UB Engagement Party

Greg and I hosted an engagement party at our apartment in UB Saturday night. What a fun event and of course, my first time hosting my own engagement party ever! We had about thirty-five people in our apartment, including the Prime Minister, Batbold and his lovely wife Otgoo. As one guest commented, "your apartment is pretty much the most secure place in Mongolia tonight."

The PM's office called Greg a couple hours before the party started to ask who would be attending. It seemed they were mostly concerned about the Mongolians; I had invited Ariuna, my current TA and Selenge, with whom I worked last year. We also had Enkhee, Greg's assistant extraordinaire and Tuul, ISU's Deputy Director and a few Mongolians that are friends of Greg's.

Apparently, the main street that our apartment is on had numerous police officers controlling the flow of traffice- one of our guests received a traffic ticket; there were security men in our apartment block and stairwell and the roads were closed around our place- people had to park a bit away and walk in.

It was pretty funny because most of our guests that came up knew that the PM was attending based on the security in the area; the rest were utterly surprise when Batbold and Otgoo walked into the room and began mixing just like normal people. The best part, for me, was the opportunity to speak with Batbold one-on-one; since I had their youngest daughter in class last year, I knew Otgoo but did not know Batbold. I am very impressed with his relaxed, approachable countenance and the fact that we could chat about his kids, his experience meeting the Obama's and his plans for post-PM life.

Soooo....I must admit, it was pretty cool to have the PM of Mongolia and his gracious wife at our engagement party. Otgoo said that they had never been to an American engagement party so they wanted to have that experience.