Another long pause between writings and lots to tell. In fact, life has changed for me in more ways than I could have ever imagined when I started this blog. Let's start in chronological order order, shall we?
Oct 2010-Oct 2011
This past year in Berlin has been challenging, to say the least. Not so much because it's Berlin--I don't want to fault this beautiful city. But the job just was not for me. If you are considering applying for a EUR posting, do your homework. The culture of a large European embassy is vastly different from other places in the world; namely Africa, which was my only other experience. Ego plays a huge role in EUR and if you don't have one or don't want to cultivate one, you may find it dfifficult to fit in. The embassy community is large but mostly sheltered; there are so many things to do that people don't bond--consequently there is not much of a sense of community. The Generalist/Specialist chasm is wide and pervasive. Consider carefully what you want to get out of your posting before choosing where you want to serve. I didn't mind working very long hours but being thanked would have been appreciated. I have heard many of these same comments from other OMSs posted in EUR, so it's not just my single experience that I'm trying to convey. When I first found out I was going to Berlin, my DCM in Freetown said something like, "Oh, you are going to Europe, hmmmm." Now I know what he meant. --Enough said.
A few good lasting memories from Berlin:
*My language skills have improved dramatically. I can now hold conversations easily and comfortably. I jokingly admit that I finally got the hang of speaking German just as I'm about to leave.
*I have made a few truly wonderful friends. Sahar and I met on one of my many weekend 5-hour one-way train journeys to visit Lee. She is from Egypt, highly educated and laughs easily. We started talking when the train first rolled out of the station and didn't stop for five hours. Lee and I have met Sahar and her friends for dinner (she speaks German, English, Arabic, French, and probably another language I forgot). She offered to give me German lessons and I went once; only to find out that the other student in the class was fluent and I felt too overwhelmed to try it again. But our friendship came at a time when we both desperately needed a friend. Being in the Foreign Service affords amazing opportunities for meeting exceptional people--take those opportunites and you will never regret it.
*Lee and I toured Europe a bit--not as much as we would have liked, but enough to get a taste of Europe. We spent a weekend in Milan, Italy, two weekends in Poland, several weekends in England visiting his family, a weekend in Prague, Czech Repbulic when Lee presented at a military conference, and a week in France doing nothing but playing tennis and getting to know Lee's family.
*As for Germany itself, it's a multi-cultural place filled with all things German. However, people speak English at the Christmas markets and Berlin itself is filled with tourists. I walk to work every day--which was an experience for someone versed in driving a car. My little VW Polo sat idle in the parking garage almost the entire year. I would say my saddest memory of Germany was our trip to Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp. You can never feel the hush and the sadness of a place like that unless you are standing on the actual ground where so many people suffered. All I could think of was, "Man's inhunanity to man."
July 2011
On the 4th of July, I received a call from the Ambassador of Mozambique. Her staff and I had done a bit of corresponding and they wanted me serve at Embassy Maputo. The phone call from the Ambassador was welcoming and professional. She offered me the job as her OMS and after much discussion and thinking and planning with Lee, we agreed to curtail in Berllin in order to accept the new assignment. They wanted me there as quickly as possible, since the position was vacant, but Lee needed to get his details sorted out first. He had applied for redundancy from the British Army and would not be notified until Sept 1st if he was accepted. The very soonest he could be free to leave the army was middle of October. All sides agreed that it was barely acceptable and we went forward waiting for the news.
Sept 2011
On Sept. 1st while we were on holiday in France, Lee got the call that he had been selected for redundancy--early retirement. After 33 years in the Army, he was free to leave. He was now free to join me and we would not have to be apart anymore. Long distance love is hard, but not impossible. We were both elated that we finally had the chance to be together in the same place. I jokingly say that from now on, the furthest I want to travel to him is from the living room to the kitchen!
Sept. 17, 2011
We went to Poland on a whim. We had been there before and loved it and decided to spend my birthday weekend there. On Saturday night, Lee gave me loads of little presents and the very last present was a box of Belgian chocolates. I was a bit hesitant to open them--since we had just eaten a sumptous meal--but he kept insisting. I finally opened the chocolates and tucked inside was an engagement ring! I was so surprised! I have no idea how he acted so normal all day, but he tells me now that he was going crazy inside waiting to ask me. That night we called all our family to tell them the wonderful news and I have the huge international roaming cell phone bill to prove it! We don't have any firm plans on a date or a place for the wedding yet. Too many things are happening all at once, but we will let you know.
Oct. 17, 2011
The movers just left. They have packed up most of my apartment and will be back tomorrow to finish. I had not even unpacked all the boxes from Freetown and now they are being shipped back to Africa. Lee and I are really looking forward to serving in Africa again. There is a certain flavor and earthiness about it that you cannot describe to anyone who has not been there. If you get a chance to visit, go. If you need a recommendation, ask my childhood friend Cathy who visited me in Freetown--she came for two weeks and loved it.
We will be in Maputo in early November and I will write when we get settled. For now, know that the world is a vast place that deserves exploring. There is a new opportunity around every corner, even if it's in your own backyard. Reach out to someone; get out of your comfort zone and live life to the fullest.
Becky Boo
Showing posts with label Foreign Service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foreign Service. Show all posts
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 21, 2010
For Women Only....or guys who want a laugh
Ok, ladies. If this does not make you laugh, then you have never worn "dress up clothes."
In the foreign service, one has to move to various locations around the world. At one post you may be wearing the least amount of clothing possible and your very next post might be in Siberia. This, of course, makes for a drastic change in wardrobe contents. Take for instance, panty hose; also known as stockings, nylons or in German, "shrumphosen." It would have been useful to know this word before venturing out to the mall to buy some, but that comes later.
My last post was Sierra Leone, West Africa, where the average temperature is about 85 degrees. There was no need for panty hose or any other form of clothing that would cling to your body when the humidity matched the temperature. I had a closet full of sun dresses and flip flops. I managed to wear nice dresses with a suit jacket and heels to the Embassy, but only because of the very American air conditioning system that no one else in Freetown enjoyed. But panty hose? I didn't own a pair. Because I lived in Texas prior to Sierra Leone, my panty hose collection has pretty much been void for the past 20 years.
Now I'm in Germany, where it's a good day if it doesn't rain. The fall temps feel chillingly like winter and then I remember it's nearly November and of course, nearly winter. I look sadly at my flirty summer wardrobe and wonder if I will be able to put together anything decent and warm and professional for my first day at Embassy Berlin. I select a black skirt, long sleeved top and a suit jacket. I add a few pearls and I'm ready to impress. Hmmmmm, what to wear on my legs with the temp around 45? Oh yes, panty hose! I remember I brought a pair along for church in Minnesota and they are somewhere in my suitcase that has yet to be unpacked. With a bit of searching, I find them and pull them on. They look great! Then I notice a BIG hole/run in them that just about coincides with the hem of my skirt. I wonder and wonder if I might be able to pull this off, but then think it's not worth the hassle of worring about my wardrobe on such an important first day at work. I find a pair of black slacks and put them on over the panty hose and they look ok. Of course, I think the pants are too form fitting to be wearing to work but at this point in the morning, I just need to get out the door and I hope my pearls will cover any wardrobe mistakes. That was Chapter 1 of Panty Hose Saga.
I decide to go to the mall after work to buy panty hose for day two at the Embassy, and thus begins Chapter 2 of Panty Hose Saga. I went to the supermarket and saw a display of normal looking panty hose in little cardboard boxes. I picked up one of the boxes and looked at the sizing....what in the world? The sizing was something like 36-38, 42-44 and 46-48. I chose the middle size and took them home. The next morning as I put them on, they went up past my waist and felt about as saggy as you can get. I had to wear them anyway because I had no other choice. The whole day I kept pulling them up....it felt like they went up to my chin.....and hoping no one noticed the wrinkled parts around my ankles. Ugh, I could not wait to get home and throw them away.
The next day I went back to the mall and this time I bought TWO pairs of panty hose so I would have a back up in case something went horribly wrong. This begins Chapter 3 of Panty Hose Saga. The first pair had cute little designs on them so I felt like I was in Paris when I put them on. The size was right but they were a bit itchy. My Dad says one must "suffer to be beautiful" and this day I fit the bill just right. When I got home, there was a huge hole where my toe had poked through (sorry guys, if this is too graphic for you), so I threw them away too. The second pair I bought that night came with a special shopping experience. I decided to go to a proper shop and ask a proper sales lady for help. I tried asking her in German, but I didn't know the word for panty hose. Finally through exagerated gesturing, I got the idea across and she said, "Oh, you want Schrumphosen" and led me to the proper display. I thought Schrumphosen was a funny word so I kept repeating it both because it was fun and because I wanted to remember it. I chose a size and brought it to the counter to purchase. There was a group of business men also at the counter and for some reason they thought it was funny that I was buying Strumphosen. They kept repeating the word and talking to the clerk and everyone was snickering except me because I could not understand a word they were saying! Now guys, tell me you have at least seen your girlfriend or wife buying panty hose and it wasn't cause for joking around. Anyway, I was wishing the clerk would put my Schrumphosen in a plain brown paper wrapper so I could get the heck out of there. Finally I escaped to the privacy of my apartment.
Chapter 4 of Panty Hose Saga finally has a happy ending. I wore the final pair today and they were....perfect! The size was correct, the elastic was actually present so they didn't fall down and they felt great. Best of all, they held up the whole day so I can also wear them tomorrow!
So the next time you Ladies slip into a pair of panty hose, thank your lucky stars that you (a) know your size, (b) know the word for panty hose and (c) don't have a boyfriend or husband who thinks panty hose should be purchased under cover of darkness!
In the foreign service, one has to move to various locations around the world. At one post you may be wearing the least amount of clothing possible and your very next post might be in Siberia. This, of course, makes for a drastic change in wardrobe contents. Take for instance, panty hose; also known as stockings, nylons or in German, "shrumphosen." It would have been useful to know this word before venturing out to the mall to buy some, but that comes later.
My last post was Sierra Leone, West Africa, where the average temperature is about 85 degrees. There was no need for panty hose or any other form of clothing that would cling to your body when the humidity matched the temperature. I had a closet full of sun dresses and flip flops. I managed to wear nice dresses with a suit jacket and heels to the Embassy, but only because of the very American air conditioning system that no one else in Freetown enjoyed. But panty hose? I didn't own a pair. Because I lived in Texas prior to Sierra Leone, my panty hose collection has pretty much been void for the past 20 years.
Now I'm in Germany, where it's a good day if it doesn't rain. The fall temps feel chillingly like winter and then I remember it's nearly November and of course, nearly winter. I look sadly at my flirty summer wardrobe and wonder if I will be able to put together anything decent and warm and professional for my first day at Embassy Berlin. I select a black skirt, long sleeved top and a suit jacket. I add a few pearls and I'm ready to impress. Hmmmmm, what to wear on my legs with the temp around 45? Oh yes, panty hose! I remember I brought a pair along for church in Minnesota and they are somewhere in my suitcase that has yet to be unpacked. With a bit of searching, I find them and pull them on. They look great! Then I notice a BIG hole/run in them that just about coincides with the hem of my skirt. I wonder and wonder if I might be able to pull this off, but then think it's not worth the hassle of worring about my wardrobe on such an important first day at work. I find a pair of black slacks and put them on over the panty hose and they look ok. Of course, I think the pants are too form fitting to be wearing to work but at this point in the morning, I just need to get out the door and I hope my pearls will cover any wardrobe mistakes. That was Chapter 1 of Panty Hose Saga.
I decide to go to the mall after work to buy panty hose for day two at the Embassy, and thus begins Chapter 2 of Panty Hose Saga. I went to the supermarket and saw a display of normal looking panty hose in little cardboard boxes. I picked up one of the boxes and looked at the sizing....what in the world? The sizing was something like 36-38, 42-44 and 46-48. I chose the middle size and took them home. The next morning as I put them on, they went up past my waist and felt about as saggy as you can get. I had to wear them anyway because I had no other choice. The whole day I kept pulling them up....it felt like they went up to my chin.....and hoping no one noticed the wrinkled parts around my ankles. Ugh, I could not wait to get home and throw them away.
The next day I went back to the mall and this time I bought TWO pairs of panty hose so I would have a back up in case something went horribly wrong. This begins Chapter 3 of Panty Hose Saga. The first pair had cute little designs on them so I felt like I was in Paris when I put them on. The size was right but they were a bit itchy. My Dad says one must "suffer to be beautiful" and this day I fit the bill just right. When I got home, there was a huge hole where my toe had poked through (sorry guys, if this is too graphic for you), so I threw them away too. The second pair I bought that night came with a special shopping experience. I decided to go to a proper shop and ask a proper sales lady for help. I tried asking her in German, but I didn't know the word for panty hose. Finally through exagerated gesturing, I got the idea across and she said, "Oh, you want Schrumphosen" and led me to the proper display. I thought Schrumphosen was a funny word so I kept repeating it both because it was fun and because I wanted to remember it. I chose a size and brought it to the counter to purchase. There was a group of business men also at the counter and for some reason they thought it was funny that I was buying Strumphosen. They kept repeating the word and talking to the clerk and everyone was snickering except me because I could not understand a word they were saying! Now guys, tell me you have at least seen your girlfriend or wife buying panty hose and it wasn't cause for joking around. Anyway, I was wishing the clerk would put my Schrumphosen in a plain brown paper wrapper so I could get the heck out of there. Finally I escaped to the privacy of my apartment.
Chapter 4 of Panty Hose Saga finally has a happy ending. I wore the final pair today and they were....perfect! The size was correct, the elastic was actually present so they didn't fall down and they felt great. Best of all, they held up the whole day so I can also wear them tomorrow!
So the next time you Ladies slip into a pair of panty hose, thank your lucky stars that you (a) know your size, (b) know the word for panty hose and (c) don't have a boyfriend or husband who thinks panty hose should be purchased under cover of darkness!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
A Comedy of Errors (OR Banking 101 in the Foreign Service)
This story begs to be told (and in this context begging was almost required), even though there are groceries waiting to be put away (and the fact that there are groceries at all is a miracle in this story), and the added facts that I still have an hour of German homework calling out to be finished and I ran a hard 45 minute run tonight and my dinner is burning on the stove and it's now 9:55 pm and I've had exactly one meal today. All that going on and I still feel the burning necessity of telling this story so others of you might be saved the humiliation of stumbling into the minefield of good credit vs. one tiny (seemingly harmless) mishap.
Where to start? Well, let's start with the financial details--namely mine. I like to keep things simple. I have one debit card and one credit card. For the past several years that has seemed ample enough. I can easily track things and don't have to weed through mountains of monthly credit card statements. In Freetown, business was conducted on a strictly cash basis, so I used my antiquated check book to write a check for cash every few weeks and paid for everything in cash. If I wanted to buy something online, I used my handy-dandy debit card. I hardly ever used my credit card and that significant fact will play a huge part later in this saga. A few more details--I have good credit; my credit card currently has a zero balance and a fairly high credit limit. My checking account is healthy too and by that I mean it usually has a couple of zeros to the left of the decimal point. My financial portfolio was not always this rosy, but I have worked hard over the past few years to get things in shape and I'm proud of that.
Next up is the silly little mishap. I was taking a friend to the airport and we were in a bit of a rush. As I was getting the cash out of the machine with my debit card and simultaneously checking the departure schedule, I haphazardly forgot my debit card in the machine. I have never done that before and I have been banking since before most of you reading this story were probably born. By the time the flight left and I realized my mistake, of course my card was long gone. I dutifully called my bank to report the lost card and they informed me that they would happily mail me a new card in "7-10 business days" along with the PIN code another "five days later." Geez, I thought, what am I going to live on until then? How am I going to get money? I knew I had about $25 dollars cash in my wallet and that certainly would not last for 10 days. Then, eureka, I remembered my long lost credit card. Surely that could help me out in the interim.
I breathed a sigh of relief, merrily dusted off my long-forgotten credit card and tested it out at a few places around town. I didn't make any large purchases--just a movie ticket, some juice at CVS, and drinks with my old manager. When I tried to refill my Metro subway pass very late last night, the machine didn't seem to like my card, but I chalked that up to a fickle subway machine and didn't give it another thought.
Today, I stayed home all day diligently doing my German homework until I talked myself into going for a 45 minute run. I have had too many days off from running lately (and frankly too many donuts and whipped cream lattes) and so running was a huge effort. I was assigned to bring snacks to my German class tomorrow so I decided to combine running with a stop at the grocery store on the way home. I don't have a car in DC, as is the case for most foreign service officers between assignments. My Africa car stayed in Africa and I will most likely buy another car when I get to Germany. In the six month interim, I'm car-less. The grocery store is on the way home from running so it saves me a few steps. I got all the groceries and I was looking forward to going home and eating a late dinner. Then all hell broke loose.
Hell breaking loose looks something like this: You are standing in line at the check out counter in sweaty running clothes after a hard run and you hand your credit card to the clerk and after she runs it through the machine she says, "Your card is declined." In my story, I am completely stunned so I ask her to try the card again, since I know full well that there is plenty of credit on my card to purchase $34.00 worth of groceries. She tries the card again with the same result, "DECLINED," and this time she says it loudly enough for everyone in line to hear it. Of course I am mortified. She asks me if I have another card to try, as if I carry a whole wallet full of cards for this very purpose. I'm in my running clothes and I want to shout that, of course, I don't have any other cards with me....I'm, in fact, traveling light. For a brief moment I consider asking the manager if I can take my groceries home and come back with an old fashioned check but as the manager comes over, I realize that there is no way in this modern credit abusing age that he is going to let me take home $34 worth of groceries on my good name alone--and I'm sure my sweaty running clothes didn't help my image. I ask the manager to please hold my purchases and I will come back with a check. He looks at me completely annoyed and I can see he does not believe me and curses me silently for all the hassle I am causing. I limp out of the store and head home, empty handed.
As soon as I got into the door of my apartment I got on the phone to my credit card company and for once I only had to be on hold for 6 minutes instead of the 22 minutes I had to be on hold last week when I changed my address. The operator started asking me all sorts of security questions about my account and that really surprised me. Why should my credit card company care about my tiny purchases over the last few days? I soon found out. Apparently because I hardly EVER use my credit card, when the credit card company noticed my purchases, they put a hold on my account because they suspected someone had stolen my card. Apparently, if your credit card practices are such that you are frugal and responsible and do not normally USE your credit card, you will not be ABLE to use your credit card until the company verifies that you have simply changed your routine and your card is NOT the victim of theft or fraud. The credit card operator called it, "Monitoring your account, for your protection." I asked her if she realized the humiliation her company had caused me when I was unable to use my credit card. She said, "Oh don't worry, when you go back to the store, your card will work because we re-activated it. The store will understand because it happens all the time." I wanted to yell back, it does not happen to me all the time.
So, to make a really long story a little shorter, I hiked back to the store, stood in line to wait for the manager and he had to ring up my selections all over again. He grumbled the whole time and he even said, "Well, you took so long to come back that I didn't think you were coming at all." I reminded him that I had to walk each way and apologized for my inconvenience. He certainly did not have that understanding attitude that the credit card operator promised. I resubmitted my credit card and this time it worked. I packed up my now even more precious groceries and walked home.
So, be sure you have a back up credit card, or maybe even call your credit card company in advance and notify them when you intend to change your credit card habits; or you might find yourself on your long-awaited exotic vacation in Jamaica with a credit card on HOLD. Welcome to life in the foreign service and learning new life lessons all the time.
Where to start? Well, let's start with the financial details--namely mine. I like to keep things simple. I have one debit card and one credit card. For the past several years that has seemed ample enough. I can easily track things and don't have to weed through mountains of monthly credit card statements. In Freetown, business was conducted on a strictly cash basis, so I used my antiquated check book to write a check for cash every few weeks and paid for everything in cash. If I wanted to buy something online, I used my handy-dandy debit card. I hardly ever used my credit card and that significant fact will play a huge part later in this saga. A few more details--I have good credit; my credit card currently has a zero balance and a fairly high credit limit. My checking account is healthy too and by that I mean it usually has a couple of zeros to the left of the decimal point. My financial portfolio was not always this rosy, but I have worked hard over the past few years to get things in shape and I'm proud of that.
Next up is the silly little mishap. I was taking a friend to the airport and we were in a bit of a rush. As I was getting the cash out of the machine with my debit card and simultaneously checking the departure schedule, I haphazardly forgot my debit card in the machine. I have never done that before and I have been banking since before most of you reading this story were probably born. By the time the flight left and I realized my mistake, of course my card was long gone. I dutifully called my bank to report the lost card and they informed me that they would happily mail me a new card in "7-10 business days" along with the PIN code another "five days later." Geez, I thought, what am I going to live on until then? How am I going to get money? I knew I had about $25 dollars cash in my wallet and that certainly would not last for 10 days. Then, eureka, I remembered my long lost credit card. Surely that could help me out in the interim.
I breathed a sigh of relief, merrily dusted off my long-forgotten credit card and tested it out at a few places around town. I didn't make any large purchases--just a movie ticket, some juice at CVS, and drinks with my old manager. When I tried to refill my Metro subway pass very late last night, the machine didn't seem to like my card, but I chalked that up to a fickle subway machine and didn't give it another thought.
Today, I stayed home all day diligently doing my German homework until I talked myself into going for a 45 minute run. I have had too many days off from running lately (and frankly too many donuts and whipped cream lattes) and so running was a huge effort. I was assigned to bring snacks to my German class tomorrow so I decided to combine running with a stop at the grocery store on the way home. I don't have a car in DC, as is the case for most foreign service officers between assignments. My Africa car stayed in Africa and I will most likely buy another car when I get to Germany. In the six month interim, I'm car-less. The grocery store is on the way home from running so it saves me a few steps. I got all the groceries and I was looking forward to going home and eating a late dinner. Then all hell broke loose.
Hell breaking loose looks something like this: You are standing in line at the check out counter in sweaty running clothes after a hard run and you hand your credit card to the clerk and after she runs it through the machine she says, "Your card is declined." In my story, I am completely stunned so I ask her to try the card again, since I know full well that there is plenty of credit on my card to purchase $34.00 worth of groceries. She tries the card again with the same result, "DECLINED," and this time she says it loudly enough for everyone in line to hear it. Of course I am mortified. She asks me if I have another card to try, as if I carry a whole wallet full of cards for this very purpose. I'm in my running clothes and I want to shout that, of course, I don't have any other cards with me....I'm, in fact, traveling light. For a brief moment I consider asking the manager if I can take my groceries home and come back with an old fashioned check but as the manager comes over, I realize that there is no way in this modern credit abusing age that he is going to let me take home $34 worth of groceries on my good name alone--and I'm sure my sweaty running clothes didn't help my image. I ask the manager to please hold my purchases and I will come back with a check. He looks at me completely annoyed and I can see he does not believe me and curses me silently for all the hassle I am causing. I limp out of the store and head home, empty handed.
As soon as I got into the door of my apartment I got on the phone to my credit card company and for once I only had to be on hold for 6 minutes instead of the 22 minutes I had to be on hold last week when I changed my address. The operator started asking me all sorts of security questions about my account and that really surprised me. Why should my credit card company care about my tiny purchases over the last few days? I soon found out. Apparently because I hardly EVER use my credit card, when the credit card company noticed my purchases, they put a hold on my account because they suspected someone had stolen my card. Apparently, if your credit card practices are such that you are frugal and responsible and do not normally USE your credit card, you will not be ABLE to use your credit card until the company verifies that you have simply changed your routine and your card is NOT the victim of theft or fraud. The credit card operator called it, "Monitoring your account, for your protection." I asked her if she realized the humiliation her company had caused me when I was unable to use my credit card. She said, "Oh don't worry, when you go back to the store, your card will work because we re-activated it. The store will understand because it happens all the time." I wanted to yell back, it does not happen to me all the time.
So, to make a really long story a little shorter, I hiked back to the store, stood in line to wait for the manager and he had to ring up my selections all over again. He grumbled the whole time and he even said, "Well, you took so long to come back that I didn't think you were coming at all." I reminded him that I had to walk each way and apologized for my inconvenience. He certainly did not have that understanding attitude that the credit card operator promised. I resubmitted my credit card and this time it worked. I packed up my now even more precious groceries and walked home.
So, be sure you have a back up credit card, or maybe even call your credit card company in advance and notify them when you intend to change your credit card habits; or you might find yourself on your long-awaited exotic vacation in Jamaica with a credit card on HOLD. Welcome to life in the foreign service and learning new life lessons all the time.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Leaving Sierra Leone
I know it's been a very long time (or as my Dad would say, "A helluva long time"), since I updated my blog. Several of you have even personally written me, asking for an update so here we go. If I get too long on this one, I will supplement it with Part 2.
First of all, Africa changes you. No doubt about it, my memories from Sierra Leone are strong and searing, and I am having some trouble adjusting to life in the developed world again. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First a few facts, since I have not written for several months, and many of you might wonder what has been happening in the interim.
In March, our temporary Ambassador left and the other OMS had already left, so that left the running of the Executive Office to the DCM and myself. We had already been without a Political Officer for many months, so the Embassy staff was getting thinner every day. I felt like an old-timer, as the only Americans who had been there longer than me were the Public Affairs chief and the Information Management Chief. Everyone else was new or had left the Embassy. That left a lot of work to just a few people. I worked overtime from January until the day I left. I actually worked six hours of overtime on Saturday and left on Sunday. I never got another chance to get out of Freetown, which I desperately wanted to do. Seeing only the capital city is not the best view of a country.
I took a trip to Dakar, Senegal in late March for a two day training seminar on our new Employee Performance software. I had to give a presentation for the whole class and it was very well received, which was rewarding. Tagged on to the end of that trip was a 5-day trip to England. (More on the special purpose of that trip a little later in this Blog...if I remember). I had to fight like crazy to get one day off (it was Easter break so we had two paid days off and the DCM did not want to give me the one day off to bridge the gap), but finally he blessed my leave. I think he realized how much effort I had given to the Embassy over the past months and the training was very important to the Embassy. In this OMS position, it's very clear that training is a complete luxury; especially at hardship posts and small posts and African posts--all of which applied to my particular situation. No hardship post can spare a person and no hardship post can afford to pay for training. Well, if you are in a different division, with different funding, then they throw money at you to attend training all over the world. I don't understand how the local Sierra Leone staff almost ALL attended training and I could not get any training at all. I guess that's just the way the system works.
After Easter, I focused completely on packing out my apartment and getting my office ready to hand over. My replacement was not going to arrive until after I had departed, so basically that meant I had to create new files for her, create a book of duties, clean out all my old stuff, pack my office stuff to be mailed to Germany, and fit all that in between packing boxes at home and working a full time job. It was a very busy and stressful time.
The best part of that time was having friends host going away parties for me. I had a "Pink Lady" dinner party with my running group (in which everyone had to wear pink clothes), a Pink Lady farewell cake at the last Hash run (the cake was almost the size of a banquet table and everyone loved it.....although the frosting has a very funny story attached. The frosting was bright pink and I had two giant pieces of the cake over the span of a couple of days. Apparently the food coloring in the frosting was quite strong and, well, believe it or not you can produce pink poop!) The Embassy staff was too busy and too preoccupied to plan a party for me, so I arranged my own. By the time I invited everyone, it was the week before I left and everything had been packed out of my apartment. Being so adaptable, having no dishes or plates or food, didn't stop me. I catered some of the food, used up the supplies in the pantry, gave away all my open alcohol and even was creative enough to use a pretty shower curtain as a tablecloth, since everything in the apartment was white and bare and the party needed some color. Everyone had a great time. I invited just the people who really meant a lot to me--including the local staff at the Embassy. I took lots of pictures, gave a speech and had others say a few words about me. It was very touching and I was not the only one who shed a few tears.
I left Freetown on a Sunday night at midnight. Well, the flight was supposed to take off at midnight, which meant I had to be picked up at my apartment at 7pm. Unfortunately, the computers and the air conditioning at Freetown airport both chose to go haywire at the same time, so after arriving at the airport at 8pm, I had to wait in sweltering heat until 2am for my flight to take off. It was not the ending I was hoping for, but it did give me a chance to call those people I never got a chance to say goodbye to in person. All part of the adventure.
I took a flight from Freetown to Denver to attend Angela's PhD graduation ceremony at UC Boulder. It was culture shock from the first minute I landed in the United States. I could not get over little things like being able to drink water from the tap and all the streets looking so clean and all the people appearing rich and well dressed. I could not get over all the shiny cars, the affluent society, the lack of diversity. It was wonderful to see my family (and my special significant other), and they helped shelter me from too much civilization. Good thing I was not driving a car at this time; in fact, I have not driven a car since I left Freetown. Wow.
I am now in Washington D.C. for German language training. Adapting to life as a student and life outside of Sierra Leone is a whole new topic, and worthy of a new blog, which hopefully will be forthcoming a lot sooner than the last one. More on that in the days to come.
For those of you who stuck with this long blog until the end, the trip in April to England at Easter was to meet the family of my very special new man, Lee. He has not specifically been mentioned in this blog before, but I want to say that we are very happy together and despite the calamity of distance and long separations, we are forming a strong bond. You will be reading about him in blogs to come, I'm pretty sure of that.
Hope everyone is well. Enjoy life, and no matter what, make the best of things. We only get one ride--make it a good one.
First of all, Africa changes you. No doubt about it, my memories from Sierra Leone are strong and searing, and I am having some trouble adjusting to life in the developed world again. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First a few facts, since I have not written for several months, and many of you might wonder what has been happening in the interim.
In March, our temporary Ambassador left and the other OMS had already left, so that left the running of the Executive Office to the DCM and myself. We had already been without a Political Officer for many months, so the Embassy staff was getting thinner every day. I felt like an old-timer, as the only Americans who had been there longer than me were the Public Affairs chief and the Information Management Chief. Everyone else was new or had left the Embassy. That left a lot of work to just a few people. I worked overtime from January until the day I left. I actually worked six hours of overtime on Saturday and left on Sunday. I never got another chance to get out of Freetown, which I desperately wanted to do. Seeing only the capital city is not the best view of a country.
I took a trip to Dakar, Senegal in late March for a two day training seminar on our new Employee Performance software. I had to give a presentation for the whole class and it was very well received, which was rewarding. Tagged on to the end of that trip was a 5-day trip to England. (More on the special purpose of that trip a little later in this Blog...if I remember). I had to fight like crazy to get one day off (it was Easter break so we had two paid days off and the DCM did not want to give me the one day off to bridge the gap), but finally he blessed my leave. I think he realized how much effort I had given to the Embassy over the past months and the training was very important to the Embassy. In this OMS position, it's very clear that training is a complete luxury; especially at hardship posts and small posts and African posts--all of which applied to my particular situation. No hardship post can spare a person and no hardship post can afford to pay for training. Well, if you are in a different division, with different funding, then they throw money at you to attend training all over the world. I don't understand how the local Sierra Leone staff almost ALL attended training and I could not get any training at all. I guess that's just the way the system works.
After Easter, I focused completely on packing out my apartment and getting my office ready to hand over. My replacement was not going to arrive until after I had departed, so basically that meant I had to create new files for her, create a book of duties, clean out all my old stuff, pack my office stuff to be mailed to Germany, and fit all that in between packing boxes at home and working a full time job. It was a very busy and stressful time.
The best part of that time was having friends host going away parties for me. I had a "Pink Lady" dinner party with my running group (in which everyone had to wear pink clothes), a Pink Lady farewell cake at the last Hash run (the cake was almost the size of a banquet table and everyone loved it.....although the frosting has a very funny story attached. The frosting was bright pink and I had two giant pieces of the cake over the span of a couple of days. Apparently the food coloring in the frosting was quite strong and, well, believe it or not you can produce pink poop!) The Embassy staff was too busy and too preoccupied to plan a party for me, so I arranged my own. By the time I invited everyone, it was the week before I left and everything had been packed out of my apartment. Being so adaptable, having no dishes or plates or food, didn't stop me. I catered some of the food, used up the supplies in the pantry, gave away all my open alcohol and even was creative enough to use a pretty shower curtain as a tablecloth, since everything in the apartment was white and bare and the party needed some color. Everyone had a great time. I invited just the people who really meant a lot to me--including the local staff at the Embassy. I took lots of pictures, gave a speech and had others say a few words about me. It was very touching and I was not the only one who shed a few tears.
I left Freetown on a Sunday night at midnight. Well, the flight was supposed to take off at midnight, which meant I had to be picked up at my apartment at 7pm. Unfortunately, the computers and the air conditioning at Freetown airport both chose to go haywire at the same time, so after arriving at the airport at 8pm, I had to wait in sweltering heat until 2am for my flight to take off. It was not the ending I was hoping for, but it did give me a chance to call those people I never got a chance to say goodbye to in person. All part of the adventure.
I took a flight from Freetown to Denver to attend Angela's PhD graduation ceremony at UC Boulder. It was culture shock from the first minute I landed in the United States. I could not get over little things like being able to drink water from the tap and all the streets looking so clean and all the people appearing rich and well dressed. I could not get over all the shiny cars, the affluent society, the lack of diversity. It was wonderful to see my family (and my special significant other), and they helped shelter me from too much civilization. Good thing I was not driving a car at this time; in fact, I have not driven a car since I left Freetown. Wow.
I am now in Washington D.C. for German language training. Adapting to life as a student and life outside of Sierra Leone is a whole new topic, and worthy of a new blog, which hopefully will be forthcoming a lot sooner than the last one. More on that in the days to come.
For those of you who stuck with this long blog until the end, the trip in April to England at Easter was to meet the family of my very special new man, Lee. He has not specifically been mentioned in this blog before, but I want to say that we are very happy together and despite the calamity of distance and long separations, we are forming a strong bond. You will be reading about him in blogs to come, I'm pretty sure of that.
Hope everyone is well. Enjoy life, and no matter what, make the best of things. We only get one ride--make it a good one.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
People Contact & The Ability to be Generous
I went home to the U.S. over the holidays for the first time since I arrived for my posting in May 2008. I had been to Thailand and England between then and now, but that was vacation and a totally different experience. It was quite amazing to be landing in New York on Dec. 16 and think to myself, "Wow, I'm in my home country." My first thoughts were of how organized everything looked--even from the air. The U.S. is patch-worked into these neat little boxes of industry and residential space and every square inch of land seems to be developed. In Africa, it's a hodge podge of development--if there is any development at all. Everything is disorganized and scattered and broken and dusty. The U.S. is gleaming and clean and sanitized. But that is not what this blog is about, really.
Over the holidays, I was surrounded by loving family and friends and I had a wonderful time. But I realized something. Apart from my family, I really didn't have much contact with any other people. I cannot tell you any funny stories about clerks in stores or random people on the street because I didn't have enough contact with them to remember them. It seems in the U.S. that people are pretty isolated from each other. Maybe it's because everyone has enough money to be self-supporting so people don't need each other. Maybe it's because Americans value their privacy and don't readily engage with people they don't know. Here in Africa it's totally different. I can tell you that even for a person like me who has only been here 18 months, I have lots and lots of people who know me and greet me every day. In the morning my housekeeper Mariama comes each day at 7:00. We discuss what will be prepared for dinner that evening and if I want to bring anything for lunch at the Embassy. Sometimes she even makes me breakfast (like crepes on the patio) before I go to work. I have human contact from a wonderfully warm person right at the start of my day. Today for instance, Mariama informed me that Adama--our good friend who had her first baby last Friday, was sad and hungry. Apparently the people she stays with have not been making meals and she does not have enough food to eat to make breast milk for the baby. I gave Mariama some money (about $8.00) and told her to take the day off and go to Adama's and cook for her. She later told me that she made food for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Quite a long way to stretch $8.00. I had the opportunity to be generous in a way that I never would have in the U.S. Adama called me later and thanked me over and over for my kindness.
On my drive to work, I know almost all the people who live on the roads I take. They all wave and give me a big good morning smile. Some of them even know my name. There is a group of ex-combatants (child soldiers from the recent civil war --who have grown into young men now) who live (probably more like hang out) on a stretch of road near a restaurant I frequent. Each time I drive by, they call out my name "Miss Becky" in excited tones and wave enthusiastically. I first met them through a Lebanese friend of mine who gives them a small bit of cash every now and again (about $2.50) and also gives them large bags of rice a couple of times a year. His father started the practice because the Muslim faith says you should help the poor. So now I help them too. I didn't really take much notice of their familiarity, but recently when I was driving by, I had a new Embassy employee in the car with me. When we drove past, they called out my name and waved wildly like they had just sighted a movie star and my new employee turned and said, "Does the whole town know you by name?" Not quite, but I'm working on it.
All this got me to thinking that it's going to be much different at my next post--Berlin. I'm going to be in the middle of a big city, I won't speak the language and I will be just another anonymous white person among a crowd of urban professionals. We will all look and act alike and no one will take much notice of each other. This is sort of the feeling I got when I was back in the U.S. I never thought of our culture as aloof before, but after being in warm, friendly, small-town Freetown, I can see the vast differences. I think I prefer it here. There is so much cultural diversity and people really go out of their way to be a part of your life--if you let them. I love it here and I'm really going to miss it.
Over the holidays, I was surrounded by loving family and friends and I had a wonderful time. But I realized something. Apart from my family, I really didn't have much contact with any other people. I cannot tell you any funny stories about clerks in stores or random people on the street because I didn't have enough contact with them to remember them. It seems in the U.S. that people are pretty isolated from each other. Maybe it's because everyone has enough money to be self-supporting so people don't need each other. Maybe it's because Americans value their privacy and don't readily engage with people they don't know. Here in Africa it's totally different. I can tell you that even for a person like me who has only been here 18 months, I have lots and lots of people who know me and greet me every day. In the morning my housekeeper Mariama comes each day at 7:00. We discuss what will be prepared for dinner that evening and if I want to bring anything for lunch at the Embassy. Sometimes she even makes me breakfast (like crepes on the patio) before I go to work. I have human contact from a wonderfully warm person right at the start of my day. Today for instance, Mariama informed me that Adama--our good friend who had her first baby last Friday, was sad and hungry. Apparently the people she stays with have not been making meals and she does not have enough food to eat to make breast milk for the baby. I gave Mariama some money (about $8.00) and told her to take the day off and go to Adama's and cook for her. She later told me that she made food for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Quite a long way to stretch $8.00. I had the opportunity to be generous in a way that I never would have in the U.S. Adama called me later and thanked me over and over for my kindness.
On my drive to work, I know almost all the people who live on the roads I take. They all wave and give me a big good morning smile. Some of them even know my name. There is a group of ex-combatants (child soldiers from the recent civil war --who have grown into young men now) who live (probably more like hang out) on a stretch of road near a restaurant I frequent. Each time I drive by, they call out my name "Miss Becky" in excited tones and wave enthusiastically. I first met them through a Lebanese friend of mine who gives them a small bit of cash every now and again (about $2.50) and also gives them large bags of rice a couple of times a year. His father started the practice because the Muslim faith says you should help the poor. So now I help them too. I didn't really take much notice of their familiarity, but recently when I was driving by, I had a new Embassy employee in the car with me. When we drove past, they called out my name and waved wildly like they had just sighted a movie star and my new employee turned and said, "Does the whole town know you by name?" Not quite, but I'm working on it.
All this got me to thinking that it's going to be much different at my next post--Berlin. I'm going to be in the middle of a big city, I won't speak the language and I will be just another anonymous white person among a crowd of urban professionals. We will all look and act alike and no one will take much notice of each other. This is sort of the feeling I got when I was back in the U.S. I never thought of our culture as aloof before, but after being in warm, friendly, small-town Freetown, I can see the vast differences. I think I prefer it here. There is so much cultural diversity and people really go out of their way to be a part of your life--if you let them. I love it here and I'm really going to miss it.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Hidden Rewards
From time to time I write about things that have some relation to Foreign Service life but are not necessarily things you would consider part of this journey. Moving around the world with no idea where you will first be assigned presents challenges and changes that you cannot imagine when you first see the email telling you you have been selected to join the Foreign Service. I guess life is a revolving process in general and Foreign Service life is no exception.
Today I delved into a project I have been avoiding for months. You know what I mean; everyone out there has a drawer or a room or a stack of something sitting in a corner that they keep meaning to get to but somehow never seem to find the time. Actually we all know the answer to why those things don't get done but we would rather not face the truth: that there are so many more fun and interesting things we would rather do with our time. Putting these tasks off only makes things worse and makes it all the easier to avoid; after all, we have created lots of practice avoiding those chores and now we are good at it. Well, for me, that task is unpacking the three large wardrobe boxes in the hall of my apartment. Now, I have lived here for 16 months and those boxes have been there the whole time. Luckily for me they are in the hallway leading to my bedrooms, so my guests have not had to witness my laziness directly. Nonetheless, it hit me the other day that in just a little over 8 months I will be packing to leave here and there is no good reason those boxes should not be unpacked by now.
So onward I went to dive into clothes I had not seen since I packed out of Austin in March 2008. What a revelation! It was as though looking through all those old clothes, I could see my life flashing before me in a wardrobe sort of scene setter. I guess I was trying to find myself for the past few years because some of those clothing choices were really ugly to be honest. For instance, I had several blouses that were orange. I don't even look good in orange. And what about clothing with color names that don't make sense? There was a cozy corduroy shirt that can only be described as the color salmon--definitely a color for a dead fish and not for me. And what about that day-glow lime green Polo sweater? Even though it was on sale, what was I thinking? You could see me coming down the road a mile away in the dark in that thing. There was some good news. I realized that most of my clothing was Ann Taylor and Polo and Gap--fairly decent brand names, so I have had decent taste even if I don't always get the color right. I purchased most of those clothes on sale or at the outlet mall because I well remember how poor I was during that time, but nevertheless I managed to look ok, despite a very tiny clothing budget. Another bit of good news was the clothing sizes I found in the boxes. Literally everything was too big for me. I tried on a couple of pairs of pants--sort of hoping I might be able to retain them and increase my wardrobe here in shopping-deprived Sierra Leone, but every single item was too large. I am happy to relate that all those miles of running have paid off because I am definitely a slimmer me than I was 18 months ago. Then there were the nostalgia items: Ryan's high school graduation robe complete with Valedictorian metals and National Honor Society sash. I had two lovely gowns; one from Allison's wedding and the periwinkle blue formal from Angela's wedding. Somehow the movers packed Laura's prom dress in my boxes and at a size 3/4 it's definitely too small for me. I found my grandmothers pink sweater that I gave her just before she died, my other grandmothers christening dress from 1905, several German dresses from Bavaria and even my old bowling shirt circa 1980. (did you know that I have bowled several 200 games and even a 600 series?) All those memories had been waiting for me and all I had to do was unpack them. To celebrate the big mess of hangers and stacks of clothes I have ready to give away, I happened to notice a wad of something in the pocket of that hideous orange stripped shirt I mentioned earlier. Guess what? I found $60.00! So to all of you out there who are avoiding that area of your life that needs doing, maybe you should think about tackling that project; you just mind find more rewards than you anticipated.
Today I delved into a project I have been avoiding for months. You know what I mean; everyone out there has a drawer or a room or a stack of something sitting in a corner that they keep meaning to get to but somehow never seem to find the time. Actually we all know the answer to why those things don't get done but we would rather not face the truth: that there are so many more fun and interesting things we would rather do with our time. Putting these tasks off only makes things worse and makes it all the easier to avoid; after all, we have created lots of practice avoiding those chores and now we are good at it. Well, for me, that task is unpacking the three large wardrobe boxes in the hall of my apartment. Now, I have lived here for 16 months and those boxes have been there the whole time. Luckily for me they are in the hallway leading to my bedrooms, so my guests have not had to witness my laziness directly. Nonetheless, it hit me the other day that in just a little over 8 months I will be packing to leave here and there is no good reason those boxes should not be unpacked by now.
So onward I went to dive into clothes I had not seen since I packed out of Austin in March 2008. What a revelation! It was as though looking through all those old clothes, I could see my life flashing before me in a wardrobe sort of scene setter. I guess I was trying to find myself for the past few years because some of those clothing choices were really ugly to be honest. For instance, I had several blouses that were orange. I don't even look good in orange. And what about clothing with color names that don't make sense? There was a cozy corduroy shirt that can only be described as the color salmon--definitely a color for a dead fish and not for me. And what about that day-glow lime green Polo sweater? Even though it was on sale, what was I thinking? You could see me coming down the road a mile away in the dark in that thing. There was some good news. I realized that most of my clothing was Ann Taylor and Polo and Gap--fairly decent brand names, so I have had decent taste even if I don't always get the color right. I purchased most of those clothes on sale or at the outlet mall because I well remember how poor I was during that time, but nevertheless I managed to look ok, despite a very tiny clothing budget. Another bit of good news was the clothing sizes I found in the boxes. Literally everything was too big for me. I tried on a couple of pairs of pants--sort of hoping I might be able to retain them and increase my wardrobe here in shopping-deprived Sierra Leone, but every single item was too large. I am happy to relate that all those miles of running have paid off because I am definitely a slimmer me than I was 18 months ago. Then there were the nostalgia items: Ryan's high school graduation robe complete with Valedictorian metals and National Honor Society sash. I had two lovely gowns; one from Allison's wedding and the periwinkle blue formal from Angela's wedding. Somehow the movers packed Laura's prom dress in my boxes and at a size 3/4 it's definitely too small for me. I found my grandmothers pink sweater that I gave her just before she died, my other grandmothers christening dress from 1905, several German dresses from Bavaria and even my old bowling shirt circa 1980. (did you know that I have bowled several 200 games and even a 600 series?) All those memories had been waiting for me and all I had to do was unpack them. To celebrate the big mess of hangers and stacks of clothes I have ready to give away, I happened to notice a wad of something in the pocket of that hideous orange stripped shirt I mentioned earlier. Guess what? I found $60.00! So to all of you out there who are avoiding that area of your life that needs doing, maybe you should think about tackling that project; you just mind find more rewards than you anticipated.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Art of Saying Good-Bye
Life in the foreign service presents many challenges, but one thing I did not consider was all the good byes you have to face. I have been at post for over a year now, and people I know well are starting to leave. Some of them only had 1-year assignments and are now leaving for their next adventure. I only knew a few people in this category, such as the Canadian journalist who I met on a Hash run last October. She and I fell into step together and even though she was a full six inches shorter than me, we ran in the exact same rhythm. We ran into each other a lot socially over the next six months. I learned how very inquisitive journalists can be and more than once I had to refer her questions to the Political Affairs Officer at the Embassy, rather than try to answer them myself. That's another important lesson I learned this year; life at an Embassy can be a political minefield. Don't answer any questions related to the Embassy with your opinion or conjecture. Be sure you have the facts and be sure those fact are allowed to be released to the public. If you are unsure about something, err on the side of caution and don't say anything. Believe me, I got to the point where when something big happened to the U.S. in the news or in Freetown, I would make a point of calling the Public Affairs Officer and asking her what things I could say about the topic. It's much safer than to be cornered by a journalist and have to think on your feet. Welcome to diplomacy. But I'm off topic.
My best friend at the Embassy, Lynn, is Sierra Leonean. She and I bonded a while back because she is a wonderful person, a true professional at her job and because by some strange concidence, her entire family lives in my home town in Minnesota! (her family left many years ago but she stayed to finish school) Her family met my family twice when she went back to the U.S. to visit. (No it is not lost on me that she has been back twice to the U.S. to visit her family and I have not been back at all in almost two years....but she has worked for the Embassy for 5 years and has a lot more vacation time than I have.) They met at my favorite restaurant and had margaritas, took photos and talked about me. Again, I'm off topic; this time I think it was mention of margaritas that did it. Anyway, Lynn was recently accepted into the PhD program at St. Could State University. She starts classes in August. With little more than two weeks notice, I have to say good bye to my closest Sierra Leonean friend. While I wish her all the best, as she has worked so hard for this opportunity, I will really miss her genuine friendship. We have plans to meet again at Christmas when I come home on R&R to Minnesota.
My other best friend, Stephanie, has decided to leave her post at UNICEF and go back to Canada. She is tired of living the nomad life and wants to settle down and be closer to her family. She and I bonded quickly (as this life makes you do) and she plans to leave a month after Lynn. Stephanie and I shared many lazy afternoons at the beach, we ran together, attended each others birthday bashes, and had the best girls night sleep over with pizza and M&M's that one could ever imagine in a third world country. I will miss her a lot.
Most of our Embassy staff is leaving in the next 8 months. Daren, who started the same day as I, will depart for language training in November with an onward assignment to Monglia. Lindsay and Sean, who were my sponsors when I arrived, are leaving for their next assignment in Canada a little earlier than planned because Lindsay will have their first baby in December, which I'm pretty sure was planned. I leave sometime next spring-probably May or June- with 30 days of Home Leave before my next assigment. No, I don't know where I'm going yet, but we did receive our Bid List last Monday and I have been researching where to go next. I will write another post on that later. Our bids are due August 28 and we find out our assignments sometime in October. Wow, I can't believe I'm over half way through my first tour!
There is one other person who deserves mention here regarding difficult good byes. Some things are just too difficult to write about so I will save that for anther time too. Suffice it to say that this life makes you appreciate every single second of the good times and makes you miss them with complete and utter clarity when they are gone. We all have but one life to live and I plan to make the most of mine. "I'm all in" as they say.
Make it good.
My best friend at the Embassy, Lynn, is Sierra Leonean. She and I bonded a while back because she is a wonderful person, a true professional at her job and because by some strange concidence, her entire family lives in my home town in Minnesota! (her family left many years ago but she stayed to finish school) Her family met my family twice when she went back to the U.S. to visit. (No it is not lost on me that she has been back twice to the U.S. to visit her family and I have not been back at all in almost two years....but she has worked for the Embassy for 5 years and has a lot more vacation time than I have.) They met at my favorite restaurant and had margaritas, took photos and talked about me. Again, I'm off topic; this time I think it was mention of margaritas that did it. Anyway, Lynn was recently accepted into the PhD program at St. Could State University. She starts classes in August. With little more than two weeks notice, I have to say good bye to my closest Sierra Leonean friend. While I wish her all the best, as she has worked so hard for this opportunity, I will really miss her genuine friendship. We have plans to meet again at Christmas when I come home on R&R to Minnesota.
My other best friend, Stephanie, has decided to leave her post at UNICEF and go back to Canada. She is tired of living the nomad life and wants to settle down and be closer to her family. She and I bonded quickly (as this life makes you do) and she plans to leave a month after Lynn. Stephanie and I shared many lazy afternoons at the beach, we ran together, attended each others birthday bashes, and had the best girls night sleep over with pizza and M&M's that one could ever imagine in a third world country. I will miss her a lot.
Most of our Embassy staff is leaving in the next 8 months. Daren, who started the same day as I, will depart for language training in November with an onward assignment to Monglia. Lindsay and Sean, who were my sponsors when I arrived, are leaving for their next assignment in Canada a little earlier than planned because Lindsay will have their first baby in December, which I'm pretty sure was planned. I leave sometime next spring-probably May or June- with 30 days of Home Leave before my next assigment. No, I don't know where I'm going yet, but we did receive our Bid List last Monday and I have been researching where to go next. I will write another post on that later. Our bids are due August 28 and we find out our assignments sometime in October. Wow, I can't believe I'm over half way through my first tour!
There is one other person who deserves mention here regarding difficult good byes. Some things are just too difficult to write about so I will save that for anther time too. Suffice it to say that this life makes you appreciate every single second of the good times and makes you miss them with complete and utter clarity when they are gone. We all have but one life to live and I plan to make the most of mine. "I'm all in" as they say.
Make it good.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Mani/Pedi in Freetown
Ok, if that title made no sense to you, then you might want to stop reading here because you won't care. If you can raise your hand because you've had a manicure or pedicure before, then this might be somewhat entertaining for you.
Fridays we work a half day at Embassy Freetown, so we get off work around 1pm. Don't worry, we still work a 40 hour week because we work a little longer each of the other four days. Anyway, I digress. Today after work I decided to treat myself to a mani/pedi. It had been two weeks since the last one and it was time to look pretty again. I have a girl, Mary, and she comes to my house when I call her. She is Sierra Leonean (about 30 years old) and she learned the trade by working for a Lebanese lady at a local hotel. The hotel closed, the lady went back to Lebanon and Mary took her tools and trade on the road. She is very nice, does a professional job and it's pure pampering to have this service at home. The first time she came, I had a glass of wine (for her not me), lit a candle, played the music I liked and she totally made me feel beautiful. She has been coming every couple of weeks since then. Today I sent her a text message to see if she could come over (text messaging is the main way everyone her communicates; calling is more expensive and takes more time and is only done if absolutely necessary). I got a polite text back saying no, she could not come today because she had just been admitted to the hospital. Now, in the U.S. if someone said that you would be alarmed. Here; it's a fact of life. People get sick all the time and go to the hospital. There is not really any other form of health care. People die all the time too, so someone as young as Mary could be so sick that I might not see her again. I hope that's not the case, but I have learned here how often death strikes. It's appalling and you never get used to it. Anyway, Mary was not coming so I needed to make other arrangements.
Plan B was to drive downtown and find a salon. A friend recommended a place that I could not find, but I stumbled upon another place that looked ok. Now, looking "ok" means that they appear to have some manicure equipment around, probably have some towels and probably have a basket of polish somewhere. They had all that so I went in. The place inside was so dirty that any of you probably would have gotten on the phone to the health department ASAP, but here, that's the norm. After living here a while, you get used to filthy conditions. Imagine this: next to me in the chair is a woman getting some sort of hair extensions put in--and the girl doing it is about 9 months pregnant and she is literally sewing fake hair into the head of the woman she is working on. I had never seen that done before and I was fascinated. First, she had to braid this woman's hair really tight to her head in all these neat little rows and then she sewed fake rows of hair into the braids. I thought she looked better with the braids, but it's all a matter of style, isn't it? This process took about 2 hours and she was not quite finished when I left. Across the room was a woman eating food out of a bowl with her hands. I was hoping she was not going to be the one working on me. Eating with your hands is a common practice here--the woman was eating some sort of rice and vegetables. It's ok with me to eat with your hands....as long as you do it at home and not at the nail salon. Another woman was soaking her feet in some sort of murky brown water that smelled funny. She called a vendor off the street and ordered some sort of food item. The vendor was a middle aged woman with a huge basket on her head filled with something that smelled like greasy chicken. Now add that to the rice/vegetable dish that the first woman was eating and you have quite a mix of smelly food. Well, at least for a while, it overpowered the smell of the brown water.
Back to me. The girl working on me got the foot tub ready for me to soak my feet in. The machine was one of those foot baths that you plug in and it vibrates and makes bubbles. In this case, there was no electricity, so the water was still. The water...get this. She poured hot water from a thermos (like something you make coffee in) because of course--there was no electricity to make hot water. She made the water so hot that when I put my feet in it started burning! So she went out back and got a pitcher of cold water and added that and we were ready to go. At this point, I have to tell you that I forgot one very important element of a pedicure; the use of pointed objects. Oh boy. She took out this tool that is supposed to be used to trim cuticles. Right. The tool is so sharp that pretty soon she's hurting me and I'm trying not to say anything so I don't cause either of us any embarrassment. But I realize she is doing more damage than good and I just hope she finishes with the torture soon. After my feet are clean of all cuticles, she takes out the scrubbing lotion. This stuff has little bits of sand in it and it's green in color. I have had this treatment before, so I'm not really worried. But I have not had this treatment in Africa. Right. She gets that tool that looks like a cheese grater with a handle that is supposed to remove the dead skin and 'goes to town' on my foot. By that I mean, she scrapes and scrapes my skin over and over. The tool is meant for the bottom of the foot where dead skin grows and callouses grow and this tool helps remove all that stuff. But she does not stop there; oh no. She scrapes that metal thing across the top of my foot where the skin is thin and delicate. She does this over and over which leads me to believe that she really has no idea what Beauty School is about. I'm wincing and trying not to show it and still she keeps going. I realize I still have the other foot to go and I'm hoping against hope that she does not try this on my hands. She finishes with my feet and I breathe a sigh of relief. Next come the hands. She does the same pointy tool cuticle treatment to my delicate fingers and I watch as a few of my cuticles start to bleed. I try to be blasé, but then remember that I'm in Africa where sanitation is at a minimum and I'm worried--I went for an innocent manicure only to be infected with some deadly virus I try to push that out of my mind. Oh, I forgot one very important point. While I'm waiting for the hands and feet treatment, she has me soaking in something. It's a mixture of something that smells like Pine Sol. Now, my hands were in this stuff for over 20 minutes; until they were white and wrinkled and I took them out myself. I have to tell you, that smell stayed on my hands the whole rest of the evening! Imagine your hands smelling line kitchen floor cleaner--not especially romantic or pretty-feeling. Anyway, the polish was another dilemma. I asked for clear polish with some designs on it--to be subtle. She starts painting my nails a bright pink and when I object, she says that the clear polish only looks good on black African women and that the pink will look great on me. Well, so much for my choice. She finishes my hands and feet in neon pink and then proceeds to paint a couple of artistic white stripes on each nail . It would have been beautiful except the stripes didn't match and I looked more like a candy cane than someone with an elegant manicure. Even though I didn't care much for the outcome, all the African ladies in the shop said I looked "really great" and I tried to believe them as I left the shop. The one great thing in all this is that I managed to purchase those little flip flops they put on your feet as the polish dries. They call those things "slippers" and I bought them for 5000 Le; which is about $1.60. Money well spent, since the manicure/pedicure cost 50,000, or about $16.00. If any of you can write me that you spent less than $2 on flip flops and less than $18 on a manicure and pedicure--let me know. I will let you know the status of any infections and I will try to look at my nails and not see candy canes.
Cheers everyone and appreciate civilization and sterilization,
Becky
Fridays we work a half day at Embassy Freetown, so we get off work around 1pm. Don't worry, we still work a 40 hour week because we work a little longer each of the other four days. Anyway, I digress. Today after work I decided to treat myself to a mani/pedi. It had been two weeks since the last one and it was time to look pretty again. I have a girl, Mary, and she comes to my house when I call her. She is Sierra Leonean (about 30 years old) and she learned the trade by working for a Lebanese lady at a local hotel. The hotel closed, the lady went back to Lebanon and Mary took her tools and trade on the road. She is very nice, does a professional job and it's pure pampering to have this service at home. The first time she came, I had a glass of wine (for her not me), lit a candle, played the music I liked and she totally made me feel beautiful. She has been coming every couple of weeks since then. Today I sent her a text message to see if she could come over (text messaging is the main way everyone her communicates; calling is more expensive and takes more time and is only done if absolutely necessary). I got a polite text back saying no, she could not come today because she had just been admitted to the hospital. Now, in the U.S. if someone said that you would be alarmed. Here; it's a fact of life. People get sick all the time and go to the hospital. There is not really any other form of health care. People die all the time too, so someone as young as Mary could be so sick that I might not see her again. I hope that's not the case, but I have learned here how often death strikes. It's appalling and you never get used to it. Anyway, Mary was not coming so I needed to make other arrangements.
Plan B was to drive downtown and find a salon. A friend recommended a place that I could not find, but I stumbled upon another place that looked ok. Now, looking "ok" means that they appear to have some manicure equipment around, probably have some towels and probably have a basket of polish somewhere. They had all that so I went in. The place inside was so dirty that any of you probably would have gotten on the phone to the health department ASAP, but here, that's the norm. After living here a while, you get used to filthy conditions. Imagine this: next to me in the chair is a woman getting some sort of hair extensions put in--and the girl doing it is about 9 months pregnant and she is literally sewing fake hair into the head of the woman she is working on. I had never seen that done before and I was fascinated. First, she had to braid this woman's hair really tight to her head in all these neat little rows and then she sewed fake rows of hair into the braids. I thought she looked better with the braids, but it's all a matter of style, isn't it? This process took about 2 hours and she was not quite finished when I left. Across the room was a woman eating food out of a bowl with her hands. I was hoping she was not going to be the one working on me. Eating with your hands is a common practice here--the woman was eating some sort of rice and vegetables. It's ok with me to eat with your hands....as long as you do it at home and not at the nail salon. Another woman was soaking her feet in some sort of murky brown water that smelled funny. She called a vendor off the street and ordered some sort of food item. The vendor was a middle aged woman with a huge basket on her head filled with something that smelled like greasy chicken. Now add that to the rice/vegetable dish that the first woman was eating and you have quite a mix of smelly food. Well, at least for a while, it overpowered the smell of the brown water.
Back to me. The girl working on me got the foot tub ready for me to soak my feet in. The machine was one of those foot baths that you plug in and it vibrates and makes bubbles. In this case, there was no electricity, so the water was still. The water...get this. She poured hot water from a thermos (like something you make coffee in) because of course--there was no electricity to make hot water. She made the water so hot that when I put my feet in it started burning! So she went out back and got a pitcher of cold water and added that and we were ready to go. At this point, I have to tell you that I forgot one very important element of a pedicure; the use of pointed objects. Oh boy. She took out this tool that is supposed to be used to trim cuticles. Right. The tool is so sharp that pretty soon she's hurting me and I'm trying not to say anything so I don't cause either of us any embarrassment. But I realize she is doing more damage than good and I just hope she finishes with the torture soon. After my feet are clean of all cuticles, she takes out the scrubbing lotion. This stuff has little bits of sand in it and it's green in color. I have had this treatment before, so I'm not really worried. But I have not had this treatment in Africa. Right. She gets that tool that looks like a cheese grater with a handle that is supposed to remove the dead skin and 'goes to town' on my foot. By that I mean, she scrapes and scrapes my skin over and over. The tool is meant for the bottom of the foot where dead skin grows and callouses grow and this tool helps remove all that stuff. But she does not stop there; oh no. She scrapes that metal thing across the top of my foot where the skin is thin and delicate. She does this over and over which leads me to believe that she really has no idea what Beauty School is about. I'm wincing and trying not to show it and still she keeps going. I realize I still have the other foot to go and I'm hoping against hope that she does not try this on my hands. She finishes with my feet and I breathe a sigh of relief. Next come the hands. She does the same pointy tool cuticle treatment to my delicate fingers and I watch as a few of my cuticles start to bleed. I try to be blasé, but then remember that I'm in Africa where sanitation is at a minimum and I'm worried--I went for an innocent manicure only to be infected with some deadly virus I try to push that out of my mind. Oh, I forgot one very important point. While I'm waiting for the hands and feet treatment, she has me soaking in something. It's a mixture of something that smells like Pine Sol. Now, my hands were in this stuff for over 20 minutes; until they were white and wrinkled and I took them out myself. I have to tell you, that smell stayed on my hands the whole rest of the evening! Imagine your hands smelling line kitchen floor cleaner--not especially romantic or pretty-feeling. Anyway, the polish was another dilemma. I asked for clear polish with some designs on it--to be subtle. She starts painting my nails a bright pink and when I object, she says that the clear polish only looks good on black African women and that the pink will look great on me. Well, so much for my choice. She finishes my hands and feet in neon pink and then proceeds to paint a couple of artistic white stripes on each nail . It would have been beautiful except the stripes didn't match and I looked more like a candy cane than someone with an elegant manicure. Even though I didn't care much for the outcome, all the African ladies in the shop said I looked "really great" and I tried to believe them as I left the shop. The one great thing in all this is that I managed to purchase those little flip flops they put on your feet as the polish dries. They call those things "slippers" and I bought them for 5000 Le; which is about $1.60. Money well spent, since the manicure/pedicure cost 50,000, or about $16.00. If any of you can write me that you spent less than $2 on flip flops and less than $18 on a manicure and pedicure--let me know. I will let you know the status of any infections and I will try to look at my nails and not see candy canes.
Cheers everyone and appreciate civilization and sterilization,
Becky
Thursday, April 2, 2009
My First Vacation!
Well, I've been at US Embassy Freetown for almost 11 months now and it's really time for a vacation. I will be on R&R from April 3-19. I am going to Thailand to visit Ryan, who is staying there for a couple months. Laura will join me from New York. We really wanted Angela to come as well, but she is busy writing her dissertation and teaching at UC Boulder. I hope and pray she will come to see me in Africa this summer. The plane flight to Bangkok looks something like this: 4 hour drive to the airport from Freetown; 11 hour flight from Freetown to Nairobi, layover in Nairobi from 5:30am to midnight; then fly to Bangkok and arrive around noon in Bangkok. Should be interesting! Basically I leave Freetown at 11am tomorrow morning (Friday) and arrive in Bangkok at 1:00 in the afternoon on Sunday. I will take lots of photos and try to post them when I return. Take care everyone! Becky
Monday, March 16, 2009
Two very different days
Last Weekend:
As most of you know, I love the beach. Growing up in Minnesota, I didn't even see the ocean (Daytona Beach in Florida) until I was almost 30. Now, I can't get enough of it. Last weekend, I went to the same private beach house that I almost always go to. My Lebanese friends have a cook to make the food and they provide all food and drinks; including the tequila shots we drink to celebrate still being alive in this third world situation. I usually bring home-made Rum Cake or American Chocolate Chip cookies. It's usually a group of about 10-15 people and the people change as Ex Pats come and go. Last weekend, there were two International Military guys there. One of them sort of jokingly asked me if I wanted to race him to the island. Race, as in swim. Now, this island is maybe 3/4 of a mile from the shore of the beach house. I always sort of wanted to challenge myself and see if I could swim across, but never really took it seriously. I figured I had the whole two years to give it a try. But here was this hunk of a military guy (probably 15 years my junior) asking me to race and I couldn't resist. I thought God was sending me this challenge directly through him, because I might not try it on my own. So, off we went. We didn't race; I think we both knew it was a long distance and we needed to conserve our energy if we were going to make it. I was ahead of him the whole time--which surprised me. He probably works out in the weight room 6 days a week--by the look of his iron arms. I kept looking back and calling out to him to make sure he was OK. I arrived on the island tired but proud. He joined me a few minutes later. We were both relieved to be able to touch the shoreline. We rested about 20 minutes then started to swim back. We were both more tired on the way back and the tide seemed to be working against us. I just kept telling myself if I swam one direction and made it, I could do it again in the reverse direction. He was still quite a ways behind me, but I never got too far ahead of him so I could make sure he was safe. I arrived on the other side even more tired, but elated that I had made it. I actually expected to feel exhausted, but that was not the case. That's when I realized I am probably in better shape than I think. I have been running consistently over two years now, and my endurance is starting to show. I well remember my first Sprint Triathlon in June 2007. I had only been running 5 months at that point and I really had no business even attempting a Sprint Tri. Of course, I was too ignorant to know that--the curse of a beginner. The swim was murder! I literally began praying to God to help me finish the 1/4 mile swim because I really would not have made it otherwise. I was totally exhausted in the water--to the point where it was probably dangerous. Yesterday, I swam out to the island and back for the second time and I was hardly even winded. Just goes to show that with a little perseverance, you really can get healthy and fit. Boy, if only I could do a Sprint Tri now!!
Today:
There is civil unrest in Freetown. On Friday, the local police, who are unhappy about some benefits and lack of payment, got angry and there were small riots downtown. We heard about burning cars and some shots fired. Rumors ran from unruly behavior to 13 dead. Luckily, no one was killed. The International Military unit was confided to their compound and the city was on high alert. Today (Monday) the political party currently in power trashed the offices of the opposing political party. The building was set on fire and we heard reports of over 1000 unemployed youth causing a riot that the local police could not control. Our Embassy got many frantic phone calls. The mood in town feels uneasy. I hope by tomorrow things will have calmed down. Here in Sierra Leone, the people for the most part are happy and easy going. But the problem created by a great number of unemployed youth--who have energy and spare time to burn--is that they can incite problems and things can get out of control quickly. For now, I am safe and I hope it stays that way.
Appreciate all the gifts you have in your life; good health, strong body, good friends, protection from harm; democracy.
As most of you know, I love the beach. Growing up in Minnesota, I didn't even see the ocean (Daytona Beach in Florida) until I was almost 30. Now, I can't get enough of it. Last weekend, I went to the same private beach house that I almost always go to. My Lebanese friends have a cook to make the food and they provide all food and drinks; including the tequila shots we drink to celebrate still being alive in this third world situation. I usually bring home-made Rum Cake or American Chocolate Chip cookies. It's usually a group of about 10-15 people and the people change as Ex Pats come and go. Last weekend, there were two International Military guys there. One of them sort of jokingly asked me if I wanted to race him to the island. Race, as in swim. Now, this island is maybe 3/4 of a mile from the shore of the beach house. I always sort of wanted to challenge myself and see if I could swim across, but never really took it seriously. I figured I had the whole two years to give it a try. But here was this hunk of a military guy (probably 15 years my junior) asking me to race and I couldn't resist. I thought God was sending me this challenge directly through him, because I might not try it on my own. So, off we went. We didn't race; I think we both knew it was a long distance and we needed to conserve our energy if we were going to make it. I was ahead of him the whole time--which surprised me. He probably works out in the weight room 6 days a week--by the look of his iron arms. I kept looking back and calling out to him to make sure he was OK. I arrived on the island tired but proud. He joined me a few minutes later. We were both relieved to be able to touch the shoreline. We rested about 20 minutes then started to swim back. We were both more tired on the way back and the tide seemed to be working against us. I just kept telling myself if I swam one direction and made it, I could do it again in the reverse direction. He was still quite a ways behind me, but I never got too far ahead of him so I could make sure he was safe. I arrived on the other side even more tired, but elated that I had made it. I actually expected to feel exhausted, but that was not the case. That's when I realized I am probably in better shape than I think. I have been running consistently over two years now, and my endurance is starting to show. I well remember my first Sprint Triathlon in June 2007. I had only been running 5 months at that point and I really had no business even attempting a Sprint Tri. Of course, I was too ignorant to know that--the curse of a beginner. The swim was murder! I literally began praying to God to help me finish the 1/4 mile swim because I really would not have made it otherwise. I was totally exhausted in the water--to the point where it was probably dangerous. Yesterday, I swam out to the island and back for the second time and I was hardly even winded. Just goes to show that with a little perseverance, you really can get healthy and fit. Boy, if only I could do a Sprint Tri now!!
Today:
There is civil unrest in Freetown. On Friday, the local police, who are unhappy about some benefits and lack of payment, got angry and there were small riots downtown. We heard about burning cars and some shots fired. Rumors ran from unruly behavior to 13 dead. Luckily, no one was killed. The International Military unit was confided to their compound and the city was on high alert. Today (Monday) the political party currently in power trashed the offices of the opposing political party. The building was set on fire and we heard reports of over 1000 unemployed youth causing a riot that the local police could not control. Our Embassy got many frantic phone calls. The mood in town feels uneasy. I hope by tomorrow things will have calmed down. Here in Sierra Leone, the people for the most part are happy and easy going. But the problem created by a great number of unemployed youth--who have energy and spare time to burn--is that they can incite problems and things can get out of control quickly. For now, I am safe and I hope it stays that way.
Appreciate all the gifts you have in your life; good health, strong body, good friends, protection from harm; democracy.
Monday, February 23, 2009
What would you do?
I dropped him off at the end of our lane. He seemed fragile, standing there in his home-made sling, but it was the most likely place to get a taxi that time of night. The lane from our apartment to the main road is dark and bumpy and filled with opportunities for more injuries. I had just spent the better part of a while trying to put him back together, so I wanted him to have the best chance of getting home safely. There was no place to turn my car around, so I had to turn onto the main road and drive until I found a place to reverse my direction. By the time I got back to the lane entrance, he was gone, like a ghost in the night; whisked away by some invisible taxi for a fare of about $1.50, which I had handed him only 5 minutes earlier. Gone from my evening but not from my memory.
Living in a third world country, after a while you become desensitized. It cannot happen any other way because if you let all that emotion in day after day, you would lose it. I was driving home the other day and I realized it felt totally normal to me to see kids suffering, to see dirt and broken buildings, to see moms carrying babies on their backs, with huge sacks of grain on their heads and holding the hand of their toddler child all on the street inches from my car while I was driving. It didn't bother me that out of the 8 pregnant women I see on any given day, one of them will die giving birth. It didn't phase me anymore to see a sick, listless child lying on his mothers lap and knowing there was a good chance that child would not live to see his next birthday. It didn't bother me to watch kids carrying water jugs on their heads--half the size of their small bodies-- and knowing they did not have the opportunity to attend school because their parents could not afford the uniforms or the bribes needed to pay for the supposedly mandatory free public education. You get used to these things because they are facts. After a while, you feel helpless and give in to the circumstances around you. They call it acclimating. Most of the time, that is what you do to survive. Sometimes, though, something strikes a chord in you and you wake up and remember that in the civilized world, things are not this way. Sometimes you even try and make a dent in the poverty and hopelessness around you and bring a little civilized dignity to a shattered place. And sometimes you do it without even knowing, until the end, why you did it.
I was leaving my best friends house Sunday evening. It's a house, but we call it a compound because it's surrounded by a huge wall with razor wire on top and a gate at the entrance to let cars in and out. This situation is not for grandeur, but rather for security. Iron bars on the windows and triple-locked steel doors keep out the rebels during war time. War is recent memory for people here and everyone who can afford it, stays as safe as possible. As I was leaving, one of the workers approached my car. Everyone who has a compound, has half a dozen workers, or a small army of people, who help them around the house and around the compound. These people are poor; they live off the owner of the house. They get paid very little, but it's work and they have a fairly safe place to live. Their living conditions are nothing like the owner's. They do not typically have running water or electricity, and some of them live outside--sometimes sleeping on mattresses on the edge of the driveway. I have been at my friends house many times and the workers all know me by name now. So this worker who approached me in the dark was familiar to me, but I did not know his name. He was probably approaching middle age, but he looked much older. It's a hard life here and it shows. He tried to show me his arm and he was asking for something. They speak a version of English here--called Krio. I can understand most of it, but I was having a hard time figuring out what he wanted; mostly because it was pitch dark and because I was confused as to why he was approaching my car. Most times, they just open the gate and I exit quietly. I finally gathered that he had hurt his arm and was asking me for some sort of assistance. In the form of what...I had no idea. I got out of my car, turned on my tiny key chain flashlight and pointed it in the direction of his arm. Right away, by the way he was gingerly holding it, I could tell the injury was serious. Even in the dim light, I could see how swollen it was. I felt sad immediately. I could only imagine how much it must be paining him. I didn't know what else to do, so I gave him 20,000 Leones (about $6.00) and told him to see a doctor in the morning. Being a foreigner, I would have to pay about $50 to see a doctor here, but I know they do not charge the locals that much. He thanked me and promised to go to the clinic the next day. I also gave him two ibuprofen that I had in my purse. I mean, what else could I do? It seemed so little, but here in Africa, suffering is part of everyday life. People get sick and they endure it. You're lucky if you don't die. I tried to put the incident out of my mind; hoping I had done enough and hoping maybe the injury really wasn't that harsh.
I went to my friends house again the next evening. It was not a planned visit; I stopped by after running because he offered dinner. On my way out, again under the cover of darkness, I decided to check on the worker. He assured me he had been to the clinic and that the doctor told him that his wrist was not broken but only cracked. What?? That means the same thing in my book--serious! The doctor had given him an injection for the pain and sent him home. No cast, no support wrap, nothing. The arm was still swollen and I'm sure he was still in pain. He had found a ribbon--something you would use to wrap a Christmas present and he had tied this around his neck and was hanging his wrist from it in an attempt to reduce mobility and thus the pain. Pretty clever, I thought. In fact, the ribbon still had the "to/from" tag on it. My heart sank. I just could not stand by and do nothing when I knew this person was suffering and no one was probably going to do anything about it. Well, I was someone. I could do something. I knew a little first aid--my Dad was an EMT for over 30 years. Where to start? I put the worker in my car and drove him to my house.
Living in a third world country, after a while you become desensitized. It cannot happen any other way because if you let all that emotion in day after day, you would lose it. I was driving home the other day and I realized it felt totally normal to me to see kids suffering, to see dirt and broken buildings, to see moms carrying babies on their backs, with huge sacks of grain on their heads and holding the hand of their toddler child all on the street inches from my car while I was driving. It didn't bother me that out of the 8 pregnant women I see on any given day, one of them will die giving birth. It didn't phase me anymore to see a sick, listless child lying on his mothers lap and knowing there was a good chance that child would not live to see his next birthday. It didn't bother me to watch kids carrying water jugs on their heads--half the size of their small bodies-- and knowing they did not have the opportunity to attend school because their parents could not afford the uniforms or the bribes needed to pay for the supposedly mandatory free public education. You get used to these things because they are facts. After a while, you feel helpless and give in to the circumstances around you. They call it acclimating. Most of the time, that is what you do to survive. Sometimes, though, something strikes a chord in you and you wake up and remember that in the civilized world, things are not this way. Sometimes you even try and make a dent in the poverty and hopelessness around you and bring a little civilized dignity to a shattered place. And sometimes you do it without even knowing, until the end, why you did it.
I was leaving my best friends house Sunday evening. It's a house, but we call it a compound because it's surrounded by a huge wall with razor wire on top and a gate at the entrance to let cars in and out. This situation is not for grandeur, but rather for security. Iron bars on the windows and triple-locked steel doors keep out the rebels during war time. War is recent memory for people here and everyone who can afford it, stays as safe as possible. As I was leaving, one of the workers approached my car. Everyone who has a compound, has half a dozen workers, or a small army of people, who help them around the house and around the compound. These people are poor; they live off the owner of the house. They get paid very little, but it's work and they have a fairly safe place to live. Their living conditions are nothing like the owner's. They do not typically have running water or electricity, and some of them live outside--sometimes sleeping on mattresses on the edge of the driveway. I have been at my friends house many times and the workers all know me by name now. So this worker who approached me in the dark was familiar to me, but I did not know his name. He was probably approaching middle age, but he looked much older. It's a hard life here and it shows. He tried to show me his arm and he was asking for something. They speak a version of English here--called Krio. I can understand most of it, but I was having a hard time figuring out what he wanted; mostly because it was pitch dark and because I was confused as to why he was approaching my car. Most times, they just open the gate and I exit quietly. I finally gathered that he had hurt his arm and was asking me for some sort of assistance. In the form of what...I had no idea. I got out of my car, turned on my tiny key chain flashlight and pointed it in the direction of his arm. Right away, by the way he was gingerly holding it, I could tell the injury was serious. Even in the dim light, I could see how swollen it was. I felt sad immediately. I could only imagine how much it must be paining him. I didn't know what else to do, so I gave him 20,000 Leones (about $6.00) and told him to see a doctor in the morning. Being a foreigner, I would have to pay about $50 to see a doctor here, but I know they do not charge the locals that much. He thanked me and promised to go to the clinic the next day. I also gave him two ibuprofen that I had in my purse. I mean, what else could I do? It seemed so little, but here in Africa, suffering is part of everyday life. People get sick and they endure it. You're lucky if you don't die. I tried to put the incident out of my mind; hoping I had done enough and hoping maybe the injury really wasn't that harsh.
I went to my friends house again the next evening. It was not a planned visit; I stopped by after running because he offered dinner. On my way out, again under the cover of darkness, I decided to check on the worker. He assured me he had been to the clinic and that the doctor told him that his wrist was not broken but only cracked. What?? That means the same thing in my book--serious! The doctor had given him an injection for the pain and sent him home. No cast, no support wrap, nothing. The arm was still swollen and I'm sure he was still in pain. He had found a ribbon--something you would use to wrap a Christmas present and he had tied this around his neck and was hanging his wrist from it in an attempt to reduce mobility and thus the pain. Pretty clever, I thought. In fact, the ribbon still had the "to/from" tag on it. My heart sank. I just could not stand by and do nothing when I knew this person was suffering and no one was probably going to do anything about it. Well, I was someone. I could do something. I knew a little first aid--my Dad was an EMT for over 30 years. Where to start? I put the worker in my car and drove him to my house.
At the house, I got Dad on the phone from Arizona and explained my situation. While I talked to him, I dragged out the red plastic first aid kit he had made for each of us about 20 years ago. I don't get hurt much so most of the supplies were still in stock. In fact, I had added a few things over the years like ace bandages and random wrist supports. Dad went immediately into medical advice mode--he has received many calls of this nature from us--so he has a lot of practice. He advised ice to reduce the swelling. That's great Dad, I have ice at my house but the worker has no electricity where he lives, hence he has no access to ice cubes. No matter, I could ice it for the 15 minutes I planned to keep him in my apartment to treat him. Ice went immediately into a zip lock bag and onto the wrist. I think the worker breathed a sigh of relief after only a couple of minutes. I think even the ice helped it feel better. Then Dad suggested an ace bandage to wrap around the wrist to help hold it stable. I found an ancient wrap with a big safety pin. After the 15 minutes of icing, I did a pretty remarkable job of wrapping the wrist. I think even Dad would have been impressed. But while I was wrapping the wrist, I could tell that every little movement caused the worker a lot of pain. I remembered the huge bottle of ibuprofen in my room and I put about 40 tablets into a zip lock bag. I told him to take two in the morning and two in the evening. It would help somewhat with the pain and the swelling. I was not a pharmacy, but it would be better than nothing. Finally, Dad said he thought there was a large triangle tourniquet-thing (sort of like a dish towel) in the bottom of the first aid kit. He was right! I had never noticed it before. I unfolded it and viola. It was a perfect sling! I had to practice tying it around myself a couple of times before I got it in the right position on my patient. But hey, I had never done it before. After I was finished, the worker looked like a patient right out of a civil war movie--he could have been in that scene at the train station where they show all the war wounded in Gone With the Wind.
I had done something to help alleviate the suffering of another person. I had not reduced the infant mortality rate or removed Sierra Leone from the #1 position of worst level of poverty on the Human Development Scale, but I helped one person feel better. Sometimes you get to save the world one person at a time.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
You can run but you can't hide....
Today's post will be a little different. You will know me better after this....
Today I decided to unpack a few more boxes in the den. The den has become the catch-all room, where random things get thrown for temporary storage. Only in this case, temporary has become about 6 months. Even my bike ended up there after being pummeled by the thick dust that settles everywhere during Harmattan season. Anyway, I was unpacking a small box of stuff from the Austin house; mostly random birthday cards and candles and keychains, when I came across a poem I had written over 10 years ago. Ever have one of those moments where you stop dead in your tracks from memories flooding over you? Like that. I have not had one of those moments lately....not since I found one of my kids' first notes to the Tooth Fairy and I went back to that place in time when I remembered the smell of their hair, fresh from a bath, as I tucked a couple of quarters under their pillow. Today was more poignant than that.
Today's title will explain itself shortly. You see, you can change your life; you can move half way across the world, but you can never totally leave your past behind. In some unplanned way, when you least expect it, it will hit you like it happened yesterday. If your past contains some pain, and frankly whose doesn't, thankfully these moments will diminish as you get further away from the events. But today, no such luck for me. I found my poem, and it's typed on a piece of white paper. It has a title (underscored even) but the whole bottom of the page is torn off so there is literally only half a sheet of paper left. Torn paper seems to have significance here; like I saved the poem in a fit of madness, lacking the formality to even save the entire page. Since the poem is short; I'll add it here:
Wedding Rings
Shiny, glittering bands of silver. Some people never wear these reminders on their finger of the day they said "I do." They never felt the love and hope that a glance at these rings brought me. I always valued their sentiment and their purpose. I used to cherish these symbols of faithfulness, charity and respect.
Then pain and misery rained down on these cold, steel bands. About the 100th time after my husband said he didn't love me anymore, I finally understood the only wisdom the rings held for me. Without love and commitment, they were just pounded bits of metal. Given with promise, they held value beyond dreams. Tarnished with hate and regret, they lie idle and unforgiving.
6/16/98
As I read the words, I started crying. I felt all the hurt and pain from years of suffering through a really bad marriage. It was as thought the words on the page released the clarity of how painful it really was, when at the time I could not let that level of feeling in. I think we must have to mimimize some things in order to survive. But we can never really hide from our true feelings. Even all these years later, I can still feel the sting of how devestating it feels when your husband tells you he doesn't love you.
That being said, today I appreciate how far I've come. I didn't let the pain totally take control of my life. Somehow, I managed to raise our last child, get a Bachelors degree, survive (definately not thrive) financially, and finally get myself together enough to take a long shot at getting a job with the Foreign Service and actually accomlish that. I moved across the world by myself and I am really thriving here in Africa. I have become the person I was meant to be....even though I would not have chosen this bumpy path.
So it just goes to show....when you chose a career with a foreign post, watch out for hidden surprises like memories tucked away in innocent boxes....and plan to unpack with an eye to the past and your arms wide open to the future.
Make it good,
Becky
Today I decided to unpack a few more boxes in the den. The den has become the catch-all room, where random things get thrown for temporary storage. Only in this case, temporary has become about 6 months. Even my bike ended up there after being pummeled by the thick dust that settles everywhere during Harmattan season. Anyway, I was unpacking a small box of stuff from the Austin house; mostly random birthday cards and candles and keychains, when I came across a poem I had written over 10 years ago. Ever have one of those moments where you stop dead in your tracks from memories flooding over you? Like that. I have not had one of those moments lately....not since I found one of my kids' first notes to the Tooth Fairy and I went back to that place in time when I remembered the smell of their hair, fresh from a bath, as I tucked a couple of quarters under their pillow. Today was more poignant than that.
Today's title will explain itself shortly. You see, you can change your life; you can move half way across the world, but you can never totally leave your past behind. In some unplanned way, when you least expect it, it will hit you like it happened yesterday. If your past contains some pain, and frankly whose doesn't, thankfully these moments will diminish as you get further away from the events. But today, no such luck for me. I found my poem, and it's typed on a piece of white paper. It has a title (underscored even) but the whole bottom of the page is torn off so there is literally only half a sheet of paper left. Torn paper seems to have significance here; like I saved the poem in a fit of madness, lacking the formality to even save the entire page. Since the poem is short; I'll add it here:
Wedding Rings
Shiny, glittering bands of silver. Some people never wear these reminders on their finger of the day they said "I do." They never felt the love and hope that a glance at these rings brought me. I always valued their sentiment and their purpose. I used to cherish these symbols of faithfulness, charity and respect.
Then pain and misery rained down on these cold, steel bands. About the 100th time after my husband said he didn't love me anymore, I finally understood the only wisdom the rings held for me. Without love and commitment, they were just pounded bits of metal. Given with promise, they held value beyond dreams. Tarnished with hate and regret, they lie idle and unforgiving.
6/16/98
As I read the words, I started crying. I felt all the hurt and pain from years of suffering through a really bad marriage. It was as thought the words on the page released the clarity of how painful it really was, when at the time I could not let that level of feeling in. I think we must have to mimimize some things in order to survive. But we can never really hide from our true feelings. Even all these years later, I can still feel the sting of how devestating it feels when your husband tells you he doesn't love you.
That being said, today I appreciate how far I've come. I didn't let the pain totally take control of my life. Somehow, I managed to raise our last child, get a Bachelors degree, survive (definately not thrive) financially, and finally get myself together enough to take a long shot at getting a job with the Foreign Service and actually accomlish that. I moved across the world by myself and I am really thriving here in Africa. I have become the person I was meant to be....even though I would not have chosen this bumpy path.
So it just goes to show....when you chose a career with a foreign post, watch out for hidden surprises like memories tucked away in innocent boxes....and plan to unpack with an eye to the past and your arms wide open to the future.
Make it good,
Becky
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Good Days & Bad Days
Well, they told us there would be good days and bad days in the Foreign Service. I just didn't know they would occur right after each other. Then again, a bad day is relative. I have friends who have lost their jobs in the past six months, so what I am about to whine about probably isn't even close to the description of a bad day.
Let's start with the good day first. Yesterday was the inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. What an amazingly good day. We hosted an event at the Embassy in which 200 members of the local community (foreigners and Americans) watched the inauguration on the big screen. As I watched, I realized I was sitting between an African American business woman whose father was from Sierra Leone, and an American businesswoman from the east coast who does humanitarian work here. As President Obama said in his speech; 60 years ago in some places, African Americans were not even allowed to sit next to white people in the United States. Now, here I am in Africa serving my country and working for the US Embassy and sharing the event with people of all nationalities, cultures, and religions. I thought back to where I was a year ago and I never could have imagined I would be in Africa and watching our first African American president take the oath of office. I felt so proud of my country and the progress we have made. Here in the international community, the feeling is one of hope. It's as if President Obama is the "people's President." I have not heard one negative thing about him from anyone here; Americans or foreigners. Everyone wants to believe in him, wants to have hope that things will improve. I hope so too.
Ok, now for the bad day scenario. This is a part of life in the Foreign Service that sneaks up on you and causes you to remember that you have given up some personal freedoms to take this job. These are the sort of small annoyances that remind me that I desperately need a vacation away from Post and that the word "hardship" has substance. I came home tonight to the unwelcome sight of a new door on my apartment. Did I order a new door? No. Did I want a new door? No. Did I love the beautiful old antique wood door? Yes. Apparently there was some rumor that our doors were not meeting security code, so new doors were to be installed immediately. I was first on the list. The doors here are set in concrete block. They have to be chiseled out....and that creates a huge cloud of dust. I not only came home to an unwanted new door, but to an inch of dust covering every flat surface in my apartment. I don't know why they use the phrase "an inch of dust" because of course that's not anywhere near reality, but if you can write your name in the dust, then it's more than a little. If you are afraid to touch anything, then it's too much dust to tolerate. I left my apartment this morning at 7am and everything was clean and livable. Of course I can't clean anything tonight because this being Africa, they hung the door crooked and they have to chisel it out tomorrow and re-hang it. That means more dust tomorrow. Oh goody. Did I mention the 6 inch gap between the bottom of the new door and the floor of my apartment? I have to be very careful upon entering and exiting my apartment, less I fall into the moat area. They promised to find a solution to that dilemma tomorrow. For now, they have little pieces of cardboard and wood strips to remind me to hurdle the door frame. I hope no rats or small cats decide to enter my apartment tonight for the free lodging provided by the gap on the bottom of my lovely new steel door. At least the color is nice....red. After I carefully navigated the moat, and discovered all the dust, I decided to change out of my Embassy attire and pour myself a nice glass of wine. Unfortunately, the workmen had locked the hallway leading to my bedroom and had not left a key! After two phone calls to track down the foreman and waiting 30 minutes for a response, someone called me and told me they had hidden the key under my tv remote control. How clever! By this time, I really needed that glass of wine. I didn't want to eat inside with all the dust, so I took my leftovers and the coveted glass of wine outside to my patio. Even dumber idea! Here in Sierra Leone, it's Harmattan season. That's when a strong wind blows across Africa and brings the dust from Sierra desert and spreads it all over everything outside. Of course all the chairs and the table on my patio were covered in dust, so now I have to deal with dust inside AND outside. I think I'll change that glass of wine to a bottle!
Love you and miss you....and you can be sure I'm busy planning that much needed vacation!
Becky
Let's start with the good day first. Yesterday was the inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. What an amazingly good day. We hosted an event at the Embassy in which 200 members of the local community (foreigners and Americans) watched the inauguration on the big screen. As I watched, I realized I was sitting between an African American business woman whose father was from Sierra Leone, and an American businesswoman from the east coast who does humanitarian work here. As President Obama said in his speech; 60 years ago in some places, African Americans were not even allowed to sit next to white people in the United States. Now, here I am in Africa serving my country and working for the US Embassy and sharing the event with people of all nationalities, cultures, and religions. I thought back to where I was a year ago and I never could have imagined I would be in Africa and watching our first African American president take the oath of office. I felt so proud of my country and the progress we have made. Here in the international community, the feeling is one of hope. It's as if President Obama is the "people's President." I have not heard one negative thing about him from anyone here; Americans or foreigners. Everyone wants to believe in him, wants to have hope that things will improve. I hope so too.
Ok, now for the bad day scenario. This is a part of life in the Foreign Service that sneaks up on you and causes you to remember that you have given up some personal freedoms to take this job. These are the sort of small annoyances that remind me that I desperately need a vacation away from Post and that the word "hardship" has substance. I came home tonight to the unwelcome sight of a new door on my apartment. Did I order a new door? No. Did I want a new door? No. Did I love the beautiful old antique wood door? Yes. Apparently there was some rumor that our doors were not meeting security code, so new doors were to be installed immediately. I was first on the list. The doors here are set in concrete block. They have to be chiseled out....and that creates a huge cloud of dust. I not only came home to an unwanted new door, but to an inch of dust covering every flat surface in my apartment. I don't know why they use the phrase "an inch of dust" because of course that's not anywhere near reality, but if you can write your name in the dust, then it's more than a little. If you are afraid to touch anything, then it's too much dust to tolerate. I left my apartment this morning at 7am and everything was clean and livable. Of course I can't clean anything tonight because this being Africa, they hung the door crooked and they have to chisel it out tomorrow and re-hang it. That means more dust tomorrow. Oh goody. Did I mention the 6 inch gap between the bottom of the new door and the floor of my apartment? I have to be very careful upon entering and exiting my apartment, less I fall into the moat area. They promised to find a solution to that dilemma tomorrow. For now, they have little pieces of cardboard and wood strips to remind me to hurdle the door frame. I hope no rats or small cats decide to enter my apartment tonight for the free lodging provided by the gap on the bottom of my lovely new steel door. At least the color is nice....red. After I carefully navigated the moat, and discovered all the dust, I decided to change out of my Embassy attire and pour myself a nice glass of wine. Unfortunately, the workmen had locked the hallway leading to my bedroom and had not left a key! After two phone calls to track down the foreman and waiting 30 minutes for a response, someone called me and told me they had hidden the key under my tv remote control. How clever! By this time, I really needed that glass of wine. I didn't want to eat inside with all the dust, so I took my leftovers and the coveted glass of wine outside to my patio. Even dumber idea! Here in Sierra Leone, it's Harmattan season. That's when a strong wind blows across Africa and brings the dust from Sierra desert and spreads it all over everything outside. Of course all the chairs and the table on my patio were covered in dust, so now I have to deal with dust inside AND outside. I think I'll change that glass of wine to a bottle!
Love you and miss you....and you can be sure I'm busy planning that much needed vacation!
Becky
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Pancake Brunch
Dear Angela, Ryan and Laura,
I'm sitting here in my wet swimsuit because I just came from a day at the beach, but I wanted to tell you about my day. By the way, you cannot say "wet" here In Sierra Leone. It means something completely different in British English, which is what most people speak here. Every time I say it, someone teases me. I'm trying to strike it from my vocabulary. Also, Minnesotans say "noooooooo" alot. I say it when I disagree with something and everyone teases me for saying it. I tell them it will be my legacy when I leave....everyone will remember me for saying...."Noooooo!"
This morning I invited my closest friends over for a pancake brunch....a real American breakfast. I have fond memories of making pancakes for you guys on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Remember when we would have toppings of blueberries or cherries or apples and whipped cream? If I didn't have whipped cream, I would use slightly melted vanilla ice cream and you all loved that. Ice cream for breakfast...what kid would refuse that? Anyway, today I made sausages and bacon and pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup. My friends called it "maple sauce" which at least I could understand. I made German coffee later and everyone liked that too. Laura makes the best German coffee ever and I have to say that today I would have riveled yours. My friends thought the breakfast was sweet tasting, but at least I exposed them to what Americans eat for breakfast, which is what cultural exchange is all about, right? I have realized lately that being here in Sierra Leone is not only about learning about other cultures, but also about exposing my friends to my American culture. I had a great time explaining how to prepare the pancakes: put butter on top of the pancakes, put some blueberries on top if you wish and then warm maple syrup. The things we take so for granted are totally foreign to others. What a revelation. I also made a rum cake and I also served cheese and bread for my guests who were too shy to try the pancakes. Everyone had a nice time. We talked about family and I showed them photos from my running album and from Angela's wedding. I am so lucky to have such good friends here. They all thanked me profusely for the breakfast. One thing I noticed is that everyone lingered after the meal. My Lebanese friends appreciate and value family and friends and they do not cut these visits short. In America, after the food is consumed, everyone usually goes about their business. Today, the brunch was a 3 hour affair and I was happy to spend this time with my very good friends.
Today...appreciate the people around you. Think about what makes them special. Think about what makes them unique. Remember back to how you came to meet them. I miss Angela, Ryan and Laura and Scott and Tom and Allison and Regina and Kristin and Kevin and all the people I have made pancakes for over the years. But I feel very lucky to have met such wonderful friends here in Sierra Leone...people to get to know and to share my life with.
Count all the blessings in your life. Be safe. Appreciate the small things.
And I hope all is well in your corner of the world.
Becky
I'm sitting here in my wet swimsuit because I just came from a day at the beach, but I wanted to tell you about my day. By the way, you cannot say "wet" here In Sierra Leone. It means something completely different in British English, which is what most people speak here. Every time I say it, someone teases me. I'm trying to strike it from my vocabulary. Also, Minnesotans say "noooooooo" alot. I say it when I disagree with something and everyone teases me for saying it. I tell them it will be my legacy when I leave....everyone will remember me for saying...."Noooooo!"
This morning I invited my closest friends over for a pancake brunch....a real American breakfast. I have fond memories of making pancakes for you guys on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Remember when we would have toppings of blueberries or cherries or apples and whipped cream? If I didn't have whipped cream, I would use slightly melted vanilla ice cream and you all loved that. Ice cream for breakfast...what kid would refuse that? Anyway, today I made sausages and bacon and pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup. My friends called it "maple sauce" which at least I could understand. I made German coffee later and everyone liked that too. Laura makes the best German coffee ever and I have to say that today I would have riveled yours. My friends thought the breakfast was sweet tasting, but at least I exposed them to what Americans eat for breakfast, which is what cultural exchange is all about, right? I have realized lately that being here in Sierra Leone is not only about learning about other cultures, but also about exposing my friends to my American culture. I had a great time explaining how to prepare the pancakes: put butter on top of the pancakes, put some blueberries on top if you wish and then warm maple syrup. The things we take so for granted are totally foreign to others. What a revelation. I also made a rum cake and I also served cheese and bread for my guests who were too shy to try the pancakes. Everyone had a nice time. We talked about family and I showed them photos from my running album and from Angela's wedding. I am so lucky to have such good friends here. They all thanked me profusely for the breakfast. One thing I noticed is that everyone lingered after the meal. My Lebanese friends appreciate and value family and friends and they do not cut these visits short. In America, after the food is consumed, everyone usually goes about their business. Today, the brunch was a 3 hour affair and I was happy to spend this time with my very good friends.
Today...appreciate the people around you. Think about what makes them special. Think about what makes them unique. Remember back to how you came to meet them. I miss Angela, Ryan and Laura and Scott and Tom and Allison and Regina and Kristin and Kevin and all the people I have made pancakes for over the years. But I feel very lucky to have met such wonderful friends here in Sierra Leone...people to get to know and to share my life with.
Count all the blessings in your life. Be safe. Appreciate the small things.
And I hope all is well in your corner of the world.
Becky
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Christmas #3 - Interesting Party Quips
Last night I hosted a Christmas Party Open House. About 32 people came; including the Ambassador! She was the first one to arrive, which was quite unnerving. She is very gracious and commented on how lovely and Christmas-y the house looked. I got her a glass of white wine and anxiously awaited the arrival of more guests. The house filled up nicely. I had hired a cook to make the appetizers, but I made all of the Christmas cookies; spritz, peanut blossoms, strawberry bon bons, Russian tea cakes, and chocolate chip cookies. I also hired two girls to hostess. There was a nice mix of people from all over the world. A couple of things happened that I wanted to share with you.
When the maid/hostess first arrived, the light bulb went out in the living room lamp. I gave her a new bulb and told her to change it out. Next thing I know, the bulb is shattered all over the floor. I got a new bulb and went over to help her. I found out she had only "placed" the bulb in the socket; she had not screwed it in....which is why it fell out and shattered all over the floor. As I was screwing it in, I happen to ask her: "Do you have any lights like this in your house?" She said no. It dawned on me that she probably does not have electricity and certainly does not have anything with a light bulb in it. She looked at me like she had never even seen a light bulb before. in her life. I couldn't believe it! She works at the US Embassy as a cleaning girl. Imagine a world where you have never seen a light bulb.
I sat down with my friends from Lebanon and one of them had his wife arrive a couple of days ago from Beirut. This friend happens to have a pet money, Chico, tied to a tree in his backyard. I have been around this monkey a few times and he seemed harmless, although the idea of tying a wild animal to a tree depresses me greatly. So, when the wife arrived at the house, the monkey attacked her and she has bites and wounds all over her arms and legs. She described her ordeal and it seemed as the monkey was biting her, she could not move because the teeth were so far in her that it would tear her skin more to have struggled. It must have been terrifying! I thought to myself, when was the last time I was at a Christmas party discussing a monkey attack with an actual victim? Welcome to Africa.
As I said, the party included a nice mix of people. I invited people close to me and people I appreciate, so the party included the following: The US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, my boss (the second in command), colleagues from work, an attorney for the Special Court of Sierra Leone (who is from Ukraine), my friends from Lebanon and Egypt who are diamond dealers and land developers respectively, my cleaning lady, Mary and her husband...who I'm sure thought they were at a Hollywood party, (I bet they don't have electricity either, as she once asked me how to operate my vacuum cleaner, remember?) my other friends from Lebanon who have friends who work for non-profits here in Freetown, the outgoing and the incoming "high level security forces" in the US government, a couple of people from IMATT (International Military), an international journalist from Canada, a visiting woman named Sarah who started a company called "Brighter Tomorrow for Africa," and Hank and his wife Lisa; Hank is an accomplished singer/songwriter/ musician from Texas. Hank played his guitar and sang for us to close out the evening. I had a wonderful time and I think all my guests really enjoyed it too.
So far, I love this job!
When the maid/hostess first arrived, the light bulb went out in the living room lamp. I gave her a new bulb and told her to change it out. Next thing I know, the bulb is shattered all over the floor. I got a new bulb and went over to help her. I found out she had only "placed" the bulb in the socket; she had not screwed it in....which is why it fell out and shattered all over the floor. As I was screwing it in, I happen to ask her: "Do you have any lights like this in your house?" She said no. It dawned on me that she probably does not have electricity and certainly does not have anything with a light bulb in it. She looked at me like she had never even seen a light bulb before. in her life. I couldn't believe it! She works at the US Embassy as a cleaning girl. Imagine a world where you have never seen a light bulb.
I sat down with my friends from Lebanon and one of them had his wife arrive a couple of days ago from Beirut. This friend happens to have a pet money, Chico, tied to a tree in his backyard. I have been around this monkey a few times and he seemed harmless, although the idea of tying a wild animal to a tree depresses me greatly. So, when the wife arrived at the house, the monkey attacked her and she has bites and wounds all over her arms and legs. She described her ordeal and it seemed as the monkey was biting her, she could not move because the teeth were so far in her that it would tear her skin more to have struggled. It must have been terrifying! I thought to myself, when was the last time I was at a Christmas party discussing a monkey attack with an actual victim? Welcome to Africa.
As I said, the party included a nice mix of people. I invited people close to me and people I appreciate, so the party included the following: The US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, my boss (the second in command), colleagues from work, an attorney for the Special Court of Sierra Leone (who is from Ukraine), my friends from Lebanon and Egypt who are diamond dealers and land developers respectively, my cleaning lady, Mary and her husband...who I'm sure thought they were at a Hollywood party, (I bet they don't have electricity either, as she once asked me how to operate my vacuum cleaner, remember?) my other friends from Lebanon who have friends who work for non-profits here in Freetown, the outgoing and the incoming "high level security forces" in the US government, a couple of people from IMATT (International Military), an international journalist from Canada, a visiting woman named Sarah who started a company called "Brighter Tomorrow for Africa," and Hank and his wife Lisa; Hank is an accomplished singer/songwriter/ musician from Texas. Hank played his guitar and sang for us to close out the evening. I had a wonderful time and I think all my guests really enjoyed it too.
So far, I love this job!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Christmas #2....and Sick Again!
First the good news. I unpacked all the Christmas boxes and I managed to bring almost all of the important Christmas memorabilia with me from Texas. You know how there are those special ornaments or decorations that really say "Christmas" to you? For me, that would be the home-made green clay Christmas trees that we made at a friends house when the kids went to St. Kevin's back in Minnesota. We spent the afternoon at the art teachers house, drinking cider and making these unique clay trees that we painted green. I always set them up by the manger. I was SO happy that I managed to remember to pack them and now have them here in Africa. I also unpacked the ceramic houses that make a village that my mother-in-law painstakingly painted for me back when she liked me. They are a warm Christmas memory. I was still waiting to find the manger, when in the very next box, there it was! Unfortunately, I brought the manger but no figures! There is no baby Jesus, no Mary, no Joseph, no camel, no angels, no wise men. So, I have this empty manger and I guess I have to assume that Mary and Joseph are still in the Middle East. I might have to make paper figures, as it just doesn't seem like Christmas without them. So the tree is decorated, the lights are sparkling, the house feels like Christmas, and all is well in Africa....well almost.
I am sick again. This time, it's not the awful African sickness that affects your stomach and your ability to eat. This time, it's a very bad cold and cough. So bad that when woke up this morning at 6:30 a.m., the moment I took a breath, I started coughing. I called the Embassy (sent a txt message, actually, as that's how everyone communicates here) and let them know I would not be coming in. For those of you who know me well, you know how sick I really am if I call and tell them I'm not coming in at all! Normally, I would call and say I don't feel well and I will be in later. This morning I knew that if I could not stop coughing, I would be worthless at work; not to mention contagious to everyone else. I dragged myself out of bed and started rummaging through my as yet unpacked boxes to see if I could find a thermometer. Eureka! I found it! I took my temperature....100. Wow, I guess that's why I spent last night alternating between freezing and shivering. I discovered a very old bottle of prescription cough syrup and took a couple teaspoons of that along with 2 ibuprofen for the fever and promptly went back to sleep until 11:30! Woke up feeling no better and decided to call the Embassy Dr. (Physicians Assistant, actually). She suggested I come in for an evaluation. So here I am, cozy in my bed, and she wants me to get dressed and drive to work! I was too sick to drive my own car, so I hired one of the Embassy drivers to come get me. (one of the perks of working overseas) I took a quick shower and threw on some jeans and headed to the Embassy--30 minutes away. It was nice to wear jeans to the Embassy because that's forbidden during the normal work day. The PA said I probably have bronchitis or a touch of pneumonia. She gave me a whole arsenal of drugs: daytime cough medicine, night cough medicine, Tylenol, and antibiotics. I went home and went right to sleep again. As long as I can keep the cough under control, I only have to worry about the fever; which returns like clockwork the exact minute the ibuprofen wears off. My temperature this afternoon was 101. Oh joy. So, it's just me and my blanket until the drugs have a chance to work. I'm trying not to think about the Christmas Party Open House that I am having for 50 people on Saturday...and all the cookies that are as yet not baked. I'm sure I will get everything done somehow.
Hope you are all well and healthy in your corner of the world.
Becky
I am sick again. This time, it's not the awful African sickness that affects your stomach and your ability to eat. This time, it's a very bad cold and cough. So bad that when woke up this morning at 6:30 a.m., the moment I took a breath, I started coughing. I called the Embassy (sent a txt message, actually, as that's how everyone communicates here) and let them know I would not be coming in. For those of you who know me well, you know how sick I really am if I call and tell them I'm not coming in at all! Normally, I would call and say I don't feel well and I will be in later. This morning I knew that if I could not stop coughing, I would be worthless at work; not to mention contagious to everyone else. I dragged myself out of bed and started rummaging through my as yet unpacked boxes to see if I could find a thermometer. Eureka! I found it! I took my temperature....100. Wow, I guess that's why I spent last night alternating between freezing and shivering. I discovered a very old bottle of prescription cough syrup and took a couple teaspoons of that along with 2 ibuprofen for the fever and promptly went back to sleep until 11:30! Woke up feeling no better and decided to call the Embassy Dr. (Physicians Assistant, actually). She suggested I come in for an evaluation. So here I am, cozy in my bed, and she wants me to get dressed and drive to work! I was too sick to drive my own car, so I hired one of the Embassy drivers to come get me. (one of the perks of working overseas) I took a quick shower and threw on some jeans and headed to the Embassy--30 minutes away. It was nice to wear jeans to the Embassy because that's forbidden during the normal work day. The PA said I probably have bronchitis or a touch of pneumonia. She gave me a whole arsenal of drugs: daytime cough medicine, night cough medicine, Tylenol, and antibiotics. I went home and went right to sleep again. As long as I can keep the cough under control, I only have to worry about the fever; which returns like clockwork the exact minute the ibuprofen wears off. My temperature this afternoon was 101. Oh joy. So, it's just me and my blanket until the drugs have a chance to work. I'm trying not to think about the Christmas Party Open House that I am having for 50 people on Saturday...and all the cookies that are as yet not baked. I'm sure I will get everything done somehow.
Hope you are all well and healthy in your corner of the world.
Becky
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Christmas #1
Here in the tropics, it's very difficult to get into the Christmas spirit. Every day the weather is about 80 degrees and sunny. Palm trees abound, and the lush landscaping reminds me nothing of the harsh windy, snowy days of my youth in Minnesota. I called the US the other day for something and the person on the other end of the line said, "Happy Holidays" (which I suppose is the PC version of Merry Christmas these days) and I almost said, "what are you talking about....you mean it's Christmas over there?" There are no decorations on people's houses here; I mean, people are lucky to have a shack with a curtain for a door so certainly they have no need for a pine bough wreath for their non-exist ant front door. Christmas lights? Remember, most of the time there is no electricity here....so all that effort would be a waste of time. That is one thing I can definitely say I DO NOT miss about Christmas in the US....all those hours spent untangling the outdoor Christmas lights!! The last couple of years, I gave it about an hour, then I threw away the string of lights and went to Walmart and bought a new set. I mean, $10 for a new set is worth the agony of untangling the mess from last year! I think that is one of the mysteries of life.....how come when I CAREFULLY wind the strings of lights and CAREFULLY place them in the box.....then something like 345 days go by and they somehow tangle themselves into a giant ball? Or, how come the same string of lights that worked last year suddenly goes dark the very next year without even being plugged in! Do they use up their lifespan in the box?
So , today I decided to decorate for the Christmas Open House I am having next Saturday. I have probably already invited 40 people and since I find myself inviting everyone I see that I like, so I'm sure I'll be up to 60 by next weekend. I'm only serving appetizers and cookies and wine, so that should be manageable.
I took out the boxes of Christmas decorations I had brought...7 boxes in all. I well remember being in Austin in March and randomly selecting some decorations while the movers were waiting on me....from the 12 or so boxes of Christmas stuff I own. When I opened them today, I had no idea what I'd find. I have only opened 4 of them, but so far, so good. I brought the tree and set that up. It was strange to have to "unfold" all the little branches, because of course the movers wrapped the tree in paper to resemble a torpedo. Luckily the lights were already on the tree, which actually posed a problem. The lights are 110 electric current, so that means they require a transformer. Transformers are scarce in my house (I only have 3) so I have to put the tree where I can plug in the lights into an existing transformer. That meant the tree needed to be in the living room near the computer. There are only two outlets on the transformer, so whenever I am on the computer (which is one plug) I have to decide if I want to have the lamp on (the remaining plug) or listen to my ipod in the dark (because if I plug in the ipod, I cannot plug in the lamp). Such electrical complications. Then eureka! In a box, I found a 110 electrical strip that has 6 outlets! But now the question....could I safely plug the strip into the transformer with all those American appliances? I held my breath, plugged it in and turned on the power switch. The Christmas tree lights came right on and the tree looked magical! I was so happy I had not blown anything up. (Did I tell you I fried my DVD/VHS player when I got here because I stupidly plugged a 110 into a 220? Idiot!!)
Anyway, I have 4 more boxes to unpack, so I better get back to it. I already got a sneak peak at some of the decorations that made it and I'm happy. There are a lot of memories attached to the green quilted tree skirt I made, the cross-stitched framed Santa for the wall, and of course the little felt and sequined ornaments hand made by my mother-in-law for our first Christmas as a married couple when we had nothing and could not afford to buy anything. I think both Angela and Laura are hoping I leave them to them in my will! I hope I find the green clay trees that we made with the kids at St. Kevins...I hope I find the white crocheted Angel that I bought from a mail order catalog when the kids were young...I hope I find the manger...I hope I find the smokers from Germany....and I hope I find enough memories from the past to sustain me during this, my first Christmas alone.
Hope all is well in your corner of the world.
Oh, I send special Birthday greetings to my Mom and a VERY dear friend of mine, both of whom celebrate birthdays on December 7th. Wish I could be there to give you a hug.
Love from Africa,
Becky
So , today I decided to decorate for the Christmas Open House I am having next Saturday. I have probably already invited 40 people and since I find myself inviting everyone I see that I like, so I'm sure I'll be up to 60 by next weekend. I'm only serving appetizers and cookies and wine, so that should be manageable.
I took out the boxes of Christmas decorations I had brought...7 boxes in all. I well remember being in Austin in March and randomly selecting some decorations while the movers were waiting on me....from the 12 or so boxes of Christmas stuff I own. When I opened them today, I had no idea what I'd find. I have only opened 4 of them, but so far, so good. I brought the tree and set that up. It was strange to have to "unfold" all the little branches, because of course the movers wrapped the tree in paper to resemble a torpedo. Luckily the lights were already on the tree, which actually posed a problem. The lights are 110 electric current, so that means they require a transformer. Transformers are scarce in my house (I only have 3) so I have to put the tree where I can plug in the lights into an existing transformer. That meant the tree needed to be in the living room near the computer. There are only two outlets on the transformer, so whenever I am on the computer (which is one plug) I have to decide if I want to have the lamp on (the remaining plug) or listen to my ipod in the dark (because if I plug in the ipod, I cannot plug in the lamp). Such electrical complications. Then eureka! In a box, I found a 110 electrical strip that has 6 outlets! But now the question....could I safely plug the strip into the transformer with all those American appliances? I held my breath, plugged it in and turned on the power switch. The Christmas tree lights came right on and the tree looked magical! I was so happy I had not blown anything up. (Did I tell you I fried my DVD/VHS player when I got here because I stupidly plugged a 110 into a 220? Idiot!!)
Anyway, I have 4 more boxes to unpack, so I better get back to it. I already got a sneak peak at some of the decorations that made it and I'm happy. There are a lot of memories attached to the green quilted tree skirt I made, the cross-stitched framed Santa for the wall, and of course the little felt and sequined ornaments hand made by my mother-in-law for our first Christmas as a married couple when we had nothing and could not afford to buy anything. I think both Angela and Laura are hoping I leave them to them in my will! I hope I find the green clay trees that we made with the kids at St. Kevins...I hope I find the white crocheted Angel that I bought from a mail order catalog when the kids were young...I hope I find the manger...I hope I find the smokers from Germany....and I hope I find enough memories from the past to sustain me during this, my first Christmas alone.
Hope all is well in your corner of the world.
Oh, I send special Birthday greetings to my Mom and a VERY dear friend of mine, both of whom celebrate birthdays on December 7th. Wish I could be there to give you a hug.
Love from Africa,
Becky
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