Martial law means we are under curfew from 10PM to 8AM, all media except the Mongolian National Broadcaster (MNB) is off, a barricade surrounds the center of the city, and things are . . . tense. If you want more information about it go to the International Herald Tribune at:
http://www.iht.com/pages/asia/index.php.
Type "Mongolia" in their search engine and it will pull up several good articles.
This obviously is not how you plan to START a blog, but I will share my insignificant part in the six degrees of separation. Tuesday morning I was on my regular walk around the city center at about 6:30AM. I rounded the north side of the parliament garden and here were these guys welding sheet metal to the wrought iron fencing of the parliament building grounds. My experience has been that Mongols are not usually early risers, and outside of animal husbandry tend to put the work day off until about 9AM. That being said, the fence was probably 60% complete at that early hour. I thought, now what on earth are they putting this up for? Walking east of there I passed through the university district and two schools already had long registration lines forming. Again, very unusual since I am usually on these same streets alone.
Where is this going? Many of the demonstrators were young people 19-25 years old. I had no part in the riots. But hours after I passed by, these young people registered in their classes, steered clear of the metal fence and proceeded to the demonstration in front of the Socialist Party HQ. A riot soon broke out, a fire started, shots were heard. What I watched on television and heard through my window, they lived through. And a few died.
Sobering? It is for me. Eternity is a breath away for any of us.
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