Tugsu's workshop in Eastern Mongolia

I went to a conference in Dornod on July 19th, with a crew of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) staff. ( On the picture left : Me, Ochiroo, Ann, Boloroo) The seminar was mainly organized by this new NGO with the help of WCS. The name of the NGO is The Eastern Mongolian Community Conservation Association that consists of herder communities that make contract and lease the land and protect the wildlife and the other natural resources in the area. It is very interesting but conflicting idea since the land ownership especially rangeland is illegal and some people think it conflicts with the nomadic culture. Anyways, the seminar took place for three days over the course of the weekend of July 20-22nd at the “Shaazan nuur” eco-camp. The camp is located on the reservoir lake“Kazakh nuur” in Bayantumen soum of Dornod aimag.

There were horses and lots of birds like swans and herons and they were so beautiful. The conference was very enjoyable and I made many friends with "herder community" leaders.


During the breaks we played ping-pong, pool and frisbee.





Afterwards we went back to Choibalsan the center of the Dornod aimag, and spent the night. Then the next day at 5 am we left the Dornod and was planning on getting to UB around 6 pm that day. Unfortunately, despite all the percautions we had multiple flat tires and spent the whole day fixing our tires and got out of Dornod around 12 o'clock midnight and got home.

The Presentation

Well, at risk of sounding conceited, I think my presentation at the conference went very well. Many people came up to me and congratulated me on the success of my talk, including one of the most famous academicians in the country, the "grandfather of Mongolian Traditional Medicine", Academician Khaidva. He is the one responsible for keeping the knowledge intact through Socialism. Here is a picture of him thanking me for my presentation and providing his support to my project proposal. He is seated just to the left of the person standing and is now 85 years old. There were other interesting presentations as well but what I enjoyed more than anything was being able to meet the people from the conference. I have now put together, with their assistance, a plan on how to actually implement my proposal. I have also been offered their whole-hearted support for its implementation as everyone involved thought it a very important and worthwhile endeavour. What a stroke of luck.

The gist of my presentation was again supporting the development of increased traditional medical participation in the Darhad with the goal of providing a new source of industry for local people. Here I am giving the presentation.

The evening also went well as we went out to a beautiful restaurant. There was a very interesting group from Greece there who were very interested in my project and who, I hope, to collaboarte with in the implementation of such a project. They recently developed a highly specialised kinase inhibitor (from indigo found in snails) that severely retards the growth of a broad range of tumors and are partnering with Merck to complete the in vivo trials. Here I am listening intently.

The second days was also very interesting and apparently I was on TV. I didn't see it but many people have commented on the fact to me. I was also interviewed for on of the national newspapers. If I am in the paper I will try and buy a few copies to take home with me. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the banquet or field trip today. First, I had a very important meeting with a famous professor and I also came down with a nasty case of Giardia. That stuff is awful. However, I held some food in for the first time in two days this morning. Things still going great besides that and the director of BioRegions is back from the Darhad. So we will meet and discuss things soon. That is all for now, but keep an eye on the blog for Tugsu's posting about her trip to the countryside. See you later,

The prodigal wife has returned

Tugsu made it back safely yesterday afternoon. However, she was absolutely exhausted after her 27 hour long jeep ride back. To make things worse they had food poisoning the night before they left. What a fun trip that must have been. Still, she went in to work today despite my protestations. What a freak. I on the other hand have been living it up in Tugsu's absence as I am sure you can imagine. Actually, Amina and I had a really fun weekend just hanging out and exploring things. All that has come to an end though. Now I am back hard at work and preparing for a presentation I am going to have to give alone at a major international conference. Here is the program:
PROGRAMME

(Ulaanbaatar, July 26-28)
(Conference Hall, Health Science University)

Tuesday July 25
Arrival of delegates

Wednesday July 26

Morning
8.30-9.30 Registration

Plenary Session

9.30-10.00 Opening Remarks
· Dr. Ch. Chimedragchaa - Director of the TMSTPC
· Academican B. Enkhtuvshin - Vice president of Mongolian Academy of Sciences

10.00-10.30 Photo Taking

10.30-11.00 Poster sessions (combined with Coffee break)

Chairman Prof. B.Gereltu

11.00-11.20 B.Dagvatseren (Mongolia)
Theory and methodology of Integrative medicine and Traditional
drug study
11.20-11.40 S.М. Nikolaev (Russia)
Regulating influence of complex medical remedies of traditional
Mongolian medicine
11.40-12.00 Prof. K. Glowniak (Poland)
Investigations of herbal medicinal products in Poland and Europe
12.00-12.20 Toshiyuki Uryu (Japan)
Chemo-Enzymatic Production of Fuel Ethanol from Cellulose
Materials Utilizing Various Yeasts Including
Recombinant Yeast


12.30-14.00 Lunch
Afternoon

Chairman Dr. B.Dagvatseren


14.00-14.20 Gereltu Borjigan (China)
Anti-Hyperlipidemic Activity of Natural Compounds
Separated From the Extract of Mongolian Medicine PL L
14.20-14.40 Leandros Skaltsounis (Greece)
Chemistry and biological activity of indirubins
14.40-15.00 Sean Armstrong (USA)
Darhad Valley Community Health and Traditional Medicine:
Creating a holistic balance in the face of globalization
15.00-15.20 Z.Ariunaa (Mongolia)
Effect of Artemisia Sphaerocephala Krasch on blood coagulation

15.20-15.40 Coffee break

15.40-16.00 B.Boldsaikhan (Mongolia)
The Indian medicine and the Mongolian tradition
16.00-16.20 Z.Oyun (Mongolia)
Structures of compounds isolated from plants
16.20-17.00 S. Ts. Ajushieva (Russia)
Comparative analysis of immunity state in patients with
hepatobiliary pathology, who received treatment at the spa
“ARSHAN”
17.00-17.20 Discussion

Evening

18.00-20.0 Welcoming reception by TMSTPC (“Mongol Shiltgeen”)

July 27

Morning

Chairman Dr. Nikolaev S.М.

9.20-9.40 T.A.Aseeva (Russia)
Comparative analysis of the Tibetan medical texts 11th-19th
Centuries
9.40-10.00 Makoto Nishizawa (Japan)
Comparison in Constituents between Rosa rugosa and Mei
Gui Hua
10.00-10.20 Ts. Volodya (Mongolia)
Gastroprotective effect of plant and animal derived medicines
10.20-10.40 L.B. Buraeva (Russia)
The influence of multicomponent herbal preparation
“Ventrofit” when hematological breach caused by antitumour
injections
10.40-11.00 L.N.Shantanova (Russia)
Plant antioxidant remedies in kidney injuries

11.00-11.40 Poster session (combined with Coffee break)

11.40-12.00 Takashi Yamagishi (Japan)
Studies on Aconitum species used for arrow poison by Ainu
12.00-12.20 P. Batkhuyag (Mongolia)
Pharmacological action of preparation from Astragalus adsurgens
Pall.
12.20-12.40 Juramt (China)
The strength and action derived from processing of Jongshi
(Spar)

12.40-14.00 Lunch

Afternoon

Chairman Dr.K.Glowniak

14.00-14.20 T.P. Aushieva (Russia)
Ultrasound investigation in patients with hepatobiliary
pathology after the spa “ARSHAN” in the courses of various
duration
14.20-14.40 J.Aldarmaa (Mongolia)
Effect of some medicinal herbs on hydroxyl radical

14.40-15.00 Coffee break

15.00-15.20 Discussion

15.40-16.00 Closing remarks
· Academican Ts.Khaidav - Adviser of the TMSTPC
· Dr. Ch. Chimedragchaa - Director of the TMSTPC
·
16.00-17.30 Social programme

18.00- 19.30 Dinner (Ulaanbaatar Restaurant)

July 28

10.00 Field trip to the Gachuurt, -outside of the Ulaanbaatar
- Botanical excursion
- Visit musk deer Center
- Social activities

My presentation will be on the situation in the Darhad from the point of view developed by BioRegions that they use in guiding their work there. Present the health situatoin as assessed in my survey this summer and present my idea for how to effectively develop the use of traditional medicine use in the valley including development of a small traditional medicine procesing facility there. We will see what kind of response it gets.

Meanwhile, I am busily completing other project ideas and also trying to get in any last questions or meetings that I need to have before we return. There still seems to be so much to do. I will let you know how the conference was and also get Tugsu's pictures of her trip sometime soon.

She should also be writing in the blog too, though she always says she is too busy! I don't know about that. Anoter interesting point, the reason I am presenting alone is the Director of the BioRegions program was attempting to return from Renchinlhumbe a couple days ago when they made it to one bridge that was completely underwater. The locals are saying the river should be passable, with no more significant rain, in around 7 days. So he has had to cancel his flights and will miss the conference. A pretty wild place huh? Well, it is cool and rainy here so he may never make it back. I have heard in the US you guys are having a heat wave, how is everyone holding up? Talk to you all soon, and if you cheapskates ever want to call us go ahead. No one has taken up my offer yet, what is the deal? I have called to the US three or four times already. Anyway the phone number is 976-99178107. See ya

Without Tugsu

Well, Tugsu left Wednesday morning at around 5 Am for the airport. She is heading out to the far eastern steppe in Dornod Aimag. Here is a link to a nice map so you can find it:
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~corff/im/Landeskunde/Mongolia.jpg
She will be there until Sunday working on the project I discussed in an earlier blog. Until then Bilguun and I are managing things at the house. Yesterday I felt bad, since Amina didn't have her mommy around. So we headed out to together, late (for other reasons as well) to work and I had Bilguun and Amina go to the Theatre. They said they had a great time and for dinner we went to the restaurant known among expats to have the best hamburgers in town. Amina seems to be doing just fine, of course she barely sees Tugsu and I during the week as it is. As for me, work is going well. I have been working to put together a project that I think would relaly benefit where I am working, the National Center for Health Development (NCHD). Working together with the special consultant to the health sector from the Asian Development Bank we had the idea of a capacity assessment of the NCHD. I have found the right person to carry out this activity here and we had a meeting together on Monday to discuss this. That seems to be going well. Next, the Peace Corps people came to the office for an orientation and I had the luck to be included in the meeting which was successful. I meet their health proram director today for lunch. They are doing some nice work in the countryside but it is a real challenge to coordinate these volunteers efforts into something that will survive them and benefit the community. Other than that I am at work alot and not really having much fun. However, that suits me alright, hopefully I can continue my work and put together something worthwhile. That is all for now. Bye,

Happy Naadam!

So we have finished this years most spectacular 800th anniversary Naadam! How utterly underwhelming. We on thre other had did manage to have a wonderful time. Last Sunday evening we headed out to Terelj for our vacation. My friends uncle manages a ger camp out there so we got great treatment. We spent three great days there, here is an interesting link to some info. about it for those of you who have never been:
http://www.globosapiens.net/travel-information/Terelj-2020.html
Here is a picture of Amina and my friends daughter outside one of our gers.

Notice the haircut, yes Amina had her locks chopped off. However, if it was tough to manage her hair in the US imagine all the trouble she had in the Mongolian countryside. Here is another pic., she actually requested to have it done and really has been pleased with her new -do.

We did lots of hiking, exploring and hanging out playing games. We didn't leave until Wednesday evening. And then we only left when we did because a new group of young people had arrived who used the camps karaoke hall at all hours of the night. Here is our camp and us in a ger.

Here we are out hiking:

Meanwhile, Tugsu must have been one of the only people in UB to have to go into work last Friday, which at least made the traffic much improved. Here she is out in front of her office.

This past weekend was one of rest, with all of Mongolia sitting back and chilling out after an exciting (I guess) Naadam. So we have been getting caught up on housework and relaxing in the city a little. However, this week is going to be a little different. Tugsu heads out to the countryside on Wednesday for a 5 day trip in which she will participate in mobilizing the community there for purchasing and managing rangeland in Dornod Aimag. I am going to have her take the camera and she should provide us all with quite a few interesting pictures when she gets back. I will be working with Bilguun, Amina's cousin, to make sure we are all well taken care of. Don't worry, I have it all under control. This monring I felt particularly useful as I assisted in presenting the activities of the National Center for Health Development to the Peace Corps as well as preparing my own short presentation on soum health to the volunteers. I will also be meeting the director of the Asian Development Bank health sector reform program today to discuss my work here. Should be interesting. That is all for now, hope everyone is doing well. See you all soon,

Last day of work before Naadam

Well, the great festival is upon Mongolia once again. This year it is gripped by an even greater anticipation for the return of Genghis Khan for the 800th anniversary of the Mongol Empire. Interestingly enough, the governmor recently went to China to invite the president of that country to attend, and he agreed! Here is a link to more info:http://mongolia.neweurasia.net/?p=294
Well as for me, I am trying to decide what to do over Naadam, and yes I am sad to say staying Ulaanbaatar is not one of my top options. I am trying to find a way to escape the city for the festival. A stay in a sanitorium is a traditional Mongolian way to relax, I may try that. There is also a very nice city (much less crowded than UB) called Darhan where we might go by train. The price for a train ticket is only $5 round trip! I will let you know.
Last night we had a nice time hanging out at home and playing UNO. Here are a couple pictures of the place.

As it is Friday and I think Bilguun and Amina must be tired of playing at home alone all day we have taken them with us to work. They will spend the morning with me and we will lunch together then they will go to Tugsu's work in the afternoon. Right now I have had them go to the gym as after half an hour they were already driving me crazy. Oh well, they will love the gym I am sure and nobody goes there in the morning. After that maybe they will wander around a bit, then we will take them all to a nice place for lunch. Then in the afternoon they can see Tugsu's work and maybe also go to a movie or something.

I had a very interesting meeting yesterday with the health program manager from World Vision. I was surprised by a couple points of the meeting. One, he and the organization seemed resigned to the fact that the Mongolian countryside is becoming uninhabitable due to lack of resources and social services. They are investing the bulk of their resources in managing the huge urban migration that is following. Two, they are focused on only a few areas of health in UB, despite being the reputed largest NGO in the coutry. They are focusing on TB/HIV and nutrition. That is all! Anyway, more to say but not the time to do it. All for now, talk to you all later,

Todays activity

Alright, this will probably be more interesting as I will present a more detailed description of what we are doing everyday:
Yesterday I had to run by the Chinese embassy and apply for the tranist visas for Amina and I. I had one of Tugsu's relatives meet me there. He is an Inner Mongolian so speaks fluent Chinese and was very helpful in making sure the application went smoothly. We didn't even lose a passport (sorry pat). Tugsu and I had very busy days planned so we didn't have much time to talk. I was finishing up an "action plan" for my stay here and working on persoanl statements for staff as well as putting together educational materials for bird-flu. The UN has made a large donation for organizing a bird-flu campaign at my work. I had a qick errand to run in the morning also. I am having a tailor-made suit. The tailor had gone out with me to the black market to buy the material a week ago and needs me to ome in for some further measurements. All this work for roughly $17! The material cost me maybe $8. What a deal! A great reason to come to Mongolia. Then I had lunch with a social worker from the UNDP (UN development program) about community organizing and was encouraged by their focus on the issue for carrying out projects. After work I had dinner with the organizer of an international herbal medicine conference. I will be presenting a paper I am writing about the feasability of developing an herbal medicine processing center in the Darhad Valley. They were very excited about my work and interested in working together with me to develop a proposal for this project.
Tugsu was busy also after work, she had a dinner party with some of her office staff hosted by the Nature Conservancy. They are a very large endowment for conservation projects. They focus on working with the market to preserve these lands. A project she is working on in the Dornod, community ownership of newly privatised Mongolian lands, is being sponsored by them. She had a great time networking and was excited by the level of interest in her personally by the majority of these international big-wigs. They even said they had never met anyone with the foresight to receive a Sociology degree with an environmental minor. And at U of M no less! She came back from that meeting so proud of herself.
We came home (about a 30 minute drive at night, 10 minute in the morning) and found Amina and Bilguun really enjoying each others company. I often feel guilty that Amina is not more involved in other activities but she and Bilguun seem to have a great time and Tugsu thinks this is more fitting to Amina's personality. She is nto the most outgoing of people and loves to use her imagination. During the day it is hot so kids do not play outside and in the evening we are home and want to visit with Amina. Also, it seems alot of kids in our building sleep to 1 in the afternoon and stay up until midnight playing outside. We bought Amina some clay so her and Bilguun have another big day of art ahead of them.
I have a meeting with WorldVision's health programs director today. This should be interesting and helpful despite the fact that the Mongolians have tended to agree with my assessment of their working style here (sorry dad). I will see what he has to say and if there is any chance of us working together on projects in the future. I will have more pictures tomorrow. Until then take care and hold down the fort.

Since our return to UB

OK, here I go, I will attempt to fill you all in on what has transpired since our return to UB. We arrived safely and stayed briefly with my friend Anuu but it was better to move on. This we have now done several times. Like a modern day Bruce Banner we are constantly on the move it seemed. This finally drove me to distraction, and we fortunately have no found our own place. It is actually quite nice and provided to us by way of a good friend at the Catholic Mission, Father Pierre of the Congo.
In addition our new place is right across the street from Tugsu's parents. This makes it easy for Bandruush to stay with Amina during the day. I feel bad that we can do nothing more exciting than that but it is what it is. Last night we went to an indoor children's pay place and Amina had such a good time she was making friends with the children. Unfortunately, it is more difficult around our place but Amina says she is still having fun.
The reason we are not around is our jobs. Tugsu and I are both working 5 days a week (I am actually right now working 5.5) on our internships. Tugsu is working at the Wildlife Conservation Society, preparing data sets, summarizing results, translating legal documents and preparing to go on a trip to the countryside on July 20th for about 5 days. This will take her to Dornod, a far eastern province that is rolling grassland. She will work with a community attempting to manage their land depsite privitization efforts by forming a cooperative to purchase it and manage it themselves. She is enjoying her work and likes the people she works with.
I am working at the National Center for Health Development in the Health Promotions office, doing whatever crosses their mind. I am translating statistical reports for the statistics department, attempting to assist in the development of a proposal in the management department and doing some interesting work with health promotion but also doing things like develop personal statements, locates conferences for attendance, etc... On the whole I like the people that work here but considering they are the primary research wing of the Ministry of health they have precious few opportunities for funds. They must constantly react to offers from the international community for aid and pretend this fits in perfectly with their own agenda.
Sorry for the lack of pictures but we really have been busy. I will get more intersting and detailed posts in the future. Keep a look out for them. We are all caught up with the basics, FINALLY! If anyone would like to call us our phone number is 976-99178107. I would love to hear from you all. Hope you had a pleasant July 4th. Talk to you later

Results of my work in Renchinlhumbe

So now you know all about my project. Here are the results of all my hard work. First, the survey work was a success. I was able to carry out 31 extensive community interviews. I completed my sampling requirements successfully and was able to reach people in every bag as well as a good sampling of people (both doing well and poorly) in the soum capitol. I was even able to draw some early omclusions and develop my databases successfully so as to draw more inferences later. Some of the conclusions I was able to reach were that the community and the health system are in agreement that education is the top priority for the local health infrastructure. Another is that there are very real differnces between the rural and urban community. For example, social support, family structure, income and education levels all seem to be significantly different. Also, the perceived ability for individuals to manage their own health appears to be decreasing in recent years. All very interesting stuff. I had a great time meeting the community people and enjoying their hospitality. Here is one family that was really great
You can see me in the back. This family had four generations living together and in the winter have to migrate through mountain passes to Huvsgul to find adequate pasture for their animals. See an article in the 2003? National Geographic about Mongolia. The little grandma in front was 77 and never had her picture taken before. I had equal success in developing my relationship with the local health system. I became good friends with the hospital director (a great surgeon) and have several project ideas. An example of some of them are in developing ommunity partnerships for health through education and advocacy, scholarships for Renchinlhumbe students, developed through community funds, to attend medical school and a project to develop a more responsive Bag system of government. All of these were developed through ideas the community health providers had established.
I also taught a course to assist the health staff in putting together good proposals and in basic program design to show them how they could improve their practice to make themselves more attractive to foreign donors. Such an attentive class, I tell you I would love teaching in Mongolia!

In order to provide some information on my work in the community I set up a blood pressure stand and a brief presentation I developed on powerpoint in Mongolian (with Tugsu's help) on my work for the commnity to view as I was taking blood pressures. It was alot of work, I took over 65 blood pressures and had to interpret for the BioRegions staff member distributing glasses next to me. However, it and the festival on art BioRegions sponsored were all very successful. Tugsu played a really junky violin with a Moriin Hur bow at the oncert and still had people in tears. What a talent!

I travelled with the hospital director to the state capitol a few days before the rest of the group and was able to arrange successful meeting with a neighboring soums hospital direcor, the capitol hspital director and the state public health director. Not only were they successful I was given alot of support for my results. I also attended a conference on disability in the ountryside that was very interesting. This mirrored the results I had in my concluding meeting in Renchinlhumbe. There I brought the hospital director, former governor, welfare office director, and the school director together for a long presentation on my work and findings. The results were overwhelming, tremendous support and the posiblity of a group coordination in the future! The former governor also offered me an all expense paid tour for my family and I when we return to the valley. As he works with a major US tour company this is no small offer. One thing I have left out of this though is the success Amina had integrating into the community. She made many friends, herded sheep and even fed the babies. She is now ready to dedicate her life to being a hereder.
So on that happy note I will leave my duscussion on the Darhat. IN my next posting I will attempt to bring you up to date with what we are doing now. All the best to everyone, and write more comments! Also, let people know I have updated my blog. See you later!