The Ger

Most big cities in North America have suburbs, full of cookie cutter houses which are full of people who live cookie cutter lives.  Suburbs in North America tend to be more affluent areas.  Well, Ulaanbaatar has suburbs, too.  Kind of.  The outskirts of Ulaanbaatar are surrounded by ger districts.  A ger (in other Central Asian countries, it is also called a yurt) is a tradictional circular tent which can be raised or dismantled within one hour.  It also apparently costs only about $600.  So yeah, back to ger districts.  I guess you could say that they are kind of like suburbs.  Except they aren't full of cookie cutter houses (cookie cutter gers?) full of people leading cookie cutter lives.  The ger districts are the poorest parts of the city.  Apparently, the people who live in the ger districts are the people who moved fromthe countryside to Ulaanbaatar hoping to make a better life for themselves but found only poverty, instead.  This picture is actually not of a ger district.  I should go one weekend and take some photos of a ger district.  This picture is of a random ger which someone put up next to an apartment building on the street where I live.  You can't see the door to the ger because Mongolians always raise their gers so that the door faces South and I clearly took this picture from the North.  If I'm ever in doubt about directions, I just locate the nearest ger and check where the door is.  I haven't had a sense of direction this good since I left Canada.