Adventures in Good Countries

Stress and Other Hypotheticals

2012-01-23T21:53:00.000+05:00

There was a brown bag lunch presentation today on stress management... which I did not attend. I don't think I've ever attended a FS presentation on stress management, now that I reflect on it, though they're offered fairly regularly. It's not so much that I don't feel stressed -- just not THAT stressed. Not so specially stressed that it deserves extra attention. I sense there's some danger at hardship posts of finding the stress somehow self-justifying, like the more stressed and frightened you are, the more self-important you're allowed to feel. Naturally, under that set up, everyone is going to feel SUPER stressed. I mean, we have to earn that extra R&R, right?

Besides, realistically, what are they going to tell me? Take a walk outside? Confide in my spouse? Some things you just have to deal with. I've heard drinking is a good way to go. Overworking is a less popular option. Me, I play a lot of computer solitaire.

Return to Thermopylae*

2012-01-05T20:42:00.000+05:00

My gut and my head seldom work in concert. During the trip back, one was in violent protest about my decision to board the return flight; the other was more circumspect. Whichever way they eventually sync up, here I am. 'Here' is not a bad place -- the country just has some issues. That's how I explained it to the folks at home.

Some of the others seem to be holding their feelings toward the posting more tenderly now, little kernels of attitude and emotion either brittle or fragile, depending. I wonder if my own little kernel of feeling is so visible. I'm glad to be half way through with the tour, but it's complicated. There's so much more I want to do here. Six months isn't enough time.

*Just to be clear, I'm a Greek in this scenario, not a Persian.

Helpful Tips for Protestors

2011-12-16T22:19:00.000+05:00

Watching the protests here in Lahore, I wanted to offer you all a few pointers to improve your technique.

1. Take some time with your effigies

A lot of protestors overlook this, which is a mistake. Don't just throw something together with the rationale that you're only going to burn it anyway -- take some pride in your work. If we in the Consulate can't tell if your papier-mache creation is meant to be a NATO soldier, Barack Obama, or the Gollum, how can you expect the television viewers at home to distinguish? Rule of thumb: if your effigy requires the application of a hand-written sign to clarify the intended subject of your overly-simplistic reductionist parody, go back to the workshop and apply a little more paint.

2. Know your audience

I am sorry to report that neither President Obama, Secretary Clinton, nor "America" works at the Consulate. The only way to talk to "America" is to get a spot on The Voice; hand-delivered letters to the Consulate don't really do much in this regard. If you want to send either of the first two a message, however, I suggest using the post office; both their mailing addresses are online. You might also try moving your protest to France or Japan or some other country with a political appointee for an Ambassador. If any of us had a direct line to the President through which to deliver your memos, it's highly unlikely that we'd be stationed in a constituent post in Pakistan.

3. Get a map

It's weird how so many of the protests directed at the Consulate tend to station themselves two blocks away at the Press Club. A cynic would assume that you just want to be on camera. I assume you are very heartfelt in your convictions, yet directionally challenged.

4. Timing is everything

Readings of the moon clearly indicate that the most effective time for large-scale protest is from December 19 to January 4. Any overlap of those dates with my planned R&R is pure coincidence.

What You Talk About When You Don't Talk About NATO

2011-11-30T22:18:00.001+05:00

I decided last month that I don't want to do public diplomacy work anymore. I'm still sorting through the full implications of this.

Plus, I try not to date outside of the Visa Waiver Program

2011-11-24T11:47:00.001+05:00

It's no secret that cross-cultural relationships can be fraught with stress and difficulty. Throw in an extreme age gap, dissimilar religious backgrounds, and a language barrier, and you're really just asking for heartbreak. I saw this all too often during my consular work.

So, all you Pakistani males aged 14-18, please stop sending me unsolicited Facebook friend requests. I'm really sorry, but it's just not going to work out.

Good Afternoon, Class

2011-11-05T10:04:00.000+05:00

"Thank you all so much for joining us for our annual American History Course here at the Consulate. All of the instructors are diplomats who, after having their arms vigorously twisted out of their sockets, have generously offered their time to teach you. I'd like to begin with my lecture 'The Evolution of American History'. Basically, all of evolution was a prelude to the formation of America, at which point God rested. Are there any questions?"

"Yes, why does America hate Pakistan?"

"That's a great question. Hating Pakistan was one of our founding principles -- if you flip over the Declaration of Independence, you'll see that Jefferson made a note on the back instructing us to steal Pakistan's nuclear weapons. As the Declaration predated both the formation of Pakistan and the discovery of nuclear power by over one hundred years, we believe this demonstrates the incredible foresight of our country's founders."

"On your timeline, before 'Americans invent democracy', you have written 'dinosaurs'. What's the connection between dinosaurs and September 11th?"

"Dinosaurs were the original victims of the 9/11 attacks, which is why you don't see any today. Some people theorize that dinosaurs actually initiated and carried out the attacks themselves in order to later star in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. That is ridiculous."

"May I ask a question?"

"Certainly."

"Your hair looks like Barbie's."

"Thank you. I believe that concludes our session for this afternoon."

Heaven Help Us

2011-10-18T21:24:00.000+05:00

"So your new boss is arriving this week?"

"Yes."

"And you've been here three and a half months?"

"Yes."

"And your other colleague has been here two and a half months?"

"That's right."

"So you'll have to use your seniority to lead them."

"I didn't say it was a perfect system."

X Marks the Spot

2011-10-09T14:15:00.000+05:00

A recent decision to cancel a planned speaker has left me peculiarly upset. I'm not sure why this particular cancellation is really getting to me; usually I can rebound pretty quickly from these things, but I can't shake this one. Each time I think about it I feel livid and bitter at the missed opportunity cost. Not since I was on steroids was I this consistently angry for more than a 24 hour period.*

Let me explain that I am totally down with security precautions. Totally down. Big fan of the whole 'life' thing. Not so keen on being kidnapped. Looking forward to growing old with my knitting and those two cats and a fern which I'm sure I'll be acquiring at some not too distant future point. If RSO tells me I'm standing on an 'X', believe me that I am going to scramble to get off of it.

But I want to keep in mind, too, that my job here is to move America off the big 'X' it is standing on. It's no good patting ourselves on the back for dodging individual cars if it still leaves us slap in the middle of the highway. To stretch the metaphor, we can't get ourselves out of the oncoming traffic if we're not strategic about our security precautions and the direction they take us. I guess this cancellation was the first time I really felt like I'd been told "We'd like you to quickly guide America across I-10 -- you'll just need to wear this suit of rusty armor for your protection. Don't worry; we welded the seams shut to lessen the chance of shrapnel penetration."

To paraphrase Ice-T: you shouldn't get mad at everything, just really mad at the right things. I'm pretty mad. I hope it's not misplaced.

*Crikey, has it been five years already? I should throw myself a party.

Libidinous Loadshedding Droids

2011-10-06T20:10:00.000+05:00

My neighbors have recently installed a new generator to help cope with the increased loadshedding.* Understandable. I also have a generator; it is a thing of beauty. Behold:

Doesn't it look friendly? Couldn't you picture it chatting with R2-D2? Note especially the green cover. That not only improves the aesthetic, but also acts as a sound dampener. Say it with me: 'sound dampener'.

I have not seen my neighbors' new generator, but evidence suggests that it might be lacking a cover, green or otherwise. In fact, they seem to have sheathed it in a special sound enhancer. When the power goes out, the noise coming from the other side of the wall could only be described as two aged freight trains engaged in an illicit bout of lovemaking atop a bed of castanets. It's so loud, it drowns out even the guards' attempts at hand gesture communication.

I hesitate to bring this to the attention of my neighbors. For one, I find it hard to believe that they haven't noticed themselves. For two, I can't actually walk outside of my yard to go knock on their front door. Not without a whole host of armed guards. Though maybe that kind of entourage would only assist the conversation.

*Newspeak for 'rolling blackouts'

Dating in 1984

2011-10-02T21:05:00.000+05:00

Seeing tensions rise over the past week has been a strange experience -- strange in that you have to carry on with your everyday job like nothing is happening, though secretly you're performing a mental inventory of the items in your 'go bag'. "So, uh, did you still want to partner with us on this grant? I mean, of course, we assume you do, just, you know, just checking." Twist the phone cord around your finger while watching with a combination of horror and bemusement as the proverbial volley goes back and forth overhead. "Hey, really sorry I couldn't make that meeting. Oh, just a few protestors outside, you know how it is. Nice weather, yeah?"

Honestly, George Orwell couldn't have scripted a better media reaction. I'm not saying the U.S. is popular here, but that was a pretty quick press slide to the full-on enemy role (sometimes with musical accompaniment!). There were some thoughtful pieces, though. One of my favorites described the eventual bilateral rapprochement as less of a kiss-and-make-up than "an awkward one-armed hug." Our diplomatic relationship does seem to swing between a bromance and an ill-conceived prom date. Good thing I'm just working on that people-to-people ties thing.

What I wouldn't give for a strawberry ripple

2011-09-24T19:21:00.000+05:00

Alright, I admit it: the jazz group was fun and well-received. From orphans to blue bloods, Lahoris like the jazz. I'm not too proud to say that my skepticism was unfounded. I've heard rumors that the PD Powers That Be are plotting revenge on my lack of faith by sending me Broadway singers this summer (searching for the emoticon that conveys 'shuddering-in-horror-while-offering-a-meek-smile-of-acceptance').

Still, despite a program that I have tentatively labelled a 'success' -- i.e., fulfilled the somewhat amorphous PD goal of keeping populations A, B, and C in touch with concepts D, E, and F -- this was a rather trying week. Not strictly for jazz-related reasons, though after Dengue took over Lahore and our trip to Faisalabad was cancelled*, I had desperate visions of the group being reduced to playing for the guards on the Consulate grounds. No, more trying in that one's full-time desk job doesn't stop just because a program is in town. Which leads me to my first ever PD Rule of Thumb:

Schedule ye not a jazz tour if that jazz tour shall coincide with the end of the fiscal year procurement push, grant push, IVLP nomination push, award nomination push, your boss' R&R, a mosquito-borne epidemic, two official delegations, and the arrival of a new Consul General. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain of work, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall be sorely disappointed.

After over a week of twelve to sixteen hour work days (shades of ACS!), general exhaustion finally caught up with me today. I was still bleary-eyed and unwashed when the guards rang the bell at noon asking for their ice; I was no better at three when a vague and annoying desire for ice cream prodded me out of my sleep state. Annoying, since of course I have no ice cream and no chance of strolling out to buy some. Browsing through ice cream makers online didn't really satisfy the craving.

And blast if I can't get jazz 'Happy Birthday' out of my head.

*Aedes mosquitoes and Faisalabad police, I shake my fist at you in impotent CAO rage.

Footloose

2011-09-20T07:25:00.000+05:00

Somewhere in the southern Punjab, the police are forcing Kevin Bacon to remove that nasty jazz tape from his car. Though, I guess if your name is "Bacon" in Pakistan, you were kind of asking for it.

Ten Years Later

2011-09-11T21:33:00.000+05:00

Ten years later, this was a day just like any other. I did laundry; I read a book; I went jogging. I thought about things.

It was a day just like any other. Only more remarkable for having been so.

Which I'm pretty sure is how it should be.

Dubai Dialogue

2011-09-03T09:55:00.000+05:00

"Hello, Ahlan wa Sahlan to the Oriental Hammam. Please, allow us the honor of showering you with rose petals."

"Gee, thanks, I... hey, that tickles!"

"That's merely our waitstaff anointing your feet with priceless attar. They have tickled you? My sincerest apologies. They will be shackled by their wrists and beat with wet shoes."

"This place is really fancy. What goes on behind those big doors?"

"Secrets too unspeakably delightful for human ears."

"Really?"

"The very wonders of the Orient are behind those doors. To reveal its contents would be to risk the wrath of Allah."

"Oh, I don't want you to get in trouble. No big deal, I'll just..."

"I fear for my very life if I were to outline the marvels that await one who enters that room."

"That's cool, I don't have to know."

"Shall I give you a hint?"

"You could just keep doing that rose petal thing -- that was good."

"Through that magical portal lies a room where we gently soap and steam the skin of delicate young women such as yourself...."

"That sounds nice."

"...then rake it with rusty steel wool and rub mud and honey into the scoriated flesh."

"What?! Yowch, that sounds awful!"

"It reduces many to tears."

"Is that even legal?"

"Yes, madam -- it is in Dubai."

"What do you pay the poor souls that you mistreat in this manner?"

"They pay us."

"Get out. How much?"

[Wordlessly, he scratches a sum on a piece of paper and pushes it across the desk, head bowed.]

"That's outrageous. That's got to be more than your monthly salary."

"Many times over."

"This all sounds so barbaric, so socio-economically imbalanced. And yet..."

"Yes?"

"...I'm intrigued."

"Ah."

"Who performs this sadistic act?"

"A Tunisian woman with small, sharp hands."

"Is she a trafficking victim?"

"Almost certainly."

"Is there any other incentive?"

"For every pound of flesh we viciously rub from your body, we will feed you that same weight in dates."

"Dates?"

"Yes."

"Medjool or halawi?"

"Medjool."

"Well then. Proceed."

"Very good, madam."

Chand Raat and Eid Mubarak

2011-08-31T11:28:00.000+05:00

This tour is the FS equivalent of a glass bottom boat ride: you can sort of make out the things going on below you, but you're not allowed to dive in. After another high profile kidnapping and a lot of sternly worded security notices from RSO, it was only through dumb luck that I had a chance to receive a mehndi tattoo for Chand Raat. Looking at it in the confines of my house, I can imagine that, just for a moment, I let my hand drift over the side of the boat to surreptitiously wave at the mermaids.

Trying to preserve the feeling of inclusion, I made seviyan the morning of Eid ul-Fitr. It's a traditional Eid dish that you eat for breakfast before going out to prayers. I doubt very sincerely that it was anything like what they would have gotten at home, but the guards accepted it with muted surprise. I wasn't cruel enough (or maybe brave enough) to watch them eat it, in case they had to struggle through the process. So nice, though, to no longer worry about them seeing me eat -- opening the kitchen blinds for the first time in a month, the sunlight pooling on the floor was like a balm.

امید

2011-08-24T21:11:00.001+05:00

I spent the evening with a group of young Pakistanis, embarrassed that I'd turned their gathering into an impromptu English lesson, but enjoying their views and openness just the same. They talked about stereotypes, nationalism, religious tolerance, writing... Pakistan doesn't get enough credit for these kind of exchanges. The diversity of opinions, ethnicities, backgrounds, and identities here is what makes me hopeful about the place. Diversity of viewpoint means multiple ideas about how to solve problems -- useful if you can properly channel those ideas into the framework of representative government. The first part of that equation will never be a problem for Pakistan.

Of the approximately 25 people present, at least two of them had been directly impacted by violence. That was sobering. It's a lot to balance against my hopefulness. Still, I'm holding on to it.

Lie to Me

2011-08-22T20:44:00.000+05:00

Buying food with the intent of cooking it is pretty much the same as actually cooking, right?

Head Up, and Smiling

2011-08-17T21:15:00.000+05:00

Last night was the first time I went to bed with my safehaven door closed and locked. I've never before, not once, not here and not in Jordan, felt a need to even pull it to. But with recent events being what they are, I'm trying to be more responsible. After turning the bolt, I padded over to the bed, lay down, and proceeded not to sleep.

What the safehaven door represents frightens me. Not just its implication of outside threat, but maybe more so its implication of the 'proper' way to respond to that threat: Withdraw. Barricade. Keep your head down.

Yet the greater the threat, the tighter the security, the higher the risk, the more important it is for us to be out there and engaged and visible. It's quite the paradox. I don't want the safehaven to become a normal part of my or anyone else's life, but I need to incorporate it into my routine. That's a bit of a paradox, too.

In the morning I will keep my head up. But for right now, I'm just putting off going to bed.

"Suppose now that there were two such servings of rice, one prepared by the just and one prepared by the unjust..."

2011-08-14T13:15:00.001+05:00

Repeated washings of the raw rice I had intended to cook for our National Day potluck failed to remove all the weevils. Somewhere around the middle of washing number five or six -- while I was meticulously flicking stringy little weevil larvae out from amidst the wet grains -- I realized that I was actually not so much concerned about my colleagues eating the weevils as discovering them. It was my Gyges' Ring moment, and I failed miserably.

Times like these make me wish I'd majored in Home Economics instead of Philosophy. Maybe I can bring some cornflakes to share.

These Quasi-Feudal Relationships are Confusing

2011-08-07T12:53:00.001+05:00

After receiving this morning's ice*, the guards informed me through a series of hand gestures and disparaging glances at the ankle-high grass that they were going to mow the lawn. "Oh, you don't have to do that," I stammered lamely. It was as a red-blooded American that I had refused to hire a gardener -- I was going to mow my own lawn, thank you very much, and probably grow a corn field to boot. You know, eventually. When the weather got cooler.

I don't know why I ever bother arguing with them; they hugely outnumber me, and anyway, they have bigger hands so their gestures are a lot louder. I watched, powerless, as the pushmower was dutifully maneuvered around the lawn and a pair of kitchen scissors was applied to the tall grass around the curb edges. I'm pretty sure it's considered socially beneath them to be doing yardwork, but apparently it's an even worse affront for them to allow ME to do yardwork. The most they would permit me was to hold the bag while they stuffed it full of grass clippings. An attempt to pull up a stray weed was met with stern outcry.

Occasionally I have the sneaking suspicion that they're imposing some sort of weird purdah on me. But the lawn does look a lot better.

*They're fasting, but still collect the ice in the morning and just keep it in a cooler until the iftar. "Madam is sometimes home late," was their reasoning.

Diplomats in Pajamas

2011-08-06T15:17:00.004+05:00

The national dress of Pakistan is known as the shalwar qamiz. That's Urdu for 'a well-spangled shapeless sack over elastic waist cotton pants'. It's brilliant: flattering for all body types, appropriate for the weather, and lullingly comfortable in exactly the way that a suit is not. It goes well with the national dish, which is dark, unidentifiable meat mixed with dark, unidentifiable oil and served with a heaping of carbs; the elastic waistband can easily incorporate the cholesterol-induced swelling of your arteries.* Added bonus: if you need to wipe your food-greasy hands on your thighs, the long top is going to cover it right up.

I don't know what the diplomatic rules are about wearing your host country's national dress, but I also find that I don't particularly care what the rules are when presented with the alluring option of going to work clad in what are essentially pajamas. I bought two to start with -- paid for in cash. I didn't want to risk the embarrassment of having the store refuse my credit card now that America's S&P rating has slipped a notch.

*Or your 'New Butt', as the sweet store near the Consulate is so aptly named.

فلاور پوور

2011-08-04T20:52:00.000+05:00

I haven't put much time into hobby development here. The closest I've come is my nascent gardening project: whenever I see a crazy anti-American article in one of the newspapers I read daily for work, I cut it out, turn it into a a flower shape, and stick it to my living room wall. I figure so long as I use tape to do this and not my own saliva, I don't have to worry about qualifying as crazy myself.

Think the U.S. engineered 9/11 so it could have an excuse to invade Muslim countries? Convinced the terrorist attacks in Pakistan are secretly fueled by a Jewish-Hindu-USG nexus? Want to argue that America framed Qaddafi for the Lockerbie bombings as a long-term discreditation strategy that culminated in a NATO invasion? You're probably going on my wall. In fact, you're probably going on my wall more than once because you're a fairly prolific writer. I don't care if you are a former diplomat, a [fill-in-the-blank] analyst, or a grad student in the U.S. Thank heavens no one published my thoughts when I was in grad school (they mostly involved how many meals I'd have to forgo to afford the latest Tori Amos concert).

Sometimes writers try to mask their crazy anti-American remarks by following with equally ridiculous remarks about their own country. Nice try. You're more convincing as a tulip.

My apologies that this entry is not in verse

2011-07-31T13:20:00.000+05:00

Last week was the first PD event I conceived of and executed by myself -- or at least in so far as that can be true given the many local partners and staff who were required to handle the logistics. It was a poetry book launch for a translation exchange between the Pakistan Academy of Letters and the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. We gave away books of American poetry translated into Urdu and arranged readings from a compilation of Pakistani poetry that had been translated into English. The CG read a translation of Faiz Ahmad Faiz's poem "Don't Ask Me, Dear, for that First Love Again." So many people attended, we had to scramble for extra chairs.

I admit to having thought as we were planning the evening, 'Huh, poetry -- perhaps not the edgy subject matter with which I'd hoped to start my PD tour'. The imagined eye-rolls of my POL section friends were almost audible. Two days before the event, however, I read in the papers about a bombing of the shrine of a Sufi poet, apparently by religious extremists. A quick check revealed that his poetry had been included in the translation as well. It turned out that what we were doing was not only edgy, but even a little dangerous.

Here's hoping RSO doesn't catch on.

Today the papers reported that the Pakistani poetry book had been used for readings at an unaffiliated open mic night elsewhere in Lahore. I've noticed selections from it on various blogs and websites as well. I'm curious as to how far it will spread -- I suppose there's no real way to know.

Bad Sign

2011-07-28T21:30:00.000+05:00

"Where in America are you from?"

"I'm not from any one place; we move around a lot because my dad is in the Navy."

"Oh? Is he a SEAL?"

"No, he's a Taurus."

Buying Time

2011-07-23T20:09:00.003+05:00

It's not fair to compare India to Pakistan -- or at least not fair for me to compare India to Pakistan. My experience in one is vastly more circumscribed than my experience in the other. How strange, though, that I can step across a line not even 20 miles from my house and suddenly be allowed to go pretty much wherever I want, however I want. Today it happened to be to The Golden Temple, a Sikh gurdwara in Amritsar.

It was so good just to walk around freely, take taxis, talk to people... As an added bonus, traveling there and back secured me another 30 day stay in Pakistan. Visa restrictions have their perks.

At the return border crossing, the Pakistani immigration official asked how the weather was in Amritsar. "You mean, how's the weather right there?" My colleague and I answered, pointing across the line. "Pretty much like it is here."

We got asked that question quite a few times. Maybe there's so much scary mythology built up about India, the weather is the only safe place Pakistanis could think to start a line of inquiry.

Things That Define Us

2011-07-22T21:25:00.000+05:00

Yesterday's outing was to the closing ceremony of a Model UN camp. As part of the camp activities, the students created a 'Global Village' with elaborate booths depicting different countries.

At the U.S.A. booth, the students had assembled what they thought best represented America: a seven-foot tall recreated Statue of Liberty, a picture of an eagle, a box of KFC, a diorama of the Hollywood sign... and a diorama of the burning World Trade Center, complete with cottonball smoke. "This attack was very important for America," one of the girls explained to me. I didn't know what to say -- it was done without guile, but how awful that we've allowed that day to now define us for so many people around the world. I suppose it was better than a depiction of a mass of college students cheering in front of the White House after Osama bin Laden's death.

The Pakistan country booth treated me to some mehndi.

It left me wondering what students in the U.S. would have come up with if asked to depict Pakistan. Something about SEAL Team Six, likely.

PD is a Political Animal

2011-07-17T21:45:00.000+05:00

Over and over people tell me how lucky I am to have the 'fun' job in the Mission. "It's great that you do cultural stuff and don't have to deal with politics," I was told at my welcome party.

I do my best not to take offense at the obvious subtext ('The rest of us do real work; your job is just fluffy'), but stranger to me is the assumption that "cultural stuff" is somehow apolitical -- that PD is safely and comfortably separated from policy issues. I don't believe that's the case.

If cultural arts are so 'cute' and apolitical, then why do governments feel the need to ban films and books? Why was theater state-controlled in East Germany? Why would my friend Dave and I be inspired to turn to each other spontaneously during the Amman Comedy Festival and both say at once "This is democracy!"?

If I'm doing my job right, then our Cultural Affairs shop should be dripping with policy. I don't want to waste U.S. tax dollars on just entertaining sideshows. I want to leave people talking about universal political values like freedom of expression and civic engagement and tolerance of minority opinion. I want them to have that same 'A-ha' moment that Dave and I did -- only I want it to be "I am a part of this democracy!" Because the one thing I learned in Jordan is that democracy has very little to do with elections. It's all about freedom to share ideas -- and the capacity to think critically about things. I feel that good PD programs could advance that freedom and that capacity. We'll see how far I get.

And if anyone thinks it's good apolitical 'fun' answering university students' questions about "violations" of Pakistani sovereignty, issues of aid, and U.S. support for LGBT rights, then come join me. They'd be happy to talk to you, too.*

*Honestly, it is a blast. But it's not easy.

Loaf of Bread, Jug of Milk

2011-07-10T23:34:00.000+05:00

There are definite advantages to grocery shopping with a bodyguard.

First, you've never felt more important in your life. People in the aisles part before you like the Red Sea, all the while eyeing your cart to see what the other half is buying. I only hope the store was prepared for the resulting run on Ariel detergent and canned spinach.

Second, it's helpful to have a local always at hand who can rate your selection of pre-packaged biryani mix. He really put his all into this part of the excursion, I've got to say.

After we'd checked out, however, I was a bit stumped. Do you tip your grocery store bodyguard? I mean, protecting you from potential cereal aisle snipers is kind of a personal service, right, like a haircut or a massage or something?

Though, to be clear, I never asked him to carry my shopping bags...

Word Search

2011-07-03T16:56:00.003+05:00

Sometimes it takes a while to really understand and define the distorted narrative that you're trying to counter.

Other times, it's more obvious.

For the record, that is NOT the U.S. goal in Pakistan, despite what the Pakistan Today puzzle editors might think.

The Sky in a Puddle of Water

2011-07-02T19:28:00.002+05:00

My dad told me that when he was stationed on a ship, he made a point every day to go out on deck and look at the ocean and sky. Apparently, on the big carriers, you can spend all your time down below if you don't make an effort to get up top. You can forget that the sky exists.

I'm taking the same approach to my life here, trying to go 'topside' at least once a day to remind myself about the sky. At work, this means a walk around the inner wall of the consulate grounds. On the weekends, I do the same around my house. A lap around the consulate lasts 10 minutes; around my house takes considerably less time.

Still, you'd be surprised what you see in just a short walk. I spent a good portion of Friday's lunch break being fussed at by a chipmunk with bizarrely splayed legs (who knew they had chipmunks in Pakistan?). And I was delighted this morning to discover this small world in the broken fountain off the side of the house:

The guard who was trailing me (out of curiosity or for security, I'm not sure) probably thought I was insane to be taking pictures of tadpoles, or at least very sheltered. I pointed and made some exclamatory sounds; his response was extended and a bit labored. Despite an utter lack of Urdu training, even I could tell he was patiently explaining to the ignorant foreigner the life cycle of a frog.

I listened carefully, trying to pick out words. "Machili?" I ventured hesitantly, pointing at the pool of water again. He echoed, nodding: "Machili;" tadpole. "Chorti?" I tried further, making a spastic jumping motion with my hand. He echoed again, giving an amused snort: "Chorti;" frog. This was a great leap forward from the previous day's vocab lesson, when an attempt to learn the word for "gecko" was misinterpreted as a request for lizard extermination. (No geckos were harmed in the end -- and the word turns out to be "chipkili.") [Postscript: In case you're wondering whether I'd considered that "machili" might mean "pool of rancid water" and "chorti" might translate as "weird foreign hand gesture," I went back to the guards today with a pen and paper to draw some pictures and better verify things. Turns out tadpole is just "chili" and frog is "mandak." "Chipkili" was spot on, though.]

Adding these to my list, I can now say "Thank you," "Yes," "No," "lizard," "okra," "frog," "tadpole," and something the internet identified as "Jambolan plum." Well on my way to fluency, to be sure.

Jaman are edible, but I wouldn't necessarily advise that you eat them.

لاہور لاہور ہے or You Can Do Anything for a Year

2011-07-02T05:15:00.005+05:00

Alright, I'm not going to lie to you. This is pretty grim. Check out the view from my kitchen window:

"Gosh, two sets of bars," you say. "Three if you count the elongated metal spikes on top of the seven foot concrete wall," I correct helpfully. Is it too soon for UBL jokes? Because I think my landlord might have hired his exterior decorator. The consulate itself is awash in razor wire and the sort of fences you normally only see when living within hitting range of a baseball stadium. Every day I ride in an armored vehicle there and back, following a continually changing route and schedule -- any other movements have to be pre-approved by the RSO. There is a world outside of the walls and the armored cars, but I can only just catch glances of it through cracks in fences and darkened windows that don't roll down...

The view from the kitchen is occasionally punctuated by a flash of one of the 'guards' walking past the window. I put 'guards' in quotes to indicate that only two or three of the lot of them are actually wearing a proper guard uniform at any given time*; the rest are there for some purpose unspecified by their outfits. They live off of ice, which it is my job as the 'monied land owner' (again, note the quotation marks) to bestow: once in the morning and once at night. Communication is mostly through hand gestures -- it took the intervention of a third party to make them understand that I wanted to know their names. Still, one week in, and I already find myself thinking in the evening, "I really need to get home; the guards' water has probably gotten warm." Other people on the shuttle complain bitterly about the restrictions, the scheduling, the time spent on logistics... Many of them remember when this wasn't the case.

My immediate reaction to this new reality was one of recoil. It is telling that I have yet to unpack my suitcase. The boxes sent from Amman sit unopened on a table. I started to make a tally for my office wall (one week down, only 51 to go!), but it's too miserable an outlook -- and a horrible disservice to the FSNs who are trying so hard to put a happy face on things as well. MS isn't good for much, but at the very least it's taught me the futility of raging against the cage you're in. I spent a lot of time contemplating what my motto for this tour should be. I think I've settled on "Engage" -- which definitely includes "Unpack." Something I'll do this weekend.

*Indeed, glances out the window tell me that they are often shirtless, though they are always very careful to be fully dressed during our ice exchanges.

Contemplation Days

2011-06-22T16:58:00.001+05:00

My office sponsor wants to know if I have any questions.

As a matter of fact, I do:

Are we going to enjoy working together?

How do you know what you're doing is making a difference?

Would you take the assignment again, given the chance?

What do you do when it's all just a little bit too much?

What mistakes am I going to make?

How will I know if I need to curtail?

How will I tell you if you need to curtail?

Would you mind picking up some coffee and milk for me?

I hope he doesn't buy me Nescafe.

I'll Take the Stairs

2011-06-15T06:29:00.000+05:00

Having "Leadership Skills" training in the same building where my dad's father used to work gives me a curious sense of connectivity. I only know him from photographs -- maybe that means that any feeling of connection is misplaced. But I find myself thinking about him when I go up and down the steep wooden staircase that runs through the heart of the building, and I can easily picture him treading the same route. It cues a sort of lopsided swell of pride to put my hand on the banister and think that his hand might have been there. We're at least connected in service, if in little else.

Shot Card

2011-05-30T20:54:00.000+05:00

Accepted: Polio Booster, Typhoid Pills, Japanese Encephalitis Vaccination
Declined: Rabies Prevention Series

I hope that doesn't come back to bite me.

Goal Two: Make Them Love Us

2011-05-24T07:13:00.026+05:00

At one point in CAO training, I feared they might pull out a Fulbright reliquary for the class to venerate.* This would not have been out of step with the general tone of the course: people doing the US side of the work appear genuinely passionate about their programs, and I suspect rightfully so. I don't recall fervor like this in Pol/Econ training, with the exception of a few key offices in DRL.

I want to be excited about it, too -- but I'm a little overwhelmed. One officer could never do all the things that are being presented to us. Seriously, never. Not well, anyway. And certainly not me, who'll only be in post for one year, sans local language, and maybe sans freedom of movement. Knowing that the Pakistan PD shop is actually fully funded to do all the things being presented to us is even more daunting. Having adequate funds is not the same as having adequate resources, and it does not necessarily equate to being able to accomplish tasks with ease.

So thank you to the panel presenter today who advised, "Be realistic and choose just a few goals." I think, however much it goes against my nature, that that is precisely what I will do.

Goal one: get through the entire year without hosting a single jazz or tap dancing group. That's the Pol equivalent of trying not to use the term 'interlocutor' in any of your cables -- probably futile, but worth the effort.

I'll poll the FSNs to figure out what should be our goals two and three.

*I skipped the lunch time screening of "Fulbright: The Man" to watch the President's Arab Spring speech, so I'm not entirely sure that this didn't happen.

Low-Level Dread and Other Diseases

2011-05-21T05:20:00.000+05:00

"This shouldn't frighten me, but it does," was the only thing I could think when amended orders suddenly showed up in my inbox. The message delivered on bureaucratic letterhead was very clear that my year of Arabic study would be in Jerusalem, the same location as my subsequent job, meaning four years total in the same place, maybe even the same house. I didn't want it to, but it felt like a jail sentence. How ironic that the prospect of staying put for so long was the most foreign thought I'd ever had in my entire Foreign Service career. The last time I could claim to have spent four years in the same location, I was 11.

I'm not sure what I'm worried about. The chance to really get to know a city? The thought of being able to properly cultivate a garden? Actually, that's a lie: I know what I'm worried about. I worry about being alone for four years. And I worry about being bored. And I worry about being 37 when I leave and still without a partner, looking at the same scenario all over again at my next post.

So I remind myself that I like my job. Because I really do. And to do something else would only mean having to choose a place to stay forever. And the world is so big.

And shouldn't I be worrying more about the open-ended question that is Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan...?

Time to Move On Now

2011-05-14T02:21:00.002+05:00

Number of days in CAO training thus far: 5
Number of independent mentions of USIA: 33
Number of years since USIA merged with State: 12

Bingo

2011-05-10T06:38:00.000+05:00

First day of CAO tradecraft: "You look familiar. Were you in Amman?" "Why, yes." I'm blinking at her. She does not look familiar; she looks, rather, young. A sudden dawning. "Did I give your student group the ACS 'scared straight' talk once?" "Yeah, then you met with some of us later in a cafe to talk about the Foreign Service." I'm so stunned I nearly lose hold of my bingo ice breaker activity sheet. "And you joined?!" "Well," she shrugs, "you guys were pretty convincing."

If she sucks and / or hates the job, I take no personal responsibility.

Thanks for the Encouragement

2011-05-04T06:57:00.000+05:00

Two days into pre-Pakistan training, and not an hour of it has gone by without some fellow officer telling my how "difficult," if not "impossible," my job in Lahore will be. And that's if the person is being kind: one guy today was more frank in his assessment that Pakistanis hate us so much and so deeply that PD work in Pakistan was a "waste of time." He felt the need to press this point for some number of minutes. It was a little uncomfortable.

It's hard to respond to the cynicism -- somewhat problematic in and of itself as responding to cynicism looks to be the core of my duties over the next year. I'm not someone who thinks reaction to US policies and actions can be papered over with free concerts, and I loathe all the talk about needing to 'brand' our aid, as if the point of our spending was to buy friendship. I do think, however, that personal relationships between Americans and people of other nations can make a difference in attitudes, enough to maybe, hopefully, transcend the ups and downs of politics. That thought was why I chose the Public Diplomacy cone over the Political cone all those many years ago.

I hope I don't regret my choice. I really don't want to spend the next year wasting anyone's time, least of all my own.

Mama, There Ain't No Denyin'

2011-04-21T06:30:00.000+05:00

How to mentally prepare for a new post is always a challenge. Or, more precisely, how to not look totally clueless about your new post is always a challenge. Usually you can bluff through the average conversation by reciting Led Zeppelin lyrics:

"Wow, Pakistan, eh?"

"Yes, I am a traveler of both time and space."

"Are you nervous?"

"Ooh, yeah yeah, Ooh, yeah yeah."

And so forth.

I like to take a more literary approach: there are many very detailed, thoroughly researched books on Pakistani military and political history, and if you look intent enough while you read them, no one is going to bother you with questions to which you don't know the answer. This is yet another way in which paper books are superior to a Kindle.

If you get really stuck, though, you can just change the subject:

"Is Pakistan landlocked?"

"I don't know. Want to hear about Jordan?"

Wonders Never Cease

2011-04-15T23:41:00.000+05:00

I was just thinking how pleasant, yet largely unremarkable, homeleave was -- a purposeful cocoon of ordinariness (I was telling myself) to remind you why you left it to go work overseas in the first place -- when a helicopter landed in our front yard. A person stepped out from the open side, picked an object up off the ground, then casually reentered the helicopter just as it lifted off. I suppose they dropped something.

It was sort of weird.

The truth is, I don't really know what 'real life' is supposed to feel like anymore. Did you know that McDonald's serves fancy coffee now? Dad bought me a caramel mocha there last night and I was too stunned to even ask if they could supersize it.

Roam Sweet Roam

2011-04-05T15:06:00.002+05:00

It doesn't seem so weird to come back this time. I'm not sure if that's a reflection of the relative closeness of Arab and Western cultures compared to Far Eastern culture, or a testament to how 'false' my dip bubble life was in Amman. I tell myself that vacation will be relaxing, but in reality I'm braced for four weeks of congressionally mandated restlessness. Not boredom, exactly, but a twitchy, strum-your-fingers-on-the-table impatience to be doing... I'm not sure what. Working, likely.

I foresee adjusting to this new non-work pace just in time for the start of training in May.

Perhaps a coffee shop built closer to my house?

2011-02-23T00:46:00.003+05:00

Protests this week included a taxi driver who threatened to light himself on fire over a parking ticket and a group of elementary school children who staged a sit-in opposing their principal. I'm thinking of protesting for something, too; I just have to think of what I most want from the Jordanian government. More parking lots? Fewer feral cats?

GAM to provide electricity, water to outlying villages

AMMAN (Petra) - The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) will provide water and electricity to the villages of Abu Sayah, Khaled Ibn Al Waleed, Wadi Al Qetar, Mugheirat, Hazaa and Baidaa, Amman Mayor Omar Maani said on Tuesday. During a meeting with local residents, he emphasised the government’s commitment to develop infrastructure services in the greater Amman area. On Monday, the villagers staged a sit-in to protest against road conditions and poor electricity and water services.

ASEZA, GAM employees end protests

AMMAN (JT) - Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) employees ended their sit-in on Monday after several meetings with Amman Mayor Omar Maani, during which he promised to study their demands, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. Hundreds of employees staged a sit-in outside GAM headquarters on Sunday demanding higher salaries and a probe into alleged corruption at the municipality. Some 300 employees, who vowed to continue their demonstration daily until their demands were met, called on the mayor to hire all day labourers as full-time employees and to reconsider the municipality's spending priorities. Also on Monday, Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) day labourers ended a protest after the authority decided to appoint them as full-time employees. ASEZA Chief Commissioner Mohammad Saqr said the authority will study all the protesters' demands. Around 200 day labourers had staged a sit-in on Sunday and Monday in front of the ASEZA headquarters calling for higher salaries.

Work Life Balance

2011-02-12T02:16:00.002+05:00

So Mubarak stepped down and my grandfather died. The two events are not connected, yet for me intertwined. At nearly the same moment Tahrir Square erupted in joy, Grandpa's funeral was starting. I wasn't present for either event. I was in the office.

It was very strange to be frantically clicking my way through websites, trying to find the most updated news stories to print and hand to an incoming official visitor, while simultaneously watching for my mother's texted updates about the funeral preparations. It is amazing, really, that I could 'see' both events in real time. I wonder if Grandpa would have known who Mubarak was. They were about the same age.

Frantic click-click-click. Moment of quietude. Print and collate and staple, then take a second to worry if the flowers you ordered arrived. They didn't have any cotton boles to put in the arrangement -- not the right time of year. Do we have any folders left? The ones with the Embassy Seal on the front? Watch the cheering crowds on the tv screen, then sit quietly at your desk -- just for a moment -- to read Mom's last text.

I couldn't bring myself to tell the florist something meaningful to write on the card, since I didn't want to start crying at work. But I did think to call her back and change the message to read "Love Katie" instead of "From Katie."

I suppose a lot of people are thinking about their messages for Mubarak, too.

Interesting Times

2011-01-22T00:18:00.003+05:00

The Next Tunisias [Foreign Policy Magazine, 19 Jan]

It's funny: like everyone else in Jordan, I find I'm left not quite knowing what I can say aloud (or even really what I would say if I had full license to speak).

Why Jordan isn't Tunisia [Foreign Policy: Middle East Channel, 18 Jan]

So... how 'bout that Asian Cup?

Uzbekistan vs Jordan [Goal.com, 21 Jan]

Bummer. Those Uzbeks really came outta nowhere.

'trickle trickle trickle' or The Price of Vice

2011-01-01T16:50:00.009+05:00

New Year's was a movie followed by an elegant hotel dinner. You could tell it was elegant by the plate to portion ratio: at no point was less than 2/3 of any plate surface visible around the food. Planning at the last minute had left us with the choice of ordering pizza or investing in a meal with an intermezzo course of champagne sorbet. And this is sort of how I've come to think of Jordan: grubby low-end hostel, or ritzy 5 star hotel. There's very little in between the two available.

Final cost of the meal per head: 90 JD. 60 percent of Jordan's monthly minimum wage.

To give you an idea, that's the equivalent of paying 696 dollars for a meal in the U.S., where a minimum wage job will net you 1,160 USD a month.

I haven't decided if I feel exactly guilty about this or not. Just because others aren't able to live the same way you can doesn't mean that you should throw it all over, hole up in a barrel, and only ask that people don't block your sunlight. Still, I wonder a lot about how it impacts my sense of normalcy. I wouldn't spend 700 dollars for a meal in the U.S. even if it came with a free mermaid. (I doubt I'd even spend 130 dollars for a meal, which is what it actually cost me based on the exchange rate.)

Anne pointed out that the service charge meant that our waiter made over one-sixth of the minimum wage in a single night, just from our table. I suppose that ameliorates things somewhat (as I'm certain he will only spend it on morally uplifting literature to read to ailing hospice residents). Everyone here wants their children to be doctors and engineers. Too bad that whole 'alcohol and mixed gender environment' thing blinds them to the economic opportunities of waitstaff.

Half Empty

2010-12-27T01:21:00.004+05:00

Having discovered that the Ambassador declared me a pessimist at a recent FAST* meeting, I've been trying not to brood on it. Because that would just prove his case, right? I mean, you don't think I'm a pessimist, do you, loving family?

"Um, Katie, did you see my birthday present for you?" Cue the presentation of David Rakoff's Half Empty. My eyes narrow. "Have you been talking to the Ambo?" Karyn thumbs through a few chapters. "You are kind of a pessimist -- but this book says that it's not so bad." I find this of little comfort.

I really don't like blindly upbeat people. I freely admit this. They tend to have a sort of ridiculous shininess about them that rubs me as insincere. They're the ones I picture with secret cutting addictions, drinking airplane cabin handouts of gin in a dark closet, desperate to hide their bulimia from their unsuspecting cats. I, on the other hand, feel I'm practical about life: a realist. Things aren't always rosy, but you deal with them and work to make them better. Maybe I would be more upbeat if I had a coke habit to cover up or something.

It is suddenly very important that my youngest sister appreciate this world view.

"Pessimism is only bad if you let it get the better of you, yeah? I mean, it's a planning tool. You have to constantly work to keep the worst case scenario from happening; things don't naturally turn out well." Optimism is merely reflective of a lack of imagination -- or an abdication of responsibility. Or brain trauma. One of those three.

She purses her lips in a funny Karyn way and nods. "I'll give you the book just as soon as I'm done with it."

*'First And Second Tour' officers. Every time you think you've escaped the grip of junior-hood ("Look, I'm tenured now!"), State broadens the definition.

Pause

2010-12-07T22:06:00.005+05:00

I have often stopped myself from writing things on my blog because I was uncertain of the potential impact. That's been true from the beginning of my foreign service career, but more true since I've been stationed here. It's one thing to talk about funny visa stories; how can I talk about human rights issues in my host country? How can I talk about Jordanian politics? Or our policy approach to the region? It's frustrating, because they are things I WANT people to discuss -- things people SHOULD discuss. I tell myself that I'm protecting other people by being quiet. In truthful moments, I worry that I am mainly just protecting myself.

With all that in mind, it's been hard to watch the wikileaks story. On the surface of it, what officer hasn't wanted to run screaming down a hallway with a cable in hand demanding that people consider an issue she or he thinks is being overlooked or lightly treated? I'm sure there are no small number of people secretly wishing that their cables DO get a mention -- that finally that particular issue they had championed and worked on and cried over would be exposed and people would take action. It's a hopeful viewpoint -- or maybe a frustrated viewpoint. We want our work to bring about change. Not later, not gradually, not patiently, but now.

But the rest of the world is not America or Australia or Britain or Canada, or any other country whose inhabitants are calling out about wikileaks having a right to information. Civil liberties, legal protections, the right to defend yourself and your actions: these don't exist in so many places. So many places that you wouldn't guess. So many places that you might take a nice vacation to and look around and think "this seems like a pleasant enough country" and never give another thought to what's beneath the surface. Places where, to mention certain things, you have to do it in private. Where information is not a tool, but rather a weapon to be turned against people.

It is heart-wrenching to hear wikileaks demand to know who they have put in danger, and it's astounding to me that they can't get past the thrill of 'embarrassing' the United States to see that what they are doing is dangerous -- and that they will never hear about the people who are punished for it. The person who is whisked away in the night for "questioning" won't be mentioned online or in the papers... and now, might not even be mentioned in cables meant to inform our government and help stop abuses. Are all the Western observers so gleeful about the U.S. being compromised going to take action to fix the issues wikileaks exposes? Are they even in a position to do so? No. No, they are not. Diplomats are. Or we were. Maybe less so, now.

I feel sick every time I see someone call wikileaks a "whistle-blowing" website. This is not whistle-blowing. It's just voyeurism. At best, I thought it might lead to the sort of informed discussion on the issues that cable writers so fervently dream of inspiring. It seems that people just aren't interested. More fun to poke at the American straw man you've constructed than to to think critically about the ramification of things.

And for the record, wikileaks isn't embarrassing the United States. None of us are embarrassed about doing our job.

Betrayal

2010-12-01T09:56:00.002+05:00

Leslie Nielsen, how could you be Canadian?

Sacrilicious

2010-11-19T16:13:00.001+05:00

"Think they'll let us take that into Jordan?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"It's alcohol."

"They have alcohol in Jordan."

We watched silently as the duty free attendant wrapped the bottle in foam netting and slid it deftly into a bag. As she held out the bag by the handle, an imprinted ad for pork sausages was clearly visible on its side. Full color, of course.

"We can always claim diplomatic immunity."

"Yeah, I'll just let you carry that."

كان زمان

2010-11-12T22:02:00.000+05:00

"Hey, where've you been?" This in Arabic from behind the counter to my left. I glance up from my notebook to see Rami, my favorite coffeeshop guy.

"Wow, how are you? How are things?" It's been months since I've seen Rami. He never finished his final high school exam ("why bother? I had no money for college."), but instead started working for Starbucks, eventually moving over to a competing chain's store close to the Embassy. He has the singular skill of speaking in Arabic that I can almost completely understand.

"Good, but I never see you. You busy?"

"Busy with the elections. I wrote updates on them."

"For a newspaper?"

"No, for my government." This is a little more blunt than I'd care to be, but that's what happens when your language skill level is somewhere between 'bludgeoning the listener with an anvil' and 'bludgeoning the listener with a sledgehammer'. Rami doesn't seem to mind. I explain to him that I'm moving to Pakistan and then Jerusalem.

"That's great that you can move around and experience a lot of different cultures." His dream, he once told me, is to open his own coffee shop and thus bring the different cultures to him.

"Sure," I accepted the americano he set in front of me. "That's what I'm doing here with you."

Round up

2010-09-30T21:15:00.001+05:00

Some highlights from the past few months:

- 'control officer' is a highly misleading term. You've got about as much control over what's happening during a high level visit as a bullrider does over the beast roiling beneath him. A better term might be 'responsible when things go wrong officer'.

- the full power of a security state becomes clear when ten police officers from three different departments all converge on your building in response to an attempted breakin across the hall. The investigative intent behind some of the security state's questions remains perhaps less clear. ("So, your apartment is in your husband's name?" "No, I live alone." "So, where is your husband?" "I'm not married." "So, your husband: is he coming back soon?")

- a lot can be removed from a car without preventing its basic operation. A whole lot.

- In Morrocco, they have Jews and Muslims, but no Christians. In Jordan, they have Christians and Muslims, but no Jews. Discuss.

- The more you're told 'Don't worry about it', the greater cause there is for alarm.

- Knowing that you'll be 36 at job's end if you sign up for one post versus being 37 at job's end if you sign up for a different post makes the first post INFINITELY more attractive.

This Palm Frond has Quite the Incentive Package

2010-07-10T18:37:00.001+05:00

The path to القُدس is not a straight one; the closest thing I've got to a John the Baptist is my CDO, and I'm not sure that she's into locusts and camel hair. So what to do?

Enter Pakistan.

Pakistan has been on my list for a while -- I think since hearing an NPR special on Karachi a couple of years back -- though (true statement) I never intended it as a stepping stone to anywhere specific. I actually bid on it months before looking for a job across the river ever occurred to me. Identity issues, nationalism... Sometimes a place just catches your fancy. Helpful also in being a place I can go. At least theoretically. My handshake lets me 'link' and plan, but ultimately means nothing without an accompanying thumbs up from MED. A panel opportunity has already come and gone once. I'm told there will be others.

Castles built on a promised letter from a neurologist I've spoken with for all of twenty total minutes, to be read by people who've never met me. This is science.

Holy of Holies

2010-05-31T15:41:00.004+05:00

Jerusalem is the first place I've been in a long time -- a long time -- that made me feel truly uncomfortable: out of my element, exposed, trespassing. At best a temporary guest, politely tolerated (look, we've brought out the good china; watch you don't use the wrong fork). The conflicts here are not mine, the passion is not mine, the rapture and sense of belonging don't grip me, not even in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with the lines of tourists and the prostrating nuns and the strange lighting that made me turn my eyes, bewildered, toward my host (not Host of Hosts) asking for some clue as to what I should be feeling in that sickly, banal atmosphere. Religion here grows like profane barnacles on the sacred.

But what do I know. I'm just some vaguely Protestant girl who's spent the majority of the past ten years bowing to brass mirrors.

Sabbath dinner is with friends of a friend: an orthodox Jewish family. I feel far too bright and far too blonde. The women's faces are animated and friendly in sharp contrast with their funereal dress. I'm not sure my friend warned them that I was not of their tribe, but they are smiling and pleasant as they make room at the table. It's a curiously generous though closed gesture, like being allowed on stage yet not taking part in the performance.

The wife passes around wine in little silver cups. Lifting my cup with two fingers and sliding a third beneath the bottom to tilt it fully back, something about the muscle movement and the taste recalls a childhood memory of taking communion in Texas: feeling very grown up but somehow not quite big enough for the pew and trying not to spill a little plastic cup of grape juice lifted off of a silver tray. The recollection is so overwhelming that I involuntarily jerk the cup back from my mouth and stare at it dumbly. The woman next to me sees me start and misunderstands the reason. "I know it tastes like grape juice, but it's wine," she assures me. I'm too stunned by the memory to explain.

At work on Monday I hear about the attack on the flotilla. People are marching in Amman in protest, and the Embassy asks us to keep a low profile. Walking home, I try to be vigilant, but my mind is engaged in a peripatetic ramble of its own and gets distracted by the pastoral scene of a flock of sheep grazing in an open field by the road. I slow my stride to watch their black muzzles tear at the grass, only just noticing the shepherd with his switch in time to say 'Good Evening' before we pass one another. In this same field just last week they were shearing the sheep. Moving in the opposite direction, I had stopped on the way to work to watch them clip the fleece and bag the raw wool. The sure snip-snip sound of the shears was strangely gentle and calming in the morning. Each sheep had lunged up drunkenly from the ground the moment its turn was over, scurrying naked and trembling back to its flock.

Maybe that sense of exposure is what I've been missing.

"a most prominent tourist destination in the world"

2010-03-29T23:25:00.035+05:00

When Paul was on the road to Damascus*, I'm not sure he was in a hired Chrysler listening to Taylor Swift. If so, he might well have wished for deafness as well as blindness somewhere a bit north of Mufraq. I'm just speculating here, though; the Bible isn't clear on this point. It is clear that, like me, he needed assistance entering the city. Fair enough. Syria scores better than Jordan on some indices of religious freedom, but it's never been big into proselytizing. Or in my case, big into US government employees.

At the border I went self consciously to the 'foreigners' window instead of the 'diplomats' one. A bit of a moot point as both were manned by the same person, a short-ish guy I judged to be in his early twenties. He dutifully stepped a foot over and nodded to me through the wavy glass. His thick, olive-yellow uniform looked itchy.

"Hello." I spoke in Arabic, bending down a bit so my voice would carry through the window's pass back tray. We both smiled. 'See,' I thought. 'All it takes is a little kindness; Syrian-American relations are improving already.' All such thought was banished, however, by the nearly audible blanch of his face when he saw what I was offering: two thin little eagle-embossed books. "Uh... I have two passports." Lamely stating the obvious is a particular gift of mine. I might as well have said 'I have two infectious diseases' by the way he picked them up. I pressed on: "One is for work, and one is for tourism. I work in Jordan, but I'm going to Syria for tourism. So my Jordanian stamps are in that one" -- pointing to the passport I had carefully not referred to as 'diplomatic' -- "and my Syrian visa is in that one" -- pointing to the blue passport. Then I turned my attention to completing the entry application as if this were the most normal thing in the world. Because in most parts of the world, it is.

Peeking up again, I watched the corners of his mouth turn farther and farther down as he leafed through one passport and then the other. He called over a supervisor, and then another... Eventually five bodies were collected around my travel documents. Having completed my application, I stood quietly at the window trying to look guileless and inoffensive. The bodies peeled off and the original attendant returned, automatically taking the application form I passed to him with a faked air of optimism. He instructed me to sit; I sat. I sat and read Steppenwolf, to be precise. Hesse is pretty far off ideologically from Kaiser Wilhelm, but maybe the Syrians still connect Germany with Saladin worship.

After twenty or thirty minutes, he motioned me back to the window. "We've called the Foreign Ministry; you need a stamp from Jordan in this passport." He cleared his throat and held up... the blue one.

Sifting through a few possible reactions, I decided on 'somewhat-pious-maiden-in-distress'. "Oh," placing both hands on the counter, I leaned forward earnestly and opened my eyes wider. Guileless, guileless... "But that's illegal!" If nothing else, I was pleased my Arabic was holding up. "Illegal?" he repeated, appearing genuinely pained. "Yes," a lot of grave nodding on my part. "According to the law, all stamps from Jordan go in my work passport, because I work there. I don't think it's possible to have a Jordanian stamp in my tourist passport."

He shifted back and forth on his feet, uncomfortable. Having worked a window, I knew precisely how he was feeling; I also knew he was too junior to make a decision himself. "I'm sorry; you'll have to go back to the border. The Foreign Ministry said so. It's just five minutes." I sighed, semi-theatrically -- but what can you do.

My Jordanian driver took the news well at first, using the opportunity to double up on cigarette purchasing stops at the border's duty free shop. Yet at each border check point -- and there are many -- he conveyed my story with a steadily increasing tone of personal affront. "Why are you leaving so soon?" suspiciously asked one Syrian border guard who had seen us drive across only a short time before. The driver snorted and shoved both my passports at him indignantly. "She's a diplomat, so they're making her get another stamp." I (in the back of the car and still about 100 yards away from being diplomatically immune) nearly choked. I suppose he felt he was protecting my honor.

"Syrians are crazy," he said to each Jordanian border guard we saw, who repeated it back to him sympathetically. "Syrians are crazy," he said to me as we approached the Jordanian immigration checkpoint. We were approaching it in reverse, driving backwards around a barrier and down a one-way street with oncoming traffic. I nodded agreement, having decided it would be prudent to narrow my definition of 'crazy' to exclude driving practices. A few sad faces and hand presses at the Jordanian border, and I had the stamp. The Syrian custom official's supervisor looked it over in a punctilious, officious manner that I hoped his junior would never learn to copy.

And then I was in.

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

Damascus proper lacks the faded grandeur I had imagined from reading Ibn Battuta and Herodotus; instead, it appears to have passed 'faded' and progressed on to 'rotted'. Buildings pile on top of each other thickly, in the distance clinging to the side of the ferrous mountain like dough to the side of a bowl. From the rooftop terrace of my hotel, one can view whole blocks of abandoned, semi-collapsed mud buildings given over to cats who pick their way from wall to roof to fence. In the paved lot below there's a communal sink, used variously by taxi drivers and private vehicle owners, who fill buckets and plastic bottles. One street over is a soviet-looking statue surrounded by four fountain heads. This was the focal point of yesterday's 'Viva Palestine' rally that I ducked into a hotel lobby to avoid.

What Syria lacks in grandeur it makes up for in Iranians**. The hotel lobby was awash in shapeless black bodies, some of whom would send their men over to try and communicate Farsi language requests to the Arabic speaking reception. As I was changing money to pass the time while the Viva Palestine rally likewise passed, the desk worker shook his head at me. "I can't understand anything they say." Throwing up his hands, he switched to English. "Five days, all Iranians. Stay five days only, many many, then finish." It appeared to be bringing him a great deal of business, but he didn't seem all that pleased with the situation. Still, I rather enjoyed mingling with them at the Old City shops and once in a press of bodies as they streamed out of the Umayyad Mosque and bore me almost bodily to the Sayyida Ruqayya Shrine. How often does an American get to say she spent her afternoon among the people of Iran? Two 'state sponsors of terrorism' in one go is pretty good, if you ask me.

At the end of the weekend, I'd bought nothing -- but I read 300 pages. That's a quality vacation.

*I suppose for the weekend of Palm Sunday I ought to have been more properly traveling to Jerusalem; in my defense, Jesus didn't have a soon-to-expire Syrian visa burning a hole in his pocket.

**There are two important Shiite shrines in Damascus, and my visit happened to coincide with the Iranian festival of Nowruz.

I have always relied upon the kindness of الشباب

2010-03-16T00:20:00.011+05:00

Yesterday coming back from dropping a friend off at his hotel, I was shunted down a side street by some construction. In Jordan, being shunted down a street invariably means driving on for miles and miles with no turn around point. You really shouldn't fight it: it's like death and taxes and Fourth of July countdown meetings. You just have to ride it out.

Only this time the shunting included the added variable of a very low gas tank. Very low. Much lower than I had realized. As one identical city block gave way to the next, the gas gauge needle was falling in an inverse proportion to my anxiety. Which was rising. A lot. Gas stations are few and far between in Jordan, emphasis here on 'few' and 'far'.

By the time the gas light came on, I was in a semi-controlled panic. Here I was, set to run out of fuel on the side of some unnamed street in the middle of who-knows-where at 11 o'clock at night on a schoolday. I thought about calling a friend, but how would she ever find me? "Kate, I'm out of gas! Tell Dave to come pick me up -- I'm right next to a pharmacy. He'll know it by the adjacent pile of rubble and the loitering stray cats."

So I did what any smart diplomat would do in the middle of the night in the Near East on an unmarked road with no streetlights: I pulled up next to a group of youth and practiced my Arabic. To their credit, they acted as if this happened to them every day. And who knows, maybe it does.

"Excuse me -- could you help me? I'm looking for a gas station." It's worth pointing out here that implying you'd like directions is about the stupidest thing you could ever do in Amman. Earlier when I'd called my friend's hotel to get its location, I talked to three different employees before one finally admitted, "We're sorry; we just can't assist you." So what I was actually hoping was for one of the young men to pull a gas can out of his pocket. Stranger things have happened.

The group members exchanged a few 'have-you-got-a-gas-can?' glances, then one brave soul stepped forward and shrugged. "I'll take you there." And he reached for my keys...

At this point I had a split second decision to make. Get in a car (my car) with a strange guy who is going to drive me (presumably) to a gas station. Or run out of gas and be surrounded by a lot of strange guys without any real means of escape. Not, actually, that difficult a decision in the end. Though I did offer a silent apology to the RSO shop as I slid into the passenger seat.

"How do I adjust the chair?" my savior and / or abductor asked. "Ah, it's broken." "Oh," brief pause while, in lieu of the carseat, he adjusted his glasses. "Is this okay?" He indicated the oil light, which was blinking. "Umm, also broken." I may not have been smart enough to avoid buying a car on the local market, but I did pat myself on the back for having randomly memorized the word for 'broken' that morning. At this point he was probably wondering about his own safety, but we started off just the same. His friends' heads swiveled to watch us depart as if they were on a single collective pivot.

We chatted a bit in the car while he steered us through intersections and alleys, down a path I had no chance of retracing on my own; I figured if I was on my way to my death, I ought to at least enjoy the last few moments beforehand. "Are you here for work, or school..?" he asked. "Work; I'm with the US Embassy." No point in lying about these things. He told me he was an airline steward for chartered flights, though also did work as a tailor. The words 'steward' and 'tailor' he said in English, which made me wonder if he was using my old language class tactic of just saying what you know, not necessarily what was true. He would, of course, very much like to go to America some day. "You would be most welcome," was my reply, one of the few times I've really and truly meant it.

20 minutes later and 30 JD fewer, we left the gas station to return to his random street corner. His friends were stacked up along the curb like a glee club, clearly awaiting his return with some interest. "I am so sorry; I've been a lot of trouble." I wasn't sure what to do: offer him money? shake his hand? "No, it was a small thing; it's normal." He jumped out of the car and pointed down a street; "The Embassy is that way."

Part of your job as a diplomat is to remind foreigners that Americans are people, not just policies or movie caricatures; it's nice to be reminded of the flip side of that yourself from time to time.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

2010-03-11T23:51:00.006+05:00

Hosting a high level visitor turns out to be a lot like hosting a dinner party, only you don't get to pick the guests, and the guests happen to control your salary. There's a lot of talk of who sits where, who eats what, event themes, name placards... Suddenly the Embassy is very very clean. VVIPs and their entourages must be constantly woozy from fresh paint and floor wax fumes, which is probably why they feel we have the power to subvert basic laws of physics when incorporating seats at tables or getting bodies from one place to another in record time. But of course, we do have those powers: we're professional diplomats, after all. And that is what I reminded myself of while making "Restrooms -->" signs. I can't hang them up till closer to my event, however, since the paint on the wall still hasn't dried.

[Postscript: Well, that could have gone better. But at least everyone knew where the toilets were.]

"What's that, Lassie? Little Timmy's trapped in a well... and can't deliver his demarche?!"

2010-02-27T23:32:00.012+05:00

So, two weeks isn't much time in which to develop a really informed opinion about Political work -- but if there was one thing Consular taught me, it was to make unshakable, irrevocable decisions based on a minimum of data and in a very short time frame. So here's my take (we'll call it a "first impression" to give me an out later).

1. The single biggest difference between POL and CONS is the the source of motivation for the work. The pressure source for POL is completely polar to that of CONS. All the motivating pressure in CONS comes from below: there's a person with a problem standing in front of you, and now what are you going to do about it? All the pressure in POL, however, comes from above: someone has made a problem for your boss, and what is your boss going to make you do about it? You can see how in CONS, you might have more of an idea about how your onward action has a direct bearing on the situation. You can also see how 'urgency' would have a slightly different coloring from one office to another:

CONS: This is urgent! [Read: Someone is in danger!]

POL: This is urgent! [Read: Washington wants this real bad like!]

I do admit that 'urgent' in CONS often means "I really want to go to my third cousin's husband's niece's christening," but then you get to use your own discernment to dissect the 'urgent' nature of the case; i.e., "Yes, so sorry -- passports take two weeks to renew." I don't think it would be very wise to (at least openly) dissect 'urgent' in POL on your own, though having done so in CONS now makes me sincerely doubt the 'urgency' of anything not involving the immediate need for a tourniquet.

There are also times in POL, however, when no one is putting pressure on you;* then it's up to you to put pressure on yourself. And we all know how well that went for you in grad school.

2. It's much harder to measure your productivity in POL than in CONS. There's no 11C report to run at the end of the day and taunt your slower colleagues with, mainly because there aren't any real widgets to move or beans to count. I suppose you could track numbers of cables written or business cards collected, maybe number of Codels hosted... in CONS one of the potential pitfalls is turning everything into a numbers game, but in POL I'm guessing one pitfall is going the opposite extreme and denying that numbers matter at all. Ideally in any job you want a nice balance between quantity and quality: efficiency. I haven't yet received my POL work requirements statement (you have 45 days from your start date to set these up), but I'm super curious how they'll be phrased given our essentially widget-less environment. "Write five catchy subject lines"? "Don't lose anyone's luggage"? "Set up a semaphore station so Post can transmit cables even when ClassNet goes down"? (I guess that last one is more of an IT job...)

3. There aren't any FSNs in POL. Well, I mean, there are, but not physically in POL -- they're way over there, in the unclassified part of the building that you never think to step foot in. You probably have no idea what they're doing. In fact, you, PolOff, said to have your fingers on the proverbial pulse of the country in which you're stationed, can go pretty much all day without even seeing a Jordanian. Try that in CONS, and the FSNs will come find you and feed you things.

4. Which brings me to the next big difference: there is a serious lack of food culture in POL. The Human Rights Officer brought in doughnuts today to celebrate having finally finished the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, and the doughnuts just SAT THERE all the way through our staff meeting. I once brought in six dozen cookies to the Consular section, and those suckers were gone in less than two hours. Today was Consular Leadership Day, and I understand they had no fewer than three cakes. Three cakes!

5. No one in POL is going to suggest you buy a "Political Leadership Tenets" Junior Spaghetti Tank.

*I'm sure this also happens occasionally in CONS, but I honestly can't recall any such moments.

Superfluous

2010-02-11T23:28:00.004+05:00

My time in ACS came to a close today, and now I'm suddenly POL -- or in other words, I've abruptly gone from being the last person evacuated from post in the event of a disaster, the one most necessary in a crisis, to being the first one on the plane. Three years of consular work, over. If you think that's a weird feeling, you're right. Luckily, I've got a long weekend ahead of me to settle into the idea.

I've been trying to reflect on the things I've learned in consular. Maybe more patience. Definitely more humility when dealing with rules and bureaucracy. I've stretched the 'E' side of my personality, for all you MBTI fans. Those are all good things. It's been a heavy three years though. This last year in particular, it seemed like I was proverbially sprinting nearly the entire time, to the point where returning home at night was merely a stage setter for an epic struggle between my desire to sleep and my desire to eat. That part I won't miss. But watching the FSNs 'sprint', too -- that part I won't forget. If I'm ever in a position of management, I hope I can make things better for them.

So, sure, POL work. Bring it on. We'll see what I learn this time.

Super Oblivious

2010-02-08T23:37:00.000+05:00

The super bowl happened, and I had no idea.

Which might be the best thing ever about living overseas.

Thirty-one January Oh-ten

2010-02-01T00:24:00.004+05:00

I am beginning to fear my body is developing an allergy to clothing. I suppose this might not be that big an issue in a warm weather climate, but in the middle of winter in a Muslim country, it's less than ideal. Definitely it's causing me to rethink certain cuts of underwear. I'm guessing it's an MS thing.

That's pretty much what I've been occupied with at work lately: how far up one's back you can scratch before it becomes indecent. That and mid-level bidding and my POL rotation and my EER and the training plan for my successor and finishing up projects in Consular before I go. Any bit of that list that doesn't fit in my head ends up as a prickly knot just below my sternum, slightly to the right... It's strange, because I feel fairly on top of things. So on top of things, actually, that I don't really see a need to be stressed. The stomach prickliness was a surprise. Thanks, corporeal self! You just give and give.

There's a particular job I want to be on tomorrow's bidlist, but I don't want to get overly focused on it. If last year's motto was "No More Drama," maybe this year's can be "Just Roll With It."

And maybe a new laundry detergent would stop the itching.

You may be an undigested bit of hummus, a blot of lebneh, a crumb of jamid, a fragment of underdone falafel.

2010-01-19T00:06:00.007+05:00

While doing a notarial for the RSO, he commented on all of my fancy stamps. "Yes, they're by far the most fun part of this job," I assured him, proceeding to add a few more consular seals to his document via some showy wrist action -- the ACS equivalent of the bar scene in Cocktail. Consular work is all about knowing your audience.

There was a moment -- only a moment! -- where I felt a slight twinge of... something. Regret? The POL section certainly wasn't going to have any fun presses or stickers; they probably wouldn't even give me a name stamp. Would I be sorrowful moving on from what I've come to think of as my scrapbooking tour? I handed the RSO back his elaborately inked and crimped paper and considered this for a bit.

Hmm, no -- I'm pretty sure I'll be fine.

Turkey for Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T01:13:00.001+05:00

So I'm standing in the West and looking at the East. A very Edward Said moment. East (turn) West (turn)... Istanbul is how I'd imagine Vienna to be if it were populated entirely by Muslims.* I've never actually been to Vienna, but I was blessed with a very active imagination.

It would be easy to over-romanticize the place. Staring up at the dome of the Hagia Sofia -- cathedral cum mosque cum museum -- is dizzying, dislocating... I resisted the urge to lie on the ground, but only just. At night, equilibrium restored, I made a nest of sorts in a rooftop cafe overlooking the Bosphorus. Eating a fruit and custard tart, drinking Turkish tea and reading Steinbeck, I was feeling generally very smug and worldly. The call to prayer suddenly booming from the Blue Mosque was a shivering shock. Bracketed by the strangled-baby call of seagulls and the subdued click-click of cups on saucers, it left me with that same shimmering dizzy vertigo as in the Hagia Sofia. I put down my book and really thought about where I was and the history of the place... Steinbeck says traveling alone unfixes you in time: "A memory, a present event, and a forecast all equally present." I think he's right.

*And indeed, I believe this was at one point in time the plan.

Never Love an FSO, She'll Only Break Your Heart

2009-11-25T12:13:00.005+05:00

"I wanted to tell you guys..." The three of them looked up from their computers expectantly. Pumping my feet on the floor, I rolled my chair to the middle of our little knot of cubicles.

"It's been decided that Eric will take over when I leave ACS, so if you want to pull him over to show him anything you're working on or introduce him to any cases, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. I'll train him on things, too. Also," pause for effect, "I might be leaving a little earlier than we originally thought -- maybe a month earlier." I braced myself for the inevitable tears, the pleas for delay in departure. The FSNs glanced at one other.

"Okay." A collective shrug and typing resumed.

I'm sure they were crying on the inside.

معجزة العيد

2009-09-29T13:17:00.003+06:00

It rained on the morning of Eid al-Fitr. I had padded out through the kitchen early, opening the balcony door to wait for the call to prayer -- it's supposed to be especially long* and beautiful on the morning of this Eid, to mark the end of Ramadan. I didn't recognize the sound at first, mixed in with the "Allaaaaaaaaaaahu AK-bar!"s churning out of the mosques and running over the buildings. The cloud burst lasted only just long enough for me to register: water! Then a single flash of lightning and the drops died away. The few cars moving along the street below were giving off a tires on wet pavement noise that reminded me of Florida.

Later I told Ben what he'd missed: "Rain! It's like an Eid miracle." More miraculous: the thought of having lunch out.

*Ben jokingly refers to it as "the extended dance remix."

Cornflakes for Dinner

2009-09-17T06:37:00.000+06:00

Awake since 2am -- I never sleep through the night anymore. For once I can pair a reason to my insomnia: a woman I was trying to save died, and I woke up with her name pacing doggedly back and forth through my head. My brain is still trying to solve a problem that has solved itself, and all the reasoning in the world won't coax it back to sleep. Reading is generally preferable to trite tossing and turning; at random intervals I walk my book over to the kitchen to eat from the pile of aging figs in my refrigerator. Briefly I considered my cornflakes, but that's for dinner. I have to match my cornflake supply just so to my milk supply; excess milk goes off quickly, usually before I have a chance to get more cereal. I test the weight of the milk box to see what's remaining, then test the weight of the cornflakes. More pointless problem solving at zero dark thirty.

Weeks ago at the hospital I started to cry while my FSN and I waited for the Embassy driver to fix a flat tire. "She is going to die here because I can't do my job." What I secretly longed for her to say was that I'm good at what I'm doing, that this was a situation of the woman's own making, that we had done everything possible. The FSN watched me silently for a bit while I pressed a handkerchief over my mouth and nose to muffle the noise. "Sometimes there are obstacles," was the eventual reply. She had learned this word from me when I had delivered her present from India: a little carving of Ganesha. "He's supposed to help remove obstacles in your work," I'd explained. Now I wish I'd gotten one for myself.

Retrospect

2009-09-04T23:21:00.002+06:00

Sometimes I fear I'm getting inured to new experience; that maybe by virtue of having seen more of the world, each additional trek has become less a thing of wonder and discovery and more an experiment in logistics and achievement of photographic goals -- the travel equivalent of plotting how to beat the Baptists to the good lunch spots instead of listening to the sermon. India seemed to have confirmed this fear: not as exotic feeling as I'd hoped, not as eye-opening, not as jarring and stupefying and perplexing as I'd heard tales of. Watching the other tourists, ragged Lonely Planets poked inside equally ragged bags, dreadlocks and sandlewood necklaces hanging over slouchy t-shirts done up with images of gods and (somewhat incongruously) Che Guevara, I couldn't help wondering: what is it they are seeing that I am not?

But now when I spot ghee on the shelf in the store, I think about the man on the train to Fatehpur Sikri who fed me homemade sweets and told me about the near mystical health benefits of clarified butter. When I see a clear, unbroken Amman sky -- the same bright, cloudless scene as each day previous for the past three or more months -- I remember walking in the monsoon downpour of Delhi, thinking the most precious gift I could bring back to Jordan would be my sopping wet clothing to wring out over the dessicated soil. When I notice the kites flying over the Citadel, I recall their miniature versions being jerked and teased into brief airborne moments over the Indian slums laid out by the railway tracks. India was at its best as a series of vignettes framed by train windows and the open doors of tuk tuk cabs. My memory of it is best that way, too: little fragments of a bigger whole I can't take in all at once.

Lateral Drift Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

2009-09-01T00:50:00.000+06:00

I didn't like the post that was here, so I erased it. It's good to have that power.

I'd Also Like to Polish My Shackles

2009-07-23T23:52:00.003+06:00

"So, Katie, any goals for the weekend?"

"My main goal is to get to a point where I can see the top of my desk again. I think that would make me really happy."

"You know, my goal is usually not to see my office desk on the weekend."

"Heh. Yeah, I suppose that's healthier."

I'm So Sorry, I Don't Think I Fully Caught Your Racial Slur.

2009-06-19T19:05:00.005+06:00

Overnighting in Aqaba to provide support for the Ambassador's trip, I tried out my Arabic on the fellow at the hotel front desk. After about two sentences ("I'd like to pay for my room." "Do you take credit cards?") he expressed a desire to use his English. Being the consummate diplomat, I assented.

"Your Arabic is good."

"Thank you." ...for your kind lie, I added silently. "It's hard to find a chance to practice, since so many people I meet speak English." This last bit I had to say twice, since my attempt in Arabic didn't come across the first time.

"Yes, I try to always practice my English." He shot me a smile which could only be termed as 'beaming'. "I like to learn from the niggers."

"Oh?" I tried to sound nonchalant, but ended up somewhere closer to 'horrifically caught off guard'. Perhaps I had misheard..? "Oh?" I repeated hopefully.

"You know, Tupac, Fifty Cent." He began humming a refrain I could not identify and made some motions I could only assume were dance moves; a picture of my face at that moment would have made an excellent Stuff White People Like entry. "I know it's not good English, but..." he shrugged, still beaming.

"Well, it's not standard." I considered how best to let him know that the 'n-word' wasn't exactly standard, either. He was clearly very proud to have formed this insight into American culture. I shifted from one foot to the other and gave a bit of a throat-clearing cough. "You know..."

"Oh, here's your credit card back!"

Another fine diplomatic moment goes down in the annals of history.

America and Her Magical Powers

2009-05-30T17:13:00.002+06:00

"Sir, I'm sorry, but we can't frame that."

"What?! Isn't this the US Frame Shop? Didn't you see my US passport?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"But what?! Just what are my tax dollars going towards, anyways? Do I need to write my congressman just to get you to fill a simple request?"

"But Sir, it's... jello."

"So?"

"You really can't frame jello."

"Why not? Don't tell me you've never had this request before. What good are you people, anyway? I want to speak to the consul! You're telling me the US government can't handle jello?"

"Well, it's not exactly standard. I mean... I'm not really sure how you'd attach it to the mat. And then there's the problem of leakage. Jello is awfully runny. Oh, and I am the consul."

"Look, you know how the frame shops are in this country: no respect for framing laws and practices; no appreciation of basic framing standards. That's why I came here -- I thought the US Frame Shop could help me. But now you're telling me you can't help me. What am I supposed to do with this jello? Just leave it unframed? Do you know what a bind that puts me and my family in? Are you really sure you can't just do something?"

"Well. I suppose, maybe, we could build a custom box from plexi-glass. We could design the box to be shallow, to go against the wall, then build the frame around it. We'd have to order the plexi pre-cut since we don't have any in stock, but we could put it together with caulking to make it watertight. Of course, we'd have to order the caulking, too, and buy a caulking gun. If we ran the airvac non-stop for a week it would clear the dust out of the warehouse enough that the caulking and plexi should stay clean while they were drying. We'd probably have to build some special vice grips as well, to hold it square without scratching it while it dried. Then, once that was all done, if you put the jello in the plexi-glass box, theoretically, I suppose, you might be able to frame it..."

"Great. I need it an an hour. Oh, and I don't want to pay for it. That's not a problem, is it?"

"Sorry, Sir, I just noticed -- is the person in line behind you carrying a human head?"

"Yeah, but he's just a greencard holder. I don't think he'll want it framed with conservation glass or anything."

Tea in the صحراء

2009-05-01T19:49:00.007+06:00

Having made my first (of I'm sure many) trips to Petra and Wadi Rum, I now feel highly confident that I could live completely unassisted in the desert -- surviving on merely my wits and instincts -- for two, maybe even three hours. One and a half without chapstick.

It was beautiful, though; the closest thing I can imagine to walking on the bottom of the ocean. Everything was suspended and still and lulling. I didn't expect the desert to feel so maternal.

At one point, our Bedouin guide turned back and asked "انت مبسوطة؟": Are you happy?

"Yes," I told him. "Very much."

The God of Small (Freshly Laundered) Things

2009-03-30T21:59:00.001+05:00

Picking up my drycleaning from the corner store after work, I was all business as I flipped through my bag to find my ticket. "I think you have some pants for me," I said to the man in Arabic. Pausing a moment to look up from his ledger, he half-closed his eyes and placidly folded one hand over the other: "Insha'allah." The clearly tongue-in-cheek, vaguely Berkeley-esque notion that God's concentrated will would be required to guarantee the presence of my work trousers led to a somewhat irreligious snort of amusement on my part. "Yes," I nodded, handing him the ticket. "Indeed. Insha'allah."

"Presbyterian."

2009-03-28T21:24:00.001+05:00

"Are you Catholic or Orthodox?"

Hmm. I had been told this would happen. I'm American, therefore I must be Christian, but Christian here can only mean one of two options. A friend with experience in Jordan had warned me back in the States, "When they ask your religion, you'd better be one of those two, because if you're not then you must be one of 'those weird ones'."

My friend Heather thinks of these as Mary Tyler Moore moments. We'd already gone through my age and whether or not I was single, so I suppose religion was next in the logical progression. My typing skills, however, did not come up.*

I had decided before arrival that I would opt for Catholic. Having seen the movie Sister Act (once, I think on a plane...), I figure I'm moderately more qualified to fake Catholic than Orthodox. Plus, if I say it with a small 'c', that's not an outright lie. Right? Bad enough to be thirty and single. One hates to be labeled a religious fanatic on top of everything else.

But in this case the person I was talking to was savvy to foreigners and their erratic ways. Plus, we were going to spend the day together, and I didn't think I could keep up the pretense of a Catholic background, even with Whoopi Goldberg to guide me. I gambled she could take the truth.

"Neither."

Yeah, this was NOT the right answer.

*Kind of a shame. I don't like to brag, but that is the one area of my personal life in which I shine.

Concentrate! On Everything! And Tread Lightly.

2009-03-18T05:54:00.006+05:00

Collecting my thoughts about this new job and place has been more difficult than I anticipated. Collecting my thoughts in general, in fact, is proving a challenge. Multi-tasking has never been something I particularly enjoyed; if a thing is worth working on, then I feel it's worth my full attention. ACS has a lot of things going on all at once, all of them needing my full attention... all at once. Or at least it seems that way now. When I get to be more of an expert, my hope is that assessing priorities will become more natural. Knowing how to triage seems like the key skill for this branch of consular work. Maybe for any type of service work.

Normally when I want to collect myself I'll seek out some alone time. Unfortunately, there's nowhere quiet or private to go in or around the embassy -- no tucked-away benches to sit on outside, no spare rooms, no little coffee shops within easy there-and-back-again-over-a-lunch-break walking distance. Not that I've found, at any rate. Space is at a premium, so this is understandable. Right now they're doing construction in the office area behind the client windows; today, the staff had a party with cake, also right behind the windows. It takes all my willpower not to turn around and say "Shhhh!" every five minutes. I must look more distressed than I had realized, as the Consular Chief this morning kindly offered me the use of her office should I need it. Part of me cringed. I have to remember to smile more when I'm trying to focus.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping a running list of 'Areas for Potential ACS Improvement'. I haven't really shared this with anyone; at this point, it's more like a hobby. It seems wise to figure out the logic behind current office priorities and systems first before making potentially disruptive observations -- more of that triaging skill I'm hoping to better develop. I don't want to throw off the established feng shui before I fully understand the consequences.

You are never qualified for the job you're going into, only for the job you just left. It's not exactly a comforting thought, but it's a true one. I want to be completely competent -- right now! -- so that I can quit bothering my colleagues, so that I can gain the confidence of the staff, so that I can help those people on the other side of the glass... but of course it takes time.

To give myself something else to fuss about, I bought a geranium:

We'll see if it fares better than the ones in Osaka.

!يااللّه

2009-03-07T07:37:00.019+05:00

Friday morning is the start of our weekend, and thus the start of my exploration. The sky is shockingly blue and clear above the pale stone buildings. Every structure from here to the horizon is the same height and shape, repeated in soft undulation over the hills. Occasional empty plots, populated with cats and bits of candy wrappers, make breaks in the view.

The tinkling sound I couldn't identify turns out to be a herd of goats being driven through the neighborhood. Their bells ring like windchimes, though the animals themselves are quiet. The goatherd dismounts his donkey, adjusts his red and white headwrap, and enters the corner convenience store just ahead of me, leaving his flock to meander about outside in a cross-eyed, woolly fashion. To emphasize: There are goats in front of my apartment. And a donkey. Perhaps it's only a misguided love of culturally biased stereotypes, but witnessing this scene made me profoundly happy.

Inside the convenience store, a couple buying groceries is producing a more familiar sound. "Excuse me..." This is high folly given my Arabic aspirations, but I press on regardless. "Are you Japanese?" Why, of course you are. And of course you live in the building behind mine. And of course you know my friend Sara. The store clerk and goatherd both look seriously weirded out by all the bowing and non-English. I am not as weirded out as I should be, though the goats were honestly less of a surprise. There is no escaping Japan.

Having poured over various city maps, I am prepared enough to know that I have no real idea where I'm going. My normal way of exploration is to picture a taut string connecting me to my house; just so long as I have an idea of what direction the string is pulling from, I can usually find my way back. Usually. Eventually I'm going to need a car, at which point I suspect my string method will begin to fail me.

The people out on the street are mostly male and mostly idle. I say good morning, though maybe this isn't culturally appropriate. Responses are reserved, but not unfriendly. More goats. More cats. More houses. What I'm looking for is a maqhan -- a coffee shop. The goal is to find a place to sit and read.

No maqhan that I can see, though I've been ducking in and out of stores and wandering side streets for an hour. Settling for what seems the next best thing, I try my luck at a little falafel shop tucked between a butcher and a vegetable stand. My stomach is actually growling. The younger of the two men behind the counter looks at my expectantly.

"Uh." Performance time; ten months of training has come down to this. "Salaam wa alikum." So far so good! "[In Arabic, of a sorts:] I only speak Arabic a little. I'm sorry. But I'd like some food."

'Incredulous' is not too strong a term to describe the look he gave me. 'Peeved annoyance' might also be a good description.

"[From what I could make out:] What do you want? Falafel? Hummus?" He's ladling up different things out of various containers and showing them to me impatiently. "You want a 'saanduwish'?" A sandwich? Seriously? Is he making fun of me? I can feel my already low confidence crumbling. "Anything is fine," is my rather lame response. Heck, I don't know what I want. I want someone to pat me on the back for even trying to order lunch.

"Give her a sandwich." The older man intercedes. "Do you want to sit?" He's waving towards a table and spouting a stream of Arabic from which I'm picking up only every fifth word, but the context is clear enough. "Do you want tea?" Soon a falafel sandwich, a plate of pickles, and a glass of mint tea materializes in front of me. "Here, have the paper." He thrusts The Jordan Times in my hands. Locals drift in and out, some bringing their own bowls to be filled with hummus or fuul. The propane man stops by.

When I'm done eating, I ask if I can sit and read. Nods, waves of hands, a few questions about where I'm from ("Are you with the Americans, or the British?")... The younger man still looks annoyed. Another foreigner comes in and orders a sandwich completely in English, speaking loudly and rapping the counter glass with his knuckles when his order isn't understood. I forgive the younger man's peeved attitude immediately.

"This was delicious. How much is it?" The older man shakes his head, "No need. Welcome to Jordan." "No, really, I want to pay." He had given me far more than I'd asked for, and I hadn't been able to finish. The old man slaps me on the back as he hands me the half-read paper off the table. "Welcome. Good luck to you."

Next door at the vegetable stand, I ask for some nanaa, partially because the tea really was quite delicious, and partially because 'mint' is a word I know. I suppose by that same principle, I might also have ordered some 'pollution' or 'globalization'. I will figure all this out. .إن شاء الله

Party of واحدة

2009-03-05T06:48:00.001+05:00

Well, here I am. Can't say that it's as I remember it, because I'VE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE. My apartment is embarrassingly huge and marbley. Honestly, embarrassingly so. Not to get overly detailed, but a bidet in three of your three and a half bathrooms seems a bit unnecessary in a country with water rationing. I'm too addled with jetlag to register much, but I'm definitely registering a sense of spatial overwhelm. If I just close a few doors and never open them again for the next two years, I think this will bring the apartment down to a more psychologically manageable, socially just size. I've posted a reminder note on the back of the front door to help stave off any sense of entitlement: "Real people don't live like this."

It's so quiet here at night; i.e., just the time that I'm waking up. Thanks to an unknowingly generous neighbor (!يا شكراً حبيبي), I'm able to access the internet and have been streaming NPR to fill the void. I don't mind the quiet, but I'm fearful of the solitude. I don't want space to think just yet. Not yet.

At the embassy, each check-in form is accompanied by the question, "Are you [drop down in tone and lean forward] alone?"

"Yes," I respond dutifully. "I am [drop down in tone and lean forward] alone." It's tempting to go into a Scarlett O'Hara-like swoon here: "Oh, but that wouldn't be the case if only Ashley hadn't been promised to his cousin!"* No spouse, no kids, no pet, no car. I need this on a t-shirt.

*Cousbandry is big in the Middle East; I think this could earn me some real sympathy points.

Set Your House in Order. Or Not.

2009-03-02T18:46:00.002+05:00

The little moments of self-reflection moving provides are sometimes a godsend, sometimes devastating. It occurred to me that I've been galloping through the last month in order to avoid them. Sitting in a friend's apartment alone and with no plans for the first time in weeks, I'm somewhat hesitant to start rummaging through the laundry basket of my own reactions. Some excitement, some regret, some fear... a lot of curiosity. Realizing I'm getting a bit wobbly, I shove all the wash back in to its proverbial container. There will be time to run a proper load when I get to Amman; for now, I think I'd rather let the laundry pile up while I read a book.

------------------------------------------------
The day of my flight, and snow is whipping about outside like corn in a popper. 'Will I be stuck in JFK?' is strangely less pressing to me than 'How many layers should I put on before I run outdoors to frolic?' Am I ready for all this? I don't know. But I'm sure ready for one last snow angel. Too bad that winter hat Mom made me is already winging its way to Jordan!

School's Out

2009-02-05T17:09:00.000+05:00

Week one of homeleave, and my hands smell of pickles. I feel like a child whose Very Modern Parents have filled her summer vacation with Wholesome Activities: a lesson with the Arabic tutor, a trip to a museum, volunteering at the soup kitchen, playtime with a friend, knit, read, repeat. Knit, read, repeat. All I'm missing are piano lessons. Flying out to visit my grandfather today should complete my childhood summer vacation experience. If he uses the garden hose to turn the cow trough into a makeshift swim hole*, I'll be officially ten years old again.

I didn't notice the pickle odor -- a result of the lunchtime soup kitchen menu -- until dinner, when I was resting my chin in my palm. I don't think Grandpa will mind.

*okay, so maybe not in the middle of February.

Change

2009-01-24T03:03:00.003+05:00

subject: Out of Office AutoReply
mailed-by: state.gov

I have finished (!) my time at FSI and will not have access to this email account until my arrival in Amman on the 3rd of March. I will be happy to respond to you after that time.

As always, have a Great Foreign Service Day!

كل عام و انتم بخير

2008-12-31T06:25:00.001+05:00

The test came and went. Christmas came and went.

No one back home asked for an impromptu demonstration of my Arabic skills, which was kind of them. I start new training on Monday. It will be a relief to talk about think about dream about... something else.

يا ترى هل هناك خبز الزنجبيل في الاردن؟

بادرة سيّءة

2008-12-04T17:06:00.001+05:00

Today during break I happened upon one of the Japanese teachers in the hallway. Unwisely opening my mouth, this phrase came out:

"先生、wie geht's?"

She wasn't quite sure what to make of this. And frankly, neither was I. It was as if I'd given birth to something two-headed and unholy right there in the FSI corridor. German? Honestly?

I've got less than two weeks until my final Arabic exam, so here's hoping this works itself out.

Sometimes Memories Don't Fail Us

2008-11-27T14:51:00.003+05:00

I can't remember the last time we had Thanksgiving just as a family. In Hawaii? In Florida? The details escape me. I have some vague childhood recollection of eating turkey and stuffing off of plastic trays in the hospital cafeteria; it was important to Dad to support the folks who had to work there over the holiday. In my memory, he would disappear for a few hours every Thanksgiving and Christmas to make hospital rounds -- but my memory is spotty. Perhaps I just want to think our Thanksgivings were built on an example of service. It's not a bad memory, if I have the indulgence of choosing one.

The train to Norfolk is completely full, every seat. One woman, hefting a frayed red bag down the aisle, surveys the crowd approvingly. "Look at all these people!" she croons. "All these people, and y'all going to see somebody who loves you!" Her bag proceeds her like a circus elephant, swinging. "They gonna feed you and hug you -- ain't nothin' better than that, nothin' better." I catch her eye and smile as she passes. Her bright voice carries back through the car as she continues bestowing 'Happy Thanksgiving's like benedictions. The family next to me is playing cards as the sun stripes the passing river scenery.

Thanksgiving morning, and Dad finds me in the kitchen rifling through the cereal cabinet; he's in uniform, bouncing a bit as he walks. "Do you want to join me?" His voice is quiet so as not to wake the others, but in the same bright tone as the woman from the train. "I'm going to have breakfast in the hospital galley and then make a few rounds." "Sure!" I return the box of cereal to the shelf and close the cabinet. "You know, I was just thinking about that very thing on the train ride down."

بشكل كبير

2008-11-19T15:08:00.000+05:00

So... how do you tell someone in a dating context that you have MS? It's not as if it tends to work itself fluidly into casual conversation ("Sure is cold today... Hey, have I ever told you about my nerve disease?"), but to frame it as a pronouncement ("I have something to tell you: should this relationship progress to the point of marriage, there's a chance that shortly thereafter I will become a blind and incontinent burdensome shell of my former self. Also, I snore.") lends it an air of drama that it doesn't really warrant. A pronouncement seems to demand something from the recipient; or worse, implies that you've reached some gravid point of reckoning in the relationship, whereas maybe he just thought you were hanging out. Timing here seems crucial; sensitivity to context and social cues, a must. Which is why I suspect I'm going to screw it up spectacularly.

Eventually, Eventually...

2008-10-09T19:04:00.002+06:00

Out with some friends, and Sara and I are talking about running. "Katie, we should do a race together. I was thinking maybe the GW Classic... Oh, wait," a tilt of the head. "You won't be here."

I very nearly dropped my drink. "Sorry? Could you say that again?"

"What? The GW Classic?"

"No, the other part. Where will I be?"

"You won't be here. You'll be in Jordan."

I'll be in Jordan. What an amazing thought.

Time Without Now

2008-10-01T18:08:00.001+06:00

It struck me today that we will have a new president before I complete my Arabic training. Of course, I have a calendar, I listen to the news, I put in for my absentee ballot -- it's not as if I'm unaware of the outside world or that these two things were going to overlap. But it's strange that it does feel very much apart from my current day-to-day reality. Outside we're apparently experiencing political and financial mayhem, but inside my classroom I haven't even changed my seat in over 30 weeks. Time has ceased to have a 'Now'-- there's only 'Back Then' and 'After This', and no real sense of when we broke from the one or when we'll be reaching the other. We've achieved a sort of equilibratory stasis. Though I'm certain the minute that we realize we have 13 days instead of 13 weeks left, reality will come crashing back down in a most intrusive way. It dawned on us a month or so ago that we were losing track of the time, so we've begun keeping a tally of the weeks on the classroom wall.

I'm often asked for my impression of Arabic training, so here it is: it's long. Not bad, but definitely long.

The upshot of all of this 'longness' is that I am longing to be at work. In a bid to be even mildly productive, I spend all my time outside class furiously reading. Other people dream of homeleave spent lounging on a beach; I'm looking for a place to go and dig trenches. Maybe I could get a job at McDonald's for the month. I picture arriving at post and racing through projects one after the other... Well, it's a nice thought at the moment, anyway. A thought flecked with the knowledge that much sooner than I would like I might not be able to work. Sometimes I wonder if I've made the right choices. That kind of fear is not cold and steely: it is pungent and choking and little tolerant of the notion of stasis. Luckily I can usually put it off.

Meanwhile, after seven months I'm beginning to think that the relationship I have with my classmate is probably the closest thing I'll ever have to a marriage. We're scheduled to have our post-Arabic training together as well. No one's yet suggested that we begin wearing matching outfits, but I can sense it's coming.

"She must have been popular in high school."

2008-09-17T03:32:00.004+06:00

الغزل [al-gazl] means 'spinning yarn'. الغزل [al-gazal] means 'love making'. I'll let you guess which one I was trying to indicate was my mother's hobby.

Wills and Mathematics and the Problems of Percentages

2008-08-23T21:07:00.003+06:00

The year I was eleven I developed the certain knowledge that my parents would die the year I turned eighteen. What led me to believe this I'm not sure, but I was utterly convinced that I had seen the hand of fate, that we would be huddled on Mom and Dad's bed after the funeral, us against the world, spurning the entreaties of various relatives to join their various households, that the bank would take the house, and that I would be forced to get a job and become the stoic provider. I was enough convinced of this that I thought it best we take the precautionary step of creating a will on my parents' behalf, carefully outlined in my childhood diary. This led to the now infamous family story of my sister Ellen's response to the question, "When Mom and Dad die, which of their things would you like?" No hesitation:

"The money."

Ellen was five at the time.

I was thinking about this today while searching for lawyers so that I could make my own will, hopefully one more binding than a handwritten list sealed with a heart-shaped lock (not that my eleven year old self's claim to Mom and Dad's Shaker china cabinet wouldn't hold up in court). The plan is to divide my household effects and savings evenly among my sisters. The problem is that I have three sisters. The bank won't recognize 33.3333333333333(to infinity) as a legitimate allotment option; someone has to get an extra one percent.

In the interest of fairness, I think I might award this to Karyn. She had only just turned four when we made that first will, and all she thought to ask for were the plant stands.

No Guarantee

2008-08-22T06:48:00.007+06:00

Doing something on behalf of the MS always feels like a staggering achievement. After finally calling to schedule my first MRI in the States (the crowd roars!), I thought it would be wise to phone the insurance company to double-check my coverage (roar gives way to murmurs of general approval and agreement). I felt very responsible. I was, in fact, being very responsible. It only takes a single expensive insurance mistake to turn you into one of those people who's always running back in the house to see if the stove is turned off.

"Do you require prior authorization for an MRI?" (The MRI place had told me to ask this; I don't really know what it means.)

"No."

"Okay, great." So why the niggling feeling? "But MRIs are covered under my plan, is that correct?"

"We don't guarantee coverage. If it's medically necessary it should be covered."

"Uh... I think it's necessary. But you can't tell me for sure?"

"We don't guarantee coverage."

"You can't give me an idea? This is the difference for me between five hundred and five THOUSAND dollars."

"Ma'am, I don't know what you want me to tell you."

She actually laughed at me a little here, a chuckle that landed on the 'don't' and skidded a bit through the 'know'. Her laugh seemed like a pretty good summing up of multiple sclerosis as a whole. After first being diagnosed I was so rageful for so long, it's somewhat of a relief to now have that feeling contained to only a handful of sharp moments.

I try to deal with MS issues during class break so that any emotions they raise will be necessarily elided. It's not so much that I wish I didn't have MS as that I wish I didn't have to always be navigating other people's hurdles for it.

منمول

2008-08-07T17:54:00.002+06:00

It's never a good sign when the language of the country to which you're going has a single word for the idea 'teeming with ants'.

I brought up my concern to my Arabic teacher. "Ah, yes," he said. "We also have a word for 'teeming with bees'."

This did not have the comforting effect he perhaps intended.

Addiction

2008-07-29T08:26:00.003+06:00

I noticed her first only as a slow-moving anomaly amid the early evening rush. Intent on forward motion, she was bent slightly in her wheelchair; both arms pumped in unison, rhythmically, though as she approached I could see that only one was managing to make contact with the rubber grip of the wheel. The sound of her right foot dragging was soft and muffled by traffic, but the left inched up and down in time with the arms, faintly tap-tap-tapping the ground. Her uneven tracks in the sidewalk dust gave way quickly to the scuffling of other, more forceful footsteps. Her plaid top was limp yet dry, in contrast to the sweat eating through my own clothing. She reminded me of an abandoned powder box, dated and dessicated.

"Would you like some help? Could I give you a push?"

"Yes, if it's no trouble." The tone of her voice made it clear I was merely a potentially useful distraction on the path to a final goal; she looked past me down the street, fingering a space near her collarbone where a string of pearls must once have been. "I'm just going to the 7-11." Repositioning myself behind her chair gave me a clearer view of the white roots of her hair, bounded by dull brown dye. As I pushed, her arm continued to churn the air, gaining vigor as we crossed the two blocks. The sight of the convenience store made it flutter anxiously.

"Yes, yes -- just here. Thank you, that's lovely."

"Should I take you inside? Is there anything I could..."

"No, no; here is fine." Only now did I notice a thin line of sweat on her brow. She grasped a railing and she and the chair pulled out of my hand, darting forward in an amazing show of agility. Exiting customers skirted curiously around her; she was panting sharply, fixated on the glass door. "When they see me, they'll bring me out what I want. They just have to see me..." The left arm she raised above her head, waving and frantic, was devoid of jewelry.

No longer needed, I turned and walked home.

Insurance of the Fittest

2008-07-17T18:18:00.000+06:00

One of the cruelest things you can do to your children is raise them outside of the private insurance system -- not because this leaves them uninsured, but rather because when they DO want insurance, they will have absolutely no idea what they are doing. None. Medical insurance turns out to be an experiment in social Darwinism, and they will find themselves picked off the tree like a proverbial pepper moth.

It doesn't help when your child is naturally a bit lazy and predisposed to assume she understands things when she does not.

Insurance manages to engage all the things I dislike: bureaucracy... logistics... forms... I can just about gauge at what point in an insurance negotiation I'll begin to break down. It's somewhere around the $2000 mark. As in when the pharmacist pulls a deceptively small box out of the refrigerator and says "That'll be $2089.88." You stand at the counter with your wallet in your hand and think of everything $24,000 a year could buy. A car. An education. A down payment on a house. Half of your salary in twelve of those little boxes. Half of it.

Then you think of how nice it is to feel the wallet. Really think about it. Run your index finger over the ridges and the seams, over the zipper. How nice is it to walk without a cane? Is it $2000 a month nice? $3000? What would you pay? How could you decide?

"This must be a mistake. It was never this much before."

"You'll have to work it out with your insurance."

I've worked it out, thank God, but it took almost a month. And I still don't know if I would have paid.

Subtext

2008-07-07T17:42:00.003+06:00

Today, as with every day for the past four months, the teacher went around the table inquiring as to events of the previous night. Did we have any news to share with the class in Arabic...yet again?

"President Bush went to Japan for a summit. They talked about the food crisis and the environment. I feel dead inside."

"I read an article about propaganda in Arabic language programs. They talked about Al-Kitaab. This place is a prison."

"My children and I played Wii, and then I cooked dinner. My soul is withering."

"Great," she smoothed out a textbook page. "And did you all make sentences for exercise nine?"

Rudimentary Arabic isn't good for conveying underlying meaning.

El jardín de las delicias

2008-06-26T19:02:00.000+06:00

Thomas Mann reports that a writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Surely the same is true of language learning for those who love language. To feel you've crafted something clunky and unbeautiful is much more aggravating than feeling you've not quite gotten across what you wanted to say. It is common to mistake love of language for love of languages, but that is to mistake love of gardening for love of garden parties. There is something solitary and contemplative in the former that fails to resonate in the latter; the latter has an element of showmanship which the former lacks.

Francine Prose writes of the pleasure of close reading, the practice of considering the purpose and placement of each word in a text. It's a very intimate way to read and in all ways antithetical to the skimming that FSI prefers. Reading for the gist only allows for the joy of discovering information rather than the joy of discovering deeper structures; in the moment, I find I'm much less elated at recognizing the word for 'crude oil' than I am at intuiting which preposition a verb should take. I've been feeding this preference by reading an Arabic children's book during my lunch break: a heavily illustrated soft cover entitled "The Story of the Pearl Thief." Moving forward in the book requires me to look up almost every other word, so that it has taken me a week to get through not quite three pages. I'm afraid this may be cutting in to my lab time... but today when I realized that the root of 'You're welcome' and 'I'm sorry' was the verb 'to forgive', it was like feeling the sun on my face. It was all I could do not to get up and dance.

After progress test one the examiners told me, "You've got very good architecture, you just need more vocabulary. Oh, and you should really practice reading for the gist."

Frustrated Bureaucrat Turns to Graffiti

2008-06-07T21:03:00.006+06:00

After laughing at this recent addition to the Out of Order sign, I realized I've walked past this machine every day for the past four months and thought the same thing as the graffiti writer each time -- yet had never taken action on it. I felt somewhat disappointed by my own inertia. Granted it's pretty far down the spectrum, but I don't think it's all that different in spirit from watching a man get hit by a car and doing nothing.

The main obstacle to getting things accomplished always seems to be accountability. There's no contact number to call on the vending machine itself and no one on-site that I know of to talk to about improvements. The best I could do was send an inquiry through the "Ask FSI" intranet page to point out the problem and find out who's in charge. Seeing as those Navajo Jewelry 2 cent "Make Up Stamps" were last printed in 2005, it seems about time.

And that, حبيبي, is the Difference Between a 2+ and a 3

2008-05-22T06:57:00.006+05:00

Every day in class we're supposed to give a short synopsis of the things we did the evening before. After 13 weeks of this, my classmates and I have come to the realization that we are essentially very boring people.

I've heard that in other language classes (where you can presumably learn more quickly to speak at a higher level than "I ate chicken. I read a book.") the realization you come to is that you are all very odd people.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this.

In the Presence of the Voucher

2008-05-03T19:33:00.012+05:00

Having utilized my newly developed GTD skills, it was with no small sense of personal pride that I presented myself to the voucher office, forms and receipts in hand. I laid it all out at the voucher lady's feet in a supplication to her power and wisdom. Oh, great voucher lady, please reimburse me my rent and return to me copies of this form in triplicate which I must keep forever upon threat of document misplacement on your office's part and subsequent monetary woes on my own. I was glowing with the pure light of bureaucracy. Eyes cast down in reverence, I offered up to her... my first thirty day voucher.

"What's this? Where's your travel voucher?" The heavenly choir hit a sour note. I opened my eyes to realize I was kneeling rather inelegantly on her coat. I got up and sat in the chair by her desk. "Travel voucher..?" I ventured.

"Yes, this is the voucher for your first thirty days of training, but before this you need to fill out a voucher for your travel days. Do you have your ticket stub?"

"No, I don't have my ticket stub."

"A baggage claim receipt?"

Deep breaths. I reached for my hipster PDA for comfort. "No, I don't have any of that. Sorry, I didn't think I'd need it." She was highly unimpressed.

"Well then, how do we know that you used that ticket to get here?"

I considered this. I think I may have actually opened and closed my mouth a few times while searching for the best reply. Several answers presented themselves, including a Christ-like proffering of the scars in my hands. In the end, I went with what I thought best captured the spirit of the moment: "Well... I didn't swim here from Japan."

This may not have been the most politic response.

"Look," I told her. "This travel voucher is, what, $48 for M&IE? That's okay, I just won't claim that. I don't mind."

"Oh no, you can't file any other voucher until you've filed the travel one."

"Really?" At this point I was gripping the hipster PDA with such force that it was cutting in to my palm. "So, what you're saying is that if I don't find my ticket stub, I'm out $37,000? There's nothing else I can do?"

She hesitated. I could see she wanted to be helpful. I waited for her to send me off for permit A-38.

"Do you have your itinerary?"

Ah, a glimmer of hope! "Maybe... maybe I can find a copy archived in my email."

"Try that; it might work."

Drinking the Koolaid

2008-04-18T03:49:00.000+05:00

Someone asked me, "Isn't hard to read a language where they don't write all the vowels? That's crazy!"

"Oh, it's not so bad," I replied. "I mean, you can leave the vowels out of most English words and still read a sentence, right? Just look at text messaging." It took me a second before I realized I was almost directly repeating something one of the teachers had told me.

Or rather:

t tk m scnd bfr rlzd ws lmst drctly rptng smthng n f th tchrs hd tld m.

Yeah, I've been brainwashed.

Week 8 of 44 or أحب الكافايين

2008-04-15T04:03:00.006+05:00

This was not the week to give up coffee.

Arabic Huis Clos

2008-03-20T18:45:00.003+05:00

Language classes set their own tone, and ours is undeniably one of extreme goofiness. This is quite a blessing when you're sitting with the same 3 people 5 hours a day for 44 weeks with no break: if you're not feeling entertained, then you're basically participating in a Jean-Paul Sartre play. Comic relief is the best defense against existential language despair.

I like our teacher. She's the only person I've ever met whose cheeks move independently of one another when she talks. I find myself getting distracted by her face even as my notebook fills up with random Arabic words I'll never review. Today I dutifully copied down the words for 'red', 'black', 'white'... Some brave soul (not me) ventured "How do you say 'blue'?" The teacher's eyes narrowed. "Oh, so now you want to know 'blue'. Next you'll want to know 'purple' and then 'yellow' and then 'orange' and then you'll want to know ALL the meanings of ALL the words." The four of us exchanged conspiritorial glances. She was on to us. The teacher held firm. "You take 'red'; you're not ready for 'blue'."