Right now I am sitting in my office at the Khentii Health Department. I have been working here for about a month now. I haven't talked much about what I am actually in Mongolia for (oops) so I thought I could give you readers an idea of what my life is like, now that I have settled into a sort of rhythm.
So, my host country agency (or HCA) is the Khentii Health Department, located in Ondorkhaan, Khentii Aimag, Mongolia. As my HCA, the Health Department is in charge of finding my housing, furnishing my housing, introducing me to the town and resources available, keeping me informed about changes in the community, and basically helping me to adjust to life here. In return, I should be working at least 30 hours per week directly with my HCA. The Khentii Health Department is in charge of serving the town of Ondorkhaan, the biggest population center in the province, as well as the villages and communities throughout the province. There are about 25 people that work for the Health Department, and they have all been very kind and welcoming.
The Khentii Health Department is located right next to the hospital, in a very nice, new, 2-story building. The first floor is mostly larger training rooms, and the office space takes up the second floor. My office space is in a good sized room that 6 of us share. It makes the days pretty fun, since there is usually someone else in my office who isn't too busy (and I am never really busy, at least not yet). The ladies I share my office with are all health specialists in charge of planning trainings, compiling health reports, and completing all of the other mysterious tasks that fill their time that I don't know about yet.
I spend most of my time trying to think of suitable activities to fill my time. I am teaching English for doctors and nurses at the hospital twice a week, so planning and teaching takes up a good portion of my time. I attend health department meetings whenever I know about them, which is about twice a week. They are not very informative for me yet, since I don't understand most of the Mongolian that is said, but I learn enough to help me figure out what is going on. I have also observed several different trainings that my coworkers have planned, which has been a fun and interesting way of learning how they plan and carry out events. So far I have seen trainings on adolescent health, sexual health, pregnancy health, and a provincial-wide report of services including health services.
In the future (hopefully the near future), I would like to get more involved in the planning steps for trainings and seminars. My coworkers also want me to get involved and help with this, but I think they don't know how to address the fact that we can't always understand exactly what each other is trying to say. This has definitely improved with time as we get used to each other and know how to understand each other, but is still an issue. One thing I have learned in this month is to not expect things to move at the same pace that they do in American businesses and organizations.
**A note about time and scheduling in Mongolia: It doesn't matter to Mongolians the way it matters to Americans. In the US, for example, if you set a meeting up and say that it will begin at 2 PM, you can figure that most people will be there by 2 or at least 2:15, and if they are not there, they will have contacted you to let you know why they are running late. In Mongolia, it seems common for people to show up more than 30 minutes or an hour late, and no one seems to think anything of it. Family or friend issues are just as important, if not more important than work related responsibilities, and everyone understands if you need a few hours or a day to go help your friend fix something or go to the countryside to check on a cousin or uncle.
This attitude is refreshing in many ways, because much of the American obsession with letting your schedule and your work rule your life is gone. Mongolian people are proud of the work that they do, whether it is working as a taxi driver or as a program director, but they are also very proud of their families and their home life. The vast majority of Mongolians get married and start having children when they are maybe between 20 and 25, so it is very common for me to meet a doctor who just graduated from medical school and is married and has 1-2 children. More on this phenomenon another time--back to my work day!
So, now that I have been working for a few weeks, I have the start of a weekly schedule forming. On Tuesday and Friday afternoons, I teach English at the hospital. This means that I spend some of the day before planning out my lessons. I also am involved in usually at least one training that goes on each week, so I have time working with my counterparts on their training, and attending the training. I am still working with my counterparts and supervisor to fill out my schedule and have more set plans for each week--I can't help it, I am American! Having a schedule makes me feel good.
This Tuesday, one of the sexual health trainings for high school students was completed with a presentation about health and community services at the school. About 20 students attended a weekend workshop on sexual health and STI prevention, and then they helped to present the information to their classmates. I attended part of the weekend sessions, and then I helped out a little for the presentation.
Sorry for the excessively long post. I will get to what it is like to be a foreigner (where I stick out like a sore thumb) in my next post!
Until next time!
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