By Bob Figlock & Danny Wolf
Published: Tuesday, May 24, 2011
After weeks of planning and fundraising, we finally arrived at Division 5 on Saturday morning to discuss the arrangements that the recipient families had made for purchasing and transporting their sheep. Our cohort consisted of Bob, Danny, Bavaasan the translator, Enkhbayar the veteran of such undertakings, and John and Joel for support. Most of the families were able to show up, explain their plans, and make the initial contractual agreements. Five families had already selected a seller and had their documentation in order, so we made the necessary travel arrangements, produced a hand-drawn map of our contorted route, and agreed to set out early the next day.
We left Choibalsan in a porragon (a 1960's Russian Jeep) Sunday morning. The wind was picking up and dying down spasmodically, and rain, snow, and hail were taking turns at falling. We barreled along a path that at times consisted of a pair of dirt wheel-tracks pressed into the grassland, and at times was merely the grassland itself. We were trying to get 40km southeast to the dwelling of a herder who would be selling us 60 sheep from his flock of more than a thousand. As it can be extremely difficult to find nomadic herders in the countryside, our driver had to stop at every home we passed and ask where the family was. Conversations usually progressed along the lines of:
Driver: Do you know Boldbaatar?
Woman: Which Boldbaatar?
Three children and a man have walked out into the rain to open the porragon door, stick their heads in, and gawk unblinkingly at probably the first foreigners they've ever seen for 30 seconds straight.
Driver: The one with the sheep.
Woman: Oh, he lives that way.
She points to a spot on the blank horizon absolutely indistinguishable from any of the other 359 degrees that she could have chosen. She might well have been pointing back to Choibalsan for all we knew.
Driver: OK.
Woman: OK.
During several of these stops, the ubiquitous guard dogs wanted to attack our porragon and would chase us unto the very end of their strength. One large dog in particular chose to chase us… from the front. Our driver was careful not to run it over but at times we were going over 30km/hr and the dog was zigzagging in front of us, barking over his shoulder all the while. He made it close to a mile before tiring out and letting us pass. We weren't even within sight of his home any more.
Finally we made it to the ger we were looking for. Shortly after arrival we discovered that all of the sheep were still out to pasture and we therefore couldn't make the purchase. An ironclad rule of our project was that all sheep were to be selected by the recipient prior to payment so we could personally ear tag them. It would be a few hours before they could be corralled for selection. Luckily, the next seller was only 20km away, so we decided to move on so the sheep could be chosen in the meantime. On the way we saw a herd of camels so we stopped and took pictures. The camels were pretty curious about us, but tried to keep their distance, especially when Bavasaan tried to get close enough for us to take a picture of them together. This was the first time Danny had gotten this close to a camel outside of the zoo. The camels tired of us before we tired of them, so we continued on our way.
When we arrived, the two families who were making the purchase showed up 5 minutes after us. The seller already had his livestock on hand and waiting for selection so some of us went out to choose and tag the sheep while others stayed in the ger, sipped milk tea and ate biscuits, and handled the particulars of signing the contract. One of our previous families had opted out at the last minute, causing us some alarm, but fortunately here we encountered an old man who had lost all but 50 of his clan's livestock and is supporting 7 children and over 30 grandchildren with these animals. He had been vetted and chosen to receive a ger from a World Vision project last year. After Enkhbayar conducted a long interview, we determined that his family was eligible to participate.
The two families who were buying sheep that day had small, young herds and preferred to purchase 15 two-year-old mothers with 15 lambs instead of 20 three-year-olds as most recipients were doing. This way they could appropriately stagger their herd for sustainability. They agreed that they would pay back the same 20 3-year-olds that everyone else would, and Enkhbayar approved of this modification, so it was put into place. Once the sheep were tagged and the contracts were signed, we handed over the gargantuan stacks of tugriks (there is no checking system out here) and received a shower of gratitude for creating a project such as this. The two herder families were all smiles and couldn't thank us enough. They were clearly very excited to have these animals, and spoke enthusiastically of driving them home this week.
We were seen off by another round of handshakes and waves to go back to the first seller with whom we had met. This time we arrived to find the animals had been selected and everything was ready for the contract signing and tagging. As with the previous purchase, several people went outside to chase the sheep around the corral while others filled out and signed the contracts. The sheep were docile once tackled, but were naturally averse to having an oversize hole-punch used on their ears. Since we caught the slowest ones first, and couldn't separate the sheep that had been tagged from those that hadn't, the last few animals proved very difficult register. In spite of being the only member of the flock without a bright orange earring, the very last sheep took five of us to bring down, at one point jumping clear over another (standing!) member of the flock.
Much like at the previous handovers, everyone was highly and demonstratively appreciative of what we were doing. Once the contracts were finalized and the payment was given, we headed back to Division 5 to get more signatures for the contracts, as everything is signed by each adult member of a recipient family in triplicate. We were greeted by some of the family members who had stayed home. They made us Mongolian soup containing dried sheep-jerky and milk tea as a gesture of gratitude. Although we were exhausted by day's end, we had had what we felt was a legitimate Mongolian adventure out in the countryside and were looking forward to purchasing the other half of the animals next weekend.
To view more photos, please visit our album here.
Published: Tuesday, May 24, 2011
After weeks of planning and fundraising, we finally arrived at Division 5 on Saturday morning to discuss the arrangements that the recipient families had made for purchasing and transporting their sheep. Our cohort consisted of Bob, Danny, Bavaasan the translator, Enkhbayar the veteran of such undertakings, and John and Joel for support. Most of the families were able to show up, explain their plans, and make the initial contractual agreements. Five families had already selected a seller and had their documentation in order, so we made the necessary travel arrangements, produced a hand-drawn map of our contorted route, and agreed to set out early the next day.
We left Choibalsan in a porragon (a 1960's Russian Jeep) Sunday morning. The wind was picking up and dying down spasmodically, and rain, snow, and hail were taking turns at falling. We barreled along a path that at times consisted of a pair of dirt wheel-tracks pressed into the grassland, and at times was merely the grassland itself. We were trying to get 40km southeast to the dwelling of a herder who would be selling us 60 sheep from his flock of more than a thousand. As it can be extremely difficult to find nomadic herders in the countryside, our driver had to stop at every home we passed and ask where the family was. Conversations usually progressed along the lines of:
Woman: Which Boldbaatar?
Three children and a man have walked out into the rain to open the porragon door, stick their heads in, and gawk unblinkingly at probably the first foreigners they've ever seen for 30 seconds straight.
Driver: The one with the sheep.
Woman: Oh, he lives that way.
She points to a spot on the blank horizon absolutely indistinguishable from any of the other 359 degrees that she could have chosen. She might well have been pointing back to Choibalsan for all we knew.
Driver: OK.
Woman: OK.
During several of these stops, the ubiquitous guard dogs wanted to attack our porragon and would chase us unto the very end of their strength. One large dog in particular chose to chase us… from the front. Our driver was careful not to run it over but at times we were going over 30km/hr and the dog was zigzagging in front of us, barking over his shoulder all the while. He made it close to a mile before tiring out and letting us pass. We weren't even within sight of his home any more.
Finally we made it to the ger we were looking for. Shortly after arrival we discovered that all of the sheep were still out to pasture and we therefore couldn't make the purchase. An ironclad rule of our project was that all sheep were to be selected by the recipient prior to payment so we could personally ear tag them. It would be a few hours before they could be corralled for selection. Luckily, the next seller was only 20km away, so we decided to move on so the sheep could be chosen in the meantime. On the way we saw a herd of camels so we stopped and took pictures. The camels were pretty curious about us, but tried to keep their distance, especially when Bavasaan tried to get close enough for us to take a picture of them together. This was the first time Danny had gotten this close to a camel outside of the zoo. The camels tired of us before we tired of them, so we continued on our way.
When we arrived, the two families who were making the purchase showed up 5 minutes after us. The seller already had his livestock on hand and waiting for selection so some of us went out to choose and tag the sheep while others stayed in the ger, sipped milk tea and ate biscuits, and handled the particulars of signing the contract. One of our previous families had opted out at the last minute, causing us some alarm, but fortunately here we encountered an old man who had lost all but 50 of his clan's livestock and is supporting 7 children and over 30 grandchildren with these animals. He had been vetted and chosen to receive a ger from a World Vision project last year. After Enkhbayar conducted a long interview, we determined that his family was eligible to participate.
We were seen off by another round of handshakes and waves to go back to the first seller with whom we had met. This time we arrived to find the animals had been selected and everything was ready for the contract signing and tagging. As with the previous purchase, several people went outside to chase the sheep around the corral while others filled out and signed the contracts. The sheep were docile once tackled, but were naturally averse to having an oversize hole-punch used on their ears. Since we caught the slowest ones first, and couldn't separate the sheep that had been tagged from those that hadn't, the last few animals proved very difficult register. In spite of being the only member of the flock without a bright orange earring, the very last sheep took five of us to bring down, at one point jumping clear over another (standing!) member of the flock.
Much like at the previous handovers, everyone was highly and demonstratively appreciative of what we were doing. Once the contracts were finalized and the payment was given, we headed back to Division 5 to get more signatures for the contracts, as everything is signed by each adult member of a recipient family in triplicate. We were greeted by some of the family members who had stayed home. They made us Mongolian soup containing dried sheep-jerky and milk tea as a gesture of gratitude. Although we were exhausted by day's end, we had had what we felt was a legitimate Mongolian adventure out in the countryside and were looking forward to purchasing the other half of the animals next weekend.
To view more photos, please visit our album here.
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