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B.L.O.G.

Forever friends... Before and after!

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A night in a French Gendarmerie’s Prison Cell!

The old Gendarmerie in Montauban It was a dark and stormy night… Quit that and get to the story... A long, very long time ago when I was a young, very young woman, my sisters and I used to spend our summers in Southern France doing what we did best in those days, party. In the summer, most French villages down south have block parties. Their block parties consisted of the entire village participating. Sometimes, they managed to get some famous singers to perform. Between block parties, discotheques, getting up late in the morning, sunbathing in the afternoon, we had a great life; a shallow life one would say, but we were young. We had an apartment in one of those converted townhouses, with only one main entrance. The old man living in the apartment facing us didn’t like us at all. Actually, he didn’t like Asians, and he didn’t like noisy girls. We came home late, and according to him, we were not nice. One night he decided...

My love affair with the African continent...

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 ...

A very happy and joyous New Year to all!

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Laure and I...: Spotsylvania, VA, United States; ~ Barnett wrote: We officially met each other in 1966, when I delivered a case of milk to her parents' home in Central Laos- as payment for one of the family's German shepherd pups. Though she said nothing to me that day, it began a four year off-again on-again courtship ending in Marriage in 1970. Educated in the Couvent Les Oiseaux in Dalat, Laure had no intention of marrying an American; becoming a U.S. citizen; or eventually becoming the grandmother of three young Virginians. We have since traveled much of the world together for 40 years. A Marine; Peace Corps Volunteer; a Bushrod Washington Scholar at Georgetown; and, eventually, an itinerant Foreign Service Officer- I am still surprised that Laure stays with me; and continue to try to find ways to ensure that Laure can continue gallivanting in strange places. Now, we have decided to write about the lives we have lead, and the changing world we grew up in. ~ Laure wrote: Barnett is the serious writer of this family; I will keep our B.L.O.G. on a lighter note generally. All the weird things that I remember gallivanting around the world, but still fun just the same.

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