spectrum 4

earlier in september i had gone downtown to buy some things that i needed to send home. i decided to catch a bus back to my apartment rather than trudging the half hour walk with bulging plastic bags hanging off me. i was very grateful when a virtually empty # 13 pulled up.

however, the driver must have been 14 or so because it was jerk-stop-jerk-go every two seconds all the way home. i was fumbling around with my stupid bags, grasping for a bar or a seat to hold on to as the 14 year old driver learned the gas, break and clutch...all of which was not going well.

then, an older Mongolian man offered me his seat. it was quite comical the process of actually sitting down. i politley refused, but he insisted - hoisting himself up, at one point dangling by one hand gripped tightly on the bar above his head, both of us frantically grabbing at things so as not to fall over, just so i could sit.

i was (and still am) a little shocked at such generosity. such genuine generosity: he didn't hit on me, he didn't try to grope me, he didn't rip me off, he didn't steal from me. what a fallen world it is when one can assume as much about another person in the course of applied kindness. he did it because he was nice. and of all people, he did it for a foreigner - who clearly looked like a tourist at the time. and tourists are always annoying.

he got off the bus at the next stop, tapped on my window and gave me a thumbs up with a huge grin which made me laugh. in retrospect, he was probably signing "good luck," because at the next two stops all of mongolia decided it needed to take the #13 bus. i barely squeezed myself out the rusty doors, all body parts intact, when i reached my stop.

spectrum 3

I now live on the fifth floor of an apartment in the middle of ‘Little Russia.’ I don’t think it’s officially named that, I only call it Little Russia because a lot of Russians populate this particular area of UB. Russians and missionaries.

I have a pretty good view from this apartment. I just look up and there are mountains less than three miles away. Coming from an area of the US where cornfields are the thing, I never get tired of this scenery.

The thing I hate looking at though, is the drunk, homeless man passed out on the filthy ground behind the garages.

Spectrum 2

One evening I was walking downtown when a man in a wheelchair whooshed by. He was rolling down the center line of one of the most congested and busy roads in UB. But he just kept going, arms pumping furiously, completely focused on keeping center and probably hoping to not get plowed into by a commuter bus or some driver too busy talking on his cell phone to notice a wheelchair hurtling down the road. No one else around me seemed to look at this scene with the same astonishment as I. I’ve observed bicyclers and mo-peders do the same thing: squeezing between trolleys and SUVs, narrowly escaping a very messy and unpleasant end. But this was not a rickety old piece of transportation – which is at least capable of dodging traffic. No, this was a wobbly, hand propelled wheelchair, which at best can perform about five primary functions: increase speed, decrease speed, turn corners, go straight, move backwards. It certainly was not built for riding the line down Peace Avenue in downtown UlaanBaatar. I have to admire him for taking a risk and looking as if he’s done it a million times.

Spectrum 1

When I look out the window and down the road, there’s a street sweeper diligently nudging rubbish into the gutter with a hay broom. When this is accomplished she sits on the curb for a rest, lighting a cigarette and watching the traffic hiccup by (it’s early still). Later in the afternoon, a fruit vender will set up her pipes and tarps into a rickety stand and sell apples, bananas, watermelon, pears and apricots; raisins, dates, baggied candies and nuts. Sweet smelling and fresh off the truck from China, her goods are stacked and hung within the nylon confines of her stand. An apple costs about 10 cents. The watermelon is about $5. A petite, leather skinned grandma sets herself down against a piece of sheet metal fencing off a construction site and places a box of cigarettes and various kinds of suckers on a stool. She will sell the cigarettes and suckers to both children and adults for little less than 25 cents (often sneaking one of both from time to time). Down a little further is an “Otac” booth – a phone booth about the size of an outhouse. A person sits inside with a phone and waits for others to come make phone calls - UB’s version of a public telephone. I remember one night walking home with some friends and thinking aloud at how awful it would be to have to sit in that little booth all day long, especially at the height of summer or the low of winter, to make your living. And one of my friends said, “Yeah, it’s nice that we have choices.”