In America, if you show up 5 minutes late to a meeting (especially a boss mandated meeting for) you are considered rude and will probably be reamed out. In Mongolia, if people make it to a meeting you set up, consider yourself lucky. We have been told there will absolutely be times where you call your counterpart (the social worker that we will collaborate with, or other people in the community) a million times and there will still be times that they will not make a scheduled meeting. Other times, you will be asked to create an event, set up numerous meetings, and no one will show up to any of them. A day before said event all of the sudden people may want to get together to plan. At anytime, you may be called and told a meeting is occurring at that moment and for the most part the expectation is that you will be there.
So, how do you solve this problem? We have been advised that when we get to site and meet our counterpart, or pretty much anyone that is working with us, that we inform them that as American’s we like to plan, and if a meeting is planned it is important that you call if you are unable to attend. As American’s we also HATE when people stalk our phone asking us over and over again if we still have plans. In Mongolia, it is perfectly acceptable to call a person million times to make sure a meeting is still happening. It is also apparently normal to continually knock on people’s doors until they answer.
I really am enjoying these afternoon sessions. Every tidbit of information helps the PCV’s to know what exactly they have gotten themselves into. We have approximately a month and a half left till we receive our site information. We leave on Monday for Darkhan and the weeks are just flying by!
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