Back to Renchinlhumbe

On the 27th of June we finally arrived in Renchinlhumbe and were greeted by a large new group of volunteers, save the familiar Mongolian faces and Loren. It was wonderful to be back and participate again in such a lovely community. However, time was now desperately short and we had alot to do. Tugsu and I began immediately working to organize the required administrative meetings to discuss a farmer's market for Renchinlhumbe. The responses we received were uniformly positive and gave us great hope that even with reduced time we would be able to pull this off. The market was to be held in the town square, would begin as free to all members, be held on Sunday to appeal to soum capitol inhabitants who had to work doing the week so they could visit and on Monday as well to appeal to herders who had to come into town on Monday to take care of business, it would have a polic officer and food inspector on site, we would need a director but no other staff, we could advertise is several different ways with heavy subsidizing, and Bioregions would primarily provide the infrastructure and salary for the director. The rest of the components would be provided by the government house.


Meanwhile, Amina was enjoying her time with both her Mongolian friends in Renchinlhumbe and her new friends, the volunteers from BioRegions, were enjoying her company immenslely. She even found her own work to do, regularly going with the American English teacher to her summer English course with students from Renchinlhumbe. She was not only a source of inspiration and fun for the students but a wonderfully patient asistanct instructor as well. She also continued her art. Taking the time to make numerous artistic gifts for the endless stream of new volunteers coming in and out of the camp.


When the market finally entered the impementation stage the advertising began in earnest and with the help of a local radio statio manager and the cultural center director peaked community interest. Meanwhile we found a director and took the time to educate her regading the plan and organization of the market. We also continued surveying community members regarding what they hoped for from the market and went around town with brochures. Finally, on the day of the first market we had the man with the stereo blaring andthe tables brought downtown and set up. It started slow but after a few vendors showed up all of a sudden the excitement built and around 75 people were there. However, in the end I was dissapointed with the market's performace as we could get no herders to show up. We had been hoping to make the biggest impact by getting them to sell food products there and have a positive influence on nutrition. What we were not ready for was the lack of acceptance the community maintainted for capitalist practices. Despite an overwhelming interest in soum capitol community members in purchasing dairy, meat and fruits from the countryside we couldn't get them to sell it. However, the market is, supposedly, still up and running and plans in place to develop it further, if the community chooses to do so, next year. This way they can get used to the idea and we are not forcing too much too fast.


This was not the end of our adventure in Renchinlhumbe. We were also working with the health team, made up of mostly Doctors and medical students, in their project to carry out a biochemical health assessment of the soum. It was a worthwhile project and we were able to assist them in adjusting to some of the unique cultural challenges one finds when you work in Renchinlhumbe. They did marvelously and with that we considered our work there for the time being complete and prepared to head back out, this time to the Huvsgul state capitol, Murun. We had to bid adieu to a wonderful group and knew that Murun was a different, very unkind, environment. So the goodbyes were heartfelt and we made plans to meet up in Ulaanbaatar, the national capitol, before they left. We hopped into the Russian van preparing for another 10+ hour ride over very rocky and hilly terrain, averaging about 45 km/hour. It was July 4th.

Our camp in Renchinlhumbe

The whole team
Amina and one of her friends