have been out of school for too long &
need a lot of tuition before those who can are reintegrated back into the
normal schools.) Many kids in the informal classes won't go back into the
normal classes since they are too old & that causes too much personal
embarrassment & stress. In actual fact through our education program we
impact the lives of many thousands of kids & families
From our philosophy of believing that a child is better off within its own
family (there are some obvious exceptions to this of course..) We have been
involved right from the outset in finding families of street kids gently working
with them & determining whether it would be in the best interests of the
child to reunite them. So we have reunited many children, probably 80% of
the kids that have been through our centers with their families, and then
continued working with, supporting & building the capacity of the family.
This too has been successful Again a lot of 'love care & forgiveness,'
has been involved. Plus a lot of hard & frustrating work as many of the
families is by now quite dysfunctional. But we have seen miracles happen.
Working with the police has been an essential part of our program& very
quickly I could see that to be successful & to achieve some attitude changes
we would need to adopt the attitude "if we can't beat them we'll join
them," & change them from the inside out slowly . This we have done
& work with them in a number of the 'police' domains. The Foster care
program has been something else that I initiated as a means of housing homeless
kids in 'good' families.
Personally I would add that I don't think there can be any greater reward
or blessing than as a foreigner, the father of our own precious family, to
have the opportunity to be accepted as the father of hundreds of Mongolian
kids & experience the joy & happiness as they take the opportunities
that we have been able to provide through our program and made good choices
that have positively turned their lives round.
As I have quoted so many times to Mongolian authorities, police & govt.
officials when I have had to speak to them etc, 'these kids may be doing bad
things, but they are not bad kids.' They need the love & care that we
all need & they have a right to, & the changes will be miraculous.
This is exactly the outcome that we have experienced during our time here.
Because my shock absorber had not arrived
yet I decided to join Peter and Sue Bryan to visit some World Vision project
some 400km north of Ulaanbaatar for a few days.
We spent two days visiting some of those centres (in Bulgan and Erdinet) and
I could see the joy in the eyes of the children. Once again a little love
goes a long way for those children. Peter and Sue are going back to New Zealand
in a couple of weeks to be with their own children and grand children. I have
no doubts that they will be missed terribly in the corridor of the World Vision
office and on the streets of UB. I would like to take this opportunity to
thanks them both for taking me along and for taking the time to explain everything
to me.
When we got back in UB we learned that some terrible storms had occurred and
that 9 people had died and more than 200 gers got washed away leaving many
families without a home.
Friday, 25 July.
That day I went to visit several projects in the CEDC Children in Especially
difficult Circumstances in the environs of the city.
Youth Open Prison on the outskirts of the city, where 3 gers which house 9
prisoners
been taken to graft on his torso.
But the contracted muscles and skin are very ugly and he cannot straighten
his arm or lift his up his chin.
He appears to be a quiet boy and his eyes and face show no hatred or anger
towards the treatment he has received all his life.
W V will try and raise funds to provide further treatment and plastic
surgery for this boy so he can at least feel more like other children.
He has never been to school and says he would like to learn to read and write
at least.
WV will make inquiries into how they can get further surgery for him and I
will let you know what I find out. Keep in touch.
My shock absorber finally arrived on the 22, two weeks later than scheduled. I spend 4 hours at the airport custom to get it out. They wanted to charge me another US$200 for
me US$1300 to have my bike flown to San Francisco
via China. I prepared the bike myself to save money. The next day WV helped
me to deliver the bike to the airport. Everything seemed OK with the custom
but the next day the agent called me to tell me that the Chinese could not
accept the cargo as it was. They wanted an extra US$600 because it was a so
call dangerous good. The only way to avoid the cost was to send it as motorcycle
spare parts and to do that I would have to remove the tank and the battery.
Removing the tank is quite easy on most bikes but on this one the tank is
under the seat, a little complicated for me. I could not do it so I only removed
the covers that look like a tank and prayed that the Chinese would not see
it. Another complication is when the bike reaches the US, the custom will
read spare parts on the invoice and will they agree to give it back to me.
We shall see. I have taken some chances here which might turn up to be a very
big mistake.
The bike was supposed to leave on the 26th and when I went to the airport
on the 27th it was still there, not a very good start but there is nothing
else I can do.
See you in San francisco.
Breaking news
that I have just received after arriving in San Francisco.
The email reads:
I would like to let you know that your motorcycle could not be shipped
on Saturday from Ulaanbaatar, reason is:
Mongolian Airline security inspectors had investigated that the fuel tank
not out of motorcycle, according to the Dangerous Goods Regulation of IATA
they refused to accept it by air and they going to impose fine to me for lying.
Motorcycles are never shipped out by passenger aircraft from Mongolia, we
do not have cargo aircraft.
Therefore, I am going to do the following steps.
Ship the bike from UB to Bejing by railway.
Then from Bejing to San Francisco by aircraft by Dangerous Goods rate.
But you have to pay US$500 more, I will give you money details if you agree
with payement.
I have no idea what to do next and been so far from Mongolia does not make
things easier.
Are they ripping me off?
How along will I be stuck in San Francisco?
Will I ever see my bike again?
You will have all those answers in my next update. In the meantime just click
here to view more photos.
Vendredi, 25 juillet.
Ce jour là je suis allé visiter un centre pour les jeunes défavorisés
dans le centre de UB, il faisait chaud et tous les enfants étaient
en caleçons. J'ai rencontré un jeune garçon de 12
Ma suspension est finalement arrivée
le 22 Juillet, soit deux semaines après la date prévu. Cela
m'a pris quatre heures pour la sortir de la douane, ces derniers me demandaient
200Euros de taxes. Heureusement Byamba, de WV, était avec moi et elle
a pu les convaincre que je n'avais pas à payer de taxes.
Du fait de la dépense imprévu de l'amortisseur j'ai décidé
de raccourcir mon itinéraire en évitant le Japon et le Canada
et de prendre l'avion directement de la Mongolie pour San Francisco. J'ai
acheté un billet (700 Euros) pour le 27 Juillet, dernière journée
de mon visa. Il ne me restait plus qu'à organiser ma moto à
envoyer par cargo. J'ai contacté la plus importante agence de UB et
ils m'ont dit que pour 1300 Euros ma moto serait envoyée à San
Francisco par avion en passant par la chine. J'ai préparé la
moto moi-même de façon à économiser quelques Euros
et le lendemain WV m'aidaient à emmener la moto à l'aéroport.
Tout paressait très bien, sans problème et je m'en réjouissais.
Malheureusement le lendemain je recevais un coup de téléphone
de l'agence qui me disait que les Chinois ne pouvaient pas accepter le cargo
dans ces conditions. Ils voulaient 600 Euros en plus parce que c'était
un produit dangereux. Mon agent me disait que la seule façon d'éviter
le surplus de frais c'était d'envoyé la moto comme pièces
détachés. Il me fallait juste enlever la batterie et le réservoir
à essence. Pas de problème pour la batterie mais pour le réservoir
c'était un peu plus difficile. Sur la plupart des motos c'est très
facile mais sur ce modèle le réservoir se trouve sous la selle,
un peu trop compliqué pour moi. J'enlevais les parois en plastique
qui serve à la place du réservoir de façon que à
première vue il semble que le réservoir a été
enlevé. La seule chose qu'il me restait à faire c'était
de prier que les Chinois ne s'en aperçoivent pas. Un autre élément
qui m'inquiète un peu c'est ce que va dire la douane Américaine
quand je vais aller chercher ma moto et que sur la facture c'est marqué
pièces détachées. Affaire à suivre. J'ai pris
des chances qui vont peut être mal tourner.
La moto devait partir le 26 et quand je suis allé á l'aéroport
le 27 pour prendre mon propre avion ma moto était toujours là,
cela commence mal mais je ne peux plus rien faire.
Je vous dis au revoir et à bientôt aux états Unis.
Dernières nouvelles que
je viens juste de recevoir après mon arrivé à San Francisco.
Le email dit:
Mr Martin
J'aimerai vous faire savoir que votre moto n'est pas parti de Mongolie Samedi
comme prévu pour les raisons suivantes:
Les inspecteurs douaniers de la Mongolian airline ont découvert que
le réservoir de la moto était toujours là. D'aprés
les Dangerous Goods Regulation of IATA ils ont refuses de prendre votre moto
et je dois moi-même payer une amende pour leur avoir menti.
Les motos ne sont jamais envoyées par avions passagers et il n'y a
pas d'avion cargo en Mongolie.
Voila ce que je vais faire maintenant pour vous.
Je vais envoyer votre moto par train jusqu'à Bejing et par avion jusqu'à
San Francisco.
Mais avant de faire quoique ce soit vous devez me payer 500 Euros.
Je ne sais pas du tout quoi faire maintenant
et d'être si loin de la Mongolie n'arrange rien du tout.
Est-ce que j'ai à faire à une bande d'escrocs?
Combien de temps vais-je être coincer à San Francisco?
Est-ce que je vais revoir ma moto un jour?
Vous aurez toutes ces réponses bientôt.
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