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The journey for water

MongoliaSonya D'Souza, international school of ulaanbaatar
April 9, 2011

NEWS

The Gobi desert, spread across 1,280,000 square kilometers, is one of the harshest environments to live in; where temperatures span from –40˚C to +40˚C . It is located in the sourthern part of Mongolia. Tourists from all over the world come to see both the dunes and the people. It is a common thought, when tourists visit locals and see the way that they live, “I could never live like this, I simply would not survive." said one. That is true for many of us. We would not be able to cope with what these people have to go through every day.

Amongst these vast dunes of sand is a small town, Khanbogd. This town is 450km away from the capital, Ulaanbaatar. This small town has one restaurant, one supermarket that is not well stocked, a small bakery, and one petrol station, which runs out of petrol after two weeks, and it takes 3 weeks to bring some more from Ulaanbaatar. The road from Ulaanbaatar to Khanbogd is so bad; there are countless pot-holes, which is why people resort to driving off the road. In order to do this, you need a good car. However the people who live in Khanbogd are not that wealthy. This is why most people resort to a more traditional way of travelling, horse-back. People in Khanbogd are mostly herders, and the people all live in gers. Someone from each family makes a trip to Ulaanbaatar once in three months, to stock up on the basic necessities.

Mongolia is a very arid region, but water scarcity is increased by new businesses such as mining. 45 km away from Khanbogd is the Oyu Tolgoi mining site . Although OT has not yet actually started to mine the copper and gold, the affects are already surfacing. The extraction of copper results in polluted rivers, from which people no longer can obtain their drinking water. Because of the lack of water, livestock are in poorer condition and are more likely to die during the harsh winters. This means more ruined herders moving to the already crowded capital.

Meet Zula Bayarsaiken. She is the oldest of five kids, and she is 15 years old. Her family lives in Khanbogd. They have over 500 cattle, but still they find that every year during the winter more than half of them die. “It is very frustrating to live like this. Twice a day I have to travel for over an hour by foot, fill a drum with water from the river, and push the heavy trolley with the water back to our ger. Some days the water is not enough, so we cut down how many times we wash our hands. We only take a bath once every week,” said Zula. In Khanbogd there is a river, but since it is close to the mining site, it has already become polluted. “I understand that I live in a desert, and having dust storms is really common. However, when the trucks are transporting goods it creates even more dust. It is also very hard to find good pasture land for the animals to graze. The trucks are destroying that as well,” said Zula.

Water is very scarce. When water is scarce, none of it can be spared for proper sanitation and hygiene. Wounds are not properly wash, mothers cook without washing their hands, more than half of the developing world is affected by a sanitation- related disease . People in Mongolia are suffering because of development. They value water very much.




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