Hold on to your hats!

So today has been busy. I went to the gym and got followed around by some freaky guy. It's not unusual for me to have a few 'admirers' (i.e. someone staring at me while I work out) because I'm a girl and I do weights (which is highly unusual in Mongolia. Actually, I haven't seen one other female regularly at the gym at all). This guy was freaky deaky though. Anyway, I did my thing and left.

Work was work - standard, not much happening. I had lunch with another volunteer friend which was lovely and then took some quick snaps on the way back to work for this database of photos I'm trying to develop.

Lunch time, autumn weather, UB city

Excursion Day! School kids on the main street in UB

More excursion day - such cute uniforms!

I'm trying to write this bloody presentation for tomorrow. I have absolutely no scope so I'm trying to be broad. *idea* I might get groups to brainstorm and tell me what they want to know about in Australia. Could be good. Could be disastrous. So I've got some basic stuff about ME. Communication is terrible here and I am hoping by adding a high level of personality in to the mix I will provoke some thoughts and increase my approachability. As well as make them think about how un-open things are at work. So I've got baby photos, family photos, farm photos (because I don't want to rely on English as my main communication media). I've got the schools I went to - what happens, what time you go to school, how far people travel etc. And then I move on to uni - the costs, the subjects etc. It's all about what I did but I'm just using me as a subject because it's more familiar and therefore more engaging.

This doesn't meant I'm ready. I'm fast running out of time because other things are happening. For example, I just received and email AND a follow up phone call about meeting a Mongolian based geotourism (I don't know what that means yet) organisation called 'ger to ger' that has successfully implemented ecotourism in to the nomadic lifestyle to diversify income.

I contacted them as we're looking at using tourism as a diversification strategy to help herders make money, without having to rely on weather. It has the opportunity to be very successful as there are very few reputable, cultural tour companies in Mongolia. So these people at Ger to Ger were so excited that I actually contacted them that the boss called and spoke so fast that I couldn't understand him (he's American). He is super keen to work with our project and believes there's a lot we could do to help each other. He's tried before and has always had a keen interest in making it happen between the two projects so was really happy that I made initial contact as it means he might actually succeed this time. I told him not to get too excited as we still have to talk my boss in to working with another group as opposed to making an independent tourism company (read: Mongolians are VERY independent and when you can do things yourself, you do. You don't join other people).

So anyway, we're meeting tomorrow and I'm excited as it could work and be an amazing step forward in tourism AND rural development in Mongolia.

In conclusion, hold on to your hats Ladies and Gents, it looks like I might actually contribute something to my workplace!!!!