Bornuur

Today we were getting picked up to go to our rural credit union in Bornuur soum, Tov aimag. I walked to the Square in the morning to do some people watching. There was a wedding party taking photos in front of parliament. The bride was wearing a white, western-style dress in opposed to traditional Mongolian dress.

The CEO, Davka, picked us up and needed to make a quick stop to pick up an ink cartridge. He picks up his supplies whenever he is in UB as he does not have access otherwise. The store parking lot was too full and there were no spaces available, although that did not stop some vehicles from parking and blocking other people in. Davka decided to park on the street in front of some of the cars already parked. Sure enough, someone wanted out so it was a good thing Davka left his keys in the car so we could tell the other guy to move it for us.

Bornuur is 100km from UB with a population of 3,000 living in the town centre. It is an agricultural community producing vegetables, primarily potatoes, wheat and livestock. Davka said it would take us one hour; I had looked on Google Maps and it said one and a half hours. The Director of MCTIC said it would be about two hours as Davka was not permitted to go faster than 60 km/h because he had international visitors. In reality, it took us over four hours to get there.

We pulled up to a building and I was not sure if it was where we were staying or where the credit union was. To my surprise, it was both. The credit union was two doors down from the accommodation. All that separated them was a pawn shop and a bank! There was also a supermarket and restaurant in the same building. You could move in and have everything you needed under one roof.


We met the rest of the staff and had some quick introductions. It is a very young staff and everyone had a good chuckle when Charlie said it is the youth that are our future and it is time to get rid of the 'dead wood'.

We had time before dinner so I suggested going for a walk around the Soum. We had a lot of curious looks and one woman asked our interpreter who we were and why we were there. Well, it turns out she is a member of the credit union and was delighted we were visiting and she talked to us about her experience with the credit union. She also loves President Obama and has an 'Obama bracelet' that gives her good energy. Her goal is to go to Chicago next year in hopes of seeing him.


We went for dinner and received even more stares - one little girl even walked into a chair because she was too busy looking at us rather than looking at where she was going.