Field trip
Most of UBs population lives in the ger district. More than 800,000 people live in the ger district areas. In our field trip we visited the Bayanzukh ger district. About 7500 people live in this ger district. this is a problem because most of them live there because of poverty and dont have very comfortable lives. In this project we have to improve or build something for the ger district to improve technology and with that peoples lives. we could also just redesign something they have already. i decided to redesign a gate for the fence. the gate should be strong, protective and should cover the sight for others. it also should have a knob, so it is easy to open. to make it strong and protective, it should be made out of wood, but covered by metal. the gates main body would be built out of wood and the metal around it will give protection and also cover the sight for strangers. i also think it should have a nice and bright color so its not so depressing. the gate also should be big enough that a car can fit. so about 3m wide. it also should be high so it isn't easy to climb over it. the gate should also have a door beside it. both gate and door should be easy to open. the door should also have a bell and a door knob. the door knob should be something stable and something that doesn't fall off so easily. the doors material will be the same as the gates material. the gate will have two doors that come together in the middle. there also should be a lock to lock the gate. i think it would be better if the gate has to doors because then the gate hinges don't brake that fast. with two gate doors, the hinges wont brake very fast and the gate would be easier to open, because it isn't sinking. the hinges will be made out of the metal because that is the strongest. to test if my design for a gate is good, i will show several people my design. i will draw neatly for them on a poster and make them think about it. they will have to imagine the gate and decide if they think it is protective and easy to open. if they think that the gate would be successful in covering the sight for strangers into the ger space. i will ask questions such as do you think the gate will be successful, stable, protective and easy to open.

before we went on our field trip, Mrs wilson showed us a power point presentation. this presentation gave us lots of information about the ger districts community center. the community center is called flourishing futures and is a huge help to many families in the ger district. i will talk more about the community center below.
Mrs. Wilson also talked to us about the fence and gate. we talked about which fence would be better and how we could improve this. we all agreed that the fence should be tall and it should cover the sight for strangers into the ger space because if they cannot see inside, it is more likely that they wont steal. the fence should also be stable and protective.

These people have 10-15 water station. From the water station they can buy 1l of water for 1 tugrik. This water also then has to be carried back home. If the people live far away from a water station, they have to carry the amount of water which they bought and this means more work. The people can get as much water as they want, as long there still is water. As we visited the well station we saw people come with canisters to fill it up with water. To decrease the amount of work or to make life easier or more comfortable some people had a cart or a trolley. With this they could transport the water easier back home. There still is a big amount of energy provided to push these carts up or down a hill depending on where you live. The roads are not very good either. It is still a lot of work even if you have a cart to push the water to where you live.

During the field it was noticeable that there were a lot of fences. Some fences were really good, tall, and dense and you could not look through them. But some fences were just put together with what they could find pieces of metal and wood. The fences are there to mark territory or land and give protection. Every Mongolian has the right to take 700 m2 if they can build a fence around it. If they do have a fence, they can build a toilette. The fence is important because without the fence anyone is allowed to walk onto your land.

What we also noticed was that the higher we went up, the less dense the gers were. Most ger districts are on the hills or at the beginning of a hill. So at the beginning of the hill it is denser then at the top. It also means that the ger at the bottom are the oldest and they get younger the higher you go up the hill.

There also are community centers. These centers help the people living nearby. They have lessons for those who are in the need o it. The community center in the Bayanzukh ger district had different ways of helping the community there. They give lessons to everyone. They had English, Mongolian, math, chemistry, physics classes. They also had a primary or kinder garden for the small ones. Sports such as soccer, basketball and volleyball were available too. A bakery provides food and teaching classes for those who want to learn how to bake. The Bayanzukh ger district also cares for 35 families. They help them by giving them a fair amount of money and food every month. They also give them clothes and help them at projects like building up a ger and building a fence or a toilette.

The people in the ger district heat their gers with wood and coal. They have to buy it at a store and then carry it back to their gers. The wood and coal is transported in sacks. They are very heavy and it hurts to carry them because the only have a string as a handle. Sometimes they don’t have a handle at all. A sack of wood costs 1200 tugrik and a sack of coal costs 1500 tugrik. If a family doesn’t have doesn’t have the money to buy wood or coal to heat up their ger in colder days, families will burn anything they find such as trash, tires, and sometimes they burn their waste.

While walking around in the ger district we saw that the roads were really bad and that there were a lot of landfills. The infrastructure was really bad. The Bayanzurkh ger district is on the side of a hill. So it was not very straight. We saw technologies that people used to straighten their land or to put at least their gers on a terrace. To build a terrace we saw ger on old sacks filled with dirt.
When you fenced in a piece of land, it belongs to you as a Mongolian. When this fence is built, you can build a toilette. Sometimes we saw the toilettes because the fences weren’t very dense. We saw that the toilettes were sometimes built with anything they could find. One toilette we saw was made out of strings or stripes of metal. The metal was weaved. I think it’s a really smart way of building a toilette if you don’t have the material to build a proper toilette.

Most of this information we got from our guide Sukhee. Thanks to him we learnt a lot about the ger districts. With this trip I learnt a lot about the ger districts and how tough it can be if you don’t have running water or electricity. And how tough it can be if you have to go get wood and coal everyday. I think the community center is a lot of help to a lot of people in the ger community. For me the whole trip wasn’t too shocking because I am used to it. I lived in very poor countries where there are a lot of slums. But I did get more experience with this trip too. With this trip I have learnt to appreciate my wealth even more. I am more thankful for everything. I also was really sad at times while the trip because I felt bad for the people or sometimes when I saw kids playing with dirt. It also made me appreciate the fact that I can play with more entertaining toys. I think this trip was a very good experience and it helped my class mates and I see how well we are off.

On our next field trip we went to the Gazar Chin ger district. Mr. Tvdik was our guide for this field trip. He gave us the instructions and told us what we should do and what our goal is. he also talked about the gate. he told us how to improve them. We helped build a toilette and a fence gate. The family didn’t have a toilette and their gate looked like it was going to collapse any second. The goal was to make a toilette and a new fence for them. As soon as we arrived we split up into groups and started digging the holes for the post and the hole for the toilette. Its was a lot of work. I had to work on the toilette first and I didn’t like digging. I really felt disgust when I saw the waste all over the place and when we had to pick up all the trash and weeds and waste before we started to dig the whole. We had a two minute rotation because it was a lot of work and we got tired really quick. I hated digging because there were a lot of rocks and it was hard to dig. It took us about an hour to just dig a hole that was about two meters long and a meter wide to be about a foot. I thought we were going to be faster but it took longer than I though. After the toilette digging we had to dig holes for the posts of the fence. That was more fun because we didn’t have to touch wastes. It was more fun too because there were no big rocks at the part were I had to dig. It was a lot of hard work too. We had big metal poles which were very heavy. We used it to dig the wholes. We had to make the holes very deep and thin. They were so deep that we had to lie on the dirt and dig. It was really fun actually. I like digging this part more than digging the toilet. The problem was we only had 2 hours to work and of course we didn’t get to finish everything. I thought it was kind of rude to start the work, but not finishing it and leaving holes in the back. After that we went to another place. It will be a new community center. It was three times bigger than the land a Mongolian can take. The community center just had the fence. Inside there was nothing. There wasn’t even a gate. We had to think about a design for the gate. The design had to be useful. The gate shouldn’t sink and should be easy to open. We had a small discussion and then we had to go back to school.
I think this trip was a very good to experience how much work it is to dig a toilet and make a proper gate. I think it was a lot of fun. I think it was cool doing it, but it’s not something I would like doing every day. After this trip I really appreciate my toilet now.

Tvrdik, troy. Intervew by grade 9 class. Print.
sukhee, . Intervew by grade 9 class. 30th September 2009. Print.
Wilson, Melanie. Intervew by grade 9 class. 30th September 2009. Print.