GER DISTRICT LIFE

Zulaa, twenty-six, and Urangua, thirty-three,67 live in a ger on the edge of Bayankhoshuu, one of Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts, a thirty-minute drive from the city center. Like other migrants to the city they have had to transition to sedentary living. They now have neighbors, take buses and taxis for transportation, and are confronted with debilitating air and ground pollution found in the city. Zulaa works at a printing company where she makes wholesale cardboard boxes and Urangua works at the Gobi Cashmere factory. Their combined monthly income, after taxes, is around ₮1,200,000, or $490.

Due to the lack of basic infrastructure in the ger districts, the couple spends a significant amount of their income, and their time, on basic needs. There is no piped, running water in the district, so they collect and pay for it from the local water kiosk—a round trip of forty minutes that involves lugging plastic containers of water uphill on a trolley—at least eight times per week, rain or shine. There is no sewage infrastructure, so they dug a two-meter-deep pit latrine. When it is full, they will dig another hole. In the extreme winter, with temperatures reaching -40ºC (-40ºF), the couple must light a coal fire at least three times a day, equating to a fuel cost of 20 to 30 percent of their income.

The couple is far from unique among the 840,000-plus people who live in the ger districts, accounting for over 60 percent of the city’s population.68 With the population of the city growing by an average of 38,000 each year between 2000 and 2019, 69 and 21,000 of those accountable to the ger districts, the urban risks associated with this form of settlement are becoming increasingly threatening, particularly with respect to sanitation,

New migrants claim a plot of land, fence it in, erect their ger, and dig a pit latrine. Over time, if they can afford to, they will build a baishin, or small house, like this family on the edge of Khan-Uul ger district.