Love from the Receptionist

This post is dedicated to Augi (spelling?), the extremely nice and well-meaning receptionist at Habitat’s Mongolian headquarters. She sits at a desk 12 feet from me. 

For most of yesterday morning our boss was out of the office which I think gave Augi the license to come and talk with me for most of it. She speaks decent English, (at least I can usually get the gist of what she’s trying to say) but she is always wanting to practice and I’m more than happy to oblige because she’s kind of fun to talk to.

She seems to know a little bit about Mormons because she asked to confirm that I don’t drink tea or coffee. She was headed to the store to get some office supplies and asked if there was anything she could get me that I would drink. I told her I could drink any type of just fruit tea. So she bought black tea with lemon and strawberry flavoring, which of course is just normal tea with fruit flavoring. I feel kind of bad about this and haven’t told her that I can’t drink that either, I’ll probably just take a tea bag every few days and bring them home to my hostel where someone can drink it. 

Mid-morning she made the executive decision that the hostel I’m living at right now is not very good. I’m not sure where she got this idea because I am overall quite satisfied with my living arrangements. Nevertheless, Augi wants me to find somewhere better. First of all she would like me to move into her apartment starting in May when she and her husband and son will move to their summer house. I would live there with her 19 year old daughter for free. She thinks this is very important because I am a student and can’t afford very much and it will help her daughter with her English. I am actually not opposed to this idea and we’ll see how things work out. Then, without me realizing she got on the phone with a previous Habitat coordinator to ask about hostels (this was all in Mongolian at first so I had no idea what was going on until she handed me her mobile phone). The previous coordinator gave me a hostel name and the phone number. I looked up the website and Augi came over to my desk to look, then she asked if she could call, so she stood at my desk using the phone to call this other hostel. Eventually she gave the phone to me to talk to the lady who runs the new hostel and now I’m supposed to go take a look at it to check it out.

Then for lunch Augi invited me into the conference room so we could eat together. I had brought left over spaghetti to eat. Augi had, as usual brought a variety of things including some potato salad she made and gave me a plate of it. The potato salad was very good, lots of different things in it. But she was also eating some meat and she put a couple of pieces on my plate without me really wanting her to. It was some sort of cow’s stomach apparently and it made me a little sick. I couldn’t handle the outer membrane and didn’t eat that. But for 15 minutes I sat chewing the meat. There was no way I was going to handle eating the other piece so I said I was full and would eat it later and so put it in with my remaining spaghetti. This prompted Augi to put all the remaining meat in my plastic container. Not the best plan, but it did allow me to dispose of it when I got home and so didn’t have to hurt her feelings.

That was my day of Augi. I really like her and she has taken a definite interest in me which I appreciate.