A day in a life of a Foreign Service Spouse...


Life in the Foreign Service is not effortless. While it may sound glamorous, living abroad in places such as Casablanca or Cairo; or living in a place with an exotic name such as Nouakchott, life can be harsh, especially for a “spouse.” You leave your home, your job, everything you know and are comfortable with following your spouse into the unknown. You arrive at a post with nothing but a cruddy hospitality kit waiting for you in an unfamiliar house with generic furniture. It is cold, it is sad, it is depressing. You keep on saying to yourself that tomorrow it will be better. But tomorrow is not better, sometimes it is even worse. If you are in a small post, it can be nice and you can find that the community is warm, tight and helpful. But if you are in a big developed post, then you are practically on your own. If you are in Paris, you’d better start learning French, and fast. If you are in Beijing, you’d better learn Chinese and fast, and so on. If you are lucky, you will find a friend that you will keep for life, but it is not guaranteed. So far, I count my blessings. I have normally been only in small posts, because we are with USAID; and, so far, everywhere I have been, I have found friends, even in places such as Somalia.

Since our retirement, Barnett is still trudging along working to support my gallivanting as he puts it. Don’t believe him, he loves being out still contributing, and mentoring. To make a long story short, I am in Madagascar and I can’t say that I am enjoying myself here. The country is beautiful, but everything else is wrong. This place is unique, but not in a good way. So, if I find a friend I am lucky. Last Saturday, we had people over for pre-Easter. Actually, I arranged for them to come over to learn how to make Nems (Vietnamese spring roll), and caramel pork. The party started at 11:30 AM with a glass of mojito, and the party ended at 7:00 PM with a glass of mojito. I am not sure how many mojitos we had in between. I cannot write the conversation in this blog after four glasses of mojitos. All I know is that we had a lot of thuggar in the thumb on top of green fresh hint, or something sounding just like that. On Sunday, I tidied up the kitchen and found the bottle of rum, or what was left of it... Hum!

Thank you Noël and Gail, for making such a difference in the life of this Foreign Service Officer’s spouse.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 13, 2010 at 3:16 PM

    Oh, Laure, I know EXACTLY what you mean and I am glad now to be starting my own adventure as a Foreign Service Officer, rather than a MOH (or, Member of Household, which is far less privileged than an actual spouse, both in terms of real benefits and embassy community recognition). It seems to me that you have lead a truly blessed life and are always surrounded by people who love you - I hope that this helps support you when you are feeling low in Madagascar. Sending happy thoughts...

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