Two Worlds

Imagine spending over twenty years of your life completely isolated from the outside world. Gambat was sentenced in 1987 to one and a half years in prison for a minor offence. In order to survive he joined a prison gang. One day a gang fight broke out and he was implicated, the sentence was extended to nineteen years.

Not long ago he walked out a free man into a new world he could not recognize. Mongolia was a Soviet State when he entered, but a republic on his exit. There were perhaps 80 vehicles driving around in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar at any one time in 1987, now there are over 100,000. The new buildings, billboards and myriad buses, left him amazed and bewildered.

A local non-governmental organization (NGO) sent Gambat to ADRA Mongolia’s office to seek assistance and some clothing to wear. Someone had kindly rented a small basement room for him and enrolled him in a two-month building-construction course to teach him a skill to support himself.

We talked to him for some time before taking him to our storage area to receive some clothing. He told us of the difficult years in prison and the death of many of his friends who simply gave up, or became too weak to continue the struggle. Many have permanent health problems after only two years of prison diet, he survived nineteen. He told us how they wrapped the dead in old cement bags and kept the clothing for themselves.

He spoke of his fear of meeting his old prison friends and turning once more alcohol consumption. He desperately wanted to change and make a new life for himself. I rushed upstairs and chose some clothing from my own closet to supplement the little we have currently in our containers.

Gambat took off his old soiled beret and threw it on the ground. He put the new warm, woolen hat on that I gave him and a big happy smile spread across his face. He was rid of another symbol of his incarceration. He loved the warm coat and gloves that ADRA gave him. With new shirts, trousers, socks and warm long underwear he can now face the cold Mongolian winters. He walked away with a spring in his step, carrying a bundle of clothes and dressed like free man.