Mongolia: "Ground-hog" family have their day

By Enkhbayar Purevjav, WV Mongolia communications

“I walked 25 long kilometres to the centre of town to enrol for the herder livelihood project,” says Battamur. “It was a cold winter night and everywhere was dark around. It took me eight hours.”

For over two years, Battamur, his wife Dashmaa and eight children, had been living underground in a dank dark cellar in a forest many miles away from town. They had no income, no other home, and no food to eat. When their children went to school they were teased cruelly by the other children and called names like “ground-hogs” and “undergrounders”.

“We lost everything when the democratic transition happened in the early 90s and most state-owned enterprises were shut down all over the country,” says Battamur.

He used to earn a living as a carpenter but when most people lost their jobs, his client numbers decreased and his wife Dashmaa lost her job as a cook. In a very short time they went from living in a relatively comfortable gher to seeking refuge in the underground cellar.

“My life turned around 180 degrees after I joined the project,” he says now.

Stepping onto solid ground

Baigalmaa, team leader of the Herder Livelihood Diversification Project in Dornod province, remembers the night Battamur stumbled exhausted through her door.

“We were just starting the project in 2006 and had lots of work to do. Everyone was working overtime registering herder families and preparing for training. One night around 10 pm while we were doing board and poster work for training, a man came into our office. Everyone in the office was amazed - he was shivering with cold and everything from his beard to his hat was frozen with ice!”

“Since that day we have proudly worked together with this industrious family to change their life,” she says.

Battamur started building a new life step by step.

“I received an invitation to attend my first agricultural training, but I still had no idea that the training would change my life. I discovered how much I’d been getting wrong. I like to think of that day as a spiritual revolution of my life.”

When, after several training programs, Battamur felt confident to try farming, he received tools and 300 kilos of potato seeds. That autumn he harvested around 1 tonne of potatoes.

To eat good food was a huge success for this family, who had survived on cattle offal for many years. By selling some of their crop, they started to eat more than just potatoes, able to buy rice, flour and fresh meat.

Now the family grows potato, beet, beetroot, onion, tomato and cucumber. In the future they are planning to branch out into hothouse gardening, with the materials provided by World Vision.

Excitingly, they also now have a herd of cows, the offspring of an original two provided by World Vision in 2006.

Dashmaa says that now she is able to cook much more healthily for her eight children, and the milk from the cows also improves the health of the whole family.

A house of their own

But the biggest success for the family was being able to build their own house and come up from the ground forever.

“We have only been growing vegetables since 2006. I still cannot believe that thanks to these vegetables we could build a home for ourselves,” says Battumur, his voice betraying his emotion. “Even though it is just a small house, before joining the program I could not even have dreamed of it.”

“Each member of my family knows and loves HLDP training. Each training programme gives us new knowledge, new ideas and encourages us for the future. For me training programmes are the most valuable assistance we could ever receive. I really appreciate World Vision’s work, how they teach people better ways and then make it possible for them to do it,” says Battamur.

“My wife and I could not imagine our children’s future without World Vision. I am sure we are the luckiest family of all, because we came from nothing.”