i’ve got class

by Andy Posted on May 27, 2010

In addition to being the place where FSOs go for their training, the Foreign Service Institute also offers a number of classes that EFMs are eligible to take. The classes range from raising bilingual children to security courses. They are a nice bonus and help keep EFMs plugged into the State Department.

So far I’ve managed to take a few. First was a general spouse orientation which was useful not only for some of the information but as a chance to meet other spouses as well. Also we got donuts.

Then I took a two hour class that went through the details of shipping a pet overseas. Since it is unlikely any airline will allow Abbey to travel in a basket of clothes, I thought it was important to attend.

Last week was an evening class about legal issues. I found the section about renting property and becoming a landlord in Virginia particularly interesting. Did you know Virginia is one of the most landlord-friendly states? This is very different from NYC where tenants in our old building bragged about not paying rent for years. Try that in Virgina and you’ll be on the business end of an eviction notice.

I was batting 3 for 3 with the classes. Sure not everything in the pet class was relevant to me, but some of it was. But even if I don’t remember all the information, I’ll at least know what questions I should be asking.

My streak ended this week, however. I took a class about developing virtual job opportunities. You know, working from home. I’m loath to complain about a free class, but I really can’t let this one slide.

First, the positives. Our two presenters run a legitimate website that highlights work from home opportunities. They do a great service and weed out all of the scams from con artists and flim-flam men. They also gave us some interesting tips on how to find work from home opportunities using Google (hint – don’t search for “work from home”).

That paragraph above took me about three minutes to write. Our class was seven hours long. See where I’m going with this?

So now the negatives. We spent at least 20 minutes talking about Second Life. Not how to develop job opportunities with Second Life, just what it is. For all the talk about how innovative and cool Second Life is, there was no mention of the fact that Second Life is estimated to have hit its peak number of users three years ago, and that even then, it had fewer than 1% of the users that Facebook has (note, we didn’t talk about Facebook). This did not help me get a virtual job.

Then we had a lengthy discussion about being careful when replying to emails. We were warned to make sure we didn’t hit “reply to all” by mistake. We were warned not to forward emails to the wrong parties. Good advice. Not relevant to developing virtual job opportunities, but good advice.

Next we learned how to reformat our resumes from Word Documents to plain text documents. I’m still not sure why.

Finally, we were taught about scams. They could have just told us that no one is really going to pay us $300 a day for one hour of work and left it at that. Instead we were shown a half dozen scam sites and were given the details of how each scam worked.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to post this because I didn’t want to come off as negative or like I thought all the classes were worthless. Overall I’ve been pretty happy with FSI. But I wanted to warn others that if their time is limited, this might be a class to cross of their to-do lists.

Oh, and remember those scams they taught us about? Apparently the perpetrator of one made over $7 million before being caught. And then he only had to pay a fine of $150,000. Now that’s what I call a virtual job opportunity.

Posted in FS Life, FSI | Tagged , | 2 Comments

if you read only one onion article, pick this one

by Alex Posted on May 23, 2010

I love this “article” in the Onion*, especially as a newly-minted member of the federal government:

Report: Majority of Government Doesn’t Trust Citizens Either

WASHINGTON—At a time when widespread polling data suggests that a majority of the U.S. populace no longer trusts the federal government, a Pew Research Center report has found that the vast majority of the federal government doesn’t trust the U.S. populace all that much either.

According to the poll—which surveyed members of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches—9 out of 10 government officials reported feeling “disillusioned” by the populace and claimed to have “completely lost confidence” in the citizenry’s ability to act in the nation’s best interests.

“All the vitriol and partisan bickering in Congress has caused most Americans to form negative opinions of the U.S. government,” Pew researcher Amy Ratner said. “However, over the same time period, the government has likewise grown wary of U.S. citizens, largely due to their utter lack of foresight, laziness, and overall incompetence.”

Added Ratner, “And the fact that American Idol is still the No. 1 show on television doesn’t exactly make our government burst with confidence.”

Out of 100 U.S. senators polled, 84 said they don’t trust the U.S. populace to do what is right, and 79 said Americans are not qualified to do their jobs. Ninety-one percent of all government officials polled said they find citizens to be every bit as irresponsible, greedy, irrational, and selfishly motivated as government officials are.

Moreover, according to nearly 100 percent of respondents, Wal-Mart.

“It makes complete sense for Americans to lose faith in a government that has allowed lobbyists and special interests to take over Washington,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters. “That being said, you could see why Washington might likewise lose faith in a populace that apparently still suspects that its president is a secret Muslim who was not born in the United States.”

Citing the billions of dollars wasted annually on flavored water and boneless buffalo wings, the number of drunk-driving deaths each year, and the lack of citizen accountability for the rise of Kim Kardashian, government officials registered extremely low opinions of the American people overall.

“This is the same American populace that failed to prevent us from deregulating the banks that almost caused a complete economic meltdown last year,” Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) said. “Year after year, they elect terrible officials who make terrible decisions on their behalf. The fact that I, Jim Bunning, am a two-term U.S. senator really shows you just how far Americans have gone off the rails.”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone who voted me into office,” he added.

Government skepticism is not confined to legislators, though. A cross-sampling of the U.S. Supreme Court found that only 1 in 9 justices believe the general populace to be ethical. Their confidence that the American people can resist consuming the newest Burger King sandwich just because it’s there or at least keep it to one a week has also fallen to a 10-year low.

“They can’t even fill out their census forms, for crying out loud,” Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho said. “It’s only 10 questions long. We’re not talking about taking the SATs here. Jesus Christ, don’t get me started on the SATs.”

One typical respondent, President Barack Obama, said he found it hard to trust the judgment of U.S. citizens after recent events, including their decision to elect a president who promised health care reform and then come out against health care reform.

“How can I have hope for a nation that regularly protests tax cuts that directly benefit them?” Obama said. “Look, I’m not always perfect at my job, either, but I think I could make a halfway coherent comment on a YouTube video if I had to. Isn’t that basically all they do?

Added Obama, “At this point, the only positive thing I can say about the American people is that I’m pretty sure they’ve never rigged an election in their favor.”

*In case it’s not painfully obvious, the Onion is a satire newspaper.

Posted in FS Life | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

overdue photos

by Alex Posted on May 22, 2010

Swearing In:

I recently discovered this photo of Secretary Clinton swearing in my class on the State Department Flickr page. Too bad I'm out of frame. (While we're not supposed to post pictures of colleagues online, I'm assuming that since this one was publicly released it's okay.)

Flag Day:

Which flag will be mine?
Only two flags left.
Benin!

Posted in A-100 | Tagged , , | Comments Off on overdue photos

grr

by Andy Posted on May 15, 2010

As soon as the Foreign Service became a reality for us I began daydreaming about where in the world I’d love to go. Three places quickly rose to the top:

  • Ireland
  • Australia
  • Cuba

I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland and Australia, and Cuba, c’mon — I could finally own a ’57 Chevy. Alas, none of those countries ended up on our bid list, but that was okay. After all, we really wanted to learn French, we wanted the hardship differential, Alex wanted to work in her cone and we thought it would to cool to go somewhere that most of our family and friends had never even heard of. Benin definitely fit the bill. Which was why it was our first choice. And why we’re very happy with our assignment. And why it’s going to be great.

But…

I happened to sneak a glance at the 153rd A-100 class’s bid list, and guess what’s on it. Yep. Lots of cool places, including — surprise, surprise — Ireland, Australia and Cuba.

Ugh.

Even more frustrating is the fact that Alex was almost in the the 153rd class. This could have been our bid list! We were going to take some time off to travel and bum around before she joined the Foreign Service, but we ultimately decided to just get the ball rolling and start in March.

Did I mention, grr?

But it’s easy to dream about cool cities when you don’t take any other factors into consideration. And as they told Alex in A-100, Benin (which really will be cool) is just the first of many posts. So, I’ll meet you in Australia… one day.

Posted in A-100, FS Life | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

scenes from the pentagon

by Alex Posted on May 14, 2010

I heard a funny story today at the Pentagon.

You know the central courtyard?

Well, there’s a small building in the middle of it. Apparently during the Cold Ward, the Russians saw on their satellites that people were constantly coming and going from this building. They concluded that it must be the Pentagon’s most top-secret meeting room. In fact, they assumed that the rest of the Pentagon was built to shield this one structure. As a result, the Russians kept missiles pointed at this building at all times.

Any guesses about what that building really was?

It was the office hot dog stand. It’s now jokingly referred to as “Cafe Ground Zero, the deadliest hot dog stand in the world.”

I also visited the small 9/11 memorial right by the crash site (there’s a larger memorial outside that I didn’t see) and met with a number of DoD colleagues whose work may overlap with mine.

Throughout the day, all the uniforms I encountered reminded me of some advice I got during A-100: if I understand nothing else about the military, I at least need to be able to deduce someone’s rank from his or her badges. Three-star generals don’t take kindly to being called “sir” or “captain,” after all.

I definitely do plan to study up on the military, but it’s relatively low on my ever-expanding list of things to learn. After all, if a three-star general shows up in Cotonou, I have much bigger things to worry about than etiquette…

Posted in FSI, Other USG Agencies, Public Diplomacy | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

to fly or not to fly?

by Alex Posted on May 12, 2010

You probably read today about the Afriqiyah flight crashing in Libya.

Over 100 casualties. One known surviver. (Photo lifted from the Christian Science Monitor.)

Really sad stuff.

Afriqiyah also happens to operate about 25% of the flights coming in and out of Cotonou.

Airlines at COO, according to theAirDB.

It seems like these smaller, regional airlines suffer a disproportionate number of crashes. Particularly in Africa.

There was this crash in the Congo.

And this Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed off of Lebanon.

And this plane that came down in Nigeria.

You get the idea. And in case somehow you didn’t get the idea, let me be more specific. According to the International Air Transport Association, Africa’s air accident rate is six times worse than the rest of the world.

Hmm. So what does this mean for me and Andy?

At a dinner last night with some future colleagues, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that there are quite a few direct flights from Cotonou, and to cool places too, like:

  • Casablanca, Morocco
  • Bamako, Mali
  • Niamey, Niger
  • Dakar, Senegal
  • Tripoli, Libya
  • Libreville, Gabon
  • Nairobi, Kenya

However, while Delta and Air France fly to major destinations like Paris, smaller airlines like Aero Benin, Air Ivoire and ASKY Airlines provide most regional coverage. (I’m not sure why these aren’t represented in that graph, but apparently they’re there, along with a handful of others…)

Those of you who’ve traveled around Africa: are some small airlines safer than others, or should we just avoid them all?

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

the medium is the message

by Alex Posted on May 11, 2010

On Monday I started a four-week tradecraft course focused on the information and media aspect of my job. One thing we’ve discussed so far is the importance of understanding the unique histories, personalities and agendas of the various foreign media outlets with which we’ll be interacting. This knowledge will allow us to adapt our message appropriately.

As a tounge-in-cheek exercise to introduce us to this topic, we matched a number of U.S. newspapers with their reputations:

  • This paper is read by people who run the country (Wall Street Journal)
  • This paper is read by people who think they run the country (New York Times)
  • This paper is read by people who think they ought to run the country (Washington Post)
  • This paper is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t understand the Washington Post (USA Today)
  • This paper is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if only they had the time (LA Times)
  • This paper is read by people whose grandparents used to run the country (Boston Globe)
  • This paper is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country (New York Daily News)
  • This paper is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country, as long as they do something scandalous (New York Post)
  • This paper is read by people who don’t care whether there is a country, or that anyone is running it (San Francisco Chronicle)
  • This paper is read by people who are running other countries (Miami Herald)
  • This paper is read by people who wish people dead for 100 years were running the country (Omaha World-Herald)

These are just generalizations, of course, but there’s some truth in there, right? 🙂

We also had some time to research the media climate of our country of assignment. I was surprised to learn that Benin’s newspapers only have circulations of several thousand, while radio programs are heard by millions of people. So, radio will probably be a major vehicle for my public diplomacy efforts. Text messages too. Did you know that more people in the world have access to a cell phone than a clean toilet?

Posted in Benin, FSI, Public Diplomacy | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

first post

by Andy Posted on May 7, 2010

On Flag Day we found out that our first official post abroad is going to be in Cotonou. But the real truth is, since we’re going to have spent 11 months in Arlington by the time we leave, it kind of feels like this is our first post.

So what is it like moving from NYC to Arlington? In a later post Alex or I will extol the virtues (and curse the hardships) of living in Oakwood. For now, I will concentrate on our new neighborhood.

The Pros:

  • The Safeway – which is perfectly fine despite the poor reviews on Yelp – is only a three minute walk away.
  • You’re not far from DC proper.
  • There are some restaurants and bars within walking distance.
  • The subway (or “metro” as they call it here) lists the wait times for the next few trains.
  • The Rosslyn metro station hosts both the blue and the orange lines.
  • The daily shuttle to FSI stops about three blocks away.
  • Bus drivers often smile and say hello when you board; in NYC you’re lucky to escape with an unfriendly glare.
  • Everything is cheaper than in NYC.
  • Free refills on pop (aka soda) almost everywhere!

The Cons:

  • The dominant architectural style appears to be “1990’s Corporate Apartment.”
  • Georgetown is within walking distance only if it isn’t too hot, too cold, too rainy or too dark.
  • The metro doesn’t run 24 hours a day.
  • No dog parks close by so it’s hard for Abbey to get her fill of avoiding other dogs while off-leash.
  • In NYC it would be possible though difficult to own a car; in Arlington it is possible though difficult to get by without one.
  • I’ve never been to another “hip” neighborhood that included a Cheesecake Factory.

So, like all posts, Arlington has both its good and bad points. Over the next few months we hope to discover more of what it has to offer, and maybe even figure out the bus schedule once and for all.

Posted in Life in DC | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

training, training and more training

by Alex Posted on May 5, 2010

As Andy mentioned in his last post, we’re scheduled to stick around Arlington until March of 2011. There are a few others in my A-100 class who will be in training that long, but they’re all studying super hard languages like Arabic or Mandarin.

I’m just learning French.

French seems super hard to me, but I’m still only being given six months to learn it, like everyone else. So why are we spending 10 more months here?

Along with my flag, I received my training schedule.
  • May and June: I’ll attend a month-long public diplomacy course focused on press relations, which will be a large part of my job. A few other short courses on topics like security overseas and effective management are also sprinkled in, as are some “gap days,” which I’m responsible for filling with activities of my choosing. Research about Benin, meetings with members of the Africa Bureau and administrative tasks like getting my diplomatic passport and buying a car are all possibilities.
  • July to December: French. Also, once a week I’ll take a three-hour area studies course.
  • January and February: After I’ve passed my French exam (fingers crossed!) I’ll move on to consular training. Since there’s only one consular officer in Cotonou, I may be called upon to do some back-up consular work.
  • March: In addition to interacting with the press, my job as the Public Diplomacy Officer will involve managing cultural and educational programs, so I’ll need training for this too. No FSO currently in Cotonou has had this training, so it’s especially important that I get it.

This schedule is subject to change, and honestly, we’re kind of hoping it does. We’d love to get to post earlier than March. But then again, unless my job description changes, all of this training really is necessary. So, we’ll see…

Posted in FSI | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

hurry up and wait

by Andy Posted on May 3, 2010

Ah, spring. That special time of year when the snow has melted, the birds are singing and… we’re left wondering what in the world we’re going to do for the next 10 months in Arlington, Virginia.

We were thrilled to be posted to Benin, but we were a little surprised to find out that we were not to leave until next March. When we moved to Arlington, I was very much in temporary mode. No need to decorate, we won’t be here long. A blender seems unnecessary, especially for so short a time. Buying salt is silly when I can just get a few little packets at McDonald’s to get us through the next two months.

But now that we know we’re destined to call Virginia home until next spring, things have changed. We’re researching weekend trips for this summer. I’m excited to see the Tigers play in Baltimore the last week of the baseball season.

And I bought a bag of flour at the grocery store last week, so you know we’re in it for the long haul.

Posted in FS Life | Tagged , , | 8 Comments