06Apr08
Trip Start
Feb 15, 2008
1
7
13
Trip End
Ongoing
UlaanBaatar,
Mongolia
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Its time for another update. I have been in Mongolia for seven weeks now and its definitely spring. Its Sunday lunchtime and my thermometer is reading 18 degrees outside. However, the consistent thing about Mongolian weather is its inconsistency. I have attached a picture of my thermometer from one morning last week. It reads both inside and outside temperature, and you can see the difference. The humidity reading is very accurate - low! I have forgotten what rain looks like.
My work at the veterinary institute is progressing well. At the moment I am working on ways of diagnosing foot and mouth disease. At the moment the diagnostic centre can detect antibodies to the virus, but not the virus itself. So I am developing cell culture and PCR based tests which will indicate if the virus is present in samples from animals. Mongolia has suffered from three outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in the past few years, and quicker and more accurate diagnosis will allow future outbreaks to be identified and contained more easily. And I have learnt that foot and mouth disease affects camels! I knew if affected pigs, sheep, cattle and goats, but apparently in the south of Mongolia, in the Gobi desert, camels showed signs of foot and mouth disease during one of the epidemics down there a few years ago.
The biggest obstacle I have come up against in my work so far is the difficulty of getting things delivered to Mongolia. There is a three week delivery time so your work can be held up for 3 weeks if you run out of something.
Grey van I
Its very tempting to order stacks and stacks of everything to try and avoid this, but with a restricted budget that's just not possible. The sources are quite restricted too. I emailed a number of laboratory and chemical supply companies to see if they would deliver to us, but most said no or just never replied. A big thumbs up to Invitrogen and BDSL who together have been fantastic, really taken my request on as a challenge and come up with solutions, and are the only company I have found who will supply items on dry ice. However, these special deliveries cost a minimum of £195 for the shipping cost alone, so I think we'll only be able to afford two or three dry ice shipments this year. I'll be planning those very carefully! I set up my lab in Edinburgh just last year, and in retrospect it was an absolute piece of cake compared to setting up one in Mongolia! How I just wish I had John and his stores just along the corridor from me here!At the moment I am planning my first countryside trip. There is a problem in the east of Mongolia, in the Dornod and Sukhbaatar aimags, with sporadic, sudden death of livestock. One of the theories is that it is connected to low phosphate in the soil and resultant botulism. A team of vets from the Central Lab is going on a two week trip to investigate, and I have been invited along! It is planned for early May, and we will be going through some very remote areas, way off the tourist track. My boss has warned me that "facilities will be primitive"! I am hoping we are going to go in a grey Russian van - they are so trendy! I have included pictures of the Vet Lab one, they are apparently near indestructable.
Grey van II
I have been a passenger in one a few times and they are surprisingly comfortable with lots of leg room, but I am hoping I will never be called on to drive one as they were built before power steering came into fashion and the gear box also seemed quite a struggle!I have been visiting some of the other veterinary organisations in Ulaanbaatar including a group called VetNet who have been in Mongolia for 12 years and are involved in improving the professional education of rural vets. There are seven US and about 60 Mongolian staff including veterinarians and support staff. VetNet run one and two week-long training courses in UB which include practical sessions. They also travel around the country providing on-site advice and assistance and act as a semi-private pharmacy, supplying good quality veterinary drugs to rural veterinarians at a reasonable price. Good quality veterinary drugs are hard to come by in Mongolia. It was a really interesting visit, my impression was that VetNet are doing really useful and important work.
I must apologise for the lack of photos in this blog. I haven't had much time to do much touristy stuff in the past couple of weeks, but I also think I need to overcome my scruples in taking photos! There are loads of things I'd like to take a photo of in UB but I am a bit self conscious about taking my camera out sometimes. There is a little old lady who sits on the pavement all day every day just up from my apartment. She sells individual cigarettes, little wrapped sweets, and she has a set of scales on the ground next to her so you can pay to weigh yourself.
Thermometer
She also has a phone which you can use for a charge. It looks like a normal landline phone, quite incongruous on the street! Public phone Mongolian style. I'd love to take a picture of her, but don't know if it would be rude. I'd also like to take a photo during the bus trip out to work but unfortunately there isn't room for me to take my camera out! Squashed takes on a whole new meaning on the bus! It probably wouldn't be safe for me to take my camera out either. Pickpocketing on the buses in UB is very common.I am becoming more used to Mongolian society rules now, particularly the lack of queuing. Mongolians do not queue. I remember when I was flying here back in February we were waiting at Moscow airport to board the flight to UB and there was a total scrum when the gate opened for boarding! I was standing at the back thinking oh my goodness! Similarly, there is no queuing for a bus when it arrives. In Edinburgh everyone lines up in the bus shelter in the order in which you arrive there and then wait patiently while everyone boards in turn. Not here! I was in the bank the other day and there was no queue to get to the cashier. Luckily I was with one of the ladies from work who got me to the counter, but there were about 3 people all crowding around me as I was handing over my bank card, identity and signing for the money! Actually, that bank trip was almost highly amusing since the cashier became confused over currencies. I asked for 60 000 tugriks (about £30), but she thought I meant $US60 000. She was preparing to hand over $60 000 in cash to me!! Luckily with the assistance of my workmate we sorted out the confusion before it was irreparable.
Thank you all for your emails and especially the gluten-free food parcels! All extremely gratefully received. I am carefully rationing it all - I have actually just made a block of Green and Blacks chocolate last a whole week. This is absolutely unprecedented self control!
Love
Pip / Pippa
