On
the outskirts of a northern Mongolian town, Oyun Davaa is waiting
out the winter. The bitter wind coming in off the steppe buffets
her ger, the traditional tent dwelling of itinerant herders.
Snow is falling and temperatures, long below zero, are plummeting.
If the old men around Zuunkharaa, a town of 25,000 people northwest
of the capital Ulaanbaatar, are to be believed, Mongolia is
in for another dzud, the harsh winter that since 1999 may well
have caused the deaths of ten million domestic animals, a quarter
of the national herd.
The dzuds have driven tens of thousands of herder families to
ruin, forcing them to move to urban areas in search of ways
to survive.
Oyun, her husband and family, are hanging on grimly to the edge
of the steppe. They are aware that few herders have found a
solution to their problems by moving to urban areas. For most,
rural hardship has been replaced by poverty and deprivation
in a growing social tragedy.
“What would we do in town?” she asks. “This
is far enough.”
Another dzud might force her hand but she isn’t convinced
it’s coming. The old men’s pessimism comes from
the fact that this is the Year of the Monkey, a year of calamity
in the lunar cycle.
Early snow and the widespread appearance of the white turgen
tsagaan flower on the steppe last summer were other portents,
they say, of disaster. Oyun lives in hope of a mild winter,
one that would help a recovery.
Before four consecutive years of dzud, the family had a herd
of 400 sheep and goats and wandered far from any town, following
the grazing. But the winter before last they lost most of them
and were obliged to move close to Zuunkharaa to find some means
of coping.
Jobs were scarce and temporary and at present they depend on
what they earn for guarding an agricultural project. The ger
stands on the edge of it. The pay is low and food and clothing
from the Mongolian Red Cross have helped them through tough
times.
Can they hold on much longer? Can their few remaining animals
become a herd again? The odds right now would seem against them
and, for Oyun, this winter could be a critical one.
Over the last two years alone close to 40 per cent of the herder
families have come in from the cold around here, giving up on
the nomadic life that has sustained their people for centuries.
Most have moved to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, and the local Red
Cross, which follows closely the fortunes of the herders, says
half those who remain are struggling.
Much can still be done to help them. Around the country Mongolian
Red Cross programmes provide such things as new skills training,
income generation projects, social welfare support, and relief
in emergencies.
But concern is now as much for the poverty and deprivation former
herder families face in urban slums, as it is for those still
on the steppe.
The damage wrought by climatic extremes is serious enough. But
the socio-economic problems of a post-Communist Mongolian transition
have caused general living standards to drop.
Unemployment is high, social services are deteriorating and
around 35 per cent of the population is thought to live under
the poverty line. In some urban areas the figure goes up to
70 per cent, the gap between rich and poor is growing and one
out of every four children is undernourished.
Into this come the herder families, most ill-equipped for a
tough urban world but without the option of returning to rural
life. They are caught in a poverty trap and their presence only
deepens the problems.
The pressure on infrastructure of larger cities is immense,
particularly in Ulaanbaatar to where, over a decade, 320,000
people have migrated, swelling the population from 700,000 to
over a million.
Crime has increased with the jobless figures and huge unsanitary
slums – ger districts – have sprung up, with herder
dwellings interspersed among warrens of shacks.
It isn’t just the herders you find there. Poverty and
life without health and social care are shared by many in the
lanes and alleys, and it is among the elderly, the disabled
and poor single-parent families that those in greatest need
are found. With little or no income, often homebound and alone,
they struggle to keep warm, well and fed.
The Mongolian Red Cross, supported by the International Federation
and the British, German and Netherlands Red Cross Societies,
has been expanding its services in urban areas, helped by its
volunteer network. Targeting lonely vulnerable people as well
as the migrants, its home-care projects and social centres are
improving lives and breaking down isolation.
Finding the way through often labyrinthine Mongolian bureaucracy
to state assistance is also critical. The Red Cross helps people
reach it, sometimes linking to medical services or providing
legal advice to ensure they acquire entitlements.
For former herders a major obstacle is simply getting registered.
They do not bring the necessary documents. But unless they are
registered they cannot get state health or social care, or education
for their children.
The number this leaves in social limbo is horrific. Of the 7,000
families in the flood-prone ger areas of Ulaanbaatar’s
Bayangol district, 3,000 are without state services, reason
for the Red Cross to expand its operations this year, with British
and German backing.
As impoverished herders continue to move into Bayangol, ger
boundaries widen and need spirals accordingly within them.
Among elderly and disabled people, a survey found, the greatest
need was for health services. Often even buying medicine was
too expensive for them. The second biggest problem was nourishment.
On an annual pension of around US$ 30, Marjaa Sangamyativ, a
frail little lady of 94, has a simple household budget. Half
her money goes on food, the other half on fuel.
It is just as well she owns the ger she lives in. She could
not afford to rent it. As it is, she says, “I try to make
do on less and less.” The consequence for her diet is
disturbing.
Marjaa’s loneliness aggravates her problems. A widow with
an estranged adopted daughter, she has outlived her friends
and relatives. She doesn’t have visitors, except for a
veteran Red Cross volunteer, Oyunchimeg Lhaesm. “When
it’s her day to call I’m so happy,” Marjaa
says. “It feels like my children are coming.”
The volunteer is a lifeline, seeing the old lady’s needs
are met. She may clean or cook, do her shopping, bring in water
or wood, check she has her medication. She keeps an eye on her
state of health and if she has doubts calls in a nurse or doctor.
But most important of all for this old lady is the psychological
support, having someone to talk to and share her problems with.
At 30, Battsetseg, a herder’s daughter, needs someone
to turn to as well. With children aged 8, 6 and 4, hers is one
of a worrying number of single-headed households struggling
to survive in the ger districts. Seventy per cent of them are
headed by women.
She migrated from the steppe four years ago, after the dzud
took most of the animals she had inherited from her late parents.
By selling those that survived she paid for the journey to the
capital but had nothing left to start over.
Today she derives her income from collecting discarded bottles
and cans and scavenging at garbage points. Her children are
unwashed and ragged, and her eldest son has dropped out of school
because of costs she cannot meet.
As it widens its operations, the Red Cross will help people
like Battsetseg onto their feet. It will link them to job opportunities,
offer skills training, help them to help themselves. On the
edge of the steppe, Oyun Davaa would prefer a few normal winters.
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Oyun
Davaa is hanging on grimly to her traditional life on
the steppe (p12473)
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A
Mongolian Red Cross visitor listens to the problems of
a lonely old man, givign him a bridge to the outside world
(p12474)
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Many
elderly people living in Ulaanbaatar find themselves without
health and social care. The Red Cross is attempting to
provide them with assistance (p12475)
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Children
from one of the single-parent families that inhabit Ulaanbaatar
'ger' districts(p12476)
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