Wine, sheep and lakes - Fabulous New Zealand

After Sydney, we flew to the magical quiet lands of New Zealand. Lovers of the wine, we chose the South Island (of Marlborough wine country fame) and booked ourselves into the cutest orchard farm ever in the pretty winery-infested town of Blenheim. Once upon a time a winery, the Ryland Estate is now purely a fruit producing farm, which also offers accommodations in a fabulous refurbished barn. The owners were amazing, giving us fruit and veggies every day (peaches, PEACHES!!! PEARS!! people, I have forgotten what THOSE were like), and entertaining Son on the tractor every afternoon while I pranced around in ungraceful poses attempting rudimentary Pilates on the lawn in front of the barn. They observed me in quiet amusement and then turned on the sprinklers on me.

The estate was smack dab in the middle of all the local wineries, which meant, of course, that we spent our days wine tasting, then stopping for lunch at some winery for a sumptuous feast of locally produced organic stuff like cheeses, venison salami and lamb skewers. Naturally, life without tennis is simply no life for the Diplomat, so even before we had reached New Zealand he had already found the local tennis clubs. What's more, we even found the local social hour and so we found ourselves playing tennis on the afternoons. Son found similarly bored children to play with at the tennis courts and to occasionally rush onto the court right when I was about to yield my finishing blow to the opponent (a 75-year old woman with disturbing agility) to tell me he would like to bring some stones home. We also made a trip to the green lip mussels capital of the world - Havelock (yup, we had mussels and they were spectacular) -  and drove through the drop-dead gorgeous Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton, a 35 km scenic drive over the Marlborough Sounds.

I am officially hooked on Savignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs. If you are planning a trip out there, you simply MUST stay either in a vineyard (several places there offer accommodations) or at Ryland like we did. There is nothing like waking up in the crisp, cool morning, frying some locally produced bacon and fresh eggs from the neighbors, gulping those down with french pressed coffee and jumping on the road to taste some wine next door. We unreasonably bought a bottle every time we tasted somewhere, which meant that we had to go home and drink it since we could bring back to Dhaka only so much. We tried some of the Blenheim vineries' best: Cloudy Bay, Giesen, Wairau River, Allan Scott (whose delicious wine I am drinking as I am writing this!!!), Nautilus, Herzog, Rock Ferry, and No 1 (for some real authentic French methode traditionelle  sparkling goodness). They were all amazing, don't have a favorite. Go there and drink. And if you are wondering what Son was doing while we were gallivanting through the vineyards, here you go:

The child loves to draw, God bless him. In the remaining time he was just running around the beautiful vineyards, screaming with delight. Thank goodness that he is dead cute, so people around us thought he was adorable rather than annoying and almost no one gave us dirty looks for bringing a kid into the tasting rooms.  

From delightful Blenheim, we took an overnight roadtrip to Queenstown. New Zealand is PACKED with sheep, PACKED!! Everywhere you go on the road, you will see the idyllic sight of a trillion cute sheared (must be the season) sheep, gleefully nibbling on grass and bleating contentedly. The view gets diversified from time to time with large, happy cows munching grass as well. And finally, you will get a glimpse of quite a few deer farms, which could be quite striking for city people like us.

Deer farm

On the way to Queenstown we stopped to gaze thoughtfully at the picturesque Lake Tekapo, surrounded by hordes of backpackers and motel signs aimed for backpackers. New Zealand is a backpacker country. Not sure why, nothing (especially NOT its prices) screams "backpacker" to me. And yet there they are, with ginormous backpacks on their backs, and added smaller versions hanging from their fronts, two shopping bags of stuff hanging from each hand. And then they hitchhike. I have to be honest, unless I am driving a cargo plane, I simply cannot see how I could give a lift to such loaded mules. But it must work or otherwise they won't be there, I suppose. I am sure there is some sort of dubious romanticism about traveling that way, but boy, watching them, I was so glad that I was a grown up, let me tell ya.

Queenstown was a delight. Truly touristy (there was even a Louis Vuitton store on the main street), it was nevertheless beautiful, unassuming, unpretentious, filled with restaurants and sheep wool stores. First order of business for the Diplomat was to check the local tennis club, hoping for some real grass courts. Courts there were and quite pretty too, but sadly there were no partners to play with. With a broken heart, the Diplomat led Son to the nearby lake where Son fed the ducks to his heart's content (an elderly Chinese lady had brought a large loaf of bread, which she happily shared with Son). And then when there was no more bread, the ducks tried to eat Son, which was met with shrieks and horror and frantic running around the park. The child had no fear though - the next day he pestered me so much that I gave up and went to buy bread to feed the damn birds again. This time we went to the pier, and also go some olives and a small bottle of bubbly and  shared the bread with the residing ducks and seagulls. Some ducks decided to take a particularly direct approach to the bread and went under the table where we were sitting. From there, they took to biting the Diplomat's legs poignantly to get his attention after sensing his lack of interest in the entire feeding affair. He was not amused.

New Zealand was fantastic. While the Diplomat found it boring at times (the man would love nothing better than to sit at home every night after a 5-hour tennis game and then watch some more tennis on TV but found NZ lacking in action...really?), I thought it was the perfect detox to our insane hectic lives in Dhaka. I definitely have something to show for it now - entire 6 lbs more on my waist, behind and thighs. I have to say - wine, lamb and bread every day is not a diet for runway models!

About Sydney

I am happy to report that we are currently on our second Rest and Recuperation trip, richly deserved by both the Diplomat and me since in the past one month we have both worked our little governmental tails off. As I have previously writtent, Rest and Recuperation, or R&R as it is lovingly known throughout the Foreign Service, is a wonderful perk given by the State Department to foreign service officers serving in more challenging posts. In short, State will pay for the plane tickets for your family to go either to the U.S. or to a designated R&R spot for your post (that spot varies - for most of South and East Asia, the spot is Sydney; for most of South America- Maimi; for Africa- London or Paris; you get the idea). If you serve in Afhganistan, you get 3 R&Rs in one year. In Bangladesh, we get 1 per year. In Paris you get zilch because guess what - you already ARE on a freaking R&R!

We chose to go to Sydney and from there to New Zealand where we are currently ruining our health by eating stupid quantities of lamb, mussels and helping those down with generous quantities of fantastic local wine. I really liked Sydney – to be perfectly honest, I always thought that the city had 3 skyscrapers and the rest was bush around it. People would wear fleece and Birkenstocks, carry fannie packs, drink beer and be jolly all the time. Turns out - not to so much. At all.

Sydney is a VERY modern city. Like, VERY. Downtown has plenty of shiny skyscrapers, luxury brands’ boutiques, a fast and efficient transportation system, gazillion restaurants, coffeeshops, cafes, bistros, and American fast food chains! All businessmen wear blue shirts. In fact, I am pretty much convinced that there must be an Australian law about appropriate male business attire in the city, (although I DID see one guy who was wearing a pale pink shirt, but he clearly looked very uncomfortable and ostracized – it must have been laundry day in his house). All women are VERY fit, and dressed particularly well, along with a steady stream of solid high heels. I felt my old New Yorker again!

Sydey is also wonderful for kids. They have amazing parks for children. Son spent a morning in the Darling Harbor in an amazing park filled with climbing and sliding contraptions, as well as a hundren water-based toys like mini dams, fountains, and other impossible to describe physics projects that was delighting the screaming, wet kids in the heat. We were not prepared for this, so Son was reduced to running around the playground in his Thomas underwear to preserve his pants and shirt from soaking. He insisted on taking his underwear off as well. As proud as I was of his free spirit, I had enough brains to insist on keeping the undies on. As a result, once we managed to extricate him from there, we had to take the wet undies off, put on his shorts on a naked butt, and hang the undies to dry on the camera bag. As a result, they delightfully flapped in the warm Sydney air as we walked around exploring the city. So, I really liked Sydney.

Sydney is also obscenely expensive. We couldn't comprehend it – a cup of coffee was an incredible $5 (US and Australian dollars are roughly the same value), a glass of beer $9. I know I have lived in Bangladesh for the past 18 months and that has thrown off my pricing guide somewhat, but even in New York’s little pretentious Soho coffeehouses coffee wouldn't be that pricey. A normal dinner for 2.5 people, including a bottle of wine, in a normal, non-fancy place would amount to a solid $120-50. Since the Diplomat was sporting an especially unforgiving and homely South Indian afro, I sent him to get himself a haircut – I figured modern Sydney would be a good place to give him a nice refreshing look. There were two barbershops below our hotel, which advertised $10 cuts. Sadly, they only offered 2 styles – the Pensioner and the Crew cut. So, the Diplomat walked around and found himself a nice simple salon. $55 later (???) and he came back with very little hair, combed in an entirely wrong direction, with a wad of hair on top, arranged in some semi-confused pouf a la Gangnam style. We were definitely taken aback by the cost of living in Australia until our local friends explained to us that salaries in Ozzie-land were commensurately high. Eh, more power to them.

Sydney officials are also exceptionally rude. So much for my delusion that everyone there was happy and friendly, and “G’day mate”-ing everyone else. On day 2, exhausted from the spectacular walking regime I had imposed on my troops, we decided to take a local bus to see the Opera House. We tried to buy bus tickets before getting on the bus, and for a solid 30 minutes were sent on a wild goose chase into the train terminal, where an elderly gentleman with hearing issues offered us a $44 bus ticket each. Horrified, we ran away. Fed up with the search for the elusive bus tickets, I suggested that we get on the bus, hope we can buy them on board and pretend that we are stupid tourists if we couldn’t. The opera was literally 3 stops away anyway. Not so fast. We climbed stealthily (or so we thought) through the back door of the bus and sat down, beaming. Immediately, all heads turned to us like we had tails coming from our pants or something. No one said a word and then the driver slowly looked back and yelled in incomprehensible Ozzie accent something about the back door and that I should go to him immediately. I surmised that I should, and walked to the front like a school girl called into the principal’s office. Once there, he gave us a rude tongue-lashing on the subject of the impropriety of getting on the bus from the back door (“NEVER get in from the back door, NEVER, you hear me?? Never!!”) and yelled at us to get out of the bus immediately and go buy ourselves some tickets from a convenience store. I have rarely felt so humiliated in my adult life.

Similarly, on our last day there, we happily went to the Qantas counter at Sydney airport to check-in for our flight to New Zealand. Giddy with excitement, despite the 6 am hour, I approached the counter and prepared to hand in our passports to the clerk. Suddenly, he barked at me, “Where are your boarding passes????”” Huh?? I thought we get boarding passes AT check-in, NOT before that. WTF? I meekly responded that I did not have them. He demanded an itinerary. I did not have that either, I was a real transgressor. Forgive me, but nowadays airlines elsewhere in the world (well, except for India) never ask for printed materials as they can retrieve your info at the touch of a button. Not Mr. Ticket Police here. He began hissing at me that I MUST have a printed ticket or itinerary and demanded that I tell him when we were coming back from New Zealand. He became even more agitated since we were flying into Christchurch and then coming back from Queenstown. I began fearing he might go into apoplectic shock soon – he began typing furiously something on his computer and within 2.3 seconds naturally found us and our entire itinerary. He announced that fact to us loudly, and then scowled that he was under NO obligation to do that for us and that he cannot be expected to have time to do that for everyone since he is very busy with other passengers. There wasn’t a soul behind us…What cracked me up the most, I think, is his serious concern that since we have no printed itinerary, we clearly were plotting to abscond and probably work illegally on mussels’ fishing ships or something like that. Nevermind our American diplomatic passports or anything. Always be vigilant for those potential illegal immigrants to New Zealand. Eventually, he did issue us the boarding passes but he did look like he was undergoing an enema in the process.

New Zealanders, on the other hand, are lovely people.

The CODEL

The last weeks have been so hectic that I can hardly believe it has only been 2 weeks since I last wrote. In fact, it got a little too much even for me and I fell sick and missed tennis tonight. Sigh. Part of the craziness is clearly self-inflicted. For the past 2 weeks, I MC-ed 2 fashion shows, one Mardi Gras party of 175, went to 4 receptions (one with Dr. Yunus of Grameen Bank fame!), squeezed in some private dinners, worked an American Chamber of Commerce in Dhaka trade show (with all of its welcome dinners, welcome receptions, and good-bye dinners), met a CODEL, even double-booked a few nights (which I dearly regretted afterwards). After one such double-booked night about 10 days ago, which involved an Australian National Day and a lavish appreciation dinner with an endless stream of cheap white wine, I pretty much quit drinking for a week.

Another kind of glamorous work that we Foreign Service officers do is serve our country by hosting scores of venerable Congressional members, those faithful representatives of our beloved nation. The Congressional delegation that arrives at post – an event lovingly called a “CODEL” – sends shivers down the spine of every entry-level officer, whether from excitement or fear, no one dares to admit. A CODEL visit, or any other VIP visitor from the US for that matter, is like making a cake for the first time ever. You have read the recipe, it all looks straightforward, you start doing it and realize somewhere down the road that it is much more involved; you run for more supplies; call in the neighbors for support; call a bunch of people including your mama on the phone; watch a video or two online for instructions and eventually end up buying new appliances for next time.

Same with the VIP visit. It starts off innocently enough with a simple request for a visit from the U.S., describing what seems like an easy and straightforward agenda. A week later, 10 more people have been added to the CODEL, which have added their own staffers (aaaaah, the staffers...). The agenda has tripled, and so have the resources you have mobilized. Next thing you know, you are roping in more and more hapless first and second-tour officers who have been blinded by the glitz of the VIP and gladly accept the glamorous tasks given to them. Like – be responsible for the VIP luggage. Or take their spouses carpet shopping. Or stand-by during an event in case anyone needs water. Or babysit the press at some obscure event. Or spend 3 whole days going to potential sites of interest to the visitors, like orphanages or factories, preparing an elaborate welcome program for them, only to learn a day later that the visit has been dropped off the program. Or procuring a piano for some event and carrying it to the event and then carrying it back (yup, that happened). The “luckier” ones get to be note-takers at important meetings with local politicians. Which also means, of course, that the moment the meeting is over (usually 10 pm), they have to run back to the Embassy and fervently write a meaningful cable about it all night long, to be cleared by 8 people in the next 2 days, and in the end they won’t even recognize the damned cable.

Oh yes, working a CODEL is glam. I worked one last week. It was fabulous. I was “baggage and passports.” You can only fantasize about the amazing things I had to do. I’ll tell you one thing though – if the CODEL happens to come on a Mil plane, rather than fly commercial, that means that as “luggage and passports” you get to walk on the tarmac. The plane security guys (cryptically called “ravens”) may even let you on the plane to see it inside where the pilot will give you a tour! That is some plane, ladies and gentleman! I also got to meet a couple of the security guys who worked with the CODEL and they were wonderful. All in all, a VIP visit is a circus but is also quite entertaining; you meet some really nice and cool people; you get to see how policy and diplomacy are shaped in action; and you definitely begin dreaming about being important and flying on a mil plane. Plus, you rack a whole bunch of overtime. Can’t wait for my next one.

How We Went To Burma

5 days, 8 flights, 5 airlines, 7 airports, 4 hotels, 2 cabs, a sunset boat and a horse cart. Visiting Burma-priceless!

I had it in my head that I really wanted to see Burma (or Myanmar as it is called there but too long to write) before I leave Bangladesh. The Diplomat – not so much. For one thing, the man was templed out after Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and India. Secondly, he gets… let’s call it “unsettled” on propeller planes and a Burma trip would definitely involve a few of those. Thirdly, admittedly, the tennis facilities in that otherwise fascinating country ain’t all that so the appeal was even less for him. Finally, this time there was no one to take care of Son at home, so we decided to drag the poor child with us on what was to be a decidedly boring trip for him (save for the random coconut en route). With all that in mind, I offered to go alone. Grimly, the boys said they were coming too.  

This is how this trip unfolded. We were leaving on a beautiful cool Thursday evening. During the day, I had organized a brown bag lunch for the entry-level officers at the Embassy. After that, I had pulled together at the American Club a meet and greet with the Ambassador and a group of 25 doctors, nurses and staff going to perform cleft-palate surgeries in rural Bangladesh. A truly lovely event, which exhausted me even further. From there, I rushed home to scoop my grumbling troops, stop by KFC on the way to airport, leave spicy chicken crumbs all over the car and Son’s clean clothes, and check in at Dhaka airport for a lovely late evening flight to Bangkok on Bangkok air. With more than an hour to spare, we decided to go to the fancy upstairs lounge where alcohol is being served (yes, it is a big deal here). Unwittingly, I ordered a $24 glass of wine (the bottle of which sells for $5.25 at our Commissary, by the way). Deeply offended, Son fell asleep on two barstools. We soon boarded and 2.5 brisk hours later landed in Bangkok’s swanky Suvarnabhumi airport. Sadly, our next flight on the budget Air Asia was out of the other Bangkok airport, Don Mueang, which was (of course) on the other end of town. An hour later we were there, and as it was about 1.30 am, we were exhausted and highly irritable. Naturally, all rooms in the transit hotel were booked, but the desk clerk took pity on us and allowed us to sleep in the sofa chairs in the lobby. They were not comfortable and let’s just leave it at that.

Finally, it was 7 am and we boarded Air Asia for Yangon (Rangoon). Yangon was a surprise. I had always thought that Burma was a rural, developing country as a result of years of self-imposed isolation and lack of substantial foreign trade. I was expecting to see architecture dating from the 1930s, horse carts in the streets and many miserable looking poor people. Yangon, instead, is a modern bustling city. It has large clean streets, many stores, malls, fabulous restaurants, a million tea houses (read – tea stalls with miniature plastic chairs and tables where everyone goes to have breakfast, lunch and tea), plenty of cars and no motorbikes (apparently, some party official got into an accident few years ago and pettily outlawed those ubiquitous South Asian vehicles in the capital). We stayed at the grand Traders Hotel, and even though pricey, I could not recommend it more. The Shwedagon Pagoda in the middle of the city was spectacular. 

The next day, we went back to the airport to board a flight on one of the 5 local Burmese airlines – KMZ. Now, in case you are interested in going to Burma, you should know a few things:

1.       You cannot book any internal fights online so you need an agent

2.       There are no ATMs that work with your debit cards so you need bring cash.

3.       Almost no one takes credit cards.

4.       There is no international cell phone roaming.

5.       There IS wireless internet and plenty of cyber cafes, and a zillion travel agents selling plane tickets on every corner.

I am planner. I also have a 4.5 year old child and 39 year old child so I cannot just wing it on trips like this. I needed to know all my flights were booked in advance. I randomly found an agent online called Seven Diamond Travels and literally within 2 days my trip was planned. The agent insisted on chatting via gmail chat, rather than trading emails back and forth, which made things even easier. So, good thing I planned in advance, because pretty much out of 5 domestic airlines, there was only one flight each way available for us if we wanted to see Bagan. Which I did. Phew!

So, we climbed on KMZ Air, a pretty solid looking propeller, buckled in and within 5 minutes were already hurtling through the bumpy clouds. Now, anyone who has been on a propeller knows that nothing gets you praying and believing in God faster than a small plane going through some clouds. The Diplomat looked positively green, and I think he might have been crying or praying. Son asked me what was wrong with daddy. I asked daddy the same question. He gave me a murderous look. Finally, the plane leveled and flew happily until we landed with so much force and speed that I thought the plane will split down the middle. At least, it was all over. Or so we thought. Turns out, we were on the “slow plane” to Bagan, meaning that we were making 2 stops along the way in Heho and in Mandalay before we would arrive to our final destination. Which also meant 2 more take offs and 2 more landings. The Diplomat was not amused. Son slept like a log.

The Fabulous KMZ Air, on a rest stop in Mandalay. I am loitering on the tarmac

Finally in Bagan, we quickly checked in the outstanding Amazing Bagan Resort – less than a $100/night, it was decadent, aesthetically appointed, gorgeous swimming pool, happy hour (!), a cheap spa, SOME cable (CNN and a bunch of Chinese channels) and free wi-fi in the rooms!  Bagan boasts about 100,000 Buddhist stupas, some of which are full-fledged temples, others – well preserved centuries-old pagoda remains and then others – lonely tiny structures in the fields. The feeling is eerie especially if you climb one of the highest pagodas in the region, Shwesandaw Pagoda, around sunset. The horizon is dotted with hundreds of pagoda spires, all shrouded in dust and all detail lost in the rays of the rapidly sinking sun. It would all be quite a surreal experience really if it weren't for all the National Geographic photographer wannabees, who had cluttered the terraces of the pagoda with a forest of tripods ready to catch that elusive Burmese sunset.

OMG, a sunset!!!! Gotta catch the sunset! I have never seen a sunset before!

We hired a horse cart in Bagan. I had heard it was common to do it, and I wanted that clop-clop romance on the trip. There was clop-clop alright. Imagine trying to cover 8 km with the speed of an asthmatic snail. That was us on the damn cart. Not to mention the dust and the precarious perch I had in the back of the silly contraption. We let him go in the afternoon, romance be damned. We hired a car for the remainder. Another interesting part of the Bagan trip was that we felt like we live in a Lonely Planet world – wherever you’d turn, there were either tourists clutching the guidebook or restaurants or establishments which proclaimed that they had been recommended by it. Not a particular fan of the series, we were forced to buy the guide simply because it was the only one on the market. And so were everyone else in Burma. Eerie, as I said.

Bagan was a dream in a way. Still largely undiscovered by tourists, its pagodas and calm surroundings are a welcome relief after Angkor Wat for example. Not to say that there aren’t peddlers. There are hordes of them and they are incredibly annoying. A pleasant surprise was the Burmese beer and wine – Beer Myanmar, Red MountaineEstate and Ayetharyar estate all offered outstanding products which we delightedly sampled night after night.

2 lovely days later, we went back to the Bagan airport and this time got on Asia Wings Air, another one of the delightful Myanmar airlines. After a short and uneventful flight we landed in Yangon about to spend one last night there (sadly, not in the fabulous Traders Hotel anymore). Son, however, fell asleep in the car during the one-hour ride from the airport to the hotel and no matter what we tried to do once we checked-in, we could not wake him up. So, there we were, in a fabulous mysterious city, hungry and eager, with a deeply asleep child on our hands at 7 pm. What would YOU do? Yup, we ordered room service…

The next morning we walked down the Yangoon streets, had a delicious breakfast in a street tea-shop (to the utter delight of the locals), and headed back for the airport. Air Asia: Yangon – Bangkok. Now, before you all decide to condemn us once and for all as truly bad parents, let me quickly inform you that we decided to redeem ourselves and use our 6 hour layover in Bangkok to go to the (massively overpriced) Siam aquarium for Son’s benefit rather than dine at the Hardrock Café on the best burgers ever! We felt like we owned him something after we dragged him behind us moaning and complaining through the dust of Bagan and the streets of Yangon. So, a mad dash downtown with a cabbie who had absolutely no idea where he was going; dragging 3 small suitcases, 2 backpacks and an overly excited child; $30 a person to get in. Whoa! Son was impressed, thankfully.

Whoaaaa! Mama - a shark!

Then we took another cab and got to Suvarnambhumi for the last flight of this trip, planning to be home and in bed by 11 pm that night. Not so much. Upon arriving there, we happened to notice that our flight was, um, canceled. Interesting, we thought, and sped to the Bangkok Air booth to ask what the hell was going on. Turns out, they have canceled all of their flights to Dhaka…for the time being. Nothing like telling their passengers or whatever. We were unceremoniously put on the next morning flight on Thai Air and given a room in a nearby craptastic airport hotel. So, yes, add one more airline and one more hotel to this mad itinerary.

All is well when it ends well. We were back to work the next day around noon, Son was safely given over to our housekeeper and we all have great memories to tell. The moral of the story – GO TO BURMA! 

How Son Got Into an Accident

This is a story about the phone call you don’t want to ever get. Also a good story about learning to keep cool. Earlier this week, I strolled into the Consular section along with the Diplomat ready and eager to do some ultra boring admin stuff and dish out some visas. 15 minutes into my daily routine, which included getting nice hot green tea, chatting aimlessly with my fabulous consular buddies and pondering the joys of my job, I got a phone call from my house. I picked up and my housekeeper said, in what seemed to be a pleasant, happy manner, “Hello, madam!” Well, hello to you too, and what can I do for you, my dear?

It was that this moment that the blasted woman began wailing loudly and screaming, “Madam, really bad news, madam!!” and then mumble things incoherently in Bangla and really bad English. As she is somewhat prone to drama, I decided to panic only moderately and so I started asking what exactly had happened. The next sentence aged me 5 years, “Car bad accident, the children…oh, madam!!!” accompanied by more severe wailing. My hair raising rapidly on the back of my neck, I began shouting in my cell phone, asking her whether the kids were ok (my Son carpools to school in our car with a neighboring child and her small sister). All she kept doing was repeating something nonsensical about a bad accident, and the children, and would not for the life of me answer if everyone was OK. Since she was calling from my house, I quickly hung up on her, grabbed the stunned Diplomat who was standing next to me, semi-yelled/mumbled  in the direction of my Boss something about having to go and flew out of the office amidst the deafening silence of the room while my colleagues were listening to my conversation.

Outside the Embassy, we spotted a heavy bullet jeep (part of the Embassy carpool) and threw ourselves in it, screaming at the poor driver (turns out he was new and it was his first week) to take us home. He mumbled something about having to wait for the Ambassador, but the Diplomat was having none of it. In the longest 5 minutes of my life, we were outside our building and burst inside our apartment, only to find an exhilarated Son who kept talking about “the big bump” and my housekeeper who burst into tears the moment she saw us. Turns out (as best as we can understand from two housekeepers and one driver’s combined English and our shaky Bangla), my driver was driving towards the school when one of the awesome local driver rammed into the left passenger door of our car while making a left turn. The door was completely totaled, and the 3 kids apparently flew inside the car because, of course, none of them were strapped in. Which is my own damn fault.

The car spun out of control for a moment and then the driver regained it and managed to stop. I feel pity for him – he was faced with a car with 3 hysterically crying children, and 2 even more hysterical nannies. I swear he was ready to quit on me. As luck would have it, our car was hit by a driver and car belonging to the American International School of Dhaka, and by the time we got to the scene of the accident, the school had already dispensed its own transportation manager who in less than an hour had our car in the shop.

The whole incident taught me a few things:

1.       Strap your child in the car, whether or not there are car seats.

2.       If you know that your staff is a drama queen, take a deep breath and try to get the story out of her before you panic and decide that your child is dead.

3.       Drive slowly in a country where pretty much no one knows real traffic rules or how to drive for that matter.

4.       Send your nanny for English lessons.

Single Parents in the Foreign Service

I have been wanting to write this for a long time, but never got around to it. Now that the holidays have descended upon us, it somehow seemed a particularly appropriate time to write about it. I often get asked by FS applicants whether there are any single parents in it or whether it is a suitable job for such parents. The simple answer is – yes, there are plenty. Is it a suitable job for a single parent? Well, how many suitable jobs for such parents are there exactly in the world? This actually might be an easier one than you have imagined.

The Service is home to many single parents. In my own A-100 class I had a single mom of a 10–year old boy. She got posted to one of the toughest posts on the Mexico border. Here, in Dhaka, there are at least three that I am aware of, some of them with more than one kid, under the age of 5. Some enter the Service as single, some become single while serving. The reality is that the Foreign Service life can prove to be too much for some families and we have our share of divorces. Then again, the same happens to perfectly stable communities, with perfectly normal jobs, in say, Wisconsin. The one tiny difference is that while most divorced Wisconsin couples will probably stay within a few miles of each other with the distinct possibility of some form of co-parenting, the folks who get divorced in the Foreign Service are facing a global geographical divide as your beloved former spouse packs him or herself and moves back home while you jet off to another part of the world every couple years or so. For those who are already single, for whatever purpose, leaving the past behind and working your dream job abroad is just the balm needed.

I am in awe of single parents. I think there should be a special place in heaven for them. Or they should always be allowed to fly business class. Or be given free drinks upon sight. Or chocolate. Or cupcake samples. Or have famous songs written about them. My mom was a single mom. She is an awesome mom and she did a spectacular job of raising me. So I know how difficult it really is. Single parents have to make decisions on their own. All the time. About everything – whether giving frankfurters and mac and cheese from a box can pass for a nutritious meal, whether a nosebleed in the middle of the night merits going to the hospital, whether not putting your kid in the Spanish immersion program will put him behind all those little brainy brats from his kindergarten, whether to co-sleep with your kid, whether your 5-year old daughter’s strong desire to wear shoes to bed every night is a problem, what is a good curfew for your teenager, should you allow your little girl to date at 16, what is a good bedtime, are 5 cookies before dinner too much, whether to circumcise, to have long or short hair, to give TV every day after dinner, to allow a sleepover, to choose a college, to do just about anything. It is so difficult and lonely to make these choices on your own. I know, because I am constantly asking the Diplomat about his opinion before making most decisions regarding Son – and while I mostly ignore his opinion much to his chagrin, it is so damn comforting to hear him yey or ney or even venture a more evolved opinion when needed. Yes, I have a lot of respect for single parents.

But oddly enough, I think the Foreign Service just might be the place for them. The fabulous job aside, it can take one to a country where help is readily available and inexpensive. In many South Asian, African and even South American countries, live-in nannies, housekeepers and drivers are the norm. With free housing, free schooling (K through 12) and unbelievable embassy support network by your fellow colleagues, such help becomes quite affordable. You can even bring your trusted nanny with you to the United States when you are back there temporarily. For many FS families, their foreign nannies become a beloved part of the family. The Service will also allow your parents to come and live with you so that they can provide you with the moral and physical support you might need. The Foreign Service is a community in the best sense of the word and if you need anything ranging from advice, emergency stroller, a few hours of babysitting, home cooked lasagna when coming back from the hospital with your little one to dog walking when you need to be away– the community will be there to support you just for the asking. While you might have family and relatives in the U.S., at post you will have a good network of colleagues and their spouses, most of whom will live either in your own building or a few blocks away at best. So, help will always be a few steps away while in the U.S. you might have your sisters, but one of them lives in Wyoming, and the other one in Florida.

So, be brave! Join the Foreign Service even if you are a single parent and you are scared of making all decisions on your own thousands of miles away from your comfortable U.S. home. You will be surprised at how manageable it can be.

I remain in awe of you, single parents. I think you are amazing. Rock on!

 

PS - I encourage comments and recommendations from FS single parents, so that I can make this post even more useful.

The Wedding Season Started

I admit to having a writer’s block. I honestly have nothing funny to write about this week. I am super busy at work because apparently one third of Bangladesh has decided to go and see what America looks like during Christmas while one third of my co-officers have decided to go and see what Australia, Thailand or some other exotic nearby location looks like at the same time. That makes for a whole lot more work and a whole lot grumpier colleagues. To top it off, the State Department has just introduced some major revolutionary changes in our work systems, and given us little to no direction on how exactly to implement them. But, rumor has it President Obama will give us an early release on Christmas Eve! Now THAT is cool.

Let’s see what happened during the last 10 days– I MC-ed a Fashion show/launch of a magazine, got misquoted badly by the press to the effect that the US-India bilateral relations were better than the US-Bangladesh ones during a business visa outreach (did NOT even remotely say anything even distantly close to this), spent a Thursday exclusively in meetings, attended Son’s Christmas party at the French School, had Son subsequently with fever for three days (he claimed it was the cake I gave him??), attended a dinner party, a Christmas party, a dinner in a restaurant that was supposed to include just me, the Diplomat and an acquaintance and ended up having another friend from the Embassy, the owner of a major TV channel and the legal rep of the Bangladesh special police forces.

Then the Diplomat and I also went to a lavish wedding party, where we both knew no one but the father of the bride, a wealthy businessman who was marrying off his third and last daughter. Can I just say that there is NOTHING like a South Asian wedding. Only the first event of three more to follow, it was spectacular. After all guests had arrived (think about 300 of the closest family and friends), elaborate and generous gifts from both sides were marched down the middle of the restaurant hall to the sound of very loud drums (inexplicably, both sides' gifts included baskets full of toothpaste, deodorant, aftershave - remember Old spice, folks? - it was almost like they were preparing the newly weds for some sort of a prolonged bathroom siege). Then the groom came in surrounded by a bunch of his buddies who were blowing oddly loud whistles and settled on one of the chairs on a beautiful raised platform. Soon, the bride came, accompanied by a seemingly endless posse of relatives, each one dressed more splendidly than the other. It was all very elaborate and moving, and as she was passing by me, her mom and I were sobbing inconsolably shoulder to shoulder (I am a hopeless crier, you should see me at Son’s school events, I am like an open fire hydrant on a hot New York summer afternoon). It was fine for her, she was watching her last daughter get married and leave the house. It was real awkward for me since everyone was staring at me and my mascara was not water proof. It was even more awkward since I was the only white woman in the entire hall and all photographers spent hours taking pictures of me, while all the staff pretended not to look at me for 4 hours.

The wedding was awesome – the younger relatives from both sides did a dancing performance for which they apparently practiced for months before the wedding. It was hilarious and really endearing. Then every single person in the hall got on the stage to take pictures with the couple, including us. I must say the bride and the groom (who did not know us) were a bit startled but did not get phased one bit. They apparently had really good wedding training. At any rate, THAT is the way to get married. Thank you, Kausar!

Wedding season is just starting in Bangladesh, and I just cannot wait for the next event! Unless, of course, the world ends on Friday. Which would be a pity on so many different levels.