Zeb CP#2

   Thursday (the 18^th) I met with Bayasaa again. One of his teachers was helping him add credit to his pre-payed calling plan, and he needed to choose between 10 cents a minute or two dollars per day. Both of us were trying to explain the two options for a while. He finally chose the $2/day option and the teacher was able to relay the information to the customer service representative and finish the call. Afterwards he finally understood the difference between the two options and thought maybe he should have chosen 10 cents per minute instead. I showed him some calling plans with H2O wireless, and then we started talking about cell phone service in Mongolia. I'm not sure that he understood my question, but he seemed to indicate that there is good cell phone coverage in his country. He related some rather interesting facts about getting a cell phone in Mongolia. If one decides to get a post-pay cell phone plan and wants a phone number that includes 'lucky numbers' (the best I could tell 9 is a very lucky number) he will need to pay upwards of $10,000 (up to $30,000)! He said that 'sportsmen', politicians, big business owners, etc.. are the only ones who can afford such a [superstitious] status symbol (my word in brackets). I asked him if I were to come to Mongolia and get a cell phone how much would I have to pay for a pre-pay cell phone plan. “Without lucky numbers?” “Yes” “$5” “Wow!”