I thought I’d take some time to write a little about some of the preparations Marjie and I took to move overseas. Those of you who are going through it yourselves or have already done it once, feel free to skip over this, unless you would like to amuse yourself at the efforts of a couple facing their first time overseas as ex-pats.
So, you’ve just found out you’re moving to a SE Asia country that is rapidly developing. You’re not going on vacation; you’re going to live there, for two years. When it finally sinks in that you’re living overseas, not just visiting overseas, you start to think a little differently about your lifestyle. What’s really important to you? If you can’t find half and half, will you stop drinking coffee? Maybe. What do you do for breakfast when the locals eat a noodle soup? Are you going to eat pho, too? What about when you’re craving popcorn (I never do, but someone else I know does … every night) or hummous or your favorite brand of chocolate?
I’ll tell you what you do, you buy a crap ton of stuff from Costco and you ship it to yourself as a Christmas present in May or June or whenever the stuff arrives. It’s one thing to go traveling for a while – even a long while – where you can pretty much be happy eating locally to save money and more fully experience the culture. But it’s completely different to know that it’s going to be a long, long time before you have the Jacques Torres cookie or Blue Sky Bakery muffin again. So you start to think about how you’re going to satisfy those cravings, minimize the disruptions to your way of life, and simply have that comfort food available for you when you just can’t eat another serving of morning glories, bok choy, or tough chewy beef with grizzle.
One cart of stuff from Costo, there's much more
So, what did Marjie and I do? I threw away the receipt for the trips to Costco we made, but I can say we probably spend about $1200 or so dollars buying stuff to ship. And we didn’t really finish. This included everything from huge bottles of laundry detergent (yes they sell it here, but we wanted a certain kind), dish washing detergent (same deal as the previous), boxes of brownie mix, cans of chickpeas, rechargeable batteries, tomato sauce, some cereal, a few (24) bottles of wine, and some other stuff. You can see in this photo that we also bought a few rolls of toilet paper. As my sponsor said, it’s not that you can’t buy it, but it’s much more convenient to run into my storage area than to have to run out and get more. So, we bought stuff for convenience and comfort.
My first weekend here, though, I was taken to a few of the Western stores and Fivi Mart to see what sort of stuff on available for the ex-pats here. You can get lots of stuff. I saw everything from full-sized jars of Newman’s Own pasta sauce for $6, Newman’s Own popcorn, chocolate bars from Germany, muesli, cleaning products (including one shop with ’7th Generation’ stuff), good quality cuts of meat, shampoos, peanut butter and so on.
It’s not that you can’t find something to satisfy your craving, for a price, it’s that if you have a specific brand that you like, you may not find it. The one thing I did not see was half-and-half or heavy cream. That said, I heard from someone who bakes that there is whipping cream available, so I should be able to put that in my coffee in the mornings!
Around the corner, there is a shop that sells all sorts of cleaning products: liquid hand soap, dish detergent (if only we had a washing machine), bleach, tooth paste, shampoo, and the like. There are German brands, US brands, and probably lots from China. If you need a specific brand, chances are you won’t find it. Prices seem reasonable – $3.50 for a dispenser of hand soap, $2 for shampoo.
The big thing about shopping in Vietnam is where to find something. A store may have some of what you need, but there are few one-stop shops. Luckily, in our building there is a ground-floor shop that has all the essentials – wine, beer, pasta, sauce, cookies, peanut butter, toilet paper, etc. Pretty much anything you need is right there. If you need fresh veggies, there is a market directly across the street.
This turned into a bit of a ramble. The bottom line is: it’s expensive to stock up for two years because living somewhere and visiting a place are two entirely different undertakings. If you’re flexible, you can find excellent substitutes for your favorite items from home. If you need a little comfort, you got to bring it with you. Just like Asian food products in the US aren’t as fresh and flavorful as they are in Asia, the same goes for your favorite stuff from the States in Asia.
I’m in Hanoi. I arrived on the 13th around 10pm. By 2am, I was sound asleep, only to be awakened at 4am when the dehumidifier beeped to tell me it was full. Somehow, that set the wakeup time for my body for the next couple days. But I digress, first things first.
Well, training in the US is over. I passed the Vietnamese language test on April 1st with a 2+/2 and now it’s onto the month of in country Vietnamese training. It’s a great opportunity. I don’t have to worry about consular duties and can simply focus on improving my speaking, comprehension, and reading skills. It’s amazing how fast all of that fades … since the 1st of April (check the date of the post, April 17) I feel like I’ve already lost lots and lots and lots of Vietnamese speaking capability. The half life of the Vietnamese in my brain seems to be more like that of gallium 67 (3.3 days) than that of cobalt 60 (~5.3yrs).
The week of April 3rd was a whirlwind of activity, though. Lots of meetings with folks at the State Department, squaring away the pack out of all our stuff, getting final vaccinations, saying bye to friends, and getting to our friend’s wedding in NJ. It was busy, but not overwhelming. The only thing I will comment on is the pack out.
Did I really bring this stuff?
For any other new Foreign Service people or people moving overseas for the first time with an option to ship things ahead with unaccompanied air baggage, here is my advice. Plan what you want to send. Don’t just start dumping things in the big box the day the movers arrive. I have random stuff with me now – stuff I brought with me on the plane. Stuff like little elastic black pieces of material with Velcro ends. What? Don’t ask me, we found them, so I put them in my bag rather than throw them away. How about Hungarian money from Marjie’s trip to Hungary to be at Julz & Peter’s wedding? Or what about a pedometer with a burned up battery? Methyl cellulose for glue in book binding? The only reason I have that is because the movers didn’t pack it up. Obviously, then, I needed this with me immediately upon arrival.
Happy to Have!
On the flip side, the things I’m most happy I brought are: 1) my small Japanese style knife, and 2) my espresso maker (with coffee from Stumptown). Things I wish I had … are slacks. Lots of slacks. I have one pair of jeans, one suit, one pair of khaki pants that I wore to my wedding, and a pair of suit pants that no longer fit. Hmmm, not a whole lot of casual options. Ah well.
The other aspect of packing the UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) on the day the movers arrive is that you might not remember what’s in there. I know I have a printer coming as well as (roughly) 100 clothes hangers and my slacks – I hope. Other than that, I kinda don’t remember what I put in there, so when it arrives in the next few days, it will be like Christmas in April.
Anyway, the apartment is great. I’m working on a walking tour of the interior that doesn’t compromise security and advertise to the entire world what I have inside (aka nothing). I’ve also posted photos on flickr of the views, which most of you have seen (below if you haven’t).
So far, the biggest thing to report is I’m slowly overcoming jet lag. The 4am to 8pm sleep schedule is slowly being shifted. As of yesterday, I was up until about 8.40 and didn’t awake until about 6.30am. I kinda like the morning schedule, but I know it won’t last long.
Since I last wrote about A100, I went through the basic consular course and am over halfway through the Vietnamese language training. I have to say, I’m impressed with my progress in a comparatively speaking sort of way. 18.5 Weeks ago, I couldn’t speak a lick of Vietnamese. I think I might have remembered that ‘thank you’ was something like ‘caahhhm uhn’ but even that statement stretches the truth of what I remember from my three weeks in country five years ago to the limits of believability.
Now, I can talk disjointedly on a number of subjects, including: 1) the period of colonial subjugation at the hands of not only the Chinese, but also the French; 2) APEC meetings in Vietnam in 2006; 3) the price of coffee; and 4) a little about the important part of life … food. It’s tough going not only because the language is tonal, count 6 of them, but because of the aforementioned 1000 year Chinese domination, there are not only the Vietnamese words, but there are also hundreds of borrowed Chinese words that have been Vietnamized. It makes it doubly tough for those of us who don’t have the Mandarin background, but a bit easier for those with some Mandarin because they can quickly build their vocab.
Still, it’s pretty amazing that I’m being paid to learn Vietnamese and in about four months, I’ll be working in Hanoi reviewing visa applications. Luckily, that work begins after an additional month of in-country Vietnamese training. It’s all going to be quite an adjustment.
Yes, A-100 is only 5 weeks long and it’s 2.2 weeks since we graduated. Life always gets busy. Rather than lots of boring details, let me give you the broad overview of the past couple weeks.
First, the briefing pace never let up. Some were excellent, others were not. We learned about Afghanistan policy, USAID, diplomatic history, cable writing, how to hand questions from challenging audiences, to reclaiming the torch of knowledge from the titans. OK, maybe we were not all prometheans, but we did participate in an off-site leadership exercise. The off-site was quite a bit of fun and provided tons of opportunities to bond.
Second, I signed on with Trident MMA down in Dale City. I only get to go twice a week, but I love the Filipino Martial Arts and Thai Boxing that I get to do down there. I highly recommend the place if anyone is on the market.
Third, I’ve been eating food. Enough said. I finally ate at a place called Ravi Kabab on Glebe Rd. Amazing Pakistani food. I’ve had both the lamb and chicken kebab lunch and both are delicious. I highly recommend the place to anyone in the area.
Fourth. In case you missed the headline on the front page, Marjie and I are being posted to Hanoi, Vietnam. We ship out some time in the Spring of next year. I’m going to be a consular officer. Yeeha!
Finally, that’s it for this update. Not too much else to report. I’ll start Vietnamese language class in September. Aside from the basic consular course in July, life is pretty relaxed and focused on how to be useful when I get overseas.
Week 1 and Weekend 1 are both over. They often say that you’re drinking from a fire hose. Where else have I heard that? Oh yeah, in the Navy. I would have to say it’s true, but somehow I just don’t feel as overwhelmed. Maybe it’s just coming out of the school environment, maybe it’s being in the right job, but I’m not feeling as though I’m drowning in information. I’m tired and I ache from sitting all day, but my brain is not full. Perhaps it’s just hungry for info that I suspect I will use in my job.
Day 1 of Week 1 was in-processing – badges, benefits, and briefings. I met folks in the lobby of Archstone Courthouse, thinking it was Oakwood Rosslyn and not really knowing the difference, and heading in. We got to know each other in long lines and metro trips home.
The rest of the Week 1 blurred together as we learned everything from how our fate for the next few years is sealed – a complicated jigsaw puzzle of preferences, skills, luck (serendipity as they call it), and needs of the service – to how the State Department does its thing, to what happens when you leave your laptop unattended at a conference. As you might guess, your laptop gets stolen. It’s part of our cybersecurity awareness and training.
Overall, I’d have to say getting the bid list was exciting (Oh the Places I may go), but not the most exciting. The most exciting was a serendipitous conversation with a fellow A-100 colleague where he said he just felt like he was in the right place with good people. That’s how I feel, too. It’s great to have all the benefits, but when you’re doing bad stuff – like packing bad mortgages you know will fail into a product you sell to other people just so you can bet against them – it just doesn’t nurture the soul.
Although the work I’ll do is not development in nature, there are opportunities to be involved in the US efforts to rebuild broken places and build local government capacity. It’s heady stuff. My work will most likely be on the visa line first, but it will lead to some cool assignments. With that, Week 2 begins.
I took to Oral Assessment today and passed! I thought I hadn’t done so well on the structured interview, but, I passed all three sections and got a final score that sounds decent enough to be proud of it. Now, I just need to slow down the process enough to get through my degree before they actually offer me a slot. It would be ideal to get an August 2010 class, to give me some time in the Summer to go do some hiking in the mountains before I became a real, bone fide diplomat in training, but … I should simply be happy to have the prospect of a job. I just need to square away the security and medical clearance paperwork, as well as veteran’s preference.
Monday is the big day. I have my Oral Exam at the State Department. It all starts at 7am. By late afternoon, I will know whether I made the cut for the Obama/Clinton Foreign Service Team.
I spent most of this week coming my records for old addresses and tightening up my statement of interest for the Foreign Service. You get a page to state why you want to join the Foreign Service. For me, it boils down to public service, work overseas, and working on some of the most important and critical issues the country and the world have faced.
I have a hotel for Sunday night – one about 1/2 mile from the State Department Building, which will make it easier to arrive by 7am. Although, I’d like the exam to be over and I’d like to know I’m in, I’m going to enjoy the weekend hanging out with Chris, Michelle & their new baby, Baby J, as well as my sister and family when they come up for the day.
Just got word today that I was selected to move onto the Oral Interview stage of becoming a Foreign Service Officer. It’s pretty stellar, really. I spoke with a guy at Wagner who said that he applied, passed the written test and was not offered an oral interview. It got me a little worried.
Well, that’s another hurdle cleared to employment after I graduate.
My time at the 20th Annual, New York Cares Winter Coat Drive has come to a close. So far, we’ve given out approximately 53,500 coats to agencies who give them to needy New Yorkers.
So, what was the meat of the Coat Drive like? Great! I got to do fun stuff like grab the bags of coats, bring them down to people picking them up, or pick up the coats that folks are dropping off. I pushed around big red bins, up and down a long ramp to the freight elevator where Jose or Earnie would shuttle me between the 6th floor, where all the coats reside, and the loading dock.
Earnie is a great guy. He and Jose both took care of everyone working for the coat drive. Earnie would wait for us to load the elevators, would sometimes load them himself if I was tied up or had a big delivery of coats. More importantly, during the frequent elevator rides he would just talk about life. ’People need to have patience.’ ‘People like that don’t think about anyone but themselves, that’s why we in this mess.’ I don’t have lots of quotes, but Earnie just seemed to have a clear perspective on so much of life and interactions with people. Earnie is like Lawrence on Office Space, or an amazingly insightful supporting character – like the Andy Griffith character in the movie Waitress. I know it’s a little vague, but I can’t say enough good stuff about Earnie.
There were other characters – most nice, some just obnoxious – who worked at the building. Everyone respected the work we did, though. We’re handing out coats to people who need them. What’s not to like?
Some of the folks who came to pick up coats were crotchety and sour, though. ”What? You don’t have new coats? Why won’t you give me a new coat? Why aren’t you loading them in my car? I’m not supposed to do this.” They were few and far between, but they stand out for their absolute sense of entitlement and lack of respect for us – the Coat Drive workers – as team mates in the constant struggle to help those in need. We’re on the same team.
Still, most of the rest of the folks – people who come from agencies that work with the homeless, agencies that rehabilitate drug addicts or alcoholics, churches, food kitchens, and the like – were happy that we could provide something they couldn’t have gotten on their own. They were a pleasure to work with. And by a pleasure, I mean, I wasn’t left with a bad taste in my mouth when they left with the coats they had requested.
My teammates – Wes, Andrew, and Edith – were also great to work with. It really does take four people to run the show. OK, so let me back up in this rambling narrative to explain what the show was. We have a couple different activities that happened throughout the course of the day. We had people dropping off coat donations. We had people sorting the coats. We had people calling about coats. We had to schedule people to come pick up coats. We had people coming to pick up coats.
The Applicants: Applicants had to be nonprofit organizations or government agencies that agreed not to sell the coats we gave them. The agencies sent in applications, beginning in October 2008, requesting a certain number of men’s, women’s, kid’s, and infant’s coats. Although most could follow directions, more than a few missed the bold, underlined sentence that clearly stated your request should not exceed 500 coats. Some agencies asked for close to 2,000 coats. Most, asked for what they thought they could use.
When they came to pick up their coats, there were a variety of vehicles used. Some groups came on foot and called a car service. Others came in sedans. Others came in minivans with the seats still in them and three extra people who just took up space. Some had done this before and rented U-Haul trucks to hold all their coats. It became amusing to me to see that people asked for a few hundred coats, then arrived in a car with the seats still in it.
I’m sure it’s not something you think about all the time, or even much of the time, but how much space do you think 200 coats takes up? Have you looked in your closet or wardrobe? How much space do those 2, 3, 10, 25 coats take up on the racks. Now, stuff them in bags, five to a bag, and imagine 30 or 40 bags. What kind of a car would you need? Mini-van? 15 passenger van? Ford Focus?
In case you were wondering, here’s a quick run down of a car’s carrying capacity for coats:
Mini-van, with seats: ~125-150 coats
Mini-van, no seats: ~200-225 coats
Expedition or similar SUV: ~100-125 coats
Excursion/Suburban SUV with seats: ~150 coats
12 Passenger van, with seats: ~225 coats
12 Passenger van, no seats: ~300-350 coats
15 + Passenger van (no seats), or U-haul truck: the maximum order of 500 coats
It’s amazing how you get a feel for what a car can take. You learn to ask what type of vehicle an agency has, whether it has seats, and how many extra people they have. Without really thinking about it, you have a gut estimation of how many coats each of these parameters knocks off the total you can stuff in the car. My favorite answers to the question of what kind of car – “A red one.” ”No, make, is it a mini-van or a van?” “It’s a Dodge.” “Yes, that’s nice, but what kind of a Dodge?” “I don’t know.” Truly? Do you really not know the difference between a car, a van, a mini-van, or a big long “Church van”? Yes, others would answer, “It’s a church van.” I took that to mean it was a 12 passenger bus or something similar.
Lots of folks looked at the three bins of coats – 150 total – and wondered aloud with disbelief whether they would all fit. ”Yes, they will. You won’t be able to see, but you’ll get all the coats in. I promise.” To hit the higher end of the numbers, it usually involved me going into the car and just jamming myself and the bags of coats into every corner of space. You have to tear a hole in the bags of coats so you can squeeze out every last bit of air. I was always thankful for the smaller orders, they were easy and quick, but the larger orders always left me feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Delivery: In my previous post, I talked about the coats coming in from police precincts, the transportation terminals, and a few other places. I hadn’t yet experienced a true delivery. One that came in a 15ft or 18ft truck that was packed to the gills, even though trucks don’t have gills, with overstuffed bags of coats. Some of the bags must have weighed 40 to 50 pounds. The great thing about the deliveries was that they often happened on the street. As in, the trucks couldn’t come onto the loading dock, so we had to use a rickety, temporary ramp to wheel the carts in and out of the building to pick up dozens, upon dozens of bags of coats. Given the need to share the freight elevator with the contractors working in the building, it could take a long, long time to fully unload all the coats. Still, it was good to be lifting and wheeling, always moving.
The Volunteers: New York Cares manages volunteers. Volunteers come to sort the coats. They eat away at the pile of donated coats, dumping them on tables, deciding whether the coat is a man’s, woman’s, kid’s, or infant’s coat. They bag them five to a bag, usually, and then throw them on the pile of sorted coat. We count our coats as we send them out the building. It would be nice to know how much comes in, but without a standardized system for packing, we can’t know how much comes through the doors.
In general, the volunteers are great. They’ve got the enthusiasm and energy needed to plow through the work of sorting. Some volunteers are less meticulous in their counting – or perhaps you can say overzealous, thinking that if 5 is the target number, 7, 8, or 12 is better, not realizing there is a reason we only want 5 coats in a bag.
What’s more interesting to me, is that I can sense the difference between a 5 coat and a 7 coat bag. In much the same way, you get a gut feel for the volume of vehicles, you get the sense for the wrong weight – up or down – for a bag of men’s coats, kid’s coats, etc. Who knew you could determine with surprising accuracy that a bag of men’s coats had too many?
The volunteers we had from a couple groups tore up the pile. One group sorted about 2500 coats in two hours. Another group sorted about 5000 coats in the same amount of time. Regardless of how many coats a specific group sorted, they all helped us with a successful coat drive.
Wrappin’ It Up: I spent my last day with the coat drive calling agencies who had already picked up coats to see if they wanted to come back to get clothes. People who donated to the coat drive didn’t always give us coats. We get roller blades, ice skates, t-shirts, bras, and suits. Among the other gems donated was a full cockroach suit, replete with extra legs and wings. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So with that, I leave you.
How exciting! All the disclaimers said it would take about 8 to 10 weeks to grade the exams. I took the test November 6, 2008, so I wasn’t expecting it until the end of December. Then, today, poof an email that says my results are ready.
I PASSED! Not that I was actually that worried about it. The test was relatively simple and difficult to study for. Now, my whole application goes to a review committee who will decide whether I can sit for an oral interview. That should happen around the end of February. At that point, I’ll schedule and interview and wait to hear from them.
It’s great news to know there is a potential job coming down the line right about the time that I will be graduating school. Only, I given that my one-year program will now be about 18 months, we’ll see. We’ll see. Who knows, perhaps all the travels will extend the amount of time it takes them to conduct the background check, creating a perfect opportunity to roll right from school into the foreign service, should I choose to do so.
