Isabelle

Isabelle Rose (Chessin) Pryor at the age of 3 in Taiwan.

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My love affair with the African continent...

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What do you do when you are married to a Foreign Service officer? You travel around the world. And if you are with USAID? You travel around Nations of Rising Expectations. Sure we have posts in Rome and Paris, but my husband does not get sent to those places. Except for one time he was sent to Paris for two weeks to evaluate the one and only house owned by USAID in Paris, near the Place Concorde, in a cul-de-sac; otherwise inhabited by Arab Sheiks and Princes all having more money that USAID can count. We were in Afghanistan when Barnett told me that our next assignment was going to be Mauritania. “Mauri-what?,” I said. To simplify the matter, he showed it to me on a map. Since then, we had a globe, and he would point out our next assignment each time. As an Asian/French teenager, you know about Africa because you studied geography. Even then, it was not the best subject while I was in school. I landed in Senegal in 1978, I looked around, and except for the fact that there ...
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A day in a life of a Foreign Service Spouse...

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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...
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Loose tongue… (Another faux-pas of a Foreign Service Spouse!!!)

Laos was not exactly an assignment for me since I was home, and I didn't depend on the American Community, and what was in itself a great thing.  Afghanistan was our first post, and back in 1976, spouses were not allowed to work.  Therefore, it was a lot of gatherings, shopping, book club meetings, thrift shop visits, traveling around the country  (which was a good thing) , cooking sessions, and of course parties. Those parties that ended in the morning, and I remember having to carry my shoes home I danced all night. Then there were the "dreaded" luncheons. I was in one of those dreaded luncheons at my neighbor's home.  The Ambassador and the Director’s wives were there.    I was about 26 years old, young, hot-headed, and quite obnoxious, “the hoity-toity princess” with a very loose mouth, I might add.    Now that I think about it, I was not sure why they invited me to begin with.    I was not always a pleasant person.    And...
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