ugh

by Alex Posted on February 7, 2011

From what I can tell so far, being a diplomat is pretty much the coolest job in the world. I have absolutely no regrets about embarking on this career path. That’s not to say, though, that it’s without its challenges.

It’s not the job itself that raised my stress level about ten-fold today. Nope, today Andy and I had our nonimmigrant visa exam and both got 100%; no sweat. In fact, it would have been a pretty fine day if much of the rest of it weren’t spent on the phone dealing with bureaucratic HR complications.

(Before I tell you the story, I must warn you that, as most stories about bureaucracy go, this one is long and dull…)

When we found out we were pregnant and staying in DC longer than originally scheduled, I started asking questions and trying to make plans. The vast majority of people I reached out to never returned my calls or emails. The few poor people I did manage to get on the phone thought it was amusing that I was trying to lock something down a full six months beforehand. That silly new hire, they must have thought, She’ll learn. Fortunately, though, a few people did humor me and give me some information: we’d be kicked out of our government-provided housing after the one-year mark and forced to find (and pay for) a furnished rental for our remaining months in DC. This wasn’t ideal, of course, but if it was how things had to be, then we could live with it.

Months later, after hearing through the grapevine that the information I originally got might only be partially true, I began tracking down official sources again. Sure enough, I learned that we actually could stay in our government provided housing beyond the one-year mark, although we’d have some additional tax liabilities as a result. After many phone calls, lots of research and an appointment with a tax advisor, we decided that the tax burden was still a better deal — financially and logistically — than moving. So, our plan changed. No problem.

Today, however, during a conversation about something else entirely, I heard from an official source that I may not actually be eligible to stay on per diem (and in government-provided housing) after all. Despite what official sources had told me before, a different official source was now telling me she thought that after I finished training and began my bridge assignment at Main State, I would no longer be in temporary status and hence not eligible for per diem.

Um, what?

If that’s the rule, that’s the rule. I can live with it. I’m grateful for all the benefits we get as FSOs; State’s been very good to us so far. But, why did I hear nothing about this before, despite asking numerous people on numerous occasions? Why am I only hearing about it now, two weeks before my training ends and I may be kicked out of my apartment?

Still, there’s more.

As annoying as it would be to find and move into a new apartment in two weeks time (and not just any apartment, mind you, but a short-term, furnished and dog-friendly rental, which is pretty impossible to come by in DC if you’re not willing to pay $4,000/month, which I’m not), I could even deal with that. Because I would have to. Because it would just be how things are. Because the decision would be made and it would be out of my hands.

No, that would be too easy.

It turns out there’s a medical per diem that I might be eligible for, since I’m staying in DC longer as a result of being pregnant. (I dug up this information from the rule books myself. The official sources hadn’t heard of it.) The problem is, no one really knows for sure if I qualify. Some official sources think I’m eligible. Some official sources think I’m not eligible. Who has the final say? No clue. Many phone calls have been made. Many emails have been sent. What do I do in the meantime? Do I start packing? Do I start looking for apartments? Do I come to terms with being many thousands of dollars poorer than I thought I was this morning? For now, I guess I just wait.

In conclusion: ugh.

At least I’ve learned a few important lessons along the way about navigating the bureaucracy that is State HR:

  1. Forget about planning ahead. Nothing’s urgent until it’s urgent.
  2. The rules are nuanced and case specific. Don’t assume that what was true for another FSO will be true for you.
  3. Only trust answers from official sources. But remember, even the official sources are working from the same nuanced and case specific rules that you are. They may misinterpret them too.
  4. Make sure you get all your answers from those official sources in writing.
  5. When you have all your answers in writing, ask more official sources.
  6. Get those answers in writing too.
  7. Wait a few weeks or a few months, and then ask the same questions again.
  8. Even when you think you have everything sorted out, be prepared for the fact that things might change.
  9. Eat a few brownies. It’s really the only thing that does any good.
Posted in Life in DC | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

stuff

by Alex Posted on February 5, 2011

We’ve started amassing stuff. Some Benin stuff, but mostly baby stuff. You may also recall me being stressed about what baby stuff we needed. Well, I’m mostly over that now. Probably because we’ve made a bit of progress.

In the past few weeks we’ve bought some stuff. Even though I’m still not convinced we’ll ever use a stroller in Benin, we have one. And the car seat that came with it. That’s the only thing they require you own in order to take the baby home from the hospital, so as far as Andy’s concerned, we’re done shopping. We’ve bought some little things like blankets and socks too. Oh, and clothes. We’ve bought plenty of clothes. A very, very small sampling:

We’ll get some more stuff too, of course. I’ve made a list of essential things like diapers, medicines, etc. We’ve picked out a crib and a carrier and a bassinet. Well, not exactly a bassinet. We found this contraption that protects the baby when he sleeps in your bed. Normally I don’t think we’d be baby-in-the-bed sort of parents, but with all the moving around we’ll be doing the first few months of his life (DC to OH to IL to MO and then back to DC before Benin) we’ve decided it’s the best option for us. Well, at least for Andy and me. I don’t think Abbey’s going to be too thrilled about being downgraded to the floor.

I’m sure there’s stuff we’ll end up forgetting to get, but that’s okay. Women have babies in Benin and do just fine. Plus, we can always order things online and ship them over (paying only domestic shipping rates — thank you very much, U.S. government).

So, yeah, I’m not so worried anymore. Except about how much time I’m capable of killing on the BabyGap website. That’s pretty troubling.

Posted in Benin | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

the sorry state of my french skills

by Alex Posted on January 31, 2011

About a month and a half ago I took my end-of-training exam, and then afterwards I gave myself a much needed break. It was the holidays. And focusing on French for six months is tiring. And then I started ConGen. But now… well, it’s been a month and a half. It’s time.

I was counting on getting back into the swing of things in a structured way, through free classes offered by the Global Language Network. Unfortunately free language classes must have sounded like a great idea to a lot of other people too; neither Andy nor I won a spot in the lottery.

What now?

I keep meaning to go to the French-speaking meet up groups that I used to attend fairly regularly, but so far it hasn’t happened. (There’s one tonight, for example, but there’s also a going away shin-dig hosted by one of my last remaining A-100 colleagues.) I keep promising myself that I’ll read several French articles a day, but after a frustrating first day that plan fell away. (I could understand mostly everything, but my brain translated to English much more than before, which really slowed me down.) So then I decided at the very least I could listen to the news in French every morning while I was getting ready. I’ve been doing a decent job of that, but 10 minutes of listening comprehension isn’t really enough to maintain my skills, let alone improve them.

By the time I get to Cotonou I’m going to have been done with French classes for longer than I was ever in French classes. If I feel like I’ve lost a lot now, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in July. So, yes, I need to try harder to find time for French. And I will. I promise. Starting… tomorrow?

What have you done to maintain your language skills after training?

Posted in FS Life | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

the diplomatic community

by Andy Posted on January 29, 2011

“Are you smarter than a US diplomat?” asks the Christian Science Monitor. “Take our Foreign Service Exam.”

Here it is.

In related news, I’ve spent some time lately poking around on the Internet investigating what it takes to join other countries’ diplomatic corps, and also what life is like for diplomats once they get in. As you may recall, a flood of Israeli diplomats went on strike recently protesting their low wages (below the poverty line). Apparently they also had to pay their own way to and from post, and other things we US diplomats fortunately don’t have to worry about. Update: it looks like they got the raise they were asking for.

While investigating the Canadian foreign service, I found this interesting. There is a testing process to get in which doesn’t seem entirely different from the system we have in the US. There’s a written test and the most qualified candidates move on to an interview phase. Those who make it through that are subject to background checks and put into a pool of successful candidates which sounds an awful lot like the Register we all know and love.

When you join the Canadian foreign service, you must speak both English and French. If you don’t, you will be on a sort of probation and receive language training for up to 12 months while making 80% of your normal salary. If you can’t hack it after that, you’re out.

Entry level officers will spend up to three years in Ottawa receiving training. Much of that will be on-the-job training and some of it may be at temporary assignments overseas. That’s very different from A-100 students who, after four weeks on the job, find out on flag day that they are leaving for, say, Bahrain in two months.

ASFA wrote an interesting article (warning, PDF) on this subject a few years back.

If any of our Canadian friends read this (and according to Google Analytics, 11 of you do), let me know if I’ve over-simplified or just plain screwed up any of my facts. And anybody else, perhaps those of you who have actually been to post, I’d love to hear about any interesting differences between American and other foreign services you’ve learned of while mingling with your counterparts in the diplomatic community.

Oh, and for the record, that test up there from the Christian Science Monitor? I totally passed.

Posted in FSWE | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

immigrant visas

by Alex Posted on January 26, 2011

For the past week or so our ConGen class has focused on immigrant visas, so we’ve been stuffing our minds full of rules and classifications and ineligibilities and waivers. And of course don’t forget the acronyms. There are a lot of computer systems with which to become familiar too. I won’t bore you with all the details, but here are a few tidbits I’ve found interesting:

  • Most applicants we’ll see in Benin are part of the Diversity Visa Lottery, which allows 50,000 people a year to come to the U.S. as legal permanent residents who wouldn’t otherwise qualify. Not every country is allowed to participate. Here’s a list of those that aren’t. (The other common ways to get an immigrant visa are through family relationships or through your job. Refugees and asylum seekers get immigrant visas too, but we won’t be dealing with those.)
  • There are two different levels of family relationships, for immigration purposes. Spouses and children of citizens and legal permanent residents are allowed to come to the U.S. pretty much immediately. For other family relationships, like siblings, the wait can be much longer. For instance, the adult daughter of a U.S. citizen who applied for an immigrant visa in January 2005 is just now eligible to be interviewed. Yep, six years later. In certain countries, the wait time is even worse. For instance, coming from the Philippines and applying through your connection to your U.S. citizen sibling? Well, if your application was submitted before January 1988, we’re now ready to interview you for a spot. Yes, 1988. That’s not a typo. Twenty-three years.

Finally, a technical note about the distinction between “immigrant” and “emigrant,”  which people mess up all too often (a pet peeve of mine since my undergraduate days)…

  • Immigrant: Someone living in your country who’s originally from another country. Quite a few of Yemeni immigrants live in Brooklyn, for instance. (You can also remember that an immigrant, which starts with “i,” is someone who came “in.”)
  • Emigrant: Someone from your country who’s living in another country. To people still living in Yemen, those Brooklyn-based Yemeni are emigrants. (An emigrant, which starts with an “e,” is someone who “exited” their country, in a sense.)

(Thank you for tolerating my annoying public service announcement.)

Starting tomorrow: non-immigrant visas. Unless the whole government is closed because of the impending snow storm. But I’m not counting on it.

Posted in FSI | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

beautiful miracle or total pain?

by Alex Posted on January 23, 2011

I was reading an article a while back that described the motivations of surrogates. Apparently a lot of women step up not for the money or to help out someone else, but because even though their own family is complete, they just loved being pregnant so much that they want to experience it again.

Um, what? Who are these crazy people?

I don’t think anyone who knows me will be surprised that I’ve fallen more into the “when will this be over?” than the “what a beautiful miracle” camp. There are certainly cool moments, and I’m without a doubt excited about the end result. But still. I maintain that pregnancy itself is kind of awful. And that’s said from the second trimester, which is apparently as good as it gets.

My experience, roughly:

Month 1: Great! Couldn’t be better! (Admittedly I didn’t know yet that I was pregnant.)

Month 2: Cool, I’m pregnant! Wait, why am I throwing up every day? Why can’t I stomach anything but sorbet? Why am I constantly nauseous, even when I don’t eat? And what are all these horrible smells I’ve never noticed? This isn’t very fun.

Month 3: You mean I still have to feel like death? I’m not even far enough along to tell anyone yet, which means I don’t get pity from teachers or classmates or seats from strangers on the shuttle. What a raw deal.

Month 4: Aren’t I supposed to be feeling better by now? (I apologize if I ever didn’t take other people’s complaints about morning sickness seriously. It’s the worst.)

Month 5: Woohoo, I can eat again! But wait — now none of my clothes fit. And I really don’t look pregnant, just fat. Ugh.

Month 6: Kicks! That’s cool! Well, at first. But kicking and wiggling all day? When I’m trying to sit still and concentrate on learning stuff? Too bad I can’t send the kid to his room yet.

As my second trimester begins to wind down, I’m finally looking pregnant. See?

Well, honestly, it depends on the outfit. Some days I’m still in the “maybe she’s just fat” phase. But I’m definitely feeling bigger. Andy recently pointed out that I’ve started groaning and moaning like an old person whenever I stand up, or sit down, or really move in just about any way. I’m sure more of that awaits me in the months to come. But still, I’ll take the aches and pains over the nausea any day. I remember a few months ago, when I couldn’t imagine ever having any desire to eat again. I’m sooo glad to be out of that phase. In fact, the first thing I did when I started to feel better was to make a reservation at one of our favorite restaurants, Volt. We finally went today for brunch. Delicious.

Also, at least now we’re getting close enough that the countdown isn’t totally depressing. I can survive 15 more weeks of pregnancy. 15 weeks. That’s nothing. That’s far less time than it took us to learn French. That’s less than the length of a regular NFL season. (I’ll take Andy’s word on this one.) That’s… 105 days. Actually, that sounds like a few more than I’d like.

A week or two early sounds pretty good. 14 weeks? Maybe even 13? C’mon kid, cut me a break.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

citizenship 101

by Alex Posted on January 16, 2011

Last week Andy and I both started the six-week basic consular course, or ConGen in foreign service speak. Even though I’ll be working in the public diplomacy section, I may be called upon to do some back-up consular work when the sole consular officer is on vacation. Why’s Andy taking the class too? He will hopefully be able to fill an associate position that was recently created in the consular section.

ConGen has somewhat of a cult following among FSOs. Why? It’s probably some combination of learning stuff that’s both interesting and applicable, and also the ridiculousness of the process. The training team has made up a whole fake country for the purpose of our learning. Within the context of this fake country, we complete case studies and do role plays on real sets, including a jail cell with an infamous rubber rat. At the end of the course there’s a graduation ceremony with awards given for things such as most convincing acting. So… it’s hard core, in a nerdy sort of a way.

So far our training has focused on nationality, who is and isn’t an American citizen. What it really comes down to is this: how does citizenship transfer from parent to child? For those born outside of the U.S., it’s more complicated than you might think. It depends on when you were born (the regulations have changed through the years), whether your parents are married, which of your parents is the U.S. citizen, how much time your U.S. citizen parent spent in the U.S., and so on.

One weird but interesting tidbit: citizenship is tied to blood, which can cause a host of problems concerning assisted reproductive technology. For instance, if a baby is born to U.S. citizens abroad using donor eggs and sperm from non U.S. citizens, that child is not a U.S. citizen. (Of course, if the baby’s born in the U.S., none of this is an issue.)

We’ve also talked about losing U.S. citizenship, which is much harder than I would have imagined. There are certain things you can do called “potentially expatriating acts,” things like becoming a citizen in another country, serving in a foreign military or working for a foreign government. However, committing one of these acts in and of itself doesn’t cost you your citizenship. You have to both do it voluntarily and with the intent of giving up your U.S. citizenship. That intent thing is key: basically, as long as you want to keep your U.S. citizenship, you get to.

How would these things come into play in our work in Benin? Well, maybe two U.S. citizen missionaries have a baby while living overseas; they would come to us to get a Consular Report of Birth Abroad in order to document the baby as a U.S. citizen. Maybe a Peace Corps volunteer has a baby with a Beninois national; is that baby a U.S. citizen and hence eligible for a passport? We would figure that out. Maybe an American-Beninois dual citizen wants to renounce his American citizenship so he has a better shot of getting a key job with Benin’s government; we would counsel him and walk him through that process. These scenarios are all, of course, hypothetical. For some insight into what Benin’s current sole consular officer is up to, check out several of his blog.

Next up in ConGen: immigrant visas.

(Security note — All the information discussed above is publicly available at www.travel.state.gov.)

Posted in FSI | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

baby stresses

by Alex Posted on January 9, 2011

Look!

Okay, just kidding. This picture was actually taken really early in my pregnancy when I did some shopping with my mom. The swollen stomach is courtesy of a prop in the Gap Maternity dressing room.

I definitely don’t look this pregnant yet. In fact, I feel like I still look more plump than pregnant, although today at a beagle meet-up someone we haven’t seen for a while asked if we were expecting. I’d hope he would have the good sense not to pose the question unless it was painfully obvious that the answer was yes, so perhaps I look more pregnant than I realize.

Showing or not, I’m getting far enough along now that we’re starting to feel the need to make plans. Like what to buy. What books to read. What classes to sign up for. How much maternity leave to take. Where exactly to spend it. These are daunting questions for all first-time parents, I’m sure, but it seems like everything is doubly hard for us because of our impending move to Benin. The problem is two-fold:

(1) Having never been to Benin before, we don’t know what to expect of life there.

If it were just the two of us we’d be totally willing to just do our best and live with our mistakes. Really should have brought rain boots and an extra fancy umbrella? Oh well, we’ll survive. But with a kid involved, we don’t want to find ourselves across the world lacking something that we really should have.

At the same time, I’m a minimalist by nature. I can’t justify buying every last baby thing out there just in case. I’m convinced there’s so much that exists simply because people are willing to buy it. Walking down the aisles of Babies “R” Us with my mom was quite amusing. She couldn’t even identify half of the products. They didn’t exist when my sister and I were growing up, and we turned out just fine.

And I also keep trying to remind myself this: there are babies in Benin. Maybe their moms don’t use the same products we do in the US, but they still smile and laugh and crawl and walk. So if I forget something, so what. I can do whatever I need to the local way.

Right?

Then why do I find myself staying up until 2 a.m. reading about every stroller known to man and trying to envision how we’d even use a stroller in Benin, which I doubt even has sidewalks? But maybe it does. See, I just don’t know.

(2) There’s so much to arrange logistically, and this leads to so many questions that are difficult to answer.

If I use sick leave rather than annual leave for part of my maternity leave, can I stay on per diem during that time? Can I advance myself next year’s sick leave to do this? Is the ease of remaining on per diem and in our current housing worth whatever tax burden we’ll have for accepting per diem for longer than a year? Do we need to be in DC for the baby’s medical clearance and diplomatic passport, or can we do this from the Midwest? How many different locations can we ship things from? Is there any way to ensure our necessary baby stuff gets to Benin not long after we do? These are just a few of many.

As anyone who’s been with State for a while knows, getting answers is tricky. Knowing who to ask is hard enough, and you can’t just ask one person because you oftentimes receive wrong information. And that’s if you get any information at all. The majority of phone calls and emails are never returned.

Again, if it were just the two of us this wouldn’t be stressful. I tend to have faith that things will work out, and I’m pretty adaptable in terms of snafus and changes of plans. But if we didn’t get the baby’s diplomatic passport in time and Andy had to stay back in the US with him while I shipped off to Benin myself? Not okay.

* * *

The good news is that we’re making progress. We have a meeting on Tuesday with an accountant who’s familiar with FSO issues. That will be a big step in finally figuring out where we’ll live from April until July. And last week I moved from worrying about my many questions to finally firing off emails to various people and departments, posing them. I haven’t received any answers yet, but at least I’m trying.

Perhaps most importantly, FSOs themselves have been so helpful. In fact, a fellow Benin blogger who just so happens to be pregnant too is back in DC and, unbeknownst to her, I’m planning to pick her brain about what she thinks, having lived in Benin for a while, we do and don’t need. That should be really helpful. Of course, everyone’s situation is different in some way so I can’t rely on any one person for all necessary information, but it’s been really helpful to hear how things have worked out for other FSO moms.

And things do always work out… eventually.

Posted in FS Life | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

31

by Andy Posted on January 8, 2011

As of Wednesday I’m another year older: the big three-one.

The bad news is that my birthday was dominated by perhaps the worst activity in the world: driving. I spent the day transporting my wife, beagle, loads of Christmas presents and (for reasons unknown to me) two unwieldy rocking chairs from Ohio back to DC. With a wife who’s always thought it’s necessary to stop constantly on road trips and is leveraging her pregnancy to finally win this battle, it took longer than I would have liked. And did I mention that the aforementioned beagle was terrified of the aforementioned rocking chairs, and as a result spent most of the drive either a) barking at, or b) trying to climb to the front seat to escape them?

But afterward I got to relax at home with two new hours of Law & Order awaiting me. So the day wasn’t a total bust.

And then on Friday… Alex surprised me with a cooking class at CulinAerie. Just about the only thing I would have liked more was hockey tickets, but alas, the Red Wings aren’t playing the Capitals in DC this year, and as much fun as it would be to see Ovechkin, I just can’t too excited about seeing the Capitals play the Panthers.

Instead we learned to cook a few new dishes:

First course: arugula salad with miso dressing.

Second course: carrot ginger soup.

Third course: Honey-thyme flank steak with cabbage stew.

Dessert: poached pear with toasted almonds.

The best part about the cooking class was that we got to enjoy two of my favorite things – cooking and eating, without having to buy ingredients, choose recipes or clean anything. It makes me think that perhaps we will want to hire some help while in Benin. It also served as a reminder that I’d like to at least attempt to learn to cook some authentic Beninois dishes over the next two years. When I turn 32, we’ll see how I’ve done.

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 3 Comments

christmas vacation continues

by Alex Posted on January 4, 2011

Thanks to the good luck of a training schedule that doesn’t start back up until January 6 and a smattering of distance learning classes that have allowed me to still do work on official work days, our holiday celebrations haven’t ended just yet.

After splitting the last week and a half between Missouri and Illinois, we’re now settled at our final stop, Ohio — which, by the way, I’m pretty sure is Abbey’s favorite. At the others she had to live with a combined total of 12 dogs, including three giant, slobbery and playful Dobermans. Here, finally, there are none.

So even though you’ve surely moved on to other things, we’re still in Christmas mode. You’ll have to endure one more holiday-themed post from us. Sorry!

Even though our Christmases didn’t  revolve around the Foreign Service this year, it would be a lie to claim that we forgot all about our impending move to Benin while home for the holidays. After all, why else would we find ourselves in the check-out line at Meijer on December 27 with 17 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper?

Yes, it was marked down to 75% off, so the grand total was pretty close to nothing; still, we’re not used to buying in bulk and surely wouldn’t have done it we weren’t going to be out of the U.S. for the next two Christmases. Do they even have wrapping paper in Benin? I doubt it. So now we’re all set. And, considering we only went through 2.5 rolls of wrapping paper this year, some of our future friends and colleagues in Benin are probably set too.

We weren’t as successful in finding a fake Christmas tree, unfortunately. There were a few problems. The first is that, being a life-long real Christmas tree advocate, I have strange parameters for what my fake Christmas tree should be like. Basically, if it must be fake, I at least don’t want it to be pretending to be real. I want something modern. Quirky. Artsy. Something like this:

Or maybe this:

But, alas, I’m also not willing to pay as much as these modern, quirky and artsy fake Christmas trees seem to cost. So I finally resolved to just break down and buy a fake fake one, since that’s what Andy would prefer anyway. However, by the time I made this decision, all the discounted fake trees were long gone.

So we’ll have nicely wrapped presents for Christmas 2011 and Christmas 2012. Whether we’ll have a tree to put them under, who knows.

Posted in Holiday | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments