RAIN!!!

I'll not take storm drains for granted again. After two full days and nights of heavy rain the streets and highway stretches around UB have large amounts of standing water. No storm drains exist here which result in some really difficult challenges for both pedestrians traversing the streets and variety of vehicles. We watched buses throw water thirty or more feet into the air as people walked along narrow walkways. No place for water to drain away means big puddles of water, some of which were at least a foot deep. This, just an example of infrastructure or lack of it when so many people move into an area that was earlier designed for perhaps a third of the number who live here today.
Our schedule today reflects a reprieve of what we had earlier planned. Yesterday we spent s great deal of time moving ery slowly on buses to both Buddist temple and also the national history museum. Standing water, rain and and the seemingly greater congestion of people and traffic made it very difficult to "keep to schedule" as we had earlier imagined it would be. We arrived back at our hotel to have let lunch at1:30 followed by some very pragmatic and useful cultural training provided by four Peace Corps volunteers who have been wi us the past several days.
from 4:30 to 5:45 last night Brian and Rachel, our colleagues from Un of Wyoming provided a slide show presentation and introduction on mining reclamation. Most significantly was the high interest identified by both American and Mongolian teens in what is currently happening with environmental regulations, what THEY might do to find out more answers concerning on-going mining operations, and a new insight and awareness of what could and should happen as mining operations continue.
Back into UB last night by 7:00 PM each of our family groups made up of 6 US and 6 Mongolian youth plus chaperone went to individual restaurants. My group of 16 (including Peasce Corps and Mongolia staff) enjoyed a Mongolian restaurant called Tse. For a very nominal averaged price of 5,000 t (approximately $4.50 US) we enjoyed a variety of food including snitzel, pizza, BBQ, hamburgers, goulash, bla k mush room noodles, and several unknown named dishes. . .
Now, about the re-do on the schedule. After breakfast today everyone has the option of doing laundry. That doesn't mean a washing machine and dryer but use of their bathrooms some of which have tubs and if not tubs, wash basins. Scrub a dub dub with our socks, under ware, shirts and pants. Thank goodness for nylon and polyester clothing which dries s much faster than cotton. Time to take s shower and do my wash!

Peter Stortz
Pjstortz@Alaska.edu