At their last meeting members of the Newton Abbot Probus Club enjoyed a fascinating talk delivered by Peter Dawson who recounted his experiences whilst working with a US Aid project in Mongolia.
Peter, a vet by profession, was part of a team whose objective was to improve the availability and usage of veterinary medicines in the country.
He explained some of the difficulties that had to be overcome – the fact that the value of farm animals was so low that the cost of medicines sometimes exceeded the worth of the animal and that all too often this resulted dead animals spread across the countryside.
Set between Russia and China and known as ‘the land of the blue sky’, Mongolia enjoys 250 sunny days a year but has temperatures which vary between -30 deg C and +40 deg C. It is a vast, landlocked country – three times the size of France –and with a population of just over three million is the world’s most sparsely populated sovereign nation.
Peter spoke about the livestock he encountered – sheep, goats, cattle and horses the goats causing damage to the grazing because rather than cropping the grass they pull it up by the roots.
Two-humped Bactrian camels are used as beasts of burden and also roam wild in the desert areas. When Peter was in Mongolia the standard wage for workers of any occupation was 40 dollars a month and there was great difficulty within the administrative system.
We then learned a little about the history of the country from the formation of a Tribes Confederation in 209 BC, which led to the building of the Great Wall of China, through the Hunic Empire and the vast empire created by Genghis Khan which was the largest contiguous empire in history.
More recently Mongolia declared independence in 1911 and achieved actual independence from China in 1921. In 1924 it became a Russian state and in 1990 an independent democratic republic.
Club member Douglas Gregg proposed a vote of thanks to the speaker remarking on what a fascinating talk he had given.