EFM: Essential Furnishing - Maps

In my brief experiences, I've reached the conclusion that the foreign service community is obsessed with maps. Maps are essential to the foreign service. So much so that even some blogs incorporate maps in their layout. My knowledge of world geography has never been so honed as it is now.

It started with the bid list. Just as the header of DiploLife's blog depicts (other than the child part anyway), in preparation for the bid list, I went out and bought a huge world map. We spent our first hours with the bid list plotting cities we'd never heard of before. Nouakchott is really a place? And it is a capital city? Hmmm...(And to further prove my growing knowledge of world geography, I spelled that city correctly on the first try!)

A funny sidebar, at least to me. Within days of mapping all of the potential places we could go and hanging it by our door, our refrigerator broke down so we had the apartment come up and fix it. I wish I could have seen the utility man's expression when he saw our map with labels marking many cities in the Middle East, Central America and Mexico. He probably thought we were some sort of government-sponsored anti-terrorism group keeping track of training cells or something.

Flag Day comes and goes, and the next thing we need is a map of Mexico. That hangs above our computer, and I'm getting pretty good at knowing where all of the major cities are. At the same time, Natalie also picked up a world map of all foreign service posts.

About the same time as getting our Mexico map, we got a TomTom, because, as we understand it, it is the only GPS brand that has Mexican maps included without having to pay about $1,000 to upload new ones.

This is by far is my most favorite map that I've come across. A few weeks ago, doing some banking took me to the Capitol South Metro stop, so I thought I'd spend some time at the Library of Congress. I spent some time in the Periodicals section hoping to read an 1844 copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer from one of their special collections, but I didn't get to enjoy that experience. So I thought I'd try my luck at the Maps section where I asked to see maps of Mexico and Texas from 1848, which are hard to come by because Texas wasn't a state yet.

In particular, I wanted to see maps of the American-Mexican War, and the Library assistant was able to provide me the actual battle maps drawn by the American generals. I was giddy in my nerdiness. But while I was most fascinated by the generals' maps, I found the lithographs, like that one done after the Battle of Monterrey, to be the most visually appealing. You probably can't tell from this photo of the map, but there are numbers and a key that tell you what the landmarks in the map are. I think I need to order copies of some of these lithographs from the Library, which is a service it provides.

With our packout day on the horizon, and our AAA membership approaching an end, my task for today is go to AAA to pick up maps of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and Mexico, if they have any. Not just for the drive to post, but we figured if we feel the need to get out of Mexico for a long weekend or something, these will be the areas will be visiting.

Maps - learn to read them and understand them because they are your friends. Sure, they're simple and old and the Internet with its Map Quests and Google Map have a come a long way to replace maps, or at least digitlize them, but a good paper map is key. Besides, everyone in the foreign service is doing it.

EFM: Even Follows to Mexico

In the spirit of hating government acronyms, and I promise not to dwell much longer on the topic, EFM also denotes the slightly begrudging manner in which we received our first post assignment.

This posting headline saps a little of the anticipation for you the reader, so I won’t delay in announcing we were assigned to Hermosillo, Mexico. I’ve quickly learned that unless you’re from Mexico, and maybe from the American Southwest, Hermosillo means nothing to you.

And on Flag Day, i.e. A-100 lottery drawing day, it meant nothing to me other than we were moving somewhere in Mexico.

Go ahead and do a Wikipedia search of Hermosillo; I’ll wait as it won’t take too terribly long to read up on the northwestern city.

Fine, I’ll give you the highlights, if you can call them that. First and foremost, the city is known for its hot temperatures making it one of the hottest cities in Mexico. For seven months out of the year, the average temperature is at least 90°F; three months average more than 100°F. We’re talking averages here. The records inch very close to 120°F. January is the only month the average low dips below 50°F.

When first describing Hermosillo to friends and family, after bemoaning the heat, I tell them this is essentially Mexico’s Detroit without the violence, racial tension and the Lions. In other words, they have a Ford plant, but this one actually makes cars. There also is a hint of Texas as Hermosillo is home of the carne asada and all things beef.

It also is a city that enjoys its baseball franchise, the Naranjeros (Orange Growers), which has won 14 Mexican Pacific League titles, or about as many titles as all of Detroit’s sports franchises combined (I could be way off as that was just a guess and one more cheap shot at Detroit).

To be fair, I’m hardly the first person to judge this city harshly. We bought the July 2007 edition of The Rough Guide to Mexico, and it summed up Hermosillo like this: “While it is an interesting enough to experience such a stereotypically Mexican town, there’s no reason to stay here long.” Long is a relative term, but I assume the authors would determine two years to be “long.”

But before I wear out my welcome before even arriving, I should add that Hermosillo was ranked somewhat highly on our bid list though for those going through the process, you quickly learn that not all “high bids” are created equal.

I also should say that I was intrigued by several of the other Mexican posts available because I do have an extraordinary fascination with the American-Mexican War of 1848. Bizarre, I know. So some of the other possibilities such as Matamoros or Monterrey were more appealing to me because they played prominent roles in the beginning of the war (the first major battle was the siege of Matamoros).

Learning Spanish also should prove to be quite a valuable skill as well. And there are some beaches along the Gulf of California (or Mar de Cortés to the locals) only about an hour’s drive away at Bahía de Kino. And I hope to learn to make a tasty mole sauce among other Mexican dishes.

So while I’m justifiably skeptical of what two years in Hermosillo will entail, I refuse to be entirely disappointed and plan on making the best of the experience.