During my brief time in UlaanBaatar, I was recommended a contact person, Susan Griffeth, who had founded an organization working in the Ger (Yurt) district almost 10 years ago. Susan was kind enough to pick me up one afternoon and take me to the district and for a visit to her organization, Flourishing Future, to learn about all the community development and assistance activities they were involved in . From there another member of the FF team– Troy, who also helps run a travel agency (Rinky Dink Travel), led me on a tour of the area. During this walk he explains how things work or don’t work for the more than half a million people living in such neighborhoods in Mongolia’s capital city. The following is a 1 hour podcast of that adventure.
Clinical Protest
“…if you live in a state institution and you’re diagnosed with schizophrenia in the United States in the present day, the chances are exponentially greater that you are going to be in a prison than in a hospital…” – Jonathan Metzl on All in the Mind.
A recent edition of All in the Mind, ABC Radio National’s Mental Health radio program, looked at historical connections between protest and mental illness. One of the main points of the program is to point out that historically, those active in protest movements of various kinds, have often been said to be or officially diagnosed as mentally ill. In this way their goals or grievances with social structures and practices are seen as not worthy of being taken seriously, as they are brought on by a sickness.
The main interviewee on the program was Associate Professor Jonathan Metzl, author of the book The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease, published by Beacon Books. Through his work Metzl explains a long list of cases where black people active in the civil rights struggle in the US were in incarcerated and while in prison diagnosed as schizophrenic or psychotic, then having their sentences extended and the array of treatments and medications expanded til the point that even if they had never been mentally ill before, they would become so.
From the era of slavery to the days of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, the discussion is a very interesting one that still has a big impact today in how we look at people in mental institutions, prison, and protest movements.
Highly recommended listening, full transcript is also available.
A-Ren Turns 6
This website has existed in different forms since 2001. In that time, alot of people have come and gone, regular readers, occasional visitors, frequent comment leavers. For those that remember the days when the title of the site was “The Communique” and my focus was on more than under-reported news but also life in Holland, family, friends and internet culture in general, then you’ll surely remember when my nephew A-Ren was born. Its hard to believe 6 years have gone by. To this day when I travel, when I run into friends or aquaintences that know my site, people still ask me “How’s A-Ren?” Naturally I always smile and say He is GREAT!
In honor of his birthday (yesterday) I present a classic film from his toddler days, and here are two classic posts about my nephew for your reading pleasure.
I realize some new readers out there might find it strange to hear about the personal stuff, the family details, and my feelings… but to them I say – this here is and always has been a blog. And blogging is fundamentally, beyond everything else, personal.
ctrp336 Political Persecution and Mongolian History
Within ten minutes of sitting down at a table together, Bekhbat and I immediately were immersed in a conversation about Mongolian history. Me, the student, and he – the teacher, Director of the Museum Dedicated to Victims of Political Persecution in UlaanBaatar, and the grandson of P. Genden; former Prime Minister of Mongolia and victim of political persecution, executed by Stalin’s KGB in 1937.
In this podcast conversation Bekhbat takes us through the history of modern Mongolia, sorting through the myths and half-truths and explaining how the country came to be what it is today. In doing so he also walks us through the history of his very interesting family, including the infamous story of how his grandfather got into a heated argument and slapped Stalin.
To the Ger District
I’m running late for my next appointment, and as I rush out of the Grand Khan Irish pub, I look across the sea of cars around Sukhbaatar square, and I cover my mouth with my scarf to try and filter the Coal and Carbon Monoxide filled air. The guide books say UlaanBaatar in winter has some of the worst air quality of any capital city in the world, yet somehow I’ve decided breathing through a scarf will make it all alright.
I know that Susan has been waiting for me for at least 20 minutes in front of the Pink Opera house, and in order to make it there, I’ve still got to negotiate at least two of the the very bizarre intersections that this city has to offer. Since many cars don’t find stop lights compelling enough to obey, I take a certain degree of comfort when I see that not only does this intersection feature traffic police trying to look tough in their sunglasses, but young Mongolians with fluorescent safety vests and mini stop signs. After a long delay, they swing out their arms and start waving the stop signs, in a few cases scolding cars that seem to almost run them down. I blow past the people walking at a normal speed, the tall westerner covered from head to toe in winter gear, using a scarf to cover most of his face and sunglasses to hide his eyes. 25 minutes- I zoom past the very small amount of people at Sukhbaatar Square, tourists perhaps, more people who like me, don’t mind showing up at the tail end of winter.
In front of the Pink Opera house, I find the blue SUV, and there inside is Susan, who to this point I have only spoken on the phone with once. After launching into several apologies, Susan immediately puts me at ease: “No problem. Actually, its nice when people are late, gives me a chance to have a little down time.” — Happy to have some downtime; I love Mongolia.
Susan is Project Manager for Flourishing Future*, a non governmental organization working in the Ger (The Mongolian tent many people call Yurts) District. On her business card is the phrase “Helping the Poorest of the Poor” in plain black letter type. Greetings and hello’s being concluded, off we ride through the city center and out to the western side of the city. We drive and talk, my eyes soaking in the rapidly changing cityscape, my mind soaking in the details of what is clearly a very interesting and knowledgeable person. As she explains her relationship to Mongolia, which is more than a decade old, my eyes scan each roadside shack selling bags and bags of coal, wood, car parts, and what I think was scrap metal. Every now and again we pass a line of donkey-pulled carts, waiting to haul heavy loads of wood which I don’t think you’re allowed to carry onto the bus. Susan seems to read the fact that I’m quite taken by what looks like such a different city to when we started, our conversation shifts to what is going on outside and the drunk man that has passed out just as he was crossing the street. Cars drive around him.
A slow left turn and we’re on a dirt road, or at least it seems to be a dirt road, with plenty of craters in it. Susan steers the car towards the side of the road as if we’re pulling over, she explains that we’re not pulling over, but in fact driving on the side of the road or off the road is sometimes smoother than staying on it. As we do this the occasional person walks by us in the opposite direction, unhindered by the potholes. This pseudo road is lined with fences that lead further and further up the mountain, and behind these fences I can see a few very small brick houses and a whole lot of the traditional Gers (or Yurts). It’s the first time I’m this close to this internationally known symbol of nomadic life in Mongolia, and just then it dawns on me-we’ve arrived in the Ger District.
*Link to Rinky Dink Travel, which is associated with Flourishing Future and also took the time to take me around the district.
bmtv111 The Trans-Mongolian Journey
The following is a video montage of my journey from Irkutsk, Russia to UlaanBaatar, Mongolia aboard the Moscow to Beijing Train. It also includes a few clips from my first day in the city of UlaanBaatar. For more video entries, including many that didn’t appear on this blog, from my Siberian journey, follow this link to my blip.tv videos.