11-Week Recap

This was going to be a two-month recap, but it’s taken me three extra weeks to get it done.

So what have I been doing, anyway? I’m glad you asked. Let’s run through the highlights of my early experiences in Erdenet:

The Russian Sales Pitch: My first visit to Erdenet Mining Company (aka the reason this city exists) was to see a product demonstration by a Russian mining equipment manufacturer. The potential buyers were from a company based in Ulaanbaatar, and my director and I were along for the ride because…well I don’t know why. The interesting part of the day wasn’t watching the mineral detection machine in action, but rather the reception afterwards, which consisted of a lot of mutton and many vodka toasts. Everybody there — the Russians and Mongolians and one Australian guy — celebrated this glorious new piece of mining technology and the prospect of doing business together. I was starting to think I would have to give a speech too, but then my director made his move to leave and I went with him. Kind of a shame, really.

Yeah, find that copper.

The “Alternative Finance Forum”: Organized and hosted by my agency (OBCCI, the Orkhon/Bulgan provinces’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry), this was an event where lending institutions gave presentations to small business owners. My main contribution was taking pictures. There were some finance students from the Erdenet branch of the National University of Mongolia volunteering as ushers. I met one who spoke decent English, and she agreed to be a Mongolian language tutor for Katie and me. She’s been working with us once or twice a week.

Marketing Training from a Real Live American Marketing Professional: Yes, that’s me. A guy asked me to present some case studies on marketing plans as part of a two-week training he was conducting for local business people. The request was pretty vague, which made it difficult, but I was happy to get the opportunity to do some business-related work, which had been slow to materialize. The first session I attended, I was expecting to have a short Q&A where I’d get to hear about what kind of business problems the participants had. Instead, everybody looked at me and my interpreter asked me, “What would you like to talk about?” So I had to wing it, and spent the next two hours giving a meandering talk on marketing strategy and the importance of choosing a target market. I think it went okay. I was better prepared for the second session.

English Classes: A teacher from Erdenet’s “Human Development Center” asked me to teach at her school. She normally teaches English grammar and she wanted a native speaker to do a conversation class. Katie and I have been teaching the class together once a week, and we also had our first “English Movie Night” there last Friday. The idea is to show a chunk of a movie and then stop to ask the students questions about the plot and some of the language they heard. We did the first half of The Goonies this time, and it was much more successful than the worst-case scenario I had prepared myself for. I was worried it would totally bomb due to people not understanding enough dialogue. Pretty sure including subtitles (in English) was the key. Other films we’re considering for upcoming installments include Big, Jurassic Park and Back to the Future. I’m pretty pumped about this.

I also taught a few English lessons at the local government office, but that fizzled out after just a week. I’m continuing to work with my counterparts (Peace Corps term for your co-workers at your agency) on their English, both through formal lessons and informal, everyday workplace interactions.

Trip to Darkhan: I spent a Sunday in Darkhan, about a two-hour drive away, with the other two guys from my office.

This 50-foot scrap metal guy greets you on the way into Darkhan.

We went to the “Darkhan Partnership” trade fair to recruit businesses for our own trade fair, planned for the following weekend. I got to meet the staff of Darkhan CCI and, naturally, take several shots of vodka with them.

Which leads me to…

“Erdenet Partnership”: Businesses from Erdenet and surrounding provinces set up booths to showcase their wares for three days at our trade fair. This is one of the biggest events organized by OBCCI each year.

I love the smell of commerce in the morning!

Once again, I had a very minor role in organizing and running the event, and once again, from my perspective the event itself was overshadowed by the banquet that followed. You can probably guess what went on there (hint: vodka). But more notable, and probably deserving of its own section here, was…

My First Real-World Mongolian Waltz: The trade fair banquet featured waltzing by a crew of high school kids (I think?) hired as entertainment. The floor was then opened up for the rest of the attendees. Now, Peace Corps was kind enough to give us some Mongolian waltz exposure during pre-service training, but I was kind of hoping I’d never be forced to actually do it. But lo and behold, a nice young lady held out her hand asking me to dance, and how could I say no? And boy, it was exactly as awkward as you’d imagine if you’ve ever seen me dance. Katie was spared from the waltz, but she did hit the dancefloor once the DJ transitioned to pop music. It’s funny: a lot of Mongolians can waltz their asses off, but let them go freestyle and they tend to just stand in a circle and sway back and forth.

The Mongolian waltz in action

IT Consulting?: Somebody from the Peace Corps office emailed saying that a guy from the mining company had asked for PCV assistance with some database work. I don’t know much about databases, but I met with him to see if there was anything I could do. It seemed strange that this huge company (by Mongolian standards) was seeking volunteer assistance. I’m going to help them try to hire a consultant, since this project is likely to require at least a few months of work. I am also trying to track down some database planning information that they can read — they have some engineers/programmers who can understand English. I’m getting some long-distance assistance from fellow PCV Danny out in the east end of the country.

What’s next? I’ve been getting more integrated into my office’s daily operations, and we’ll be working together on organizational planning for the next few weeks. We need to map out and design the training courses we plan to offer in 2011 (topics like how to write a business plan). I’m encouraging my counterparts to get more feedback from CCI members to make sure we’re planning services that they want.

Maybe I should also put some more time into practicing the waltz.