Bob's Mongologue: World Aids Day, aka. condomucopia

Hello, all. I apologize for my protracted paucity in posting pictures. When I imagined the Peace Corps lifestyle a year ago, visions of reading lengthy tomes while relaxing in a hammock suspended between trees danced through my head. The reality of service in Mongolia is actually frenetically paced. I’m sure that my friends serving in tiny villages across the country would leap to protest this claim, had their months-long inertia induced by steadfastly surviving glacial ger-life not slowed their movement to a lethargic yet plucky torpor. In fact, we are not only in the grips of an abnormally frigid Mongolian winter, but perhaps the coldest and most brutal brumality to rock this steppe in 30 years.

The upside of living in a busy Aimag Center is that there is always work to be done, and sometimes internet connectivity with which to do it. I hope that in the near future I will be better at time-managing the former and utilizing the latter (when present) to get my truly massive backlog of pictures and stories posted here. By the way, Happy Tsagaan Sar! (Lunar New Year)

World AIDS Day

December 1st marks World AIDS day, an occasion on which we can all come together in the timeless and joyous pursuit of plaguing, pillorying, and perhaps protecting those who are less comfortable around condom demonstrations than ourselves. This year, that unenviable role fell to the general student populations of Choibalsan’s two colleges. We also worked to spread awareness of sexually transmitted infections, educate on their prevention, and distribute countless quantities of those enigmatic and enticing little prophylactics known as “Lifestyles-Ultra Lubricated.” Tia Farrell, a superbly knowledgeable PC volunteer at the Red Cross in UB, generously provided us with 750 such safety sleeves, which we put to very good use. After the customary early-morning “big old bag o’ condoms” photo shoot:

…we were off to the Dornod Health Department to coordinate with Raj and Jay, VSO volunteers from India and the Philippines respectively, on our methods of mass dissemination. Posters and materials from the Red Cross were distributed to the local secondary schools, where the health teachers were busy plastering hallways with all such resources onto which they could get their latexed hands.

We then saturated both the Dornod Institute and the Dornod Technology School where we adopted “Shock and Awe” tactics of dispersal, and clearly won some hearts and minds in the process. No place was safe, from the snowy exterior

bob surprising these students at technology college

to the library

to the very classrooms themselves.

don't know why but i like this picture even though it's blurry

There is something uproarious about-literally-running up to a group of young Mongolians, loudly saying “here you go” or “mai,” the Mongolian-language equivalent, and pushing a condom, a bookmark with AIDS information, and a hand-made red ribbon into their unexpecting palms. We established such disarming routines as approaching a particularly reticent recipient (provided that he or she was with friends) giving him or her a significant head-to-toe once-over with a knowing smile, and then bestowing not one but two or three condoms, conspiratorially murmuring “looks like you’ll be needing a few of these." I'm pretty sure that several of them understood the flattery, as farcical as it might really have been.

When our condom cache was nearly exhausted, we attended an informational seminar that had been arranged by Raj, Jay, and the local chapter of the Red Cross. The college-aged recruits seemed very motivated. The thought that some of them will still be doing this sort of thing after we’re all gone is quite reassuring. Now if only I can get them to wear red ribbon capes and put on condom skullcaps...