Back in Olgii

Well, after 6 weeks of vacation, including 3 glorious weeks in California, we are back in Olgii. It has been quite the welcome, too. As Ashlee and I were exiting the local airport looking for my counterpart, Bahitgul, we quickly found her and we made a bee-line to where she and her husband were standing. It wasn't until we were about 15 feet from her that she even recognized us. In the car she said, "You look so good...and fat!"

Our apartment seems to be just as we left it. We quickly got all settled in and Ashlee had fun unpacking our two 40-pound duffel bags of American foodstuffs. We did notice, however, that our toilet seems to be broken. I don't know if it's a problem with the building's water pressure or something with the toilet itself, but the tank just does not want to fill with water so flushing -- no matter how many times we pull on the chain -- is not an option. We have passed word onto to our landlord to check it out so in the meantime we are using a good ol' bucket the flush the old-fashioned way.

We have spent the past few days doing pretty much nothing -- and it has been wonderful. After constantly being on the go and living out of our luggage for the past several weeks it's really nice to just hang out and relax. We have taken a few walks around town and we have marveled at many things that have changed. Summertime seems to bring a building-boom here in Olgii as new structures are sprouting up all over the place and everyone is taking time to repair and renovate the existing ones. I think there is even an added incentive to freshen up the town as next week marks the province's 70th anniversary and it appears that we are in for quite the celebration.

In other news, we did get two pieces of sad information on our return to Olgii. Ashlee's main counterpart, Saule, who was 7-months pregnant when we left, ended up losing her baby and she spent over a month in the hospital. We hope to visit her in the next couple of days.

The other piece of sad news concerns our friend, Agii, who is going through a family crisis that I mentioned in an earlier post. His sister, Aiman, is a computer teacher at my school. She just got married last year and, when we left in June, she was pregnant with her first child. As she was carrying the baby to term it appears that she began experiencing increasingly severe headaches. Since Olgii does not exactly have the most capable medical services, her family sent her to UB to get checked out. In UB it was discovered that she has two large, and most likely benign, brain tumors. Apparently these UB doctors were honest with her: with the level of medical expertise in Mongolia they could operate, but there would be a 50% chance that she could die, and if she did survive it is likely that may be significantly paralyzed. Her only other option would be to seek treatment in a foreign country. After Agii got this news back in early June he spent a month going crazy with research, contacting hospitals and doctors all over the world. He found that his top choices for treatment (America, Korea, and Thailand) are pretty much impossible after considering transportation fees, visa restrictions, and the hefty costs of the operation itself (some places topping $40,000). In the meantime, Aiman has been in UB waiting for Agii to make a decision. The good news is that her baby was delivered safely and she now has a healthy little girl named Rabia.

We just met with Agii the other day. He informed us that he and his family decided to send Aiman to neighboring Kazakhstan where he found a Russian-trained doctor in the capital who seems optimistic about the operation. Aiman will go to Almaty accompanied by her sister, who is an anesthesiologist here in Olgii. Unfortunately, with all expenses considered, it is going to cost Agii's family roughly $15,000 which is an exorbitant amount by Mongolian standards -- shoot, it's even a small fortune in America. To give you an idea of it in Mongolia though, a secondary school teacher earns about $160 a month. So Agii has been pretty much pulling out all stops trying to raise money to help his sister. Between taking out a humongous bank loan, collecting money from friends and family, and selling off his extraneous assets, he thinks he can scrape by.

The true shame of the situation, I feel though, is that because of this unfortunate turn-of-events, Agii has been forced to mortgage his entire future. He is probably the most hard-working and upstanding person we know in Mongolia and, like many other people we know, he has big dreams of continuing his education abroad and then returning to Olgii to do some real good. The difference with him, though, is that he can actually do it. His English is amazing (as well as his Russian) and his work ethic is impeccable. Now that his sister is sick and he has had to take on a tremendous amount of financial responsibility, however, his big dreams seem to be circling the drain.

Which brings me to this: if anyone wants to help Agii and his family out by donating a few bucks, it would be much appreciated. We don't exactly have a payment scheme worked out yet, but if you are able to help, please send me an email at burtscott@yahoo.com and we'll figure something out. Thanks for your help and I'll be sure to keep you all in the loop. I believe that Aiman is leaving for Kazakhstan tomorrow and she should have the operation next week.