Exploring the Edges
Fiberglass Cow with a Crumpled Horn
For nearly two weeks I've been waiting to hear whether I'll get a job at the Mongolian State University of Arts and Culture. Everything now hinges on the Department of Labor, an agency that, under the current economic difficulties, is without motivation to be generous to foreigners. Their approval is needed for the Department of Immigration to grant me a work visa, which I need both to work and to stay in the country for more than ninety days at a stretch. Among several things the university has asked me to do is to photograph and write for their English language website, teach photography to students, and teach English to teachers. A visa will not be issued unless I am providing a
significant amount of service to the university, so my schedule looks much more full than I would like it to be. Now, I'm in a bit of a panic to see as much as I can before work pulls me inside.
Mostly this has meant walking, some every day and as much as fifteen kilometers at a clip. When Judy has been able, she comes with me, but otherwise I am on my own. Together we have been to the top of the Bogd Khaan Protected Area, a group of tall hills to the south of town, with Zaya, a former student of Judy's at ELI in Montana. We have also hiked Peace Avenue east to where it ends, doubling back around a large ger district before making it back to Naraan Tuul, the huge public market, which was closed because it was Tuesday. (We didn't know.) And being tempted by a blue spot on our map just north of town, we set off to see
Nogoon Noor—Green Lake. This time of year we didn't expect the green part, but were unprepared for what had happened to the lake, now just ruins of a dam and a vast abandoned dumping ground.
I have also hiked west, taking Peace Avenue until finding road to the south with a bridge that crosses the rail yards. From there real estate becomes industrial and, in places, sadly post-industrial. Brand new metal factory buildings and warehouses are mixed with the concrete and brick remains of a previous wave of investment that failed to pan out or ran its course with the end of the Soviet era. The area is criss-crossed with the large asbestos-covered steam transmission pipes that still deliver heat to much of the city.
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I've seen some odd things. Many are odd because they are not what I am used to, but some would be odd anywhere. A fiberglass cow is dragged across a side road to block traffic, while just down the street a real cow ambles between cars, oblivious to the fact that she is blocking traffic. A tower of speakers on Peace Avenue begins to play music at 2:30 in the afternoon, loud enough to be heard half a mile away. It plays the same tune over and over, and in twelve minutes, stops. A partially assembled house sits beside a main road. It appears to be built from odds and ends, including rusty pipe, used tile and brick, and random-size pieces of bent corrugated steel. An attached satellite dish appears to pre-date the invention of television by fifty years. It's not clear whether the house was never finished or is falling apart.
People are often curious about where I am from, or what I am looking at. Those who speak any English will sometimes stop and talk—as will those who speak German or Russian, who I always disappoint. Rounding a corner, I came upon a sagging twin-engine airplane parked behind a school. While photographing it a voice behind me asked, in perfect English, "Do you speak German?" Although he looked to be struggling financially, he was perfectly friendly and glad to talk. And though his English was better than many English-speaking Mongolians, he told me his real specialty was German, that he lived in Germany for twenty years, and that the plane was there because this was a school for mechanics.
Although I don't always feel comfortable photographing everything I see in the places where I walk, I have never felt threatened here. But last week I found myself in a situation that I am still trying to explain. At dusk on the hill where Judy's
Fifth Branch is, I got a call from her asking if I'd like to stop by for a coffee between her last two classes. As I was putting my phone away, an elderly drunk approached asking for money. Just after passing him I heard the sound of his body hitting concrete, then turned to see a twenty-year-old kicking and punching the old man's head. His friends were trying to pull him away, but repeatedly he got loose and turned on the downed man. I yelled to stop (English anyone?) and tried to place myself between the two of them, but the attacker just ignored me and went around. Eventually his friends led him away, and the old man refused my offer to help him to his feet. After coffee with Judy, I stopped back to check on him, but the only signs left were small piles of blood, frozen solid as they dripped to the ground.
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