El Presupuesto

Pretty much every year since spouse and I started working for the federal government in 2010, there's been some form of political gridlock surrounding the country's finances. I can't remember the last time there's been a regular budget. And now,  we're once again facing two threats of shutting down the government. While the spouse probably will be working come Tuesday if the government shuts down, I almost certainly will not. This is where I say "not cool, Republicans, not cool."

I truly believe in a  non-political federal civil service. Honestly. At work I will enact a policy whether it's a Republican or Democratic policy (God forbid we include other parties in our system, but that's a rant for another day). I still believe in the right to express my political position in my personal life and even in small talk at the office, but I also swore an oath to the constitution and in the end of the day I will discharge the duties of my office as required by the constitution. In other words, the law is the law.

But what happens when one party abrogates its responsibility and is fundamentally opposed to the very idea of governing? Make no mistake, this is not a question of President Obama refusing to negotiate with the U.S. House of Representatives. I would argue that this shutdown crisis is the culmination of President Obama caving too much over the past 5 years and the time has come for an actual confrontation. Speaker Boehner, you don't get to control the entire government just because your party gerrymandered itself into a tenuous majority in one house despite the fact that the majority of the country voted for democrats. 

If I don't work on Tuesday, I'll survive. Spouse and I have some savings, we're not living paycheck to paycheck yet.  But I will be taking to the internets to reach out to all of my friends and family to make sure that they're aware that I am personally affected by Mr. Boehner and the Tea Party's ideological war against the government. And if it goes longer than a day or so, I'll march on the Capitol. I don't have a representative because I'm a resident of the District of Columbia (another rant for another day). So I will call upon the overlords in congress that have self-appointed themselves as my representatives (the congressmen and women that are on committees that oversee the District of Columbia).  I will tell them that I will be using all of my powers to get rid of the scourge of Republican non-governance in the elections next year.

The spouse and I very rarely invest time or money in political activities. Very occasionally we'll donate some money to a cause that we believe in. This shutdown (and the next one if the brinkmanship extends to the debt ceiling fight) will change this. And I hope that this extends to our family and friends. This may be the catalyst to move the country back from crazy to an actual sane policy. 

Look, I'm the first to admit that the Democratic Party has issues. It's a very wide tent of people that only vaguely have the same principles and values. But at least they want to govern responsibly. So Speaker Boehner as the news unfolds over the next few days and weeks, remember this one simple fact: actions have consequences. And we in the federal workforce will make this country remember.

Los Libros

Lately I've been reading a lot. I know many FSOs and world travelers who gorge themselves on a ton of books (or internet sites or whatever) about their future assignment from the moment that they discover that they're going to a new place in order to learn every single thing that they can before going. These people probably are very much more prepared to live and navigate the culture that they're about to enter. My motives for reading are a bit more escapist in nature. Though I'm learning and trying to remember all the lessons that a new diplomat needs to be sent out into the world, in the quiet of evening I try to decompress and turn to the content of my bookshelves. There are always a few travelogues or Lonely Planet guides... but far more numerous are books from genres only tangentially related to travel. You're far more likely to see me reading a classic (or maybe not so classic) science fiction or fantasy novel than a book exploring the political culture of country X,Y, or Z.  My audiobook queue is filled with David McCullough books on the history of great American people or their works. 

The thing about these genres (history, science fiction, fantasy) is that they make you think. Science fiction and fantasy are all about the counterfactuals. What if the world or the laws of nature were different? What will the world or galaxy or universe be in 10, 50, 100, or 1000 years? Really they're both genres on a continuum that goes from plausible to extraordinary. Meanwhile, histories force us to examine and reexamine the meaning of our culture and worldview. In looking to the past, we hope to gain some insight for future paths. As a great philosopher once said (somewhat ironically echoing the sayings of older philosphers) "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

Which brings us back to books. I've lately had some rather broad discussions with the spouse and others on the utility of paper books. I understand the portability factor of e-readers and the interactive interface that makes looking up a word (foreign or otherwise) with the touch of a finger. And I admit to using my tiny little iphone more and more for quick web browsing. But it's going to be a long and painful process for me to abandon the printed word. I feel a tremendous feeling of awe and anticipation when I open a book for the first time. There're so many possibilities that could be contained within it. And from a very early age I was taught that the library is a sacred space for our civilization. 

So I will continue to read, and continue to learn, and continue to think about the what ifs of this world. It's my way of preventing calcification and cynicism. And this messed up world could use a little optimism and what ifs, I think.

Los Trabajadores

Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States celebrates its workers in September rather than May first. Although the urban legend is that we do this because we didn't want to be communists, the truth is that we wanted to divorce what should be a tranquil holiday for working-men and women from the anniversary of an unfortunate incident involving bomb-toting anarchists. Regardless, I like to spend the holiday at least briefly reflecting about what it means to work in this country.

So much is tied up in the concept of work in this culture. How many times have we heard the phrase "work for a living?" It is a peculiar twist of fate that we seem to have decided to leave out the word "wage" from that phrase. By eliding the concept of the "living wage" we conveniently can forget that the limits on the capitalist system that exist for the benefit of all were put into place via a movement where workers banded together and stated that they would not be exploited any more. This after a century or so of modern exploitation, preceded by centuries of rigid class immobility and little to no concept of a meritocracy. And that's just the history of "Western" economic exploitation. I won't even get into the perils of mercantilism, colonization, and unrestrained monopolies/oligarchies. 

It's important to commemorate the progress that has been made in society. Things like the Forty Hour Work Week, the Eight-hour day, weekends, child labor laws, occupational health and safety laws and more. We sometimes scoff at how arbitrary it all seems. And how restrictive some of the labor protection laws are. Managers and business owners are often tempted to skirt some of the laws in the name of better productivity and increased output. But there is sound data that indicates a broad consensus on how much work can and should be squeezed out of the average person.  Safety protections are generally there for a reason.  

I'm happy that we have Labor Day, because this is the day to stop working and think about the conditions of our workers. It's not just a day for barbecues and transitioning from summer to fall. The day means something special to all those people that sacrificed their laws to put a system in place to make life a little better for future generations. And for the people that continue to fight for their rights and the rights of their fellow workers. 

Juramos

One of the things I like best about public service is the commitment we all make to a set of ideals and principles. We're a country founded on ideals, which is fairly unique around the world. And the first day when we join the government in service we swear an oath to defend those ideals. We don't swear loyalty to a king or queen, to an ethnicity or a creed, but to an idea... a set of principles.

It's a word we don't use as much anymore, oath. For me, it conjures up images of knights or fantasy novels or something vaguely British. But I'll tell you what it means to me. It means that my wife and I have pledged our honor to this country. There's really no turning back now. And we will serve the American people to the best of our ability by always remembering the founding principles of our country while doing our work. 

I've taken the oath at least four times for my various positions in the government. Every time, every time, I tear up a little. A few times that was because I was in the presence of many other people taking the oath with me and all I could think about was how honored I was to be in the company of so many people who also believe in service to their country. Enough to swear an oath at least. Other times I was just a little awed by the power of the words and the universality of the oath. With only very minor variations, everyone swears the same oath, be the person a janitor, an FSO, or the President of the United States. And that's a truly powerful testament to our ideals and the rule of law. 

So last Friday, these are the words I (and the rest of my classmates) said:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

I meant every word.

Bajo el Mismo Cielo

Some days it's really, really hard.

Something really exciting happens and I can't wait until the end of the day to talk to my spouse about all the cool things that I experienced that day. I do something cool like meet an assistant secretary or tour an amazing office. And I just want to share it with my favorite person in the whole world.

But the spouse is not here. And there's dry cleaning to pick up in Juarez. Or an event with coworkers or friends in DC. Cookies to bake to take to work, lunch to make for tomorrow, a bathroom to clean for house guests.  So we communicate in snatched conversations here and there.  We pick and choose the truly extraordinary events to talk about, and forget the day-to-day. Or we focus on the mundane logistics of when and where we'll see each other again, and leave the extraordinary to rise to the surface unexpectedly months down the line.

We've done this before. But never so married, and never so long. Each time apart is time that we could have been spending together, regardless of whether it makes sense for our respective careers. We just have to keep telling ourselves that it's going to work out and we're going to be together eventually. That at least we're living in a civilized era of Facetime and Skype and long-distance phone calls. And all of those sleepless nights, the cravings for a simple touch, a kiss, or sharing a mundane moment.... we'll stave them off through visits once a month or so. But we won't cure all of them. There will still be those missed connections and opportunity costs from our separate ways.

These are the sacrifices we make. This is the career and the lifestyle that we choose. We try very, very hard to make due. And we don't make a fuss. Stiff upper lip and all that. It's already hard enough, I can't imagine how my colleagues with children do it. We all have our burdens, we just have to hope that some are less permanent than others.

It's going to be a long 15 months.

Juntos: La Misma Bandera

It's been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. We've had a full course of crazy training, from learning about vouchers to offsite leadership (And before you ask, what happens at the offsite stays at the offsite, so don't ask). And of course Friday was the notorious Flag Day.

This flag day was particularly nerve-wracking for the spouse and I, since we've known for about a year that at least one-half of this here tandem couple is headed to Doha, Qatar in 2014. Since Doha was on the bidlist, it was obviously my/our number one choice, but in State Department world there are no guarantees. So it was with genuine trepidation that we entered that auditorium, hoping that the stars would align.

And then they projected this flag:

And they called my name.

And I learned that our long separation will definitely have an end-date. We will be separate for a year and a half. But at the end of 2014, my spouse and I will once again live together in the same place. Diplomats. Tandem. Together. 

Palabras

Many companies and jobs have a new employee orientation, but none that I know of can match the process of A-100 (the training class for new Foreign Service Officers). The basics of it are pretty well known: six weeks of introduction to the Foreign Service, from the internal HR systems and paperwork through the tools and basic precepts of international diplomacy. But the lessons we're learning go beyond the content of a thousand powerpoint presentations (of which there are plenty). The Department is attempting to inculcate us into a cohesive group that believes in the power of ideas and ideals to change the world. That's some heady stuff there.

One thing that I've personally gotten out of it is the power of words. I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately, in both my personal and professional lives. Words can set the tone of an interaction. They can build up a relationship, or tear one apart. And they're the foundation of our beliefs and ideals, the things that make this country tick. I think sometimes we roll our eyes at the notion of serving the country merely for the sake of a series of pieces of paper, one of which starts with the words "We, the People." We sometimes think it jingoistic to be overly patriotic. But it's those words that set the tone for a whole set of principles, a culture of equality, a society committed to tolerance and freedom and justice. That is what makes this country great. 

And yet. There are also those words that tear us apart. Hypocrite. Totalitarian. War Criminal. Tyranny. Secrecy. Abusers of Power. The words that are anathema to our self-image.  And they are bandied about in our conversations, in our press, and in our dealings with the rest of the world. There are no easy answers. But as the Wire says, we must have a code. And maybe the best that we can do is hold ourselves to that code and follow it where that takes you. 

I believe in America, and the ideals upon which it is founded. Defending and explaining those principles and applying the law, here and abroad. And that's part of my code. Those words: integrity, loyalty, freedom, justice, and equality. These are my words. They are important in my work and at home. And they are powerful.

Vale la Pena

Today after work I went to see a flower that supposedly smelled like a corpse.

It didn't really. But it was a gigantic flower and it looked cool. And going to the National Botanic Garden allowed me to take a nice walk to my apartment by way of the mall. And the proximity to the Capitol prompted me to think a bit about some of the lessons we're learning in A-100.

It's an orientation program, for sure. So there's all sorts of sessions on HR and how to work with and in the State bureaucracy. It's also a time when we learn about the history of diplomacy, the type of work that we do, and the potential jobs that we could be doing soon. And of course there's the bidding process, which is probably enough material for a whole other post.

But I think the most important lessons that we're learning are the ones that don't come from our courses. We're learning to act as a cohort, how to socialize amongst our peers, and what it means to be a diplomat "24/7." We're also remembering why we're here and what it means to serve.

When my friends who work at consulates and embassies around the world are asked about what they do they tend to say that they are in the Foreign Service rather than that they're diplomats. I think there's something to be said for including the word "service" every time that we introduce ourselves. It's a little reminder that the work that we do is in service to the people of the United States. It's in service of our ideals. It sounds corny, but it's principles like freedom and justice and sacrifice of personal gain for the common good that keep me going.  And if using the word "service" moves the perception of the profession from one of effete elites drinking scotch and smoking cigars with foreign politicians equally out of touch with their own people to the reality of a Department filled with dedicated public servants who hold the well-being of Americans abroad as their highest priority, so much the better. In what other profession do we get to remind ourselves of our principles every day.

It's worth it. 

Arrived!

A week ago I was still in Juarez. I was mostly packed, due to my wonderful spouse. But I was still working, still driving everywhere, still crossing an international border fairly frequently for mundane reasons, and still sleeping in my own bed.

I'm not there anymore.

After a bit more than a year away, I have returned to DC. Things are different here. I walk to the grocery store, to restaurants, to the metro (!!!!). There's a great library system here. My inner transit nerd is rejoicing about how much I don't need a car. I'm getting a bikeshare membership. And I'm officially in the Foreign Service. 

There are drawbacks, of course. Arriving so quickly means that there's been numerous difficulties with IT at work and getting my apartment all set up at home. It's always fun to arrive in the middle of the night on a Saturday and arrive at a furnished apartment that doesn't have towels. There have been Metro to Target runs and grocery shopping trips in the middle of the night. And my lingering cough from Juarez has not liked the fact that you can't really take sick days during training. Saddest of all is that I'm likely facing over a year apart for the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.

We'll see each other approximately once a month, starting in August. It won't be enough, but we will maintain our relationship the best we can through modern technology. These are the sacrifices we make so that both of us can have a career. Hopefully on flag day, we'll have a good idea of when the next time will be when we actually will be living in the same location. 

I know that all (or at least many) of my A-100 classmates are going through some of the same things that we are. What do you tell your friends and family when they ask how long you'll be in DC after you tell them you're moving there? "I don't know, I'll find out five weeks after I arrive there?" I can't imagine how you'd communicate that level of vague to a child. But orientation is not a time for anything other than complete flexibility. 

Maybe after this weekend I'll feel a bit more coherent. I'm running low on sleep and high on uncertainty.  The only thing I know, from observing the experience of my spouse's class, is that it gets better. So for now I'll just hang on. It's going to be a crazy ride.

Entre Un Mundo y Otro

Mentally these last few weeks are turning out to be a strange endeavor. I've moved many times in my life, once with State Department help, most of the time on my own. But with the exception of going abroad for limited periods of time, I've always had a period of transition, usually by driving, with which to mentally prepare and get myself in the proper headspace for the new place.

This time is different.

Allow me to explain. Because I cannot allow more than three calendar days between my current federal job and A-100 (to keep the benefits that I've already accrued) I will be having my last day of work next Friday, flying to DC next Saturday, and starting A-100 the following Monday. This gives me exactly one day to get reoriented to the time-zone change (I'll be starting work at what feels like 6 AM for me) and a very different way of living from Ciudad Juarez. Some are the changes will be good, like the ability to walk, bike, and just generally live without a car. Some will be not so good, like the fact that I'll be away from my spouse for who knows how long. But it very much will be different.

So I'm trying techniques to get myself ready, like envisioning my life in my new apartment and planning my commute to work. The only problem with this is that at the same time I'm trying to remain pretty fully engaged here in CJ. It's a jarring dissonance that everyone has in the Foreign Service, and I think it's one of the reasons that officers are mandated weeks and weeks of home leave before their transition from one post to another. It's almost as if Congress realized that people moving all over the world are going to tend to be workaholics and might just need to be told to take a few weeks to relax and transition.

But the first move, the move to join the service, is not like that. And so while I'm wondering about my future classmates and my route to work in two weeks, I'm also Fourth of July, one last Mexico trip, and CJ despedida (farewell) planning. And if you've ever worked a Fourth of July party in the Foreign Service, it's no joke. Not to mention the necessity of training my replacement in EVERYTHING I KNOW. So, my future classmates, if I seem a bit distracted those first few days of class, I apologize. My head (and my heart) may still be in Juarez. 

Just an Ordinary Day

The big impending move is starting to get a little more real. The other day I received my travel authorization, which set in motion a whole bunch of moving parts. Now there's a giant pile that I can only describe as "stuff" in my house that will be packed up and shipped out next week. Yesterday I made decisions on plane tickets and arranged for a ride from the airport next month. And every day I receive new emails of forms to fill out and return to Washington to make the transition smooth.

Yet there's still quite a lot to do here as well. We're trying to figure out car maintenance issues before I go. I'm working on transition documents that should theoretically teach my replacement at work everything that I've learned over the past year. There are favorite restaurants to visit, fun events/parties to go to, and souvenirs to purchase (perhaps to go into that giant pile of "stuff" to ship. And lets not forget that it's Fourth of July season, which means that everyone at the consulate is going a little bit nuts to make sure that the event goes well.

The thing that makes this whole move a little bittersweet is that I'm starting to get closer with a couple of people who are going to be remaining at post. When I first got the invite to an orientation class, my initial reaction was one of jubilation. This was my ticket out of a place that I've never fully taken to. And don't get me wrong, I'm still really, really excited. But it's starting to sink in that I really will truly miss the combination of people here. There are many things about the physical environment in Juarez that I don't like, but the people, locals and foreign service, are what make this place great. And I'm a bit sad to be leaving this community.

On the other hand, this move gives me the opportunity to develop a network of my own. And I'm extremely excited to return to a place that I've lived multiple times in my life and I love. So sad + excitement = bittersweet. Ultimately I think it's a good thing that there's going to be so much going on over the next few weeks that I'm not going to have too much time to brood over it.

La Lingua de la Familia

Ever since I encountered someone who didn't speak English at home (probably in Kindergarten) I've been fascinated with bilingual families, immigrant or otherwise. In a way, my inner drive to join the Foreign Service stems from two factors relating to this fascination: 1) the urge to be the first person to welcome immigrant families to what I consider one of the greatest clubs in the world, American Citizenship, and 2)a somewhat less altruistic goal to understand what the heck all those people are saying right in front of me in a language I can't understand. Over time I think my motivations have moved more from motivation 2 (lets call it the Nosy Norman phenomenon) towards motivation 1 (the Welcoming Wilma that I think should live within all Consular Officers).

When I was a child, Nosy Norman was definitely a huge part of my personality. My first best friend was Indian-American, and Nosy Norman manifested in my constant questioning of his culture, the history of his parents, and what the lyrical words of Gujarati that he would reel off to his parents meant. Were they talking about me right in front of my face? Turns out, generally no, people mostly talk about the same things from day to day, regardless of language. Gossip yes, but usually what my friend's mom was telling him was that he needed to do his homework or what they were going to have for dinner that night. Nosy Norman's interest was constantly being evoked, however, when my friend would tell stories of how boring it was to go to the Hindu storytime sessions that his father would hold for the local Indian expatriate/immigrant community. I had to be careful not to let Jealous Jimmy take Nosy Norman to the extremes, even though I would have this irrational moment of anger that basically said "how DARE you not recognize how awesome and unique this cultural experience is in our really, really white bland little mountain town, and why don't I have an awesome immigrant father who can tell me stories from the old country?!?!?"

Throughout U.S. history, immigrants have had to strike that balance between integrating into/adopting the dominant culture and maintaining their individual ties to and cultural memory of the "old country." In my case, I think that my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents consciously made the decision to minimize their Italian and German heritage, probably as a result of World War I and II. So by the time I was growing up, my "immigrant" experience was limited to half-remembered stories and a fondness for Pasta Fagioli. All that is to say that I'm happy that we're not really living in pre-1960s America, where the goal for many families seems to have been "be the blandest, meat and potatoes, Cleaver family that you can possibly be." Over-generalization, I know, but I do feel glad that we're living in an age where being different or having a different set of cultural touchstones is celebrated, rather than condemned.

And so we turn to Welcoming Wilma, who I hope will become a larger and larger part of my personality as I move forward in my career. Oh I'll still continue to have that secret thrill when I overhear someone speaking in X language that I know and I can smile to myself and think "I KNOW what you're saying!" But even if I'm serving in a place where I don't have a clue what people are saying (entirely possible in my line of work) it's still going to tug at my heart each time I'm able to say, with full sincerity, "congratulations, your visa has been approved. Welcome to America." Although I know that not every consular officer feels the same, almost every one that I've met has had a heartwarming story about reuniting families or approving that one visa that they knew would make a difference in people's lives. Especially if I'm going to make this a long-term career, I hope that Welcoming Wilma will stick around for the duration. I know that an open attitude is what makes this a career worth having. 

La Ultima Ves

The last month is always the worst. When the time draws near to leaving a place that I've lived for an extended period of time, there's a couple of warring instincts that alway arise within me. First, there's the strong sense of denial; the feeling that there's no reason to rush and that inertia will carry us through the end.  There's also that ambivalent feeling on whether to invest time and energy on new friends, new experiences, and new plans in the current place. And then there's the temptation to start saying goodbye.

I had planned on delaying the farewells to people until the last possible moment. But really, what is the last possible moment when you only see some people once a month or less. How does one say to a friend, a tailor, a shopkeeper, a favorite waiter at a restaurant: I'm leaving, and I don't know if I will ever see you again. So this will be the month of farewells. I will be constantly wondering if this will be the last time that I eat at my favorite burrito stand or see a movie at the VIP theater.  

Though I haven't scheduled my pack-out yet, I'm already planning my last weeks here. Going to see a few last baseball games since they only cost 50 pesos. Planning a trip to go see those New Mexico wineries that people always said I should go to. And I have to go the tailor to get my suits ready for training. There are last minute souvenirs to get, and farewell dinners to plan. 

This is the career we've chosen. Every two or three years we're going to be leaving a new place. There's no getting around the summers of goodbyes. But for every goodbye, there's a hello. For that, I am thankful. And hopefully, some of those goodbyes are going to be hasta la proxima ves, not adios.

Nuevas Fronteras

What with the run up to training, winding down activities here in Juarez, and making some last minute trips in the area that I won't get to do over the next year, it's been pretty busy here in casa bonita land. But in the spare moments that I've had to think about the Impending Crazy Life Changes of Doom (tm),  I'm realizing that I'm really, really excited.

There are things I'm not going to enjoy. Though the spouse and I've been apart before in our relationship, for extended periods of time even, I am NOT looking forward to the prospects of being apart for up to a year (and up to three years if we get sent to different posts).  The department will try to place us together, but it makes no guarantees and most tandem couples end up spending at least some of their careers apart. 

I'm also not looking forward to wearing a formal suit to work every day for six weeks in the humid D.C. summer. 90-100 degree heat with 90 per cent humidity is not the time to be wearing a three piece suit. And yet, that's what they make you do in training, at least until you get an assignment and start long term language training,  where the dress code is a bit more relaxed. 

But I am excited for returning to D.C., a great city that I've already lived in a couple of times. I'm happy that I'll be living in a new neighborhood, and that I'll be able to get back to a city where I can walk and bike around safely. And D.C. is pretty close to many of my family and friends.

I'm really looking forward to meeting my classmates in person for the first time. Already I'm impressed by the few that I've met online. They have such amazing resumes and a real diversity of backgrounds.

But the day I'm most excited for will come about five weeks into training. The day every FSO remembers like it was yesterday. I'm talking about flag day.

Every officer has bidding stories and could-have beens about where they wanted to go or actually went on this tour or that. But the first time is different. The first time, the training coordinators gather together all of the new officers in a room and call them up, one by one, to announce where in the world they will be going. The officers know the list of potential positions,  but there are always surprises. And the way that the announcement happens is by the coordinators handing each officer the flag of their destination. Thus flag day. Every officer I know has preserved the flag of their first post for posterity. And while I couldn't have been prouder of the spouse last time when they called her name and presented a flag of Mexico, this time it'll be my name that they call. 

To me that flag represents the security of knowing where I'll be going. And the knowledge of whether the two of us will be together for our next tours or not. But most importantly, that flag means the ability to plan ahead, something that's rare in the Foreign Service.

I can't wait.

Stories That are Mine to Tell

Joining the Foreign Service, or really any government position, occasionally feels like joining a really exclusive club. One where you occasionally get to do REALLY COOL THINGS, usually do very mundane things, and sometimes have to do not so great things because the law says so. But the reason that I call it an exclusive club is that even though we are doing the public's work, there's so much of what we do that we can't talk about in public. Things like the privacy act, HIPAA, classified stuff (usually not as "secret" as it sounds), and operations security make it difficult for us to talk about our jobs, whether we process claims for Medicare, or research cures for cancer, or negotiate labor deals, or find ourselves abroad interviewing people for visas to go to the U.S. This leads to a couple of interesting consequences. One: because we're often prohibited from broadcasting what we do at work without going through the "proper" channels, we tend to blog more about our personal lives, feelings, travels, etc.  Which, combined with the clearances for dissemination to the public being so slow leads to number 2: The public really, really doesn't get what we do.

Theoretically, it's really easy for people to put themselves in the shoes of one type of public worker, a soldier.  I don't want to get into how frequently off the media's depiction of what the modern military actually does, but suffice it to say that every American has had a pretty well-rounded exposure to what the military does, good and bad, through education curriculums (particularly history), movies and TV, publicity campaigns by the military branches themselves ("be all you can be" or your local military recruiter), and personal interactions. But other government branches don't always have the positive press nor the universal exposure that the military has. And it shows. 

 In modern times this has lead to an almost constant assault on public workers, at all levels. You don't have to look very far to see it, from the demonization of teacher's unions to the sequester. And so much of it is because politicians, in there infinite wisdom, choose to rabble-rouse rather than take a principled stand to support the good work that public servants do. Us in the bureaucracy, we make this very very easy, by becoming insular and taking the easy way out. Rather than tell our stories we stay silent, because it's to difficult to find the stories that are the stories that strike the balance between political and private. We don't take the time to distill the stories until they are general enough that they can become public. And because we are public servants, we try to stay out of those political battles (even though we definitely have an opinion).   So the public at large never hears the stories on the front lines of the immigration debate from the point of view of the consular officers making those life-changing decisions, because that would infringe upon privacy rights and put us in an advocacy role. Nor, unless we resign, does the public hear the rigorous debates about U.S. Foreign Policy as it applies to country X or Y that occur behind closed doors. 

Upon taking office every person who works for the government takes the following oath:

"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter."

To me this means that I will always do my best to serve the people of the United States. And I will try to do the work that they are paying me to do with their best interests in mind. In the meantime I will seek out the stories that are mine to tell.

Albu-quirky

One thing that the spouse and I had a major hard time when we first came here is getting out of the bubble of America that the consulate community provides here in Juarez. It's only going to be natural to  invite people in a similar situation out for dinner or a drink after work. And that could, in turn, stretch to  an activity for the rest of the evening (watching movies, starting a group based on a 8 year old Korean drama, crossfit, etc.).  And all that hanging out with your coworkers and their families sometimes leads to a feeling of being trapped under the weight of office gossip and shop talk. There's only so many times one can discuss how immigration reform may or may not affect our jobs, and at this point we've pretty much exhausted all but the most extreme visa interview stories. So about two or three months after arriving here, the spouse and I made a pact to devote a portion of our salary specifically to get us out of the area and satisfy our itch to travel (a small part of why we joined the Foreign Service to begin with).

With the security situation being what it is, we're pretty limited in where we can go in Mexico. Basically, if we want to go anywhere outside of Juarez, we have to fly. But wait, you say, isn't El Paso right across the border? So in theory shouldn't you have flights to both countries and endless possibilities? Two cities mean twice the fun, right!? Survey says: not so much. If El Paso and Juarez could merge their populations and fully integrate their economies (more than they already are) perhaps there could be one large airport that could serve as a hub for both countries and drive down flight costs. In reality, each city is an isolated outpost pretty much in the middle of nowhere in both countries. So flight options are limited and much, much more expensive than we thought before coming here. As a consequence of this we've tended to alternate our flying adventures with more targeted driving long weekends to various parts of the Southwestern U.S. But we typically wait for long weekends as, once again, El Paso is REALLY isolated. For instance, the nearest town of any size outside of the Juarez/El Paso/Las Cruces, NM area is Albuquerque - more than 5 hours of driving away. Coming from the East Coast, where one could drive from DC to NY in less than 4 hours (and hit Baltimore and Philadelphia, not to mention numerous beaches, our friends and family in NJ, and issue-specific locations like Atlantic City on the way), this isolation is a bit disheartening. 

Side note, this issue may veer into a special sub-category of problems that the spouse and I label "diplomat problems." Little things that make us un-empathetic that crop up in conversations, because the only people that understand are the people who work with us. "Problems" like  "oh the maid that I'm paying to clean my government-provided house that is too big for me to clean by myself is drinking all of my orange juice" or "the waiters at the VIP movie theater that most people here can't afford take SOOO long to bring my drinks to my lazy-boy during the movie (that I'm seeing before people in the U.S. because international releases!)." In a way, the spouse and I feel a bit chagrined to complain about our lives here. Many are not as blessed as we are. We can afford to get out of town once a month. We can hire a maid to clean our free house (which is why we can afford to do these things...) that is realistically too big for us to maintain, not in a location we would choose on our own, and completely not in keeping with our pre-Foreign Service lifestyle. Et cetera, et cetera. 

But even though these problems are not the same as those that people living paycheck to paycheck have, they still have a real effect on our mental health. And so, to stay sane, the spouse and I go on vacations where we can experience things that we really, really can't in the CJ/El Paso area. Things like walkable city streets, museums, humidity, shopping (really, we once drove 3 hours out of our way while on a trip to Tucson to go to the Ikea in Tempe), mass transportation, biking, and so forth. So spouse and I headed to Albuquerque last weekend to celebrate Mexican Mother's Day (a friday holiday here) by walking around the town, going suit shopping for the upcoming A-100, going to museums, and generally celebrating the fact that we were not in Juarez. Highlights of the trip included seeing the Adam West Batmobile, walking to brunch(es), and  reading about the history of dinosaurs, computers, and El Camino Real (which sounds like the Casino Royal... but is NOT). Also, attending/mocking the concert of a one-woman synthesizer hipster "band" with swaying scowling apathetic hipsters who were pretending to hate the Enya and Radiohead monstrosity of "music" being produced but in reality loving every second of it. Albuquerque is unashamedly quirky, and for that we love it.  

Dia de La Madre

With my head already in DC, it's sometimes easy to forget that I'm still working here in Juarez. Since spring and late fall are the two times of the year when the climate is somewhat forgiving here, there's all kinds of events popping up. More, in fact, than my spouse and I can commit to going to. 

For example, this weekend restaurants all across Juarez will be jam-packed with tons of Juarenses taking their mother's out to brunch to celebrate Mothers' Day. It's a big deal here, big enough to merit a three day weekend starting Friday. Neighborhoods will be taking up a collection to hold picnics and raffles in honor of Las Madres, special deals on everything from furniture to movies, etc. etc. According to my Mexican coworkers, it's more subdued here in culturally mixed Juarez (most of the population look to the U.S. as much as Mexico culturally and economically). In states south of here like Durango, entire cities and small towns shut down as mothers march in a parade/procession. 

We're not really going to be observing the madness this year, as we'll be taking the opportunity presented to us by a three day weekend to head to the good ole U.S. of A. It's just starting to sink in that we're going to be apart for a variable amount of time that could last up to three years, so spouse and me are making a joint effort to spend as much time as we can exploring more places (or in some case, places that we've already been to but would like to see more of). Plus we've found that in order for us to stay sane, we need to get out of chaotic, in-the-bubble CJ about once a month. It allows us to go to tranquil places where you can walk outside without fear of getting shot or, more likely, getting run over. And we get to placate one of the urges that prompted us to join the foreign service, the need to explore new places, to seek out new places, to boldly go where no man or woman in our families has gone before. 

So Happy Mothers' Day to all the ladies out there. We'll be celebrating, in our own way.

New Beginnings

It seems cliche to say that no one really knows where the world will take them. But in my case, this saying is absolutely true. I've decided to start this blog to talk about my life, my travels, and my thoughts.  I'm beginning writing at a time of transition. I've been trying for 9 years to join the U.S. Foreign Service, and today is the day that I finally got the offer to join an orientation class. Oh internets!  I cannot promise you that I will always be able to tell you what I'm doing or be entirely frank about how much I hate/love X about the people in Y country, as the State Department is pretty strict about these sorts of things, but I will try to make this blog something worth reading.

I think I'll probably end up writing some retrospective posts introducing myself over the next little while, but the short story is this: I'm in my late 20s, currently working at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico... one of the most dangerous cities in the world, right across the border from El Paso, Texas... one of the "safest" cities in the U.S. I'm here because my spouse is also a diplomat serving a tour here to fulfill the State Department's requirement that an entry-level officer work for a time doing visa/consular work. Before coming here I worked in D.C. at the State Department and the Department of Labor. Before joining the Foreign Service, I developed budgets, catalogued letters from Saul Bellow's mistresses, audited and paid millions of dollars of freight bills weekly for a major tech company, researched the development of democracy in colonial possessions, learned Ottoman (a dead language), fell in love with transportation planning, and married the love of my life, who I met while studying abroad in Morocco. And more. 

And so, I'm happy to finally put this disclaimer on my blog and join the growing ranks of FSO (Foreign Service Officer) bloggers. May I not disappear:

The views expressed in this blog are those of the authors and not those of the U.S. government of any agency or department of that government.