AMONG the Australians Foreign Minister Alexander Downer met in Ulan Bator yesterday, the biggest impression was probably made by Gabrielle Dowling, 46, a farmer's daughter from Mulwala in NSW near the Victorian border. Today she is better known as Didi Kalika, an Ananda Marga nun with intense blue eyes, who came to Mongolia 13 years ago to work in a kindergarten and was confronted by street children facing lonely death in midwinter when the temperature sinks to -40C. She thought that she might take in up to 10. Today she is caring for 135 children of all ages and running a school, including a class for special needs children. She lives in a small ger, a traditional circular tent, in the yard, near a trampoline constantly in use. Many view her as a saintly figure. An elderly woman in traditional herder's felt clothes comes in the house seeking vegetable peelings for her cow; she beams at the toddlers running around. Kalika, to whom Downer yesterday gave a $10,000 cheque, frets that too much of her time is consumed by administration and finances, with a budget approaching $200,000 a year, mostly raised from donors. "That's not much fun", she says of the paperwork. The Mongolian Government has recognised her school but is introducing increasing regulations for running such homes. Recently it has demanded payment of a $US9000 ($11,000) tax bill for goods sent from overseas. The fun comes from being with the children. In summer, all except the babies spend three months camping in gers by a river 70km out of the city. Already, several of those she has looked after at the Lotus Children's Centre (www.lotuschild.org) have begun university. One is earning a good salary with a mining company. Despite the growth of mining wealth, "life hasn't got better for a lot of people", she says. Many children - perhaps more than during the Soviet occupation - are abandoned or have suffered sex abuse. Even with the expansion of her centre to three sites, "I still get requests to take in more children, but we just can't fit them in", she says. Her parents couldn't understand what she was doing and why until they too came for a visit in 2000. That was enough. (published on The Australian on 05 April 2007)
