It is bidding season again. The time when hubby and I look at a long list of job openings all over the world and decide which ones he should request to be assigned.
When we first joined the FS, I found bidding exciting and liberating—like that scene from Doctor Dolittle where he blindly opens the atlas and goes wherever he happens to plop his pencil down—or countless scenes in Doctor Who where the Doctor mischievously proclaims to his companion that their adventures could take them anywhere in time and space. Super cool—especially for a Hoosier girl-next-door who dreamed big, binged on the Pippin soundtrack, and yearned to find her corner of the sky.
Fast forward 7 surreal years. Seven years of crazy adventures, close calls, new friends and numerous au revoirs. Oh, and countless hours sitting on Drexel couches. While my Facebook albums tend to show the moments that look glamorous, there’s a lot of sitting. Also, a lot of packing and unpacking, a lot of starting over, a lot of time to gaze rather longingly at the lives of friends who have put down deep roots in their communities and are enjoying the fruits of that decision. I can’t help but ponder what would be possible if I picked a spot on planet Earth and stayed there for the long haul.
A good chunk of my nomadic life involves sitting on sofas
And so, here I am making spreadsheets in attempt to systematically form opinions on cities I couldn’t locate on a map a few weeks ago. For reasons I struggle to articulate, this time around I’ve felt increased pressure to bid wisely, to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each place, to pray for discernment of where I'm being called to serve next, to consider whether we wouldn’t be happier returning to Washington DC where we could finally move into that charming cape cod house we bought that was merely missing Kris Kringle's cane in the corner.
So what will the Denyers decide to do? Settle down or spin the wheel to experience an entirely different slice of life on Earth? The answer will be revealed mid-October….
A certain house on a quiet street in Maryland often calls to me
Bab Ezzouar shopping center (image pulled from mall's website)
Having flown into Algiers Thursday evening, we got up Friday morning (weekends are Fri-Sat here) to catch the embassy's grocery shopping shuttle van.
Our destination was further away than I realized--a bit of a drive-- to the Bab Ezzouar shopping center (the shuttle doesn't always go to this one; sometimes it goes to Ardis instead). What surprised me most about the mall was that I recognized the names of several of the stores inside (and I don't mean like the "7-Eleven" in Lusaka, the "Big Boy" in Djibouti or the "KFC" in Lubumbashi). They have an honest-to-goodness Hush Puppies store! They also have Timberland, Samsonite, Benneton, Lacoste, Nike, Swatch, etc. and a bowling alley on the second floor.
About the only things we couldn't find that we wanted in the large Uno grocery store was English tea (lot of herbals and coffees, though) and American-style milk. We discovered the hard way that the stuff they sell in the refrigerated section in bottles that has a label that translates as "100% cow milk" is more like buttermilk or thick liquid yogurt. Anybody got ideas on how to use 5 bottles of it? Pouring it on cereal has already been tried and rejected as an option.
The rest of the day was spent nesting in our new apartment and dealing with jetlag.
Saturday morning after a bit of a sleep-in we were picked-up by our social sponsors and taken to the heated swimming pool on the ambassador's compound so that our daughter could have a playdate with a few of the other embassy toddlers. ---I want to pause a moment and say what great social sponsors we've had. Not only did they have their preschooler daughter make a giant welcome sign for our daughter, they did generous things like loan us a soft set of bed sheets so we don't have to sleep on the cheap welcome kit ones while waiting several weeks for ours to arrive. ---
The community pool at the ambassador's is nestled inside the residence's extensive botanical gardens. My jaw hit the ground when I stepped through the security gates and saw the lush winding paths and palatial home. There is even a small playground near the pool for the embassy children. I'd love to show you pictures of the gardens, but given local security concerns, you can understand why people are touchy about photography around government buildings here. Luckily, there is this photo of her house on the embassy's public website. You'll just have to try to imagine what the rest of the property looks like. I'll give you a hint, though: fountains, a tennis court and rose and decorative herb gardens are involved.
Some of the people Evelyn will miss the most. Photo by Lyn Englin
With my globally nomadic life I often feel like I'm living in a movie. Except instead of 2 hours, my movies last about 2 years. It is closing credits time again, and we've been attending a string of goodbye parties for friends whose assignments are also ending. (FYI: The French events are extra cinematic with the nostalgic American dance tunes and visually dramatic venues.)
Closing credits time is when we attempt to tie up all the loose ends of our life here. When something can't be done I try to tell myself that it wasn't that important after all. I begin to lean out instead of in; no point starting something new, of meeting new people, of becoming more attached. The folks I'd intended to reach out to and get to know better? That woman who was going to tutor me in Swahili? The themed parties we were going to host? The Sheikh Djibouti dance school we joked about creating? Not going to happen.
Being a global nomad is a bit like channel surfing. On one hand, you get a glimpse of what's on every station. On the other, you're left wondering how the story lines would have progressed if you'd stuck around.
Closing credits time in the foreign service isn't about "happily ever after." It's about saying goodbye and going separate ways. As folks who study these things know, it generally takes about two years to really get your full stride once you've moved to a new place-- to form friendships that go back years (2, to be exact), to have bonded with those who are slow to trust, to have integrated yourself into a community--to have found your niche. Most foreign service assignments are three years long, but we're heading to yet another two year gig because Algiers is also considered a hardship post.
Now sure, at each post some folks are ecstatic to leave, but those folks weren't so happy where they were; I'd prefer to keep falling in love and having sad goodbyes.
And so, a toast to Djibouti! Thanks for the beautiful memories. I will miss you all--especially those whom I was only just starting to get to know better. May your lives be filled with bright sunny days.
Since I've been writing heavy posts lately, I thought I'd switch gears and return to my quest to reform Djibouti's bad reputation with my "Djibouti can be a nice place to live" series. Today I'd like to debunk the myth that Djibouti isn't a kid-friendly post. True, even the posh homes have paving slabs for yards, but we also have access to swimming pools, sandy beaches with gentle surfs, playground equipment and a recently re-opened bowling alley.
Mosques are everywhere if you are a Muslim family. If you
are a church-going family, the Catholic and Protestant churches in town have a
children’s program, and there is a group of expats who have formed a “Monday
School” that meets in the homes of English-speaking families.
For Americans coming to work at the US embassy, you’ll also
have access to the embassy's fantastic Health Unit and swimming pool as well as many of the perks at Camp
Lemmonier: air-conditioned movie theater, concerts and visiting celebrities, multi-faith chapel, shopping at the Exchange, affordable all-you-can-eat dinners at the
galley, etc. There are also informal weekly playgroups organized by embassy families.
I'll let my pictures make my case.
With a day-pass at the Kempinski you can enjoy the large shallow pools
That entire rectangular portion of the pool is waist deep for my toddler!
The bowling alley welcomes families and even has high-chairs in its restaurant
Entrance to this playground is equal to $1.50 USD per child (adults free)
I know many of you are waiting for me to write about my recent site visit to Mulongo, DR Congo, but those stories are still decompressing in my mind. So, in the meantime, I want to talk about something near and dear to me that has baffled many of my readers. “What’s up with Taylor’s (and her parents’) passion for Doctor Who?”
While sure I had a childhood crush on Wesley Crusher and love Joss Whedon’s work --Buffy and I grew up together--, I am far from having the credits to call myself a true sci-fi nerd. Doctor Who, however, resonates with me on a profound level, and it resonates in a way that I suspect only a global nomad could fully understand. This is why I find it interesting that I haven’t found many Whovians in the Foreign Service (and, yes, I have spent hours contemplating why this would be).
For those who don’t know, Doctor Who is a BBC program that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. It features an alien called “The Doctor” who travels through time and space in a ship disguised as an old British police phone box called the TARDIS. The Doctor has a soft spot for Earth and takes earthling companions on adventures. Each adventure, of course, involves encountering an unexpected danger and saving the day through quick thinking. The show is loved for its great writing (humor, wit, heart), and it doesn’t chase ratings with gratuitous gore or sexualized images. Part of the secret to its longevity is that not only can each episode take place anytime and anywhere, the cast and writers are constantly changing. Companions come and go, and The Doctor, when facing a potentially deadly injury, can simply regenerate (i.e. swap out leading actors). DW’s fan base is so large and dedicated that a good argument can be made that it is a religion. I’ve even been tossing around the idea for awhile with clergy pals that we should collaborate and write a Gospel According to DW.
There are endless things to love about the show, but for me the most important thing is that it is a stabilizing force in my surreal life. It helps me put problems into perspective and lets me re-frame that unsettling feeling that I'm falling down a never-ending rabbit hole into telling myself that I'm simply taking another adventure through the time vortex.
The Doctor’s companions jump from one reality to the next in the TARDIS. One day they are home just chilling in their flat in London; the next they are on another planet in the middle of a war zone or rewriting history. They sometimes struggle to wrap their heads around the fact that their lives don’t make sense, that they are living in multiple realities, and that each time they return ‘home’ they are no longer the person who left. There are the endless goodbyes, the strain of always being ‘the other,’ and the questioning of meaning, importance, ethics and identity. And this is just talking about those who started traveling as youth/adults.
But what about a person (and I’ll try not to give spoilers) conceived in the time vortex? Such a person can’t truly call any time or place home. Could such a person ever belong anywhere, or would the spaces between places always feel more comfortable? My daughter Evelyn will be able to relate to such a person. She was conceived in Zambia, born in the USA, baptized in Congo and learned to walk in Djibouti. She’s not even two yet, and she has more stamps in her passports than most folks get in a lifetime. For her, concepts such as ‘re-entry shock’ will be meaningless. Re-entry to where? The USA will probably just be another place she occasionally visits but not sure she could adapt to American mental paradigms enough to be happy living there long-term (and frankly, I'm not sure I could either). There are lots of books, studies and articles about people like Evelyn. The fashionable label is “Third Culture Kid” (TCK), although I won't bother rehashing that literature here.
For this post, I just wanted to explain that DW provides me with useful Freirean codes with which to process my experiences. It keeps me sane by making my life seem normal. And, it's lots of fun to watch.
My husband isn't a full Whovian (yet), but he has started watching the seasons that my in-laws recorded and mailed to us.
On August 1st the U.S. Foreign Service’s summer
2014 bid list is scheduled to be released. We are halfway through our second
assignment. If you know how the
Foreign Service works, then I’ve just told you everything you need to know
about my husband’s current state of mind. If you don’t, well, let me try to
explain a few things.
The U.S. Foreign Service is like a giant game of musical
chairs. Every few years every
officer has to vacate her/his job and find another one. It doesn’t matter if
you loved the job and were fantastic at it, once the music starts it is time to
move. The first two rounds the powers-that-be cut you some slack and help you
find your next post. After that, the game gets a lot tougher.
On a pre-announced date you are able to download a long list
of upcoming job vacancies. It is up to you to figure which of those jobs are
realistic options (do you have the required skills and experience or time to
get trained?), research which jobs you’d actually want to have (it helps to
have googling skills and contacts with the inside scoop on
office dynamics), and apply to your favorites (yes, this means resume
overhauls, cover letters, wooing e-mails, interviews, etc). You’ve got to act fast because your
peers are doing the same thing, and woe to the slowpoke.
That brings up another oddity of the Foreign Service. While in most professions one’s peers
are also in some sense one’s competition, the FS takes this to another
level. Networking is everything.
You need a positive corridor reputation and friends advocating for you in order
to get selected for your preferred posts. But, this is an
up-or-out institution, and sometimes you and your friends will be competing for
the same job. Did I mention that in the Foreign Service the bulk of your social
life activities tend to include colleagues (and their spouses and kids)? There can be pressure-cooker
moments—some of which are the stuff of Foreign Service legend.
So, since I have your attention, may I take this moment to
tell all of my readers who are in the Foreign Service that my husband, Stuart
Denyer, is incredibly awesome?
Stuart Denyer is a romanticized version of an old-school
diplomat. He’s dapper and chivalrous, never snaps out in anger, knows his
stuff, always has your back, earns the love and respect of local staff, learns
quickly, never lets others take the fall for his mistakes (and will discreetly
help you with your problems), plays the piano at parties and even stays late to
help clean-up. Don’t interpret his mild manner and humility as a sign of
weakness. His impressive collection of State Department awards does his
bragging for him.
Stuart is smart, hardworking and loyal. The only thing
wicked about him is his sense of humor. As one who has been his wife for 6 years and his ballroom dancing partner since 1997, I can assure you he’s in a
class of his own.
So I guess what I’m really trying to say can be summed up in song by Fred Rogers:
