Friday, August 24, 2007

Great Disco, band ending, and prefab camps

The long awaited follow up to the last post.

The last few days/weeks have been extremely busy. Finishing up maps and such before leaving camp, and then trying to get home without going completely insane.

So we had a Disco a couple of weeks ago on a Friday night. We bought a few flats of beer, about 3 per person is what is was supposed to work out to.

Gana was in charge of music, Joel, Steve and I were basically bartenders, and all in all it was a good night.

Mongolian Disco's are basically like highschool dances. a few traditional waltzes and slow songs mixed in with 5 year old techno and dance music where everyone forms a circle and just rocks out. Fun stuff.
A solid Mongolian dance circe.


Heather and Gana Dancing


From left, top to bottom: Manlai, Haatan-bataar, Me, Bahrna, Orgrill, Bataar, B. Erka, Deshdeva


At the end of the disco, after all the expatriates went to sleep (save Joel The Cook and I), there was apparently a late-night scuffle. No doubt due to the combination of young Mongolians, women, and beer. One of my workers got a solid punch to the face and got his nose broken, proceeded to the bathroom, and the next thing we know Joel and I are heading over to the bathroom after the sound of a crash. He'd hit the mirror or some such, and broken it, and managed to cut himself on the arm fairly deep. Joel and I, being the only two awake (and I with the only keys to the first aide cabinet), brought him over to the office, cleaned him up and put on some bandages. The first thing we did was get gloves on, as he really was a bleeder. Guess I can't wear that shirt anymore.

We got him cleaned up and stopped him bleeding, and jumped into his father's van to drive out to Oyu Tolgoi (about 30 minutes away by dirt track).

That's more or less how I ended up covered in blood and going to the hopital. He got sent home for a few weeks, and then I think he starts up school soon. C'est La vie.

Because i was asked about what the camp was like, I decided to put together a little tour.
I mentioned somewhere that our camp was generally just gers and pre-fabricated buildings. Our kitchen, bathroom, and cut shack are all built out of connected cargo containers converted to rooms/buildings. Living arrangements are all of the traditional Mongolian herder hut (Ger, or Yurt).

The Cut Shack, 2 connected Containers.

Inside the Cut Shack

From Left: Ottsi, Bahrna, Khumbold; Cutting through the core for samples

Entree Core Yard. It's no 7,000km Ivanhoe OT core yard, but it's pretty big

The Gers. That's mine in the middle (18)


Inside the Big Ger. Usually just the Mongolians used the pool and ping pong tables. There was also a TV hooked up to satellite (Mongolian) on the left.

The Bathrooms, 2 containers lengthwise, one along the ends.

The office (right) and Core Shack (left). Two larger-sized weather havens in the middle of camp.

Inside the Office, mine is the desk next to the Fridge


Office, other angle. My desk is just to the right.


Otna in the Core shack




The Kitchen. Two containers with a space in between serve as storage (and cold storage). The space between them is walled in and roofed for our eating area. The cooking area is 4 containers, 2x2 lengthwise. I think there is one more attached to the back for plumbing as well. We use propane stoves and electric ovens.


HaatanBataar in the gers


Some camels and horses to finish it off. This was out in the area I spent my last couple weeks mapping and such.

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