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Why Not Waikiki? (Home Leave Phase Two)

So I began the second part of my home leave fresh. Er, well, not quite. My fasciitis in my left heel was acting up, my ulcerative colitis was active, I’d developed a chest cold with an unfortunate cough, and it seemed I had sunburned my lips somewhere during my drive. (I blame Texas) Yet, knowing I would not be driving every other day and the cats would not be joining as they would be enjoying the rest of their summer sniffing breezes on window sills at my aunt and uncle’s house, I WAS feeling fresher despite the ailments.

So less than four days after returning to Virginia, C and I boarded a plane for Honolulu. The ten hour flight flew by.

Just kidding.

Three hours into the ten hour flight I was again wondering what my state of mind had been as I plotted this trip. I am sure the lure of the islands played some part. Blessed with very fair freckled skin and reddish hair, I am no beach bunny, and would never have expected a love affair with Hawaii to develop. Yet I have visited the State (and four of the islands) at least seven times, including living on Oahu for 6 months while working as a Research Assistant on Asia Pacific security at the Pacific Forum CSIS in 2004. So, it made sense, in fact it felt imperative I visit this summer with C. And hey, it’s Hawaii, so why not?

I had decided on Oahu, and much more specifically Waikiki, for our trip as I had read it is the most toddler friendly place on the islands. There is the zoo and aquarium right in Waikiki and of course the beach. A hotel with a pool would round out our busy schedule. Though many sites will tell one the “must sees” with a toddler include the Dole Plantation and Sea Life Park and that both are “near” Waikiki, they most certainly are not, especially without a car. I had no intention of renting a car and either renting or dragging along a child seat just to visit these places. And a quick search of bus schedules informed me a ride to either attraction would be a “quick” hour and a half. ONE WAY! I have been to both attractions before and C is too young to know she is missing anything. So it was easy to knock those off the list. On this trip I was going to keep things simple.

We landed just after 1pm Honolulu time. So it’s maybe 5 or 6 hours behind what my body thought it might be (I cannot be sure what time my body was operating on after out drive) It’s after 3 by the time we are checked in and nearly 9 in my head. I woke at 5:30 am and did not sleep at all on the plane, so I’m sleepy. I’m wondering again if this was a good plan.

I stock up on some food items at the ABC Store downstairs. Then C starts jumping up and down yelling “Beach! Beach! Beach!” so though it feels like nearly midnight I take her. Watching her enthusiastically testing the sand with her toes and screaming with delight when the surf approaches and catches her and I know this was a great decision. I love Hawaii.

We wake up at 2:30 am and eat and shower and then head to the beach for sunrise. Once again the pure joy and enthusiasm with which my daughter greets the beach is affirmation that we are where we should be. As the sun rises in the overcast sky and the iconic shape of Diamond Head reveals itself, I think if we do nothing else all week but rise for sunset and play on the beach, it is enough. I find this almost startling as I am not one who finds relaxing easy.

We make it to four sunrises and two sunsets, and in my opinion, that’s pretty darn good. I take C to the aquarium and the zoo and the children’s museum. I take her over to the Hilton, too, to see the penguins and flamingos only to discover all the penguins have been sent to Baltimore and the flamingos are just gone. C does not know what she is missing and is delighted with the ducks, turtles, and carp. Five years ago if you had asked me if a one week trip to Oahu would have included the aquarium, zoo, and children’s museum I would have laughed.

I also manage to work out five mornings. FIVE! I book C into the Japanese-run daycare at the Sheraton, just 5 minutes walk from our hotel. It’s a pricey at $25 per hour with a two hour minimum, but it is SO worth it. C does not want to leave at the end of day one and cannot take her shoes off fast enough to play on subsequent days. And me? I feel a tad guilty leaving her, a plump of pride that she takes to it so easily, and a rush of excitement that I will have TWO WHOLE HOURS to myself. In those five days I manage 60 minutes cycling, 110 minutes elliptical, and a total of 14 miles running. And most days I pick C up, she’s slumped over in her stroller asleep before I can get her back to our hotel. Hello nap time! I manage to start and finish THREE books.

Additionally, an upside to being the older single mom with a young toddler staying in Waikiki is that we are not approached by a single tour our timeshare person. I actually start to get a bit suspicious that we are not stopped even once. We must not fit the timeshare target demographic and I know we do not fit the luau, catamaran cruise, submarine, Pearl Harbor, helicopter, or round island bus tour type either. I have done all those things in Hawaii before, including the timeshare tours, so it’s quite refreshing!

With the warm air, cool trade winds, glorious sunrises and sunsets, quality time with C as well as time to myself…we have reached near-Nirvana levels.

It was tough to leave. Yet the oversold flight we volunteered to get off of and the $400 flight certificates and the upgrade to first I received in return made up for it just a tad.

On to the next phase.

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The Not-So-Normal (or My Experience with the Virginia DMV)

I was going to take a few days off from writing when this morning I did something that prompted me to reconsider:
I took my car to get its Virginia Safety Inspection.

That probably does not sound like much, but here is the thing: this is the first time I have ever done it!

I am not one to blurt out my age but suffice to say I am no spring chicken. I would expect most Americans my age would have done this a dozen times or more in their adult lives. Yet here I am doing this for the very first time. I was so nervous! I tossed and turned the night before worrying about it. My aunt accompanied me to the inspection center. I could not focus I was so nervous and excited on the way there and while waiting. Also when I paid, the cashier gave me a strange look and repeated “This is YOUR first time?” Clearly he was doubtful.

Look, I grew up in suburban Virginia, right outside of Washington, DC. We did not move around. I did the things most suburban kids do. However, as an adult, I have spent 12 years outside of the United States. Only the last two have been with the State Department. I studied for a summer and semester in China in college. I taught English in Korea for a year. I taught English in Japan for three years. I spent a semester studying and volunteering in Manila. I spent a year backpacking through Europe and Asia. I spent twelve months pursuing a Masters Degree in Singapore with two months before and two months after backpacking abroad. Three months studying in Yogyakarta and later two and a half years working for Defense in Jakarta, Indonesia. So I missed out on activities like watching Friends before it was in re-runs and having my car inspected.

Besides being nervous about doing something bureaucratically important for the first time I had two more reasons to be concerned: childhood memory and my unfortunate recent experiences with the Virginia DMV.

My aunt told me it was an easy enough process but as a child I watched my father have his vehicles rejected by the safety inspector again and again. There was the VW bug that was missing the floor on the front passenger side. I remember him driving me to dance class watching my legs dangle over the empty space as we bumped over the gravel road. Also the Datsun, whose starting system he rigged with a creative button that my mom had to use two hands to start. The Dodge Caravan, whose dented bumper and side he corrected with duct tape. After all both the duct tape and the car were silver. The VW bus my mom had to slow down, but not stop, to let us out at Middle School. I remember many a day sitting sweltering by the side of the road awaiting repairs or the times I had to, as the oldest child, get out of the car and push.

So there was that….

And also the drama the Virginia DMV put me through during my time in Mexico. It’s a long story that I will try to explain, because I think it sheds light on some of the problems Foreign Service Officers go through.

When I purchased my car in September 2011 I contacted State Farm for insurance. I told them from the get go I would be moving to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico the following year, approximately nine months later. I asked if they would cover me in Mexico. I was told “No problem.” A few months before departure, I stopped by the office and spoke with the head agent. I was again informed there would be no problem. About a week before departure I called and let them know the departure was imminent. It took some checking, but again I was reassured – we got you covered. Then just hours before I am to start driving to Mexico the office calls and tells me, hey, I see you are moving to Mexico. There is NO WAY we can cover you. My initial response could not be called diplomatic, but I stopped by the office, spoke with someone else, and once again was told, yeah, we have an office in El Paso with a Mexican Team. I’ll send your information there–no problem.

A concurrent issue that happened was my change in address. When I first returned from Indonesia, I was placed in Oakwood Falls Church housing, a common place for new and seasoned officers and their families to be housed during training. Unfortunately, I was assigned an un-renovated apartment. Though, I was informed at check in this would not be an issue, four months later and six months pregnant, I was required to move down the hall to another, already renovated apartment. Two months after that I had to move out of that apartment after giving birth, as I had been informed State would not cover my housing (that turned out to be incorrect, but discovered long after it would have helped me). Six weeks after that I moved back to Oakwood. Four months after that I moved to Mexico. I filled out a forwarding address form with the post office…

I then find myself in Juarez and the State Farm office in El Paso ducks my calls and an in-office visit for a few weeks before admitting they cannot cover me. So I purchase a Mexican insurance policy through a much-used international insurance company that also covers me temporarily, up to 90 days in the US. I think all is well…

Until I contact the Virginia DMV in February 2013 to enquire how to renew my registration/tags from my location (I still have Virginia plates as we live on the border and cross frequently). I am told, “No problem, you can do that online; however, we must inform you your license has been suspended.” What?! Turns out that because the DMV contacted me for insurance information and I did not respond within the allotted time I am now suspended, face a $145 reinstatement fee and a possible $500 fine.

I am stunned. I call. I fax in my travel orders, a copy of my diplomatic passport and visa, my Mexican diplomatic card, and my insurance documents. No dice. Though my vehicle is not garaged in or driven in Virginia, my insurance does not meet Virginia requirements. The fees and fine stand. I appeal. During my appeal process my license is reinstated and I register my tags. In late October, I receive notification that my telephone hearing has been scheduled. Failure to take part results in a reinstatement of my suspension and the fees. The date of my hearing? One week BEFORE I received the notification! I am stunned yet again. I call. They put together a hearing right then and there. I am asked questions for approximately 30 minutes and then fax in all the previous documentation again. I am told to wait 3-4 weeks as the result of the hearing will be mailed to me…

I win!

After 11 or 16 months, depending on when you decide my ordeal began, I am through it and I have won. Yippee!
Given all of this, I think you would understand why I approach dealing with any and all Virginia Department of Motor Vehicle issues with extreme trepidation.

I cannot begin to tell you the immense relief I felt when my car passed the inspection with flying colors! No driving around with my 8/2012 sticker waiting for a ticket, no expensive repairs. Whew!

I have now completed my first Virginia vehicle safety inspection! Six months from now I will sell the car and we move back overseas and I do not know next when I will own a car. Such is the life of a Foreign Service Officer!

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Am I Still on this Crazy Drive? (Home Leave Phase One Part Two)

Day 7 of my travel from post / home leave began with a drive from Natchitoches, Louisiana to Jackson, Mississippi. I think I made a very wise choice in changing my route from the original seven hour drive to Orange Beach, Alabama to the four hour drive to Jackson. Again, I am shaking my head. What was I thinking? Within minutes of starting the drive the cats were mewing again and after an hour on the road my sweet little toddler was asking “hotel?” There goes my mother of the year award.

Yet even for me four hours on the road felt too long. Good thing I at least knew this would happen and started scheduling in more than one night at each stop for us all to recharge. The drive along some back roads and then I-20 to Jackson had little to occupy my attention with the exception of the unanticipated bear crossing sign (bears? In Mississippi? I would never have thought!) and driving over the Mississippi River. I tried to point out the river to C, but at 2 ½ she cannot see much out the window and just does not get excited about things like the fourth largest river in the world. Gosh, I remember taking a cross-country Amtrak trip from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles with my mom, an aunt and cousin, and two sisters when I was eleven years old. Crossing the Mississippi, going through a tunnel in the Rockies, and the 30-minute stop in Albuquerque to wash the train, were the major highlights.

I so wanted to stop at Vicksburg, Mississippi to at least see the National Military Park. After all, this is what home leave is for, right? It is not just to reacquaint ourselves with our country but to see and learn more of its amazing history and culture. I am seeing a lot of the highway system, which to be honest, is certainly part of our society and customs—our love of the automobile and being on the open road. Right? Or so I tell myself as I pass by exits with enticing signage of things I would like to stop and see but just cannot do so with the cats or even with C.

To be honest I also hate having the junky car – the one with the visible piles of crap on the front and back seats. As the daughter of pack rat parents, whose habits extend to their cars, I have tried very hard to keep my car clean and stuff-free. However, it simply was unobtainable for this trip. Oh, how I envy those childless, pet-less, single people driving out of Juarez in their SUVs… I know, I know. I am the one who adopted my two kitties from the mean streets of Jakarta and brought them to Juarez. I am the one who had the adorable child. I am the one who bought the high re-sale value nondescript Honda Civic… No one forced me.

We make good time to Jackson. No sooner have I checked into the hotel and unpacked the car, when I turn around and take C to the Mississippi Children’s Museum, where we spend THREE hours having a blast. This is hands down one of the best children’s museums I have been to and we have now been to them in Indianapolis, Boston, Santa Fe, and Houston. Though both of those in Houston and Boston made Forbes’ top 12 best children’s museums in the US, I think they may have made a mistake not including this one in Jackson. I am reinstated to the Mother of the Year award competition.

Day 8 is another of those days when I miss out on historical sites that tug at my brain strings. Both the Old Capitol Museum and the Eudora Welty home call out to me. Though there is no way C will remain patient through a by-guided-tour-only visit to Welty’s home, the Old Capitol Museum might be a possibility. Except it is a Monday and both places are closed so the decision is made. I briefly flirt with the idea of making an early morning dash to the Old Capitol on Tuesday before returning to en-cage the cats and hit the road, but realize this is another of my delirious moments and let it go. Instead I take my daughter to the Natural Science Museum, where we still enjoy an hour and a half of fun, and then we finally have some pool time at the hotel and I wisely wash a load of laundry.

Day 9 began with the knowledge that Cat One and Cat Two had each chosen a separate mattress base to hide in. Yet the evening before, as I snuggled in bed with my daughter, I felt incredibly blessed to have this time to spend with her. It’s like one extended sleepover. So I pick up those mattress bases and shake out those kitties with the best attitude I can muster. I choose to see it as my morning workout. Also, although the drive was longer, I did rather enjoy it. I was thinking wow, our highway system really is extraordinary.

I drive to Albertville, Alabama. I wanted to stop at Gadsden, Alabama to visit the Noccalula Falls Park, which I had found on a list of top ten places to visit in Alabama. Unfortunately, there were no hotels in Gadsden available (that accept pets) so Albertville was the closest I could get. Though tired when I arrived at the hotel at 3:00, I mustered the energy after unpacking the car and getting the cats settled to get C and I back in the car and drive back to Noccalula. I was glad I did. The falls and the park are quite nice and my daughter had a great time on the little train and at the petting zoo.

Day 10. Oh man, here I am driving again. This time from Albertville to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This time the four plus hour drive feels a little harder – easier enough to diagnose since I had not had a day of rest. I really notice the greenery surrounding the highways. It has been green for days, but it particularly strikes me today. After living in the desert for two years, though I found it beautiful, I also often felt starved for color, especially green. It is otherwise an unremarkable drive until I hit sudden and grindingly slow traffic just miles from our destination. We have arrived at one of the most popular summer destinations in the East, what seems like a cross between Ocean City (without the beach or boardwalk) and Las Vegas (without the strip clogged with pedestrians carrying gallon sized alcoholic beverages). I am informed by friends on Facebook I have reached a hub in the “Redneck Riviera.”

I am a HUGE fan of aquariums and have probably visited 50 or so all over the world. I had thought I would visit the following day, but I found out Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies is open until 9 or 10 pm during the summer. So, although tired, I do rally after a rest at the hotel and take my daughter over to Gatlinburg to see the fish. She is thrilled; yelling “Fish! Fish!” in the car.

Day 11. We head to Ober Gaitlinburg, the mountain-top playground accessibly by a large tramway or a curvy road. The day is all about C. I buy tickets for unlimited rides on the Carousel and other kiddy rides, which she takes very, very seriously. Seventeen times total on the rides as well as at least half an hour on the playground! I am so exhausted when we get back that I take a nap as well.

And then I received a rather extraordinary message from C’s paternal grandmother. She tells me that her and her husband happen to be in Sevierville, just down the road, for a wedding this weekend. I immediately message her back and ask if they have had dinner and want to get together. This is so amazing. I kept my route home close hold because I knew it could change – and it did. I also had no idea her paternal grandparents would be in this area. We only met them in person once, last summer. They let me know they are up for dinner and text me the restaurant, which also coincidentally happens to be one right behind our hotel! It was a really nice dinner and my heart felt so full seeing C and her grandparents interact with one another.

Day 12. The plan for this day was “Mommy’s Day” since the day before was all about C. I wanted to visit the Old Mill and also take an auto tour of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A friend had recommended the Cades Cove loop drive. It sounded lovely. Yet by afternoon everything from all the days of driving and sightseeing caught up with me. C fell asleep in the car as we drove to the Great Smoky Mountains visitor center on the road to Cades Cove. The parking lot at the Visitor’s Center was swarmed. As I parked the car in the extension of the extension lot I just could not muster the energy to get out of the car, rouse C from her seat and carry her leaden 28 pounds in my arms to get information. Though I wanted very much to see the park, I wanted a nap far, far more. The nap won.

I reminded myself yet again this is a drive. This is a trip to get us, the cats, and a bunch of stuff from Point A to Point B with some rest time and maybe, just maybe, a chance to see and do some things other than driving along the way. I had more than succeeded on this score. We were able to see the Old Mill and C’s grandparents again that evening for about an hour.

Day 13. Eight hours in the car to finally arrive in Winchester, Virginia to stay with my aunt and uncle for a few days. Finally, staying in a home and not a hotel. Though we still have 50 more miles to arrive at our actual home leave destination but I consider the drive done.

Total Drive: Six States. Eight Stops. 2,221 Miles. $246.67 in gas. One audio book finished. One Kindle book started. No one threw up in the car. Phase One of Home Leave 2014 completed. Success!

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Me, Two Cats, and a Toddler (Home Leave 2014, Phase One)

I think I might be crazy. In the last few months of my posting in Juarez, when I would envision myself getting on to I-10 East and just going, this was not quite how I fantasized it would be. In my imagination I did not have two mewing cats in the back seat, the car was not crammed full of my poorly organized stuff, and I was neither worrying my toddler was going to throw up nor singing “Old MacDonald” for the umpteenth time.

Home Leave, it’s an amazing and strange gift. Straight from the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM), home leave is a Congress-mandated leave “to ensure that employees who live abroad for an extended period undergo reorientation and re-exposure in the United States on a regular basis.” Basically, it is an opportunity to be reacquainted with the country we serve. We earn 15 days of Home Leave per year and one has to serve at least 18 months overseas in order to use it. The minimum amount of Home Leave is 20 days, the maximum 45, and that does not include weekends. There are other regulations associated with it, but that is the gist of it. And yes, we are still receiving our paycheck while on Home Leave. Pretty sweet, huh? All you have to do is sign up for worldwide availability (the willingness to be posted to any country in the world we have a mission) and move every 2-3 years.

I do admit it is one of the perks of the Foreign Service. Yet many of us do not actually have homes in the U.S. and for those that do, most have renters they cannot just kick out during that 1-2 month period. Me, I own no property anywhere and I have been saving up for my Home Leave for over a year. I will be traveling for almost nine weeks, which includes the six travel days I am granted for driving back from Juarez to my official Home Leave location (my sister’s home just outside of Washington, DC), and my 40 days of Home Leave. For some reason that escapes me at this time, I decided to travel the whole nine weeks rather than renting a place in one or two locations. Like my driving fantasy, this too seemed a great idea at the time I was plotting it out.

Not even to the border on the first afternoon of driving and the cats are alternating meowing with just enough pause for me to get a meow in as well. Cat one: meow. Cat two: meow. Me: meow. Repeat. This amuses me for about 30 minutes or so. After 30 minutes driving east one is still technically in El Paso, though the city and all signs of civilization (except the road and other vehicles) are gone. I am not going to deny that the desert of West Texas does have a certain kind of beauty. Yet, I still find watching that same landscape for three hours is exhausting. Instead of exhilaration upon arriving at the hotel in Fort Stockton, I just dragged myself, the two cats in their cages, my daughter, my suitcase, my daughter’s suitcase, my daughter’s four Stuffies (the elephant, the “horse” – it’s really a pink camel, the cat, and the chihuahua), the three bags of toiletries, and my handbag into the hotel. Whew.

The following morning the cats are already wise to the operation and Cat Two hides herself inside the base of the bed. Yeah. The base is hollow and some previous pet had already made a nice hole to get through the mattress base into the area between that and the floor base. Just great. I have to call the front desk and tell them so they can send someone to assist. It feels like déjà vu. Two years ago we stayed in a La Quinta in Odessa, Texas and my cat found a vent cover left off a hole in the wall. That time I had to call the front desk and the return of the cat involved a buzz saw and the bathtub in the adjacent room. This time though my daughter finds it incredible amusing to watch myself and another grown up chase my poor, terrified cat around the hotel room. Such giggles!

Thankfully Cat Two is caught and I am able to load up the car for the next drive from Fort Stockton to Seguin. Once we arrive in Seguin I am the one most ecstatic to get out of the car. To think I had initially planned on a straight shot all the way to Houston, another 2 ½ to 3 hours away. Again, I must have been delirious when I was planning this!

OK. I will not say this is awful. I love that I have this time to spend with my daughter. My aunt tells me that I am still tired because I left Juarez tired. True. But this is not the most relaxing way to spend one’s home leave…Recall it is July and we are driving across Texas and the South. I also have two cats in the car and I have been apprehensive about stopping somewhere to eat for too long to come back and find some crazed pet savior smashing in my windows. So, no, we are not stopping whenever the desire strikes, when I see a sign for a historic marker or picnic area or scenic route. I just drive on and cross my fingers this two week drive does not translate into a ten pound weight gain or a loss of my sanity.

Week one is basically done. Juarez to Fort Stockton. 1 night stop. Fort Stockton to Seguin. 1 night stop. Seguin to Houston. Two nights stop (and I took my daughter to both the Houston Zoo and the Children’s Museum. Gained mom points). Houston to Natchitoches, Louisiana. Two nights stop (Great July 4th celebration here and then I dragged my daughter to historic sites. Lost mom points.) Tomorrow we head to Jackson, Mississippi. This is a change in plans. Originally I was headed to the Alabama gulf coast beaches but the thought of the long drive, back south, is too much for me. I need to be pointed toward home.

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Farewell Juarez

Wow. I can hardly believe this, but I have departed Juarez. Let me write that again. I have departed Juarez. Yeah. This afternoon I drove across the Zaragoza Bridge into El Paso for probably the last time (always leaving room for that future possibility). For the last time, Customs and Border Patrol invited me into secondary. Yeah, I don’t know why either. I have been “invited” into secondary only three times in my two years in Juarez, but twice have been in the last two weeks. Thanks for the memories, CBP.

Thursday afternoon was my Despedida or farewell party. And suddenly this departure thing got REAL. Oh my goodness…I am leaving, actually leaving. I woke up Friday morning around 5:30 a.m. worrying whether all the things I have left in my house will actually fit in my car. Yet my daughter and I spent one final staycation in El Paso this past weekend. I could not stand the thought of spending the whole weekend in my nearly empty home. So instead I took my daughter to a children’s museum in El Paso and then we attended the El Paso Chihuahua’s baseball game. On Sunday morning we hit a few final places on my El Paso bucket list, including a trip up the Wyler Aerial Tramway for an “after” photo (we first visited in September 2012).

Then Sunday afternoon we returned and I had a panic attack. How was I going to get all this stuff in my car?? My daughter and my cats wanted to help, which means they made it absolutely impossible for me to pack up the car Sunday. At 11 pm I gave in.
Yet, obviously I got that car packed (though my nanny happily walked off with a LOT of stuff that just want not going to fit) and I departed. Here I am writing this from Fort Stockton, Texas, which does not have very much to show for itself, yet it is not Juarez.
Still, I spent two years in Juarez and I should say goodbye to it properly.

What I will not miss:
The lack of water pressure. In two years in Juarez I have not ever had an awesome shower. The miserable stream of water that suffices for my shower at full blast is laughable. Except I do not laugh. Every single time I went on vacation I looked forward to the shower. I wish I were kidding.

Pigeons. I have no idea why Ciudad Juarez, this dusty city in the Chihuahuan desert attracts so many pigeons, but it does. Several houses in the neighborhood have fake owls and eagles set atop their roofs to dissuade pigeons from landing. It does nothing whatsoever, other than providing the pigeons some fake roof companions. I disliked waking in the morning and hearing the cooing and clawing of little pigeon talons on my roof. It reminded me of a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Speed bumps. Though I have no exact data, I am fairly certain that at any given time 85 to 115% of Juarez roads are under construction. Besides constructing and reconstructing terrible roads, the Juarez government enjoys building speed bumps. Giant two feet wide speed bumps. One-foot-high, transmission-killing speed bumps. Stealth speed bumps with no discernible notice to alert the unsuspecting driver they are there. These are their specialties. Arriving two years ago, I was not in the city ten minutes before I heard a sickening scrape along the bottom of my car. I think my favorite is the one on the main road from the Zaragoza-Ysleta border crossing: smack across a three lane road with a 60 kph (37 mph) speed limit and no notice that it is coming. I might really miss that one.

Sand storms. Strong winds are always fun, right? So strong winds with gritty sand in them = extra fun! Especially, when this windy period seems to last for months on end…

Morning Mariachi. It happened only a few times in my neighborhood – the mariachi wake-up call – but it is an experience one cannot easily forget. Nothing like having your sleep interrupted by loud yip yip yip vocals accompanied by high-energy guitar and trumpet playing, and not for just a few minutes, but for two hours, starting around 2 or 3 a.m. I actually enjoy the sound of Mariachi or Norteño music. Just not in the middle of the night.

Border Crossings. When I first arrived in Juarez my mother joined us for the first three weeks to help with my daughter as we settled in and I looked for child care. While we waited for mine and my daughter’s SENTRI passes (it’s a long acronym that basically means rapid entry for trusted travelers) we traveled in the regular lane. The first weekend we waited in line approximately 30 minutes to enter the U.S.; the second, over an hour. Yet later, although I had SENTRI, the crossing became more and more cumbersome to do. It cannot say it was harder, only it felt harder. I know, I know. I have colleagues who are in some pretty difficult places far from home who might give their right arm or their first born to be able to travel to the U.S. for just a few hours of shopping. But all things are relative, right? I know in many ways I was spoiled as a Foreign Service officer posted to Juarez. Yet, over time, especially as the probability of being stopped, subjected to unfortunate questioning by the CBP or a car inspection by Mexican immigration authorities, increased, I simply found it less desirable to cross.

What I will miss:
Doctor’s hours. This might seem an odd thing to miss. Yet, when my daughter or I needed to see a dentist or a doctor and I did not want to cross the border, we went to them in Juarez. They were so convenient. The dentist’s office, located a five minute walk from the Consulate and ten minutes walk from my house, is open 10 to 2 and again 4 to 8. Yes, after work! She also had Saturday hours. Yeah. Think on that for a little while. The pediatrician, located in the same building as the dentist, is open 4 to 8 in the afternoons by appointment. Also, if I did not feel like getting an appointment, my daughter and I could head over to the drugstore, just a five minute drive from home, where a doctor sits for several hours for consultations for 150 pesos (about $11.50).

Parking spaces. Especially at the S-mart supermarket near my home. They were HUGE. I mean, you could easily fit 1 ½ cars or a car and a motorcycle or a tank in them. No precision parking skills needed, such as at the stingy spaces in many a U.S. parking lot. No worries about trying to extricate my daughter from the back seat.

Beauty. Many people might not think of Ciudad Juarez as beautiful. One of Mexico’s largest cities, it is flat, dusty, spread out. It is monochromatic. The few spots of green are hard-earned with lots of precious water. Otherwise even the green gets covered in a coating of tan colored sand. Yet, there is an incredible beauty to the Chihuahuan desert. The contrast and detail of the Juarez Mountains set between the crisp azure sky and blazing tan desert is stark and stunning and could be seen from just outside my neighborhood. I also never grew tired of the incredible sunsets. I have been all over the world and I am not sure any place can really rival the sunsets over Chihuahua.

El Paso and the Southwest. I know that some of my colleagues were less than impressed with El Paso, Texas, our neighbor to the north, though while it is no New York or Chicago or Washington, DC, it is a pleasant city. My daughter and I visited the Museum of History, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Exploreum (Children’s Museum), the Railroad and Transportation Museum, the National Border Patrol Museum, the Museum of Archaeology, the Magoffin Home State Historic Site, the Wyler Aerial Tramway, the Old Fort Bliss Replica Museum, the Mission Trail, historic Concordia Cemetery, the Zoo, and took a historic walking tour of downtown El Paso. El Paso also served as a gateway to the U.S. Southwest, a place that beforehand I had seen very little of. We traveled to Marfa, Alpine and Fort Davis, Texas. We also visited Mesilla, Roswell, Truth or Consequences, Albuquerque (for the famous hot air balloon festival), Santa Fe, Alamogordo, and Columbus, New Mexico. That last one the site of Pancho Villa’s 1916 incursion into the U.S. and the site of a small but high quality museum run by the National Park Service. I absolutely love history and this area is full of it.

I am sure that as time passes I will discover there is more that I miss about Juarez and our life there. It just has yet to sink in that I am not merely on vacation but rather will not be returning. This was my first posting with the Foreign Service. This is where my daughter grew from an infant to a toddler (she has spent more of her life in Mexico than in the United States – four times as long in fact). Juarez, the good and the not so good are part of me now. Farewell, Juarez.

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Five days to go (is four too many)

Packing out 2 weeks (or more) before departure can make you crazy. You have packed up all of your personal belongings and yet you hang around. You hang around because you are shipping your stuff from one country to another and you need to wait around for customs shipments and the like. You need to hang around “just in case.”

Yet, I would think that most people when moving do not move all the personal things out of their home, leaving only impersonal borrowed furniture, watch all their things drive away in a truck and then sit around the rather empty house for two more weeks. Not ever having a “normal” move I am not really sure. But if I were to have a move that was not orchestrated by the government, I think I would leave the very next day if not that night. I daydream about such a move.

The first day or two after the pack out, I felt exhilarated. The pack out meant departure was near. And regardless of whether you are happy to leave or not, leaving brings about a sense of excitement about the next move. For me it meant I was soon to embark on my wild and crazy nomadic home leave plan. It meant nine weeks traveling with my daughter (and 2 with my cats – hush, I’m sure it will be GREAT). But then the excitement rather wore off. I just don’t want to be here anymore – coming home to the soon-to-be-someone-else’s home that is full of the same generic furniture found in all your colleague’s homes all over the world. I had much of the same furniture in Jakarta and I am sure I will have it again. With our own wall art and decorative pieces, we can make this furniture our own. Yet, when our personal pieces are stripped from the home, it feels empty even with furniture still inside.

At the beginning when you arrive at post the home is similarly empty. However at that time you are busy settling in. You are getting to know your neighborhood, your new city, your new job and colleagues. You figure out the way to the supermarket and the department store and you stock up. Maybe you buy plants or flowers, a few new local pieces to add a touch of local flavor to the new home? But now, I am not buying anything. Well, I should not be. Though I went to the supermarket last night and bought a block of cheese, a dozen eggs, a stick of butter, a head of lettuce, a bag of tortilla chips, 2 avocados, and a packet of bolis (icees) for my daughter. I have 5 days left and I am spending the weekend in El Paso. I already had 7 eggs at home…. I’m not sure what came over me.

On Monday night, the night before my home and furniture inspection, my daughter took my black eyeliner and drew all over one of the white bathroom walls. She has never drawn on the wall before and I could only think it was part of some terrible cosmic pack out too early joke that she would choose to do so that night. Friends on Facebook suggested I use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I am sure it works great in most circumstances. My circumstances unfortunately were it was 9:30 pm at night, I live in Mexico, and I am packed out. I found I still had some first aid kit alcohol wipes, tiny sized, about an inch square. So I painstakingly rubbed my daughter’s first abstract art piece in charcoal off the bathroom wall. Some of the paint came off as well. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone, I did pass the house inspection the next day.

On Tuesday I went to pay my final phone bill. The Consulate staff at the General Services Office (GSO) recommended I did not pay my final bill at the bank but rather at the TelMex kiosk in the store located in the mall across the street from the Consulate. Unfortunately the ATM in the lobby of the Consulate was not functioning (a somewhat regular occurrence) so I went to the mall to use an ATM there first. Except there, the first ATM would not accept my card, despite three tries. So I thought I would go to the TelMex store and see if I could pay with credit card. I was informed that was impossible as it was “not compatible with their systems.” Sure, I could understand that given it is 2014 and credit cards are used by only a handful of people in the world. (heavy sarcasm here) So I went to another ATM on the other side of the mall only to find it charged $3.50 for the privilege of withdrawing my own money (compared to the usual $2.40 charge at my usual ATM). I circled back to the first ATM to find someone using it successfully! However, three tries later, I still could not withdraw money. One more ATM left in the mall and it charged $6.30 to withdraw money! I returned to the Consulate without pesos and without paying my bill, exhausted and dejected.

I was able to pay the phone bill today (hooray!) but came home to find my daughter had an unexplained rash. The nanny showed it to me as soon as I walked in the door but explained it was only on her upper back. Except it wasn’t. It was also on her lower back, and chest, and tummy, and shoulders…and within 45 minutes it was also on her arms and on her cheeks. As I write this she is happily watching her Cat in the Hat DVD and seems to be in good, though itchy, spirits. A plus of being posted to a US-Mexico border post is I can take her to a doctor in Mexico or drive across to a pediatrician in the US. I’m in a wait and see mode right now.

Tomorrow is the Consulate farewell party for me and two other departing officers. After which I will have four days left in country. It will likely be three too many.

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The 10,000 Club (or What Do I Do Exactly?)

The other day a colleague mentioned we should hold a small party for a someone who would be leaving our section of the Consulate for another and in the process toast “the 10,000 club.” I must have had a quizzical look on my face as she went on to explain that surely I too am a member of the 10,000 club – the club for Consular Officers who have adjudicated at least 10,000 visas. She mentioned it’s a pretty big deal to be a part of this club as not all officers get there.

I do not think this club is a real club. I doubt there are secret handshakes and induction ceremonies or even awards and recognition. (Or I have yet to receive my engraved invitation!) It is just a way for some of us to participate in a little self-congratulation for having reached a milestone, an often unsung one, in our Foreign Service Officer careers. So yes, I am a Foreign Service Officer. And yes, that means I am a diplomat. Right now though my specific position is that of Vice Consul and what I do is interview visa applicants and adjudicate their cases.

All U.S. Foreign Service Officers spend at least one year of their careers adjudicating visas. Often officers spend a full two-year tour doing so and increasingly, as there is a rising demand for visas to tour, work, study, and live in the U.S. particularly from countries such as China or Brazil, some officers spend three or four years of their careers adjudicating visas. That is what I will be doing. I have spent two years here in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico adjudicating visas. I spent my first 14 months working in the Immigrant Visa (IV) section and then my last nine in the Non-Immigrant Visa (NIV) section.* I head next to Shanghai, China where I will work my entire 2 years in NIV (unless I am the lucky recipient of a rotation to another section such as American Citizen Services). I will work in two countries with a lot of demand for visas. Basically, I am going to adjudicate A LOT of visas.

Did I join the Foreign Service to adjudicate visas? Well no, not exactly. I joined as a Political-coned officer right from the test registration. However, adjudicating visas is part of the process of becoming one. I’ll be honest here, no need to sugar coat it, there are days this is hard to do. Day in and day out interviewing people “on the line” can be mentally and physically draining. On the IV side, the cases can be emotionally draining as well. I have cases from the IV side I will never forget – some because they were so heartwarming and some because they were so heartbreaking. With IV cases, which are very paper intensive, we are generally expected to conduct 5 interviews an hour. With a 5-6 hour interview day, that is 25-30 interviews a day. Mission Mexico standards for the NIV side are 80 interviews and 40 interview waiver cases per day, though in many posts other than Juarez the sheer volume of applicants is so high that officers are interviewing more like 120 or 150 applicants a day.

Soon after my arrival in Juarez, just before the end of the fiscal year 2012, Mission Mexico reached 2 million visa applications (and issued about 1.3 million NIV visas)! The only other countries to currently issue more than a million visas a year are China (Hello, second post in Shanghai!) and Brazil.

And so today, yes the very day that I am posting this, I reached and surpassed 15,000 NIV visa adjudications. From my IV time I adjudicated just a few short of 4,000 and exactly 100 fiancé visas. I have only a few days left in Juarez but I have two more years in Shanghai – so the 10,000 club is just the first of many milestones I will reach.

*Yeah, so 14 months and 9 months do not equal 24, but rather 23 months. It’s true. I have not lost all my math skills since joining the State Department. I arrived in late July 2012 and I depart 1 July 2014. It is all perfectly legit.

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Packed Out!

On Monday morning I was out of bed at 6 am. I have trouble sleeping the night before a pack out. Once up I popped open my Diet Coke (I am not a coffee drinker – have never had coffee actually – but I do love my caffeine in the form of the ambrosia that is a nice, cold can of DC), and I put on my pedometer. I had some breakfast and then I got to work.

At 7 am the nanny arrived. I had thought I would not want her to be there just yet, I liked the quiet solitude of working in the house with my daughter sleeping, no one else there. But my nanny, besides the times she drives me absolutely nuts, is actually not only a great nanny but a helpful person. Also once the movers arrived she took my daughter out to the park and a neighbor’s house so she would not be bothered by all the packing.

I could have sworn from the pre-pack out survey that the movers were arriving at 8 or 9, but they did not show up until 10:30. All the better as I was still puttering around preparing piles and hemming and hawing over my clothes – I would need work clothes for two more weeks but I am about to head out on 9 weeks of travel / Home Leave, so I did not want too much.

When the movers showed up I felt a little disappointed and concerned. Again, the boss at the pre-pack out survey (when they look around at all your stuff to get an estimate of weight and volume) had implied it was going to be a long day, but they would surely be finished by 5…or 6 pm. And here were the packers, just 1 man and 2 women, arriving at 10:30.

But they exceeded my expectations. They got right to work and worked quietly and efficiently, taking only one short 30 minute break around 2 o’clock, when two more men arrived with the truck to start loading the boxes. Imagine my surprise, dumbfounded surprise, when all was done, the truck driving away with almost all of my worldly belongings at 3:30, a mere 5 hours after the movers had arrived. This is my fourth “pack out” (move with the government) and only the one from DC to Mexico had taken less time. That was due entirely to the vast majority of my things already packed and in storage in a warehouse in Maryland after my return from Indonesia. My pack out to Indonesia and the one return both took two days.

Of course later that night I started thinking maybe they were too fast… Maybe I will open up my boxes of things in Shanghai 8 or 9 months from now and find some of my things did not survive the moves… Well, nothing I can do about it now. I tell myself that to try to calm myself down.

So yeah, my fourth pack out is complete! I would say they do not get easier, only different. Departing from DC to Indonesia I was a single woman living in a three bedroom, one bathroom rent controlled apartment in Washington, DC. I did not own a lot of things, but I did have some furniture I put into storage. Leaving Indonesia 2.5 years later I had acquired two Jakarta street cats and was 8 weeks pregnant and a tad ill to my stomach at pack out. At my third pack out from DC to Mexico, I was leaving the one bedroom temporary housing provided during my training, but with a six month old baby. I now leave Mexico with a 2 ½ year old. I think I prepared better, but I still was not all ready when the packers showed up. I’m not sure I will ever be completely ready. The next pack out will be sometime early next year, hopefully in January if I successfully pass the first attempt at my Mandarin Chinese test. We will again be departing from temporary quarters during training, the majority of my things awaiting sea transport from a Hagerstown, MD warehouse.

At 3 pm the Consulate brought over the Welcome Kit – this is generally a large trunk of items such as bedding, towels, plateware, silverware, coffee maker, pots and pans, TV, etc., the items that should help you get along when you have only what you could pack in your suitcases (or in your car in the case of border posts). We received the Welcome Kit when we first arrive at post, and again after our pack out. I waved goodbye to the truck, or rather my things, as it pulled away.

At 4 pm my nanny returned with my daughter and I braced myself for her reaction. I had been feeling like a rather wicked mommy not buying her anything new recently (with the exception of toys that were inflatable!) and many of her toys recently had been sold, given away, or packed up. I should not have worried! My almost 2 ½ year old daughter is a travel pro! She has, by the way, already lived in two countries (US and Mexico) and traveled to five other countries (UAE, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Ireland, and the United Kingdom twice). For her second birthday I signed her up for her own United Mileage Plus account. In May, after flights to Cancun, Ireland, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati, and Manchester, England, she is already a Silver level member! My little Diplotot!

She entered and started cantering (she loves horses and pretending to ride them) and whooping and hollering Yeehaw! to hear the near echo quality in our now almost empty house. She pulled the cushions off the sofa to do some jumping. She played with her few toys still in the house with extra gusto. And she found the fly swatter in the Welcome Kit to be an amazing new toy (If you see my earlier post about Mosquito Terror, you may understand why. She is taking on her fear and conquering it!).

Still, it has been only three days since the pack out and though part of me likes the very minimalist style of the house and my closet right now, the pack out is the harbinger of my impending departure and though there is much I will miss, I am ready to go.

P.S. By the time the movers left the pedometer was over 13,000 steps. That’s over six miles IN MY HOUSE.

P.S. P.S. My UAB only weighed 324 pounds total!

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Pack Out Eve (2014)

It is the night before pack out. It’s 10:30 pm. I am exhausted. I have spent all this weekend preparing my things for the arrival of the movers Monday morning. Tomorrow. TOMORROW!

I took several boxes across the border to Goodwill this afternoon. By my calculations, I donated $472 worth of goodies. In addition, I took two other donations, to Goodwill and an El Paso children’s home, in the past month. I am now close to $1000 in donations. I also took several bags to recycling and several more to the trash. I have made a large pile of items near the front door that will all go into the air freight or unaccompanied baggage (UAB) that we will receive in late August to have at our temporary housing in Virginia during my training. I am given 250 pounds of UAB for myself and an additional 200 pounds for my daughter. Four hundred and fifty pounds total. I have no idea how much my pile by the door may weigh.

Then all the items I have piled in the guest room are for the ocean freight or household effects (HHE) that we will not see again until a month or two after our arrival in Shanghai, some 8 or so months later. All Foreign Service families receive a maximum of 7200 lbs of HHE regardless of family size. I am not worried about that weight. I arrived in Juarez with 4800 lbs and my goal has been to depart with at least 1000 less. I’m pretty sure I have done it, though I will not find out for sure until the truck pulls away tomorrow.

Unfortunately I have a bunch of little odds and ends still tucked away in drawers. I expect those drawers will be opened and dumped into a box and then wrapped up. Despite my best efforts, and I have really done a good job here (much better than my pack out of Jakarta, Indonesia three years ago), I am going to open up some boxes in Shanghai and wonder, “what was I thinking?” It is inevitable. It is a time honored Foreign Service (or any situation where one constantly moves) tradition to pack up random things. When I arrived in Jakarta I found the movers had packed up my bedroom trash can complete with all the trash contents still inside!

I am worried though how this pack out will affect my daughter. Tonight, I carefully selected 10 of her 35 DVDs (we do not have “television” here, i.e. no cable or antenna or anything of the like, just DVDs) to remain with us the last two weeks and then be packed up in the car. The other 25 DVDs will be in the UAB. I tried to pick the 10 DVDs she has been requesting the most in recent weeks. But what if she asks for the “snow” episode of the Backyardigans and it is not among the favorites?

My normally pretty easy going two year old has been a little more prone to temper tantrums in the last few weeks. I cannot be sure if this is the result of the packing process or because she is nearly 29 months old. All I know is that I am taking a huge heaping dollop of mommy guilt right now on top of already being in an irritable pack out eve mood.

Maybe it is not my two year old that has been more temperamental? Maybe it is me? Though moves are a regular part of the Foreign Service and have been a regular part of my life for some time (approximately ten moves in the past ten years, probably at least twenty in the past twenty), it does not mean that I enjoy the actual process of moving. With the Foreign Service at least a bunch of movers show up to help me do this. Though to be honest in my pre-Foreign Service and Defense Department moves, I never really had a house full of things to move. It was whatever I could carry on the plane or ship ahead of me. That was it.

I’m not even sure if I am making sense anymore. I am just so tired. Unfortunately I will have to wake up early tomorrow before the movers arrive to try to do some more last minute preparations. I still have not decided on my closet full of clothes. What stays with me for two more weeks and then goes in the car? What goes in UAB and in HHE? No idea right now.

I guess the bright side is that by tomorrow evening, probably by 5 pm, this will be done. The decisions, for good or bad, will be done.

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An Unplanned Visit to a Thai Prison, January 2002

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.

In December 2001 and January 2002 I took the five week winter break between my first and second semesters of graduate school and headed back to Southeast Asia. I spent the first two weeks in Indonesia, on the island of Bali, with my then-Balinese boyfriend. Originally we had planned to travel together for the rest of the weeks, but soon after my arrival it was apparent the relationship was not going to last. So, we broke up and on January 1 I flew into Bangkok to begin three weeks of travel split between Cambodia and Thailand.

On January 18, 2002, I had planned to join the usual guesthouse-organized visit to an elephant camp in northern Thailand, except I woke up to late. That sleep in resulted in one of the most extraordinary unplanned activities I have ever done while on vacation. I sent this email that same day, right after visiting the prison.

I stayed up rather late last night talking with my two dormitory roommates, so I slept in this morning and gave up trying to get out to see the elephants on my own. I had breakfast and went for a short walk, but I wanted to do something. The night before one of the dormitory roommates has shown me a nice map of Chiang Mai and suggested I might want to visit the Chiang Mai Women’s Prison. I did not even know if I could get in or if I really wanted to. I wondered what I would say to get in and would I sound convincing and would they think I was a journalist.

Generally, when people think of Thailand, they think of the beaches and mountains, beautiful ruins and great shopping, tuk-tuks and traffic and backpackers. I doubt prisons come into many people’s minds when thinking of Thailand, though of course they are there.

So I walked down to the Chiang Mai Women’s Correctional Facility, which is located almost in the center of the four kilometer square city walls of old Chiang Mai. I walked up to the gate, which was two metal slabs of a kind of celadon green, with a small square hole that slid open for people to talk to the guards inside. It rather made me think of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy arrives at the Emerald City. Someone inside opened the gap and asked if they could help me. I said, “I want to go inside.” They told me to wait a moment. This seemed almost too easy. After some time – the gates open to let in a truck and some Thais carrying plastic bags of food – two female khaki-uniformed guards come out to speak to me. They ask me if I want to visit the American prisoner. I say I do.

One of the guards informs me that only her parents, brother and sister are usually allowed to see her, but I stand firm. I want to visit the American prisoner. So she tells me to go across the street to the store to buy some things for her and then come in for a visit.
I walk across the street wondering what I should buy. What would this woman need? The guard told me I could buy some soap and a toothbrush and toothpaste. So I purchase these items as well as a bottle of Coke, some talcum powder and some lotion. There is not much to buy in the store and I do not know anything about this woman other than she is American. At the cashier there are some other foreigners trying to buy some things for themselves. They are confused; they do not realize this is a store for prison visitors to buy items for the prisoners. A man at the counter tries to explain this to me and when I tell him I am buying these items for a prisoner who looks surprised. I pay for my purchases and fill out a piece of paper written completely in Thai. Someone tries to help me but one of the questions is the name of the prisoner and I do not even know that. I start to write “American Prisoner” when the clerk speaks with some guards and then turns to me and says “Rebecca.” Yes, I am here to see Rebecca.

The slip is stapled to a bag and thrown into a pile. I protest. I tell them I will be visiting Rebecca and I want to bring her these items. I want to visit her! I sound so sure. Do I really? They inform me it will be delivered to her and I am directed to a small office behind the store. There I wait on plastic seats waiting with a group of Thais. A guard calls out some names and some people waiting come forward and then cross the street to the prison. I wait for my name to be called. The guard merely looks around for me and nods. I want to get my gifts I bought at the store but I am told those will be delivered at 3 pm. It is now 2:05 and visiting hours end at 2:30. I am told to cross the street. This time the green gate is opened to me. I am now inside the prison.

Inside is yet another waiting room with more plastic chairs. There are many people here, perhaps 20 or 30, even some small children. I am told to place my paper in a small wooden trough hanging on some bars. I place it there and step inside another small room where there are people standing in wait. A Thai man next to me tells me in English, “Now we wait.” From there I can see another area. One the outside are guards who are checking the plastic bags of food, writing the names of the prisoners on them, and then passing them through a small window. Beyond that is the visiting room. I can see a long row of chairs and a glass partition separating the visitors from the prisoners. There is a lot of chatter in Thai, most people appear happy. A buzzer sounds and the visitors in the visiting room stand up and file out, a new group of visitors file in. The prisoners are led out, a new group is led in. I wonder what to do. The helpful man tells me, “You will be next, in the last group.” Then a young woman comes up, she looks at me and speaks to the man. She turns to me and asks, “Are you here to see Rebecca?” I tell her I am. The man asks, “What is her relation to you?” I tell them, “just another American.” I ask them, “Do you think that strange?” “No,” the man tells me, “Rebecca will be happy. It is hard in the prison.” He tells me the woman next to him is his daughter. He tells me she used to be inside the prison and she knows Rebecca. The buzzer sounds and the man’s daughter tells me she will take me in to Rebecca.

Rebecca does not have an American accent. Her age is hard to tell. A guard outside told me she has been in prison for about 2 ½ years. I would say she is 35 or 40, but I have no way of knowing. She has reddish-brown hair cut short, and held to one side with a barrette. She sounds German but speaks English well. And yes, she is very happy to see me. She asks my name and why I am in Chiang Mai. She tells me she was born in the US, but only lived there one year, and grew up in Europe, mostly Switzerland. She is in prison because she changed money with another traveler, receiving traveler’s checks in exchange. When she tried to cash them, they were of course with another person’s signature. She tells me she tried to exchange at two places. She says her sentence was 2.5 years for the first attempt and three years for the second. When I say that sounds harsh, she tells me that actually her sentence could have been 11 years but since she plead guilty she received half the time. I am astonished. Surely, this seems wrong.

She has been in prison two years and seven months; she has two years and eleven months to go. She lives in a cell with 150 other women. She tells me the hardest thing is the loss of privacy, but that things are better now as she used to be in a cell with 250 women. She tells me most of the women in the prison are in there on drug-related charges and most are hill tribe women who do not understand as opium is a common cash crop for their tribes. Rebecca tells me that before the sentences for these women were not too long but now they are often for life or even the death penalty. In comparison, Rebecca’s sentence seems light.

She does not tell me any of this angrily or sadly, but matter-of-factly, and even with a slight smile. She has smile lines around her eyes and I wonder how many are from before prison. She admits that she wrong to have done what she did and appears to accept her punishment. I let her talk. She tells me she is glad to talk to someone. Although she has learned Thai, she is currently the only foreigner in the prison. She jokes, “I have been here 2 ½ years and they haven’t managed to catch another foreigner.” The buzzer sounds. She asks me how long I am in Chiang Mai and I tell her I leave tomorrow. I feel sorry to say it, if I were staying another day I could buy her a few more things. She tells me she very much enjoyed our ten minutes and thanks me for coming. She tells me my visit will make her weekend much brighter. I am embarrassed I did not get her more things or that my visit, from a total stranger, could mean that much to her. When she rises, she presses her hands to the glass and I press mine opposite hers. She waves goodbye enthusiastically. I wave in return.