But what does it really look like over there?

Today was my first day at the orphanage. The older children looked at me with their eyes wide open, in total silence. I said hello to them, but no one dared say anything at first. Then finally one of them said, almost whispering, "Sain baina uu".

My job is to help out a little with the small children in the morning. I took a beautiful little autistic girl out for a walk - she loves being outdoors - and we met a puppy, for mutual joy! Somehow the puppy seemed to understand that it mustn't come too close, but it yelped and jumped and hid and ran around, and the girl bubbled with laughter. At lunch I had the task of feeding a very small boy who ate his soup with great appetite, but just before the last spoonful he fell asleep, his head falling down onto the plate ...

So far I haven't published any pictures of gers (yurts) or a village (they are called "sum"), so here are, for you enlightenment, two typical views. Ulaanbaatar is Ulaanbaatar, but the countryside really is Mongolia!

NB the solar panels. The sun shines almost every day, so it's an efficient way of getting energy.

Don't think that there are sums in the Mongolian countryside just as there are villages dotted all over Belgium! Perhaps you pass one or so, or see one in the far distance, in "densely" populated areas ... In other areas, such as the Gobi, you can travel for days without even seeing one single person, let alone a whole sum!