the slow move east

A House Full of Happy

2011-12-31T14:09:00.002+02:00

My sister Julie's visiting, Eric got home two days ago from the States, and life is, in general, pretty wonderful. 2011 has been good to me! Happy new year, everyone!

Where Did I Come From?

2011-12-11T09:44:00.000+02:00

It's not a metaphysical question - it's one I'm faced with every time I double down in the kitchen to cook dinner for me and a group of friends. My mother, who it must be said is an excellent cook herself, nonetheless absolutely hates any activity reminiscent of cooking. When my childhood home was being renovated, she tried to convince my father to turn the kitchen into a library (it had great south-facing windows and got lots of light) and to put a small wet bar at the end of our den. "What more do we need," she asked. "Mini-fridge, microwave, and a small freezer. That's perfect!" Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of practice cooking when I was growing up. Moving to a boarding school at age 16 just compounded the matter - four years in a dorm, followed by two years as a broke-ass, stressed-out grad student did not do wonders for my cooking skills. And in Saudi, I was too tired at the end of the day to make myself dinner - after three months of eating once a day in the embassy cafeteria and consequently losing 30 pounds, I finally paid someone to cook me a week's worth of meals every Monday so that I wouldn't starve (further).

So my mom and the rest of my family view my recently acquired interest in cooking with confusion and no small amount of suspicion. I'm not sure what caused it - perhaps the realization that Indian food is nearly impossible to find in Istanbul, perhaps finding plentiful and cheap produce right outside my door. Maybe it was an attempt to impress Eric, or maybe I was trying to channel my aunt Gail and keep the baking traditions alive. Whatever the cause, I like being able to make something that people want seconds and thirds of. I find some small bit of zen satisfaction in slicing up onions and ginger and tomatoes after a stressful day at work. I've gotten to the point where I don't always feel hidebound by recipes: I add spices that I think will go well with something, or I fiddle with the amounts listed to suit my tastes. I'm not quite ready to create my own recipes, and I still need a few friends to whom I can direct all cooking questions. (Aside: one should always have a friend who is willing to look over the recipes you find and tell you how to improve them. Recipes in magazines can always be improved by someone with a master's touch.) But last night, I posted my first recipe onto a website affiliated with a community website I use, and having noticed a sad lack of Arab and Turkish dishes on there, I think I can tell what my contribution to the site will be.

At the end of the day, no matter how much I confuse my family, I've noticed that they ask for seconds when I cook dinner for them. That's a compliment I'll take to heart!

Home Alone

2011-12-09T23:55:00.001+02:00

Eric's back in the States for a few weeks visiting his family. This will be the longest I've gone without seeing him since March, when I went on R&R. I have a friend staying with me this week, but he's out dancing, and I'm at home because I'm still fighting off strep throat.

So I spent the evening catching up on Google Reader (apparently I've read 1800+ items in the last 24 hours), contemplating Christmas presents for friends (Turkish coffee and spices, I think), and reading (Hunger Games trilogy, again). It's eerily quiet in this house - even the cats are passed out asleep.

What to do with my three weeks of empty nesting?

From the Halls of Montezuma...

2011-11-16T18:32:00.000+02:00

...to the shores of Tripoli, my next assignment! I'll sing extra loud at the Marine Ball this weekend.

The Call You Never Want To Receive

2011-10-24T11:16:00.000+03:00

"There's been an earthquake," my Adana colleague told me. We'd just spent a weekend in Diyarbakir celebrating the reconsecration of a large Armenian church in the heart of the old city. Eric and I had said goodbye to our colleagues and friends, and we planned to stay a few hours later to explore the heart of old Diyarbakir, huddled inside massive, grim basalt walls. We were debating which city gate we'd just passed when my phone rang.

Initially reported as 6.6-7.2 in size, the quake struck twenty miles from the Van city center, which I visited a year ago and which I was planning to visit again with Eric in the next few months. My heart froze when I heard the news - not two hours before I'd said goodbye to a large group of tourists who were travelling by bus to Van.

I'd had dinner with them the night before, telling stories over raki and the dry local wines. One person insisted that I learn Kurdish, offering to have his cousin in Istanbul teach me. Another spoke jouyously about visiting his grandparents' village near Van, the first person in his family to come to Turkey in nearly 100 years. We talked about the future, the past, and what those words mean in Turkey. We parted as old friends, promising to share photos from the weekend with each other and to meet up in Istanbul soon. And now this.

Luckily for them, the bus got nowhere near the earthquake zone. However, as I write this, the overnight death toll in Van topped 200, with many more expected. Buildings in the center of town have collapsed, including probably the hotel where I stayed a year ago. I wonder about the hotel owner, a cheerful man who took me and my colleagues on a guided hike of the Van castle, charming the guards into letting us in to the places that were closed to the public.

Tragedy can strike anywhere, and it's a tragedy whenever a life is lost. I grieve for the city of Van and its neighbors, who lost so many and so much yesterday.

Worst Mother Ever

2011-09-12T22:52:00.002+03:00

I just ran my kitten (by accident!!) through the dishwasher for 90 seconds.

Motherhood privileges: revoked.

Updated Reading List

2011-06-09T21:46:00.003+03:00

456 FS-y blogs, in various states of update and State membership.

I Am Terrified of Bidding

2011-06-09T19:33:00.001+03:00

I'm still months away from the opening of bidding season, but I. Am. Terrified.

TERRIFIED.

I've looked through the Middle East bureau's projected vacancies for the next five years and convinced myself that I qualify for none of them, unless I want to do visa work in Dhahran (again) or manage the motor pool in Sanaa. Not gonna lie, y'all, neither of those positions or countries are any place to which I ever want to return. The awesome jobs I dreamed about in Beirut, Damascus, and Dubai? They don't appear to be open until sometime in 2014.

Let's leave aside even the positions: for my third tour, I have to lobby for assignments. It was so much easier when I gave some faceless bureaucrats a list of my top twenty choices and they picked for me. How in the hell am I going to convince a bunch of faceless bureaucrats to love me enough not to send me to Ethniklashistan? And even if I do get to Ethniklashistan, I will have to get there either 5 months before my tour in Istanbul ends or in three years - there doesn't appear to be anything available in between those arrival times.

I'm not the only one panicking. This week I've walked up to four colleagues' desks and caught them all looking at FS Bid (the bidding "tool" through which we allegedly are able to find gainful employment) or printouts of available positions. I've gotten emails from a billion people who evidently think they have enough wasta to get a post in Istanbul... meanwhile, I'm counting my chits and hoping enough people tolerate me that I can get to Khartoum and not Juba, or Monterrey instead of Juarez.

Oh dear god. I am so scared - and the bid list doesn't even officially come out for another two months.

Oh Dear God, I Am So Sorry

2011-06-04T14:26:00.001+03:00

I have a few things about which I'm quirkily passionate. Offering advice and information to people considering joining the Foreign Service is one of them. I correspond with a bunch of current and former students at my university to talk about working at State, and I'm happy to see that a number of them are interning with State now or taking the Foreign Service Officer Test, the computerized exam that replaced the written test I took in 2006. I also oversee offering the FSOT here in Istanbul - February was the first time it's been offered here since the new test was rolled out, and this month we have 14 people taking the exam here in three separate testing windows. However, I'm sitting at home biting my nails today, because Eric (the aforementioned MOH) is taking the exam today. It doesn't really look good for me to proctor the exam that my official, 3 FAM sanctioned partner is taking, y'know?

Evidently there's been a complete technological freakout on the part of the online testing system. My friends who are proctoring (benevolent, generous souls that they are) have been sending me panicky texts and emails for two hours about the problems that Istanbul and evidently a few other posts have experienced today. Apparently they just got things going, but I feel so bad for Eric and the other people testing today! What a nightmare of a start to a rather weighty exam.

Eric mentioned that he wanted to go out for a beer with the test-takers afterwards, because he'd done that with his fellow examinees in Berlin last summer and thought it was a good experience. I kind of want to buy them all a round or two of drinks after this.

Update, 5 June: I did take them out for a round of beer after the exam, and I ended up bringing a kitten home from the bar in my purse. One way or the other, we won't forget this FSOT experience!

How to Be Romantic at State

2011-06-02T21:50:00.002+03:00

Hey guys, how's it been? It's been like a month, yeah? I could offer lame reasons for why I haven't written, but who cares, right? Excuses are like noses... we all have them, and they all smell. (Do you see how cleverly I made that G-rated?)

So how about some good news, eh? Throughout the course of recent months, it's become more and more apparent that Eric and I get along well. So well, in fact, that his roommate Serdar didn't see him for a few weeks at a time. And this summer, Eric is interning at the Consulate, which is A) far closer to where I live than where he lives and B) easy to reach if he commutes with me every day. In the interest of full disclosure, Eric applied for this internship before I ever met him, and he was selected as an intern before anyone in that section knew we were dating. Also, he's not in my section. Enough caveats? Probably not, because with the advent of Eric sort of staying here permanently (toothbrush, suits, and all the books for his thesis are in this apartment), I started to feel a little panicky. Like any good bureaucrat, I realized that I hadn't filed enough paperwork to make his almost-living-with-me status legit.

I'd like to say that I did something really romantic here, but I just emailed Eric from work and asked, "Wanna be my MOH?" Now, for people in State, that's your cue to say, "Awwwww!" For the rest of you sane people out there, let me offer you the definition of an MOH as laid out in the Foreign Affairs Manual (exact citation 3 FAM 7121):

Member of household (MOH): An individual who accompanies a sponsoring employee, i.e., a direct-hire Foreign Service, Civil Service, or uniformed service member who is permanently assigned to or stationed abroad at a U.S. mission, or at an office of the American Institute in Taiwan, and who is under chief of mission authority. An MOH is:

(1) Not an EFM; and
(2) Not on the travel orders or approved Form OF-126, Foreign Service Residence and Dependency Report, of the sponsoring employee; and
(3) Officially declared by the sponsoring U.S. Government employee to the COM as part of his or her household.

An MOH may be a parent, unmarried partner, or other relative or adult child who falls outside the Department’s current definition of eligible family member. An MOH may or may not be a U.S. citizen.

The memo's been filed through security, management, and protocol in Istanbul and Ankara, and the Ambassador signed off on it today. So there you have it: Eric's officially an acronym!

Hey Y'all, It's Round Up Tiiiiime!

2011-05-07T12:03:00.000+03:00

I've been a grump this week - snappish at work due to short staffing and lots of visits, one minor crying fit over trying to find work-appropriate clothing in Turkey, and stress from worrying about family in the States. I started a number of blog posts, but just couldn't finish them - when I'm in a bad mood, it affects my writing, and I try not to bum others out unnecessarily. (I offer my apologies to the Turkey Desk, who's had to suffer through my doom-and-gloom cables of late.) So last night, when I came home to find Eric greeting me at the door with a fresh smoothie and several episodes of Arrested Development queued up, happy time took precedence over the Round Up. My apologies!!

I'm pretty sure all of the Flag Day announcements from 29 April were too late to make it in last week's Round Up, so let me say congratulations to everyone on their posts! Alex at Travel Orders has an awesome retrospective on Flag Day posts over the last several months, which I think is awesome - I'll mine it for unknown blogs later today.

The biggest news of the last 7 days, of course, is the announcement of Usama bin Laden's death. I'm considering writing my own "where were you when..." post about it - but then again, I may not. I have my own experiences to share, but I find Dani's account at Hot Pot to be the most moving of the FS accounts I've read, though TSB's post hits on the mood of a lot of the other responses.

KNG mentions an interesting phenomenon for a certain segment of us: the SXF (single x female) on the dating market. I remember in my A-100 all of us unmarried women crowding around one of our course coordinators at the Woods who'd told us that she was also single when she joined State. I think we all lived in fear of not finding The One because of our overseas adventures - though 3.5 years in, we seem to be doing pretty well for ourselves. What have other people's adventures in overseas relationships been like? Diplopundit highlights the experience of Ambassador Ranneberger in Kenya - so sweet!

A few sights and experiences from those of us at post - Adrian explains parking in Wellington, Erin finally comes to terms with being pastey white (from one melanin-free person to another, high five!!), and Pryor Adventures celebrates a new-found attitude of relaxation with a Laotian beer. The Ogles get their Easter on in Recife with massive chocolate eggs and a visit to a beautiful basilica nearby, while Sara and family enjoy a relaxed Easter week in Costa Rica.

Special thanks to my friend Emily, who keeps me up-to-date when new blogs come onto the FS screen. Check back here later for an updated Google Reader feed.

That's it for this week, folks! It's a sunny day in Istanbul, for the first time in ten days. Come to think of it, that might be part of the reason why I've been such a grump of late. I think I'm going to grab my camera and head out into the springtime sun. Have a great weekend!

The Start of Tourist Season, Plus Other Housekeeping Notes

2011-04-24T20:52:00.000+03:00

Happy Paskalya, Pesach, Mevlid, and Armenian Remembrance Day - lucky me, all of them overlap this year, which makes Mission Turkey's religious issues reporting officer a wee bit busy.

My mother and friend Katelyn came to visit me for two weeks earlier in the month (after postponing her planned trip in November), which was amazing. Some members of our extended family have been having health issues for the last few months, so the fact that my mother was able to leave for two weeks of vacation was a minor miracle in and of itself. I took a week off work and played the role of a tourist with them for a few days - it was a lot of fun to see things that I'd been waiting to visit until she came to town.

Right now Jess, one of my dear friends from Riyadh, is visiting me with some of her friends from high school. Jess currently works at our embassy in Cyprus, which means that she can't fly directly from Nicosia to Turkey - hence why we haven't seen each other that much in the last year, despite the fact that our posts are geographically very close to each other.

After Jess leaves on Thursday, I've got more guests coming throughout the month of May to stay with me, including (gulp) Eric's parents. I can definitely tell that high tourism season has begun! (So much that the person who manages our housing pool at the Consulate sent me a very polite email asking why my apartment's utility usage is so much higher than the building average. It turns out if you have four to five people staying in an apartment that normally only has one resident you use more electricity and water. Who knew?)

Thanks to you all who've sent me blog links to be included in the blog bundle - updated here, with a new total of 408. Theresa at subjectverbobject wins the prize for being the 400th blog to go on the list. Hurrah for you! (Even if I do prefer VSO languages.)

More posting to follow this week - lots of photos and stories to share, including seeing dolphins in the Sea of Marmara, diabetes-inducing pictures of me and Eric, and the various Easter ceremonies I've attended in the last few days as part of my job responsibilities. But right now, Beej and I are enjoying a quiet moment between cable drafting and cooking dinner. Priorities, people - a snuggly kitty is always more important than the internet! (Unless he's amusingly captioned.)

Happy Birthday to Me! (ish)

2011-04-02T21:47:00.000+03:00

Last 27 March, I took my blog public for the first time. And I just noticed, this is my 200th post since I started the blog in 2007, right after I got the call to join the 136th A-100.

Sorry for the radio silence since I've returned - and yes, I did get my bags back from United, finally. I won't go into the details, but Turkish politics have gotten a bit interesting of late... which has kept me busy at work. But the best news... my mom and my best friend Katelyn are coming to see me next week!!! Trees and flowers are just starting to bloom now, so I'm hoping it will be pretty for their arrival. (And, more importantly, not cold and rainy like today.)

Back in Turkey

2011-03-21T00:03:00.000+02:00

Hey United Airlines - you suck. Thanks for not knowing where my luggage is AFTER you screwed me out of $200.

FS Blog Roundup - Hey, It's Almost Spring!

2011-03-19T06:49:00.002+02:00

Welcome back to the FS blog roundup! This week's edition is free-style (no set theme for posting), which is good, because if I had to pick a theme after the fact, I'd say "disaster" would be the overriding sentiment from the field. It's been a rough week everywhere - so let's start our weekend off with a collective "oy vey" and hope for improvements next week.

First up! Requests from the peanut gallery. 3rdculturechildren offers us a view of Carnaval in Recife, Brazil. Stephanie offers us some cute and not-so-cute bugs, and Nomads by Nature has her own set of bug problems. The Ogles are frankly having too much fun on the beach in Brazil, making me long for the official end of winter this weekend. Sadie's missing lacrosse in Saudi, Spectrummy Mummy's a daring escape artist, Shannon needs a vacation STAT, Ed describes the growing pains of a village becoming a city, and Connie has a very colorful St. Patty's Day celebration with her family! (Her Guinness bread recipe is here.)

Now, those are all fine and well... but having had the first time in months to read through ALL of my accumulated posts, I want to highlight some of the other things I've read while I've been on sweet, glorious, relaxing vacation for the last two weeks.

Heeeyy, we just had a flag day and a new A-100 class starting! Diplochick is, I suspect, working on her routine for the Follies. Caitlin's cat has predicted a first assignment in Africa, and the Maguires are going to Lesotho for their first assignment. Going Global has the bad news that there will be no May A-100 class. The Career Diplomat has that moment of realization about the mystique of a black passport. The Traveling Texan has BIG news... Mrs. Texan just became an American citizen! Cheers and applause to her, y'all.

A few community notices - State's opened up hiring for OMS positions, and the FLO's unaccompanied tour support blog Foggy Bottom Rambles is having a get-together next Thursday - click through for the full story. Foreign Obsession would like you to know the appropriate way to wear hose to work. And Short Term Memory is giving away a gift card for best caption - entries due by the 22nd! In case you missed the cable, Diplopundit has covered the FSN of the year awards for 2010. The global winner, no surprise, was a woman who helped keep Port-au-Prince's consular operations going after the earthquake. Do note, however, that one FSN's name could not be revealed for safety considerations. Think about that for a minute - this is one of the best employees we have in the world, quite literally, and we can't reveal his or her name for fear of reprisals against the nominee.

There's a lot of stuff going on in Washington involving us, and there's no shortage of posts about it. The Crab Family notes that we aren't getting enough training, and Dead Men Working and Diplopundit both have good run-downs of PJ Crowley's departure earlier in the week. Moving overseas, Nomads by Nature summarizes what we do in times of crisis... such as Bahrain, from which Here, There, and Everywhere has just departed. (And because it's my blog, I'll put in another plug for my own post about Bahrain.) Life in the Land of the Long White Cloud writes movingly about the memorial service in Christchurch for the victims of the February earthquake, and Diplopundit covers the departure of official Americans in Japan as well as the ongoing nuclear crisis. While they don't count as crises per se (one hopes), we're also kept busy overseas by VIP visits, such as the Guatemala Holla's recounting of the Ambassador's experience with Mt. Dew in the field, or Elise and Paul's preparations for POTUS!

After the last few weeks we've had, we need a mental break. We should remind ourselves to have fun, to go to silly concerts like Aaron and TJ did (sorry, guys - I exercise editorial control here!), to revel in the spring air by cavorting over Roman ruins like Donna & Co did, to research grimy younger brothers like the Hawkes Family is doing, and finally, we should never forget to draw out a diagram detailing all of the ways we will NOT become the ambassador, like Diplochick has helpfully done. I'm posting the tag line from this on my desk: "Face it honey, you'll never be an ambassador."

That's it for this week! Connie's hosting next week, and you can sign up for your own hosting shift here. Have a good weekend, everyone!

PS: Ack, how could I forget! First, here's an updated RSS feed for you all - 398 blogs so far, with a prize of some pocket lint and a hug to whoever is the 400th blog I find. And more importantly, my girl Rebecca just passed the FS oral exams! If you heard someone shrieking in Chinatown, DC last week... yeah that was me. What can I say... I'm proud for her!

In the Full Light of History

2011-03-16T08:30:00.002+02:00

To borrow a phrase - this post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern. All impressions are my own, and all information is from publicly available sources of information - namely Twitter.

I'd intended to write a piece about immersing myself in the still-relevant history of World War I and how the book I'm reading has changed the way I look at my job and the world where I work. I'm sure I'll write about that soon, but tonight, as the late night shows come to a close in Arkansas (local time: 0045), the sun is rising in the Gulf, and something is happening in Bahrain. I am watching the updates flow through my Twitter feed, and as the morning advances in Manama, the rhetoric is ramping up.

A typical tweet - baderkamal URGENT: #Lulu is being confronted with army. Shots fired. Phone lines disrupted. Or another - khokhz Fire in the pearl #Bahrain #Feb14 #Lulu #HELP http://twitpic.com/49xfo0.

Of course I have no way to evaluate the accuracy of these URGENT messages requesting #HELP in Lulu (Pearl) Roundabout, but this shakes me in a way that the unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and the many other restive countries in the region haven't. I know this roundabout, and I know the neighborhoods and districts in Manama that are reportedly the sites of conflict now.

AJEnglish Bahrain forces in drive against protesters: Tear gas fired as security forces attempt to disperse protesters fro... http://aje.me/eevt65

For a year, Bahrain was my monthly moment of sanity, the place to which I could escape for a breath of normalcy with friends. I know the expat bars, the hotels, the quiet restaurants in leafy neighborhoods beside royal compounds. I also know the poorer villages with unpaved streets and spotty electricity outside of Manama, only twenty kilometers and a world away from the flashy financial district. Like everyone else in Manama, I dodged the packs of weekending Saudi and Kuwaiti youth who'd come to let their hair down for a weekend of relative freedom on Exhibitions Avenue (take the name to mean what you will). And like every other expat in the Gulf, I watched the Bahraini Parliament's repeated attempts to ban alcohol sales with trepidation, not wanting my nearest draft beer to be somewhere in southern Turkey.

qassoom JUST SAW MILITARY CHOPPERS FROM MY WINDOW ROOM FIRING ON THE GROUND #BAHRAIN

Did I contribute to the building social problems in Bahrain? Did I just enjoy the respite while I could get it, and not ask uncomfortable questions about the source of this relaxing atmosphere? One anecdote sticks with me: I spent one weekend with a friend from grad school who was living in Bahrain at the time - we'd moved to the Gulf at the same time. We took a taxi to dinner on the other side of town, and while we were riding, we were talking about the demographics of Bahrain - total population of citizens and expatriates, nationalities of expats, sectarian/ethnic breakdown of the citizen population. When we got to our restaurant, our taxi driver refused to take payment, because he said in shaky but clear English that he'd never heard any of his fares show an interest in or knowledge of the people of his country, and he thanked us for caring.

VladDuthiersCNN @JamjoomCNN is on-air live reporting from Manama #Bahrain, on @cnni , at least two dead when troops fired on protesters...

I watched the flight of ben Ali with surprise, and the downfall of Mubarak with absolute shock. The recent events in Libya have broken my heart. But I've never been to those countries - I only learned the names of the key squares and streets of conflict from the al Jazeera English coverage, just like everyone else. But for me, Bahrain is different. I don't pretend to know it perfectly, but it has a special place in my heart: so many of my good memories of happiness with friends and loved ones are there. With every Twitpic I open up, I see another street scene I recognize, another neighborhood I passed through, but now with armored personnel carriers or riot police.

BahrainRights According to Alwasat: two confirmed dead, Jaffar Abdali, 41 year from Karana village & Abdullah Hasan, 23 years, Hamad Town#bahrain #lulu

Whatever is happening in the Arab world, it's happening in the full light of history. I never thought I'd see the day when this sort of mass response would take hold from the Gulf to the Maghreb. I have no idea where this will end up, and I suspect few on the ground do, either. But something big is happening. I can only hope that the price of this change isn't too painful to prevent healing afterwards.

FS Blog Roundup - 18 March

2011-03-12T18:24:00.000+02:00

So it appears I'm hosting next week. I'm overdue for it, as I haven't hosted in ohhhhh about eight months. That means that I haven't hosted with this newfangled blog "theme" system yet - so in the spirit of obstinacy, this week is a free-for-all: if you want your blog featured, send me a comment or an email and let me know. (If you don't know my email address already, you can find a link to it here.)

In the spirit of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, there will be arbitrary points awarded to some posts, and the winner gets to record a duet with me, singing our new national anthem as penned by Gene Weingarten. Warning: I can't sing. At all. It may be to your benefit to lose this battle of arbitrary points.

Good luck, godspeed, and write well!

Home Sweet Home

2011-03-11T21:02:00.001+02:00

Ahhhh. Sweet, sweet vacation.

I spent a week in DC, and despite the highest of hopes, I actually saw very few people there - much of my time was spent vegging out with two of my closest friends or sleeping. (I think I've finally restored my sleep account after a few weeks of hell at the office before I left.) My apologies to those I wanted to see while I was there (if you're at FSI, you're on that list!) - next time, I'll make Arkansas the first leg of my journey, so I'll be rested and restless when I get to Washington!

I got in to Memphis yesterday afternoon after far too much time spent in O'Hare (next time, I should look at my schedule and realize that a five-hour layover is in store), and my parents took me for a late lunch at one of my favorite Memphis restaurants. Traditionally, we've always gone there to eat right after I fly in, so it was good to get my regular BBQ pizza and a Shiner Bock. After we came home, my mom and I spent the evening snuggling with our weenie dogs and watching Laugh-In reruns.

I have made zero plans for my time in Arkansas. My mom and I may go to the horse races, and then again we may not. I brought home a bunch of reading to do for work, and I may ignore it. I do have several things I want to write about for the blog, but then again, it may prove to be too taxing to think about complex things! I am on vacation, after all.

Ahhhhh. Sweet relaxation.

Moments to Remember

2011-02-17T21:17:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow I start eight full days of control officering on two separate visits, both of which have more moving parts and complications than a bureaucracy designed by Rube Goldberg. When I leave for R&R in two weeks, I'll be running right at mental and physical empty. So for the moment, I'm holding on to the best moment of the last few weeks, to keep me going through several long nights at the airport or hours in tour busses.

Last Sunday, on a whim Eric and I packed up a few beers, a bag of chips, and a jar of salsa, and off we went to a park on the sea near his house. We got there just before sunset, and we found a rock by the seawall, right on the edge of the water. We spread out a picnic blanket, huddled in our coats, and watched the sun set over the Princes' Islands, the Sea of Marmara, and the busy ferryboat traffic of Istanbul. As the sun dipped below the water, and the tide started to come in around our feet, we bundled up, picked up our trash (two bottles, two bottle caps, and one cigarette butt), and headed back home.

Best. Date. Ever.

Thanks for the Encouragement, Y'all

2011-02-09T22:54:00.001+02:00

Periodically I like to stroke my ego and look at the audience data Blogger provides for each blog. You know, what posts are read the most, what sites refer the most to this one, and the countries with most readers. (Whoever's in the Northern Mariana Islands must LOVE me, judging by the hit count.) The best, though, is the list of search terms that lead to your site. Most of mine are variants of my name and the title - ["slow move" hannah], [hannah slow move east], ["hannah draper" "move east"], and the like.

Whoever found me by searching ["foreign service" slow career progression] wins a beer from me for your chutzpah. I prefer to think that my career is progressing at exactly the right speed for it, and I'll thank you very much to keep your nose out of how I choose to raise my career! That's a very personal decision.

I Am Not Meant to Live Alone

2011-02-08T20:08:00.001+02:00

In the past three days, I have...

Washed dishes with what I thought was dishwashing detergent but appears to be some sort of industrial sink cleaner (it said "cleaner" in Turkish...)
Shattered a pyrex measuring cup in my kitchen, spraying glass shards across three rooms in the process
Subsequently ground tiny glass pieces into my feet, because there's no way I could sweep up every single one
Burned out the motor on my vacuum cleaner
Managed to create a few new species of bacteria in my fridge (Well, to be fair, I just noticed them in the past few days. Such magnificent creatures as this probably took months to evolve.)
Obtained a nasty bruise or three on my hips/legs, which I have no recollection of obtaining

Damnit. I need a minder.

Bread

2011-01-30T20:57:00.000+02:00

It's been a busy few weeks for me - a lot of stress at work and at home. The countdown is definitely on for my March R&R, which will be the first significant vacation (>3 days) I've taken since I arrived in Turkey. In my mind, going home for a memorial service doesn't count as vacation.

That's been part of my stress recently, thinking about my aunt. I have my mom's home and cell numbers at the top of my Skype phone list, so I rarely need to search through the list to find anyone else. With Eric back in the States for a month, I added another number to my Skype list, and then when I went to find it the first time, the number right below it was "Gail home." It was a hard blow, and I stared at it in shock for a few seconds before I could do anything else. I can't delete it - it's also my uncle's home, after all, and for the first time in my life I've called that line to talk to him. Before I've always talked to him in the process of calling my aunt. Still, I can't bring myself to change the name under which the number is saved. The same goes for her numbers saved in my Turkish and US cell phones - I'm not to the point where I can remove them.

Last week I baked cupcakes for my coworkers, a first for me. (Both baking cupcakes and making something for my office - I'm more the type to buy something pre-made rather than risk a mass poisoning incident.) I ran out of cupcake tins, so I decided to put the rest of the batter into one of the pans I use to bake bread. I haven't used the pans since 2008, when I moved to Riyadh and had to leave my sourdough bread colony behind, although I've dutifully packed and unpacked them in every place I've lived since. When I pulled out the pan to use it, I stared at it for a few moments before collapsing, boo-hooing in the floor.

I had gotten my bread colony from my aunt, who baked two loaves every week for as long as I can remember. When I was in high school and college, living away from my family during my parents' divorce, she would mail me freshly baked loaves so I would have something comforting to munch on while I was crashing on whatever assignment was keeping me up late. Towards the end of college, as things got better, she'd call my roommates and give them a head's up the day that bread was going to arrive, so they could open the box and eat half of it before I got home, knowing that I would never share. (Actually, my mother always did the same thing with her famous oatmeal raisin cookies. I need to reexamine their loyalties.) When I graduated and moved to Washington, my mother spent about $100 to send me a starter jar of my aunt's sourdough bread colony, overnighting it so that it would stay cold and wouldn't go dead in the time it took to arrive. That entire year I was there, I baked my aunt's bread - not every week, but often enough that I had more than enough to share with coworkers, friends, and neighbors. Favorite moment - sharing with Mohammad, the man who takes parking fees at FSI, on a cold December morning.

It never really occurred to me, reaching past my bread pans in my cabinet every day to get a soup pot or my food processor or a skillet, that the pans mean only one thing to me, my aunt Gail. Sitting there in the floor, holding them, brought back all of the memories of opening up a box and finding two oversized loaves of bread and a dirty card - my aunt always had an appropriate (rather, inappropriate) card for every situation. I am so glad I saved all those cards, going back years, through nearly a dozen moves.

We've never been a particularly domestic family - my mother hates cooking, and my aunt wasn't a fan of it either, although both are quite good cooks. We don't have any "family" dishes that we always eat at holidays together, largely because we hate family get togethers. (If it could just be the three of us, it'd be perfect - but there's those pesky others to consider!) My aunt's bread is the only taste I can think of that reminds me of my family. I fixate on the tupperware container in the back of her refrigerator - has anyone thought to feed it since she fell ill? Did it get thrown away? I have her instructions, carefully tucked into my cookbook between my mother's beef stew and mushroom soup recipes, on how to maintain the colony once you have it. I don't know how to start the colony, though. What if I can't find those instructions in her cookbooks when I go home in six weeks? Worse, what if they never existed, if she got a colony from a friend years ago, and I can't recreate it?

Over the past few years I've become a bit more inventive in the kitchen, willing to try new things without a recipe, or to alter a recipe radically to match what I have in the pantry or what strange foreign substitutes I'm able to find. Until now, I've stuck to soups and rice dishes, things that are forgiving with changes in ingredients, spices, ratios. I think that I'm going to start baking, which seems to require a higher level of precision than I'm accustomed to maintaining. It will be hard - both leveling off the measuring cup each time and keeping my tears in check while I think about all the love my aunt sent me with every loaf of bread. In time, though, I hope I'll be able to pull it off with minimal emotional turmoil. Gail would be amused at grief driving me to cook, and tonight, when I was cooking homemade pancakes, I could hear her laughing - good grief, pancakes for dinner? Still, I think she'd approve.

The Joys and Perils of International Birthdays

2011-01-21T22:10:00.000+02:00

Every now and then I'm reminded of just how surreal and wonderful my overseas life is. Eric is currently in the States, so he tried to send flowers to my home for my birthday yesterday. For some reason, no flower site here would take his credit card, so he called his roommate Serder here to place the order himself. No luck - his card wouldn't work, either; apparently the Turkey network was down temporarily. Luckily, Serder has a friend who works somewhere near my apartment building, so the friend was dispatched to find flowers somewhere and deliver them to my building. Did I mention that street addresses aren't really used so much as "big apartment building next to Landmark X," which meant that the friend, apparently, could find neither flowers nor my building yesterday. So as I was getting ready for bed, Eric called to apologize for the fact that, despite a collective effort on three continents, no flowers could be obtained. As far as I was concerned, the story's awesomeness made the day - who cares if they actually arrived after such an amazing endeavor?

The flowers arrived this evening and are currently gracing my dining room table, hiding the ever-present Istanbul winter smell of coal. I am a happy hannah.

(I also brought home several boxes of birthday presents that arrived in today's mail, and almost every box contained salsa, among other delightful things. I am loved!)

Updated Reading List

2011-01-15T16:08:00.000+02:00

I've just added several new sites to my FS blogs bundle for Google Reader. With these additions, that should bring us up to 372 blogs, not all of which are active.

Sad Things That Expats Will Do Overseas

2011-01-03T22:03:00.000+02:00

I don't live a life as "difficult" as most expats in Istanbul. I get my boxes from Amazon in 6-10 days without having to deal with Turkish customs, someone else handles my visa processing for me, and my car was shipped to me with what I suppose is a relatively minor amount of hassle. I live in an awesome country, where fresh fruit and vegetables are cheap and something is always in season. This city is beautiful, and I find something new to love about it every day, it seems. So why in the hell is it so tragic that I can't find any salsa or tortilla chips in this country??

Theoretically I can get chips and regular salsa through the commissary shipment we get every two weeks from Ankara, but the Tostitos supply get bought up within hours, and this girl rolls at a slightly higher class than Pace picante sauce. I've resorted to importing massive quantities of Trader Joe's double-roasted salsa (lovingly shipped one or two bottles a month by my mother, who knows I'd eat them all up in a day if I had them all available - donations accepted!) by APO, and while I've tried the various forms of potato chips on the market here, none of them really make the cut. (Seriously, the flavors are weird. There are entire rows of Ruffles that I don't want to identify.)

I've tried making my own salsa, with tomatoes and peppers and onions and garlic and a few spices. While the result is tasty, it's more like a Lebanese take on pico de gallo than the salsa we all know and love. I've also tried making my own tortilla chips by broiling lavash that I've brushed with olive oil and salt, with mixed results. 1/3 of the time I use too much oil, 1/3 of the time too much salt. Sometimes I use too much of both, and one time in five I forgot the bread's in the oven until it sets off a smoke alarm. When it works, though, it's magical - almost like a taste of home to scoop up my delicious, contraband salsa.

It's a hard life I lead, you know.

Adventures To Be Had If You Visit

2011-01-02T17:11:00.003+02:00

My dear friend and adopted sibling Jon came to Turkey for ten days, spending Christmas and New Year's with me. Jon lives in Finland working on a PhD in physical anthropology, and since direct flights from Helsinki to Istanbul are a hell of a lot cheaper than the circuitous route needed to get back to Arkansas, we decided that we could have more fun here than stranded in the airports of Europe and the Northeast. (Fun fact: Jon flew out on the worst day of travel paralysis in Europe. Two meters of snow in Helsinki, however, is just a brisk breeze, so there were no delays at all. Go Finns!)

We spent Christmas weekend in Antakya and Gaziantep, assisted by Eric's able planning and guidance. We flew in to Antep early on the morning of the 24th and drove a rental car to Antakya, following the backroads that hug the Syrian border. Once we got to Antakya, we explored the Arab-style old city, found its hidden churches, and marvelled at the French colonial buildings. Due to a particularly late night before we flew, we didn't make it to Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter's church, instead sleeping for about 13 hours. Whoops! When we woke up well-rested on Christmas Day, we moved on to the Mediterranean coast about 40 kilometers away, where we visited the only remaining Armenian village in Turkey and hiked through a Roman tunnel at sunset by iPhone light - perhaps not the smartest thing we've ever done, but hey, we're resourceful!

I won't lie, one of the primary reasons we went to Antep was to visit Imam Cagdas, a famous restaurant that may be Eric's favorite place in Turkey. I can't say that I blame him, either; we picked our hotel based on its proximity to the restaurant, and we ate every meal there. Many of the city's attractions were closed on our Sunday in town, but we did get to visit the castle in the center of town, which houses a museum of the city's resistance to British and French forces during Turkey's war of independence. We happened to be in town over the anniversary of the city's liberation in 1922, which meant the museum had an extra-special dose of local hagiography, we'll call it. Still, it was a lot of fun - and Eric and I enjoyed using the museum's exhibits and panels as a lens for explaining modern Turkish history to Jon. (Yes, we're nerds. Leave us alone.)

There are too many stories from Jon's visit and our trip to list here, but let me give you a few ideas.

A tasting menu at one of the city's top restaurants, when we were the only ones there
Wine tastings in the cellar of a Greek restaurant
Initiating hostilities against Syria
Getting thrown out of an Orthodox church - twice
Discussing the geology of terrorism
Explaining the finer points of Turkish fashion
Discussing ruminant molar morphology while other tourists looked on in horror
Dipping our toes in the Mediterranean
Hatay's Anal Market
Getting powerfully confused (not getting lost)
Ridiculous photos (selection here)
Squat toilets
Confusing the hell out of small-town shopkeepers when three obvious foreigners walk in speaking Turkish (Jon faked it well)
The food. Oh my God, the food in this country is inescapably delicious.

Do you need more reasons to visit me? I've updated my reservations calendar to account for known visitors - but 2011 is looking mighty empty. Come to Chez Nous for a sojourn in the world's most dynamic city, the city that people want to visit most!

I Heart Turkish Christmas

2010-12-12T22:37:00.000+02:00

As a born-and-raised atheist, Christmas is always a tense time for me - I like many of the cultural and social elements of American Christmas, but I am always sensitive to the holiday's religious underpinnings, which I try to avoid. I like the lights that go up everywhere, and I like the traditional foods and drinks of the season. I like putting up a Christmas tree, and I love making my own decorations - usually with my own demented twist, like the gingerbread trailer parks I often make with my friends. (This year: a gingerbread gecekondu!) However, I don't like the increased pressure to go to church or to get together with family members who are a pain to deal with during the rest of the year, and I can't stand the incessant horror of Christmas music. Usually I volunteer to work through the month of December so that my colleagues can go home to be with their family in the States, but I don't really want to spend such a holiday by myself in a place without any Christmas spirit. *cough* like Riyadh! *cough* So what's a misanthropic atheist to do every December?

Come to Turkey, evidently, where New Year's is celebrated in many the same ways we celebrate Christmas in the US. People give gifts (albeit on the 31st), put up decorated trees and ornate light displays, and generally make merry with friends throughout the month. But with no religious overtones to the celebration, I feel very comfortable - it's the perfect Christmas-ish for me! More and more, I find it's the little things about Turkey that I love.

Amusing note about New Year's celebrations here - evidently it's traditional to give red underwear to your female friends on New Year's Eve. A friend told me that she ended up with 8 new pairs of unmentionables last year. It's a wee bit different from eating black-eyed peas at New Year's, that's for sure...

Call Me Melba

2010-12-08T23:51:00.000+02:00

I have become my grandmother... I just chased my cat around the house trying to wipe eye crusties off his face, very much against his will.

Up next: finding a small toddler with a bathing suit wedgie that needs removing (since I assume that the Beej won't be wearing a bathing suit over his fur anytime soon).

Inspiration!

2010-12-04T11:26:00.001+02:00

I've been inspired by Four Globetrotters' epic stories of embarrassment from her previous tours. In a week when it seems all of our professional secrets have been laid bare, why not share some of our less professional moments?

When I was in Riyadh, our applicants would mail us their passports by FedEx when we were ready to issue their visas, as sometimes it took a few weeks to finish all of the processing. Our local staff opened the envelopes and sorted the passports every day, sometimes getting as many as 200 in one haul. Because of security considerations, all packages were opened outside the chancery building, so each day our staff would load up the sacks of envelopes onto a wheeled cart, don a mask and gloves, and open everything up in the motor pool garage, where there was a semi-feral pack of stray cats that the motor pool drivers insisted on feeding despite repeated nastygrams from management. A Sri Lankan man named Farhan and a Filipina woman named Louisa normally handled the daily mail. One day, Farhan rolled the cart to the back of the consular section, where my desk was hidden in one of the corners of the office. He called loudly, "Oh my God, I think a cat crawled into the empty bags! What do I do?"

I and the other Americans rushed out of our cubicles to see Farhan standing back from the cart, afraid, while many of our other local staff crowded around him looking concerned. From deep inside the piles of envelopes I could hear an angry meowing. Never one to shy away from danger, I leaped forward, yelling, "We have to get it outside before it escapes!" I start pulling the cart towards the section entrance (about 50 yards away), warning everyone to stand back. Farhan tried to stop me, reaching for the bags like he was going to grab the cat by the scruff of its neck and drag it out. Ever the hero, I swatted his hand away and said, "Careful! It could be rabid!" Somehow everyone managed to keep a straight face until after I'd pulled the cart almost to the front door - that is to say, through the entire office, past all 35 local staff, 15 American consular staff, and the DHS office - before Farhan finally reached under the bags and pulled out his cell phone, which was set to a ring tone of a cat's meow. Whoops. The Consul General, the NIV chief, the DHS attache, and all of my other American colleagues were standing in their office doors crying with laughter. The local staff were practically rolling on the floor. What can you do in such situations but laugh? I slunk back to my desk, beet red and trying to keep smiling. That was probably the only day in Riyadh I actually went home before 5 PM, and I was serenaded out the door by a chorus of meows.

The next day, I got to work super-early and hid at my desk all morning. (Luckily, I was off the line that week, doing administrative stuff instead of interviews.) My cubicle mate meowed at me when she came in, but luckily we're good enough friends that I could tell her where to shove her meow. A few hours later, Farhan quietly asked if he could talk to me. He stood before my desk, shoulders slumped, head down, not daring to look at me. He said that he'd told his wife about the prank he'd pulled, and she'd yelled at him for hours about it, saying that I could have him fired for that, and without his job and the Embassy's residency sponsorship they'd have to give up all of their jobs and their home and go back to Sri Lanka with a week's notice. He apologized profusely, said he'd never do something like that again, and begged me to give him another chance to keep working there. In the severest voice I could muster, I told him, "Farhan, I really only have one thing I can say to you - meeeeoooooowwww." When he jerked his head up and saw that I was smiling, we both erupted into gales of laughter and meowing.

Granted, it's no flashing of the ambassador, but it was still one of the more mortifying incidents in my professional life. So what stupid things have you done at post?

A Rough Day, Getting Rougher

2010-11-30T00:33:00.000+02:00

Wikileaks. Urgh.

That's all I've got on that topic now, though if you're a user of Google Reader, you might see more of my opinions in that venue. I've kept the profanity to a minimum.

I also just got slammed with being the control for four official visits in the next two weeks, three of which have fewer than 12 hours between one visitor's wheels up and the next visitor's arrival. Getting out and meeting with people on my own? Totally unnecessary. I can't do my job because of my job!

Did I mention that I'm up for tenure, rather by surprise? And that I therefore have to prepare my performance memoranda with about a four-week notice, which included a ten-day stay in the US? Oh, and that I'm the guinea pig at post for testing our all-online performance evaluation system... which is to say that no one can figure out how in the hell I'm supposed to have an EER. I mean, it's to my financial benefit not to get tenured this go-round (hello, six more months of overtime), but still, if I'm not to be tenured, I'd at least like it to be because I was considered and judged to need more time.

Also, it appears that if one spends 10 days at home with one's family doing nothing but eating homemade food and drinking, one might gain some weight. I'd make a joke about my hips not lying about how much they love my stepdad's cooking, but I'm too tired and grumpy.

Whine, grump, complain. I'm taking my Beej and going to bed.

The Good Things in Life

2010-11-28T12:20:00.000+02:00

Whoops, didn't make it in time for the weekly round up. Oh well - here's my list of things for which I am thankful.

I am thankful for my mother, and for the chance I got to spend ten days with her last week. We need hannah-Mumsy time at a minimum of once every six months to maintain our (relative) mental stability.
I am thankful for the 25 years I had with my Aunt Gail and for how close we have always been. I am thankful that her illness was swift and that she didn’t suffer long.
I am also thankful for my coworkers in Istanbul and across the world, who have been so kind and supportive of me during the last few months. As has been said, one of the hardest parts about this job is being a continent away when family’s in poor health in the States. Unfortunately, I understand this from personal experience… but fortunately, everyone else does too, so when someone needs to go home on short notice, the office pulls together. My coworkers offered to take over official visits and Congressional reports for me, two things that no one ever wants to deal with. Seriously, I love my post.
I am thankful for my email group – six opinionated, strong women who have held together for over two years across 8 countries, 14 time zones, job losses, multiple break-ups, and family deaths, existing on a diet of advice, gossip, TMI, mutual celebration, and lolcat videos.
I am thankful for my friends in Turkey, a ragtag group of expats with amazing stories and backgrounds - former professional dog handler, a person who tried to talk his way into Saudi Arabia based solely on his Shell employee ID, a thoughtful anarchist working for a large multinational firm, and a shitton of English teachers. Call me socially isolationist, but I like my batch of Americans-in-exile.

Hope you're all well! I'm here... more updates to follow later in the day.

Back to Normal in Istanbul

2010-11-03T17:58:00.000+02:00

After I left a meeting today, I walked back towards the metro station to take the train home. It's a perfectly normal route for me; meetings are often held in the Taksim area because it's so central to everyone. Then it struck me - I was walking through the site of the Sunday bombing. There were no additional police (that is to say, no more than usual), no additional barricades, and people were walking around enjoying the beautiful weather. It was so normal.

In Turkey's ongoing war with the PKK, perhaps as many as 40,000 people have died in the last thirty years, in terrorist attacks, military operations, and the civilians caught in the crossfire between the PKK and the military. Sadly, this is a country that is used to constant, "low-level" acts of terror. By this I mean incidents that kill 2 or 3 or 6 people, not mass casualty events. Imagine what would have happened if a similar bomb had gone off in DC or any other American city. The site would be cordoned off for weeks, traffic blocked temporarily or permanently around the area, and no one would want to go near the area, no matter how central it may be to one's daily commute. Turkey doesn't have that mentality. For better or worse, Turkish people carry on with their business after these tragic attacks.

İstanbul'a hoş geldiniz!

2010-10-31T22:37:00.000+02:00

So I have epic tales of awesome from my weekend in Helsinki, but it's worthwhile to start with the end of the weekend: the fifteen missed calls and text messages my phone accumulated during my flight from Frankfurt to Istanbul this morning. While we were still waiting for the cabin doors to open, I found out that there had been a suicide bombing in Taksim Square, the heart of Istanbul, a few hours earlier. Once I checked in with our security people at work, who wanted to make sure that we were all accounted for, I just continued home normally to watch the news, like everyone else. No official word yet on who did it; from all accounts it looks like it could have been much, much worse - it appears at least one device didn't detonate.

What can you do. After I got the message back to the States that I was fine (knowing that someone would wake up, see the news on CNN, and flip out), all I can really do is try not to let this impact my everyday life too much, because that's the point of terrorism - making people change their lives so much that in the end they defeat themselves. My heart goes out to the injured police officers and civilians, as well as their families, yet I'm so glad this wasn't worse that it already was.

With my morbid sense of humor, I found this guide to appropriate levels of panic for various crises in Turkey to be entirely valid. This was written a few weeks after our consulate was attacked in 2008. You'll note that today's event falls under panic level 5... really, unless the Marmara does split open in a catastrophic earthquake of Biblical proportions, a moderate level of concern until told otherwise is the best way to go for pretty much any event in Turkey.

Güler Yüzlü

2010-10-26T21:06:00.000+03:00

In the past week I've gotten two similar compliments from two very different men - one the chief rabbi of Turkey, the other a cab driver from one of the faceless suburbs of Istanbul. Both of them called me güler yüzlü, "smiling-faced." The rabbi mentioned that every time he sees me, I have a huge smile on my face; the cab driver told me that he could tell from a few moments of "empty chatting" during my five-minute trip that I'm a happy person and that I like to laugh.

It's true. I am happy. The worry lines on my face have eased a bit, and I'm getting my laugh lines back again. Trading in one set for another doesn't mean I'm getting older, does it? It just means I'm staying the same age, right?

FREEDOM!

2010-10-20T22:14:00.000+03:00

Oh frabjous day, my car James Brown is finally mine again!! Only 5.5 months after I left the States, and a mere 4 months after he departed my friend's driveway for the port in Baltimore, JB has come home to his parking space in the basement of my building! It's been a rough process, fraught with incompetent people in Transportation, shipping delays, customs delays, registration delays, and a few more registration delays, but at 5 PM on Friday, I grabbed my keys and set off into the sunset, with the winds of freedom at my back and a massive, ten-mile-long traffic jam in front of me. (Istanbul is like DC in this way... the slightest bit of rain causes everyone and their mom to break down in COMPLETE AND UTTER PANIC on the roadways.) Luckily, in May I left my CD changer fully loaded with good music, so I had plenty of time to get through all six CDs in the two hours and change it took to get home.

The best part is that our belabored customs expeditor was so anxious to release JB to me that there wasn't time to exchange my original license plate for my diplomatic tags. So right now, I'm be-bopping around the city with Arkansas tags! I love it.

I got JB right before I left DC, so I didn't really get to know him all that well. Friday I had to reacquaint myself with turning his headlights on, adjusting the seat, etc. I also found sand in his floorboards and cupholders - a pleasant reminder of the trip to the beach at Chincoteague I took the day that I bought him. (It was amusing, when we got to our hotel that night, I had to register my license plate with the hotel owner, and I had absolutely no idea what it was. It didn't look suspicious at all.)

I finally feel like I'm fully settled in. I have my books, my things, my art, and my car. Road trips await, the American dream!

Things I Heart About Turkey

2010-10-11T13:28:00.000+03:00

In no particular order.

Fresh fruits and vegetables. A kilo of tomatoes for about 90 cents? Oh, if you insist...
Dessert, although this explains why my Marine Ball dress doesn't fit anymore.
Cafe culture. Sitting at a place for three hours, sipping your tea and reading a book. Why not?
Location. I hate to refer to the trope of "a bridge between East and West," but if nothing else, Istanbul's close to everything interesting - like a three-hour flight close.
People. Very friendly and open. There's some element of sketch with some men, but where in the world is that not the case?
Diversity. There's not the range of skin colors that you see in the US, but Turkey is incredibly diverse, and everyone knows from where their forefathers came. My cab driver the other day told me about how his grandparents fled Macedonia during a war and came to Turkey. Other of my friends talk casually about their home town in Spain - which their family left 500+ years ago.
Visitors. Any time one of my friends manages to end up within two time zones of me, I can expect a visit. I love it!
Politics. Turkey is crucial to US foreign policy in a lot of ways, which makes my job interesting. Moreover, Turkish society energetically discusses its own internal politics, and every issue has at least three sides to it here. It keeps my mind hopping.
Conspiracy theories. God, I love them. There ought to be a prize for the craziest one each month.
Turkish fashion. Okay, it's really just broader European fashion, but I am continually amazed at what I see walking by me on the street or in the Metro. Really, ladies?
Makeout Alley - the sidewalk from the Metro to my apartment building, which is always crammed with couples snuggling, smoking, fighting, drinking, making out, and texting. Usually simultaneously.
Turkish drivers. Okay, traffic is insane here, and traffic laws are more suggestions than diktats, but I kind of enjoy seeing the rules that emerge organically in this barely controlled chaos of taxis, minibusses, and scooters.
Expat get-togethers. Strange to say, but I do enjoy meeting up with other yabancılar and kvetching. It's a little bit of home, although home normally isn't quite so chock-full of Aussies and Brits.

Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away

2010-10-09T10:21:00.000+03:00

Found this hiding in my drafts page - it's from 31 August.
---

With apologies to Al Green for expropriating his song titles for completely unrelated topics...

Two years ago today I arrived in Saudi Arabia - hung over, with no sleep and less luggage - for a year's tour that changed me in ways I'm still trying to understand. I am still a little shocked when I look back at my time there - it seems so long ago. So many things had gone wrong in my life at about that time, and when I was thrown into a situation like Riyadh, I didn't handle the isolation and the stress well. I came out of it a much stronger, more confident person, it's true, but I still have moments where I don't recognize the person I've become.

This is a series of thoughts I've tried to write many times. It's hard to explain what Riyadh was like for me without getting into drama and unnecessary details. Thirteen months after leaving Saudi, and three months after arriving here, I think I've finally found my new center - the new balance point of my life. I am happy.

Two Weeks I'd Prefer Not to Repeat

2010-09-26T22:30:00.001+03:00

Good Lord, it's busy season in Istanbul. Because Bayram this year lined up with the end of summer travel season, the start of the school year, and the arrival of our new CG, we went from sleepy August haze to red-lined September insanity with little adjustment. We have lots of official visits in the next few weeks, and planning for those has kept us jumping - by the time quitting time rolled around Friday, we all looked a little zombie-like. However, it's not just the alphabet soup of acronyms for offices and high-level visitors that has me cross-eyed; I have something else weighing on my mind.

Two weeks I wrote about the pain of helping grieving Americans who had just lost a loved one in Istanbul. I can't share any details about the case, due to the Privacy Act, but I think I can say this: I wish I'd known the deceased; we had a lot in common, and I think we would have become fast friends. Someone with such a loving family could not but be wonderful, and they'd come to Istanbul, a place they'd always wanted to see, for a family vacation together that turned into a nightmare. The family has become my own due to what happened after I spent hours in the hospital with them. I got home to find out that my mother's sister, my aunt and one of my dearest loves in the world, has late-stage cancer and may not live for more than a few months.

My family's strange in a very modern way: I have broken off ties with almost all of my blood relatives, and the family I love most are not actually related to me except through the bonds that are formed through hardship and shared experiences. My mom and my aunt are essentially the only two people in my family tree whom I still talk to and love. Anyone who knows me realizes how close I am to my mother; she and I talk two or three times a day, no matter in which time zone I live, and we have no secrets from each other. My aunt is the third pillar in the family - I don't talk about her as much, but for a few decades now the three of us have held together through deaths, divorces, moves, and God knows what else was going on around us. Laughter, offbeat greeting cards, gossip, inappropriate jokes, cynicism, and love have gotten us through it all relatively unscathed. The thought of her not being here with us is preposterous, unthinkable. Who will worry with me about my mom not taking care of herself? Who will my mom complain with about whatever dumbass thing I do next? And who will my mom turn to when her older sister is gone?

So I found this out hours after spending an evening with one grieving family. I wanted to go see them before they flew back home - before they left this beautiful city that had gone so horribly wrong - but I just couldn't get myself out of the floor where I'd spent the day crying. Luckily, I did get to speak with them over the phone as they boarded their plane to go home a few days later. It may be a long time until I see them again, but through their sudden pain and my own slow-developing tragedy, we have a tie that can't be broken. I talk to them now that they are back home, to see how they are recovering physically and mentally. They check in with me, to tell me that they are praying for me and my family. We share photos of our loved ones, and we laugh through the tears. MAS and MRS, I love you both so dearly. I can't tell you how much it means to know you.

I've always believed, in large part because of my own screwy kinfolk, that your true family are the people you love even though you don't have to love them. These people can be found in the most surprising of circumstances, and what would we do without these sparks of happiness to keep us going?

The Magic of Google Reader

2010-09-14T17:35:00.002+03:00

So it is probably apparent that I'm moderately obsessed with new media tools - not necessarily things like Facebook and Twitter, but how people use blogs to communicate, how blogs change the way news is researched and reported, and how our media consumption changes based on the technology we use. One of my favorite tools is Google Reader, which allows me to keep up with disparate sites that update irregularly - only one place to watch, instead of many. This dovetails nicely with the tight-knit but geographically scattered FS community... it makes it easier for me to keep track of y'all!

I'm starting to experiment with some of the advanced tools in Reader, and one of the things I've done is create a bundle of all the FS blogs I know about (284 total [stealth update - 285, given Digger's recent post {stealthier stealth edit: not keeping count anymore, as I just found another new one in the comments}]). Not all are currently active, but I don't want to dump them in the event that they do rise from the dead in the future. If you're interested in following this, you can subscribe at this link. (If you're using another RSS feed, I'm not sure I can help you, sorry!) Enjoy!

Negotiating Rep Events - Pro-Tip

2010-09-13T17:29:00.000+03:00

I found this link a few weeks back, and I've been saving in my list of things to read (which gets longer and longer each day). I might have even gotten this from an FS blog - Diplopundit, perhaps? I dunno. At any rate, given my inability to remember names for the first 83 times I hear them, this is something I need to work on!

How to remember people's names.

Call of Duty

2010-09-12T10:00:00.001+03:00

I had my first death case last night. I never worked American Citizen Services when I was in Riyadh, so the only way I will get this sort of consular case now is if I'm the after-hours duty officer. I don't know how ACS officers do it full time... it was heart-wrenching to have to discuss with family the transportation of their love one's remains, when three hours before their lives had just collapsed. At one point, one family member just broke down crying on my shoulder. I wanted to cry, too, but the family needed a calm voice more than they needed someone else sobbing.

I'm torn between grieving for this family and being incredibly proud that this is what I do. At the most basic level, our mission is to help American citizens in need. When I got the call at 9.30 last night, I was the only person in this huge, strange city the family knew. I'm so glad that I was able to help them in a small way.

Tis the Season

2010-09-02T20:09:00.000+03:00

Another perk about my job: I get US and local holidays! This means that I didn't have work on Monday, because it was Zafer Bayrami (Victory Day), and next Monday is Labor Day (ours). Also, from 1 PM on Wednesday through Friday, I have Seker Bayrami (end-of-Ramadan holiday). The upshot? I am taking tomorrow off and flying to Malta for four days on the beach with friends I worked with in Riyadh. I am the duty officer during the long holiday, so I can't leave Istanbul... getting my holiday travel in while I can!

Macedonia last weekend, Malta tomorrow. Love it. I'll be thinking about you as I sit by the pool with drink in hand!

It Takes All Types

2010-08-25T19:12:00.000+03:00

We're nearing the halfway point of Ramadan - I've been to my fill of iftars, and I still have more to attend. Iftars can be a political statement here: anyone who's someone hosts one, which leads to novelties such as the Jewish community's iftar (biggest social/political event in town, I swear). It's lovely to see the decorations for the holiday and the massive feasts every restaurant, family, and store puts out on display. Each neighborhood has a tent, sponsored by a charity organization, where the community can come together to break their fasts. These tents are mostly for the lower social strata, but anyone can go. Not everyone fasts, of course; many secular people just indulge in massive feasts at sundown as a cultural and communal experience. Others fast, but only partially: a friend saw a piece on CNN Turkey this weekend about how people fast in varying degrees. Every other day, only until 3 PM, only if their mom is watching, etc... with Ramadan moving into the summer months for the next few years, it's too environmentally stressful for some people to make it all day long without a drop of water. I admire people for admitting it up front; in many places the social pressure to fast is so strong that no one would dream of 'fessing up, despite having a secret stash of cashews and a water bottle in the desk's bottom drawer.

We plan our evening travel plans around sunset, because most people (whether they are fasting or not) are in place at home or a restaurant in time for the meal, so the roads are emptiest in the half-hour after sunset. I love seeing the city at its stillest right at sundown, when the call to prayer rolls down the hillsides and the traffic has mostly parked on the side of the roads while everyone eats. It's beautiful, especially since the summer heat and humidity has broken recently - there's no haze over the Bosphorus in the evenings now, and you can clearly see the sunset reflected in the Asian hills.

That stillness is increasingly broken by the tinny cry of the campaign trucks. Turkish citizens will go to the polls on 12 September to vote on a package of constitutional amendments, and it's gearing up to be a huge political battle. Political parties are pulling out all the stops to energize their voters to turn the results one way or the other. (Lucky me, the biggest opposition rallies all seem to occur within 3 blocks of my house.) Each party has its own fleet of trucks that drive around at slow speeds, blaring canned messages exhorting the masses to vote YES or NO, complete with patriotic or martial or choral music in the background. It's amusing for the first few times... I'm just glad I can't hear it from my apartment! (Yet.)

Sumela

2010-08-22T11:53:00.002+03:00

Last Sunday I went to Trabzon to observe the Orthodox liturgy being held at Sumela, a monastery that was built into the side of a cliff in the sixth century. Sumela has been abandoned since the population exchanges of the 1920s emptied the Black Sea coast of its Christian populations. The state has restored the monastery and turned it into a museum, and as a state property, religious ceremonies cannot be held there. However, this year the Ministry of Tourism and Culture gave permission for an annual service to be held at Sumela and at the church on Akdamar Island, an ancient Armenian Orthodox church that has also been turned into a museum.

Sumela from one end of Altindere valley

The valley, from the entrance to the monastery

Looking out one of the
monastery's windows

The Ecumenical Patriarch entering the monastery,
with entourage. Did I mention that this
place is on the side of a cliff?

A few thousand pilgrims came from Greece, Russia, Georgia, and the US, as well as Turkey's own Greek Orthodox population. Most of the pilgrims were descendants of Pontic Greeks who left in 1923, although for the last ten years they have been returning to Trabzon every summer on holiday, to see their old villages and to find the few remaining speakers of their own dialect of Greek. A few villages high in the mountains still have Pontic Greek speakers, Muslim Turks who are as valuable for their cultural preservation as for their utility as guides in the tourism sector. (It's a strange world we live in, in this modern era.) In my hotel, the night before the liturgy, the Greek tourists all gathered in the rooftop restaurant with musicians and cameras to dance the dances their parents and grandparents had taught them. My host and guide for the weekend, the hotel owner, told me that the instruments, music, and dance steps are indistinguishable from the traditional dances of the region. The music was even passingly familiar to me from Azerbaijani folk music, which isn't surprising given that Trabzon is in the foothills of the Caucasus. Most of the time, an old Greek man played the kemenche and sang the accompaniment, but at one point a young Turkish man played while a young Greek sang. Many of the older pilgrims wept during this song, and at the end the room was filled with deafening cheers from the visitors as well as the locals, who had called their friends to come see the sight.

The dude on the right has a kemenche. I have no idea what
role it has in the liturgy, but there you go, visual evidence.

My host and guide, Gokhan, with his son Batuhan

I'm not an expert on Orthodox ceremonies, so if anyone can weigh in and explain the photos I've taken or correct my terminology, by all means, do so.

The crowd of pilgrims at the heart
of the monastery, with a view of
the mountains outside the walls

Pilgrims lighting candles
outside the monastery

The makeshift altar, framed
by the old frescoes on the walls
of the monastery buildings

The Ecumenical Patriarch holding a
crucifix aloft during the liturgy

Reading aloud at the altar

Clerics watching the ceremony and the
crowd. No one's immune to technology!

One Russian pilgrim near me

Pilgrims kissed this icon after the ceremony

I'm not sure what the significance of this
cloth is, held over the Patriarch's head
while he blesses (?) the communion wine.
However, I saw a museum exhibition
earlier this week that included a communion
cloth from the 1600s - one presumes it's
an important part of the liturgy!

Taking communion

Communion bread is distributed
through the crowd

Sadly, the frescoes have been badly damaged by years of neglect, harsh weather, and vandalism. The next step in preserving the monastery is to repair the icons, paintings, and mosaics to their original state.

The decorated, damaged walls

Even with damages, the
frescoes are beautiful.

The vandalism is equal-opportunity: there are Turkish
names and Greek initials scratched into this fresco. I
don't know who you people are, but I hope your
mother smacked you for this!

Two Degrees of Expatriate Life

2010-08-18T23:09:00.001+03:00

Last night I met up someone (1) to talk about his process of joining the Foreign Service over beer. He's the brother of a friend/contact (2) I met through work, and as it turns out, he (1) is a grad student in the same US program as one of my friends (3) from undergrad. Afterwards, I went with him (1) to a friend's (4) apartment nearby for a small dinner get-together. As it turns out, this friend (4) knows the intern (5) in my office very well, and the hostess' (4) roommate (6) knew my predecessor (7) at the Consulate. To confuse things even more, one of the other guests (8) at the dinner is on the road to the FS, and his (8) fiancee (9) is a lawyer at one of the major corporations in town. She (9) does business stuff by day, but pro bono legal work in my particular field of interest at work (minority community rights).

I love my life.

It's Tenure Season!

2010-08-11T21:51:00.003+03:00

Congratulations to my friends and colleagues who just got the magical stamp of approval from DC. You're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, the tenure board likes you! You can't be fired now! (Unless you do something really bad, like trade visas for gold bricks or sexual favors.) Sorry about that no-more-overtime thing, though. Hope your housing down payment has already been taken care of.

I missed the cutoff window for this season's tenure review by about 6 weeks, which is fine by me. When the next one rolls around in the spring, I'll have 2 annual reviews (known as EERs) under my belt, which hopefully will be enough fodder for the Gods of Tenure. Due to the nature of my assignments and training schedules, by the time I hit my three-year mark next month, I'll have spent 20 months in training at FSI, 14 months at post, and 2 months and change on home leave and R&R - not really enough time as an apprentice for DC to decide if I'm likely to cause a major cock-up in international relations.

So, since we are far away from EER season and my own tenure review, it seems appropriate to mention an article my mother sent me from NPR a few weeks ago: "Annual Job Review Is 'Total Baloney,' Expert Says." While it's mainly geared for the private sector (the comments about bosses determining pay raises, for example, don't really apply to those on the GS or FS scale), the article says all the things we kvetch about during EER season.

Annual reviews "do not promote candid discussions about problems in the workplace."
Instead, workers under review (the rated employees, if you will) are only "going to talk about all their successes."
Most importantly... "Once you set up the metrics, that's the only focus for the employee... The problem with performance reviews is that the metric that counts most for the employee is the boss's opinion. So the employee starts doing what he or she thinks is going to score in the boss's mind, and not even talk about what he or she believes is necessary for the company to get the results that really matter."

Radical, revolutionary talk! I have only been through one EER process, and let me tell you, it was god-awful. I got happy-to-gladded to exhaustion, we nearly lost multiple versions of the draft in the archaic computer system we use for submitting the review, and then the final, hard copy got lost in the gaping maw of HR for a few months and didn't get to DC until long after I was into language training. I can only imagine what the process will be like once I have a unique identity in the office, not just "one of nine entry-level officers* adjudicating visas."

The article helpfully provides a quiz to determine just how much you hate performance reviews. (There may, perhaps, be a few slight biases in the question phraseology.) I found the photos included in the test to be an accurate representation of what whelping an EER looks like... and yet, my score shows that on the issue of annual reviews I am not decisive enough (which probably violates one of the 13 precepts, or the 6 core values, or the 11 tenets of holiness, or the 15 inalienable rights, or something): "You are torn. You want to be a team player, you really do. But the rules just seem so stupid."

Don't get me wrong. I know the ratings and promotions bureaucracy would be just as frustrating in any other large organization. And, when my review comes around in May, I'll be just as eager to sip the Flavor Aid and use the same style and key phrases that everyone else does. Still, there's no reason not to take a humorous look at the entire ordeal when we have the chance. And, to close on a positive note, here are words of wisdom from someone who just served on a promotion panel. As my boss would say, read and obey!

*Which brings me to another point: will someone kindly pick an acronym for us novices and stick with it? When I first came in, we were Junior Officers (JOs), but that was found to be demeaning by a pointy-haired type somewhere, so we then became Entry-Level Officers (ELOs). I feared being confused with "the English guys with the big fiddles," so I was relieved when we were re-reborn as First- and Second-Tour officers (FAST officers).

How Not to Unpack Your HHE

2010-08-10T20:07:00.002+03:00

So my HHE has been sitting around since its arrival 10 days ago, waiting to be stored in nooks and crannies. "Love me, unpack me and put me in my own special drawer!" each box seemed to cry. Realizing that there was just too much to attack in hour-long increments in the evenings after work, I decided that last weekend would be the best time to devote to figuring out where to put all of my stuff. And it's a lot - some things I never bothered to unpack in Riyadh (winter coats, long-sleeved shirts, extra linens), so many of these boxes I haven't seen since I graduated in 2007 (age alert!!). On Saturday, I channeled the spirit of General Pickett and attacked the piles of mess head-on, with about as much success as he had. The piles of crap sustained significant damage, but any semblance of victory on my part is Pyrrhic, as I dropped a shelf from a chest-of-drawers on my left foot and broke a bone.

The plus side: The break isn't serious enough to require a cast or even a boot; just careful handling and icing for a few weeks. An excuse to wear "business casual" at work for a week or two (khakis and tennis shoes, hellooooo comfort). An excuse to get out of heavy lifting in the office for a while - this certainly preempts me from organizing the 4th of July event for 2011, right? Acquiring amusing nicknames, like Gimpy and Peg Leg.

The minus side: I broke a freaking bone! Not badly, but still. Being the neurotic planner that I am (as my coworkers can attest) I'm looking three decades in the future and seeing horrific, crippling arthritis in my left foot.

Oh well. It could have been a lot worse. Plus, today I got final approval from our budget people to go to this event this weekend, which is totally awesome. (Scaling the cliff face will be fun with the foot, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.)

Kolbi and Shannon Have Their Toe Shoes...

2010-08-06T11:52:00.000+03:00

...but I have the power of Google Reader!

I came in from a briefing this morning to find everyone in my office crowded around one computer screen. As I walked in, they all simultaneously turned around and froze when they saw me. Clearly, there were shenanigans going on here. Turns out, everyone was reading this blog. So, to all my coworkers in the office, stop slacking off on a Friday!

After everyone dispersed, I kept talking to my cubiclemate, who asked how I keep up with so many blogs. When I started describing Google Reader, her interest grew... and then I showed her how to set up her own feed. For the record, this is the fifth person I have converted to using Google Reader, including my own sainted mother. The Google Reader hegemony grows! (Though not as fast as the toe shoe invasion.)

Accents and Insecurities

2010-08-05T19:33:00.000+03:00

Recently I've had a number of conversations with coworkers and friends about accents, specifically my perceived lack of a Southern accent. (Before I continue, let me say to those who took part in the conversations and who may also read this: I'm not mad, and don't feel awkward about this! I just think it's an interesting issue I want to explore more.) Maybe it's because I've met more people in the past few months than I do on my normal timeline, but several have said something to the effect of, "Wow, you're from Arkansas, but you don't sound like it! How'd that happen?" Now I've never been one to limit my own Arkansas-bashing. I'm glad I grew up there, I wouldn't change that fact for all the world, but I'm also very glad I no longer live there. To me, home is people, not a place, and the fact that there's no (relevant and interesting) job I could find in Arkansas or Memphis makes me even less likely to call it home anymore. Still, I get a little defensive when people make assumptions or judgements I perceive to be class-based, region-based, or accent-based.

I know that, as a white person who grew up in relative wealth compared to the sharecroppers on our farm, I am and have been incredibly privileged in my life. I went to college mostly for free, and got an advanced degree in the process. I'm employed, and I support myself. These are all Good Things, and it's pretty hard to find a way to belittle someone for them. The most obvious position on which someone could discriminate against me, gender identity, is one I actually welcome: I enjoy verbally and professionally eviscerating anyone who assumes that my particular set of genitalia means I'm inferior.

So maybe regional identity is the only place where I feel my armor is weak, the only thing I'm sensitive about. And that's true - I do feel that being labelled as a Southerner can be detrimental. I purposely started trying to drop my accent when I was a teenager, because I was afraid of the impression it could give people. I have friends from college who were also from the South, and many felt the same way that I did: it's okay for people to assume that our accents mean we're stupid or bigoted. Not everyone has those assumptions, of course, but enough do that it's better to be safe than labelled a redneck.

And maybe that's just it: even though I want to believe otherwise, I've internalized the concept that your accent indicates your socioeconomic class, your respectability. Even though many people I love have Southern accents (some quite strong), I still look down on those accents in a certain way, because I don't want to be perceived as being what those accents mean to me.

Next-day post script: At lunch today I had a conversation with coworkers, including the one who'd asked me the question yesterday, about accents and the social codings they carry. It was really interesting, and no one was upset by my defensiveness. The conversation meandered into other region-based stereotypes and how we have to deal with the ideas that exist in the world about our homes. Interesting stuff, all in all, and I feel better for having had the conversation with people.

Best Weekend Ever

2010-08-02T19:03:00.001+03:00

So my friend Regan is in town for ten days, on vacation from her stressful job in Doha. It's only natural that she should crash with me, as I used her couch in Bahrain as my escape from Riyadh on more than one occasion. This weekend, we had basically the best time ever, under perfect blue skies and weather that wasn't too hot or humid.

My HHE arrived on Friday - 3000 pounds of stuff from Riyadh and DC, including my books, throw pillows, artwork, and all the other stuff that makes me feel at home. After unpacking it all and deciding to leave the real work for later, we went to a brief happy hour with coworkers, then spent the rest of the evening sitting by the Bosphorus in my favorite neighborhood in the city, smoking and nibbling on cheese plates under the stars. On Saturday, we set out for a day in the Grand Bazaar, where we sipped tea with merchants, negotiated better prices for jewelry, and in the star attraction of the weekend, spent three hours chatting with an antiques dealer I know about history, life, and politics. We walked out of the store a little poorer but much happier for the experience. Like any good salesman, he knew how to read his customers, and he found the perfect prizes for us among his piles of copper, brass, and iron wares. We were worn out afterwards, so nothing would do but a Turkish bath and a massage, followed by dinner on the Hippodrome.

Sunday brought us to Taksim Square and Istiklal Avenue, from which we wandered to Galata Tower by way of a number of small specialty shops on the side streets. After buying homemade soap and hitting a wine cellar for samples, we hopped on a ferry to Asia for dinner, going to one of my favorite places that does Turkish food simply and very well. We returned to the old city as the sun set, and we got to the roof of a hotel overlooking Ayasofya just in time to get a bottle of wine to sip as the evening call to prayer sounded.

The perfect weekend, yes?

A Day in the Life

2010-07-24T17:57:00.001+03:00

When I was in Pol/Econ training, one of the sessions involved us discussing the daily schedules of FSOs who had taken the class previously and who were settling into their routines in their first reporting position. I found it immensely useful; I had few expectations going into this position, and this exercise gave me a better idea about what my days would likely look like.

Now that I've been in my job about two months, I've developed my own routine. I'm a reporting officer - that means I collect information and report it. I get this information from a variety of sources: media reports, asking my contacts questions via phone or email, visiting sites to see with my own eyes what's happening, and meeting one-on-one with people who know what I need to know. The exact mixture depends on what information I need, where my contacts are, and how much time I have in my schedule - the Consulate is located in the northern suburbs of Istanbul, and it's a hike to get to wherever my contacts are located. When I do go out for meetings, the best way to get information, I try to schedule two or three meetings back-to-back. Otherwise, if you figure 45 minutes of transit to the meeting, an hour for one meeting, and an hour back (rush "hour" starts at about 3 PM), I've completely shot my afternoon. Moreover, it doesn't make sense to return to the Consulate for any meetings that start after 3 PM, unless I'm planning on staying at my desk until sundown.

It's not hard to find people to meet with. I'm blessed to be in a city and a country where activists, religious leaders, and NGO staff want to meet with US diplomats - that's not always the case. So when I set up meetings for Thursday afternoon this week, I didn't really think about the logic of the ordering, I just contacted someone I've been meaning to meet for a few weeks and someone else who was only going to be in Istanbul for two days. It was only after I returned home that I realized the bizarre juxtaposition I'd created. First I met with an activist affiliated with the Istanbul gay rights group on a balcony in their office, a top-floor apartment at the back of an alley, off another alley in the heart of modern Istanbul. After that, I dashed off to the Four Seasons next to Ayasofya to have coffee with the lay leadership of the American branch of a Turkish church. At one meeting we talked about gender reassignment surgeries, legal challenges, pride marches, and hate crimes in the 100-degree heat; at the other I sat by a tinkling fountain and sipped expensive tea with movers and shakers, discussing religious freedom, property disputes, and EU accession.

Superficially, the two meetings have little to do with each other. Their political and religious positions couldn't be much different. However, at a deeper level, my interest (and the US government's interest) in these groups is the same: we support the rights of these two groups, others like them, and many more not so like them, to operate in freedom and in peace, without harassment, and with the legal protection to operate freely. We dedicate a significant amount of resources worldwide to human rights, and for most reporting officers this is the first portfolio they ever cover. I don't cover the "prestigious" issues - the political heavyweights, the business leaders, the prominent authors and journalists and academics. What I cover now is actually more interesting to me... the people fighting at the grassroots level for their rights, the organizations that help the poor, the illiterate, the refugees, and the discriminated against, and the community and religious leaders who stand up to incredible pressure and lead their communities in modern Turkey. And I love every minute of it.

If It's Friday...

2010-07-24T16:11:00.007+03:00

...it must mean that it's time for the Roundup! And if it's Saturday before anything's posted, it must mean I'm running late on my publishing obligations again!

First, the news from here. When you last heard from me, I was nursing a fabulous new bruise. It's STILL HERE. What can I say, I have skills! Also, I'd like to thank the three State blog community people who've emailed back and forth with me this week. This is a true community, never mind just how many time zones we live in - which you can help out by signing up to host a Roundup later in the summer. Also, Digger has put out a call for updated links - if you know of a new blog or an updated address, let her know! And now, on to the Roundup! I tallied about 250 posts over the past 8 days - well done, y'all!

All State people do the same thing when they get together outside of working hours... they talk about work. Constantly. To the persistent annoyance of everyone around them. So hey, why shouldn't we talk about work on our blogs too? DS talks about the interagency process, MLC also talks about the joys of ACS as well as Ali, who works outside every Embassy and Consulate, Bridget describes the best Consular Leadership Day (as long as you don't fall in), Quirksalight gives a lesson learned for airport runs (which is totally true - I still have scars on my feet from a POTUS visit in 2009), I'll Take Mine to Go! has found the perfect chair for work, and Keith talks about some small decision that may or may not affect other people. More seriously, MLC and DS talk about the serious threats facing not only diplomatic staff but those who come to our posts as visitors.

Another favorite topic of Statesians is language training, assignments, and the groundhog day quality of FSI life. Kitty Non Grata had a click moment in Khmer (and thank all that is holy my language instructors didn't inflict a drill like that on us), Gia was assigned to Abuja, Heather got a new assignment to Damascus, Devon FINALLY got assigned to Brussels, Adam is going to the exotic hardship post of London, BFiles is content with her non-assignment, Denise visited the pincushion clinic at FSI, and Ren offers a list of other job options if State's just not cool enough for you. It's not an FS blog, but I'd like to offer this poem as an ode to our collective language struggles.

We also kvetch about moving. Man, do we hate it. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if some alien society based its impressions of Earth on our blogs, they'd be convinced we spend our entire lives in boxes, hotels, and planes. (Which might not be that far from the truth, come to think of it.) Laila's super-stressed about leaving for her first assignment, Short Term Memory has been driven to poetic insanity after packout, Brooke is enviably free of crap to tote across oceans, Ben has adjustment issues, Dave has single-handedly propped up the economy this month, David has made it to his new digs in Hermosillo, the Richardsons survived packout in Serbia (as did their horde of movers!), Z. Marie shows what post housing looks like in Milan, Digger notes that Beirut is a hardship assignment only if you're not from Jersey, and Elise realizes the hardest part about moving season.

I think we all blog with the secret desire to make everyone at home jealous. (Or maybe that's just me.) Nonetheless, what's the fun of blogging if you can't brag about the cool things you experience? Gerald talks about an old-fashioned but functional naval vessal, Emily sees grape-flavored sheep, Al analyzes customer service overseas, Kitty Non Grata highlights Marines who save kittens (I want the Marine in the first picture to come work as a guard at MY consulate!), Helen doesn't so much make us jealous as makes us remember our first faux pas overseas, Kim continues documenting the sights of Istanbul, Jonathan describes the joys of summer in Saudi Arabia, Sarah talks about the perfect FS gift, Larry has basically the best evening EVER, Judie experiences the joy of never-ending strawberry season, Al goes cavetubing, Sass and Sweet teaches us how to speak Canadian in three volumes, and Matt continues his series of Afghan Dudes on Bikes and also shows what one hopes post housing DOESN'T look like.

Of course, family's the most important thing overseas, which is why Jill's post and the Dinoia family post are so heartbreaking. Just because it's something many people go through in this career doesn't make it any easier - my thoughts are with you both, and everyone else in your situation. Linsey just lost her grandmother, who sounds like she lived a full, happy life where she was surrounded by her loved ones. Sarah gives marriage advice (and note that her blog has moved), Modest Muse has a dancing baby, Stephanie's husband better get home soon, and A Daring Adventure's older son is now an older EAGLE SCOUT son. However, for one unnamed ambassador, family evidently wasn't that important, may he be forever tormented by screeching trolls who attack his feet with pointy sticks.

And that's it for this week! Thanks to Melissa for hosting next week, but after that there's NO ONE ON THE CALENDAR! Not that I'm trying to guilt trip you into hosting... but you really should consider hosting. Have a good week, everyone, and write prolifically!

Weekly(ish) State Blog Roundup!

2010-07-11T02:37:00.002+03:00

So here I am, laying in bed with an ice pack under my ass on a foggy, rainy Saturday in Istanbul. The reason I'm in bed is the same reason why I didn't write the update last night - humpty hannah took a great fall down some granite stairs in the rain. I'm fine, other than the chagrined ego and a massive (and apparently still growing) bruise on my hip. Luckily I have long since lost whatever dignity I once may have had, so no damage there. So! Let's get this roundup on the road!

I've got two weeks to cover, going back to around 27 June, and can I just say, y'all are some prolific writers. By the rough estimates of Google Reader, I accumulated over 500 posts from just over 250 FS blogs on my list. Well done, guys! When I first joined in 2007, I only remember maybe 15 people who blogged, but that was because we didn't know who else was doing it. I'm glad we're coming together here!

First of all, because I can, I want to take this opportunity to thank the Turkish police and our own Turkish employees who protect Consulate General Istanbul. Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of the attacks on the Consulate, in which three Turkish policemen were killed defending our facility and the people inside. I said it before, and I'll say it again - never take your safety overseas for granted. When you get the opportunity (may I suggest Monday morning?), thank the people who might face danger on the job so you don't have to. In that vein, TSB posts that there has been an arrest in the case of the Consulate General Ciudad Juarez employee and community members who were murdered in March. May justice be done.

Moving on to more lighthearted topics, it appears that it was the 4th of July this week. And as always Independence Day, the Holiday that Wasn't for FS folks, brought another fun night of networking, huge crowds, finger food of questionable quality, and speechifying. Here's the SitRep from Michele times two, A Daring Adventure, DS, Jodi, Worldwide Available, Sara, Ryan, Stephanie, Digger, Matt, me, modestmuse times two, Jill, Melissa, Daniela, Elise, Kitty Non Grata, Chris, Esac, Al, Katie, and Matt. Whew!

As for more general holiday enjoyment... it's summer, which means people are on R&R or home leave or are just enjoying their posts in the lovely weather, which means we have lots and lots of photo spreads and vacation tales. Dave appears to be convinced that America's Hat has its own holiday too, the Dinoias go to my favorite vacation spot in the country (yay ponies!), Abbey calls a beagle summit (more successful than Copenhagen!) but the beagle flotilla plans don't appear to be successful, Bridget visits the tourist sites of Shenyang, Micah has THE CUTEST PHOTOS EVER of his kids with his grandmother, the Richardsons tour South Serbia, Connie and family revel in their geekiness, Kim visits two of my favorite neighborhoods in Istanbul and takes way better photos than I could [Note to my family - read her blog for photos, it will be much more useful to you than this one!], A Daring Adventure went to Great Falls and presumably had on her special hiking shoes (which Kitty Non Grata saw!), the Monestels carried out the coolest volunteer work I've ever heard of, Al was a great adventurer in West Belize, Sara's Addie has the best summertime outfit ever, and Barry & Jess have the most awesome little girl ever. The Schutz family offers to us one of the best, cheerful videos you'll ever watch about travel overseas. Unfortunately, as I live in Turkey and YouTube is blocked, I'll just have to remember how much I like it.

Often bizarre things happen at post - it's just part of FS life that you don't have to go far away to see something exotic. For example, Bryn has documented the roads in her neighborhood slowly washing away, Fawda Munathama explains why Sam Waterston or Aaron Sorkin won't be making stories about us anytime soon, Jeff has a question for trailing male spouses out there, AKB has one hell of a first day at work, TSB talks about Mexighanistan and offers a soundtrack, At Post has a photo of plumbing in Malaysia (and a plea for Facebook likes here), The Uncommon Life talks about the good and the less good of Seoul, and Emily writes the most amazingly cute/sad story about her son's first birthday (I would have eaten the cake, Emily!). The strange food subsection: Sara's not brave enough to eat off this cart, and AKB has some awesome photos of delicious, tasty roasted meat.

Of course, our community isn't just people who are already at post - it's people waiting to join and people in training at FSI, too. Mr. Crab reminds everyone that they can't talk about what's on the FS entrance exams, Devon is currently vacationing in Assignments Hell, FSO Hopeful is more than welcome to join my office as a reporting officer or as a bodyguard, Destinaish Unknown passed the FSOT, Andy discovers the joys of buying a car in DC, Yellow Flower got her first assignment in to New Zealand, Bfiles passed her Spanish exam for the points bump-up but is now in a new and improved bureaucratic limbo hell, Andy is taking the oral exam on 2 September, Valdysses got added to the PD register, Chris talks about the new batch of rosy-cheeked, dewy-eyed Facilities Managers, FSO Wannabe is brushing up her Japanese again so she can try for the points bump in the register, Kitty Non Grata hasn't a clue when she'll leave for post, the Letvins are back online again, Eve is a little stressed about the idea of taking Portuguese, Brian has some pointers for things to include in the FSI language curricula, and Melissa has finally internalized that she's about to join State. In the complete opposite of Melissa, Masha talks about why she decided to leave State. Definitely worth the click through.

And on the ever-popular theme of moving... Kendra's family's passports will travel in style, David might STILL be packing out, the Noble Glomads have tips on finding out details about your house's furniture, and best of all, Jamie came home!!

Things we deal with at work: NP Worldview talks about the overuse of antibiotics, Bill at Diplomatic Incidents DOESN'T talk about work, Ren has an idea for all of you PAS folk out there and also questions the received wisdom on who can be a PD officer, Phebevenus talks about a day in the life of a desk officer as well as the amusing quirks of HST, DS wonders what happened to the AFSA elections and describes the joys of being a diplomat in London (hint: you're scolded in papers), FSO Wannabe is so not thrilled with our new budget, Alex learns that no one listens to him (he may have had more to say, but I only read the first paragraph!), AKB explains Murphy's Law of Illness and its corollary, the Visa Interview and Section Staffing Lemma of Sickness, Daniel describes working the G8 conference in another one of his awesome descriptions of working big events, Mark visits a Yazidi temple and northern Ninewa as part of his job, Matt goes to Herat, and Valdysses points out that perhaps life at State is a little different than it used to be. [Morning update: upon rereading the document, I'm not so sure that much has changed...]

Consular specific stuff (because let's face it, it's way interesting): MLC talks about the sensitivities of international adoption, I talked about how your visa decisions can come back to haunt you (prompted by this fantastic MLC grab-bag post), learning about conducting IV interviews makes Hoyzhou reminisce about being on the other side of the window, Broadnax doesn't specifically allude to consular work, but this post about how we make decisions seemed nonetheless very applicable to the issue, Abbie and Matt get encouragement from a conversation with a former visa applicant, DS wonders why a first-tour officer would go to Gambia and is all over the new social media regs, Gerald sees a lost passport case and wonders what will become of the person, Broadnax discusses immigration and the US labor market, and AKB talks about how visas mean way more to non-Americans than they do to us.

State advice column - your requests for help and suggestions that will make someone's life easier. Super Mario Diplomacy tells you how to watch Hulu overseas (but no instructions for the Mac version of Chrome, I see... you're on notice, SMD!), Donna explains the difference between vacation and R&R, Ryan explains where Mexico stops and the US begins, Al is looking for help from those who are good at Facebook, and Emily offers instructions on how to use Google for those who haven't quite caught on yet.

Whew! We made it through another Roundup. You can leave any corrections, suggestions, rants, additions, or creepy messages in the comments, and I'll get to them when I wake up in the morning - it's now 2.30 AM in Istanbul, and I need to sleep.

Next week doesn't have an editor yet - I promise that you do not want to saddle poor Melissa with editing two weeks of posts, right before her A-100 starts! So get yourself over to the calendar and sign up! Thanks for stopping by!

Two Years Ago Today

2010-07-09T06:08:00.001+03:00

I'll have the State Roundup posted later today. I wanted to put this up first. Today is the second anniversary of the attack on the US Consulate General in Istanbul. Three gunmen attacked the Consulate, but the Turkish police force outside the building stopped the attack, preventing any Consulate staff or visa applicants from being harmed. Tragically, three Turkish policemen were killed in the attack.

For me, this will be a day of quiet reflection about those who give their lives so that we can safely carry out American business overseas. I want to repost something that I wrote two years ago, after touring the grounds of the Consulate General in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and seeing the memorials to our staff who died there in the 2004 al Qaeda attack. State people, wherever you are today, thank the people who keep you safe, even if you don't speak a language they understand. We truly could not do what we do without them.

48 Hours in Jeddah

I'm going to split this up into a number of posts, because there's too many disparate stories to fit into one. A party at the Ethiopian consulate, an underground Saudi rave, snorkling in the Red Sea at an incognito beach open only to expats, and the bizarrely unforgettable experience of flying on Saudia Airlines. We can get to the fun later on, but first I want to open with one of the most heartwrenching stories of my life.

When I was doing research during A-100 on the places I might go, the case files for Jeddah and Riyadh all dealt heavily with the 2004 consulate attack in Jeddah. I don't remember it happening; it's a sad truth that we're so inured to bombings and violence around the world that we don't really pay attention to many of them, unless we have a personal stake or interest in them. In 2004, joining the Foreign Service was far from my mind - those of you who have followed my writing for years may remember my (thankfully) failed attempts to get a job at the NSA around that time - so it's probably not surprising that the attack didn't then catch my eye. However, my trip to Jeddah made the reality of the attack painfully clear.

I have links here and here, news reports about the attack. These articles are long on background information and short on details about the attack. Note that in the first link, the analyst focuses on the fact that no Americans died - "They didn't destroy the building or kill any Americans." So many news stories, including the coverage of the attack in Yemen last month, simply note that no Americans died while ignoring the fact that Americans make up a tiny percentage of any embassy community. Some of my closest friends and colleagues at the embassy are Somali, Sudanese, Lebanese, Sri Lankan, Syrian, and Jordanian - and that's just in my section. I give you this as the background for what was so moving about my visit to the consulate.

When I got there on Wednesday afternoon, I had an hour or so to kill while my friend Joe finished up his work for the week, so he introduced me to Ty, one of our security officers there, who gave me a tour of the compound. It's the old embassy from the 1950s, so it's somewhat rundown and located on an enormous lot - we had to tour on fourwheelers, because it would have taken an hour or more to walk it all. We ended our tour at the memorials to the five people killed in the 2004 attack, between the front gate and the main consulate building. The granite blocks are placed haphazardly on the lawn, where the victims fell. Ty told me that the attackers chased one of the embassy cars, carrying an American woman, towards the gates. One of the guards grabbed the American, tossed her into the safe haven right at the entrance, and ran the other way to distract the attackers. He was killed almost instantly. The other four victims, who just happened to be outside at the time, knew where she was hiding, and they were executed over a ninety-minute period because they refused to give up her location and her life. The Saudi government gave their families permanent legal status in the Kingdom for their sacrifices. The US government gave them plaques of commemoration.

My security every day depends on the hundreds of non-Americans working for us in the Kingdom. Many of them would be willing to give their lives for us, and some of them have or will do so. The next time a US installation is attacked somewhere - and I have no doubt that it will happen again - take a moment to think about the people who die in the most brutal ways with little hope of reward so that we Americans can be safe in places where we are hated.

Happy Independence Day from Istanbul!

2010-07-05T22:46:00.000+03:00

The award for first guest in the new digs goes to Becky, my friend from high school with whom I stayed in Shanghai last year. She got into town last night, and today we started our fun with a cruise up and down the Bosphorus in the Hiawatha, the boat owned by the US diplomatic presence in Istanbul since the 1930s. It's available for employees to rent, and it's one of the best perks of the job here. We sailed up the straight, almost to the Black Sea, then back down to the Sea of Marmara and toured the Golden Horn before returning to our dock. All the while we munched on picnic fare and fresh fruit (end of the cherry season, apricots are still great). All in all, not a bad way to spend the (observed) Independence Day holiday - the American flag was waving cheerily in the breeze as we dodged cruise liners, cargo ships, ferry boats, and fishermen all along the Bosphorus.

My guest room is booked through the end of July, but I'm free after that. Cruises on the Bosphorus get a little chilly after September, so start marking up your calendars, folks.

When the Unimaginable Happens

2010-07-03T14:00:00.000+03:00

Last week I found a website hosting this document - a memo of debriefing the officer who issues visas to 10 of the 19 September 11th hijackers. While this was the first time I'd actually read it, I'd heard about this interview ever since I got my assignment to Riyadh in 2007. Whether you're waiting to go out on your first tour or you're a veteran consular officer, it's worth a read. There's a lot of lessons to draw from this memo. Just because something's always been done that way doesn't mean it should be done like that. If you're worried about procedures, speak up - a good boss will listen to your concerns, even if s/he doesn't act on them. And when something goes terribly, horribly wrong, rest assured that an investigatory committee will have questions for you.

When I started to read this document, I was afraid that I would be taken back to the stress of the consular section in Riyadh, the overarching knowledge that It Happened Once Already that was ever-present in the office. After reading it, though, I was grimly satisfied. I'm satisfied with the work I did there. A consular officer takes a risk of making the "wrong" decision in every visa case; your individual judgement determines where you set that threshold for issuances and denials. That's what we're paid to do, and that's why machines don't adjudicate visa decisions.

Today Seems... Incomplete

2010-07-03T00:17:00.000+03:00

No State blog round-up today. Sad face!! Even though I follow over 200 State blogs in Google Reader, I still enjoy the round-up and the commentary of the editors. Guess next week the editor will have to double down on his or her efforts. Oh wait... that's me.

Another 4th of July Down

2010-07-02T22:47:00.002+03:00

All week we were worried it was going to keep raining - having absolutely zero back-up plan for where to put our 1200 dearest friends in the event of a cloudburst - but Thursday dawned sunny and clear and not too hot. This was my first 4th working it as a contact event, rather than an event where I was logistical support. (That is to say, I greeted guests and reconnected with my contacts, rather than checked in gifts at the entrance or kept an eye on security at the VIP entrance.) Some of my contacts, religious leaders in the city, made a point to tell me that they had prayed for the weather to be sunny for us all, a divine intervention we greatly appreciated!

I also met a few new people. One woman, a professor, is a good friend of one of our close Consulate contacts, and he introduced me to her because "I know you will like her!" He was right - I did. She's a professor of architectural history, and when she was telling me about her last lecture trip to the US, she mentioned that she'd been in Los Angeles for part of the visit. I asked her if she had family there, and she said, "No, I was visiting a friend of mine. Perhaps you know him, Frank Gehry?" Yes ma'am, I do believe I've heard of him once or twice...

Another contact brought his family to the reception, and as we stood around munching on Krispy Kreme and sipping champagne, his wife discovered that A) I speak Turkish, which thrilled her since she speaks no English, B) I'm an only child, and my mother misses me, and C) I'm the same age as their daughter. I now have an adopted mother who calls me canim ("my dear") and wants me to come have dinner with them regularly. I love Turkey.

Full Moon Fever

2010-06-28T23:08:00.000+03:00

I've gone through four versions of this post, and eventually I decided that the best information in some cases is no information at all. Through no fault of anyone, I had a pretty crappy evening of the type that makes you want to curl into a ball and apologize for everything you've ever done wrong. When I sat down at my computer to Skype my mom and cry, I looked out my window and saw the almost-full moon rising over the Bosphorus, with a few wispy clouds floating near the moon.

My great-aunt Sally always used to call this a buttermilk moon, because the full moon lights up the clouds like bright white milk in the sky. I wish she had lived to see me take this job - I think I got the itch to travel from her. But now, when all I need is a hug from a loved one, and my nearest family member is 6,000 miles away, I feel like I got my hug tonight.

Conspiracy Theories!!

2010-06-26T00:05:00.000+03:00

I'll admit it. Part of the reason why I love the Middle East is the batshit crazy conspiracy theories people come up with here. I'm sure it's the same in most of the rest of the world (I mean, that's why Snopes exists, right?), but there's such a potent mix of politics and drama here that it's hard to beat the awesomeness of the rumor mill. Today at work, one of our local hires was translating an op-ed in a prominent national paper for us. Let me see if I can get this straight.

The PKK has teamed up with the two leading opposition parties to release a sex tape of one party's leader shacking up with an MP from his party, precipitating the resignation of both officials. The PKK did this so that the ruling party will call early elections and as a result the two opposition parties can form a coalition government. And that's why the PKK has ramped up its campaign of violence across Turkey in the last month.

After the summary concluded, there was a long moment of silence, and then one of my coworkers asked, "Was there not enough room in the column to include Mossad?"

It's not just here, of course. When I was in Riyadh, decades-old Singer sewing machines were selling for about $3000, because the red mercury that was inside the stitching needles gave people the ability to summon the djinn. I am now on the hunt for the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory (GUCT), which will enable me to tie together the Kennedy assassination, the Lindbergh Baby, Opus Dei, Haile Selassie, and Pope Joan to explain why the world is actually getting cooler.

Random Thoughts from Taif

2010-06-20T14:38:00.008+03:00

NOTE: when I changed the template for the blog, somehow this post (and I suspect others) were rendered into all-caps. Working on figuring out what went wrong - but until then, my apologies for the poor aesthetics!

As I was packing out from DC, I came across a scrap of paper that I hadn't seen in a year or more. (I'm not really clear how it made through a few moves safely.) Last spring, I took part in the Jeddah consulate's culture fair in Taif doing the consular section brief, because at the time Jeddah didn't have anyone in the consular section who could answer student and tourist visa questions. I did our standard visa presentation and question-and-answer session every few hours for the fairgoers, and in the downtime I talked one-on-one with students or attended other info sessions.

A bit of an introduction - Taif is a beautiful town, set in the mountains above Mecca (as close as I'll ever get, sadly) with a relatively cool climate and a flourishing agriculture economy. Some of the best fresh fruits I've ever had came off a roadside stand there (and I'm still trying not to think about the practice of using 'black water' for irrigation). Taif is the traditional place where the Riyadh elite escape during the summer, and there are even branches of the major government ministries there so work can continue while everyone escapes the heat of the Nejd.

Taif is also a common starting point for Saudis going on Hajj; many of the men on my flight from Riyadh to Taif were in their special Hajj clothing, two white towels folded a certain way, and I saw many people checking in and out of the hotel in the same gear. (Abbreviated version - pilgrims are supposed to wear this clothing 'on their way' to Mecca. Varying interpretations and piety indicate whether that should be from the point of origin, wherever that may be in the world, or just from the edge of the sacred zone around Mecca that also serves as the boundary beyond which non-Muslims cannot pass.)

We held our fair in one of the big hotels in town, and like any other public event in Saudi, we had to have gender segregation in our main presentation rooms. We had two seating areas set up, with a long screen between them (reminding me for all the world of an Orthodox Jewish wedding reception). In the front of the room, we had two separate screens for showing video or powerpoints, and while speaking, we had to wander back and forth from one section to the other, or have a person watching each side for hands during Q&As. This is not something that normal public speaking training teaches you how to handle!

An ESL teacher from the State Department's English Language Program did a fascinating presentation to a group of Saudi teachers of English. One of the goals of this office is to offer tips on how to make language training more interactive and fun for students. Much instruction in Saudi Arabia is still done in old-fashioned, rote memorization drills, and it's hard to learn a language that way. The Saudi instructors knew this, so they were excited to hear about methods that might increase their students' learning and comprehension.

The ESL teacher did a number of activities with the group of teachers to emphasize that creativity in the classroom encourages language learning. One of the exercises involved someone from one side of the room starting a sentence, "If I were a ____..." while someone from the other side answered, "...then I would ____." Lots of potential for creativity here, of course, and the fact that there was a physical barrier between the authors of the sentence halves added to the fun. Normally, in events like this, the two halves of the room are kept completely separate, with no interaction whatsoever between them - if a question is asked on one side, the speaker repeats it so that everyone can hear it (or acknowledge it). So this was a challenge for these teachers, some of whom had never even been to the US or Europe before, to interact with the other side of the barrier. I was sitting in the back observing during this session, and I have to say that these sentences were some of the most thought-provoking, heart-breaking things I've ever heard.

Man: "If I were a woman..."

Woman: "...then I would travel the world!"

Man: "If I were a child..."

Woman: "...then I would kill my husband!"

All this in a place where a woman can't leave the country without her male guardian's permission, and where there is no minimum age to marry.

Crittenden County, Once Again, Obstructs My Civic Goals

2010-06-18T19:20:00.000+03:00

Even though I probably will never live there again, I still maintain legal residency in Arkansas. I vote there, my driver's license and car tags are all there, I pay taxes there, and my home leave address is even there (because I can't afford a hotel in Hawaii for five weeks every few years). I don't mind paying into the state coffers; Lord knows the state can use the money, and feeding the Arkansas state school system is not a bad way to use it.

Nerd moment: my mother took me to vote with her in every election that I can remember as a child, and she let me pull the levers in our Johnson-Administration-era voting machines. Ever since then, getting to vote with everyone else on Election Day, seeing the excitement, talking to the campaigners who are outside that magic hundred-foot line from the front door... I love it. What can I say. But I have only gotten to vote "regularly" in an election once since I turned 18: it's all been absentee balloting or early voting. In 2004, I had to vote early, because I was an election judge outside my district; in 2008 I was overseas. 2006 was the only time I actually voted when and where I was supposed to vote. (It was the day after I passed the FS Oral Exam, actually! I drove home from Chicago early so I could make it to the polls in time.)

I've gotten used to the fact that my vote never counts for anything in Arkansas. If it's a district-wide election, the Democrat wins with a crushing margin; if it's statewide, the Republican almost always wins. This year, however, something interesting happened - our senior Senator, Blanche Lincoln, faced a primary challenger who somehow managed to make it a real race. When I went home to say goodbye to family a few weeks before I left for Turkey, I got to vote in early voting at the county courthouse for a race that mattered - no absentee ballots! Sweet! (This was also my first time voting on a touch-screen machine. VERY weird.)

However, as luck would have it, the one time my vote contributed to a very narrow election margin, it went to a primary run-off in early June. This left me with an interesting conundrum: I was in Arkansas for the regular vote (ish), but I needed an absentee ballot for the runoff. Hmm. So my mother, in her saintly willingness to help, offered to talk to the county clerk's office and to turn in the necessary paperwork for me. Now, last time was hard enough for our precious elected officials to handle (see previous struggle here). I knew the odds were slim that I would get my ballot in time despite requesting it in mid-May, but it was much, much worse than I thought it would be. It appears that my absentee ballot was mailed AFTER the primary run-off, which the incumbent won by a significant enough margin that the challenger conceded that night. Oh, and I didn't get it until today - ten days after the run-off, and the deadline by which absentee ballots must be received in Arkansas.

Thanks, Crittenden County, for a heaping dose of failure, again. Overseas, I help register Americans who live abroad to vote. Wish I could do the same thing in the county and state where I choose to domicile. And here's for you, Bill Halter... the vote that wouldn't have pushed you over the edge but that I wish counted towards your total anyway.

Getting Around in Istanbul - Everything but a Tuktuk

2010-06-13T13:07:00.001+03:00

Istanbul is big. Really big. The official population is around 12 million, and the unofficial estimates go even higher. (14? 18? Who knows?) It's grown quickly and haphazardly, spilling across the hills on either side of the Bosphorus. Traffic is horrific - not just the drivers, but the congestion and the lack of major thoroughfares. All those people have to get around somehow, though. Like a good European city, Istanbul has a massive public transit system. Like a large Middle Eastern city, it's incomplete and not quite logical. However, with a bit of creativity, patience, and perseverance, it's not hard to get around the city in one way or another. You could take a cab anywhere for reasonable fares, but where's the fun in that?

The mass transit system here is truly a system - unlike Washington, where your only options are bus or train, Istanbul has multiple overlapping methods of transit, including both public and privately run vehicles. There's a single device, an Akbil, that allows a traveller to pay fares on almost all of the transit systems (except for the very smallest, private busses) and that offers discounted transfers between different methods of transit. Supposedly the Akbil system will be upgraded to handle fares for everything in the city - cabs, museums, you name it. I'll believe it when I see it, although the market penetration it already has is pretty impressive. (WMATA, you're on notice.)

The first method I figured out was the metro, because I live right by one of the stations on line M2, which also gets me within an easy cab ride or a twenty-minute walk of the Consulate. M2, as you might surmise, is the second metro line in the city. However, it doesn't connect to M1, the metro line that runs to the airport - so there are two subway lines running in isolation. (I hear there are also subway lines on the Asian side, but I haven't been there yet to verify this fact.) You can connect between the two subway lines by using the tramway, which runs through the heart of the tourist district on a dedicated track - convenient for getting to Ayasofya, but not made for commuting. Of course, this is the modern tramway, T1, and not the aptly named nostaljik tramvay, which runs down a pedestrian boulevard in the heart of the city and is roughly equivalent to the cable cars in San Francisco - for tourists only. Also, when I said that you can connect between the subway and the modern tramway, I skipped one step - the funicular line (one of two in the city) that connects the M2 line to the T1 tram. It's a two-stop cable car that runs back and forth from M2 to T1, and it's designed to handle the steep incline between the two lines in a way that a regular subway car couldn't.

Are you confused? Take a deep breath - the cars are all clean, new, and shiny. People here are incredibly polite, with no shoving and passenger rebellion like you'd expect in DC. Besides, we haven't even gotten to the bus system yet.

Busses - there are a lot. They helpfully have signs in the front windows that tell the major neighborhoods/transfer points their routes include. Unfortunately, the downside of the bus network is that they are subject to the rules of the road here, which means A) they're affected by traffic congestion and B) the drivers are locals. On Friday I was caught in a traffic jam for 15 minutes while one bus tried to negotiate its way out of a one-way street into a roundabout, going the wrong direction all the while. There is also a rapid bus line that travels in dedicated lanes on one of the major highways, the belt road. It provides easy access to the Asian side, major bus transfer points, and most of the various other transit systems. There are also mini busses, privately run passenger vans for about 15-20 people that follow set routes. You need cash for these, but they replicate a lot of the major bus lines and move much faster than the city busses do. Their drivers are also the biggest jackasses on the road I have seen to date.

These are only the systems that I've taken. Other options include light rail, heavy rail, ferry boats (!), dolmuş busses (possibly the same as the mini busses? I'm not clear about that), and aerial cable cars. Oh, and all of the rail lines are rapidly expanding. Pretty much all we're missing is a tuktuk network. So come on to Istanbul - bring your adventuring hat. I'll have a spare Akbil for you.

72 Hours in Istanbul

2010-06-04T18:58:00.000+03:00

[Friday 3 June update: just now got internet going at my house. Here's what I wrote last Sunday, before all the madness with the flotilla emerged. Needless to say it's been busy.]

I got here safely, albeit tiredly, on Thursday afternoon. I'm not sure when I'l get internet access in my apartment, so I've been keeping ideas in my notebook for things to write up when I get the chance. I was considering turning them into longer pieces, but I rather like the idea of contextless paragraphs - since I'm still getting used to the time change (I accidentally overadjusted and set my biological clock to somewhere in Central Asia, so I'm re-acclimating now), these disjointed paragraphs are a pretty accurate representation of how I got through this weekend.

-------------------

Sitting in an outdoor cafe in an alley under the Bosphorus Bridge with friends in town for the long weekend from Embassy Riyadh, drinking tea, smoking shisha, and laughing in sheer, silly delight at the colors and sounds around us. So different from Saudi Arabia! We could never do this there.

I CAN SEE THE BOSPHORUS FROM MY APARTMENT!!

First call to prayer - I feel like I'm back at home, even though I would never call Riyadh home. I'm in my element here.

Seeing the skyline lighting up with fireworks commemorating the 557th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of the city. Seeing billboards around the city wishing the people a happy anniversary.

Young boys diving into the Bosphorus in their underpants while people play backgammon at the waterside cafes around me

Walking down the western bank of the Golden Horn, coming across a flotilla of apparently old-school wind-powered ships, with masts and sails and the whole nine yards (nine yardams?), from a dozen different countries, each crew speaking Arabic, Indonesian, Polish, Dutch, German, Russian... the ruse was revealed when I saw the nuclear logo on the side of the Polish ship, and when I saw them set sail as a group towards the Black Sea an hour later, sails still furled.

Warships, cruise ships, cargo ships, sailboats, fishing boats, ferryboats....

Seeing two giggling teenage girls sharing an ice cream, one veiled and in a knee-length cloak, the other in a miniskirt, both texting frantically and eyeing the guys walking by

My oven is somehow a microwave at the same time??!

Not being screwed over by a cabbie - what a glorious feeling.

See You Soon, DC

2010-05-26T14:07:00.000+03:00

Last day in Washington - I fly in a few hours. In keeping with my tradition of the last few years, I'm getting a haircut on my way to the airport. (I admit: I'm afraid of getting it cut overseas. I can barely explain what I want my hair to do in English, much less in a foreign language.) Pretty much everything I needed to do except get my car shipped has been done, and luckily I have friends who are more responsible than I to help with the logistics on that once I leave. How would any of us survive moving every two to three years if it weren't for our friends, who mail us things that don't fit in our suitcases, take the half-empty bottles of ketchup and vodka from our refrigerators, and sort out the piles of crap before the movers arrive?

Last night I and a few friends went to my favorite pre-departure place in DC: the back side of the Lincoln Memorial. For the past few years, every time one of us departs Washington for an extended period of time, we've wandered down to sit behind Abe late at night, where we watch road and air traffic, look at the lights of Virginia and the dark of Arlington Cemetery, and revel in having our own little piece of DC to ourselves. No photos, because the lighting wasn't right, and the moment wasn't either. It's just a nice way to remember my last day in DC: swinging our feet off the marble wall, holding hands and telling old jokes.

I'm off on a new adventure, but this is still home, because of all of the people I love here. See you soon, DC.

The Things We Carry, Part 2

2010-05-24T15:24:00.000+03:00

My movers arrive in 4 hours, and I still have to make a Target run to get a few things. But I wanted to put this one out here before my stuff disappears for a few months, hopefully arriving before Ramadan. I have a lot of stuff - somehow I've accumulated 4 pairs of black flip-flops (all from Old Navy), bunches of snarky T-shirts, and pounds of loose-leaf tea, as well as more pillows than you can shake a stick at. But the truly bizarre things are what always make my movers look at me strangely. Up today: Esmerelda.

Yes, this is a disembodied life-sized doll's leg, named Esmerelda. The right leg, to be specific; the left leg belongs to my Aunt Gail, whose favorite movie is My Left Foot. The near obsession with creepy dolls in my family goes back to college, when my mother found in her father's attic an appalling, life-sized doll that came to live with me in my dorm. That freaking doll was far more effective than any burglar alarm could ever be - I'm fairly certain it was possessed. Shiloh (for that was her name) unfortunately did not survive the move away from St. Louis, but luckily a few years later we discovered these legs on the side of the street in our neighborhood.

Esmerelda is great fun. She goes with me on major trips, fitting neatly into a carry-on bag, which always makes the TSA scanners do a double-take. She went to Atlanta in January, Puerto Rico in March, the beach two weeks ago, and out on the town with Rita and me on Thanksgiving eve. Let me tell you, there's nothing more fun than explaining to your waitstaff why you have a plastic doll's leg sitting at the spare seat at your table.

Weird? Absolutely. Awesome? Very much so! We dance with Esmerelda, too, but since I have no photos in which anyone has a normal face, I'll spare you those details. Esmerelda has many other uses: a hobo carrying stick (the toes keep the bag of your earthly possessions from falling to the ground), a defensive weapon should someone break into your house, a katana, artwork, a hat rack... you name it, and Esmerelda can probably do it, so long as it doesn't involve moving joints!

So when you visit me in Istanbul, you'll probably see Esmerelda hanging out in the living room. Just wave hello and know that you'll probably be dancing with her at some point during your stay.

Weekly State Blog RoundUp

2010-05-21T13:48:00.006+03:00

Welcome to the Weekly State Blog RoundUp, in its new incarnation as a shared feature! THIS IS AN ACTION REQUEST - SEE SECTION 4. END SUMMARY.

(Or, if you just have time to read the summary, go here. It's self-explanatory.)

Recommended posts, by popular vote

Nelson started off this week’s suggestions with a New Yorker article on Haitian adoptions after the earthquake. I will admit that I haven’t had time to read it fully (my PCS looms next week), but here’s his commentary: “I sent this link to A Daring Adventure because I thought it showed the dedication of State folks – CON officers working around the clock and helping people in need.” Nelson’s an aspiring FSO, so hopefully he’ll be joining our dedicated ranks soon!

One meme that’s been circulating through the blogs in recent weeks is how we came to the Foreign Service. I think No Double Standard has set the bar pretty high with the series of posts on this topic, including the gut-puncher in part three. Hat tip to the Diplopundit for recc’ing this one.

Bfiles submits to us this comparison of Sao Paolo and Brasilia, which end up with a tie score by the end of the match. Do you want to defend your favorite Brazilian post? Duke it out in the comments at Overseas Insights!

Bfiles wins the coveted Pointy Hat of Link Submission Success for most links submitted for this week’s RoundUp. Her next contribution is this entire blog, where Chris is describing what it’s like to live and to work in the middle of the Red Shirt protests in Thailand. Keep the updates coming, Chris, and most importantly, STAY SAFE!

James sends us the At Post photoblog, which I hadn’t heard of before now and which will now be my preferred way to get a covert giggle during some of my less-than-enthralling FSI classes. You know all of those pictures you take of funny English errors or bizarre signage overseas to send to your family back home? Now you can share it with your colleagues as well! Remember y’all, protect ya tings!

We have a request via A Daring Adventure’s comment form – does anyone know of any FS types blogging in France? Submit anything you can think of in the links, or email stateroundup2.0 {at} gmail.com so we can pass the word back to Pam, who’d originally asked.

Editor’s selection

Don't miss Diplopundit's call to participate in a registry drive for a child in need of a marrow donation.

Jill has had a crappy day, and SassAndSweet has had an even worse day. Show them some love - and S&S, I'm thinking of you. I hope you find peace soon.

Katie may have missed Poetic Sunday, but don't worry, Rock Star - we have another blogger (with possibly my favorite blog title ever) holding down the poetry fort!

In a topic near and dear to my own heart, C.C. at Six Months of Settled has opened her blog back up. Welcome back!

Lemur shares a day-in-the-life post - may be of interest to those of you still on the register or considering taking the test.

Todays list of amusing things to tell children, courtesy of I'll Take Mine to Go (times two) and Worldwide Available.

Mr. and Mrs. Crab experience that moment we all remember - the great power and responsibility of picking up your black passport for the first time. Use it wisely, Crabby-wans.

It's an endless topic of conversation... what do you miss from home when you're overseas? There's a good list stacked up at Simmons Says, as well as at Neither Here Nor There, but we can always add more to it, I'm sure! The flip side of this, of course, is the shock you get when you come back home, which rk sums up nicely.

For those of you who've been assigned to Jerusalem, I hope you're prepared. I don't want to say that it will make you crazy... No Double Standards and Digger certainly wouldn't say that, per se. However, there is such a thing as Jerusalem Syndrome, which provides fodder for every news agency's odd news wire and which I must imagine leads to some Dada-esque ACS calls. Don't say you weren't warned! (But seriously, read NDS' account for a take on Jerusalem that's not flip and sarcastic.)

Speaking of Jerusalem, I'd like to transition into bits of local color spotted at post (or wherever you happen to be living now). Brooke and Max went to a wedding in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem, Leesonthego figure out how to find their car in a crowded lot, Judie talks about the commemoration of the end of World War II in Prague, Sara experiences her first earthquake at post, Alex talks about the deadliest hotdog stand in the world, Z. Marie sees local color on the Metro, and Stephanie hears about low-tech election delays in a high-tech method.

It's transfer season, and insanity is running high among the blogs. Shannon, Donna, Devon, Yellow Flower, Al, C, and I are all in the process of packing out (and David's in the assistance phase). I'm sure there are more of you, and my eyes have just glazed over at the pile-up of posts in my RSS feed (and from lack of sleep). If I've missed your tales of packout woes, please email me, and I'll be sure that you're added to the list! Misery loves company, right? Luckily, there are mothers out there to provide advice and finger-wagging when needed. Shannon's mom is there for her, and while I have no snappy links for this, my mother is sitting about four feet away from me right now, taking a break from helping me with my packout. I suspect that I'm going to owe her for years for this one. Chris and family take the prize for worst move story of the week, though.

Think Pieces

The Skeptical Bureaucrat brings up for discussion H1-B visas and Fortress America. What do you think?

SassAndSweet raises a question - what would you do? (Other than be very, very careful not to cross the line and reveal too much personal information!)

Job advice from Heather, Jeff's tips from Yellow Flower, and a jobs soundtrack from NDS.

How the Department uses social media, courtesy of Digger. Passed along without comment.

Drama Llamas

Well, I think I covered everything that happened this week. (As far as my blogroll goes - again, if I missed you or you want to be included, just comment away and I'll make sure I get you next time!) What's that you say? Something else of note happened this week? Hmmm... Here's the ensuing discussion in the blogs about FS blogging as we know it - Donna's take, Diplopundit's take, Diplopundit's take again for extra erudition, and NDS' take on it for good measure. Well, luckily for us, Kolbi's back at A Daring Adventure, with an incredible tale that TypePad has ever-so-kindly deleted. (Hope you got to read it before TypePad did its thing - it's a doozy!)

Whatever the case may be, we have Kolbi back, which I think we can all agree is a good thing for the community. One thing that did come out of this debacle is the divvying up of blog RoundUp duties. I had no idea until I sat down last night/today to work on this just how time- and labor-intensive a process it is. Kolbi's done a hero's work in getting this started - now I think we should give the poor woman a break and rotate the fun so that no one takes too much time out of his or her life for this! You can see the sign-up page for hosting duty here. If you have ANY questions, please send an email to her, me, or to stateroundup2.0 {at} gmail.com.

Here's to the future, folks! See you next week for the RoundUp at Diplolife!

Wherein the Author Attempts to Recreate a Community Feature

2010-05-17T05:07:00.000+03:00

So, for whatever reason, last Friday's State blog roundup didn't happen. I don't have the readership to make this work well at first, but I'll give it a try. If you have a State blog entry you want to highlight, if you want to promote your own piece, or if you find some news item of relevance to us transient State-sians (what is the proper demonym for us, anyway?), pass the link along to stateroundup2.0 {at} gmail.com. Send your suggestions in by Wednesday, and I'll do my best to get it out to you by Friday!

USAA: Now with More Awesome

2010-05-13T01:47:00.005+03:00

Overheard on Twitter yesterday...

draperha I love USAA so much. They must inject all of their phone reps with happiness and competence before every shift.

5:06 PM May 11th via txt

USAA @draperha Oh no, our secret is out! Who told you? :) We are honored to serve our members and try our best to take excellent care of them.5:59 PM May 11th via web in reply to draperha

Well, That Was Fun

2010-05-04T02:35:00.001+03:00

And eight months later, language training is suddenly over. I am evidently an FSI-designated proficient speaker of Turkish, and all that remains between me and Turkey is three weeks of learning how to write a cable and packing out.

I'd like to commemorate my 2/3 year of language training with a collection of some of the things I learned about Turkish.

You only need one verb per paragraph. Any more would be an extravagance.
A sentence to make in order, your opposite thinkingness' being is necessary.
The word for cannibal is yamyam. (Say it out loud for maximum hilarity.)
There are no Chinese cognates in Turkish.
I can make any verb I want by combining the English noun with the verb to do. Reserve yapmak, piknik yapmak, brifing yapmak, stabyouintheface yapmak, etc. It's quite handy.
I learned more about running marathons this year than I ever wanted to know. Unfortunately, I only learned it in Turkish, so I can't explain any of it in English. Wait, did I say unfortunately?
If you can't remember the word in Turkish, pronounce the English word with a horrid French accent. You have a 50/50 chance of being right.
I have the cutest grandmotherly vocabulary. Knowing Arabic is useful in this language, but only if you don't mind sounding like you're an 85-year-old villager.

A corollary: all of the Arabic/Islamic/Arab phrases of politeness and cultural awareness that have been imprinted in my DNA? Completely useless in Turkish, and use of them will probably label me as a religious nutcase.

I still can't use conditional sentences. Luckily, I will only ever need to talk about factual events, so it's totally irrelevant that I can't say, "If you don't clear my HHE through customs in under three months, I am going to sit down in your office floor and scream until you give me my cooking pans."

Yep, I think I'm prepared for post.

Explaining Saudi to Ten-Year-Olds

2010-04-28T06:25:00.001+03:00

On my last day of home leave last August, I went to a local middle school to speak to an advanced lit class about my experiences living in the Arab world. Their teacher is an old family friend (and my second-grade teacher) who invited me to the classroom because the book the students were reading. Shadow Spinner is a loose adaptation of 1001 Nights, retold and toned down for an adolescent audience (that is to say, the frequent, graphic sex and violence of the original are traded for a teenage heroine who helps save Shahrazad's life).

The kids were bright, but for most of them, the world described in the book was so foreign that they couldn't square the scenes they read in the pages with what they saw on television about the Islamic world. They knew that the book takes place in ancient Baghdad, but for many of them, the stories about their parents and cousins in the Iraq war superseded the literature. And frankly, the descriptions of clothing, food, and traditions were so alien to them that they didn't have any idea how to imagine the book's scenes. My job wasn't to do a PR whitewashing job for the Arab world, or to validate all of the worst ideas they might have absorbed from the evening news. I just tried to give them some context about an Arkansan living in a very small part of the Arab world.

I explained in a few sentences what I did there, then let them ask me questions. It was a little slow at first, but as they warmed up to me, and I showed a few photos when they reminded me of things I had images of, the questions got better, and the kids were more interested. The boys, unsurprisingly, were focused on a certain type of question. 'Do they have Playstations?' 'Do they all ride camels?' 'Do they have cars?' 'Do they have air conditioning?' Luckily the teacher was able to head off most of the questions in this vein before they got too out of hand!

The girls, on the other hand, generally asked insightful questions. One question that stopped me in my tracks - "What do their homes look like?" It's a simple question, but it is so telling. No windows facing the street, high walls around the home, and separate sitting rooms for men and women - those housing designs say more about social values than any stories ever could. Other girls asked about food: if families ate meals together, what types of food were normally eaten, if they really drank as much tea as the characters in the book do. Another girl asked about names - if children are named after people in their families, or saints, or another type of tradition.

Of course, clothing was something all of the students were curious about. I'd brought my abaya and one of my veils with me (no niqab, as I don't own one), so the show-and-tell part had to happen. While I was getting into my ninja suit, the teacher mentioned to me that one part of the book they were reading talked about the main character wearing a veil so that only 'the moon of her face' showed. As I buttoned the abaya and tucked the veil around my hair and chin, I explained that comparing a woman's face to the moon is a compliment to her beauty. When I lowered my hands, and the kids saw my (very pale) face peering out of the black veils, the girls all went, 'Aahhhhhh!' They understood the description finally... whereas the boys just giggled and wanted to try it on themselves. Boys will be boys, I suppose!

Questions like these really let me think about my experiences in Riyadh through a different lens. How do I talk about a very different place in a way that these kids, most of whom had probably never met a Muslim, would understand? I think I did a decent job... my teacher-friend said that the discussions of the book were a lot livelier over the next few days. Maybe I'll get really lucky - maybe one of the kids got the travel bug from me! (To the parents of Crittenden County, sorry for stealing your children.)

When Did April Start Going This Fast?

2010-04-24T21:19:00.000+03:00

Holy crap... in five weeks I'll be wheels up. I'm flying out on the 26th of May, and I'll arrive in Istanbul via Frankfurt the next day. My end-of-training exam (eep!) is next Friday. I have a hard time motivating myself to study - I feel pretty good that I'll get the required 2/2 without any problems, but there's no way I'll make it to the 3/3 level of language incentive pay, either. So I'm just floating along. As happens every time I approach another move (8 since 2004), I think of all of the things I haven't done that I wanted to do. This time it's road trips outside the city that I wish I'd done more frequently. Ah, well. I hope I get to do a lot of those in Turkey, and I'll be back in DC soon enough.

This job has a lot of ups and downs, things that I love and things that make me want to slice myself. One of the perks is how many awesome people you get to spend time with at work, and how strong your friendships are. The downside, of course, is that after a few months you all split up and head to your separate posts. It makes vacations easy (I don't pay for hotels, honey, I stay with friends), but it's a constant stream of goodbyes.

The Things We Carry, Part 1

2010-04-06T15:56:00.000+03:00

In contemplating my next move, I have been looking over all of my stuff and deciding how I'm going to divvy things up - what goes in the first shipment, which will arrive a week or two after I get to Turkey, and what goes in the second shipment, which will arrive 2-3 months later. And, of course, should any of that go awry coming through customs, I'll just have my two suitcases to live out of for a few months: so I'll need suits, medications, my favorite tea mug, photos for the fridge, a life-sized plastic doll's leg, and the collection of random items (toy horse, small hand bell, a ceramic cat) that sits on my desk at work.

Wait... what?

This may sound slightly familiar, and it certainly does if you've ever been in my apartment. I have a lot of stuff. Decorative stuff. Tchotchkes. Kitsch. It's stuff I've been dragging around for years in some cases, and I keep it because it all means something to me, and because it reminds that no matter where I go, I have a piece of my loved ones with me. There's stories behind a lot of the stuff, inside jokes and souvenirs of trips I've taken or events I attended. And, in the vein of Peteykins' sadly defunct blog (of which I may have been the only interested reader), I'm inflicting story time on everyone else. After all... story telling is probably what I do best in life (should have stuck with the original plan and become a writer), and props are always helpful, right?

So first up, I have my carved and painted art from Oaxaca, Mexico.

These were given to me by my friend Carol, who lived next door to me when I was growing up on the farm in Arkansas. Carol was my surrogate aunt for ten years, babysitting me when my parents were out of town, hiring me to care for her animals when she was travelling, and telling me stories. Endless stories, fabulous stories, and stories that opened my eyes to things I'd never considered. Carol followed the Grateful Dead for a few years, in addition to living all over the US and Latin America, and she was the first person I really knew well who had travelled far and wide. She had seen things and lived experiences that blew my ten-year-old mind, and she let me raid her huge book collection whenever I wanted. She opened my eyes to the magic of travel and wonder in the world.

One year she was in Mexico and Cuba all summer, and I was given the responsibility of feeding and playing with her animals (horses, cats, dogs, chickens... I think nine pets in total at that time). When she came back in the early fall, she brought me these horses and the frame - that's a photo of me and Carol in the frame, the summer after I graduated from high school. My mother got a hand-woven wool rug that to this day hangs in our house, under a poster of Mexican artwork. This is the first real taste I got of tchotchkes, and they've been with me in every place I've lived since then. My taste for really colorful, bright art probably developed out of these pieces and the things she had in her house. Careless movers in DC and Riyadh have meant that the bigger horse has trouble wearing his ears and tail simultaneously, but them's the breaks.

After I moved off the farm, Carol moved to the West Coast to get an MBA, which she got from one of the top schools in the nation while battling - and defeating - hepatitis C. I helped her move back to Memphis a few years later, carrying on a tradition of me being the cheap labor she used to help her move (that was the third time I've carried those damned books around, albeit the longest journey).

And here is Oaxacan art with curious kitty.

Lessons Learned from a Year in Saudi Arabia

2010-04-04T04:17:00.003+03:00

I won't pretend that a tour in Saudi Arabia is as difficult as serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. However, it wasn't a walk in the park, and while I learned a lot from the experience, it was also one of the most difficult times in my life. After I'd been back in the US for a few months, I was able to collect my experiences in Riyadh into a few main points that I think may be applicable across hardship posts, high-stress environments, and life in general.

Maintaining family ties and relationships with friends outside the stressful environment is paramount. I don't know what I would have done without Skype and AIM to keep me in touch with my loved ones at home, who kept me grounded. They gave me perspective, encouragement, and laughs when I needed them the most. (Care packages of comfort food and good books help too. Anne and Sarah, Katelyn, my mother, and Aleksei... you guys are my saviors.)
Forging ties with other social groups is crucial. Even if you can't socialize normally due to security restrictions, make friends with people in another secure compound. My coworkers were incredible, and I count many of the people from my time in Riyadh among my closest friends. However, spending 12 hours in the office, 2 at dinner, and then going home to the same housing compound with the same people six or seven days a week is not healthy - it means that you can't turn off the office. A few months after I arrived, I connected with a number of US military members posted at the military installation on the other side of Riyadh, and going there on weekends served as the pressure release valve I needed when I couldn't think about work anymore.
Get out of the pressure cooker regularly. There is no email so important that you can't let your out-of-office reply handle it for 36 hours while you get away from it all every two months or so. Bahrain was my favorite getaway, although I went to Jeddah a few weekends to see friends there and to enjoy a comparatively relaxed city.
Go home. You're of no use to your employer if you're driven to the point of exhaustion. If you're still at your desk at 9 PM and the president is not arriving for a visit in 2 days, then you need to pack up and leave.
Be kind to your staff. There's a special place in hell for people who abuse the ones they supervise (one circle below animal abusers, I believe). All those things they told you in A-100 about being kind to your local staff? Absolutely true. It's amazing how often a hello, a thank you, or a pat on the back will improve moods and in turn make your job easier (and it's telling that these simple gestures can mean so much). The corollary to this is that if you aren't bringing snacks to your office at least once a month, you're failing your team. Dust off your grandmother's mixer and make some cookies, spring for Dunkin Donuts, or even just leave a sack of Hershey's Kisses by the door. We had a weekly breakfast spread for my office - the Americans rotated turns for about $30 each week and got a favorite local breakfast treat for everyone in the office. It took no more than 15 minutes out of our day, and it was a chance for everyone to sit around the same table and relax together.
And finally, no matter how stressful things get at times, keep it all in perspective. You're leaving soon. You can learn something from every situation if you have an open mind and a flexible attitude. And after all, you could still be working the crappy job you had in college. Remember, this is what you signed up to do, right?

Going Public, or How I Learned to Manage My Healthy Awareness of Diplomatic Security

2010-03-27T06:09:00.002+02:00

Well, I've certainly let this stagnate. The pressure to update frequently isn't there when I'm in the same language training program day after day for eight months. Additionally, it seems that everyone who used to be in my audience has given up on me. Not being able to add this blog to an RSS feed was a pain in the ass and led to a loss of readership. After seeing the shaming of a new FSO last January over her public blog, I've been thinking a lot about going public with this site, and what that might mean for me.

The simplest thing, of course, is that DS or Management just tells me to shut this down, with no further consequences. That has happened to a few of my friends who maintained sites that were little more than travel blogs - certainly no policy discussions. I don't intend to weigh in much on the most pressing issues of FS life (like Digger admirably does) or the greater scope of State policy (such as Diplopundit does). Frankly, I'm not experienced enough in State to be able to pick up on a lot of the nuances of the debates that rage on other, bigger blogs. And I'm certainly not a subject matter expert in a technical field, like Madam Le Consul, so I doubt that any of my posts will catch my superiors' eyes.

The shakedown of FSO Rookie really struck me as emblematic of the battle between the Old School State people and the newbies in the Department. I certainly don't want to disparage the old hands, who have knowledge and experience that will take me years to accumulate. However, I think that things have changed in the Department, and those of us in the new generation don't have quite the same point of view that our superiors have on a number of FS traditions. This job is wonderful, but it's not the only thing in my life - I'm not sacrificing my sanity and my personal life to uphold the self-imposed ideal of a US diplomat. As programs like Pickering, PMF, and Rangel bring in a younger, more technologically connected, and more diverse set of FSOs, the face of our diplomatic corps is changing, as is our attitude towards the work-life balance, the way that we interact with and engage the world, and the values we hold dear.

This is a long way of saying that I'm opening up this blog as a way to stake out my position on free speech for federal employees and our right to talk about our lives in a mature, logical way online. I understand the need to stay on message and the need to be secure. Neither of those concerns should preclude me from writing generally about my job, its benefits and difficulties, and the joys and struggles of living overseas as an American with an unusual position in my host country's society. Additionally, I've become a lot more connected to the FS blog community in the past few months, and I want to be able to take part more fully in conversations on comment boards. (My apologies to everyone who's gotten firewalled away from my profile/blog over the last two years.) More practically, my friends who have been bitching at me to write more (all two of you - everyone, say hello to Joanna and my mother) can finally lay off me.

I've gone through my old posts and made a few edits here and there, and I've selectively hidden a few that were geared for a private audience of close friends and family, not the world at large. I've also found a few posts that I wrote while on vacation last year but never got around to posting. Hey, can't hurt to publish them, right? In a few days I'll write a general re-introduction, and I'll finally get around to writing out the lessons that I drew from my first two years in State. I went through hell to learn them... might as well share!

Here's to the future, folks.

Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Self-Identification - Part I

2009-10-19T03:31:00.007+03:00

After 6 years of studying Arabic, Arab culture, and Middle East history, and after a year of visa interviews almost exclusively with Arabs, I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on how Arabs identify themselves, at least in the Gulf and in the Levant. There's citizenship, which is the passport or travel documents one carries - of course, some people are dual nationals and have two passports, then there are the Palestinians with no citizenship, only travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority or more commonly the first country to which their family fled in 1948. Then there's national identity - Palestinians usually identify themselves as that first, followed by any secondary identity. For example, "I'm a Palestinian with a Jordanian/American/British/whatever passport." Jordanians with no Palestinian family members will be very clear about that - "I'm Jordanian Jordanian."

I'm not sure if this double appellation was borrowed from American English, with its plethora of hyphenated origins (Italian-American, African-American, Chinese-American, etc), or if it arose on its own in Arabic, but to say that you're Jordanian Jordanian (or Saudi Saudi, or Egyptian Egyptian, and so on) means that not only do you have that citizenship, but your family originates from the territory now covered by the modern country, with no immediate dilution of another nationality in the past few generations. Amusingly, we at the embassy picked up that phrase and used it in our own way - to mean if someone is an American-born, -bred, and -raised, or if they are American by chance (born there while their parents studied in university, but hasn't been back since), or if they are an immigrant. While there isn't a distinction in the services we provide each category, knowing the citizenship history of each person who comes to us for help allows us to understand their particular needs a little better. The Idaho native ("American American") who converted to Islam and moved to Mecca last year will have different needs than the woman who was born in Urbana-Champaign but hasn't returned since the 1980s ("Saudi American") and now wants to get her first US passport, for example.

Someone who is from a blended family will be very clear about that, but he will almost invariably identify himself with his father's nationality. There's an overlap between culture and citizenship law here: in every Arab country I know of, citizenship is passed exclusively through the father. If a Palestinian man married a Saudi or a Syrian woman, the children of this marriage would have no citizenship and would have to carry the same type of travel documents as their father. Also, a wife can usually gain her husband's citizenship, but not the other way around. For the people we dealt with in Saudi Arabia, there seemed to be two categories of citizenship: Arab nations and Western nations. It would be a problem for a Saudi girl to marry a Syrian, or even a Syrian-Saudi, but no one would blink at her marrying a Saudi-American or a Saudi-British. Those nationalities just don't fit into the equation of regional ethnic hierarchies. (I speak of social preferences here, not about the value of marrying a child into an American family as a way to gain citizenship over time for the non-American family. That's a different case entirely.)

Because I talked mostly to Saudis, I got a good grasp of the social categories inside Saudi Arabia. Saudis whose family originates from the area that modern Saudi Arabia encompasses will tell you what tribe they are from, then that they're Saudi - "I'm an al-Anezi, and I'm Saudi." Usually (though this has gotten somewhat more flexible in recent times) tribal Saudis are expected to marry someone from their own tribe. If they don't, relatives can force the dissolution of the marriage or even decide communally (sort of) to evict them from the tribe. Some tribes are from territories that were divided between nations when borders were drawn after World War I with little regard for social realities on the ground (Winston Churchill, I blame you). Recently, there has been a move to grant dual citizenship to these particular tribes in recognition of their family ties to land that is in another country. So you can have a man from the al-Dossary clan who carries both Bahraini and Saudi passports but who will insist that he's Saudi Saudi - because that's the side of the line the majority of the tribe ended up on.

Now, for one's family to originate from Saudi Arabia, as they view it, you have to look back several centuries: someone whose family immigrated to Arabia 300 years ago, who carries a Saudi passport, and who speaks nothing but Arabic will very likely still have a surname such as al-Bakistani, al-Masri (Arabic for Egyptian), al-Bukhari (city in Central Asia), or al-Hindi (Indian subcontinent). Moreover, they will be expected to marry within that same community of "counterfeit Saudis," as some Saudi children will taunt them. They'll tell you that they're Saudis, but they aren't tribal - and that's a big deal. Rough estimates are that about half of Saudi citizens are tribal. This doesn't mean that they live in tents and herd goats for a living out in the middle of the desert, but it does mean a lot in terms of how these Saudis identify themselves.

Sometimes Saudi men marry women of other Arab nationalities (technically it's illegal for Saudi women to do so). Usually the wife will get a Saudi passport, because it's a lot easier to live in Saudi as a citizen than as a foreign national, and the children will, of course, be Saudis. However, it's usually known if someone's mother isn't a "real" Saudi. It doesn't matter much on a day-to-day basis, especially in recent years, but it still has lots of relevance in certain circles - in the Saudi royal line of succession, for example, some princes have been excluded from ascending to the throne because their mothers were not Saudis (Moroccan or sub-Saharan African, for example). The worst cases, it's whispered, are the princes whose mothers were slaves. That's a pretty harsh insult in a Kingdom where slavery was only outlawed in the 1960s and where so much of your social stature depends on your family.

One is supposed to know who one's paternal forebears are, going back at least seven generations, because names are essentially patronymics: A son of B, son of C, son of D, etc, etc. Tribal names now serve as what we'd call a surname for most people, but within tribes, especially larger ones, there are sub-tribal names delineating specific branches of the family. For a tribal Saudi, both the tribal and sub-tribal name are indispensable parts of his identity. (One interesting effect of this is that when an Arab woman gets married, she does not take her husband's name, as that would completely disrupt the naming system and disguise her social status. Children take their father's genealogy and family name.) In other Arab countries, even if a person isn't tribal, usually at some point in the last three generations a stable surname was picked for the family and is used on official documents. However, in some places (Egypt and the Horn of Africa, notably), stable surnames aren't used at all. Let's say we have an Egyptican guy named Sami, son of Mohammed, son of Ahmed. His legal name is Sami Mohammed Ahmed. When Sami has a child, that son will be named Abdullah Sami Mohammed - looks to us like there's a different last name there, but in reality there is no "last" name, just a series of generational names.

In summary, identity is complicated in this part of the world, much more so than we Americans usually perceive. I can't tell you how many Saudis I've met who were dumbstruck that I don't know where my family lived 100 years ago, or from what part of Europe we originally immigrated.

All of the above was supposed to be a prelude to my understanding of ethnicity and identity in Turkey... but that's a lot of information to digest! I think I'll pause here and return to the issue in a few days. If you're confused, you will definitely understand how I felt when I realized just how differently things work in Turkey. I suspect I will be having a lot of these moments in the next few years!

It's cold. And rainy.

2009-10-17T01:56:00.004+03:00

No longer thrilled by winter rains... it seems that I forgot through my year in Riyadh that humidity makes my hair extra-curly.

It's COLD! And RAINY!

2009-10-15T15:06:00.002+03:00

Yesterday, winter weather struck - it never got above 55 degrees, and it rained off and on most of the day. Today looks to be the same, but colder and wetter. Now, I'm sure the novelty of this will wear off soon, but for the moment, I'm still rather thrilled. I don't even mind that my heater is broken and my apartment gets no warmer than 63 degrees - it gives me an excuse to wear cashmere sweaters and comfy pants around the house! Beej, we're not in Riyadh anymore!

Post-Riyadh, I'm not really prepared for winter. I didn't turn my heater on at all while I was there - I merely turned the air conditioner off for a few weeks. My winter clothes were never unpacked in Saudi and were sent straight on to Istanbul. I'm not even sure where my wool trench coat or fluffy goosedown coat is.

So, anyone up for winter clothes shopping this weekend?

Noticeable Changes

2009-10-08T16:04:00.003+03:00

After I came home from Saudi, I discovered many small changes in American daily life that amused me - I never would have noticed them before, or I wouldn't have been as tickled by them. I went to the bank the day after I got home to cash a check for US dollars (I didn't use my debit card while overseas and had forgotten my PIN). I asked for a mixture of bills, and I was shocked to see the crisp, new fives and tens I received. What the hell happened to the greenback, and why is my money peach and purple now?!

Once I returned to DC, my first day of work at FSI was an orientation for the thousand or so (!) people beginning language training that day. We were told, in no uncertain terms and almost before the welcomes and platitudes were completed, that if we experienced flu-like symptoms we were to stay at home, and that flu vaccines would be available for free at the earliest opportunity. This is significant - when you're in training at FSI you aren't supposed to take leave, as missing a week of a language course there is like missing five weeks of a college course. There are now automatic hand sanitizer dispensers in every bathroom and at every hallway junction at FSI, and at the lunch tables in the cafeteria, small bottles of sanitizer now sit next to every set of salt and pepper shakers.

Bizarre. I'm still adjusting to normalcy here, such as being able to throw my beer bottles into the regular trash can (we had separate alcohol-product trash cans in Riyadh, as a fig leaf), but the hand sanitizer thing is still tripping me out.

Washington Again

2009-09-13T01:11:00.003+03:00

I must say, it's absolutely glorious to be back in DC, with its attendant transit woes, traffic nightmares, and hordes of tourists. I've settled into my apartment in Eastern Market, and the Beej has come to live with me in our new home. He's quite taken with the squirrels that he can see from his window perch.

I've been in Turkish for four weeks now, and I'm really enjoying it - it's so similar to Azeri that almost all of what we're covering is familiar. The Turkish teachers are all quite good, and we've had a number of fascinating conversations about ethnicity, religion, and politics in their home countries. Suffice it to say that I've had a good primer in the politics of Turkish secularism!

I feel like I've finally made some substantial progress in getting over Riyadh. When I see a paper bag on a park bench, I no longer think IED first; I assume I'm back in wino-ridden DC. I've finally gotten used to putting a beer bottle cap into my regular trash can, since I don't have to keep a separate receptacle for alcohol-related products. My last day in Arkansas, I spoke to a group of fifth graders about living in Riyadh and daily life in the Middle East more generally. It forced me to look at the past year through a different lens, and I think it was healthy for me. I'm hoping I'll write more in the coming months as I continue to decompress and as I learn more about Turkey. Here's to more regular posting!

Riyadh on My Mind

2009-08-24T23:55:00.002+03:00

I've been gone for three weeks, but I still carry pieces of the Riyadh mindset with me. Last night, I was eating dinner with my parents, and I wanted to sit at a table where I could watch pedestrians outside - because I was so excited to see people walking around normally, wearing normal clothing. I woke up one morning last week and drove to the grocery store just because I could, revelling in the fact that I could drive myself to a store where I could buy cheap, fresh produce without putting on a stifling black cloak.

Being vehicularly independent has its mental costs, though. Last week, I was driving in Memphis when I realized I was boxed in by slow drivers in front of me and beside me. I panicked and nearly jumped the curb onto the median of the parkway before I realized that neither the granny in front of me nor the workmen beside me were likely to have snipers in the back seat, waiting to pop up and attack me. The worst was a few weeks ago, when I was riding with my parents somewhere in Memphis. We were laughing and talking, and everything was fine - until I saw a plastic bag in the roadway, over which we drove. I instantly thought bomb, but since I wasn't driving, there was no way I could swerve. I didn't tell my parents until later what caused me to shut down for the night - no more smiles, no laughter. Evidently I also was rude to someone who asked a friendly question about my hometown, because I didn't want to reveal any personal details.

It's not that Riyadh is extremely unsafe - after the wave of attacks in 2003 and 2004 the government cracked down on domestic terror, arresting anyone who sneezed in a way that was likely to cause suspicion. However, there's still an active undercurrent of ill intent in the Kingdom, and I've had a few too many friends experience close calls in the past year. Better to have sharp nerves that fray from time to time than to be caught napping.

Home Again!

2009-08-15T03:37:00.004+03:00

Beej and I finally made it to West Memphis safely. We've acclimated to life on home leave quite well - sleeping late, catching up on reading for fun, reacquainting myself with the finer points of American culture, such as draft beer and fresh vegetables.

Having time to recharge my batteries is amazing, and much needed.

Stuck in Chicago O'hare

2009-08-04T05:59:00.002+03:00

Currently sitting at my gate in Chicago, waiting on my flight to Memphis... This has been the absolute worst series of flights I have ever experienced. Sheer incompetency all around. United Airlines - congratulations, you are terrible.

I'm taking a boat to Turkey. No way I want to go through this madness again.

Last Interview Ever - In Sha' Allah!

2009-07-28T22:16:00.003+03:00

In what will hopefully be my final visa interview ever, I refused a tourist visa to the wife of an American citizen. The husband then proceeded to heap verbal abuse on me, calling me a bitch, an asshole, and a racist for refusing a visa to his lawful wife - how dare I presume that she would overstay her visa? How dare I make an American citizen change his vacation plans?

Ahh, consular work. Never boring.

Commence to Panicking in Five... Four... Three...

2009-07-24T23:16:00.004+03:00

Somehow, I always manage to forget just how stressful moving is. Right now, I've gone into stressed-out overdrive: my travel order drama has been resolved, but I now have approximately twenty-eight hours to put my house in order before the movers arrive. Eeep. I never even unpacked half my stuff when I got to Riyadh, so at least that is working in my favor... I'm just using the same boxes I had before. Still, it's depressing to see my books and other possessions disappearing for another year. Everything I own in the Kingdom is piled inside masking-tape boundaries on the ground floor of my house, waiting to be sent to Istanbul or Antwerp or DC or Arkansas.

I'm shelling out a little bit of extra cash to ship some things with a private carrier to DC (above and beyond what State will ship there on its own dime), such as some well-loved decorations and certain prized bits of cookware. I wouldn't do this normally, but after this tour I am feeling the need to pamper myself with things I love, so the bizarre, storied accoutrements of my life (a ceramic banana, Oaxacan carved horses, a floor tile stolen from the Silver Spring metro station, a papier-mache demonic cow, a single pink leather-and-steel stiletto) will be taking up residence in DC when I arrive. Assuming I survive this move, you're welcome to stop by to hear the stories behind them all. I promise you'll be entertained!

Another Year, Another Move

2009-07-24T11:27:00.003+03:00

Well, here I am, a few days away from leaving Riyadh for good. I'm preparing to face the tempestuous hell of packing out... sorting out what goes into storage for another year, what goes to Washington, and what goes into my suitcases. For someone who hates moving and instability, I really think I'm in the wrong career!

Reflections on Riyadh might come later. I think I'll probably just be happier to shut the door on this chapter of my life and not look back. I've learned a lot here, much of it in the form of negative reinforcement. Getting back to DC for a year to learn Turkish has been the light at the end of the tunnel for some time - I can remind myself of what it's like to live a normal life when I'm there, without being beholden to motor pool for transportation, or dodging the religious police, or constantly being on the lookout for potential attackers.

In the meantime, though, I have mounds of books and clothing and cookware to sort through, as well as a minor administrative challenge in actually obtaining my travel orders - my legal authorization to pack up my stuff to leave. I'm dependent on some nameless, faceless paper-pusher in DC... god help us all!

Ordering Pizza in Riyadh

2009-07-11T20:48:00.002+03:00

In a normal workplace, if you work past closing time at the company cafeteria, you call in for delivery of some food. In Riyadh, if we interview past 2 PM when the cafeteria stops serving food (this happens far more frequently than I would like... six hours of visa interviews without stopping is no fun), we will sometimes order in pizza from the shop across the street. It's actually pretty good - if I had the choice in the States, I'd order Baak Pizza over most of the delivery chains there. The best part is that the store will deliver to the embassy within half an hour, unless you call right before prayer.

However, there's one small step we have that most office buildings can skip: we have to put the pizza box through the X-ray scanner. Once it's determined to be free of all suspicious objects and potential explosives, the box is cheerily stamped X-RAY SCANNED by the guard, and we're ready to take lunch back to the office, where we can munch on our all-beef pepperoni.

Just another day in Riyadh.

How I Spent My Fourth of July Vacation

2009-07-05T22:21:00.000+03:00

I spent the long weekend in Antalya, on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. I met up with a friend from Riyadh there, and we proceeded indulge in the greatest form of decadence, to wit: all meals and all drinks (as long as we consumed Turkish beer/liquor... not a problem) were included in the very reasonable price of the hotel. We had two large pools at our dispense, along with three or four different restaurants and a pristine stretch of sandy beaches just beyond the swim-up bar. Oh, and there were massages, Turkish baths, kayaks free for the taking up and down the coast, and drink service at the lounge chairs. We did take one night out in the old city, and there's little I can think of that's more relaxing than sitting at a cafe on top of the Ottoman ramparts overlooking the moonrise on the Mediterranean harbor while sipping a beer and smoking shisha. I'd like to go back to Antalya and see more of the city, since so much of our time was spent at the hotel, but I recognize that I will have two years of weekend trips I can take around the country. I have plenty of time to plan those!

Now, normally this sort of stationary cruise wouldn't be my thing - I prefer more active and more solitary exploration if I'm in a new place, and the hotel's Entertainment Team (yes, it's capitalized) was quite insistent on dragging people into various hotel activities, such as pool games, dance parties on the pier after sunset, and other things that outgoing people enjoy in a large group of strangers. However, there's something pleasant in not having to worry about finding a cab to get to some restaurant from a guidebook that may or may not have been updated in the last ten years. I'm not sure I'd want to spend more than a long weekend in such a Stepford vacation - but for someone running on the fumes of her mental energy, this was a good way to recharge in preparation for my last month in Riyadh.

For that happy time has nearly come! I will arrive back in Riyadh on 4 July, and I should be leaving on 4 August to go back to the States. I start Turkish training on 8 September, and I should move back to DC around the 4th of that same month, which will give me time to spend Labor Day at my favorite East Coast haunt, Chincoteague Island. I spent a few days in DC before I came out to Turkey, and while I was there I managed to sign a lease on a great apartment in Eastern Market. Beej and I should be quite happy for our ten months there.

But before I can rhapsodize over my eighty-year-old apartment on a tree-lined street, filled with handmade Kazakh rugs and furnished with antiques and fine kitchenware.... I have to make it through another month in Riyadh, which will be filled with paperwork leading up to the move, and God only knows what other stressors may emerge. I got an extra treat on my flight back from Istanbul to Riyadh - the plane was 3 hours late, and by the time I was finally allowed on board, I realized that the 15 children who might have behaved themselves at 5 PM have no interest in doing so after being stuck in one room for 3 hours with nothing to do. Nor do their parents have any interest in keeping them corralled.

Please, a plea from a business traveller stuck in economy: If you are travelling with children, do not allow them to run wildly up and down the aisles, trying to flip up and down all of the armrests. And the lower-back massage I'm getting from the kicking toddler behind me is not appreciated. Also, if the child is of the screaming sort, I understand that it is difficult to know what to do in that instance. I suggest force-feeding Dimetap; it worked wonders on me as a child. Finally, if you're not willing or able to control your children, don't have them.

This message brought to you by the curmudgeon in 39L on Saudia Flight 213, Istanbul to Riyadh. As I write this, I only have 60 more minutes until touchdown, and my headphones are turned up as loud as they can go. It doesn't drown out the infantile madness.

the slow move east

A House Full of Happy

Where Did I Come From?

Home Alone

From the Halls of Montezuma...

The Call You Never Want To Receive

Worst Mother Ever

Updated Reading List

I Am Terrified of Bidding

Oh Dear God, I Am So Sorry

How to Be Romantic at State

Hey Y'all, It's Round Up Tiiiiime!

The Start of Tourist Season, Plus Other Housekeeping Notes

Happy Birthday to Me! (ish)

Back in Turkey

FS Blog Roundup - Hey, It's Almost Spring!

In the Full Light of History

FS Blog Roundup - 18 March

Home Sweet Home

Moments to Remember

Thanks for the Encouragement, Y'all

I Am Not Meant to Live Alone

Bread

The Joys and Perils of International Birthdays

Updated Reading List

Sad Things That Expats Will Do Overseas

Adventures To Be Had If You Visit

I *Heart* Turkish Christmas

Call Me Melba

Inspiration!

A Rough Day, Getting Rougher

The Good Things in Life

Back to Normal in Istanbul

İstanbul'a hoş geldiniz!

Güler Yüzlü

FREEDOM!

Things I Heart About Turkey

Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away

Two Weeks I'd Prefer Not to Repeat

The Magic of Google Reader

Negotiating Rep Events - Pro-Tip

Call of Duty

Tis the Season

It Takes All Types

Sumela

Two Degrees of Expatriate Life

It's Tenure Season!

How Not to Unpack Your HHE

Kolbi and Shannon Have Their Toe Shoes...

Accents and Insecurities

Best Weekend Ever

A Day in the Life

If It's Friday...

Weekly(ish) State Blog Roundup!

Two Years Ago Today

Happy Independence Day from Istanbul!

When the Unimaginable Happens

Today Seems... Incomplete

Another 4th of July Down

Full Moon Fever

Conspiracy Theories!!

Random Thoughts from Taif

Crittenden County, Once Again, Obstructs My Civic Goals

Getting Around in Istanbul - Everything but a Tuktuk

72 Hours in Istanbul

See You Soon, DC

The Things We Carry, Part 2

Weekly State Blog RoundUp

Wherein the Author Attempts to Recreate a Community Feature

USAA: Now with More Awesome

Well, That Was Fun

Explaining Saudi to Ten-Year-Olds

When Did April Start Going This Fast?

The Things We Carry, Part 1

Lessons Learned from a Year in Saudi Arabia

Going Public, or How I Learned to Manage My Healthy Awareness of Diplomatic Security

Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Self-Identification - Part I

It's cold. And rainy.

It's COLD! And RAINY!

Noticeable Changes

I Heart Turkish Christmas