Interview With Mom Part 2

A few days ago, I posted some answers to questions which my mom had sent me via email. I thought they were good questions that helped me think about life in Mongolia, so I decided they would be part of my blogging. So, here's Part 2 of this documentary...ha ha!

Do you have neighbors whom you can communicate with?
Are the apartment halls light and clean and welcoming?

So far I've only seen a few neighbors in the hallway. We only have 8 units in our staircase, so there's not a lot of people going up and down the stairs here. There's another separate set of stairs to other parts of our building, but the hallways aren't connected (you can't get to other parts of the building without going outside the building). The hallways are rather treacherous at night. There's one little light bulb that lights the staircase, and there are certain areas that are pretty dark. The steps are different sizes in height. This is true all over Mongolia. A full staircase doesn't necessarily have uniform steps. I find that here I go just a bit slower than usual on stairs. I've tripped several times.

The hallways are kept clean by a lady who is also our trash lady. We get rid of our trash by throwing the bag out in the hallway. Some people even dump small amounts of trash at the bottom of the stairs without a bag. This is just the way it is in all the apartment buildings. The trash lady (in our case it's a lady...I suppose some buildings have a man) collects the trash, sweeps the stairs, washes the stairs with a bucket of water, and keeps the grounds around the building picked up. During the day, the trash trucks roam the streets. When they come into apartment areas, they play a little tune which truly sounds like an ice cream truck. But, be not deceived...no ice cream on these trucks! It is a little musical ditty to alert the trash collectors in the apartments to get their trash out to the truck. We don't have to do anything when we hear the music. Our trash can go out in the hallway whenever we want to take it out. In spite of this method of trash collection, I haven't seen a single bug or mouse yet. I believe it has been so cold that it killed them all off!

Yesterday, our trash lady was coming out of the building as I was bringing in some large bags of groceries. We have a code to punch in to open the door. She saw me coming, and turned around to punch the code in and open the door for me. Then, she leaned over to open the second door for me. She even smiled at me. On the surface, this may seem uneventful. Actually, it was one of the highlights of my day. I have been greeting her in Mongolian every time I see her, giving her a smile. She has kept a cold exterior toward me. Today, she seemed to open up. This also happened last week with the lady I buy postage from at the post office. She's been the one to sell me postage all three times. The third time she gave me a smile as I wished her a good day. It's these little connections that will finally lead some to the Lamb who stood in our place. This is what this weekend is all about!