Early morning here at the work site and progress is going good. We got one wall up yesterday and I expect at the rate we are going at that by the and of the day we should have all of our walls up and we may even be starting on the roof. It seems that everything that could possibly go wrong has happened on this trip whether its having our flight canceled, freezing in our yurts or coming to the work site ad discovering that the foundation hadn’t even been layed down yet, we’ve all still somehow kept high spirits and are getting this school built. The people here are amazingly friendly and I feel extremely welcome in their town as everyone says hi and smiles as you walk by, they’ve even thrown us two dance parties the last two nights we’ve been here. On a closing note Mongolia is an amazing country and is probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, the vast expanses of snow capped mountains are in every direction as far as the eye can see and at night the sky is lit up by millions of stars the likes of which I’ve never seen before, at least not to this extent. Hope everyone all good at home and I guess you’ll hear from me in my next blog.
Education is a very important thing. Without it in today’s modern society unless your extremely talented or are a great entrepreneur you probably will only be able to get a job at McDonalds. Since being born with business smarts or talent is extremely rare the rest of us need to go to school to learn about the fields we want to peruse and get the qualifications needed to get the jobs we want. This can be very hard due to the fact that a high school education can’t get you very far anymore and post secondary is needed for many jobs. This is magnified even more in countries like Mongolia where some villages like Zuunkharaa don’t have a school that the children can attend and while the requirement may be different for jobs in Mongolia it still puts their youth at a disadvantage in the globalized society of today. It causes people to be taken advantage of and for the formation of things like sweatshops to happen which is why I’m glad that were doing this project to help stop the abuse of under educated people.
Recently in class we were informed that some of us were not living up to expectations. After filling out my interim it was pretty obvious that I was one of these people and really I can’t say that I didn’t expect it after the minimal amount of effort that I put into this last term. This combined with the threat of being kicked out has really given me the kick in the butt that I needed to realize that I need to clean up my act. In the global perspectives program we were chosen by the teachers to be a part of the class and I feel that we have taken advantage of our positions and have taken them for granted. Well at least I know I have. I’ve let it get to my head that the class needs me but to be brutally honest I could’ve easily been one of the people who wasn’t chosen and I still could be taken out at any time. Really in truth I think us students need this class more than it needs us, were going to be completely changed by the experience(as I’ve been told) while it would be fine if any other student took my place. I guess what I’m trying to say is I should be far more grateful for being a part of such a rare experience and should be trying my hardest at all times cause this is way more important than any trivial things that are happening in my life.
I’ve been wondering lately about our whole project in Mongolia and for some reason I’ve come to realize there may very well be negative impacts from 1st world countries coming to the aid of 2nd and 3rd world countries.
One of the biggest problems in the world is overpopulation. Within the next fifty years we may see the earth reach its critical mass and this is where I come to my predicament. My thoughts are that in this world, if we give the people who need it the means to thrive and prosper wont we just be increasing the chances of overpopulation. When we, humans as a species, were at our lowest numbers we were uneducated cave men just living to survive, but as our intelligence increased so did our numbers until a point that we believe that we are the smartest beings on earth but somehow cant figure out a way to stop ourselves from multiplying exponentially. This is where the real argument comes in, will giving people in less wealthy countries help to stop people from over reproducing or will it only encourage it more as they will now have the better means to raise these children. I really have no idea as both sides of the argument seem very plausible. Seeing as how our first world is far less populated but we still grow because we live for so long compared to the third world which grows exponentially but dose not thrive because it doesn’t have the means to I don’t know what would happen if we helped advance there stats.
I think the one thing I do know is that in my eyes everyone deserves an equal chance at life and it is up to the people who are able to, to help advance there fellow human beings. And besides you never do know what’s going to happen until you try and giving the people the education they need may be all it takes to help stop the overpopulation crisis.
When Mongolia was first described to me as being a country of desserts and rolling grass hills I thought , hmm its probably gona be like Alberta just with less farms, but the more I see pictures it gets me wondering where are all the trees? Having been in Canada my whole life I’ve really gotten used to having some sort of tree be in my field of vision whenever I’m outside and I’m not gona lie not having them there is probably gona weird me out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still really pumped to live in yurts, build a school, maybe see some two humped camels and wear 40 layers so I don’t freeze while doing all of this, the first few days are going to be a bit of a shocker for me if there really are no trees. But who knows maybe in every Mongolian picture I’ve seen there’s a big forest of trees right behind the photographer I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
On the other hand there are many things I am very excited to see that can only really be seen without the presence of trees. First of all a desert is something I’ve always wanted to see and if we were to take the opportunity to head out into the Gobi I think I would be quite fulfilled. Another sight I hope we can experience is to be able to find the highest hill, head to the top and be able to look out over vast expanses in every direction. This feat is only really possible without trees and I hope that it will be able to keep my mind off of how much I’m missing them when were there. I believe that for the first few days’ life without the presence of trees or with few of them will be very strange but once I get used to my surroundings it will be easy to embrace Mongolia and all of its geographical features.
Recently in class Matheny decided to give us all secrete cards with a certain personality on them and told us to go at it, and act out the personality while talking to the rest of the class. Me, I thought there was absolutely no point to the exercise and that it was just for fun to get the class a little riled up but as usual there was a clever reason to this shouting match in our class room. When Matheny then told us to stop he then proceeded to fill us in on how this was a lesson on what 30 people with different opinions working in a foreign country could be like. From this exercise it really showed me that many conflicts and differences in opinions could occur on this project and that could be a big problem because when we were all arguing as our own characters we really got absolutely nothing done. Except for maybe get a few people flustered. This got me thinking that in our class of 30 people though we may all be going to Mongolia for the same project, each of us will have our own ideas on every decision we have to make and with thirty different ways to go about something there are obviously going to be conflicts that will arise from it. While I want to say that we will sort everything out and work together as a team like we seem to always be able too I can’t, due to the fact that I have no idea how team spirited we will all be feeling after a few days of hard labour and constantly seeing each other. However I’m glad that we have all somewhat experienced this lesson now because if chaos like that happens when were working or travelling and we don’t know what to do about it, we will be in serious trouble.
I think that being educated like this first hand as a class is probably the best defence against a mass personality conflict and if it does happen then at least we will somewhat know what is going on and find a solution from there.
Till next blog, peace
I can’t believe I thought all the fundraising at the end of last year was a lot. The silent auction dinner alone blew all the other fundraisers out of the water, in payoff and in craziness.
I really went into the dinner believing that we would be on top of it and during the first few hours of setup I wondered how past groups and Matheny could say it was gona be hectic. But then we a few minor mistakes turned into major ones and soon we were two hours away ands we went from being on top of things to total panic mode. It really was crunch time and I think on the brink of disaster we managed to pull through as a team and figure out our way to get it done, which we did with seconds to spare. While the amount raised was not as high as the before summer fundraisers I think the major payoff of the whole event was that Colts to Mongolia as a team really learned how to work while in crisis mode and we came even closer as a team and I think that will really be able to aid us in the future.
