27 April 2008
Trip Start
Feb 15, 2008
1
8
13
Trip End
Ongoing
UlaanBaatar,
Mongolia
Sunday, April 27, 2008
I am continuing to enjoy my time in Mongolia, especially as the weather continues to warm up. Well, its generally warming up! Spring weather in Mongolia is very changeable. We had a couple of days with maximums of 25OC last week, clear blue skies and just a warm, light breeze, it was really lovely weather. I was beginning to think all the warnings about spring in Mongolia were exaggerated, but then on Wednesday it changed back to a wintery maximum of 4, with a bitter, bitter wind! And the highlight was the snow on Thursday! It was the first significant precipitation since I arrived 10 weeks ago, I was so excited I took some photos. They show the snow covered hill behind my work, and the view down from my work over UB, with the golden Buddhist statue in the foreground. Note the wet ground!! Spring in Mongolia isn't quite the same as spring in the UK, where it is full of daffodils and baby lambs and everything is green and beautiful
"Cell culture laboratory"
. Spring is quite a difficult season in Mongolia because the weather is still intermittently cold, there are frequent dust storms, and not much food left after the winter. I have noticed the prices in the market have increased even in the 10 weeks since I arrived here. My Mongolian friends recommend summer and autumn as the best times to visit their country. Just as a sidenote, if anyone is interested in visiting Mongolia, do let me know as I can put you in touch with reputable travel agencies and hotels, and recommend a few good things to do. As the Beijing Olympics is this summer, Mongolia is expecting a lot of tourists, so do book early.One of the most fun afternoons I have had since arriving was watching a Mongolian wrestling tournament a couple of weeks ago. Mongolian wrestling is quite unique. The participants wear a pointy hat, a shrug with sleeves that ties round the front, Speedos, and knee high boots. The general rule is the same as in most wrestling - whoever gets their opponent on the ground wins, however, there are special traditions to be followed before and after each bout. The wrestlers both slowly circle a flag before they fight, and the wrestler who wins circles the flag after the bout too, while the looser just trudges off. There were at least 50 wrestlers participating in this competition, and up to ten bouts were going on in the stadium at the same time, so it was very exciting to watch
Wrestling poster
. There were no boundaries between the bouts, so they would sometimes crash into each other. The tactics involve making use of any hand holds you can, and one of the most useful things to hold on to are the sleeves or the waist tie of the shrug. I noticed a couple of the wrestlers had a distinct advantage as they were so fat their bellies hung over their waist tie, and their opponents couldn't grab it! I couldn't quite figure out how the wrestlers progressed from one round to the next, as it didn't seem to be a knockout format. It was too complicated for me, however! There were about 8 rounds so the winner had to beat 8 people, he looked absolutely knackered at the end. There are photos attached showing some of the wrestling. It was a bit dark inside, so I have included a photo of the advertising poster outside the stadium, which shows the apparel more clearly.I am continuing to progress with my Mongolian language. Gerlee, a friend at work (she is a foot and mouth disease virus specialist), is teaching me for an hour every Monday evening, she is very patient! We practice texting too which is highly confusing as mobiles don't do cyrillic text, so you have to kind of translate the Mongolian cyrillic symbols to normal latin letters, sort of phonetically. I find it a struggle to translate what I want to say from english to mongolian, and then into a sort of hybrid latin/mongolian alphabet
Parade of wrestlers
! I did have my first conversation solely in Mongolian recently, with a rural veterinarian who popped into my office at work. I managed to find out where he was from, what he was doing in UB, and how long he was going to be here for. And to tell him pretty much the same about myself! I was quite proud of that, but then spoilt it by asking for 21 kilograms of potatoes when I went to the market that afternoon! That mistake caused lots of hilarity amongst the stall holders! I meant two kilos.Work is also going very well. Our new cell culture facility is ready to start next week, which is very exciting. Its been slightly difficult to source some items such as liquid nitrogen and CO2 but we are pretty much ready to go now. I have included a picture of the sign on our laboratory door, and a photo of me with our new O2 monitor, which will be used when we are working with the liquid nitrogen. I think it may be the only O2 monitor in Mongolia! I am a little apprehensive about running a cell culture facility in the dusty environment of UB, as it is not very conducive to maintaining sterility! I usually don't put antifungal agents in my cell culture media as I think it's an indicator of poor technique! If you get fungus in your culture you should check your procedures rather than just adding antifungal to everything. But I notice that the scientists here have bought in industrial amounts of antifungal additive, so I wonder if I am going to have to change my mind?
Wreslters being introduced
! I think I'll run a small experiment - I won't use antifungals in my media, but Dulam (the other cell culture scientist) will, and we'll see who gets fungus first in their cultures! I have also started my weekly seminars at the institute. I have given a seminar on "DNA to protein" which included coverage of transcription and translation and a couple of examples of diseases due to DNA mutations. And last week I gave a lecture on ovine pulmonary adenomatosis (OPA). This is a lung tumour in sheep which is caused by a virus. It's a really fascinating disease, but there is no treatment, no control and no preventative measures, so farmers are generally not so enthusiastic about it. There is a lot of OPA in the UK but it was only discovered in Mongolia for the first time last year. It will be interesting to see how the disease spreads and what effect is has in the very extensive, nomadic sheep rearing system here. Next weeks seminar is on PCR, and the one after that on tick borne diseases.
Thanks for your emails and news from home, its great to be able to keep up with whats going on - the EBRC opening, Anzac day holidays, WPO concerts etc.
Love
Pip
