March 23, 2024 by trs

The Mechanics of Settling into DC

*The Washington Monument from the fountain at the WWII Memorial*

This post is long overdue. One could even say it has become OBE or Overcome By Events in State Department parlance. And yet I cannot quite shake the thought of putting pen to paper in an attempt to explain at least some of the processes we went through to unexpectedly curtail from an overseas tour to Washington, D.C. To explain what is largely a bureaucratic logistical exercise based on policies and procedures laid out in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual but can become exasperating and stressful.

Moving the Cats from Guinea In a Hurry. Traveling internationally with pets has never been without its challenges. {see here and here and here for example] On airplanes, my cats have traveled cargo, excess baggage, and in-cabin, but also in the car when we drove across the U.S.-Mexican border to Ciudad Juarez. Transportation though is just one piece of the puzzle. The greater challenge is the @%$&! paperwork. It has to be done quickly and correctly in a short timeframe within the 3-7 days of travel. Before going to Guinea, Europe had instituted new rules that required all pets transiting the EU to meet the same requirements as if they were entering those countries. Though we needed an extra document endorsed by the United States Department of Agriculture / Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) for the plane change in Brussels, that was all given that our travel originated in the U.S. However, coming from Guinea, designated as a high-risk rabies country, one needs to have a titer test completed at least three months before travel. This would not be possible with my shortened departure timeline. Therefore, we could not fly to the U.S. through Europe. Instead, we took Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa, which required us to fly nine hours in the opposite direction first, subjecting ourselves to 34 hours of travel time door to door. And the cats to 34 hours in their carriers. This included Ramen, our new diplo-kitty. It was stressful, as usual, but we managed, again.

Temporary Lodging. When transferring from an overseas posting to the U.S., a Foreign Service employee can utilize the Home Service Transfer Allowance or HSTA. It helps employees and their families to defray costs upon their return. It can cover lodging and some per diem for up to 60 days, with some possibilities to extend should household goods not yet arrive. This gave C and I a place to stay while I worked out my next steps.

Before our arrival, I had reached out to the same company that provides temporary lodging for government workers that had housed us the year before. I wanted us to be in the same apartment building we had lived in during my French training as I figured it would provide the easiest post-curtailment landing for my daughter. I did not know where we might be after the temporary lodging, but at least I could initially ensure she would be somewhere familiar and would start at the same elementary school she had been at before we went to Guinea. We move so frequently in the Foreign Service that living in a place more than once is a rarity. Not only were we able to get the same building, but when we checked in we found we had been assigned the exact same apartment we had vacated only 7 months before! Alas, the HSTA covers for only so long and I needed to find something more permanent.

Enrolling the Kiddo in School. Once we moved to Guinea, I thought I was done doing the school enrollment for a few years. Yet here we were suddenly back in northern Virginia. Luckily, I had been through the process once before when preparing for my Guinea assignment at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, and the schools in the area are very familiar with military and foreign service families moving in and out of the area. Thus the paperwork was pretty straightforward. One thing I could not do in advance though was the tuberculosis test, which is mandatory for enrollment. Though our Health Unit at the Embassy in Guinea could perform the test before departure, a test conducted while still in a country with a high incidence rate of TB will not be accepted.

It had taken longer to arrange the curtailment than expected – with bureaucracy it is always a waiting game – and thus our flight got us back to the U.S. after school had been in session for a week after winter break. To get my daughter C enrolled as quickly as possible, the TB test was a top priority. After landing, we went through immigration, gathered our belongings, got a taxi to the hotel, and then with my father’s car waiting at the hotel, we headed straight to a clinic to get that blood draw. C was then able to start school a few days into the following school week.

[Not so fun fact: Later screenings found that my daughter has latent TB, most likely as a result of our serving in Guinea. The majority of persons with latent TB in the U.S. acquired it overseas. She had to undergo long-term monitored treatment for it. Just one more gift from Guinea and an unexpected side-effect to our lifestyle.]

The Search for Permanent Housing. As a Foreign Service Officer, there is not really any housing that is permanent until one leaves the service, thus permanent housing refers to the lodging one lives in for the majority of the tour. Overseas that is one’s assigned housing. In the U.S., it is the housing the employee finds to live in.

With my 4 years of college living in dormitories, my 7 years living overseas with various study, work, and travel, and the combined 14 years overseas with the government, I have not had a whole lot of experience looking for housing. Though I had found a remote assignment and could have lived anywhere, like my condo in Florida, I felt that 1. professionally it would be better for me to be in DC, and 2. personally it would be better for my daughter to be where she had been before. When I took her to school the first day back, a friend of hers from the year before spotted her, ran toward her, and they hugged while spinning around as if they were in a movie. I knew then that staying in the DC area would be 1000% the right decision.

However, knowing you want to be in a certain area and finding housing there are two very different things. House hunting is exhausting. There is research into what one is looking for and then checking out what is actually available on the market. Then setting up viewings. Each place has positives and negatives and I imagine C and I living in each one. In many ways, it feels similar to the bidding process we go through to get our next assignments. Then one finds a place and has to apply and hope the other side likes you too.

Thankfully, I absolutely lucked out and the fourth place we look at is a gem and the owner likes us and picks us over the other potential renters. Then, because I have lived in furnished places for decades, I had to buy furniture. I had odds and ends such as a rocking chair, a decorative bench, two wood storage cabinets, a piano, and many wall hangings, but I did not own a sofa or a bed, end tables or a TV stand, dressers or desks, bookcases or lamps. I expect that seems odd for someone my age, but it must be fairly common among those with this kind of nomadic life, right? Even though I tried to buy economical pieces, all the expenses did add up. Still, there was a bit of fun to the shopping spree.

After all that, it is little wonder that I was not very keen to pull up stakes again only six to 12 months later and decided instead to remain in DC. Every move just comes with so many challenges; it never seems to get easier. It might indeed be getting harder the older I and my daughter become. Yet there are many positives to being here and C and I look forward to spending some more time here before we head back overseas. Now that the mechanics of settling in have given way to feelings of being settled.

March 9, 2024 by trs

2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 6, Death Valley to Disney

*On the road in Death Valley heading toward Panamint Springs*

On our second morning in Death Valley, we woke early in preparation for our departure from the park. I knew I would want more time in the park, so I reserved a hotel halfway back to Los Angeles instead of making the full drive that day. We would backtrack first, heading toward Death Valley Junction to visit Dante’s View.

Dante’s View, considered one of the best views in Death Valley, sits atop Coffin Peak and 5,575 feet above Badwater Basin, and provides an amazing panoramic view of the southwest part of the park. It allows one to see both the lowest area of the park (Badwater) and the highest; the 11,049-foot Telescope Peak sits on the opposite mountain ridge. Apparently, the early visitors to the area from the borax companies found the view evoked visions of Dante’s nine circles of hell. I cannot imagine what they were thinking given the spectacular beauty of the scene laid before us. From the height we could really see the size of the temporary lake in the basin below. The view is somewhat famous as it appears briefly in the first Star Wars movie as Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C3P0, and R2-D2 get their first view of Mos Eisley. There was certainly no water visible at that time.

From Dante’s View we would drive about two hours over the majority of Route 190, past Panamint Springs, to the Father Crowley Overlook. It felt further and longer. Though the park was busy, there were times when we saw few other cars. The height of the mountains towering over the valley, the sheer expanse of the seemingly barren wilderness emphasized how very small we are. Maybe it was in part due to these feelings that when we at last arrived at the Overlook, we found it rather disappointing. The steep and narrow Rainbow Canyon, where fighter jets from the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station or Edwards Airforce Base once practiced tricky maneuvers, is impressive, but I found the windy road, with its hairpin turns, far more interesting. If you find white-knuckle driving interesting. (I sort of do and don’t)

We turned around, and retook the twisty-turvy road, passing Panamint Springs again, before taking Panamint Valley Road out of the park. Suddenly, there was a valley full of golden flowers. It had been days since we had seen many natural colors other than the piercing blue sky and the varied tans and browns and muted reds of Death Valley. Although there is wildlife in the park, we had not seen any. Not a bighorn sheep or a lizard or a hare. We could not recall seeing living insects, just some dead in the salt flats of Badwater Basin. I do not remember any other flowers.

*Wildflowers gone very wild near the Panamint Springs entrance to Death Valley*

Before driving on to the big city lights in the direction of Los Angeles, I wanted to visit a ghost town. We had driven through several, but I had read about one in the area I thought we could stop at Baharat (or Ballarat)

Founded in 1897, Baharat was a thriving borax mining supply town. At one point there were reportedly as many as 500 people in the town and a swinging lifestyle with a saloon and several hotels. By 1920, the town was abandoned. Stories abound online that Charles Manson and his gang visited in the 1960s, leaving behind some graffiti and an old truck.

I turned off the highway down a dirt track toward the mountains and Baharat. Ahead I noticed a lot of dust rising, and it took me about half a minute to realize what it was – because I could not quite believe it. A single-engine plane was taxiing straight for us! It was still maybe 200 feet ahead when it was up and away and flew over the car. What kind of ghost town has private planes stopping by? That turned out to be the most interesting bit of our short visit to the ghost town of Baharat. I had hoped for more atmospheric photos of old buildings, but instead, there was a group of young men on noisy ATVs returning from an outing, a dude in an old truck yakking on with a visitor while his old dog lay just by the tires of his idling truck, and in front of the old fashioned trading post advertising “Shooting Range, Guns N Bombs! 200 yards” the proprietress was regaling a couple with some stories. Baharat or Ballarat did not seem like our kind of place. I got back in the car and we left.

*The Baharat (not Ballarat!) sign post and supposedly Manson’s old truck*

From Baharat, we had only an hour’s drive to our stop for the day in Ridgecrest, California. The road rose first into the Argus mountain range and then slipped into the Searles Valley. I thought the drive from Baharat into the mountains was nice, but once into the valley, the scenery was less so. We drove through a few dusty towns like Trona, that are functioning, populated towns with a gas station, schools, and a library, but still had the air of a ghost town. The area was dominated by a large mineral lake operation. As we approached Ridgecrest, much of the area to the right of the road was fenced off as it was part of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the navy’s largest installation that covers an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. We stayed just the one night in Ridgecrest. We ate Little Caesar’s pizza and chilled out in the room.

The next day we drove to Disneyland in Anaheim. Although the return to increasingly larger towns and cities was gradual over several hours, the arrival back in the U.S.’ second largest city after spending days in desolate wilderness areas was a little shock to the system. C and I checked into the same hotel within walking distance of Disneyland that we stayed at in 2016. Then I left 4-year-old C in the room for just 5 minutes while I went to the first floor to get something. I told her to stay in the room and to only leave if it were an emergency. Unfortunately for us, while I was downstairs the Disneyland fireworks show occurred and C thought they were the signal of an emergency; I returned to find her running up and down the hall screaming… I made her recreate her hallway escapade for a video.

*The Disney California Adventure Park opened in 2001*

Disneyland was a big part of our 1984 family trip to California. What I remember is waiting in really long lines while sweating in the heat, being really scared on Space Mountain, and loving every minute of the Haunted Mansion. For my 9th birthday, I had a slumber party and as we settled down in sleeping bags in the living room we listened to my 45 RPM record of the Disney Haunted Mansion story.

The Disneyland of today is far more like the Disneyland of 1984 than Universal Studios. Many of the rides you can enjoy today are not only the same ones we waited in long lines for in 1984, but they were also part of the original 1955 park like Autopia, the Jungle Cruise, the Mad Tea Party, and Dumbo.

*Creepy Christmas decor at the Haunted Mansion – one of my favorite Disney rides*

C and I spent the first day at Disneyland and the second at California Adventure. It was our first time at the latter park. We loved California Adventure! The Incredicoaster was our absolute favorite ride – we got on it three times! – and it might have knocked the Loch Ness Monster in Busch Gardens Williamsburg off the top of my favorite coasters list. It was a great way to top off our amazing winter vacation.

Our trip was not all a recreation of the 1984 family trip. I remember parts of the trip, but so much is forgotten. My siblings, who are younger than I, remember even less. My sister C remembered playing cards on the train, barren landscape through which the train journeyed, and feeling like royalty eating in the train dining car. My sister A most remembered the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, visiting Sea World in California (which I completely forgot about!), and the jolting of the automatic transmission rental car when our mom slammed on what she kept thinking was the clutch. My Aunt L passed away over ten years ago. My mom is currently in the hospital and unable to tell me what she remembers.

Of course, one cannot ever truly recreate the past and that was not my intention. Yet here I am, all these years later, and that 1984 travel adventure had made such an impression on me. This trip sure did shake loose some old memories and gave my daughter and me some new ones.

March 5, 2024 by trs

2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 5, Mojave and Death Valley

When I planned out our trip, I had a strong desire to drive through the Mojave National Preserve. It would be quicker to drive using larger roads such as CA-247 to Barstow and then Interstate-15, but I was not necessarily looking for the fastest route. That way would not take me through the Preserve. Then again, I did not wish to be long delayed and there was a risk that driving through the Preserve we could be held up for as long as an hour by railway siding operations at the Kelso Depot. I opted to take the chance.

*Road through the wilderness on Amboy Road*

We left Yucca Valley early as there was a long drive ahead to Death Valley National Park. Soon after leaving Twentynine Palms, it was as if civilization disappeared (well, except we were on a nicely paved road). There was desert, scrubs, hills, and sky. There was little else until we hit the junction of Amboy Road and I-40, and the teeny, tiny town of Amboy.

*Amboy historic sign with a view of the post office building and Roy’s*

A historic 1850 railway station settlement and later popular stopover on the historic Route 66 highway, Amboy is now just a shadow of its former self. It still boasts the old post office building, though services appear permanently closed, and Roy’s Motel and Cafe (and service station) dating back to 1936. Online information says these businesses are run by the four people who still call Amboy home, though when I asked the guy behind the counter if he lived in town, he gave me a good long suspicious look, asked me if I were a journalist or something, then told me, no, he does not live there but he drives in from about an hour away. I liked the nostalgic symbols of the 1950s travel heyday–the diner, the roadside motel signage, and the Route 66 sign–but I did not wish to linger; the place felt trapped in time. Most of the other towns that once existed in the area have been long deserted.

We drove on taking Kelbaker Road through another wilderness area and into the Mojave National Preserve. For a long while the preserve looked little different from the other stark landscapes thus far that day. I know there was much more diversity in the terrain off the main road, but as our time was limited, I had to make do with the drive-through. Once we crossed over the railroad tracks at Kelso, then safe from the potential cargo train delays, I took the opportunity to make a quick stop.

*The southern entrance to the Mojave National Preserve and a stop at the historic Kelso Depot*

The Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad built the Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival Kelso Depot in 1924, replacing the earlier building from 1905. The once thriving railroad worker town had long ago fallen into disrepair although there are still some workers living on the other side of the tracks and the National Park Service is preparing the building to house a visitor center. That day I met a National Park ranger and an intern with brochures, pins, and stickers on a table in front of the building; they were happy to answer questions. Again, I could not linger because I still had a long way to drive and also C refused to get out of the car to even read one information plaque. So, I got back in the car and continued north.

*C stands in the desert alongside CA-127 as we await the green light to move past the road construction*

It was another 40 minutes through the desolate Mojave desert to the town of Baker and then north again on CA Road 127. About 30 minutes north of Baker we were stopped by road construction. There was already a line of several cars and motorhomes. I wandered up to the lone construction worker holding the stop sign and asked how long the wait would be. He said we needed to wait for the “escort car” and it could be about an hour. Big sigh. There was nothing to be done about it though. There was no telling how long it would be for that “escort car” to arrive as looking ahead I could see no road construction at all. I used the port-a-potty (thank goodness they had one as I had been swigging down the water) and moseyed back to the car. Other travelers were wandering off into the desert alongside the road. Some were already quite far from the road. No one expected this to be a short stop. I alternated small talk with the guy on the motorcycle behind us and hanging with C in the car or on the roadside. It was about 45 minutes in total before the escort vehicle leading the group of cars from the far side of the construction came through.

*The Ranch at Death Valley seemed an almost impossible oasis surrounded by an unforgiving otherworld.*

We were now quite far behind schedule. C fell asleep in the car. My eyes glazed over the scenery as we drove on, and I took little in. Despite the occasional breathtaking view, the pretty oasis town of Shoshone, and the rather bizarre Death Valley Junction, reported to have a population of “less than four people” and a boarded-up building with an “opera house” sign, the view was mostly the same bland tan sand stretching for miles. From Death Valley Junction we turned west toward Death Valley and within 30 minutes we were pulling into the oasis that surrounds the resort complex of the Ranch at Death Valley, our accommodation for the next two nights. With a park the size of Death Valley, the largest in the contiguous United States, I knew we would want to stay inside rather than outside.

*The stunning sunset at Zabriskie Point*

As the drive had taken longer than expected, we had only so much daylight left. We checked into the hotel quickly and then drove back to Zabriskie Point. We arrived just around 3:45 PM, luckily scored a parking spot immediately, and sped-walked up the paved walkway to the viewing area. Spread out ahead of us lay the undulating convolutions of sentiment carved after millions of years. Breathtaking.

We had an hour to wait for sunset so we walked down to a dusty plain below. Perhaps the flattened area and dust left after years of borax mining in the area? We goofed off a bit and then climbed back up to watch an absolutely stupendous sunset.

In the morning, we made our way to Badwater Basin – the driest place in the U.S. and at 282 feet below sea level, also the lowest point in North America. At the time though, Badwater Basin was actually not dry as a small lake had formed after heavy rains the previous summer and some of that water yet remained. I had looked forward to photographs of the geometric salt polygons, but instead, we found piles of salt sticking up out of a glassy, shallow lake, like lumps of sugar in a giant cup of tea.

As we drove back from Badwater towards the Ranch, we stopped at the Devil’s Golf Course, an expansive plain of jagged salt crystals, and the Artist’s Palette. At the latter, we parked far from the site and walked over a few hills to get to the view of the swath of colored volcanic deposits on a hillside. Honestly? The palette was smaller than expected and lacking in variety; it was mostly a chalky mint color with a small spray of pale pink against the predominantly golden dirt. Still, it was fun to get there – especially after climbing up and over a few hills to then see a parking lot just below the palette…

*The ruins of the Harmony Borax Works at Furnace Creek, Death Valley*

Following lunch back at the Ranch, we drove only a short way to the site of the Harmony Borax Works, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 1880s to the early 1900s marked the heyday of borax mining in Death Valley. Harmony was the mining operation that opened the valley to large-scale borax mining and was famous for its use of 20-mule teams that hauled the borax across the valley to the railroad 170 miles away in Mojave, California, though it operated only five years from 1883-1888.

I then drove us 30 minutes to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. As we had for the whole trip, we were racing the early winter sunset. Arriving at 3:30 PM, we would have an hour to crawl around the dunes before we would lose the light. Though large areas of sand dunes are not plentiful in Death Valley and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are not the only ones, they are both lovely and very accessible, sitting just off the park’s main road.

*The sun sets on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes*

C and I climbed up and down the dunes, our feet sinking deep into the soft sand. We were having fun running hand and hand down the dunes until C smacked me in the face with the shoes she held in her hand and swung wildly as she ran. I opted to lope down the dunes beyond arm’s reach from her after that and to video her cinematic rolls and crawls on hands and feet. We watched an foolish driver in the distance with their car hopelessly stuck in the sand (an alerted ranger had to call in a team to get them out) and another foolish guy flying his drone above the dunes, expressly against park rules. But mostly there seemed a lot of happy people sitting or strolling on the dunes. Here we all were, experiencing the stark beauty of one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

After the sun slipped below the horizon we headed back to the car and drove back to the Ranch. Though we had reservations in the fancy dining room there, we canceled them. After a day of exploring and hiking, we were up for a quiet night before we would depart the park the next day.

March 1, 2024 by trs

2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 4, Joshua Tree

On Christmas morning, C and I woke not to stuffed stockings or piles of presents beneath a tree (we had done that the Sunday before we started our trip), but to a travel day. Today, we would completely depart from the itinerary of my 1984 family trip to Los Angeles. We were driving to Joshua Tree National Park.

Among C and my favorite things to do (besides seeing Broadway musicals, visiting aquariums, enjoying amusement parks, and eating at Hard Rock Cafes) is visiting National Parks. A big part of deciding on southern California for our winter holiday was the chance to visit some of the parks I have long wanted to. I wondered why my mother and Aunt L had not made Joshua Tree, just a 2.5-hour drive from Los Angeles, part of our 1984 vacation. Though they were not particularly outdoorsy, the bigger issue was that Joshua Tree did not exist as a national park in the 80s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Joshua Tree as a National Monument in 1936, but it did not become a National Park until 1994.

*Sign at the West Entrance station to the park*

C and I packed up, had breakfast, and called an Uber to take us to Los Angeles International Airport, where I had a rental car waiting. As it was Christmas, I fully expected another Chinese-American Uber driver, but instead we had an Algerian American transplant from the mid-west with a love for Italian pop music. As we cruised easily through the largely empty streets, I recognized the songs but could not place them. When I asked the driver, he told me it was Eros Ramazzotti, and I was transported back to the summer of 2000 when I backpacked through Europe and first heard these songs. This trip was giving me more travel flashbacks than I had anticipated.

Getting to the airport went quickly enough, but there was a long line at the car rental office. It took an hour to get through it, so we were on the road later than I had hoped. Still, the traffic, even on Los Angeles’ notorious freeways, remained light and soon enough we were beyond the city limits and heading into the desert.

We arrived in Yucca Valley, California, population 22,000, one of the small cities that lie along the northern borders of the National Park. We checked into our motel and grabbed a bite to eat at the nearby Denny’s so that we might get at least a little time in the park. I was reminded again that travel in the winter restricted our sightseeing with the sun setting so early, around 4:45 PM. Yet, summertime visits to the desert mean scorching temperatures.

*Some of the vibrant flora of Joshua Tree*

The drive to the West Station entrance of Joshua Tree National Park is 25 miles from our hotel in Yucca Valley. The winding road took longer than expected and the line to enter the park was also unexpected. But the park is popular for night sky viewing and camping, and it would seem the Christmas holiday is an excellent time to do it. So, once I purchased our annual America the Beautiful park pass from the ranger, we only time for a 30-minute drive in and a few photos of the eponymous trees set against rock formations and a pinkening sky before it was time to turn around. It was a great introduction to the stark beauty of Joshua Tree. C very much wanted to get out and run around and made me promise to let her scamper over the rocks on our return.

*Bright sunshine over the grasses and palms of the Oasis of Mara*

On our full day in Joshua Tree, we drove down the highway to Twentynine Palms to begin with the Oasis of Mara, north of the park’s north entrance. Unlike much of Joshua Tree, where the flora are primarily succulents, like the Joshua tree, the oasis has palms and grasses that survive with the underground springs. The indigenous Serrano people named the area “Mara” meaning “the place of little springs and much grass.” C and I enjoyed a little stroll around the oasis area.

Then we entered the park at the North Entrance. We turned off from the Park Boulevard and onto Pinto Basin Road. Soon after the turn off we came to our first grouping of large rocks at the Belle campground; C insisted we stop. She needed to climb! After a good long stop for rock scampering and photography, we drove on to the next stop at White Tank. The rock formations are impressive. These are actually not mere rocks, but massive granite boulders piled atop one another. Some more scampering on rocks occurred – with me joining in! – before driving on to the next site.

*A cholla cactus stands out from the crowd*

The Cholla Cactus Garden is an area just off the main road blanketed with some 10 acres of the cactus known as Teddybear cholla. These cacti certainly look cute and fuzzy but are anything but with extremely sharp barbs with a reputation to painfully latch on to passersby. There is a pedestrian trail, partially boarded, through these plants but one can get as close as one dares. That surprised me. Given the silly things that some people get up to in our national parks, visitors are still given quite a bit of leeway. After about a half hour there, C and I departed unscathed. We had already been in the park several hours and it was time for lunch. I had opted to drive out of the park into Twentynine Palms for lunch rather than to pack one. We grabbed lunch at a Tex-Mex place in town and then returned to the park.

Our first stop was Jumbo Rocks. It is an apt description as the size of the rock formations and boulders were easily the biggest we had seen that day and spread out over a larger area. This campground also seemed more popular and the crowds of visitors were larger than we had run into in the boulder areas off Pinto Basin Road. We parked where we could and followed the parking lot to a trailhead into the boulders. I think we got off the Jumbo Rocks trail on to the Heart Rock and Arch Rock trails. Then C just wanted to climb over whatever she could in whatever direction took her fancy. There were points – like around Heart Rock – where we saw many other people, and others where we might see no one else for a five minutes or so. We completely lost track of time. The weather was beautiful, the temperatures warm but very comfortable, and the sky sapphire blue. It was just us climbing up and down and between rocks.

*Heart Rock and Skull Rock in the Jumbo Rock boulder area*

But I knew we had only such much time given the early winter sunset. We made our way back to the car and drove on a little ways to the Skull Rock area. There we did more climbing amongst the rocks, but we did not have time for the same carefree wanderings. I wanted us to get to Keys View for the sunset with a stop at Hidden Valley along the way.

Unfortunately, at Hidden Valley the parking lot was completely full. I drove through four times very slowly – and we were not alone in doing this – but a spot never opened. I gave up and drove towards Keys View but there too we ran into an issue, the road was closed off with a sign “Road opens just before sunset” and a ranger standing sentinel to make sure visitors obeyed. But it was not long til sunset. As I turned around and left the turn off, rangers were closing off more of the road, not opening it. We would not get to visit one of the park’s primary sunset locations. I turned back toward Hidden Valley hoping we might still have a chance to visit and lucked out with a parking space on my third time through the lot.

I planned to find the Hall of Horrors, a slim chasm between two high rock walls. I had read about it before the trip and wanted photos of C standing with legs and arms spread touching both sides of the Hall. I failed though to note the coordinates of the Hall and we wandered about aimlessly for 20 minutes without finding it or even a clue as to where it might be. C was chomping at the bit to get some more boulder climbing in and begged me to give up our search. Disappointed, I did.

Yet as the sun set across the boulders, desert, scrubs, and Joshua trees at Hidden Valley, we were treated to a magnificent burst of orange as the blue deepened in twilight. Perhaps sundown at Keys View was great that day, I do not know, but it was definitely perfect at Hidden Valley.

We ate a simple dinner from the supermarket in the motel room that night as we relaxed from our day of climbing adventures. I would have liked another day at least in Joshua Tree, but the following day would be a travel day on to our next destination.

January 21, 2024 by trs

5 Pros and Cons on Being Posted to D.C.

It has been a year since C and I returned to the US after curtailing from Guinea. Now that we have been here awhile and begun to really settle in, I think its time to talk about the positives and negatives of Washington, D.C. as a place of assignment such as I did for Ciudad Juarez, Shanghai, and Lilongwe. (Sadly, we were not in Guinea long enough for me to experience many of the “pros.”)

The Pros

1. Greater Autonomy. Living overseas as part of a diplomatic mission comes with a few extra rules, requirements, and restrictions. There are the mandatory radio checks – call ins to the Marines Post using the Embassy-issued radios to make sure they are in working order in the event of an emergency. These could be weekly or monthly depending on the Post. We also must submit an “out of town locator” every time we travel, domestically or internationally, for security and accountability.

In some of my posts, like Ciudad Juarez, Malawi, and Guinea, mission personnel were prohibited from taking public transport. In Malawi and Guinea, one could not drive outside the city limits between sunset and sunrise, which within 15 degrees of the equator means half the day. When I was in Ciudad Juarez, we were unable to drive beyond the city limits further into Mexico and even some parts of the city were off-limits to us.

At each of my posts, due to either high visa numbers (Shanghai and Ciudad Juarez) or a small staff (Malawi and Guinea), scheduling vacation has been quite the production. Taking a big chunk of time off during the busy summer transfer season, like this past summer, was very unlikely. Even during my previous stints in the U.S. with the State Department I could not as the Foreign Service Institute allows for little leave during training.

But now? No radio checks, no phone trees, no out-of-town locators, no special travel restrictions. And vacationing is a whole lot easier! While not all D.C. offices might be so accommodating, I am very glad for mine. It is nice to have, at least for a little while, far fewer persons from work involved in my free time.

2. Mail That Arrives Fast. Gone are the days of waiting weeks and weeks for our mail to arrive. In Ciudad Juarez, we had a post address in El Paso, Texas, just across the border, and mail staff would pick it up every few days, so it might take only a week to receive our mail. In Shanghai, we had the Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) but our post was routed through Hong Kong, so the delivery times were closer to 10 days to two weeks. Yet, in Malawi and Guinea, mail took quite a bit longer; on average it would take 3-4 weeks, though sometimes longer. For Halloween, I would ask C what she wanted to be in August so we would be sure to have a costume. I would place orders in early November for Christmas and her birthday or risk them not arriving in time. But now? I can now place an order online with a retailer and have it within a few days, if not sooner. It seems quite miraculous.

3. Public Services and Spaces. While some Foreign Service Officers may spend their careers wholly or in part in developed countries, I have leaned toward the less developed, more off-the-beaten-track locales. There have been positive aspects to every place I have lived and served, but one category of things, which are often taken for granted when one has them and greatly missed when one does not are public goods. For example, sidewalks. One of my favorite activities is a nice long walk. Shanghai had many great sidewalks. Ciudad Juarez had a limited number. But they were nearly non-existent in Malawi and Guinea. While I do enjoy walking in an urban environment, there are also many public walking and hiking trails. Or biking, if I ever get around to buying myself a bicycle again. I also rather like public transit and although the U.S., with Americans’ love of the automobile, isn’t exactly a mecca of such, in Washington, D.C. and the cities immediately surrounding it, the bus and metro system is pretty good. Then there are the public libraries (oh, be still my voracious reader heart), public parks, and playgrounds. And museums! The Smithsonian museums of Washington are amazing and free. And schools: my daughter attends a wonderful public school she loves and is thriving in. Even consider emergency services. While the somewhat regular sounds of firetrucks and ambulances (my apartment building is within a mile of two fire stations) might sometimes be annoying, I recall how limited fire, rescue, and police vehicles were in Malawi and Guinea, and I am grateful we have these services.

4. Activities Galore. I have tended toward serving in more “make your own fun” kind of posts where there are often fewer locally organized activities and places to visit. One of the (quite a few) reasons we left Guinea were the few activities for my daughter. There were no summer camps or community centers or parks. While the school offered a limited number of after school activities, there was no late school bus for those who participated in them. I worried my daughter was missing out. Now that we are in Northern Virginia, she is spoiled for choice! The school offers many after school clubs and sports activities and that very important (especially for a working single mom) late school bus. C is participating in chorus and technical theater at school as well as math tutoring, guitar, and Scouts in the community. This past summer she attended summer camps focusing on space, tennis, and writing code. She has expressed interest in getting involved in some of the school sport teams and also maybe taking skateboarding, ice skating, or Irish dancing in the community. All of that and so much more is available!

There is also just more for C and I to do in and around town. In the year we have been back we have visited the Museum of Illusion, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Asian Art, the National Natural History Museum, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Planet Word Museum, the National Zoo, and the U.S. Botanical Garden. We also attended two Washington Nationals baseball games, and saw Cirque du Soleil, the musical Evita, and a traditional concert of the Christmas Revels. There are just endless opportunities for recreation here.

5. Friends and Family. Living the nomadic life we do with so much time far from the U.S., we often miss out on seeing our family; and with so many friends also in the Foreign Service (FS) it is often difficult to catch up with them as they are scattered around the world. But an upside of now living in Washington, D.C. is my family is from the area and live not too far, there are friends from different parts of my life living here, and every FS family has to cycle through Washington at some point. In the past year, C and I have twice been able to see my sister perform on stage with her community theater group. We also attended my brother-in-law’s birthday party. My aunt came up to stay with us for a few days and we traveled down to her in Jacksonville for the Labor Day weekend. In March, we went roller skating with a group of people we served together with in Malawi; in June we met up with a FS friend and her kids at the Natural History Museum for a “Night at the Museum” family event. When friends from Guinea spent a few days of home leave in D.C., we got together with them and another family who had served in Guinea for a day of food and conversation. When other friends from our Malawi days visited D.C. in October, we headed out to Cox Farms for some traditional American fall festival fun. C was able to spend several days in New York with her paternal grandparents during the summer and Thanksgiving at her dad’s in Kentucky. There has been so much more, but the point is that being in the U.S., and especially in D.C., has given us the opportunity to spend more time with friends and family than we have in the past few years combined.

The Cons

#1 Cost of Living. Moving to Washington, D.C. has meant an adjustment in the personal finance department. Depending on which index you look at, D.C. may be listed as the fifth, seventh, or tenth most expensive city in the U.S., but it all points to shelling out more bucks to live here. Rents are particularly high and as a single mom, I am feeling the pinch. When overseas, our housing is part of our benefit package and when I have been in the U.S. on training between assignments, the Department has paid for my housing as part of per diem. This might sound a bit crazy (and I know after I say this I may lose quite a bit of sympathy points from non-Foreign Service readers), but this is the first time I am paying rent and electricity in over a decade. I do get the full Washington, D.C. locality pay, a bump in pay based on the cost of living in certain locales, but I, of course, am no longer receiving the plus up in pay from post differential (added compensation for service in foreign areas that differ substantially from the U.S.) or the cost of living adjustment (COLA; a bump in pay to counteract higher costs in another location). I am also just paying more in activity costs for all those great things we can do. But, I will say, with our wonderful library, my book costs have gone way down.

*Ramen surveys the chaos of the living room after delivery of our HHE*

#2 Smaller Housing and ALL Our Stuff. As previously mentioned, when foreign service officers work overseas our housing is provided as part of our benefits. With the exception of Guinea, I have been provided a lovely (sometimes quirky) three bedroom house or apartment; though our Guinea apartment was a two bedroom, it was very roomy. In D.C., I was lucky to find a nice two-bedroom just outside the city right by a metro (subway) station. It is an older build, so more roomy than many of the newer apartments, but it is still smaller than every one of my Embassy/Consulate homes. When we are in training in the U.S. between overseas positions, the majority of our things are kept in storage. This time though, every one of the 100 plus boxes of our household goods would be delivered to us. I have not had all of my things in the U.S. with me since I first went overseas to work for the government in early 2009. And I have bought quite a few more knick- knacks since then. And acquired a daughter with her own accoutrements. But with the help of a storage room in our building and giving away items in our local Buy Nothing group, we have made it work.

#3. Doing all the chores. I know this one, too, will not make me popular among the non-expat readers, but I keenly feel the lack of household support. As a single working parent, I have chosen posts overseas where I have been able to hire staff to help with the chores. I have had a housekeeper/nanny the previous four postings. In Malawi, I also had an amazing gardener who worked wonders with our yard. C has basically outgrown the nanny and we have no yard to garden, but the chores – the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, taking the garbage out, and more – are all now for me. Well, C is certainly old enough to help, so there is that. And, shhhhh, its a bit of a secret, but sometimes I find I even like to do some of it. There is also the lack of support from the Embassy on household repairs. When something needs fixing in our housing overseas you submit a work order and the facilities staff will take care of it. It isn’t always as fast as one would hope, but they get it done. Here, even though I am renting, I do have to manage the apartment more. When we first moved in, a handle broke off the closet door, the fridge water filter needed replacing, the oven started to smoke upon first heating, and the shower curtain bar fell (on top of me). It’s fine. It is just adulting without Embassy support – what the majority of people deal with. But it is something different.

#4. Winter. I am not a fan of the cold. For years now, I have tried my best to implement a winter avoidance strategy. Having lived in Hawaii, California, Florida, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malawi, and Guinea, I think I can say that I have done a fairly good job. Even Ciudad Juarez and Shanghai were rarely very cold and the snow that came once or twice a year was light and short lived. Returning to middle of winter Northern Virginia from always tropical Guinea had been a shock to my well-laid plans. Having culled many of our winter clothes for a multi-year tour in West Africa, we were somewhat unprepared. Though 2023 was fairly mild, the winter of 2024 is predicted to be snowy. I missed D.C.’s major snow storms of the past few years like Snowmaggedon in 2010 and Snowzilla in 2016, but it is possible with several planned years in Washington, that my luck will run out.

#5. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). I love living overseas and have done so for nearly 19 years in the past 30 in nine different countries. Though we have been back in the States for vacation and training, the longest stint, since January 2009, was the year I joined the State Department. I am a Foreign Service Officer, with the key word being “foreign.” In the past year, we have seen friends move to new countries like Ghana, Turkmenistan, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, and Nigeria and others announce their next move to locations such as China, Mongolia, Germany, and Laos. I feel a twinge of envy reading every one of these, knowing the mix of excitement and trepidation when one gets a new assignment and then starts it. I know though that staying here in Washington a bit longer was the right thing to do for myself, my daughter, and the cats. Believe you me, the cats really would like to prolong the time before I next shove them into a carrier for another 30-hour journey.

All-in-all, although I do miss the good things we experience overseas, every place comes with the good and the bad, and the positives far outweigh the negatives here in D.C.

December 11, 2023 by trs

Foreign Service: Domestic Bidding for a Change

How Did I Get Here?

This is not where I expected to be: neither in Washington, D.C. nor bidding for my next job. I expected to still be working in Guinea and to have another year before my next bidding cycle. But, here I am.

It was in 2020 that I last went through the U.S. Foreign Service bidding cycle, when those whose tours are coming to an end apply, or rather “bid,” for their next assignment. With nine months of training and then a planned three-year tour, I expected to work in Guinea until the summer of 2025, with bidding then landing in the fall of 2024. Unfortunately, for a host of reasons, I curtailed from my assignment in Conakry after only six months, and returned to Washington in January 2023.

I landed a great assignment in the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa Unit reviewing application documentation from Afghans who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S.. When Kabul fell and the U.S. made its final withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, I was on my Home Leave between my assignment in Malawi and starting my training for Guinea. As many of my colleagues assisted with the final evacuation or with Afghans resettling in the U.S., I felt useless watching it unfold and not being in a position to assist. With my current posting, I am now able to help in a small way.

Conventional wisdom in the Foreign Service says that an officer should spend the first two tours overseas and the third in D.C. And plenty of people follow this playbook. The thing is everyone knows an exception to the rule, including quite a few high level officers. For me, I figured A. I spent several years working for the federal government in Washington before joining the State Department and B. The high cost of living in and around the nation’s capital is not at all single-parent friendly.

Yet at the beginning of 2023, counter to all my best-laid plans, I found us in Washington. A condition of my curtailment was to work here at least one year, and I was lucky to secure a position for a year and a half. Though a part of me would like to be abroad again, another, much stronger, part could not fathom moving again so soon. We had moved three times in nine months. To Guinea in June 2022, to temporary housing in the States in January 2023, and then into more permanent housing in March 2023. Throw in the second half of our between tours Home Leave with a trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone and then nearly two weeks in a hotel and it’s more upheaval. Add in our departure from Malawi and then Home Leave in Florida in August 2021 and then the move to Virginia in September 2021 for nine months, and the tally is five or six moves in a 20-month period. Guinea was supposed to have been for three years. My daughter, my cats, and me, well, we deserve to settle in for a spell.

And so this is where I found myself: bidding earlier than expected, bidding from a different place than expected, and bidding on different jobs than expected.

On the Auction Block

It is not easy to explain the whack-a-doodle (why yes, this is a diplomatic term) process the Foreign Service has its mid-level diplomats go through to procure their next assignment. Here we are, having already passed a multi-step rigorous entrance exam to join the ranks of the diplomatic corps, every two to four years in a stressful and time consuming competition for our next assignment.

I have bid mid-level twice before. The first time was in 2016, when I tried to compare it to how teenagers might finagle a date to the homecoming dance. My second mid-level bidding session occurred in 2020, smack in the middle of all the weirdness of the first six to eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I attempted to equate bidding to buying a house in a very competitive market. This year though, the whole thing felt more like an auction.

It is not a perfect analogy. Though I have not been to a live auction, I have seen them portrayed in movies and television, and they move with lightning speed. You have an item up for bid, the auctioneer gives a little introduction and then a starting price, and then away it goes. Within minutes the item is sold and the next item is up for bid. The government, however, does not do anything quite that fast. Our bidding is a slow burn that takes place over weeks. We have our catalog of open positions with written descriptions and we set up calls with the incumbent to gather more information. We can see in the system how many people are bidding our target jobs, but we are not in the room with them. We do not know how serious their bids may be, we do not know what they are bringing to the table. They might raise their paddle to express interest, but they can later decide not to make a final offer. We are hoping that our bid package–a combination of our past assignments, references, and interview responses–will make us the highest bidder on at least one of our preferred jobs.

In the early days of the bid season, I felt very much like a competitive bidder. With multiple tours under my belt at different posts (some Consulates, some Embassies, and now a DC job) and in different career tracks (some consular, some political, and now a management designated one), I felt fairly confident as I strode into the virtual auction houses. During interviews I felt like a bidder on the edge of her seat, straining to hold my bid paddle higher than any others, basically yelling “pick-me!” with every response.

However, as the day approached to lock in bids, I felt less like a bidder and more like the auctioneer trying desperately to sell myself, the “as-is” vase sitting alone on the pedestal in the glaring spotlight. “The next item up for bid is this capable mid-level officer with twelve years in the Department. She has both consular and political positions under her belt. She is about as handy as a pocket on your shirt. Let’s start the bidding at….” The power had shifted to the offices, who were now the buyers. Would any one of them bid on me?

Joining the Club of the Unassigned

The bid season lasts approximately eight weeks. For the first five weeks, bidding officers and offices with open positions prepare their respective bid cards, with bidders figuring out which positions will make their official bid list and offices ranking those they interview. At the end of the five weeks, bidders lock in their final five to ten bids in the system and hit submit. During the last three weeks, offices work out who they want. Shortlists of the top three to five candidates are made. Those who make the shortlists are informed. Top candidates will be sent a “Bureau Leading Candidate” (BLC) email about five days before the last day of the official bid season. Offers, called “handshakes,” are sent out on the last day.

I did not receive one.

While many may receive one or more offers on Handshake Day, a good many will not. This year I noticed several emails touting the statistic that 30-50% of positions remained unfilled a month after Handshake Day. Still, though we are told this and we tell one another its normal and not to put too much stock into it, when you see many friends and colleagues posting about their next assignment on the day, it does not feel all that great to be without.

And this was the first time I had not received a handshake on the day. During my first go-round my offer arrived two days late though it was dated handshake day (the bureau, it seemed, had forgotten to send it). In my second mid-level bid season, I received two BLC emails (not really a humble brag — my strategy? Bid jobs with few to no other bidders!), and once I made my preference known, the official offer came on Handshake Day. Nonetheless, this time, I had become an “unassigned bidder.” The auction had closed, and I had been swept off the display table to be stored in a back room until I found an office to proffer me the coveted handshake.

Success at Last!

Luckily, though Handshake Day might be the end of bidding for some, for others this is when things just get going. In this auction, an individual can only be the successful bidder on one item; any unfilled positions are then back in play. A week after Handshake Day, I was back searching the available jobs and found not only a few new-to-me unfilled positions, but also positions still open among my top four choices! Two weeks after the official Handshake Day, I received an offer for one of my original top desired jobs and I readily accepted. The day after I received another and had to turn that one down. All’s well that ends well, I suppose, but I am glad to be done with it, at least for (fingers crossed) two more years.

Our next assignment: Another domestic job in Washington. (I know, the whole title was a spoil alert!) I will be a Career Development Officer, like an assignment counselor, for first and second-tour officers. And for the first time in my Foreign Service career, I will not have to move when I change jobs.

November 20, 2023 by trs

A Weekend Getaway in Lancaster, PA

*Amish carriages parked in the early morning* *in Ronks, PA*

One of the good things about being in the U.S. now are the many opportunities for wonderful weekend getaways. And though my 11-year old is extremely well traveled internationally, she has far less experience in our home country. It is important to me that she has the opportunity to see sights around the U.S. that also introduce her to the variety of cultures, history, people and places that our nation offers.

For the Veteran’s Day weekend, I decided C and I would visit Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I have vague memories of visiting the area when I was a child, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, with a friend and her mom, also a single mother. But other than having spent a day there, I had no other recollections. With good weather and a fair amount of trees still in their autumnal leaf glory, Lancaster seemed a great place to get away from our every day.

*A delicious assortment of macarons at Bistro Barberet*

Our first stop in Lancaster was the Bistro Barberet, an authentic French restaurant and bakery owned and operated by an award winning French chef located in the historic downtown area. C loves French pastries and desserts and insisted she needed some bona fide macarons a.s.a.p. She left with the macarons, which must have passed muster as she ate every one of them (I got none).

Next we headed to the Lancaster Central Market. Founded in 1730 as part of the town’s original design, the market is the longest continuously operating public market in the country. It’s 60-some vendors offer a little bit of the old – from fresh local produce, homemade canned and dried goods, and family-owned meat, seafood, and poultry options – to the new, including Puerto Rican, Thai, and West African foods. Once inside, C immediately made a beeline for the West African stall as she identified the flags of Guinea and Liberia on the stall at once. Though we had not really immersed ourselves into the local food scene in Conakry, the flag was a pleasant reminder of both our personal journey and the international connections around us. C really loved the market. She tried the local favorites like soft pretzels and whoopie pies, and declared the market a wonder that she wished were closer to us.

Hankering for something a bit more substantial for lunch, we headed up the street to Brooklyn Pizza Gril & Pasta. It was a little chilly and overcast with a slight drizzle outside, but the wafting smell of fresh baked pizza, the heat from the ovens, and the cheery welcome from the staff was very welcoming. There are only a few tables and we perched on bar stools at the small table in the window as we chowed down on delicious hot and greasy New York style pizza as upbeat salsa tunes encircled us. Fantastic!

That afternoon we had bookings for the Amish House & Farm tour. For some reason, I thought the tour meeting spot would be just nearby, and when I learned I had a 25-minute drive we made a hasty retreat over. I was a little surprised to find an 1805 farmhouse in a Target-anchored shopping center, but we ended up having a wonderful tour. We started with a 90-minute bus tour through the surrounding countryside accompanied by commentary from the guide on the history and culture of the Amish. We made three stops at Amish businesses along the way. At the first we never even got inside the store as the small petting zoo with adorable goats, the soft pretzel stand, and the large bin of free pumpkins kept C and I plenty busy during the 15-minute break. The second stop was a small single-family run housefront store with handmade goods, many made by the family’s children. At the third, we spent nearly the entire time in the barn as C and several other children from the tour oohed, aahed, and cooed over a little of adorable havapoo puppies for sale. Back at the farmhouse, we had the opportunity for a further 30 minute tour of a mostly typical Amish home. Though I think the puppies were C’s favorite (ok, maybe mine too), the tour was very educational for us both.

*Our “room” at the Red Caboose Motel at Paradise Station in Ronks, PA*

We were to also have a self-guided tour of the adjacent farm, but with the recent time with daylight savings, the farm was far too dark to check out when we finished the house tour. We drove on to our hotel–the delightful Red Caboose Motel in Ronks, PA, where we would spend the next two nights in a renovated train caboose. We loved our room at once – it was cleverly converted and very cosy. C had her choice of 4 bunk beds but chose instead to squeeze in with me in the double; though she often asserts her independence, I think she might have been intimidated by her first stay in what essentially looked like a train yard. Dinner (and the following morning’s breakfast) was hearty portions of Americana in the Casey Jones’ restaurant where patrons sit in two train dining cars.

It is perhaps impossible to capture the pure joy of experiencing this view first hand – the crunch of frost covered grass beneath one’s feet, the evaporating chill still tingling the nose, and the calls of the boys to their horses in the fields

When we woke up the next morning there was frost and a fine mist hovering over the ground. Though chilly and in the upper 30s (Fahrenheit), the sun and sky were bright and clear. Before breakfast, I grabbed my good camera and did a perambulation around the property. The view across the fields was absolutely stunning. I do love our neighborhood in northern Virginia, but though the residential streets are tree-lined and there are plenty of parks, it cannot compare to the beauty of open land. I do not think I am designed for country living, but I sure do enjoy taking time to drink it in.

It was a very good tour. C, who has often seemed bored by house tours, was well-engaged by the former 5th grade art teacher turned tour guide. We were also a small group of six; in addition to C and I there were two 20-something male history buffs and, as luck would have it, a just retired Foreign Service couple. What are the odds? There were a few things that struck me as rather extraordinary about the tour: 1. the 20 minute introductory film makes no bones about the controversy surrounding the man and 2. that so much of the furniture and decor were not only original to the house and family but that we were free to move around (though not touch) the rooms. In nearly every home of a person of such historic value, the rooms are cordoned off in some way, with either carpet runners you must stay on or by stanchions or plastic barriers that allow guests only too close.

We crisscrossed the county again, grabbed lunch at a small mom & pop taqueria, and then headed to the Strasburg railroad where we would board a luxury lounge car for a leisurely 45-minute out-and-back ride on the country’s oldest continuously operating steam train. C’s pre-teen tendencies were beginning to show as she grumpily dropped into her velvet armchair; though the fun of an historic train ride did not perk her up, an cold tea and an M&M brownie did the trick and soon enough she conceded it was sort of interesting. I enjoyed the ride, though would have liked it more had it been a wee bit longer. It felt that as soon as we got going it was time to turn back and then it was over.

After breakfast, C and I headed to Wheatland, the preserved home of the 15th President of the U.S. James Buchanan. Buchanan, thus far the only bachelor president and the only one from Pennsylvania (though some are now divided on that President Joseph Biden was born and lived the first decade of his life in the state before his family relocated to Delaware), was a controversial figure who, though an accomplished statesman, is probably most remembered (when he is remembered) for presiding over the succession of the southern states and the start of the Civil War, which began just six weeks after he left office.

After the train ride, we drove along the back country roads visiting a few of Lancaster’s covered bridges. I had not realized at first that there would be so many such bridges as they are often more associated with New England, but there are at least 20 of them in the county. We passed by four of them, but it was the Kurtz Mill Bridge, dating from 1876, that provided the best opportunity to really see a covered bridge due to its location in the county’s central park.

*C leaps at the Kurtz Mill Covered Bridge*

On Sunday morning, I took one last stroll around the Red Caboose Motel grounds, listening for the clip-clopping of the Amish carriages on their way to a friend’s or neighbor’s home. C and I then packed up and made one final stop in Lancaster, so I could take a photo of the Lancaster County Prison, which the mid-18th century town leaders decided should be built like an English castle. Just another unique feature of Lancaster, I suppose.

I was reluctant to depart and head home; it was a great weekend away.

September 27, 2023 by trs

The Amazing Summer 2023 European Vacay, Part Six: Strasbourg on My Own

The six installment of our summer 2023 European adventures.

*The stunning beauty of Strasbourg, including the beautiful Alsatian buildings*

After I made sure that my daughter C was settled into her dormitory at the Euro Space Center summer camp in Libin, Belgium, I set off on my solo journey; I had a four hour drive ahead of me.

I drove west from Libin back to through Luxembourg once again, my third time that day, skirting the capital and heading south. Then I drove into Germany, my second time that day, though further south than Trier. With little to mark European borders these days, it was the switch from a speed limit marking on my GPS to none, signaling I had arrived on the speed limitless autobahn. Then past passing north of Saarbrucken I turned south and crossed into France. I had no plans for the rest of the day other than arriving at my hotel; only I wanted to do it before dark. But it was northern Europe in midsummer and the sun would set close to 9:30 PM, so I had time.

*Alsatian buildings are often adorned like this one in the Strasbourg city center*

I love the late nights of summer. I have spent a lot of time in countries and locations within 15 degrees of the equator – Hawaii, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malawi, Guinea – where the length of the day remains fairly constant throughout the year. Behind the wheel I drank in the soft golden glow of the sinking sun of early evening on the green fields and large barrel rolls of hay set at intervals alongside the highway. And then on the rooftops of small villages as I approached my destination on smaller roads.

My destination: Strasbourg, the capital of the historical and cultural Alsatian region of France. I have long wanted to visit Alsace; I am a big fan of history and the political battles over Alsace figure prominently in European history. The back and forth between France and Germany has created a unique blend of the two countries’ influences.

I arrived just in time to check in to my hotel and to watch the tendrils of sunlight disappear over the cathedral. And then the rains started.

*I waited patiently for the crowds to disperse to get this evocative shot of the Strasbourg Cathedral*

On Monday morning, I woke early to grab food and get a head start on my sightseeing but found that it was pouring rain. We had had good weather for just about every day of our trip thus far so it was bound to happen, but I was disappointed nonetheless. Slowly eating breakfast with an eye on the weather paid off as the rain slowed enough to allow for a walk. I grabbed my umbrella and walked the 15 minutes to the city center. Even under grey skies, the old town is stunningly beautiful. The largely late-Middle Ages built, half-timbered homes with their steeply pitched roofs and dormer windows, decorative and decorated facades, and creative old-fashioned business signs standing alongside canals or huddled together tightly on cobblestone streets were delightful. I tried to make the most of walking along the streets, but there were a lot of tourists and it was not easy to manage crowded, narrow medieval streets with umbrellas. And honestly, the architecture begs one to look up, which even the light rain made difficult.

I joined the long line to enter the imposing Strasbourg Cathedral, a masterpiece of gothic art that is also a centerpiece of the city’s UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Construction began on the cathedral in 1015 and was completed in 1439. From 1647 to 1847, the cathedral held the title of the tallest building in the world. I have been to many of the world’s tallest buildings, but the Strasbourg Cathedral is still one of the most architecturally ingenious in its gothic beauty (and it remains the sixth-tallest church in the world and the tallest surviving structure built entirely during the Middle Ages).

*The money shot – good luck coins tossed on the cap of one of the Cathedral statues as I descended*

Once inside the church I realized the dim lighting, the more so for the grey skies, and the crowds of people driven to seek sightseeing out of the rain, was not something I wanted to deal with right then. Instead I wandered the quieter streets in the historic area for some time and then sought out a small Italian place where I nursed a delicious bowl of steaming pasta and a cup of tea for a little while. Then with it still drizzling, I headed back to my hotel room to sit by my balcony with a good book.

I, and every other tourist in Strasbourg, could not believe our good luck when that afternoon all of the rain clouds dispersed to be replaced by stunningly azure skies. Not wanting to miss any more time exploring the city, I set off, returning first to the cathedral. This time I opted to head for the side door where I could pay a small entrance fee to climb the 332 steps of a narrow, winding staircase to the viewing platform 216 feet above. The staircases (one for up, one for down) are on the exterior walls of the cathedral with lots of windows given the climber regular views, higher and higher, above the square, until the breathtaking panoramic view across the city at the top. The trip is not for the faint-hearted, especially those with a fear of heights, given the regular reminders of just how far up one is from the ground. I had to make way for one of those individuals, a pale and distressed young woman, clearly desiring to return to ground level as soon as possible, who was descending the up staircase.

Afterwards, I headed to the Petite-France, one of the most picturesque parts of the already picturesque Grande Ile of Strasbourg. Petite-France, once the home of the city’s tanners, millers, and fishermen, where channels and canals, fronted by some of the best of the city’s medieval Alsatian homes, are crossed by charming little bridges. I did not visit any museums; I just walked. By now it was 7 PM, so most places were closed, but with the long day, the early evening sun basked the city in a bright golden glow. I walked through the town sights for as long as I could with good sunlight.

*Part of the astronomical clock, showing the day of the week*

The following day, Tuesday, the morning was again overcast with light rain. I headed out early to the Cathedral once more. At the 8:30 AM opening there was no line and I was one of the first people inside. I took 30 minutes to peacefully explore, making sure to visit the extraordinary mid-19th century astronomical clock that tells the time, solar time, and date and features stationary and moving figures. Then it was time to leave. I made it back to the hotel to pack up though my departure was delayed due to a sudden strong downpour. Things were again looking poor on the weather front, but after 30 minutes, the skies cleared and I headed on to my next destination.

I had just an hour’s drive to the Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg, a medieval castle built on a strategic rocky promontory 2500 feet above the plains. The nearly 1,000-year-old castle is reportedly one of France’s finest examples of a mountain fortress and also one of Alsace’s most visited sites. Unfortunately for me, despite the dodgy weather report, no one seemed put off visiting. Near the top of the mountain, traffic slowed to a crawl as the cars ahead waited for a parking spot. I sat in my car, inching forward each minute, for at least an hour (!) before finally scoring a coveted spot, still a good 10-minute walk downhill from the castle. Inside the line for tickets was also long and it took at least half an hour for me to get mine. Then, just as I entered the castle, it began to rain.

*A view of the Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle and the Alsatian plain*

The first part of the visit involves some courtyards and drafty, covered areas open partially to the elements. For the first time during my trip, I felt chilled. It had always been a possibility in northern Europe, even in summer, to be cold. Years ago, when I first traveled to Amsterdam in a late 1990s July, I arrived with just shorts and T-shirts and was forced to buy some pants and a sweatshirt that I ended up wearing for three straight days to be warm. I had packed a pair of sweatpants, a sweater, a rain jacket, and a fleece to prepare for the possibility of cooler weather, especially in Norway, but had unfortunately left all these accoutrements in my car. I ducked into a covered corner for a good 20 minutes to wait out the worst of the rain.

Luckily, after running across an open and wet corridor, the next part of the castle was largely indoors. And by the time the tour spilled out into the open again the rain slowed and then stopped and the sun came out again. It was there to light my way down the mountain and on to the next destination.

March 20, 2023 by trs

Time to Come Clean: Curtailing from Conakry

There is no one path in the Foreign Service. Generalists like myself and specialists, who may work as IT, office management, medical, or security experts, will naturally have different jobs and pathways (for example security personnel have more domestic assignments that are in more places around the U.S.) and there are differences between the generalist’s cones (Political, Economic, Management, Public Affairs, and Consular), yet even within a cone there is a wide difference from one person’s career to the next. There are those who may spend most of their career overseas, rarely spending time in Washington. I know at least one person that I can point to that in a 20+ year career has done only one two-year tour in Washington. Others may spend more time in DC. Some prefer hardship posts – going from Monrovia to Haiti to Caracas and Tegucigalpa. Others somehow end up in mostly “garden” posts: from Costa Rica to Taiwan to Iceland and Latvia. Still, others like to alternate their hardship and plum postings.

*One of Conakry’s many, many billboards. This is reportedly part of the country’s rebranding as the government attempts to attract tourists and investment*

I have mostly pursued postings in locations often considered more challenging (though any post, even in the most developed and beautiful of locations can have its challenges). I also wanted to experience different aspects of the Foreign Service life. I have been to both Embassies (Lilongwe and Conakry and even Jakarta in my Defense Department days) and Consulates (Ciudad Juarez and Shanghai). Also, large posts (Ciudad Juarez and Shanghai) and small (Lilongwe and Conakry). I went to a post with danger pay (Ciudad Juarez had 15% danger pay at the time). I went to posts with language requirements (Ciudad Juarez, Shanghai, and Conakry) and without (Lilongwe). I went to posts that allowed for a consumable allowance to bring in additional foodstuffs and other disposable goods (Lilongwe and Conakry). I went to posts with paid-for Rest & Relaxation tickets (Shanghai, Lilongwe, Conakry). I extended at one post (Lilongwe) which resulted in doing a mid-tour home leave. And now, I have added another foreign service experience: curtailing from a post.

A curtailment is the cutting short of a tour of duty. So, surprise! C and I have left Guinea.

I never thought I would curtail from a tour. I knew Guinea would not be a walk in the park, that it would have challenges, of course. Honestly, for me, that was part of the appeal. But Guinea proved much harder than I expected.

I will miss views like this from our 23rd floor Kakimbo Towers apartment. Sun near us as rain clouds gather over the mangrove forests to Conakry’s southeast. Also, the view into the Peul neighborhood behind Kakimbo, Rue de Prince, and the Bambeto traffic circle.

It is difficult to pinpoint any one thing that led to the decision as it was a combination of so many things. First and foremost: I did not arrive at this tough assignment 100%. Like many people, the COVID-19 pandemic wore me down. I pushed through the first 16 months of it in Lilongwe. Not that it was easy, but it started off novel, even oddly exciting, and we were in a country and me in a job where we had already been for over 2 1/2 years before the pandemic. Then it was back to the U.S. for Home Leave and 9 1/2 months of training on Zoom as the pandemic continued. The French language training had not been good for me. Perhaps it was the combination of online training, teachers whose style did not work for me, and pandemic fatigue, but when I headed to Conakry at the end of June 2022, I was mentally drained.

Timing is an important factor in life, and I now believe that arriving at the beginning of summer was an unfortunate one for us. After this experience, I do not think I would want to do that at any post, though in a hardship, difficult-to-staff post like Conakry, I think it was all the worse. I arrived at a gutted Embassy. The summer transfer season was already in full swing with many positions gapped as predecessors had departed and their successor not yet arrived. This included my own section. The previous Political/Economic Chief had departed in early April; her successor would not arrive until mid-August. The Economic Officer was on a two-week holiday for my first two weeks. One of our locally employed staff political assistants was in DC on training. Another was sick my first week. An eligible family member hire left a few days after my arrival with no replacement lined up. The locally employed economic assistant position was vacant for over six months. Basically, in my normally eight-person section there were two of us, and I was brand new.

*I liked this painted advertisement mural and am a bit sad I never did get to try Guini Cola.*

Other staff at the Embassy basically fell into three categories: short timers who had little time to talk with me as they were leaving post the next day, the next week, or two weeks later; those about to leave on long summer vacations; and those frazzled individuals covering two or more positions due to the vacancies. No one seemed to have time for us. Now for myself, I had my job. A job that I was struggling to work out as issues immediately cropped up and I had little or no information to go on and few people to ask, but still, I had something to focus on. My daughter, however, arrived at the beginning of a long summer holiday knowing no one. Twelve school-aged children in the Embassy community had just departed; only C had arrived. The remaining Embassy kids all departed on six-week holidays within two weeks of our arrival. Every last one of them. Other Guinean and expat kids in our building also took off on long holidays. I felt bad leaving my daughter at home with a brand-new nanny who spoke little English, while C spoke little French.

Once school began in late August and the vacationing kids returned, C quickly began to make friends, but that rough beginning had already colored our experience. But it was only some of the many issues.

There were also the protests. We had demonstrations in Malawi too. There were several marches against corruption starting in 2018 and then many protests against the flawed elections of May 2019. In my experience, though, there were two big differences between the Malawi protests and those we saw in Guinea: In Malawi, the demonstrations tended to occur in the old town area, on the other side of town, or in the newer part of the capital where Parliament and government ministries were located (as well as the U.S. Embassy), i.e. away from our residences; the ones in Guinea, however, were more violent and much closer to home.

*Police set fire to makeshift shelters in the ravine in front of Kakimbo after forcibly removing the squatters. The acrid smoke lingered for hours.*

Just a week after arriving, protests erupted around the Bambeto traffic circle over the sudden arrests of several opposition leaders. Bambeto is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Embassy and Kakimbo Towers. From our apartment, we could watch the scenes unfold down below as young protestors played a game of cat and mouse with Guinean security forces. As we heard gunfire, we received Embassy notifications that Kakimbo residents should stay away from the windows. C’s bedroom, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, faced that direction.

One might think that on the 23rd floor we would be just fine, and maybe so, but four weeks after our arrival, there were more protests around Bambeto with bullets piercing windows on the 15th and 17th floors. All in all, in our first four months in Conakry there were 11 protests that left at least 11 dead, hundreds injured, and more arrested. There was a time when a protest began on a Friday afternoon, and I was downtown at a work event. Due to traffic avoiding the main thoroughfare Rue de Prince, auxiliary roads became parking lots. It took my colleague and I nearly 2.5 hours to travel the nine miles from the Justice Ministry to the Embassy. All the while I was wondering about my daughter and nanny and if I would be able to get home. One protest day we were asked to stay away from the windows on both sides of the apartment as on one side police action involved firearms against demonstrations and on the other side police were setting fire to squatter homes in the nearby ravine.

C and I were also twice nearly blocked from entering the Kakimbo compound gates when protests erupted while we were out at school functions. We could also look down into the neighborhood behind us and, on one particularly vivid occasion, we watched the security forces in riot gear methodically moving through the winding streets, searching homes, launching tear gas, occasionally shots to the air, while we could also see persons, including children, fleeing. While I found the protests both disturbing and politically fascinating, I grew concerned with how C had become inured to the sound of small arms fire.

There was also the traffic. Oh, the traffic. It affected everything. It made shopping and work meetings held outside the Embassy or travel anywhere in or out of the city all the longer. Nearly every blog post I have written about Guinea includes a traffic-induced delay anecdote. Sometimes I found it amusing, but always I found it exhausting.

C was also struggling with some aspects of school. I had hoped the small American international school would be able to give her the individual attention she needed, but her mathematics skills, not strong to begin with and only eroded during the pandemic, were apparently too far behind for her to catch up.

It was a privilege to work on the issues that allowed me to attend the opening of the historic September 28 Massacre trial and the opening of the country’s first official shelter for trafficking victims.

It was all of this and more – the lack of domestic travel opportunities and expense of international trips (i.e. the $1400 I had to pay to change our flights to Belgium in August due to protests potentially blocking access to the airport), the lack of families in the Embassy community and the isolation that brought in general and more so as a single parent, the difficulty in finding activities outside school for C, including facing the strong likelihood of her spending several long, lonely summers, and, let me be frank, difficulties I faced in trying to keep up with all the aspects of my own portfolio of human rights and politics during a particularly fraught political period in Guinea. I had the opportunity to work on some truly fascinating issues and my little political officer heart hummed happily, but my stress levels and mental exhaustion were high. I worked extra hours in the evenings and on weekends and had trouble sleeping. The situation was untenable.

Though it was a dark time for me when this came to a head, I am glad that I reached out to folks, and I found a lot of support. Although curtailment is not talked about often, and almost seems like a dirty word, it is not uncommon. Someone in a position to know told me that there is on average a curtailment by someone, somewhere every single week. And when I shared my news with friends, I found that I knew at least a dozen people who had also curtailed at some point in their careers. Every single one of them told me that it was the right decision for them.

I do not regret C and I going to Conakry. I was able to see some amazing progress on some key issues in a country that is on the cusp of great possibilities. It remains to be seen whether the government and the people can surmount the current problems and emerge better on the other side, but the opportunities are there. For years the country has promised but not delivered a trial to hold accountable those responsible for a September 28, 2009 stadium massacre and yet on the 13th anniversary of the event the government did just that. I spent a lot of time on this issue. Trafficking in persons is also a major issue for political officers and I was able to meet with many government officials and civil society working to counter this. I also worked with a great team on the professionalization and capacity building of the country’s police force. The Guinean staff in the Political/Economic section were absolutely amazing, though I found wonderful Guineans throughout our Embassy working alongside us to improve their country. We made some great friends and, despite the short time, got out to enjoy some of the culture and beauty of Guinea.

At the end of the year, C’s school held a “winter” concert and a craft fair. As I perused the craft tables, I came across this beautiful wood carving of the Nimba, the symbol of Guinea. Versions of this goddess can be found around the capital, from a roundabout in the old town to statues in lobbies of hotels or at the airport. The Nimba is a symbol of the Baga people of coastal West Africa, with a large concentration in present-day Guinea. The Nimba represents the mother of fertility, who is a protector of pregnant women and who presides over agricultural ceremonies. The Nimba represents the joy of living and the promise of an abundant harvest.

Knowing that we would soon leave Conakry, I bought it — my sole souvenir from Guinea. It is very fitting that I carry this symbol of Guinea with me. It is a symbol of joy and promise and new beginnings. I hope for both Guinea and for me and C.

November 14, 2022 by trs

Conakry: Living the High Life

Housing at overseas post is crucial. Where you live can really make or break an assignment. If one’s place is isolated from most or all of the Embassy/Consulate community, or makes for a long commute to the Embassy/Consulate or the school, or the place is especially dark or a myriad of repairs are necessary, these could all make one’s tour more challenging. I believe that at more difficult posts, the housing is even more important.

I have had pretty good luck with my housing. Though I have not always been assigned my first choice from the housing questionnaire and there were certainly times I experienced some housing envy (I am especially looking at you Jakarta), each of my government assigned homes have been very good. In Conakry, we hit the proverbial lottery and were placed in the capital’s most exclusive address: the Kakimbo Residences.

Also known as the les tours jumelles de Kakimbo or the Twin Towers of Kakimbo, the four-year old building stands 100 meters (328 feet) tall with 27 floors. It is the tallest building in Guinea by a long shot and is one of the tallest in West Africa. In my not very scientific online research I found only three other countries in the region with taller buildings – Nigeria, Togo, and Cote d’Ivoire – and only 20 countries on the African continent with a taller structure. Guinea may be one of the poorest countries in the world (despite its vast and mostly untapped natural resources), but it has put itself on the map with the Kakimbo Towers.

*A bird’s eye view of the Bambeto area of Conarky; the green field just before the sea is the airport; mangroves to the back left*

We do not live on the 27th floor, but we are close to the top. We have tremendous views across both sides of the peninsula. From one side we can see the runway of the Ahmed Sekou Toure International Airport, a mere three kilometers away, and watch the few planes take off and land. We can see the blue waters of the sea and the seemingly empty green mangroves that border the packed city.

Though Conakry is not known to have a lot of green space, from our height we can see a surprising amount of trees. In the neighborhood directly behind our building we watch life go on down below. We watch school kids in uniform walking down the dusty streets. We see games of soccer on those same roads — the players just pick up the ball when cars pass by and then resume the game as the vehicle passes. We see laundry being hung to dry.

The Bambeto traffic circle is often a bottleneck. The three kilometers to the airport can take an hour or more to drive. That was before the construction began to turn that traffic circle into an overpass; Now it is even worse. Before heading to the supermarket or the Embassy I can get an idea of how backed up the traffic is with a quick glance out the window.

On protest days, we watch as the crowds of youth surge from the side streets on to the main Rue Le Prince. There we can watch the demonstration play out in real time but in miniature. Youth advancing and throwing. Then the trucks of the police and gendarmerie advancing; tear gas canisters emitting smoke. The protestors running to the side streets. Then youth slinking back out to challenge the law enforcement again. Makeshift barriers of tires set alight. Back and forth.

It can feel odd observing all of these goings on from on high.

*A 180 degree view from my balcony toward the northern part of the Kaloum peninsula*

On the other side of the apartment the views are no less spectacular. My legs always feel a wee bit jelly-like as I step out on our balcony. It is a long way down! Looking out though one can see so much greenery – a massive, verdant ravine stands between the Kakimbo property and that of the U.S. Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To our right we can watch dawn break over the distant hills where the peninsula broadens and meets Kindia prefecture and to the left see the setting sun swiftly sink into the sea in a bed of cotton candy pink clouds. From high above we can also see the deep red of Guinea’s soil that produces so much in the way of the fruits and vegetables we see in roadside markets. Much of the exposed earth near Kakimbo though is obviously being cleared for plots where government buildings will be moving from the crowded historic heart of downtown Conakry. In just four months I have watched two new roads through these areas be prepared, graded, paved, and opened.

From our apartment I feel I can see Conakry’s potential spread out before me. From that height, most everything looks beautiful, innocuous, possible.

*View through the clouds – just some of the ravine, some shapes of buildings with early morning lights, and the tip of the radio tower are visible.*

We are often in the clouds. I have looked out more than once and seen wet streets below but no precipitation, and assumed any rain had stopped, only to go downstairs and find it is pouring. As we were above the clouds, we didn’t see the rain.

Storms have a way of magnifying around Kakimbo. In Shanghai, we lived on the 19th floor of a 30 story building, but there were similarly tall buildings all around us. Here though, Kakimbo stands solitary. Nothing else is as tall for miles. When the wind really whips up, the clouds fly past the windows, and drafts send high pitched whistles through the apartment. The air pressure pops panels in the ceiling of the bathrooms. In our early months, in the height of the rainy season, I could not sleep through the night for all the odd creaks and groans and whistles.

Despite the height, it is not all that quiet. Sounds float up easily. Conakry is a real city. It is a busy, chaotic place. In Lilongwe, our single story ranch style home not far from the city center, was often quiet in the evenings. The noises were that of nature, of night birds singing, bats flying, the whirl of termites in the early months of the rainy season. Cars were rare in the evenings. Here, however, the traffic seems non-stop. Certainly weekdays and daytime hours are the busiest, but I can look out at any time of the night and find a steady stream of vehicles on the roads below. Their tinny, angry beeps reaching my ears at all hours.

There are pleasant sounds too. Roosters crowing, when far enough away, have a lovely ring. There must be many roosters in the neighborhood behind Kakimbo. Also goats, as I regularly hear their soft bleating, usually on weekends as I putter around my kitchen making breakfast. Guinea is a majority Muslim country and the competing calls to prayer of nearby mosques drift and linger in the air. I have not always had a warm relationship with the adhan. I recall in particular being brusquely woken at 4 am by a pre-recorded muezzin call broadcast loudly on a scratchy megaphone in the mosque next to my cheap accommodation in western Java. But here, with the height, it is euphonious.

There is also a commuter train, the “Conakry Express,” which transports folks from the Conakry suburbs to the tip of the Kaloum peninsula. There is a stop at the western end of the ravine and the train’s whistle as it approaches and leaves the station is audible from my apartment. I have lived near trains before – in Georgia and Japan – and just the right amount of distance can turn the drawn-out “toot-toot” into something soothing.

*Our swimming pool with water features and the authentic Thai massage room*

The amenities of the Kakimbo are without match in Conakry. There are two restaurants; one stand alone at the entrance to the grounds where weddings, happy hours, and other events are regularly held and another on the 27th floor of the East Tower. There is a large pool divided one part into swimming lanes and the other graced with water features – from submerged chaise lounges with massaging jets to power showers. Next to the pool is a sauna and a hammam. Below the pool are the tennis courts, basketball court, and sand volleyball court.

On the first basement floor there is a gym, squash court, karaoke room, and a yoga/dance room. For games there are pool tables, ping pong tables, foosball, and those basketball games you find in arcades where you have to sink as many baskets within a certain amount of time. But here the coins are included, thus unlimited games are free. I have spent quite a bit of time down there perfecting my arcade free throw. I plan to sweep the tickets next time I am at a Dave & Busters. There is also a Thai massage room with actual masseuses from Thailand here on one year working visas. And on the first floor there is a mini mart. Shopping is time consuming with the traffic and the need to go to two or three stores to get maybe half of what you need for at least three times the price it would be at home. To be able to get the basics from salt to soy sauce, bread to bottled water, or toilet paper and shampoo, milk and eggs just downstairs makes life in Conakry a wee bit easier.

Living in Kakimbo has many advantages, though disadvantages too. Not all is rosy here. The electricity goes out about once a day for example. Twice all the outlets on one side of the apartment stopped working. There are those wild winds whipping around the building during storms and sometimes stray bullets from police actions against protests. One is in Conakry and yet oddly removed. Though I freely acknowledge this I am also quite sure that living here was the best decision for C and I.

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