Some Mongolian students met us at the airport and have taken very good care of us ever since. We are staying in a student dormitory near the Mongolian National University. We have eaten well at various restaurants in Ulaanbaatar. It is very hot here (near 40 degrees) with low humidity and often a hot dry wind. We learned very quickly to buy lots of bottled water and always have some at hand. We have to take a bus to reach the city center of Ulaanbaatar where we can go to the post office to send mail or get internet access.
We met Dr. Gombojav, D.V.M., Dr. Vet.Sci, who is the Vice-President for International Affairs of the Mongolian State University of Agriculture. We have also met Dr. Batsukh, DVM, Ph.D. who is Director of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Mongolia. He has an answer (in English) to all our questions and can solve any of our problems. Even though right how is semester break, we met a number of students, some of the veterinary professors and toured the veterinary classrooms, laboratories and facilities. We have also found the support staff here very helpful. We are looking forward to having the Mongolian students visit us in Berlin as the second half of this exchange, and discussed with various students and officials how to start the process and how to seek financial support.
Yesterday we gave a presentation about veterinary studies in Germany and another presentation about our project here investigating endoparasites in sheep. Following those presentations we were taken to the Museum of Natural History. Earlier in the week we toured the art museum. This morning we went to the slaughterhouse and meat processing facility. We have climbed to the top of the Russian monument which is near the university. From there we have a beautiful view of Ulaanbaatar and the river that flows through it.
We are enjoying our experience here. We shop at small shops for daily bread, bottled water or juice, and other food items such as pickles or jam for breakfast. We all like the ice cream made with goat’s milk so much that it was sold out in the small shops in our area two days ago. We try to speak a few words in Mongolian such as „thank you“, but some of the students, staff, and others such as Dr. Batsukh speak English so well that they translate everything for us.
written by Linda Weisstroffer
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