Volunteering Global

Thank you for visiting Volunteering Global! My goal is to help you learn everything you need to know about international service programs and general travel -- where you can go, what you can do, how to get there, and more. If you'd like to see regular updates, stories, and tips, click on the Blog link above. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @VolunteerGlobal and become a fan on Facebook!

Interested in travel insurance for your next adventure or volunteer trip? Consider World Nomads! A-Z of Adventure allows you to look up your destination of choice, and then find low-cost insurance. Take a look at their insurance calculator as well, which I've built into my site here.

Questions? Comments? E-mail me at info@volunteerglobal.com.

Hey kids, sorry for no [public] updates lately. I've neglected the blog in favor of updating the inside pages of this site, as well as the 2010 directory (new thing! cool! not online yet!).

You'll notice that the full list of volunteer opportunities is finally finished, and that there are now just under 400 pages of service programs available to you.

The country list also has been updated. Sweet!

Other than that, things have been crazy busy here. I'll get back to the blog soon enough. Thank you for your patience!

-SVA

If you are going to Haiti, please make sure to register with the State Department beforehand. Americans with family members and friends in Haiti are asked to contact the State Department at 888.407.4747, as most communication within the country is extremely limited.

Ways to help:

• Many want to help on the ground with relief efforts. At the moment, trained medical professionals and trained disaster response volunteers are in the most need. If you fit either of these qualifications, consult one of the groups below (unless otherwise indicated) or a group you may have worked with before. All others, please hold off for the time being. The organizations on the ground need your help primarily through monetary donations.
   
• Matador is attempting to organize an on-the-ground placement for trained medical and disaster response volunteers. More information.
   
• Organizations generally are NOT taking shipments of small items (canned food, blankets, etc.) at this time. Red Cross is NOT currently in need of more blood supply. Update: Please read this article via the Global Post - Help with Money, Not Stuff.
   
• Washington, D.C. individuals: CrisisCamp Haiti is holding an event this Saturday, 01/16 9:00am-5:00pm to "bring together volunteers to collaborate on technology projects which aim to assist in Haiti's relief efforts by providing data, information, maps and technical assistance to NGOs, relief agencies and the public." More information. (Thank you for the alert, Jared!)
   
• The Embassy of the Republic of Haiti in Washington, D.C. (2311 Massachusetts Ave., NW) will be collecting donated goods this Sunday, 01/17 11:00am-4:00pm.
   
• The Haitian Consulate of New York is accepting monetary donations through Chase Manhattan Bank, account number 761-549-039. More information.
   
• Red Cross is accepting monetary donations for ongoing relief efforts worldwide. More information: www.redcross.org or 800.REDCROSS. You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts. 
   
• Reports that Doctors Without Borders is mobilizing current volunteers at this time. The organization has set up mobile clinics to assist those in need. More information.
   
• Small Dog Electronics will match monetary donations up to $200 for Doctors Without Borders. UPDATE: They've reached their limit and matched as much as they could -- I understand in total $20,000 was donated to DWB/MSF through this route.
   
• UNICEF is accepting monetary donations. More information. Other UN programs as well are accepting monetary donations. United Nations workers are on the ground.
   
• Partners in Health is accepting monetary donations and accepting trained medical personnel; current volunteers and workers are mobilized. PiH has been working with healthcare efforts in Haiti for some time, and have very little funding at the moment. More information. To help, email volunteer@pih.org.
   
• Oxfam is accepting monetary donations. More information.
   
• Direct Relief International is responding on the ground with current workers and accepting monetary donations. More information. (Thanks for the link, Brent!)
   
• American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is accepting monetary donations. More information.
   
• William J. Clinton Foundation is accepting monetary donations. More information.
   
• Mercy Corps is accepting monetary donations and has mobilized its current volunteers. More information.
   
• International Medical Corps is accepting monetary donations and has responded on the ground with current workers. More information.
   
• The Disasters Emergency Committee has been mobilized with current responders. More information.
   

News:

• USNS Comfort (hospital ship) is in Haiti.
   
• View President Obama's speech here. Governments worldwide have responded and are assisting with relief efforts. The Wikipedia link below gives more country-by-country information. Update: View the speech on the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund here (part 1) and here (part 2).
   
• Video: Canada's response thus far to the crisis. (Thank you for sending, Jason!)
   
• Read the Wikipedia note here on the international response thus far.

For more information on how to help, Got Passport has been keeping a fantastic ongoing list of relief effort information: http://su.pr/2tmyQO

Updates will be posted as they become available.

Thank you to my Twitter friends, SA goon friends, and others for the information and updates. And thank you for all the help you're giving to those in need. You are wonderful. Photo provided courtesy of the Red Cross.

In researching service organizations, I ran across five things that are important for potential volunteers to know, but that often aren’t mentioned on these groups’ websites. I apologize in advance for the blunt language -- it's actually not a product of a bad mood (today's great!). Just being straightforward here.

Location

Nearly half of the organizations I’ve found neglect to list anything more specific than the country in which they work; and about a quarter of the ones I've asked to clarify have responded with "It's not important" or similar. This can be especially important for groups that work many hours away from the closest airport; for participants who only have a week to give, spending two of those days traveling to and from the project site can be detrimental to the organization, to the community, and to the volunteer.

Volunteer requirements

By this I mean minimum or maximum age; groups, individuals, or families; career background; educational background; language ability; physical fitness; and other requirements there might be. Even if there are no requirements, it's better to say it rather than making the volunteer wonder.

Accommodation

Saying that accommodation is provided isn’t enough. Volunteers want to know how they’ll be housed – whether it’s in a dormitory, a cabin, a shared house, an apartment, a campsite, or with a host family.

Recently I discussed the issue of costs and accommodation with a group of potential volunteers. They brought up the point that in considering program fees, accommodations are the deciding factor as to whether the trip is too expensive. If they don’t know, then they move on to the next group.

Cost

While this usually is listed up front, too many groups lose potential volunteers by posting things like, “Please email us for current costs,” or “Starts from x amount.”

While I fully understand costs can change from season to season, I also understand that it takes all of five minutes to update current prices online. There are thousands of competing volunteer groups out there; people will lose interest and move on if they are asked to inquire within. And language like “Starts from...” can be seen as an indication that none of the volunteer trips truly cost "x amount."

On that note, a breakdown of where the fee goes is essential. How much goes toward a donation? How much toward accommodation? How much toward transportation? All of these things are important, and not listing them makes the volunteer think the group is a scam.

And finally, it would be a good idea, regardless of how inexpensive the organization might be, to provide some fundraising advice. The homestay might be economical, but the plane ticket is the killer.

Contact information

This just blows my mind! Why even start an organization if a person can’t get in touch with you? Ahh well.

Until next time, kids.

Last week I had the chance to submit my New Year's resolutions to Briefcase to Backpack, where they were posted along with other travel bloggers' and writers' contributions. Here are mine:

• Travel to, and work and report on, one international volunteer trip this year. You'd think it would be more, but it just so happens that blogging ain't my day job :-)
• Recruit at least one person for DC Young Professionals Kiwanis or for Greater DC Cares.
• Post 52 volunteer stories on Volunteering Global.
• Pay off at least half of one of my student loans.

So kids, what are your resolutions? Leave a comment below! Really, my comment sections are so lonely. Bummer.

Anyway, here are parts 2 and 3 of Briefcase to Backpack's New Year's Resolution series -- and Happy New Year, all!

Yesterday I posted the results of a poll that asked how much one would prefer to spend on a weeklong volunteer trip. The results showed that less expensive opportunities were favored heavily over anything costing $2,000 or more.

You might have seen the interview I posted last week with Dani, who traveled to Peru with International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ). While she searched for a program, her two main concerns were budget and safety – and as someone pursuing her first service trip, she wondered whether less expensive meant less volunteer support.

After researching IVHQ, she contacted them about her concerns – they had a solid website, good volunteer reviews, and extensive information about their programs, but their projects were significantly less expensive than their competitors. She spoke at length with their coordinators, who told her that while IVHQ offered everything their competitors did, they never charged more than was needed.

In the end, Dani had a great time on her trip: IVHQ prepared her for what to expect, they supported her throughout the project, and she’s kept in touch with fellow volunteers and her host family. In total, she spent less than $1,000 for five weeks’ volunteering, including the plane ticket.

The individuals I spoke with recently expressed the same concerns that Dani had. They preferred trips less than $2,000, yet they wondered whether minimal costs meant minimal support.

Here are some things you might consider while researching:

• Is the organization a placement group or a host group? The former works almost as a travel agent: It places you with a local program that needs a helping hand. Because of this, costs will be higher, though the volunteer experience likely will be the same if you went with the host group for a smaller fee.
• What type of housing is provided? If you’re in a shared house or with a host family, costs will be lower.
• Are other excursions or packages included, aside from the volunteer work, food, and housing? Programs that offer all-inclusive packages like these tend to be much more expensive.
• How much information is included on their website? Unfortunately many wonderful organizations don’t have the resources to build at sleek, interactive site, but they should be able to provide information about their costs, housing, type of work, schedule, staff, and volunteer requirements and support.
• What do other volunteers say? You can find reviews by searching online, or by joining the organization’s Facebook group (if there is one), or through other social networking sites.
• When in doubt, contact the organization. Their coordinators should be happy to tell you everything you need to know.

Any other suggestions? Leave a comment below!

Recently I posted a poll asking how much one would be willing to pay for a weeklong volunteer excursion, not including airfare. Prices ranged from less than $500 to more than $5,000. Within two hours, I received the following responses:

• <$500: 13 votes
• $501-$1,000: 6 votes
• $1,001-$2,000: 1 vote
• $2,001+: 0 votes

It’s no secret that my “thing” is to promote the less expensive, less lavish volunteer activities. This isn’t due to a bias against luxury tours – it’s almost entirely because of the poll results above.

The poll and the population

The majority of Volunteering Global's visitors want a place to go and a way to give, but not necessarily for the finest accommodations and guided tours. They look for adventure – most of these people are single, 20-something individuals (usually women) who don’t have $6,000 to drop on a weeklong trip.

I had a discussion recently with several individuals interested in international volunteering.

• The high end of their budget was $2,000, not including the plane ticket, but including all in-country travel and support before, during, and after the project.
• They wanted to work with a local organization that had demonstrated volunteer support, i.e., positive alumni reviews, field reports, etc.
• They preferred a project that actively engaged them with the community – not just a one- or two-day activity, but instead something that showed they were needed for their education, career background, and abilities.
• Accommodation and food should be provided, but in what capacity, they didn’t care.

Budget was the main concern for all of them. The magic numbers were $2,000 and $500 – the former being the cutoff and the latter being the optimum. You’ll see this held true as well among my poll results from last week.

Luxury voluntourism

In 2009, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, and the New York Times reported on luxury philanthropic travel as an exciting new style of vacation.

The luxury voluntourism operators I found are operated by hotel chains and travel agencies – and very well known ones at that. Airline tickets, hotel/resort stay, meals, and excursions are included in these costs. From my research, luxury voluntourism averages $6,000 per week.

Most (with a few exceptions) of the groups listed on Volunteering Global are small, community-based organizations that accept, not place, volunteers. Airline tickets are almost never covered, but meals, accommodations, and in-country transportation are included in these costs. The groups on VG average about $350 per week.

With the poll results in mind, where does luxury voluntourism fit? Who takes these trips? Are they really as popular as Time, NYT, and Washington Post make them sound, or are they just an interesting concept promoted heavily by large, media savvy travel agencies and hotel chains?

My guess is these aren’t aimed at the same people who gravitate to sites like mine. I believe silver spoon voluntourism is intended for an older generation and a different type of person – they’re adventurous, but they’ve got the extra money to spend and they want more stability security than my young, wild, debt-ridden counterparts.

For example: I’m fairly certain my parents would jump on the luxury voluntourism bandwagon, whereas they would balk at the idea of sleeping with 30 other people in a cabin without electricity. My parents are adventurous people -- their goal for many years has been to sail around the world, and in the meantime, they take luxury trips during the holidays to satisfy their itchy travel feet.

I will eat my hat if they decide to take a philanthropic trip that doesn't involve an all inclusive hotel stay (don't read this, mum and dad; I really like my hat and I know you'll take me up on the bet just because IT'S ON).

Questions

With the poll results in mind, do you think it would be worth it to list luxury trips on sites like mine? I do have a couple, but site analytics tell me they've gotten zero hits so far.

Have any of you been on a luxury voluntourism trip? How did it go? What did you do? And how did you find out about the organization?

Do you agree with the poll results? Unfortunately the poll was only up for a couple hours, so maybe it was just my nomadic Twitter friends who voted and skewed the results. Do you have a different answer for your optimum price of a one-week volunteer trip?

Feel free to leave a comment or email me at info@volunteerglobal.com. Really interested in hearing some feedback!

Today's blog entry is courtesy of Dani Scism, who volunteered for five weeks in Peru with International Volunteer Headquarters. You can read more about IVHQ here. Thanks, Dani!

About You

In which city do you live? What is something interesting about it?

Currently I live in Washington DC with my husband and our abnormally hairy child, named Kitty. As we’re all Arizona natives, we’re still adjusting to east coast living and the cold, but I love being surrounded by reminders of our nation's rich history.

What are some of your hobbies and interests?

While I’d love to list of litany of interesting hobbies, keeping up with my studies at Georgetown University has consumed my life. I spend most of my time reading, studying and writing papers, but I also enjoy movies, t.v., hanging out with friends and family, and getting outside. During school breaks I like to travel, go to the beach, and explore.

What is your favorite…
-Book? Anything by Dean Koontz
-Movie? The Goonies

About Your Volunteer Experience

What made you initially decide to volunteer? Is that still what drives you?

My motivation to volunteer is multifaceted. Primarily, I have a strong desire to help others and make a difference in the world. My mother raised me to be an extremely compassionate and empathetic person, so I can’t overlook the plight of anyone. Additionally, I love traveling, meeting new people, and learning about other cultures; so volunteering abroad allowed me to combine all these interests into one experience.

Which group did you volunteer with? How did you find out about them?

Most recently, I volunteered with International Volunteer Headquarters who placed me with a local Peruvian organization called Kuyay Sonqo ("Compassionate Heart" in Quechua). I found out about IVHQ while searching the net for affordable international volunteer programs. The organization was right for me because not only did it fit my price range, but it was also extremely professional. I would definitely recommend IVHQ or Kuyay Sonqo to any potential volunteers.

How did you prepare for your trip? Did the volunteer program help you prepare, and if so, do you think they did a good job, or could have improved on something?

To prepare for my trip I did some research on Peru, spoke to one of my Professors whom has frequented the country, and got all my shots. I also spent some time practicing my Spanish. IVHQ was really great with the whole process. They kept regular email contact with me and sent me a huge volunteer workbook with tons of information on Peru and useful advice to be a successful volunteer. They also have a great facebook page that allows you to connect with the people you’ll be volunteering with prior to your start date.

Where did you go?

I volunteered in Lima, Peru, where I stayed with an incredible local family (who ran Kuyay Sonqo) and some other wonderful volunteers.

What type of work did you do? Is it related to anything you do now, or something you studied in school?

There were three major projects the volunteers could work on. Two days a week I assisted a kindergarten teacher in an underprivileged neighborhood. I helped the children with their schoolwork, taught them some English, and played with them at recess. Three days a week I went to a home for the elderly and mentally disabled. The majority of these people had been abandoned by their family, so a big part of our work was simply spending time with them as friends. We did a variety of activities with them, ranging from bingo to taking them to the zoo. We also planted them a garden so that the home could be more self-sustaining. Two afternoons a week, the female volunteers went to a home for sexually abused girls and taught English.

How long were you there?

I was in Peru for about 5 weeks.

What was your favorite part of the volunteer experience? Your least favorite?

My favorite part of my experience was the opportunity it afforded me to really get to know the local people. Living with a local family really allowed me to immerse myself in the culture. I fell in love with the people, the food, and the country. It’s much more difficult to come up with a least favorite part, as my experience was so positive. I guess the lack of sleep was the most problematic, but this was mostly the result of my constant excitement.

Did you experience culture shock on your trip? How did you adjust?

Culture shock wasn’t really an issue for me. Half my family is Mexican so I have a lot of pre-exposure to Latin American culture and the Spanish language (which had already spent a lot of time studying before my trip). Additionally, I’d been to Mexico numerous times growing up so I had an idea of the level of affluence to expect. The one thing that did take me for surprise was that prior to visiting South America I had thought all Latin American food was similar to Mexican food; definitely not the case. A tortilla in Peru is an omelet!!

Did you get along with the other volunteers and staff? Do you keep in touch now?

I absolutely love the family I lived with and the volunteers I worked with. My host family was so welcoming and warm. I can’t believe how close I got to them in such a short time. They really made me feel like a part of the family and I miss them very much. Facebook has been a great way to stay connected. I like to check in with my host family, and remind them of how grateful I am, and I love reminiscing with the other volunteers. We’ve talked about volunteering somewhere together again this summer. It would be great to see everyone again.

What was it like returning home? Have you changed any of your habits or incorporated any of your volunteer experience into your everyday life?

Coming home was bittersweet. I had missed my husband a lot, especially in the last week, but it was really hard to leave Lima and wonder if I would ever have the chance to return. I like to think that I took all the lessons I learned there to heart and have incorporated them into my life. One obvious way my time as a volunteer changed my life was that I decided to continue with Spanish classes, which I had previously decided to quite.

What advice would you give to a potential volunteer?

Make sure you do your research and choose the program that is right for you. You will get a lot more out of the experience if you are working on something that truly interests you. Take into account as many aspects of the program as you can, from food to accommodation.

Would you work on a service project again? Where would you like to go?

I would love to volunteer abroad again. Since a lot of my studies focus on Latin America I would like to stick to South American and Central American countries, possibly Chile.
 

Today's blog entry comes courtesy of Ruth Fitzpatrick, who volunteered with Earthwatch on a small mammal research project in Mongolia, 2007. You can read more and view her travel pictures here. Thanks, Ruth!

My flights all went well, with no problems in either security or immigrations. I went from Anchorage to Portland to Los Angeles to Seoul (South Korea) to Mongolia, for a total of 21 hours of actual flight time and 10.5 hours of layovers. The return trip was pretty much the same except we went thru Seattle instead of Portland. The time difference between Alaska and Mongolia is 17 hours: I’m still not quite “back” if you know what I mean.

I got into Ulaanbaatar (the capitol city of Mongolia, with a population of over 1,000,000 people) at about 5:00 in the afternoon and was so beat I just went right to bed. Thankfully, I had most of the following day to get settled in and see a bit of the sights before the expedition actually started. I went on a walk about the city with fellow expeditioners Jack &amp; Mary (from Homer Alaska) and Ronda (from Denver Colorado), and even got in a bit of shopping at the State Store (a huge 5-story department store selling anything from groceries, electronics and appliances, to tourist nick-knacks and furs).

The official start of the expedition was a big group dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. They stuffed all 13 of us into a table meant to accommodate 8 and served us so much food an army couldn’t have eaten it all. We spent a very pleasant 2 hours getting to know each other and getting pumped for the adventure ahead of us.

Our group of volunteers consisted of myself, Jack & Mary from (of all places) Homer Alaska, Dwight & Karla from Oregon, Brian from England, Dianne from Namibia, Monique from Switzerland, Kathie from Wyoming, Allyn from South Carolina, and Ronda from Colorado. Oddly enough, I was the youngest!

The following morning, we all met out in the parking lot of the guesthouse where we were staying (Zaya’s Guest House) and got all our luggage and gear situated in the cars. Our trip to the train station was a bit cramped, but we survived. Driving a car in downtown Ulaanbaatar is an adventure all on its own! They have stripes on the road, but don’t really pay much attention to them: a four-lane highway can have as many as 6 rows of cars on it, if you drive close enough to the guy beside you, don’t you know.

All the while, our luggage and gear was on its way via the vehicles we’d need at the camp: it was supposed to have been a 5-hour trip (as opposed to the 7.5-hour trip that the train took) but apparently they had car troubles along the way, because when we finally arrived at our designated meeting place, they weren’t there to pick us up. Thankfully, the governor of the Soum (city/town) was kind enough to entertain us while we waited: he took us in to the museum/meeting hall and talked to us about his Soum and what they wanted to accomplish with themselves.

Finally the vehicles arrived, so we climbed in – or rather, we squeezed in – and headed off on our way. And of course, we broke down half way there. This time, the vehicle had a flat tire (the “roads” out there are not much more than a trail in the wilderness). It was quite late and dark by the time we arrived at our base camp, so dinner was by flashlight that night.

My first night of sleeping in a ger on the ground in a sleeping bag was quite fun, but I have to admit the “fun” wore out rather quickly. By the third or fourth night, I really was tired of it and very quickly discovered that the $79 sleeping pad I bought at REI just for this trip had a faulty valve that wouldn’t stay closed - so as soon as I lay down on it all the air would go out of it, and I ended up literally sleeping on the ground. It was cold; it was uncomfortable; it was confining (a mummy-style sleeping bag); and there was no privacy at all (5 other people sleeping in the ger with me, a rather even mixture of both male and female).

But – Hey! I was in MONGOLIA, so who cares!

The morning of our first day was spent with orientations and instructions: Ganaa and Amgaa talked to us about drive-netting and argali capture, Buyana talked to us about her small mammal capture techniques, Mandakh talked to us about her vegetation plots, and Tuugii showed us the radio telemetry, the GPS units, and the two-way radios. After a quick lunch, we were off to set up the drive nets and catch us an argali or three.
 
Setting up drive nets is hard work. The nets are about 6-feet tall, and run for about 1,500 feet in double rows, one about 15-feet away from the other one. They are propped up on poles that are very easy to knock over by either an argali, an ibex, or even a good gust of wind. The theory is that the horsemen go out and locate an animal (or, if they’re lucky, a herd of animals) and drive them into our nets. The first row of netting will capture the first animals to go thru. The second wave of animals will jump over the first wave and then get caught by the second row of netting. Any animals after that will simply get away. The nets are pulled down each night so that nothing will get tangled in them overnight, and had to be relocated several times once the animals caught on to what we were doing and left the area we had currently been set up in.

We were stationed at intervals along the rows of netting, hiding down amongst the rocks so as not to be seen by the skittish animals. Once an animal (or animals) was caught we’d jump up, run over to them, and pile on top of them to keep them down. The scientists would then quickly (and quietly) wrap a cloth over the animal’s eyes and begin to take their measurements and/or biological samples and get a collar on it. The whole procedure had to be completed within 20 minutes, to minimize the stress on the animal.

We worked on the drive nets for 4 days before catching the three argali that we’d set our goals at. The trick was to capture only argali: apparently, argali and ibex travel together, and it’s very difficult to separate them out from each other since they are both running at top speeds.

A typical day would see us up for breakfast around 6:00; off to the drive netting site by 7:00; back to camp around 1:00 for lunch; back out to the drive netting site for another attempt by 2:00; back to camp for dinner at 7:00; and to bed by 9:00.

For those who wanted even more adventure, Buyana needed about 4 volunteers to help her set up her small mammal traps each evening, typically heading out at 8:00; and then each morning she needed another 4 volunteers to go check them all, heading out typically around 6:00. She laid her traps out on a grid system of 10 rows of 10 traps, each spaced a few meters apart. The times I spent with her, she captured mostly wild hamsters with the occasional jerboa or two. She also set out about 10 insect traps (my favorite) which typically had anywhere from one to five beetles in them: big black ones with long antennae. The bugs she’d just count and identify then let go; the small mammals would all get measured, weighed, and tagged before being let go.

Once we got our 3 argali captured, collared, and measured – we switched gears and started in on the radio telemetry and vegetation sampling. A typical day for those was pretty much the same except that lunch was a brown-bag event out in the field wherever you happened to be at the moment.

For radio telemetry, two or three volunteers were assigned to a student and dropped off seemingly out in the middle of nowhere and told to walk back to camp, typically a distance of about 10 kilometers. The walking wasn’t really all that hard, but the terrain could be rather tricky at times. The rocks were tall and steep, and once you got on top the wind tried its best to blow you off. Of course, that’s where you wanted to be in order to get a good reading of the surrounding area with your radio telemetry antennae, trying to locate each animal on your list. In between the rock climbing and radio sweeps, walking on the sand was the hardest. It was stiflingly hot and extremely difficult to walk quickly in sand (and the student I was assigned to was really booking).

The vegetation plots were my favorite. Mandakh was a very nice lady, and her lack of English didn’t impede her sense of humor one bit. Best of all, she always had along a thermos of hot water and would take a tea break periodically throughout the day, complete with cookies and chocolate. A lady after my own heart!

A computer had randomly picked 160 spots throughout the Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, and each spot was visited four times a year in order to get a good sampling of all the vegetation. With her hand-held GPS unit, Mandakh would find one spot after another to do her sampling, typically taking a car and the driver since you never knew which spot you’d be sent to or how far apart they might be. Once a spot was located, she would place a square-meter string out on the ground, take a survey of the types of plants located within the string, count how many of each type of plant was there and measure how tall each one was. Then she would basically mow the plot down to the ground and place all the plant material in sampling bags to be taken back to her lab in UB (that’s short for Ulaanbaatar). There she would assess the nutritional values and the carrying capacity of everything collected.

Our last day at the camp was spent doing transect surveys, which is basically doing a walk-thru and counting how many animals you saw. Each volunteer was assigned to a student (don’t want anybody getting lost out there) and dropped off out in the middle of nowhere again. I went with Dandar, who was just cute as could be but spoke no English at all. We walked rather quickly, since we had quite a ways to go and only 4 hours to do it in. When we spotted an animal or two, Dandar would locate it with his GPS unit and I would record all the data in the notebook.

Once we all made it back to camp, we set to work on breaking down the gers and getting them packed away for the winter. It was really interesting to see them go down and to realize the entire “house” could be stored in a small (ish) container for easy transport. Hundreds of years of tradition had worked out all the kinks, that’s for sure.

In between all that scientific stuff, we did get to do some fun cultural things, too. One day we loaded everybody up into the cars and headed off to the horse races. Apparently, it’s a big deal out there, with everybody for miles around competing to win the prize. The riders were all young, anywhere from 6 to 9 years of age (both male and female) and the horses were - of course – the famed Mongolian Horses: short, stocky, and half wild. It was so cool to see everybody there: they still wear the traditional clothing worn for hundreds of years, and of course no body speaks English. It was like being transported back to the times of Genghis Kahn and the Mongol Horde!

On another day, we got to visit with a neighboring rancher who invited us in to their ger for some authentic Mongolian hospitality and a taste of the nomadic way of life. The lady of the house even got out all of her traditional dels and let us try them on: we looked like real Mongolians (not).
 
Back in UB, Ganaa arranged for us to go to the cashmere warehouse, to the black market, and to a cultural dance & music event to round out our trip. I chose not to go to the shopping events (I was looking forward to an actual shower and a nap on a real bed!) but certainly did go to the dance & music event. The Mongolians have perfected the art of Throat Singing, or the ability to sing two separate melodies at the same time. They also are masters at contortionism with some extremely amazing moves performed by the dancers.