.  Personally, I would love it if men and women could work together as complete equals, without ridicule or judgment but let’s be realistic, we are not there yet. 

I’ll never know how the minds of men work, but through trial and error, I have learned what usually gets me the results I want.  When I was younger and played ice hockey on all boys’ teams, for many years, I was the only girl in the league; I stuck out like a sore thumb, just like I do here.  I learned that being a woman that gets along with men, will usually get me a lot further in achieving my goals then being a women trying to be a man.  It’s obvious I’m not a man, nor do I want to be one. I enjoy working with men, and when I was younger, I enjoyed playing hockey with them.  I didn’t want to be treated differently; I just wanted to be accepted as a teammate and a friend, as I do here. And if, I had to enter a fight to stick up for a teammate, then that is what I did, even though, I was guaranteed to lose the fight, since I had never won a fight in my entire life, but I would take a punch for them, as I expected they would for me.  And most of the time they did.  If you want to be accepted as an equal, you cannot allow anyone to give you ‘special’ treatment or anything that can be perceived as special treatment, if this happens, don’t accept it and take immediate action to correct it, it may help you in the short term but very rarely will it help you in the long term.  This is the approach I have taken here, and for the most part, it works for me, simply because this is essentially who I am.  In this industry or any industry that is primarily all men, having a woman on the team can change its dynamic.  This can be an opportunity to gain experience, knowledge and growth, in black and white terms instead of becoming the cancer that spreads a disease, be the cure.

Land of the Free

It’s been over seven months since I’ve moved to Mongolia. During this time, I’ve learned a great deal about the industry I work in, the country I’m living in and more importantly, I’ve learned a great deal about myself.  I’ve learn that I’m spoiled rotten, to put it in black and white terms, I am spoiled rotten simply because I was born in a first world country and until I moved here, I didn’t realize how privileged I am for it.  Basic rights, basic amenities I was given just because I was born.  Many people including myself think these are birthrights or entitlements and deep down I believe they should be basic human rights, but unfortunately for many people they are not entailed to these rights, these amenities.  Mongolia is a country like no other, on the surface you may think it’s a second/third world country like all the others, look a little deeper, you will see an ancient country that has been reborn and is beginning its infancy.

Someone once told me, the Gobi Desert is one of the most unforgiving places in the world, and after living here for seven months; I tend to agree with them.  The extreme weather changes, the dry climate and the fact that you can’t grow any food; makes the Gobi a very difficult place to live; yet people have found a way.  So you can understand my surprise to a fact that continues to blow my mind, is that people willfully chose to live here.  And for all of you, who are thinking these people are poor so they don’t have a choice, let me correct you and say they absolutely have a choice. Mongolia may be a poor country from a North America perspective, but the Mongolian people are free.  This is the freest country I’ve ever been too.  I am not defining Freedom, as the basic right to vote or the basic right to choice, both of which the Mongolian people have, what I’m talking about is much deeper than that. 

Some background information, Mongolia is a democracy, through peaceful protest via rallies and hunger strikes, the people of Mongolia established a democracy in Mongolia when the Mongolian People's Republic resigned in the nineties, this was done without bloodshed.  This peaceful revolution is why many believe the Mongolian people went back to their thousand-year-old traditions, and the rebirth of Genghis Khan as a National Hero. This may be the case, and it can certainly be argued, but from my personal belief is that after years and years of suppression from China then Russia, the Mongolian people are as loyal as ever to their country.  They are loyal because somehow a couple of the largest empires in the world have occupied them at some point in the last 100 years, yet they remain free, a democracy and their own country.  It wasn’t long ago that this country was under Russian control, less then 25 years ago, Mongolia was not free.  They had no god given rights that I take advantage of every single day of my life.  They did not know freedom, so I find it amazing watching a country in its infancy of freedom.  As the Russians left Mongolia and the Mongolian People's Republic rose to power, it was the countries youth that said ‘No,’ and they didn’t scream and start riots, they knew they were right, and when you are right, you don’t need to be violent, for a country that has seen so much violence throughout there history, choose to peacefully protest the suppression and through this protest began a voice which could not be silenced and by the mid nineties a democracy was created and a new constitution was written that protected the Mongolian peoples right to free speech, and freedom of religion. 

To go back to my original opinion that the Mongolian people are the freest in the world, I say this for several reasons.  At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of Mongolia and their people, there are certain things I’m not accustom too and probably never will be.  Mongolians are an extremely proud people and can easily be judge as arrogant, but again the longer I’ve been here, the less I see their pride as arrogance.  I’ve spoken to several locals about the history of their people and their country, and they are very humble in their expressions.  Many people were alive during the Russian control and they have not forgotten, they take their freedom in a literal sense, and express it daily.  For what can be interpreted as arrogance, is a form of expression.  Mongolians do what they want when they want, period.  And good luck to anyone who tries to get them to conform to the western ideals.

I’ve personally have not had problems working with the Mongolians but many of the expats here have.  The mentality is simply very different.  In general, the Mongolian people live everyday as if there is no tomorrow.  If they want to drink themselves into a coma because they are having a great time with their friends, it does not enter their thought process that they may have work the next day.  Everything is right now; tomorrow is a question mark.  This way of thinking is the biggest reason the expats and Mongolians clash.  What is perceived as irresponsible or lazy, is not what or how the Mongolians view it.  Us westerns are taught from a young age to conform to society, we are members of society and we must be good, hard working taxpayers.   I’ve heard the analogy that Westerners are chained to their desks, and to a certain degree, this is true.  Mongolians are living, walking contradictions to this analogy.  If you don’t believe me, go visit Ulaanbaatar and try to cross the street.  Just because the light is red, don’t think for a second that a car will stop; the driver will stop because they feel like it, not because the light is red and therefore most cars drive through red lights.  As I said, they take on the literal sense of the word freedom. The Mongolians come and go as they see fit.  They live where they want too, and if that is the Gobi Desert so be it!!!

I have a great deal of respect for Mongolia.  My time here has been hard but educational and very rewarding at times.  Going without hot water for weeks, going without good food for months and then learning there are people here who have never had a hot water shower in their entire life till they came to this project, simply puts me in my place.  I have met numerous people that live their entire childhood in a ger without electricity yet can work a computer better then me and speak multiple languages.   Mongolia is a country on the rise and it will be interesting to see where they are in twenty years J

For a Laugh!!!

List of Sh*it that I thought I’d never Say nor Hear

I’m back from the brink of death (horrible flu) and feeling like my usually sarcastic self, so time to write another blog entry J Originally I was going to write about some of the more positive experiences I’m having here in Mongolia (it’s not all dooms day), but today something more important came up and I decided to write about that. My short list of ‘Mongolia Positive Experiences,’ will have to wait.

I’ve been pretty sick the last week, so I haven’t been eating my usually treats after dinner.  Every time I return to site, I head to the store and buy my usually treats, chocolate and Duffle cakes, they are my reward after I’ve been able to stomach and keep down dinner; my treats are one of the little things I look forward to now and again.  So you can imagine my annoyance when I walked into my room during my lunch hour today to find a pile of crumbs at the edge of my bed, yes crumbs, at first I found this strange, I’ve never eaten on my bed the entire time I’ve been here in Mongolia, but anyways, I brushed them off my bed, took off my shoes and laid down. I’m still getting over the flu so I was going to have a short nap.

So here I am lying on my bed, starting to fade into some much needed rest when all of a sudden MY duffle cakes come into my mind, yes, I’ll repeat, MY duffle cakes.  I bolted out of my bed, walked over to my cabinet and pulled out my duffle cake package, and YES, as I figured, two were missing. Holy Sh*t! My maid ate my bloody duffle cakes!!! And this isn’t even the worst of it, usually if someone is going to steal from someone, even if it is something as insignificant as duffle cakes, you would logically think that they would try hiding the evidence, but NO, she didn’t even do that, she left a pile of crumbs on my bed. I guess she had a nice rest (atleast someone is getting some rest) on MY bed while she is eating MY food and didn’t even think to clean up after herself. The Maid didn’t even clean up after herself, the irony in this does put a smile on my face, maybe this is her way of getting back at us bloody Western Expats, but only she can answer that.

So coming back to the topic of this entry, ‘Sh*it that I thought I’d never Say nor Hear.’ I’ll let you all know, me telling my coworkers that, “My maid ate my bloody duffle cakes,” is something that I honestly thought I would never say in my lifetime. 

Just for the record, the maids stealing peoples food is nothing new here, it happens all the time, it just has not happened to me until today.  This incident did led into my next story in which I heard something I never thought I would.  As I was telling the story of my disappearing duffle cakes to a coworker, he told me the several stories of his disappearing fruit.  Apparently on several occasions such as: the day he brought three plums back to his room at lunch and when he got back after work, there were two, or the time he left two bananas on his desk and when he got back from work there was one.  Seriously, that’s some ballsy sh*t, he only had two bananas, and she thought he wouldn’t notice that one just got up and walked away, ballsy, very ballsy. 

Again, so as I’m telling him the story of my missing duffle cakes, he actually said I quote, “I go out of my way to hide my bananas.”  If you don’t think a grown man in his fifties saying he goes out of his way to hide his banana from the cleaning lady isn’t funny, then you and I don’t share the same sense of humor.

List of Sh*it that I thought I’d never Say nor Hear:

1- My maid ate my bloody duffle cakes - Me

2- I go out of my way to hide my bananas - Coworker

3- Wow, a mouse is climbing up my leg - Me

4- The water looked better today, it looked more like Mountain Dew instead of coke - Me     

5- Is that mold or a dead bug? (like either is what you want in your food) - Coworker

6- My plane was only delayed 12 hours this time - Me

7- I think it’s chicken - Me

8- I went to bed at 7pm last night - Me

9- The best part of being here is my job – Me

10- Stop looking so closely at your food, maybe you’d miss the hairs - Me
11- That sealed water bottle has no water in it - Coworker
12- I shake my shower curtain so the scorpions fall off - Coworker

Travelling to Oblivion

I’ve been taking time off from doing nothing in my spare time, to get back into my writing. So since I’ve last written, not much has happened or changed. It’s still work, eat, bed, followed the next day by work, eat, bed, with the occasional day of work, eat, DRINK, bed, followed by a day of wishing I was still in bed. And in case you have all forgotten, my bed was designed for an anorexic midget, and is several feet off the ground so no midget could actually get in it, real logical, I KNOW, but I shouldn’t complain too much since one of my buddies here is 6’4 and has to sleep like a ninja in his own bed every night just to fit.

But with all kidding aside, let’s get serious, I’m assuming some people are actually reading this blog to learn a little about Mongolia and if I actually ever get to see the Mongolia that exist outside of the Gobi desert I’ll let you know, till then you will hear about life in a mining camp that happens to be stationed in Mongolia.

I last left off talking about my trip to China and talking about free speech, after several complaints from friends about how crazy I am to believe such a thing, and the fact that all these people missed my settle art of sarcasm, it is safe to assume, if in any way I offended you with my opinion, that I don’t care.  Now that we have gotten that out of the way, I can tell you what it is like travelling to and from oblivion.

My current home is somewhere in the south Gobi Desert, that’s about as detailed I can really get, I’m somewhere between a rock and 100 miles of horizon.  A few miles outside of camp, there is a little airport where we catch a little prop plane that takes us to Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia.  It’s always nice travelling to Ulaan Baatar, stepping out of the airport and taking a deep breath, the taste of burned coal mixed with sand paper always reminds me that I’m indeed not home.  The little prop plane-leaving site is a little rough; basically it feels like someone is shaking me for the entire eighty-minute flight.  But that’s not the worst of it. I’m not sure why the locals here don’t understand the concept of turning off their cell phones during a flight since it has been basic instruction for plane travel since I was 15.  But everytime I’ve been on this plane and as the plane is coming in for landing and are still several thousand miles above earth, you start hearing cell phones ringing, not one, not two, but like 6 or 7 different phones.  It makes me think if the plane doesn’t plummet to the ground, I really should find out who their provider is, impressive coverage.

From the Ulaan Baatar airport (ULN), a traveler has three cities that have daily flight in/out of the capital.  Your options are Beijing, Seoul and Moscow, and since for the last year or so, planes have been falling out of the sky in Russia, you really have two options leaving Mongolia.

On my first trip out of Mongolia, I flew through Beijing, and arrived with no problems, at this point, I had NOOOOOOOOOOOO idea how lucky I was.  Someone or more accurately a group of some ‘people’ decided to build the ULN airport right in a valley that happens to be surrounded by mountains, not sure how this group missed the endless landscape of flatness, which I have come to know as Mongolia, but it must have been an oversight.  All but one side of the ULN single runway has mountains surrounding it, on a positive note; a pilot has no doubt what direction to land the plane in. Great thinking, its a little known fact that planes are built to avoid hitting mountains.  So now that it is crystal clear what direction a plane can come in and out of, let’s discuss the next problem this design has created.  When wind is blowing in a westerly direction the mountains shield the SINGLE runway very nicely, unfortunately 50% of the time the wind is blowing easterly, and the nice sheltered valley turns into a turnpike that can have 30-40 mile per hour winds. Bloody brilliant!!!!  The first thing I want to do on my way home after working 56 days, is sit around and wait for the wind to stop blowing.

Once you actually take off out of ULN, you are on your way home, Woo Hoo!!!! And for 12 days you live happily till on the 13^th day you are on your way back to the airport. On my first trip back to camp, I learned firsthand what it is like not being able to get back to site. I am still thankful this happened on my way back and not on my way out, some of my co-workers are not that lucky, just ask my buddy D who spent his Christmas in the Ulaan Batar airport, if you need convincing.  I got to the Beijing airport at 6am for my 8am flight, which at this point I was told will probably be late, by 9am, I was convinced this was the case, and by 10am they had moved our flight to 8pm, saying the winds in Ulaan Batar are too strong to land, so I waited. It was safe to say I was going to miss my afternoon flight back to site.  The airline did put us up in a hotel, but still, we waited.  Originally, I was suppose to land in UB at 10am, I landed at 1am the next morning.  I was so tired and I was five hours away from being back at the ULN airport to catch my morning flight to site. So I went to my hotel, slept 3 hours and was back on a bus to the airport. By 8am, we took off, woo hoo, I was so looking forward to my midget bed at this point, I needed sleep.  It’s a short flight back to site, and before I knew it, the pilot was telling us to take our seats and prepare for landing. I had a window seat and I could see the runway in the distance, we were coming in on our decent when all of a sudden the plane starts ascending again, I looked around, I was not the only one a little surprise, what was going on? Did a camel all of a sudden run across the runway or what?  A minute or so later the pilot was telling us due to cloud coverage he was unable to see the runway, and we are currently being diverted to DZ.  HOLD ON… First off, what the hell is DZ? and SECOND, are you blind? I can see the runway right through my window, if you are going to lie, atleast say it’s the wind, since I actually can’t SEE the wind.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted more, a blind pilot or a lying one.  Never the less, we didn’t land at site and we were diverted to DZ.  My co-worker sitting beside me on the plane was kind enough to let me know that DZ was a town six hours outside of site that has a small airport (well the largest in the Gobi). And yes, it was small; it was so small and insignificant, that they felt they didn’t even need to heat it. 

So here I am, standing in a shed (I mean airport) in the middle of the Gobi Desert, freezing my ass off cause I thought it would be smart to put my winter jacket in my checked luggage, (after all it was still fall, a word to the wise, fall in Mongolia is winter in Vancouver), which was still on the plane.  As time went by (3 hours to be clear) they finally unloaded the plane so I could get my luggage and warm myself up.  They decided that the sky was not clear enough for the plane to land (did I already mention that I needed to wear sunglasses cause the sun was hurting my eyes, take a look at my photo), again, Are these guys F**king Blind??????????????  Yeah, I was a little mad at this point.

After everything I have said….. I haven’t even told you the worst part yet. Since the Gobi Desert has no roads and hardly any infrastructure, the only way to get back to site is to drive in a Kamaz, if you don’t know what a Kamaz is, google them……. They look cool, right? WRONG, they have big wheels and can drive through everything, but they have no suspension, so you bounce in them like a pong in a ping-pong machine. You feel every bump, I mean every SINGLE bump!  I’ve played hockey for a good part of my life, so I’m use to a little trash talk, and I have on several occasions told a few referees and fellow hockey players, I quote ‘to take it in the ass,’ I think this trip was karma, cause trust me, when you rid a Kamaz for six hours through the Gobi, you really Do take it in the ass, and that shit hurts! 

27 hours after I was suppose to report into work, I arrived at site.

In conclusion, lessons learned when Travelling to Oblivion:

1.       Always have a cell phone on you; In Mongolia you can even call from a plane in midair.

2.       Always have a warm jacket with you, cause sometimes you have to wait out Mother Nature.

3.       Karma can be a bitch!

4.       Remember when you complain, something will shortly come along and make what you just complained about look like Mother Teresa holding a puppy.

5.       Even a midget bed standing on stilts can look good after 27 hours of delays.

The End.

Free Speech in China!!!

Mike and I’s trip to China was an amazing experience, which I highly recommend for others to experience. It was hard to enter China without some prejudices  about the country. We all know that you can’t access facebook in China, nor could I access my blog, both were blocked. But outside of that what do we really know about China?  We know is it a communist country, but should they be in the same category as countries like Cuba?

I can’t answer all these questions but from my experience the news and press we receive in North America, does not depict the China I visited.  The China I was in, was free.  It is not the fairest country, if you are born rich, it is much easier for you to succeed and if you are poor, the chances of improving yourself socially, are very slim, but in all fairness, you could say this about a lot of countries that are labeled Democracies.

You may ask, why do I say China is a free country, when our whole lives we were told something differently.  Well from my two week stay in China, Mike and I read the newspaper every day and every day, there were articles questioning the government and numerous laws, and there was one article in particular were a man was suing the Chinese government because one of the many city camera’s caught him speeding but it was not the speeding ticket he was fighting over, apparently the photo in which he was caught speeding, he was also caught feeling up a woman in his front seat, and he was suing the government for invading his privacy…LOL… It’s true.  And the newspaper actually said he may have a case, WOW.  Now, if I were to tell you just the story and not tell you what country this was happening in, now be honest, who would have guessed China? Yeah China, the biggest communist and military present country in the world, has a citizen that is suing them for invasion of privacy and on top of that, this man is still alive and it was printed in one of their National newspapers. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still would never wear a ‘Free Tibet’ t-shirt in Tian’anmen Square and expect to get away with it, but seriously, I couldn’t believe the free speech the newspapers had in China.  It was probably one of the biggest and pleasant surprises I had while visiting China. 

More blogs on my trip to China to come later….

-S

Problems come in 3's.......

In the first 6 weeks at site, I’m learning a lot about Mongolia and more importantly, about myself.  I’ve had a couple events here where I nearly lost it and snapped.  Well, I snapped, let’s be honest J And anyone who knows me, knows I’m loud, I talk a lot and I like to complain but I rarely get so upset that I lose it.

I’ve only got angry twice since I’ve been here.  One was about the cold showers, that was the second (Angry#2 I call it), actually both times have come in the last 10 days. My three showers before my angry one were hot, I thought finally the problem is fixed and I got comfortable (Rule #1: Never get comfortable), so when I got into the shower and ice cold water came out, I was caught off guard and I snapped. I literally had a tantrum like a two year old, I was so pissed.  The work schedule can be pretty tough, so I’m usually pretty tired by night time, and I was just getting over a cold, so I snapped, and it was glorious!!! I did feel better after J

A few things started to go south in the last week. The Mongolians do things differently, and I know this sounds arrogant and bullheaded but they do certain things the wrong way.  When I got here, I had to give up my passport so I could get my multi-entry visa and Alien Card (kind of like landed immigrate status in Canada). I know, I broke the major travel rule, never give away your passport but in my defense I didn’t have a choice. Everyone else here got theirs 2 weeks after they arrived, after 4 weeks I started to get worried that mine could be lost. I cannot explain to you how difficult it was to get an answer on where my passport was.  It took over a week to find my passport, it ended up being in a box in the warehouse waiting to be received, but for about 5 days, I didn’t actually know where it was, CRAZY, I flipped out (secretly not actually in front of people), I was so worried, that was angry #1, which was a couple Fridays ago. Next time, I’ll take a few days off work and go get the visa myself, not cause I actually thought people lost my passport but just for peace of mind, I tend to overact with these things.  

Things have not been the same here since, you know how Murphy’s Law works. Every trip I’ve ever taken, one thing must go wrong, In Europe it was my camera, the first one I dropped, second was stolen and the third finished the trip.  With Mongolia, it’s travel stuff, first my passport, then my travel requests form, which I need signed and returned back to me, if I don’t get them signed and returned, I cannot hand in my expenses. The process is suppose to take 3 days, so of course I did it as soon as I got here, again, after three weeks, I started asking when I should be getting them back, they kept saying they are coming, so I waited another week, and nothing. I gave up and resubmitted them. I went around myself and got them all signed by my bosses and handed them over to the right people, only the client signature was needed and send them back to me, again, a week later, no email, no form. So again I went around and asked for them, two days later I got my email and handed in my expense travel forms yesterday, I got here on Aug 5^th, submitted my forms on Aug 7^th, and just submitted my expenses 5 days ago! 

From my previous blog, you can tell I’m not a huge fan of the food, but since every time I complain about something, it gets a lot worst, making what I just complained about look like I was living the life, so I’m not going to complain, simply due to the fear that the complaining Gods will teach me a lesson.

The work is still interesting and I am learning a lot, I guess that is the reason I am here, it’s just all the other stuff that can bring me down at times. Mike called me the other day and said Air Canada may strike on Sept 21^st, and of course I booked him on an Air Canada flight leaving shortly after this date, of course, when it rains, it pours.

-S  - Me with my first Camel!!!