Kangaroos and Quiet

October 10, 2017 / cdncarolina / 2 Comments

Shhhh…do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of no one yelling “MOMMA!” It’s the sound of no one watching football. It’s the sound of no one packing, or unpacking. It’s the sound of a neighborhood far from the beep, beep, beep of walk signals, and the sirens of a busy downtown. It’s the sound of my first day alone in our new house with nothing to do but sheepishly return to my blog.

I’m going to be the first to admit that I’ve struggled over the last few months. I have grieved the loss of Kinshasa, the Congo, and the people who made up our life there. The fact that I’ve been deep-in-my-core angry at the “new” State Department and the lack of respect it has shown not only to me and the other thousands of EFMs, but also to its own officers, has not helped to get me back in a writing/blogging state of mind. I’ve wanted to come back, but I have not been able to write without ranting and that’s not what this blog is about.

But today is a new day, on a new continent, in a new hemisphere and it’s time I make my way out of my funk.

It’s hard to describe to people what it was like to live in the Congo. For those who live comfortable lives in the first world, it defies description. But it has been even harder to make anyone – even B – understand how profoundly unhappy I was to leave a place that is, in all possible descriptions, a place of hardship. Even now, sitting here in my new and lovely kitchen, with every possible convenience within 10 minutes safe and beautiful walk of my door, I am teary-eyed thinking of the life we left behind.

Maybe it is because, as our first post, I was determined to make Kinshasa a good experience and so my attitude from day one was designed to make me as happy as possible. Maybe it was the fun I had speaking French and reviving a long dormant skill that let me use my brain in ways that are rare once you inch toward a half-century of life. And maybe it was simply the people –American, international and Congolese – and the fact that I had not prepared myself as well as I should have to leave them behind. I miss them. A lot.

Foreign Service life is designed as a revolving door. You rotate into a place, spend a few months, and then rotate back out. Just as you are headed out the door you realize where everything is, and what everyone’s name is, and how to navigate the world and streets you live in. And then, just as suddenly, you are in a place you don’t know how and you have to start all over again. This is where I am now, though admittedly learning how to navigate Canberra – a planned city designed for ease of navigation – will not be akin to learning to manage the chaos of Kinshasa.

My first impressions of Canberra are of calm. The streets are bizarrely empty and the quiet is almost deafening. The only noise is the magpies and the parrots calling from the trees. We arrived during a school break and for the first few days I drove around and rarely shared the road with more than a couple of cars. It was eerie.

C’s school is literally a stone’s throw from the house, and just past that are a couple of great coffee shops and a small IGA. There is even a gym, so when I get inspired I can get back to working out.

We haven’t seen too many (live) kangaroos yet, though B spotted a few while we were driving around over the weekend. Apparently they are everywhere, and they are certainly common enough to be the road kill of choice, but you must have to get accustomed to seeing their brown against the brown of the end of winter grass and brush because we have been peeling our eyes to no avail.

Since we left just as fall was gearing up in Virginia, it is also odd getting adjusted to the upside down-ness of things. The dogwoods and azaleas are blooming here. There are wisteria vines everywhere, and the cherry trees are decorating the roads with their pale pink petals. It smells like my grandparents’ garden in England – rosy and fresh and spring-like. But, it’s still chilly and I want to put on my dark sweaters ready for falling leaves, rather than light jackets ready for spring showers. Lord knows I love a good heat wave, so I am not sad to be following the sun for yet one more summer season, but I am definitely going to be ready for my boots and wooly sweaters (or jumpers if you are Australian – C has already told me she needs a jumper, not a sweater!) in April (see, weird, eh?)

The fact is, no matter how beautiful and utopian Australia is compared to the Congo, I am still going to miss the life and people we had there. But, I’m ready to accept this new reality and work toward making it as joyful an experience as the last two years were for us. And when the door revolves again in 2019, I’m sure I’ll leave with sadness and grief as well. In the meantime, there are new people to meet and make “mine,” adventures to have, and kangaroos to spot.

Summer changes and choices

May 26, 2016May 26, 2016 / cdncarolina / 2 Comments

Growing up, these last days of May always took on an otherworldly, magical quality for me. Summer was coming. The end of school, the end of snow, the end of sweaters and socks; the beginning of vacation, camp, beaches, fireworks and long warm days.

Days by the lake

Camp – Shout out Circle R Ranch Grads 1984!

But, in a land of perpetual summer (ie: Africa just shy of the equator) it feels different. I catch glimpses of other people’s joy at the onset of summer in Facebook posts and Instagram photos, but there is a different kind of anticipation here. School is still about to end, but the weather is still hot (though not as rainy), the days still begin and end right around 6 (a.m. and p.m.) and our wardrobes are static.

No, the anticipation in this new life is about transition. Summer is “transition season” in the Foreign Service. People are transitioning in and people are transitioning out. We are bidding (more about that later) and will soon find out where we are headed next summer. It’s a lot about saying goodbye in these early days, and more about saying hello as summer wanes, and less about campfires and holidays.

I knew life in the FS would involve change, but I imagined the changes to be in two year cycles – every two years our location would change and that is about as far as I got in thinking about change. But, as it turns out, change is perpetual in the FS. First there are all the changes when you arrive at a new post – new houses or apartments (or both if you are in temporary housing first as we were) to move into, new jobs to start, new city streets and traffic to navigate and learn, new schools to start, new friends to make, new languages to hear, new food to taste, new brand names to buy and the list goes on.

You adjust to those big early changes, but you soon realize that things are always changing. I started without anyone to hang out with – I read and wrote and played with C – which I loved. Then I made some friends and C made some friends, and I read and wrote less and explored more – which I loved. Then my friends got jobs and I explored less, but got involved in other groups and clubs outside the Embassy community more – which I loved. Soon I’ll start my own job (when/if the State Department finally gets its act together…) and things will change again – and hopefully I’ll love that too.

fabric shopping

new painting

fish anyone?

mobbed by orphans

A few of my adventures

In the midst of all these changes the faces that make up your life in the FS are always changing too. I started noticing those changes more and more a few months ago. I was so overwhelmed when I first arrived that I could barely remember half the names of the people I met, so when some of those people moved on it wasn’t that noticeable to me. But, suddenly it seems, people I care about are leaving. People I enjoy spending time with, who have become part of our lives here, are suddenly vanishing before our eyes. Our next door neighbors, the first people we literally met on the African continent, left a few weeks ago and with them went Papy – their driver who was always ready with answers to my many questions. He’s moved on to work with another family, so even when the faces remain in Kinshasa your day-to-day connections with them changes. Today we are losing another friend who is headed back to the U.S. for the next phase of his life.

It’s not as if we are losing these people forever. The Foreign Service is a small world, but there will be gaps in our lives as they transition on and, as new people arrive, we have to make room for them to transition into. It’s so much about the gaps of missing faces, and the making room for new ones that our lives, already, are starting to feel like a merry-go-round of changing faces.

And, while we are saying goodbye and hello, we are also looking at a list of choices for our own ultimate transition in about 13 months. After going through bidding in A-100, where there are a limited number of posts and there is no real choice, we were excited by the prospect of second tour bidding (“STB”). As expected, the list we received has hundreds of posts on it, but most of them got eliminated quickly due to timing or language, and we started to quickly lose the feeling of having a choice.

The first thing we had to do is get over our initial disappointment. Certain posts in the FS have what’s called a “differential.” The differential can be for danger, hardship, or difficult to fill posts. The highest differentials are for the posts that are “unaccompanied” – places where there is war usually – and spouses and children are not allowed to live. Kinshasa is obviously not in that category, but it is a post with a relatively high differential. Usually the main import of a high differential is a pay increase (ie: if a differential is 10% then FSOs serving there get an additional 10% on top of their salary), but in STB you also get to go to the front of the line in terms of assignment. The higher the differential, the more likely you are to get your first, second or third choice. So, knowing we’d be high on the list, we’ve spent months talking about the possibilities and our “dream” posts.

But, then you get the list and Montreal isn’t on it. And, although both Paris and Ottawa are there, they don’t work because of timing, so you have to start to look a new places and give up those initial dreams and get down to the business of sorting through the list, applying the almost 25 pages of rules for STB and coming up with your own top 30 to submit.

First you have to determine your “TED” – time of estimated departure. That is, 2 years after you arrived at your current post. You are not allowed to leave a post more than a month before the end of the two years or you have an “invalid” bid (and, in our case, we would likely lose one of our “R&R’s” – not something we want to do!) Then you have to look at the new post’s “TEA” – time of estimated arrival. You can’t arrive at a new post more than a month after the TEA, or you have an invalid bid.

To determine when you might arrive you have to factor in the Congressionally mandated “Home Leave,” any time you need for “tradecraft” training, and any time you need for language training. For every year an FS officer serves overseas, 10 days of Home Leave is required. Up to 45 days is possible, but we are legally required to take 20 working days (not including holidays or weekends) off and spend it on U.S. soil being “re-indoctrinated” into American ways. Hard to believe we could be annoyed by being forced to take a vacation, but it can really mess with your timing in bidding. Tradecraft and language training vary by post and job.

So we had to go through every one of the posts on the list and determine if the post was perfect (we leave during our TED month, arrive during the new posts TEA and get all the required training and home leave done in between), imperfect (we either leave a month early, arrive a month late, or go over the 78 week maximum of training allowed for FSOs in their first (non-tenured) five years), or invalid (everything else).

Add the various requirements related to the maximum amount of training, the requirements of mastering at least one language, serving in higher hardship posts, filling “high priority” posts first, getting experience in your “cone” (specialty) and doing a tour as a consular officer, and the list of possible choices gets shorter and shorter.

Don’t get me wrong, our list is good and, after getting over the initial disappointments, we realize how incredibly lucky we are to have the choices we do have, particularly compared with a lot of our friends whose lists are much, much smaller than ours and whose choices are much more limited. The places in our top 10 (even our top 30) are, almost universally, first world places with clean streets, fresh water, good schools and every possible “mod-con” (as my dad would say) you could want. We’re going to be excited no matter what we get because we feel good about every one of our top posts.

Until then though, we are going to focus on and enjoy our time here; enjoy the crazy, difficult, amazing in many ways, life that we have found here in Kinshasa. We’re going to enjoy our friends – as they come and go – and we’re going to continue to enjoy every change and choice in this adventure we are on.

Contrast and Perspective

September 28, 2015September 28, 2015 / cdncarolina / 4 Comments

On Friday I had a shower in clean water.

Run down my face and into my mouth without worrying about bacteria, upset stomach or anything else-type clean water.

It was HEAVENLY.

The last several weeks have been all about contrast and perspective for me. Starting with our trip over Labor Day to Zongo Falls, the closest thing to a “tourist destination” near Kinshasa, and ending with my trip, with C, to the UK to visit my parents and celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary – and enjoy heavenly clean water showers.

The back and forth between the “real” world (home, school, Kinshasa) and the “unreal” world (Zongo Falls resort, Brussels, London) has been eye opening. It’s no surprise that an appreciation for what you have (or don’t have) is all about perspective, but I’ve come back to that realization again and again in the last few weeks.

It started with the trip to Zongo. Approximately 30 US and UK embassy expats met in the Shoprite parking lot at 7 a.m. on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend for the 105 km drive to the falls which are southwest of Kinshasa on the Inkisi River (a tributary of the Congo River).

Unfortunately, this is a 105 km drive that takes, on average, 4 hours. The first half of the drive is marked by the hustle and bustle (and traffic) of leaving Kinshasa. Saturday is a working day here, so even at 7 a.m. there are a lot of people about, the street markets are alive with people (and a few animals) and maneuvering through it all takes talent, patience and nerves of steel.

The second half of the trip is marked by a “well maintained” dirt road. Here’s where you start needing a little perspective as “well maintained” means that it is not marred by huge pot holes, but only small ones, so you’re not crawling (as you do on some streets in Kinshasa that DO have huge pot holes) but you’re not breaking any land speed records either.

During this drive you are also passing all manner of “real” Africa. Little villages with mud huts, chickens and children running along side the car overjoyed at being smiled and waved at by the passing Americans. An overturned truck with gas pouring out of the bottom – and nearby villagers rushing to the scene with buckets to hold – in bare hands – under the stream of gas less it be wasted. Roadside markets selling beautiful bright vegetables and jars of dark honey. Women in traditional Congolese dress, small children at their sides, all with baskets or bundles on their heads. Cars and trucks with dozens of people – or a random goat – sitting on the top. It’s what you expect of “real” Africa, but, then again, it’s hard to believe you are, really, seeing it.

The contrast comes at the end after you cross over a dam and turn into a lovely resort with well maintained buildings, luxury accommodation (by most standards) and stunning natural waterfalls. When we arrived we were a little giddy as we walked into our “residence” with two bedrooms, two baths (complete with plush robes), a full kitchen and a living space – overlooking a beautiful pool on one side and the falls and jungle on the other.

Congo is not a tourist destination. It is, in fact, quite the opposite as the U.S., the U.K. and Canada (and I’d venture to guess most first world nations) issue travel warnings to citizens NOT to travel here. So to find a resort (relatively) close to Kinshasa seems unlikely, if not impossible. Yet, there it is.

And we had a wonderful weekend – enjoying the playground (which, while it didn’t exactly compare to the playgrounds C and I found on our trip to the UK, was pretty impressive compared to the playgrounds available around Kinshasa), playing Pétanque, eating, drinking, hiking to see the falls and generally enjoying the company of our traveling companions. We did have a bit of a scare when we first arrived and we were told by our server at the restaurant that he was very sorry for us because “il n’y a plus de l’eau.” Luckily, it turns out that “no more water” means something different to a man who lives near a waterfall than to those of us who do not.

Then, less than two weeks after returning home after Labor Day, C and I were off to England to celebrate with my parents and there the contrast of clean water, clean streets, fresh berries, and plentiful EVERYTHING was almost overwhelming.

To walk down the street without dust in my shoes…heavenly. To shower in clean water…sublime. To take C to the most amazing playgrounds – one right behind my parents’ flat – joyous. The problem is that I started to forget to keep my perspective. I started to feel resentful that we would have to go back to dirty feet and showers instead of baths (because I cannot seem to stop my 4 year old from wanting to drink bath water!?).

Yes that is a meat popsicle - courtesy of Jamie Oliver

Meat popsicle – YUM!

I forgot to recognize that, while a head of broccoli was 0.49 p (about $0.75) instead of $17, there were plenty of things that were more expensive in the UK (it is a VERY expensive place, after all), and, for example, while berries were plentiful, mangoes were not. I forgot to recognize that I hate the cold (and cold/wet is even worse) and I love heat. I forgot to recognize that having the luxury of household help allows me to write uninterrupted while C plays with her friends. I forgot, for a little while during that lovely clean water shower, that B is where my heart and my home is, no matter how dirty the streets that surround us.

So returning home – to B and Miller and dirty water and burning trash – was both joyous and difficult. The contrast between the London and Kinshasa is dramatic. They are almost unfathomably different. But instead of lamenting the lack of raspberries in the store, or coffee shops on every corner, in Kinshasa I’m trying, upon our return, to focus on the perspective of how lucky I was to spend 10 days with C and my parents celebrating a milestone in their lives and enjoying things which most people here will never get to experience – and relishing in the warm weather, the fresh-off-the-tree mangoes, the helping hands of two people who make my life infinitely easier every day, and having B back at my side.

And, one final note, while we were away our car was finally released from Congo customs so we now have a means to navigate this unwalkable city – a way to explore and move about with the ease and privilege afforded by a good car bearing diplomatic plates. And really, who needs raspberries when you have that?

Past, present and future

July 10, 2015July 10, 2015 / cdncarolina / 2 Comments

Amos Bronson Alcott, who was a pretty cool dude in his own right, and was the father of Louisa May (which makes him doubly cool), once said “The less routine, the more life.”

This idea – that routine is the death knell of excitement and living – was one of the main reasons I was willing to leave our home, family and friends and set off on this great adventure.

My theory was that the reason it seems like time moves faster the older you get is that you stop having new experiences. Life becomes routine after you’ve crossed off all the “required” experiences: going to school, going to college, getting a job, dating, marrying, having kids. After that every day is the same: get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed – do it all over again then next day. Once or twice a year you get to take a vacation, but, at least while your kids are young, that is more stressful than work and you long to get back to the routine when your kids sleep in their own bed and at a reasonable hour.

I figured if I shook the routine up enough (you know, move to Africa) then time would slow down again and I’d get more life by living in the moment of all these new experiences.

A funny thing seems to be happening though – the new experiences are happening at breakneck speed, but I’m spending the whole time either reminiscing about the past, or worrying about the future. In other words, I’m living less in the moment than I think I was when I was mired in all the deadly boring “routine.”

Case in point. In the past two months, C and I have spent a good bit of time traveling to visit friends and family. We’ve traveled over 3,500 miles since May. We’ve seen several dozen of B’s family members (most in the same place, but still…) and half a dozen of mine – in two different places. I’ve done “girls” weekend in New York and have checked off a large number of visits with assorted friends both here and along the way.

Two of my favorite places in the world were the stopping points on our most recent trip, yet I spent a good bit of time in both those places with my face pointed toward a computer screen finalizing our consumables list, scanning in our important documents, and arguing with the airlines about how to get Miller on a plane to Kinshasa.

I’ve spent a weekend in New York, a week in Maine, a week in Michigan, a week in Canada, and on our drive we stopped by the town where my parents landed in 1970 when they moved to Canada, and in the city where I went to elementary school. We drove along streets where I got lost in the past remembering games of Red Rover and the Wonder Woman Club. We visited several of my high school friends. We ate (or at least I ate) every “favorite” food I thought I might not get for the next two years.

So the last few months have not been particularly routine, but several times I realized that I was not really enjoying the experiences (new and old) and my life, because I was too busy worrying about how many jars of pasta sauce we should bring with us in our consumables, or thinking about how much a Coke and a candy bar used to cost at the corner store in my old neighborhood ($0.26 each).

All of this has made me realize that the danger of this new life of ours is the risk of always looking forward – to the next bid, the next post, the next shipment – or always looking back – to the last post, old friends, or to the things you can’t see, visit or eat – and not, instead, looking around – to the amazing experiences being offered to us at every turn.

We’ve lived in D.C. for 10 months now. I swore I would see a Supreme Court argument, visit the National Archives, go up the Washington Monument – and yet I haven’t done any of it, because I’ve spent a good bit of time here – in this amazing city – thinking about “there” – Kinshasa – and what it will be like when we get there.

So what will happen when I get there? Will I spend all my time thinking about here, D.C.? About Leland and Muskoka, where I had the privilege of spending the last two weeks? About my past? Or about my future and where our next post might be?

Perhaps my goal needs to be to embrace the routine along with the adventure. Maybe a little routine gives our brains the rest they need to stop and look around. Cause you know what another cool (and righteous) dude once said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Family trip in Maine

Michigan wine tasting tour. Part IV…

Moose anyone?

Our first home in Canada.

B visiting with his brothers.

Cousins in Maine

Girls Weekend – Sushi in NYC!

Visit the Newseum. Check.

Broadway Play. Check.

Popeye’s friend chicken, red beans & rice, onion rings and Cajun sparkle. Check.

Strengths…and weaknesses

June 5, 2015June 5, 2015 / cdncarolina / 3 Comments

I am directionally deficient.

I’ve heard people lacking in directional ability described as “challenged,” but for me it goes way beyond that. I can, quite literally, walk (or drive) to a location and mere hours (and sometimes only minutes) later leave said location and head in the exact opposite direction from the one that brought me there earlier. It drive B bonkers.

I resigned myself to this disability many (many) years ago and I am totally unphased by driving miles out of my way, realizing I’m supposed to be going north, not south, and then having to turn around and go all the way back just to begin again at my original starting point. Like most weaknesses in humans I have managed to adjust (leave earlier) or adapt (have Google maps perpetually “on”).

On the other hand, I get the law. I am totally comfortable with the direction I need to be heading when researching, writing, and arguing the fine points of most legal arguments. I never have to backtrack (or almost never). When I am handed a legal problem it feels like shrugging on a well worn and well loved jacket that I can trust to keep me warm on a chilly night. I know it. I understand it. I feel strong and powerful and smart and competent surrounded by it.

And then there is parenting. Some days I feel worse than deficient. I feel totally and utterly unqualified to be parenting the remarkable human child who is CJM. Other days (well, maybe not whole days, let’s say fleeting moments) I feel like maybe I’m getting it right, maybe I do “get” it and C might turn out pretty ok despite my lack of training and qualification as a mother. It’s a total crapshoot as to which of these wildly divergent feelings I will have at any given parenting moment – sometimes I feel both at exactly the same time.

Two nights ago C and I watched Little Mermaid together. She is Disney Princess obsessed (much to my chagrin), but she had never watched the movie. On our way home she announced, “Mummy, I am not afraid of the sea witch any more so I would like to watch Ariel tonight.”

Ok by me, I love the Little Mermaid.

So we watched the whole movie and she was, true to her word, not afraid of Ursula. Then came the end of the movie – you know, Ariel and Eric get married, there is great rejoicing, everyone is happy? Everyone, that is, except C, who burst into hysterical and inconsolable sobs, tears streaming down her face as she crawled into my arms and wept.

Me (dumbfounded), “Pumpkin, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want Ariel to have to leave her Daddy,” C replied wailing.

“But she’s grown up (aside here that for the first time I realized at the beginning of the movie that Ariel is 16!!! – so not grown up at all…but for purposes of this discussion I’ll ignore that disturbing issue…) and she found Eric who she loves and who loves her and they got married and her Daddy is happy for her.”

C shouts, “But the Sea King will be ALL ALONE without Ariel and she will MISS HIM!”

This went back and forth for quite some time until finally C threw up her hands (literally) and said “I don’t want to be a grown up EVER.”

Hmmm…me either kid, me either.

I still don’t know what the right response to all this was. I used all the logic, reasoning and rational thinking I could muster, but C was having none of it. So I ended that evening feeling totally incompetent. The problem is that now I’m “retired” from the law – or at least from my firm – the opportunity to shrug myself back into feeling competent is receding from my grasp, so I went to bed still feeling incompetent.

Two weeks ago I would have gotten onto the computer and boosted my ego with a little legal work. Instead, now I’m left with running errands all over the city in preparation for our move (7 WEEKS AWAY) which inevitably means that at least once a week I get on the Metro going the wrong direction, or walk/drive miles out of my way trying to find something I need. And I’m left with parenting.

It turns out that I am starting to think this will be the largest and most significant struggle of this lifestyle change for me: the percentage of time I spend feeling lacking and stupid v. the percentage of time I feel smart and competent. Cause it also turns out that we all – even very grown up and outwardly successful people – need to feel competent a few times a day to prevent the dissolution of our egos into mush.

As I work through these feelings, I am having a lot of sympathy for B because I’m pretty sure he’s been feeling like this for the last 30 weeks.

Learning a new language is humbling. B, and the other folks he joined the Foreign Service with are smart, smart people. They are, I’m guessing, not used to feeling stupid or incompetent in very many situations. But spending 6 hours a day learning a new language from scratch is a breeding ground for feeling incapable. For weeks now B has been warning me that he would not pass his final French test. He swore he believed he would not get the 3/3 (oral/reading) score he needed and we would be in D.C. for another 6-8 weeks. So I was resigning myself to a lot more time in D.C. – this time without a job – and I was a bit panicked about trying to find something to keep me occupied and not feeling incompetent. But it turns out that B was not French deficient, as he had feared. He got his 3/3 on the first try and so all of a sudden (it feels very sudden since I had been trained to expect an extra 2 months of prep time) our departure date is looming – we are wheels up to Kinshasa on July 26.

B: Competent in French and Parenting…

I’m going to work on new competencies now – organizing boxes of shipments, sewing, writing, transporting 70 lb dogs 6,500 miles – but will all of those help me to feel mildly competent when my main role will be to parent – and, in seven weeks, to speak French in a country as vastly different from here as possible? I don’t know, but I sure hope so…

Gluttony

April 28, 2015April 28, 2015 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

Apparently I am a glutton for punishment.

And, I’m also a bit of a glutton.

My last day being a practicing lawyer was supposed to be this Thursday, April 30. I was mentally prepared (and both trepidatious and excited) for that day when one of my partners called me about three weeks ago.

Law Partner: “Hey. So, you know that case you are transitioning to me?”

Me: “Yup.”

LP: “Well, it looks like it is scheduled to go to trial June 1.”

Me: “Yup.”

LP: “Don’t suppose you’d like to stick around and help me try it?”

Me: “Um…I’d have to check with B.” (Mentally thinking that B might, literally, kill me if I work for another 6 weeks – particularly work to get ready for a trial…not exactly “part time” work)

LP: “Well, check with him and let me know. I wasn’t sure if it was cruel to ask you since we all agreed here that you wouldn’t be able to help yourself from saying yes. But, since I could definitely use the help, I figured I’d just be cruel…”

Ah, these people know me too well.

So now I do not have 3 more days of work left, but 43 (or so) more days. And part of me is thrilled; SO excited to try a case with my wonderful LP and the wonderful client we represent in this case. And part of me is, like, “WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU!” Sigh.

C is shaking her head too…

In this midst of the hand-wringing over my job, B and I have also been continuing our “gluttony” quest of checking off restaurants on the Washingtonian’s List of the 100 Very Best Restaurants. We’ve hit No. 1 and No. 95, and 15 others in between, with one more (No. 11) scheduled for later in May and a couple of others that we plan to check off before we go.

I have to admit that I am not sure I agree wholeheartedly with the placement of each of these restaurants on the list – for instance No. 22 was head and shoulders above No. 15 both in terms of food, and service (price too, admittedly, but still…) and No. 95 was better (and way cheaper) than No. 54, but, nevertheless, it’s been a fun (and quite delicious) way to spend our “date” time in D.C.

It’s also shocking to me given the quantity I feel like we have eaten in this quest that we have not even cracked 1/4 of the 100 restaurants on the list. But the quest will continue – at least until we roll our way onto a flight to FullSizeRender (13) Kinshasa – so maybe we’ll at least reach the 25 number before we leave.

FullSizeRender (11)

In other exciting news, we found out this morning that we got our housing assignment in Kin – and that we got a house! HOORAY! We will be in a compound with a number of other families with young children, and we will have our own yard (Miller, the Dog, is doing his happy dance) and our own pool. SO EXCITED!

We really are doing our best to enjoy our time left in the D.C. and the U.S., and C and I are about to head out on several cross-country adventures to visit family and friends, but after eight months here we are also itching to get on our way to the D.R.C.

With somewhere to live it feels like the countdown is ON!

Shots and Black Passports

April 9, 2015 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

In the last few weeks we have begun the business of having many holes poked in us in preparation for living in Africa. Through those holes many foreign viruses have been injected with the hope that our bodies will be fooled into producing T-lymphocytes and antibodies so that, should we meet up with the same foreign viruses in Congo, our bodies will be prepared. So far we’ve all had Yellow Fever, and the first two of the three Rabies series. B and I have also had Polio and Hep B, and B has had Hep A. “Luckily” for me I got Hep A when I went to Belize, and C got Hep A, B and Polio as part of her regular vaccinations. Since B and I haven’t had polio since we were under 25 (only a couple of years ago obviously…) we had to have it again. None of them have been too bad – at least not for B and me.

Unfortunately, poor C has been particularly unlucky since at her four year “well child” visit in early March she got four shots as a matter of course, and since then we’ve dragged her to the medical unit at FSI twice for three more shots, with two left to go. Yesterday morning, when I went to wake her up, I rubbed her back, handed her a cup of milk and her first words were “Mummy, do I have to get a shot today?” Ug. The second time we went back she crawled under the chair in the examination room and announced that we couldn’t see her so she couldn’t get a shot. Yeah, I wish that worked kid…

B and C will also have to have a typhoid shot, but we’ll wait until closer to our leave date for them to get that since it only lasts two years. I opted for the “oral” typhoid pills, which means that I’m already inoculated against typhoid – and my immunity is good for 5 years. C wasn’t eligible to take the pills, but it was an easy choice for me: take four pills over eight days and be immune for 5 years, or have a shot and be immune for two years (and keep having to get boosters). I don’t mind shots, but why get an extra one (or two) when you don’t have to?

What was bizarre about taking the pills was that there is a huge label on the bag I was given that said “LIVE TYPHOID VIRUS.” Uh, what? I have live typhoid in my fridge? Once I started taking them I was walking around NOVA and DC thinking “I’m walking around with live typhoid in me…weird.” Knowing how flipped out people get about things they don’t understand I kept imagining people’s reactions on the Metro if I suddenly said “I’m sorry, I carrying typhoid inside me, could I have a seat to myself?” I’m betting I would have gotten a whole car to myself.

And just in case anyone is wondering, all those horror stories about rabies vaccines that have to be given in your stomach are related to folks who get bitten and have to have the vaccine plus immunoglobulin, for us it was a little shot (three times over a 6 week period) in our arm – not a big deal.

The other big news is that we got our diplomatic passports – the black ones. They sure are pretty…

These are for our “official” travel. When we travel for fun we’ll use our regular blue passports. C and I are planning a trip to London in September to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and I’m guessing we’ll use our blue passports to get into the U.K., but our black ones to get back into D.R.C. when we return. Luckily I’m used to juggling passports having spent most of my life with two passports and the last few years with three…now I have four…wonder how many people can say that?

Things are definitely moving along…six more weeks of language training for B, then his consular training, then “crashbang” then…Africa…wow.

January in Canada

November 14, 2014November 15, 2014 / cdncarolina / 3 Comments

In January 1970, my parents boarded a plane in London, England and flew 3,550 miles to Toronto. They then drove another 2 1/2 hours to a town of approximately 400 people (404 when we arrived) called Arkona, Ontario. They brought with them a 26-month old (me), a six-month old (my sister) and, according to them, not much else. They left behind their parents, their siblings, their homes and everything they had ever known.

My mother had been born and raised just outside London. She was 28 and had just finished medical school and her residency. She had never been to Canada, or anywhere in North America, before she carried her two girls onto that plane and set off for an unknown life.

It is cold in Canada in January. There is snow; lots of it. When they arrived at their little (very little) house, which they had never seen before, and did not “chose,” there was probably not much to see in Arkona except snow. By mid-January winter is also not that pretty in Ontario. It has lost the sparkly newness of December. Christmas is over and there is a long (long) time before the next holiday (Easter) and the next warmth (often long after Easter). It is a difficult time. Bitter cold and short days making everything feel lifeless and dark.

Our street in London, Ontario circa winter 1975 – a lot bigger than Arkona…

My Dad, who had graduated from medical school the year before my Mum, had a job at the local clinic. When they arrived my mother did not have a job. My parents had opted to put her brand new – and hard fought – career on pause and move to Canada for the opportunity afforded by my Dad’s new job, hoping that once they arrived she too would be able to find work.

If my Mum wanted to talk to her mother – or father, or brother, or best friend, or anyone from England – she had two options: an airmail letter carefully scripted on vellum-thin blue paper and trusted to the Canadian Postal Service, or a very expensive long distance call with awkward pauses and echoing words across the Atlantic.

As we embark on this life of perpetual relocation, I am fascinated thinking about my parents in those early days. Particularly thinking about my mother. Alone in a cold, unfamiliar place with very little to do and two small children.

I don’t remember a thing about our immigration to Canada, just like, I suspect, C will not remember living in Charlotte, moving to D.C. and, in a few months, moving to Kinshasa. But, nevertheless, I feel for my mother when C breaks down in tears and asks about her friends, or her old house, or her old bed, because, whether she remembers it or not in 20 or 30 years, right now it is a trauma for her and is, no doubt, having an effect on her. I suspect, likewise, I was not that easy to live with right after we came to Canada.

On the days when I’m feeling particularly weepy and missing our friends and Charlotte, I wonder “how did she do it?”

I have Facebook, and Skype, and text messaging, and basically free long distance. When I get bored in our apartment, I leave. I get on the Metro and go into one of the most fascinating and amazing cities in this country (if not the planet), with amazing restaurants and museums and an endless list of things to do, not to mention many of my dearest friends. My child is in a daycare she loves where she is, in turn, loved and taken care of so B and I can do the things we want and need to do each day. I know moving to the DRC will be very different – I will not have the freedom to wander around the city and explore it, but, then again, I’m going to be stepping into a fully formed community of U.S. Embassy families who will help us navigate the streets, culture, stores and newness of Kinshasa. They have a blog that I can read right now to find out what sorts of events are going on (Happy hours, a Burger Burn and the Marine Corps Ball…to name a few), for heaven’s sake. My mother had none of that.

And, hand in hand with my mother, I also think about all the FS families who have gone before us. Who have stepped into the unknown of a new post without the internet, Amazon Prime, Skype and mobile phones. And it makes me realize that hardship is a wholly inaccurate and very relative term. What B and C and I are facing will be different, definitely, but hardship? “Severe suffering and privation”? No. It will not be that.

And so, when I look out my window at the streets of Arlington, and I’m homesick for the streets of Charlotte, I try and picture the streets of Arkona, with grey skies and lots of snow, and I remember how lucky I am, and, as well, how thankful I am that my mother (and Dad) braved the view (or lack thereof), the snow, the homesickness and sadness they felt, in order to give our family the amazing life we’ve had. I hope one day C feels the same way.

Making a list and checking it twice

October 7, 2014November 4, 2014 / cdncarolina / Leave a comment

A-100 is over.

And so begins the time of the List.

The list of how long it takes us to use a bottle of shampoo (or a roll of toilet paper, or a bag of dog food…whatever consumable item it is for which we might have to determine the number of items necessary to tide us over for two years in Kinshasa).

The list of what we eat, like to eat, might possibly want to eat, and that will be either wholly unavailable (think ice cream treats and other items that cannot be shipped) or exorbitantly costly (we have heard that a case of diet Coke can cost upward of $80 USD) in Kinshasa, and thus must be gorged on (or a substitute acquired, tested and approved) prior to departure.

The list of all the people we love who live all over this country, and others, and who we will want to visit, nuzzle up to, break bread with, and generally fill our minds and hearts to overflowing with, before we leave.

The list of places we want to visit – both in Washington, and in general, in the next nine or so months.

The list of books we want to read that will need to be downloaded, bought, borrowed, or shipped via Amazon (hooray for Amazon) to our new home.

The list of games, toys, entertainment, DVDs, music, and other time occupiers that we will need to buy (and pack) before July.

The list of birthday, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Anniversary, and “just because” presents and cards we need to shop for, buy, and hide away (but in such a way that we remember where we put them when we actually need them) to cover us for two years.

The list of documents, power cords, transformers, adaptors, tags and shots we will need to safely ship our car, our dog, our electronics and our gadgets (and to get them back when they land on Congo soil).

The list of what we want to carry with us (300 lbs (two 50 lbs suitcases/person)), ship by air (600 lbs – the “UAB“), and/or ship by boat (7,200 lbs – our “HHE“) when we leave. And yes, I get it, some may think it is a little too premature to be making this list, but I feel like if i don’t start now something vital will be forgotten or overlooked. I tend toward procrastination, so I’m trying to avoid the last minute panic and wild throwing of random items into a suitcase only to arrive somewhere and find that I have packed every shirt I own, but no underwear.

The list of what insurance we need, whether we have updated (and appropriate) wills, powers of attorney, and advance directives, and which of our 4,917 (a guesstimate) passwords go with which online accounts.

And, as they say, the lists go on and on.

I’ll get it together, I have no doubt, but right now I’m lying in bed at night thinking about my lists, worrying about my lists, planning my lists…and, apparently, turning my blog into its very own list. So, maybe this is the list I should tackle next…

P.S. For anyone wondering, yes, Brian was officially sworn in last Friday. We were incredibly proud and I can’t wait to write about it, but I’m waiting for a special photo that I need to get from someone else…stay tuned.

Whole Towel Living

August 24, 2014 / cdncarolina / 1 Comment

Ok. So it turns out that maybe I spoke too soon. The packout itself, both day 1 and day 2, were pretty painless and easy. It was the post packout panic that was problematic.

If you have ever moved you’ll understand (and remember with no fond feelings) the packing of all the leftovers after the furniture is gone. And the cleaning. The never ending cleaning.

I, in typical fashion, bit off more than I could chew and opted to go back to work on Wednesday and Thursday leaving B to clean and pack, and sending C back to school. Only sending C back to school was the right decision.

Since I’m staying with the firm I actually had work to do when I arrived back in the office, so I didn’t really get a chance to properly say goodbye to anyone, and I was frantically trying to fit in calls to Duke Energy and AT&T to cancel utilities in between discussing discovery responses with my clients. Luckily I’ll be back in the office in a few weeks for depositions, so maybe I’ll have time to wander around and say farewell then, but somehow I doubt it.

When I arrived back at the house on Wednesday evening there were two huge piles of STUFF in the middle of the dining room. B informed me that one was going to get packed in the cars and the other pile was going over to a friend’s house to be stored until I drive down for those depositions in mid-September. What was that about spending quality time saying goodbye to folks? Looks like I’ll be packing the car instead…

What is doubly unfortunate about this is that, as noted previously, we ended up with about 230 lbs of additional UAB space that we didn’t use. I’m pretty sure a good amount of the STUFF would have fit in the left over UAB space. We’ll be remembering that for next time and doing our best to get our UAB weight up to 599.9 lbs before we start loading the cars.

For all our worries about how C would react to the empty house, the teary goodbyes and the random moving men driving away with our furniture, she never stopped being our hilarious, laughing, dancing, singing little girl. She sang while we packed, she danced in the empty rooms, and she laughed at all the hugs she was getting from everyone we know.

Protecting our home – in NC and in VA

She insisted that we were staying in a “whole towel,” despite our equally insistent response that it was, in fact, a hotel.

She pressed every elevator button, and told every random stranger we met that she was moving to Washington. We could have learned a lot from the laid back way she accepted every change without question or complaint. The only times she wasn’t happy was when she was hungry or tired. Totally understandable.

So tonight we have made it to our new home. There are boxes everywhere, and we need to figure out how to fit all that STUFF into a much smaller space. Tomorrow afternoon is the first “meet and greet” for the 179th A-100. We’ve been checking out the bios from B’s classmates – they look like an impressive bunch. I’m looking forward to meeting them, and their families, though I’m also, frankly, petrified about how it will feel to be the “spouse” and nothing more. I’m hoping I can take a lesson from C and accept each change that comes without complaint or question. Change is what we signed up for. And change is good…