Derbys, Mongolian Band, and Meetings

I went to drinks with Underseas Voyager Project Guy at an expat function in the second fanciest hotel in Ulan Bataar.  I had planned on trying to meet some miners and seeing if I could make any interesting contacts in the Gobi.  Instead, I found myself berated by an English girl from Bristol.

“You know there is no.. not really… a market in Mongolian livestock, you know? Not like how we think of a market”

“I know.  I had a meeting with Mercy Corps yesterday afternoon where we discussed that.”

“So then why are you doing a supply chain analysis here?”

I shrugged. “My master’s program requires me to do an international consultancy or internship of some kind.  The UN is footing the bill for me to come here. But, yeah, I know I’m kind of on a fool’s errand. Nothing to do, but to just do the best I can, and hopefully something interesting will come out of it.”

“Okay….” She inflected upward, then sipped her Tiger beer.

Her skepticism struck as a bit rich.  She organizes the Mongolian Derby, (which she insists on pronouncing DAHRBY), the longest horse race in the world, modeled on Genghis Khan's postal system that transverses the Mongolian Steppe, over 9 days and 1000 km long. And I’m the one on the fool’s errand. And she’s giving me skepticism for trying to do the first quantitative analysis of the Mongolian livestock value chain that takes into account the full offering of livestock products (meat, hide, fiber, dairy), substitution effects between animals, and rates of return.  At least I don’t organize a 1000 km horse race in the middle of butt f**** nowhere Mongolia.

OK, maybe I am crazy.

I’ve spent my first week in UB taking as many meetings as I can organize. It’s been limited due to what contacts I was able to make while in the US, but still things have gone well as can be expected. When one says I’m a researcher from UC Berkeley on a project that the UN is paying for, people seem at least willing to give you the time of day.

I should have gotten more done, but Derby Girl insists on dragging me to Mongolian rock shows.

Tuesday, I finally make it out to the countryside.  I fly to a town on the far west side of the country, Khovd. There, I meet up with some PCVs who know the local middle man, and we go from there.  After a few days in Khovd, I travel by bus to Uliastai.  This is a place even Mongolians say is remote (but of course there’s Peace Corps). According to reports, this province has the highest number of livestock in the country.

UB has been an exciting place, but everyone tells me that it’s there least favorite part of Mongolia.  I have to get out to the countryside, they say.  I did a long run out of the city today. What little of the steppes I saw, made me yearn for more.

 Looking down at UB.

 Ger town at the edge of the city.

The Steppe