I am an undocumented illegal worker in Mongolia.
Several days ago, I was taking a well deserved break from work watching Beowulf on my computer in the office here. I have headphones on, and suddenly I see everyone else get real serious and 6 dudes come in the office and everyone makes seats for them (get out of their chairs and shuffle around). It turns out that these guys are form the local government environmental agency. They ask the mining for all their permits and shit like that, so everyone begins to scramble to find all of theses documents. While this is happening, i am just watching, pretty amused. Then the General Intelligence Officer (same as CIA in the states), asks to see our passports (there is one other Tetra Tech employee here, Jordan). I hand him my color copy of my passport because there is no way that I want to give him my original. He looks it over for a while and asks for the original. I was reluctant to give it to him, but after seeing the serious look on his face, i decided that I probably better do it. Looks it over and asks were my Visa is, and I state that we do not need one (according to TT and Dennison Mines at the time, employees do not need work visas or work permits while in MG under 30 days. They had done alot of research on this) . He states that we do need one and that he is going to confiscate our passports, and take them to a nearby town, where we would need to go meet with the police and pay a fine to get them back. Taking passports is a major deal, and is pretty much illegal and an international incident. As much as I wanted to get in this guys face and tell him he was full of shit and there was no way that i would let him take my passport, I decided a Mongolian jail was worse than loosing my passport. We actually had them back in our hands when we were making additional copies and Jordan and I thought about not giving them back, but decided again that was probably a bad idea.
Anyways, he takes them with him as he leaves, and I begin to make calls and send out emails. This travelled all the way to the top of TT, with corporate health and safety as well as corporate lawyers emailing me. My bosses emailing me. This is now a BIG deal. I spoke with the Mongolian Consulate General in DC, the American Consulate General in Mongolia. Nobody seemed to know exactly what to do. everyone said that it was illegal for him to take our passports. they are US government property. We got advice from everyone ranging from returning to the capital and getting new ones and returning to work, getting new ones and leaving the country, bribing them (which i had already tried in a subtle way), going to Mandelgovi (the town where they were taken), etc. Basically everyone had a different piece of advice. In the end, I made the decision to travel to Mandelgovi to get them myself and deal with whatever may happen. This is at like midnight the day of the confiscation.
At 11:30 AM the next day, Me, Jordan, our translator, our driver, and a local geologist set off across the Gobi, with a bunch of food and water for a 120 km drive on dirt roads to get to this place. It takes us 3.5 hours to get there and upon arrival, I become immediately depressed. this town is the most miserable place I have ever seen. It has 10,000 people living there, mainly in Gers. It is all Soviet era buildings that were built in the 60's with no upkeep since then. Broken windows, building falling down, dogs running around, etc. think of something from a movie, and that is pretty much what it was.
We go the to dudes office and wait like three hours for him to get there. His office is a real shady place as well. When he finally gets there, Jordan, myself, and our translator go into is office and he closes the door behind us, and without saying a word, proceeds to enter our passport #s into a computer, gets on the phone (Bilguun says that he is taking with the police), hangs it up and tells us to follow him. We go to the police station and he goes inside and tells us to wait outside. The police station is just as bad as everything else.
Funny side story:
As we were waiting for the police, there were two people who had gotten into a car accident with each other arguing their sides of the story with the police. They were really mad at each other. A normal woman and a taxi driver. It appeared that the woman had her car confiscated. Several hours later, i saw them returning to the police station in his Taxi. ie she had no other choice than to hire the dude as a taxi because her car had been confiscated, even though she was pissed at him.
Anyways, after about an hour, they come out and tell us that they need one of us to go into the police station to talk to the chief for an interview. I go first. we walk down this hallway, just like in the movies, and go to the office at the end.
The office next to the one I was in was for the "Official Director of Forestalling". I wonder what his job is.
So i am in this office with Bilguun, the intelligence officer, and the police chief. This office is also just like you would see in the movies, paint peeling off the walls, old desk, a typewriter (yes a freaking typewriter. I almost forgot what those were), and a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. He is asking me questions like what am I doing in MG, why do I not have a Visa, where I live, where I went to school, wife and children, etc. Crazy questions. He then types a statement up, both mine and his, stating that I acknowledged breaking Mongolian law etc. They are quoting law from this old ass beaten and weathered law book. They state that I will be fined 100,00 to 300,000 Tugrugs ($100-$300), but thy have not decided how much yet. As we begin talking about money they close the door to the office. He asks me if I have any questions or complaints. What I really wanted to tell them was "Yes I have a F-ing complaint. this is BULLSHIT! you weaselly little.............", but my wise side kept me quiet for once. I did tell him that his embassy in the US stated that we were perfectly legal here, which they found really funny. I didn't. So they have me sign this sheet that is in Mongolian, i have no idea what it says, but Bilguun tried to translate it as best as he could. This whole interview took an hour. They tell me to leave and send Jordan in. I still do not have my passport. I go out and tell Jordan what to expect and what to say so she wont be stressed out. After an hour she comes out and has experienced the same thing, but tells me that they are going to fine us 100,000 Tugrugs. I have the amount, but she is short. It is 7:30 pm and all the banks are closed. Surprisingly there are like 6 banks. We finally talk one of the security guards into letting Jordan and Bulguun go in and exchange some money. While they are in there I am standing at the base of an "apartment building" looking up while people are looking back at me through broken windows. kids are playing in a REAL skimpy playground, as well as in what appears to be an old foundation that now looks more like a dump. Two dudes walk down the street pulling a cable so frayed that it looks like it cannot be used for anything. Dogs running around. Eerily quiet, but not scary.
Jordan gets her money and we return to the police station and pay our fine and get a ticket. they tell us to tell our company that they will be back to the site to to check up on other TT people and that the fine will be much stiffer next time. We get the F out of Dodge, and begin out travels back across the Gobi, at night now, which is a not the wisest thing to do. I was not about to stay the night in that town. I saw the Hotel, and yes it was that bad. I only saw one store (which I bought gummy bears at, they had Sputnik gum). I saw no other stores, no restaurants, Weird place.
GPS is a wonderful asset to have in the desert. I navigated us back to the camp with only some minor lost episodes. We get back at 10:30 pm and I send out emails to all people involved indicating that we are OK and have our passports. People were telling me that this is a major event through out TT and that high ranking Mongolian officials have been involved. Evidently Denison Mines has a good relationship with the MG government.
Needless to say, I had a drink when I got back.
We went back to work the next day.
Everyone is happy that we have our Passports back, but still there is no official word on what exactly TT employees need to work in the country. We are currently waiting on an official explanation so Jordan and I know what to do and do not get in trouble again.
Fun Stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never got to finsh Beowulf, those bastards.
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