The Blue Sky Build (or why I came to Mongolia)

After five and a half months of planning (more actually, this is just what I was involved in) the Blue Sky Build had finally arrived.  The two weeks leading up to the BSB were super busy, but I really enjoyed it. The weekend before I spend all day Saturday going with one of the social workers to visit 6 families for the build, which is something I always enjoy, though we spent a lot of time in the car. Then on Sunday went into my office before church, only went to Sacrament meeting and then went back to my office to work with Melissa, our regional consultant who had come in that day.

The week before pretty much everyone was in the office early and stayed late. We had some more regional staff come in that week which ended up being a big help because they took care of some of the menial tasks that I would have been up all night doing without them (like printing and cutting 300 name tags, etc). The atmosphere was quite fun because we were all a little on edge and it was great to meet and work with some new people. All of the Mongolian Habitat staff also came into town so it was nice to meet and work with a few of them. There were a couple of issues of course. One snag we had was getting more translators for the build, thankfully it wasn’t my responsibility but I tried to help Chimgee (who was in charge of translators) as much as I could including calling my stake president and going to the RM institute class to make an announcement/desperate plea for any English speakers who could help out. My other major issue for the week was printing (there were actual problems of course but I learned to adopt the 'if it’s not my responsibility then I don’t have the time/energy to care' because otherwise I’d have given myself an ulcer). We have the crappiest printer/fax/scanner/copier at our office; it is like one you would have at your house, not in an office. It was slow and kept running out of ink. Well we needed to make thousands of copies and eventually I ended up going to a copy place after too many days and even the copy place was quite expensive. But other than that, things were fine for the build up.

Oh, except that on June 28, the Thursday before the build it was Mongolian elections so the entire country was off work. The rest visiting foreign staff and I all went into the office anyway, but none of the Mongolian staff worked (as far as I know). This REALLY stressed out some of our regional people because taking a day off 4 days before a major project is apparently not something that people normally do.

On Sunday, 1 July the real chaos started. Most of the volunteers were arriving that day and then we had the Opening Dinner that night. I was up really early that morning and in the office (and really excited). I got most of my day responsibilities done (like setting up some signs at hotels, etc) very easily and even had a little down time to grab lunch. It was SO much fun to see all of the international volunteers coming in. A couple of the staff seemed a little stressed, but otherwise I think all of the pick ups and registrations went pretty well.

I had to co-emcee the Opening Dinner (not sure why they keep making me emcee for these things, I don’t really mind I just don’t understand it). It went really well. The traditional (and some non-traditional) Mongolian entertainment was a huge hit with the foreigners so everyone was in a great mood. The most popular bit seemed to be the fashion show, which is really funny when I think about it, but it was very dramatic and cool (my favorite parts were the throat singing and the Shaman dance). People were standing up and getting pictures for the entire show. Overall, everything went great.

Throat Singing

Shaman Dance

Monday morning bright and early I caught the bus that was picking up at 2 hotels a 5-minute walk from my house. The buses left Ulaanbaatar every morning at 7am, which meant volunteers had breakfast at around 6am everyday. On my bus were 37 Koreans and 3 volunteers from Hong Kong along with a couple of random volunteers, translators, and Mongolian staff. I was initially disappointed that my bus was going to contain the only non-native English speaking volunteers we had, but it turned out to be blessing because the Koreans were super organized and quiet, so that was great.

My role during the week was to help with the media, update facebook and assist the Asia Pacific communications people with anything that they needed. That translated into a lot of walking around the build site holding my computer out trying to get a decent internet signal and then some boring down times. I felt a little bad that I wasn’t actually building, but I was still exhausted at the end of every day. I hung out mainly with Christine, one of our regional staff who works in Singapore and Ally, a 14 year old volunteer from the US who wasn’t allowed to actually build so she helped with catering and drinks.

Christine and I on the last day of the build.

Ally and I on the last day.

Our weather during the week was up and down. We had a couple of really hot days and then a couple of rainy days. On the first rainy day we just waited it out and the weather cleared enough to keep working. On Friday though most of the volunteers and staff left early in the afternoon because the rain was just too heavy (of course as soon as we’re all on the buses it stopped, but too late to change our minds). Getting home before 7pm was really nice though.

Korean team dealing with the rain. Photo credit Mikel Flam.

Every night I would get home and strip off my clothes and shower. I was too tired to go out most of the time so I would spend about an hour waging war with the flies that had infested my apartment and then crashed in bed. I don’t know why I was so tired because I wasn’t actually doing any building, but I was seriously exhausted.

There were of course some issues/problems/opportunities for improvement throughout the week, but nothing major and things got handled fairly well.

On Saturday, the last day volunteers were supposed to finish building by lunchtime because then we were having all of the house dedications and then closing ceremony and dinner. Because people left early on Friday afternoon though some houses were a little behind so everything got pushed back a little, but I think the houses all pretty much got finished. I missed all the house dedications because I was busy getting ready for the closing ceremony (I had to emcee again) but I heard some of them were very emotional and others involved shots of vodka.

The closing ceremony had its highs and lows. The highs included the families saying thank you and doing a couple of performances and each of the international teams did a little dance/song, which were sometimes funny and always entertaining. The lows included the fact that everyone was sitting in the sun in the late afternoon and the fact that it lasted WAY too long (my boss insisted on giving a speech which in and of itself was too long, and then giving out awards to way too many people that took an extra 45 minutes). After that we ate and then everyone left on the buses and the Blue Sky Build was over. (Randomly my bus left last because the Koreans were so attached to one of the families they built a house for that they were all crying and didn’t want to leave them, it was touching and hilarious all at the same time.)

Volunteers enjoying the Closing Ceremony.

I was SO tired at the end of the week. Sadly I still got up really early on Sunday morning because I needed to clean a little (someone was staying at my house that night) and because I had to give a talk in church that day which I needed to write/prepare and then find somewhere to print it before church (the crappy printer in our office had been temporarily re-located to one of the hotels that volunteers were at and I kind of have to have printed copies when someone is translating for me, I’m not mean enough to make someone read my hand-writing while simultaneously translating my too-big English words into Mongolian).

Some of the staff relaxing a little after everything was done on Saturday 

and the volunteers were getting on the buses.

My overall thoughts/feelings about the BSB are pretty positive. I had a really good time and loved all the people I got to meet and work with. It was also a great learning opportunity for me and I know a lot of things to avoid if I ever had to organize my own big build, or any major event.

Random Facts:

• I consumed more soda during the build week than I did the entire previous 6 months because there were thousands of bottles sitting in the test house with me all day and I had access to cold ones. I had at least 2 a day. I am now on a carbonated drink fast because I felt so crappy because of it.
• I wore the same t-shirt for 6 days in a row (I did wash it twice).
• I got weirdly sunburned during the week. I have a very visible watch tan now and on the last day I rolled up my pants to expose 3 inches of my ankles and lower leg: they turned bright pink as well. 
• I wore my Rodger Federer hat one day and was please to find 2 different international volunteers to talk to about Wimbleton because they recognized it.

Photo credit Mikel Flam

Photo credit Mikel Flam. You can kind of see me in the back right hand corner walking to the group photo because I was trying to get the Koreans to come to the photo.

(For more photos of the build check out Habitat for Humanity Mongolia's facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/hfhmongolia )