EFM: Emissary on a Free Mission

What's the biggest difference between serving as a tandem and being an Extra Freeloader in Mexico (EFM)? A second government paycheck.

OK, so the second paycheck would be earned through putting in hours at the Consulate, and I'd have to pass all sorts of tests, but whether I like it or not, I'm a diplomat. (And, yes, I know the feeling is mutual. Like it or not Americans, I'm representing you and your image down here. I apologize in advance for any lasting repercussions.)

EFMs are kind of like First Ladies in that way. We didn't really sign up for this job when we married our spouses, and the government didn't really get too much of a say in picking ideal EFMs to accompany their Formally Selected Officials (FSOs). The only screening they did on me was a background check and a medical test. Essentially, the only requirement to being an EFM is not getting into too much trouble and being disease free. (And who knows, they might not even care that much about those two criteria either. Anyone know of any potential EFM being rejected for medical reasons?)

Also like the First Ladies, how we fulfill our role is entirely dependent on our own ambitions. We can be Hillary Clintons and be - perhaps - too involved, or we could be Laura Bushs lead and be essentially out of sight.

That said, I'm not locking myself in the house and never making public appearances. And when I do go out, I am representing how Americans behave. And I stick out a bit, too, given that I have paler skin than most of the native Hermosillians, and that I also probably have a general look of confusion.

Some of us are better at this job than others. Take Novakistan (formerly Minnesota Gal) for instance. She does us proud in her job as a diplomat. These two stories - this one written by her, and this one written by her friend who was visiting - are some of the best things I've read from fellow foreign service spouses since I entered the fold. If you have time, you definitely need to read these pieces. If you don't, then stop reading this one and go check them out instead.

I don't have the language skills, yet, to be able to be that involved, but I did get to practice a little this past weekend doing some Beach Diplomacy.

There are two beaches near here - San Carlos and Bahia de Kino. From the best that I can tell, Kino seems to be more of the locals' beach whereas San Carlos is more "vacationy." While at Kino this past weekend, we - Natalie, one of her colleagues, and I - had a Frisbee with us. It wasn't the most effective toy with the wind making it difficult to throw, and when it went into the water, it sunk making it hard to retrieve. In short, it was a crappy Frisbee.

Near by, there were two young boys (both 6-9ish) playing in the sand. I think they were digging, but they didn't have any tools. They also didn't have any bathing suits and were just wearing their underwear instead. Natalie's colleague invited them into our game of throwing the Frisbee and looking for it in the Gulf after we inevitably missed it. They were loving it.

They left eventually, and we were getting ready to go our hut when a young girl (9-12ish) walked up to me - I was holding the crappy Frisbee - with a JuMex box in her hand and said "Hi," in English. A bit relieved that she spoke some English, I decided to test it. "Do you want to throw?" "Yeah," and then she handed her juice box to some and threw the Frisbee to Natalie's colleague. She threw a few more times before she started getting bored, or distracted, and then her little sister came over and we played with her some.

She was fascinating, and I'd love to have had more time to talk with her. But I did learn that she was born in Phoenix while her parents and older sister were born in Mexico, and that she had (or still does?) attended school in Tuscan. Her English was incredible, probably even better than some of her American contemporaries. But she also said it was her job to teach her parents and her sister English, too. Like I said, I would have loved to hear more of her story.

But the game ended and we went our separate ways. I'd like to think that the parents were watching and were thinking that those Americans aren't that bad after all. And I'd like to think that as those children get older, they'll remember playing with some Americans on the beach, and that we didn't have fangs or fences.

You'll never find me serving the United States in a Consulate or Embassy, but I'm just find deploying a little Beach Diplomacy here and there.

EFM: Evidence For Moods

If you were reading through the comments in the first part of the leaky ceiling story, the last one on there might have seemed like an overreaction.

In actuality, I'll Take Mine...To Go, Please! was responding to a comment I had left on another blog. To quote Shannon from Cyberbones:

You know that handy little chart that floats around diagramming the stages of acceptance at a new post? If you are not FS it goes something like this: honeymoon, depression, resigned acceptance, happiness. Well I completely skip the honeymoon period everytime.

I added her comment section that my honeymoon period is over and I feel stuck in the depression. (Not to worry, family, that is an overstatement. This is not a call for help.) I also asked for a copy of said schematic. Well, ask and you will receive, which is where I'll Take Mine...To Go, Please! came to the rescue. (And thank you very much for that!)

OK, so first off, how did Natalie spend from September 2009 through June 2010 in A-100 (introduction to the foreign service, essentially) and Federally Supervised Instructions (FSI) without ever receiving a copy of this thing? How did I attend three or four FSI courses and never receive this thing? Sure, learning about how to seat guests at a state dinner is a skill I use everyday, but in hindsight, I wish they offered a course on coping with cultural adaptation instead of etiquette.

So moving across the chart, I didn't really have the pre-departure ups and downs. I wasn't excited about pack-out day or living in a hotel for 10 days, but it had no bearing on my emotional well-being.

I definitely enjoyed an initial honeymoon stage, or as I like to think of it, becoming accustomed to this awesome house - leaky roof aside. But after about a week or so, I began to slip into what the chart refers to as culture shock/acute homesickness. I don't know if those words feel appropriate for what I was actually feeling or not, but you get the picture. The emotional well-being red line dipped.

(Important case study note, in which I'm the case study: The chart, while cool and scientific looking, is a generalization. In my particular case, I think my honeymoon and culture shock stages were more intertwined and instead of a nice smooth curvy line, mine is more jagged with more ups and downs. Even in the culture shock area, there are still good days; it's just that the bad days are a little more intense than bad days back home and a little more frequent.)

So because FSI has failed us all by its lack of cultural adaptation class, I'll offer my four lessons from my own struggles.

1. I wish I would have been more studious in learning Spanish. This is 100% my fault, and I accept the blame, but that isn't helping much right now. I've been using the Stone a bit more (still don't particularly like it), and Spanish class is to commence soon at the Consulate. I hope ironing out this inability-to-communicate wrinkle will make life here better, but I'm not putting all of my eggs in this basket.

2. Speaking of eggs in a single basket, I wish I wasn't so reliant on a single client for my freelance work. The problem with working with this magazine - other than the fact that the editor holds a personal grudge against me - is that both the editor and publisher are lousy communicators and fear confrontations. So are they not responding to my e-mails because they are angry with me, are just being lazy about hitting the respond button, or do they just not want to tell me they think my story ideas suck? Another situation in which I saw the red flags before coming here, but I decided to leave it all to chance that it would work out.

3. I miss my stuff. I'm not really a possessions-oriented person, but I miss my coffee pot, food processor, toaster and/or toaster oven and cookbooks. I also miss our DVD player, DVDs (and VHS tapes) and books. I feel like Steve Martin from The Jerk. "I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray...And this paddle game ... And that's all I need. I don't need one other thing, not one...I need this." (And yes, that is my second movie reference in as many posts.) So I wish we had better planned our air freight.

4. This is the big one - managing expectations. I'd like to say I came here with no expectations. I thought I was coming here with no expectations. But after the first couple of weeks here, I found myself saying to myself, "This is not what I expected," so I must have expected something, right?

I had heard Hermosillo described as a small town within a big city. I really have no idea what that means. But I grew up in a small town. I went to college and had my first jobs in a small town. Hermosillo is not a small town by any stretch of the imagination. In a small town, you can count the number of stoplights on two hands or less. In a small town, there is two or three main roads that go no further than two miles without leaving the city limits. In a small town, you can live anywhere and still walk to what the locals refer to as its downtown.

Hermosillo has almost a million people here (some anticipate that the 2010 census will push past 1 million). Sure, there aren't any skyscrapers like in big U.S. cities, but a small town has like 50,000 people at most, not a million. And it is spread out. There are a couple of downtownish shopping areas, but none in walking distance from where we live. Not that you would want to walk in this heat anyway, but still.

In truth, having seen a few pictures of our home before we arrived, I didn't have high expectations for it, so I was pleasantly surprised when we got here. The few descriptions I had of Hermosillo had me expecting something else, and given my current standing on the emotional well-being line, I guess that wasn't such a pleasant surprise.

But with any luck and some hard work, will be getting the rest of our stuff soon and I'll get a better grasp on Spanish. And maybe the working situation will improve - it seems to ebb and flow. And after some time, I'll get used to this version of a "small town." For starters, just having this chart bumped up my emotional well-being line. It was refreshing to know that this is such a common experience there is a scientific-looking chart to describe it.

Visa (...yawn...) Speak

You'd think foreign service officers - getting to travel around the world and having such different backgrounds and all - would be interesting people. Coming up on our first month here, I'm becoming a bit concerned.

Almost whenever I go out with Natalie and a group of her colleagues, inevitably the conversation starts to head toward work. Then after about 20 minutes of I-275 (not a highway near Cincinnati, by the way) and 214b, I feel myself slipping into a coma.

On one particular evening, I think I sat through any where between two to four hours of such talk. I couldn't fall asleep that night because I had just spent the evening sleeping with my eyes open. Something I always thought was just an expression to describe boredom, but no, it really is possible.

Now granted, most of the officers here are on their first post, so they have less travels to discuss. But still, we're talking about at least 25 years of life experiences to share, and instead they opt to talk about the guy who shows up for a visitation visa with his "concubine" and their children. (Actually, that was one of the more interesting ones, but it is like a five-minute story or less to tell. Now imagine enough of those five-minute stories to drag in access of two hours. I'm drifting away just starting to think about it.)

Sometimes given the option of meeting up for drinks in the evening or staying home by myself, the latter is more appealing.

Spouses, what do you do? Do you just glaze over and nurse the drink in your hand (or start drinking more)? Do you attempt to hijack the conversation into something interesting? Or is this interesting to you and I'm just being a jerk? Or this is boring to you, and I'm still just being a jerk?

Not having a television, I can deal with. Being relatively isolated, I can deal with. Missing some of the familiar luxuries the States offer, I can deal with. An unforeseeable future of conversations about visa applicants, I cannot deal with. Please tell me this is just because everyone here is relatively new to the foreign service and this post.

P.S. No offense intended toward our Hermosillian colleagues.

MOH: Morbidly Obressive Heat

It is going to be hot in Hermosillo. I know this. You know this, as I've written before about it. But Tiffy does not know this.

We've had her groomed once to lessen the heat burden she faces here in Virginia. Still, during one of the warmer, sunnier, humidier (new word) days during a walk with Natalie, she stopped during the walk twice to sit and catch her breath.

This caused Natalie to comment that Tiffy has no idea what she is in for, we're going to have to have her groomed a little bit shorter, and even still, she probably is going to die in the Sonoran Desert heat.

To which one of the current employees at the Consulate General Office in Hermosillo said she hopes not because she doesn't think the office can handle another death of a dog.

Another? Yes. Apparently one of the pets died of a heat stroke. The lesson is that we will have to keep a close eye on her during walks to make sure she isn't over exerting herself. Unfortunately, dogs are not smart enough to know they've reached their limits.

We also have decided we will probably need to shorten her walks and compensate by having more of them. Right now, she goes out for at least a half an hour at a time. Maybe we need to cut that in half and walk twice as often. This should help her keep rested while not sacrificing her exercise and treasured time outside. Of course, when it is pushing 120 degrees, she might not enjoy going outside as much as she does now.

Other than having Tiffy groomed properly in preparation of the move, I've started the process of gathering the could-be-necessary paperwork to cross the border with her. This is an inexact science, as I've heard several stories about border patrol not being very demanding about dog paperwork. But just in case we are the one they decide to harass, it is best to be prepared with excessive paperwork.

And finally, Tiffy also had her teeth cleaned, so she'll be the sexiest eunuch dog on the block in Mexico. (Blogging has been very educational for me. For example, while looking up how to spell "eunuch," I learned that this really only applies to human males. About two-thirds the way down this page, there is a list of words for neutered animals. Alas, there is not a word of a spayed dog, so I'm using eunuch anyway; my blog = my rules!)













The above left is a before, and to the right is the after. Now too much excitement, though if you look at her lower set of teeth, you can see she had some discoloration near the gums. The work she had done was not nearly as dramatic as the last time we had her teeth cleaned when we first got her.

Now if only the vet could do something about giving her sweat glands, she would be in better shape for Sonoran heat.

Cinco de Mayo and Thoughts about Holidays

Oh, you just have to love Americans. We are so good at hijacking other nation's holidays and turning them into American drinking holidays.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did have to search Cinco de Mayo on Wikipedia to get an explanation of what the holiday is about. All I knew is that it wasn't Mexican Independence Day, and it was about beating the French. (Seriously though, if every country had a holiday every time they beat the French, would we get any work done? Sorry, France, that was a cheap shot, but sometimes I just can't help myself. And I'm acutely aware of your role in the American War for Independence.)

(Another side note, and I'll move on. Americans not knowing why Cinco de Mayo is a holiday is one thing. But I'm always disturbed by the number of Americans who don't know why we celebrate July 4th. Yeah, they got the independence thing down, but you'd be surprised how many people think that is the day we beat the British or began the war with the British. And for any readers who think that, I'll spare you the embarrassment of looking it up and telling you it is the day 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, which told Britain we think we are our own country. The war had already began and wouldn't end for another seven years.)

I won't rehash all that is on Wikipedia, because that is a pretty good explanation there, but the really short version is that Mexico wasn't paying its debts to other countries; France decided to invade to get its money; France lost the first battle of that war on May 5 at Puebla - a battle the French should have won; but the French rallied and marched to Mexico City; America told France to take a hike and they left. Thus, we drink on May 5.

I find it amusing that, according to Wikipedia, Cinco de Mayo is not really celebrated much in Mexico outside the city of Puebla. Until you reach the border. In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is akin to St. Patrick's Day.

Cinco de Mayo also is celebrated by the consulate office in Hermosillo. In fact, there isn't much they don't celebrate at that office. I counted 21 holidays in 2010. One of the dirty little secrets is that the consulate is closed on both American and Mexican holidays.

The benefit of moving to a Catholic country - state-recognized holy day holidays. We get Holy Thursday and Good Friday (the Thursday and Friday before Easter Sunday, for the non-Christians out there) and All Soul's Day (Day of the Dead) on top of Christmas.

The benefit of moving to a country that has fought many wars - battle-related holidays. There is Cinco de Mayo, the Anniversary of the Revolution and Mexican Independence Day. That is six extra holidays so far. Then add in the Mexican Labor Day, Constitution Day, Mother's Day and Benito Juarez's Birthday - the namesake of Ciudad Juarez...he must be rolling over in his grave - and that is 10 bonus Mexican holidays on top of three we share with Mexico - Christmas and New Year's Day and New Year's Eve - and the eight U.S. holidays (because the government shuts down for MLK Jr. Day, President's Day and Columbus Day while the rest of the country works) and that is 21 days off.

(Sorry, but another item caught my attention and deserves another side bar. Mexico doesn't celebrate Columbus Day. Instead, they have Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race), and this is the day observed by many South American and Central American countries. According to my favorite resource, Wikipedia, this day "is seen as a counter to Columbus Day. It is used to resist the arrival of Europeans to the Americas and is used to celebrate the native races." I guess it must have been on a weekend in 2010 or on the same day as Columbus Day because it was not listed on the consulate office's list of holidays.)

Of course, then there also are weekends, earned vacation time and sick days. Hmm...no wonder people get frusterated with government excesses.

Though, as Natalie is quick to point out, every day is a holiday for me. And I didn't even have to beat the French!