Smiles

Next week I will start working a little, just a few hours per day, in an orphanage run by the NGO where I will start teaching English to street children in May. My work will be in the district where I live, about a 25-minute walk from home, I should think. I paid a visit to my future supervisor today, and was once again struck by the sharp contrasts you see everywhere in UB: the orphanage/school seemed to be in an abandoned industrial area, but almost next to it is the Ministry of Defense, an imposing building.

Baigamaa, my supervisor. In the room to the left, some cool teenagers were watching a Mongolian comedy DVD.

The orphanage where I will start working a little on Monday. The NGO is called Setgelees setgeld , which they themselves translate as Soul to soul, but those of you who know Mongolian perhaps agree with me that the translation could be improved.

In the taxi (that is, in the car that stopped and acted taxi) there was this little surprise in the front seat! He stared at me for 10 minutes, thinking, I'm sure, what a strange person I was, but then he got used to me and just didn't stop smiling! Sooo cute!

And in the Projects Abroad office one of the ghastly-looking pinatas from yesterday had turned into something quite different! It's Enkhmaa smiling next to it.

Tomorrow morning I will leave UB and go to the countryside, to the Hentii province, for three days. Hentii is in Eastern Mongolia, and it was there that Chingghis Khaan was born. I will visit some of Odnoo's relatives who are nomads. So I hope to have interesting things to tell you when I'm back!