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Peace Corps’ lasting impact on a Mongolian entrepreneur www.peacecorps.org
Mongolia’s northernmost province hosts one of the world’s clearest lakes, Lake Khuvsgul. It’s a popular vacation destination for Mongolians and other tourists. While soaking in the last days of summer 2024, Volunteers Darcy, Noa, and John enjoyed hospitality at a small camp on the lake's southwestern shore. They soon discovered that the camp’s owner and manager, Yadam Otgonbayar, known as “Otgoo,” was also a part of the Peace Corps family.
Otgoo was born in 1966 and grew up in a small village at the southern tip of Lake Khuvsgul. She eventually became a Russian language teacher.
In 1991 Mongolia was transitioning to democracy and initiated a partnership with the Peace Corps in order to educate its citizens in English. News of the arrival of foreign English teachers spread throughout the country.
A quest to learn English
Upon hearing the news, Otgoo asked her school director if she could leave to study English to become an English teacher. The director declined Otgoo’s request because she was the school’s only Russian teacher.
Otgoo, however, is not one to take “no” for an answer. She quit her job and traveled to Sukhbaatar, where Peace Corps Volunteer Paul Dewey was teaching. There she approached a school director and asked to live in a dorm room while attending English lessons. He agreed. Although the school dorm had no heating, Otgoo was determined to make it work.
For two years Otgoo studied under Paul. By day she attended English lessons, and at night she borrowed Paul’s teaching materials and taught the same lessons to a small group of students at the school where she was living. The tuition she collected from her students enabled her to buy food and other necessities.
From student to teacher
One day, while Otgoo was studying in her dorm room, Paul came by to tell her that the Peace Corps was hiring teachers to teach Mongolian to the next Peace Corps Trainee cohort. He encouraged Otgoo to apply, given her skill in English and enthusiasm for teaching. She decided to apply.
As part of the application process Otgoo taught an English lesson for the Peace Corps program manager to observe. Otgoo recalls watching her fellow applicants, who were all trained English teachers from Sukhbaatar. They knew their students well and had clearly rehearsed their lessons with their students.
When Otgoo's turn came, she proudly introduced herself to the students and showed a map of her home province. “Hello, I’m Otgoo. I’m from Khuvsgul. Do you know where Khuvsgul is?” During the rest of the lesson, Otgoo asked her students questions and described her life in the northern province. Later she learned that the Peace Corps program manager was also from Khuvsgul.
Otgoo was hired to be a language and culture facilitator (LCF) for the Peace Corps, where she worked with Trainees in 1993–1994. One of her students, Layton C., said, “I was blessed and grateful to have achieved advanced Mongolian language proficiency, in large part due to Otgoo’s inspiring teaching.”
Teaching university-level English
After finishing her second year as an LCF, Otgoo heard about an opportunity to teach English at the business and management university in Ulaanbaatar, about 200 miles south of Sukhbaatar. Although she was not a trained teacher, by then her English skills were strong. She came to the interview with some trepidation. When she walked into the interview room, she was surprised to see yet another Peace Corps former student, Frank D. Once again, Otgoo was, in her words, “a very lucky woman.” She got the job.
Otgoo taught many students at the business and management university, earned an MBA, and studied hospitality in Europe. However, economic conditions in Mongolia were difficult in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Returning to Lake Khuvsgul as an entrepreneur
One day, Otgoo received a phone call from a former university student that she’d taught, then working for the provincial government in Khuvsgul. The government was looking for people to open new businesses. Otgoo had never owned a business and had no idea what sort of business she could start, but her former student immediately issued her a business-owner’s certificate and told her, “Go tell people in Khuvsgul that you’re a business owner, and they will help you.” So she did.
Otgoo returned to Khuvsgul as the new owner of a yet-to-be-developed ger (nomadic tents) camp. As backpackers trekked along the lake, Otgoo approached them for their business and asked them to spread the word. She offered them a place to sleep and a meal of fresh fish, which she caught in the lake.
Continuing to spread the Peace Corps spirit
Today, Otgoo is the proud owner of “Nature’s Door” ger camp on the southwest shore of Lake Khuvsgul. Nature’s Door has 12 gers, a restaurant, and a studio where Otgoo occasionally teaches English lessons to camp managers and local teachers. Otgoo manages a team of cooks, cleaners and security guards, whom she refers to as her “internal customers.” She feels her responsibility is to care for them and provide them with productive and meaningful jobs.
As more and more businesses establish themselves around the lake, Otgoo finds herself discouraged by the attitudes of local business owners who assume tourists are rich and have nothing to offer but money. Instead, she believes tourism should be seen as an opportunity to exchange cultures. Business owners and managers should focus on providing tourists with an authentic experience and improving the lives of their employees, just as Peace Corps did for her.
Published Date:2024-12-10
