Today I woke up early and headed back to the local cafe to do some work on my research project, the one on interferon treatment for sarcoidosis. I meandered from one cafe to the next because I tend to get bored if I'm in one place for too long. I also ducked into a souvenir shop nearby to look for some gifts to bring back and send to people. The man running the shop was completely drunk at 10 am. Wow! Anyway, I let him continue on his merry way and didn't buy anything there. In the late afternoon, I headed over to the Christina Noble Foundation for Children to ride along with the doctor doing the night clinics for street kids but apparently the hand, foot, and mouth outbreak has caused a bit of chaos, so it never happened. One of the major concerns now is that these kids and families each get $20/month directly from the foundation for essential supplies (education materials, uniforms, etc) but the government will not allow the families to physically collect the funds because it would be considered a public gathering likely to spread the disease.

Anyway, so instead of doing the clinic, I decided to join up with the Hash House Harriers for a bit of a fun run / walk out in the hills. The Hash House Harriers is an international organisation of expats that is described as a "drinking club with a running problem" - nothing to do with "hash"! Anyway, there were about 25 expats there, including many people from the British Embassy, a lawyer, an accountant, a geologist, a writer for AP/Reuters, etc. The ages ranges from about mid twenties to 85. The leader of the group was the 85 year old woman with her little 10-month puppy Bella. So it was a good mix of people. We headed out on a bus to the foothills south of town then set out on foot up a hill. The idea was to get to the top of the hill and most of us made it. There were some spectacular views (albeit a little hazy) from the top, and we saw several giant eagles soaring around. Another guy (the geologist from Australia) and I were the fastest hikers and hit the top the first. The rest of the group arrived about 20 minutes later. We enjoyed the view and then headed down. A couple of the dogs on the walk absolutely loved looking in the marmot holes for potential prey. At the bottom of the hill we were greeted by couple of eskies with ice cold beer and some veggie filled pastries - yum! Then, all the "hash house virgins" (about 12 of the 25) had to get in the middle of a circle and explain what we were doing in Mongolia, tell a bit about ourselves, and finally state if we were available or not. Of course I was very happy to say "not available" but I just wish Michelle were here to share some of this magnificent scenery. We'll have to come back sometime together, perhaps in another year or two.

Afterwards, we headed back into town and I helped unload the bus. In chatting with the 85-year old lady, I found out she runs a bakery cafe and is involved with the British Embassy as well. I also learned that another lady on the trip was the mother of the cat who was getting the cat food brought to her by the lady on the plane. An I found out that the lady on the plane was the British ambassador to Mongolia and was basically heading up the place. She also told me a funny story about how the local Mormon boys keep visiting her in the cafe and she gets a kick out of inviting them in, offering them cake, and cracking open a beer and offering some up! She said they keep coming back for what must be pure entertainment value.

Apparently there's a "step-in" event on Friday night at the British Embassy where many of the expats can get together and become more networked. From what I understand, several doctors from SOS Medica as well as the clinic manager Patina usually go. It's invitation only but I'll be the guest of the 85-year old. It should be quite interesting!

I also got to chat with another lady, perhaps 50-years old, who was the writer for AP / Reuters here in Mongolia. She gave me some great ideas about how to educate the Mongolian people about hypertension. She has some contacts at the UN and suggested I create a small brochure about hypertension that I could try to distribute. Backing from the UN or even any of the aid organisations would be very helpful (USAID, Unicef, etc). I would get it translated into Mongolian and make it easily understandable. It turns out that from some brief research I did today, that hypertension is probably the single biggest killer here and is totally out of control. Over 2/3 of cardiac and stroke deaths are directly related to hypertension here, compared to a much much smaller fraction in the rest of the world. And it's so preventable. She also suggested that I go to the east side of town to a place where one of the churches runs a free medical clinic. Apparently, some nuns got together a bunch of equipment over a number of years and opened up a small free hospital for anyone but then the government came in and stole it and started charging people to use it. So now they just rent a small place and their doctors work out of there. She said that though its run by nuns, it really has no religious slant to it - it's just a charitable medical service. It sounds like that would be a great thing to check out.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now. It's been a long day of study, work, and fun. Hopefully tomorrow I can do the street clinic.