Whenever I hear the phrase “winter is coming,” the automatic image that springs to mind — and please forgive the pop culture reference — is Sean Bean in the role of the ill-fated Eddard Stark in the hit TV series “Game of Thrones.” Indeed, these three words constitute a motto that signals the need for constant vigilance in anticipation of harder times ahead.
But landing on a February afternoon in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in full anticipation of seeing development work in action a few hundred kilometers away in the deep mountains of the East Asian nation, I didn’t immediately realize just how much the phrase from the fictional work rings true in the realities of development work.
Mongolians are a proud, traditional and resilient group of people. For thousands of years, their nomadic lifestyle — moving from one place to another every few months with their traditional tents, called gers — has led them to endure their fair share of difficulties in a fast-changing world.