Red Licorice and Jujubes

January 1, 2012

2012-01-01T15:06:00.000+04:00

1/1/12.

Another year. I wanted to write something here but haven't decided if I want to reflect on the past year or think about what's in store for me this new year. Since I seem to be very preoccupied with planning for what's happening now, I think I'll share what my thoughts are about 2012.

This is the year I will move to my next post. Life in the Foreign Service is a challenge...you have to be careful not to accumulate too much "stuff" because you have to pack out every 2-3 years and move to a new 'home.' During my short 6 year career, I think I'm safe and will never exceed the weight limitations we have for government moving. But that doesn't mean I won't buy lots of stuff! During my first tour in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, I bought things like beautiful baskets and some traditional Lenca pottery, made the same way as the Mayans did centuries ago. There was also some paintings I fell in love with (thank you Julio Mata Sanabria!) and ended up with 3 of his best. So far, so good. Fast forward to Muscat, Oman. It's a good thing I didn't spend too much in Honduras because I discovered the gorgeous carpets of the Middle East here! Oh boy...did I ever! The one below is one of my favorites of the silk-on-silk. It is gorgeous! I have 5 silk (3 4'x6' and 2 3'x5').

This is the first one I bought...a Persian wool and the largest at 10'x13'. I hope that when I leave this job and return to a normal life that I have a house big enough for it!

All totaled, between what I have bought here and in Istanbul, I am the proud owner of 11 carpets. And I still have 3 1/2 months left here. That number could go higher!

So...back to what all is on my mind for 2012. I am up to my neck in the paperwork it takes to get me from Oman to Pakistan. There is so much to do and if you don't think of all the questions and get answers before you get there, for some things, you are out of luck! For example, my job is for 1 year but I want to extend for the second year. This would be perfect as it would take me right up to June 2014, which is the month I have to retire. If my request is granted, I am entitled to a bit more weight in my shipment to Pakistan. However, if I don't find out until I get there, I have lost out on bringing a few more precious belongings. Hopefully, I'll get word soon on my request. This past week a couple things were finalized and I now no longer need to worry about where I will stay in DC during my 2 weeks there. I also found out I will be able to put my car in storage for the duration of my tour. These were big ticket items that were causing me to lose sleep...not any more! I know that with the holidays, emails were slow to be answered and some people in DC were on vacation. Now that the holidays are over, I feel certain that things will move along faster. My biggest fear is that I won't think to ask something that I shoul have and will live to regret it.

I've started gathering up things I will want to sell in a yard sale before I leave here. I found out last week that a friend has already gotten that ball rolling. She and her family are departing post about the same time I am and she is going to have a multi-family yard sale. Yee haw...so now there is one room in my house where I am putting things I don't need to keep any longer. This is a good thing because I have lots of beaded jewelry that I make and it will be a great opportunity to sell it. I've been making jewelry for a few months now and figure by the time I get out of the Foreign Service, I may have a few pieces to sell to add to the measly income I will have until I find a real job! I use gemstones, pearls and mostly silver in my designs and make necklaces, earrings, bracelets and

badge lanyards for those of us who have to wear badges at work. It's much nicer to have a piece of jewelry to hang your badge on than an old standard issue chain.

Anyway, I'm gradually adding to the pile and hope to rid myself of some added weight and 'stuff' that I really don't need. Of course, all my 'stuff' is excellent 'stuff' so I'm sure it will fly off the sale table!

I will leave Oman on April 12th, fly to Kauai and spend 2 weeks spoiling my 3 grandsons and then fly on to Fort Worth, Texas. It will be great to see my father again and spend time with friends for another 2 weeks. Then on to Washington DC where I will take a week's worth of training for a high risk assignment, do a little shopping and then, on June 2, board a flight for Pakistan. I have no qualms about going to Pakistan. I will be fine and as they say here, Insha' Allah, or God Willing, nothing will happen to me. I know He is watching over me. Every decision I have made has worked out and there is nothing to make me think that will change now. When you make decisions with your heart, they are bound to work out!

Christmas in Oman...and Paris

2011-12-25T17:56:00.001+04:00

Next year I move on to another post, Lahore, Pakistan. I'm excited about the challenges and changes I will face. I decided that before I headed back to Texas for my home leave and training (and then onward to Pakistan) I would make a short trip Paris. I invited my daughter to meet me there, but she was unable to get away, so I flew off for a solo 5 day vacation in the City of Lights.

I had a blast! I must have walked 25 miles in 5 days! I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and drank in the gorgeous views from all sides...Paris is even more beautiful from above! The very wide boulevards and beautiful buildings were amazing. It was a cold and cloudy day but as the clouds blew by, openings were created and I was able to get some great pictures. Since it was not that great of a day weatherwise, it wasn't crowded and moving around was really easy. Our tour guide was a Canadian girl who knew every bit of information about the Tower and about Gustave Eiffel. Spending the extra few dollars to get a guided tour was worth every penney. I would have never learned what I did just by wandering around on my own.

Another place I visited a couple of times was L'Arc de Triomphe. What a gorgeous giant monument! The monument is covered with the names of the soldiers, dates and there is even an eternal flame and burial of a French soldier, sort of like our tomb of the unknown soldier we have in DC.

Up close, you can see the intricate details of the sculptures all over the monument...it's just amazing. I also decided to walk up the 284 steps to the very top observation deck...and made it! Once again, the view was spectacular! There are 12 very wide boulevards that lead into the Arc, sort of like spokes of a wheel. You can see forever from the top and really appreciate the layout of the city. Just another example of extreme beauty in Paris.

No trip to Paris would be considered complete without a trip to the Louvre. I'm not a real art afficionado, but I was totally blown away by the beauty at the Louvre. The sculptures were absolutely gorgeous (Venus de Milo, among many others) and the paintings were unbelievable. I was not impressed by the Mona Lisa, even though her eyes did follow me when I walked around her. There are so many other more beautiful works of art than her and I just don't get all the hoopla over that one painting.

Another side trip I invested in was the Hop On-Hop Off bus tour. I bought a 2 day ticket and the 4 different routes made it possible to see almost the entire city. You could get off where you wanted and about 30 minutes later, another yellow and blue bus would come along and you got back on. One of the many stops was Notre Dame. Once again, I saw that the pictures I have seen of this place all my life just don't do it justice. There is so much beauty incorporated on the front of Notre Dame...I just wish I had a guide to tell me what everything was...what story they were telling. I suppose I could google Notre Dame and get all the details. The inside was gorgeous with tall, tall ceilings and beautiful brickwork on them. The stained glass "rose" windows are plentiful. The feeling of history and reverence that you get when inside a place such as Notre Dame is very powerful...like being in the middle of a historical moment.

During my wanderings in Paris, I found lots of shops to explore. But my favorites were the bakeries. The baguettes and beignets (especially the chocolate filled ones) and croissants were delicious. And I had some of the best french onion soup, french fries and cheeses ever! All in all, I had a great time!

When I told some people I was going to Paris by myself, I got odd looks. The most romantic city in the world and you're going by yourself??? You bet! I decided several years ago to 'just do it' and denying myself something merely because I would do it alone was certainly not reason enough to not 'do it.' And when I tell my friends about my adventures, I know they wish they were me.

My Next Assignment Is...

2011-12-16T07:57:00.001+04:00

I can finally write about where I'm headed after I leave Muscat, Oman. I haven't been able to post it here because I hadn't told my 96 year old father. How to tell him where I was headed was something I thought long and hard about. I've known for over a month I was going to Lahore, Pakistan but wasn't sure how to tell him. Many of my friends here said just tell him some you're going to some other country and he won't worry about you. But lying to my Dad just was not the route I wanted to go. So I sent an email and was honest about it and so...now he knows and he supports me!

Of all places in Pakistan, Lahore is the safest. The timing is perfect as I race toward my June 30, 2014 retirement date, and the current OMS there said she likes it so much she is extending for another year. That spoke volumes to me and helped me make the decision to pursue the position there, which is, once again, in security.

I am now in the process of completing the mountain of paperwork, making decisions about everything and trying to figure out just what I will take with me. I won't take anything with me that I wouldn't be OK with walking away from should there be an ordered departure (evacuation). Just what will I miss the most? Probably all the GORGEOUS silk carpets I've bought here in Oman! Oh well...2 years flies by so quickly, I'll be reunited with them before I know it.

Life is, indeed, an adventure. Mine continues and hopefully, I will have some very interesting stories to tell about my time in Pakistan. The tour is for 1 year but I intend to request it to be 2 years. That way I don't have to worry about finding a 1 year assignment in June 2013. I have had such a wonderful time in Oman, it will be hard to leave. This is a gorgeous country and the people are wonderful. Right now, it's winter and the temperature is in the 70s, cooling off to the 60s at night.

Tonight I fly off to enjoy a week in Paris, France! I invited my daughter to meet me there but unfortunately, she can't. So me and my camera will just have to have fun by ourselves! I've been watching the weather reports and it's cold and there's a chance of snow tomorrow! It's been over 4 years since I experienced any cold weather, so I had to go find some cold weather shoes. I am now set! I can't wait...Christmas in the City of Lights!

A Wet Day in Muscat!

2011-11-06T23:23:00.001+04:00

Summer is coming to an end here in Muscat, Oman. We even saw rain last week...and boy, did we ever see it!! The mountains around Muscat, the Al Hajar range, are solid rock so when it rains, nothing soaks in and it is all watershed. Anything below better be prepared! The average annual rainfall in Muscat is 0.8 - 3.9" per year. Yes, per year! On Wednesday, it rained pretty hard. I don't know how much fell, but my guess is that we're now pretty close to that 3.9" maximum for the year. There was flooding all over the city and a 9' section of the wall behind my house collapsed from the weight of an additional 4' of dirt. The house behind mine was leveled and the owner is building 2 houses on that property. The soil level has been raised at least 4' and when it rained, the wall on my property couldn't handle the weight and one section collapsed. You can see in the picture just how high the soil level is. The picture doesn't show it, but the wall goes down another 2 feet. We expect more sections to fall before we can get the property owner to do something about it.

My problem is nothing compared to what motorists had to deal with on Wednesday! The flooding was unbelievable!! Cars were swept away, buildings crumbled and there is mud everywhere now. I only have satellite TV with no local coverage so I'll have to wait until I get back to work on Wednesday to read about it in the newspapers. This is the first day of the biggest religious holiday here, Eid al Adha, and we have Sunday through Tuesday off. Hopefully, it won't rain for a while so that cars can be removed and the mud cleared away.

It was the first time it rained since I arrived here in July 2010. When I left work, without an umbrella, I took my time getting to my car. Rain never felt so good...

2011-09-08T15:36:00.002+04:00

Frankincense tree

A few months ago I went on a short trip to southern Oman, to the city of Salalah, almost to the Yemen border. This is where the frankincense trees grow and that was one of the things we wanted to see/experience/touch. All those good things. I mean, when you are in a foreign country, you really should see everything that you can during your stay. So we flew to Salalah. Something happened on the flight that I just remembered and I think it's important to share this with you.

We boarded our flight, with our assigned seats, me in an aisle seat in the bulkhead with lots of legroom. My friends were a bit behind me and we settled in for the flight. An Omani gentleman came up to me, looking at his boarding pass. Across the aisle were 3 seats and 2 young Omani women were sitting there, window seat and middle seat. The man looked at them, turned and sat in the window seat by me, leaving an empty seat between us. I knew he had the aisle seat across from me where the 2 ladies were. Sure enough, very soon, the 2 people assigned to the seat he was in and the one next to me came, asking for their seat. He refused to answer them and turned and looked out the window. The passengers left and a couple of minutes later the flight attendant came back with their boarding passes in her hand. She asked the man to move to his assigned seat. He turned and looked at her and then turned away, looking out the window again. The attendant tried to tell him all seats were assigned and he needed to take his seat so the 2 passengers could get seated. He would not speak to her. Finally, I spoke up and offered to move across the aisle next to the ladies, leaving 2 seats for the other 2 passengers. With a great sigh of relief, she thanked me.

You may be thinking...what a jerk that man was! But actually, it probably had something to do with his religion or his cultural values. At first I thought he was being unreasonable and thought to myself...Self, don't volunteer to give up your seat! But the more I thought about it, the more I believed that he was following his beliefs.

So for all of you who travel to foreign countries or are Foreign Service like me, be sure to pack a big supply of tolerance and understanding in your bags when you head overseas. Arrive at your destination with an understanding that you will not judge others by your standards. Just because we do something in the United States doesn't make it a worldwide accepted way of doing things. Don't be quick to judge others because believe me, they will be judging you too. Most of all, don't look down on people because of their local clothing. I am asked all the time why men here wear those "dumb" long white "dresses." They wear their dishdashas proudly because it is their heritage. If you are a Christian, how would you feel if someone pointed out that Christ wore a long white "dress?" What do you think people in other countries say about hula skirts or 10 gallon hats and pointed boots? We probably look pretty stupid to other cultures!

So, don't forget...leave your snickering at home when traveling abroad and just enjoy the cultural differences!

Homeward Bound

2011-08-17T04:03:00.000+04:00

My combination training/leave time in the states is winding down. I will fly back to Muscat, Oman on Friday and I am really ready to get home! I've done my shopping, attended my classes and am now ready to get back to work and my normal routine.

No visit home would be complete without seeing my Dad in Fort Worth. At 96, he is still sharp as a tack and as stubborn as ever. While I was there, Texas was experiencing a heat wave with many days in a row over 100 degrees. This tough old bird insisted on spending hours in the garage in the heat of the afternoon, working at his workbench. He loves making walking sticks out of bamboo that grows along the driveway.

My sweet 96 year young Dad

We tried to get him to come in during those hot afternoons but he insisted on going out in the garage. The day after I left for Washington, he became severely confused and after a visit to the emergency room and a battery of tests, the doctor said he had suffered a heat stroke. Maybe now he will wait for cooler weather to resume his hobby.

It's been great seeing old friends here at the Foreign Service Institute. Everywhere I turn, I see someone I went to training with or someone I met in Honduras. You realize that it is really a very small world. It also makes you see how being a part of the Foreign Service family affords you the opportunity to meet so very many people...people who become friends for life. Just think...I have friends all over the world. After I retire, if I could afford to get there, I will have friends to stay with just about anywhere!! Just one more benefit of this job.

The bid list has come out and I do have some interesting choices. The process goes like this. I pick 5-6 places I would love to serve. I then campaign for the position...or, to put it differently, I do everything I can to convince those people at my chose places to offer me the position. Unlike the first 2 assignments where I was directed, I must find my next job on my own. As soon as I get back to Oman, I can begin the process of emailing the section head (for me it will be the Regional Security Officer). I will also contact the Management Officers of the Embassy, as well as the person who holds the position I am interested in. I'll also look up all the information on the posts which will include housing, weather, safety and the reports from those who have served there. Those reports are usually very blunt and honest and can really help you make up your mind. The places I am interested in so far are Berlin, Vienna, Jerusalem and Tijuana. Tijuana, you ask???? How did that one make it in there??? Well, since this will be my final tour, Tijuana caught my eye for a number of reasons. I would save lots of money on regional travel. If I went to Vienna or Berlin or Jerusalem, I would have to see Italy, Greece, Germany...you get my point. Tijuana is a 3-4 hour flight to Hawaii where my son and his wife and my 3 grandsons live, so I would be able to see them fairly often. It's also about the same flight to see Dad in Texas. I grew up in Coronado, just across the border from Tijuana. And I love Mexican food. And I speak Spanish. It may not be Europe, but I could be happy there. But...who knows. It's very early in the process and I haven't begun really to make my move. As of right now, they are all my #1 choices!

Training Tips, Hot Weather and Bidding

2011-08-05T05:17:00.000+04:00

The nighttime view from my apartment

I'm not sure just what strings I pulled or what magic words I used, but I snagged some great training away from post this year. In June, it was Bangkok. And now in August, I'm here for training in Washington DC. It's a great thing that training is offered and even better when you are lucky enough to be approved to fly home to attend some...even during difficult economic times.

While in DC for almost 4 weeks, I'm staying in an apartment in Arlington, VA, about a 5 minute drive to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) where my training takes place. Since weight is always a consideration when you travel, I came with nothing and shopped for new clothes, which will fill my 2 suitcases when it comes time to pack. What I don't want to shop for are things I need in the kitchen since I won't have room in my suitcases to take them back to Muscat. With this in mind, you really have to be creative. Sure, the apartment is fully furnished and there is a limited supply of kitchen tools to work with. But there are no zip lock bags, no saran wrap, no storage containers (ie Tupperware for us old folks) or other little things that when at home, we just take for granted. So, you learn to be creative. Tonight I made a yummy pot roast with potatoes and carrots and onions. Obviously, there are leftovers. So, I dug the plastic produce bag out of the trash and used it like saran wrap, covering the meat and veggies in the bowl with it. I refuse to buy a box of zip lock bags (call me El Cheapo) so I wash and reuse 2 bags that I had in my suitcase that had small bottles of hand lotion in them. I did have to give in and buy a corkscrew since I just couldn't find any way to get the cork out of the wine bottle without destroying it! It was, however, the lighter of the 2 that I looked at!

I took a few annual leave days prior to going to Washington to stop in Fort Worth, Texas to see my Dad. I was really looking forward to escaping, for just a little while, the heat of the Middle East. No way was that happening this summer! Texas is hotter than a firecracker this summer and it barely dipped below 100 degrees the entire time I was there. The biggest challenge was keeping my 96 year old father inside the house instead of out in the garage, sitting at his workbench. The day after I left, he ended up in the emergency room with heat stroke. Did he learn his lesson? I doubt it...he loves tinkering in his workshop, even at his advanced age.

The other bit of very reportable news is that the bid list is now out. This list, basically, is the list of openings for us Foreign Service people who will move to another embassy next summer. It's up to each of us to select 6-8 from the list, weigh the pros and cons of each one and then submit our choices. All things need to be taken into consideration...a new job, the stress of moving from one place to another, lots of new faces, new cultures, new opportunities. It may sound like a very stressful time but these are the reasons we all signed on the dotted line. I, for one, thrive on this kind of challenge. I have some great places on my list but the ones that I am looking at very seriously are Vienna, Berlin, Dubai, Tunis, Jerusalem, Moscow and Bogota. They all sound wonderful and once I can do my research, I'm sure one of them will rise above the rest. Or not. They are, at this time, all tied for 1st choice.

As you can see, there's lots on my plate right now. I hope to pass the test tomorrow and get my certification in Microsoft Outlook. I hope the stock market recovers and stops dropping like a rock. I hope to be under 50 pounds in each of my 2 suitcases when I fly home on the 19th. I hope I can make really good informed decisions on my bid list. And I really hope my Dad stays out of the hot garage.

My Week in Bangkok

2011-06-20T20:52:00.000+04:00

One thing the State Department does is make sure its employees are trained. They even require certain training for you to be eligible for promotion. It was obvious that this message never made it to my first post, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, because I got turned down for every training request I made. "No funds." The best excuse was "It's not your turn." But no one else was eligible to go so no one went. But that's another story.

Fast forward to Muscat, Oman...my current assignment. I finally got the green light to go to Bangkok for a week of training in PowerPoint, culminating with the exam to get my Microsoft Certification in that program. The training was fun, I passed the test, met some great people and saw quite a bit of the city. Classes ended at 3:45 or 4:00 every day so that left plenty of time to see temples, to shop, to walk all over the city..and did I mention shop?

These Buddhas were at Wat Pho (Wat means temple). These temples are beautiful places with statues, bonsai like I've never seen before and tall spires covered in decorative porcelain. The little man that was our tour guide was so cute. I couldn't understand everything he said but he would walk ahead of us, turn around and then hold his hands as though he was directing a jumbo jet into its parking place and we would turn around and it would be a perfect scene for a photograph. You could tell he had done this before!

As I mentioned before, there was beautiful bonsai plants all over the place. This one was particularly beautiful, but really, they were all amazing. Our guide told us that they were all at least 150 years old. I didn't dare touch one, even though I pride myself on having a green thumb. I really didn't want to be the cause of one of these plants dying!

We saw many major Buddhas...Happy Buddha, Reclining Buddha and others that, because I was so busy marveling at the sight of them,I missed hearing which one I was looking at!

Another place we went was Wat Arun. There were more of the same kind of structures but much bigger. It was just amazing. That's me in the picture below and yes, I did climb the steps up the structure behind me!

It's hard to see, but covering all these tall structures was what looked like broken plates. But it was really porcelain. It had to have taken years to build these and decorate them. The statues were everywhere... Confucius, dogs, everything you could imagine.

You would have thought it would be crowded but it wasn't. Many of the people there were from Thailand and came to pay their respects. Probably just as many were tourists, like us. You could hear several languages being spoken at any given moment.

I had heard of the Reclining Buddha, but until you visit a country and actually see some of the things there, it doesn't really register. When I saw this Buddha, I was amazed. It is huge! Now that I've seen it, I want to read about why someone wanted a Buddha in a reclining position when all others were sitting cross legged in a lotus position! What would possess someone to build a concrete Buddha this huge and then cover it in gold?

Have I mentioned shopping yet? No?? Well....let me tell you, Bangkok has some serious shopping choices! I did manage to buy some silk, my major purchase being a reversible silk jacket in a Chinese style with the little frog closures. One side is black, the other is brown. That jacket will get some major wear time! I also bought some assorted silk scarves, some beads since I've taken up jewelry making, a couple of pillow covers and some other various items that I just had to have. We went to the Weekend Market,(the largest outdoor market in the world), the MBK Mall (7 levels of everything ever made to be sold) and lots of little shops along the way when we went walking.

Remember those stairs I climbed? Well, this was the view from the top, looking back over a part of the city. It was gorgeous, especially with those menacing dark clouds! We decided it was time to put the cameras away and head for some kind of cover. We made it back to the river and inside a little gift shop just as the rain began. We had some chicken and fried rice and water..it was hot and humid! I also made it to Jim Thompson's Museum. He was an American who settled in Thailand and developed the silk industry there. It became hugely successful. One day, he walked into the jungle and never came out. He is remembered fondly by the Thai people and for good reason.

After 9 days of studying and shopping, it was back to reality and work in Muscat. I am now looking forward to my trip to the states next month. I haven't seen my dad in a year and it's high time I got a hug from him. I'll be in Fort Worth for about 9 days and then, amazingly enough, on to Washington for 3 weeks of training! When it rains, it pours! For my FS friends, never get discouraged if you get turned down for regional training...your day will come. Make the most of it because you don't get opportunities like this every day!

Cultural Differences...Embrace Them!

2011-04-30T21:34:00.002+04:00

Living in a foreign country is, in itself, an adventure. You encounter such a diverse cross section of people. During my 2 years in Honduras, most everyone I saw looked to be Honduran or at the very least, to be from South or Central America. No one really stood out as being from another country, except us gringos. That's not the case here in Oman. Many people come here from nearby countries for employment opportunities and, from what I can guess, a better standard of living. The quality of life is very good here. Consequently, there are many different nationalities living in Oman. There are only subtle differences in their appearances, so it's hard for me to tell who is from where...if you know what I mean. I am told (but have yet to commit it to memory) that you can differentiate one countryman from another by how they dress. Many Omani men wear the dishdasha, or the long white tunic that goes all the way to the ankle, leather sandals and the hat with beautiful embroidery on it. Some men wear the white or beige pants with the long matching tunic just reaching their knees with no head covering and I believe they would be from Pakistan. I say that because I drive by the Pakistani embassy every day on the way to work and see them standing in line to get in their Consular section. Some, like the Saudis, wear the colorful ring that holds the cloth, which can be red and white or other color, around their heads with the long white tunic. I need some cultural help to know who is who. There are Omani, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Indian, just to name a few, living here and many other countries in this reagion are represented here. I need to make a concerted effort to learn what region they are from by the clothes they wear.

The women also have several styles of dressing from very conservative, covering completely, to regular street clothes. So far, I haven't seen anyone in a full burka. Of the women who choose to wear the abaya, the long black caftan with the head covering, most do not cover their faces completely. I've also seen ladies who wear a sheer black fabric that completely covers their face but they can see out through the material. Other women, who I can only guess are from surrounding countries cover their heads with scarves or other wraps. Some wear regular street clothes and others will wear colorful loose fitting pants with long tunics and scarves, much like you would see in India. All in all, the variety of dress here paints a lovely picture of a very blended culture.

The Omani people are wonderful. This is a Muslim country and faith is very important here. For those who would judge all Muslims by the actions of the radical Muslims, you are judging the wrong people. There are good and bad in every religion, culture, nationality, color or any other factor you choose. Saying all Muslims are bad is like saying all blondes are dumb or all husbands cheat on their wives. You just can't generalize like that. I can remember how uncomfortable it made me feel, years ago, when my ex-husband would use degrading words to describe someone from the Middle East who wore a head covering. When you think about it, some types of clothing worn in the United States probably seems pretty stupid to people in other parts of the world. What kind of comments do you think are made about our Native American Indians and the feather headdress they wear? What about pointy toed Cowboy boots in Texas? Or grass skirts on ladies dancing on the beach? My point is this...until you get out and learn about other cultures, it makes no sense at all to criticize. It's all the many varied cultures and the desire to adhere to tradition that makes this world a beautiful painting. And instead of criticizing and making fun of someone who just might be a little different from what you're used to, make an effort to learn about their culture. That's one of the beauties of my job...the opportunity to travel around the world and learn about others and more importantly, from others.

Living here in Oman, it is refreshing to see the modest styles of the dishdashas and abayas and the obvious pride in their heritage. No longer do I see pants hovering around some guy's butt-cheeks or tattoos and the tops of thongs peeking out from low slung pants on women. And I also don't have to sit in a restaurant and watch some couple making out. Living in a country where things are mostly conservative is really a very nice thing.

Faces of Oman

2011-04-08T11:50:00.001+04:00

Recently I attended the Muscat Festival here in Muscat, Oman. This is an annual event that celebrates the cultural differences among the many people of Oman. It brings together the different tribes of Omani people in celebration of their cultural heritage. It was also a wonderful opportunity for anyone who, like me, love photography. All of the diverse cultures are showcased in dance, traditional costumes and food. I'm grateful for the opportunity that my job affords me to be exposed to different cultures and customs and getting to learn about Oman's rich heritage is a bonus.

For those of you in the Foreign Service, if you get the opportunity to bid on Muscat, Oman, go for it! It's a wonderful place with terrific people and great regional travel opportunities! So what if it's 120 degrees 7 months of the year...we have great air conditioning and the diving is great.

Pucker up!

The children were beautiful....

Handicrafts were being demonstrated throughout the event. This lady is making baskets.

Photographers were everywhere on this night, and every night. This festival is a representation of all cultures and tribes that make up Oman. It is an annual event and I will definitely attend more than just one night of this month long celebration in January 2012.

This man was amazing. During the entire demonstration by the entire group, he wandered around, with wonderful looks on his face and even balancing the tip of his sword on the tip of his finger...without drawing blood! The costumes and faces of this group was wonderful.

The man below was all smiles and wanted to talk. When I asked him if I could take his picture, he said "Of course" and proceeded to give me this look. After I took his picture, he laughed and said "I hope that's a good picture!"

Safari in Kenya - 1 Less Item on the Bucket List

2011-02-25T21:14:00.000+04:00

I'm a maker of lists. I love lists. I make lists just so I don't forget things, but if I do something that isn't on my list, I add it just so I can cross it off. Now that's satisfaction! I recently made a trip to Kenya with a friend and can now cross being close up and personal with wild animals off my Bucket List!

The trip was a 5 day, 4 night safari...just long enough to get a real feel for being in Kenya and experiencing the thrill of seeing these beautiful animals. We stayed at fantastic places, saw gorgeous sights and the food was wonderful. I have a nice camera but now I want a nicer camera! I want to be able to tell if an animal's eyes are bloodshot or not or be able to see tiny details from 50 feet. I'm very happy with my over 700 photographs, but next time I take a trip like this, I will invest in a longer zoom lens.

It was a thrill to see elephants, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, hippos, numerous birds and many other animals up close. We traveled across the Maasai Mara reserve in our safari vehicle with a pop up top, covering a good part of its 1500 square kilometers. In the beginning, I swore I saw an animal, only to find out it was a bush or tree. After about half a day, I began to be able to tell the difference.

Our driver, Simon, knew every bird, every animal, the different varieties of the animals and just where to take us to get the best view. All the vehicles had a 2 way radio and there was constantly chatter going on in a language I couldn't understand. They were communicating with each other and passing on information on where animals were. Of course, as you drove along, if you noticed 5 cars stopped in the distance, you knew something was going on and you'd better head that way! The ride was rather bumpy going over the dirt trails but it was all worth it.

We spent 2 nights at the Keekorok Lodge, which was wonderful. The little monkey above, along with the rest of his family, would perch outside my room. He even tried to come in once. They have the run of the place and there was even a sign in my room warning visitors not to feed them or leave my door open because they knew how to come in and make themselves at home!

A short walk from the room was a hippo pond. There were 15-20 hippos in the pond at any given time. You walked along an elevated wooden trail which led to a really neat viewing room. The times I was there, no one else was there. Several animals would congregate at this pond including elephants, ducks and a variety of gazelles, zebras and who knows what else. It was a very serene place with a 360 degree view.

After 2 days, we moved on to our next destination with Simon...the Great Rift Valley and Lake Naivasha. We arrived in late afternoon, just in time to see 3 giraffes walking along the road about 15 feet from our front door! The animals have access to the entire place and later that night, after dark, there were hippos, gazelles and other animals grazing on the large expansive area right outside our window. When I say 'right outside' I mean like within 10 feet!

The next morning we went on a boat ride...well, more like a motor boat ride, on Lake Naivasha. I don't want to give you the wrong impression here...it was more like a large canoe with seats and a motor. The sky looked kind of threatening but we paid our $100 and off we went. We floated by a family of hippos, lots of beautiful birds and could see other animals on the shores. At one point, we stopped and walked among zebras, gazelles and elephants. Back in the boat, the skipper threw a fish out into the water and an eagle flew from a nearby tree, scooped it up and flew back to the tree. Pretty amazing! Just like at Keekorok, the dinner was a huge buffet and the food was wonderful.

The following morning, we were on the road again, this time headed to the Mt. Kenya Safari Club.On the way, we stopped at a little place where there was a sign claiming to be the exact spot where the equator passes through. We even saw a 'test' of how from one side of the sign, water drained clockwise and 10 feet away, it drained counter clockwise. I'm a believer. The Mt. Kenya Safari Club is a multi-star lodge built or backed by William Holden and Stephanie Powers. It is gorgeous. When we checked in we were treated to the words "We are going to upgrade you to a suite." SWEET! Our suite overlooked the pond with several types of cranes and ducks and a view of Mt. Kenya to die for.

While one of us was taking a shower, the handle came off and water shot out like a cannon! We were grabbing anything and everything that would soak up water because the bathroom was quickly filling with water. Fortunately, someone arrived, shut off the water and fixed it.

Everything about this trip was wonderful. It was something I've always wanted to do and finally can say I've done it. If you ever have the opportunity to go on a safari, jump on it! Fortunately, with my job, I have the opportunity for regional travel and I plan on taking advantage of it. Once I retire (mandatory retirement at age 65) there won't be funds to do things like this so I have to reach for that brass ring whenever I can. Over the next 4 years, I'm not letting any opportunity slip by me!

Rainy Day in Muscat

2011-01-27T09:10:00.001+04:00

Ahhh...the rainy season in Oman. It is generally hot here but this is the rainy season, short as it might be, and the other day clouds rolled in and it rained. It was a wonderful rain. The sky had a very threatening look to it and being from Texas, I did expect some thunder and lightning. But all it did was rain. I have been told that the real rainy season is yet to come so maybe this was just a 24 hour teaser. The wadis, or dry riverbeds, are all over and when it rains even a modest amount, these wadis fill with water that runs down off the rock mountains that surround the city.

Today it's a gorgeous day and I may take a drive to one of the wadis and see if there's any transformation as a result of this rain. The mountains look the same, but they are solid rock, so there is no real greening of them from rain. I took this picture from the end of my driveway...the front door is just under those pieces of wood sticking out on the right. It was about 4:00pm when I took this...my outdoor lights even came on because of the low light.

Just another pleasant surprise in this middle eastern country...rain. We take it so much for granted yet in some parts of the world it is a blessing.

Christmas in Oman, 2010

2011-01-25T20:20:00.001+04:00

Happy New Year! My new laptop finally arrived and after much consternation, I now have reliable internet. It's a new year and things are just wonderful here in Muscat, Oman. I love my life!!

An amazing sight

I had a terrific Christmas. My friend, Sally, who I worked with in Honduras, flew in from Sarajevo on December 23 and we had 8 days of fun in the sun, being tourists and discovering amazing things in and around Muscat.

The first day we had brunch at the Grand Hyatt...it was delicious. We also did some shopping and I kind of showed her around Muscat. Saturday we went to the Grand Mosque, the Sultan's gorgeous mosque here. The picture doesn't really show how amazing the chandelier is, which is 46' tall and 16' wide. I've seen many photographs of it and none really show its beauty. This is definitely something that you have to see to appreciate the beauty and enormity of it all.

One of the islands where we swam

Underwater Activity

The next day, we put on our bathing suits, grabbed our snorkeling gear and headed down the carriageway (aka highway) towards Al Sawadi. Al Sawadi is a beach resort and they offer day trips for divers to 2 islands, about a 45 minute boat ride from shore. There were about 16 of us and we were the only 2 snorkelers, or top water bobbers as I like to refer to myself. I tried snorkeling for the first time while living in Honduras and can honestly say I wish I had learned this earlier in life! The beauty that lies just below the surface of the water is unbelievable! Al Sawadi beach is beautiful and we saw some amazing stuff... the first island even had a beautiful white beach. We were in shallow water, about 8', and it was so clear. The fish didn't seem to mind us swimming above them at all. The only problem was that they wouldn't stay still when I wanted to take their picture!

Hut Sweet Hut

The next day we headed toward Al Naseem camp, with a side trip to Ras al Jaz. This is along the coast of Oman. The plan was to spend the night in the desert in what could be best described as a hut with lighting. Then, that night, along with several other campers, we would drive to

Me out in the desert...and yes, it was a little chilly!

Ras al Jaz, the beach area, about 10 minutes away and see the giant sea turtles as they laid their eggs and hopefully see some baby turtles. We arrived at camp, which is set up pretty much like a Bedouin camp, around 5:30pm. We were assigned to Hut #14. Yes, it was just as it looks in the picture above. The outdoor sinks added a touch that only a desert camp could (note the reflection in the mirrors). Ali, our fearless leader, asked us which group of turtle watchers we wanted to be in. I asked what our options were...he said evening or morning. And the times would be....9pm and 3am. Sally and I looked at each other (thankful we were the first to arrive and had options) and immediately said 9pm would work! Fast forward to about 9:30pm...we are walking on the beach in a group of about 20 others, no flashlight and doing our best to not fall in any of the many many large holes made by mama turtles previously. I was told it would remind you of a battle field and it did, what I could see. Several times, I nearly fell in a hole! The only one with a flashlight was the guide. We saw 3 wonderful sights. First, we saw a huge turtle in the hole, using her flippers to throw sand backwards, covering her eggs. After she does this, for about an hour, she digs a second hole about 4 feet ahead of the hole where she laid the eggs. This is a decoy hole, which she hopes the many predators will look and not go after her eggs. It was something to stand there and have sand thrown back at my legs by this 50 year old turtle. We then walked further down the beach, still in the dark, and we were directed to another very large turtle in her hole. We moved to the back side and watched as eggs dropped out of her into the hole, looking very much like ping pong balls. I have no pictures of this as no cameras are allowed. We were warned that if anyone took a picture, their camera would be confiscated. At this reserve, they do everything possible to avoid spooking the turtles, including threats of losing your camera. We went on the move again, this time to a spot in the sand where another guide was gently moving the sand around. Within minutes, baby turtles popped up through the sand and started trying to move around. This was a location where babies had emerged the previous night and since the eggs are in layers, the babies hatch and come out in stages. They were so cute!! This is an experience everyone should have and I'm so glad I saw this. These baby turtles have such a slim chance of making it to the water without being eaten and even once they get to the water, other fish go after them. It's no wonder this turtle is nearly extinct.

Sunrise

We left the following morning, looking forward to our beds back at the house! The sunset was beautiful and so was the early morning, as we watched the sun rise from behind the clouds.

The city of Nizwa

We headed back to Muscat and onward to Nizwa. It's not a bad drive, through the desert and over the mountains. There is a very large fort there as well as a souk, or marketplace. The fort was a bit of a disappointment because much of it had signs and things enclosed in glass cases. The other fort that I have been to here was pretty much left alone and you could really enjoy it and get a feel for it. We did go up into the tower, which opened into a huge area. That part felt realistic! And the view from the top of the wall the view was incredible. You would never think of the desert being beautiful but this area is so covered in palm trees and white buildings, then you add the mountains in the background....gorgeous!

On the lookout for......

I want one of these signs!

I'm not sure when, but as we were driving along the highway, we saw a sign. Ahhh yes...camel territory!! Both of us had this huge desire to find a camel, take his (or her) picture, pet them and if by chance we got to ride one...fantastic! So when we saw the sign, we got all excited and giggly! Sally had her camera in hand and we started looking for large 4 legged animals. We would see one in the distance and then we'd see 2 or 3 together. But when the car in front of me pulled out to pass a pick up truck, we struck gold!!! We were shocked and started laughing so hard I almost drove off the road! We both grabbed our cameras and started taking pictures. The guy pulled to the right a little so we could pass but we weren't ready to pass yet! We had 2 camels in the back of a Toyota pick up in front of us and we were going to enjoy the sheer sight of it for as long as we could! Our sides hurt from laughing after this little episode, and we were still seeing camels! They seemed to be everywhere. We wondered what happened if they decided to cross the road...and we found out!!!

What a face...not mine--the camel's!

Cars were driving by, some slowed down and a couple honked. But this guy just sauntered across the road and gave everyone the "come and make me move faster" look. Way cool.

With all the camel sightings, the best was yet to come. We were just outside of Muscat when Eagle Eye Sally happened to look to the right at just the right time and saw what appeared to be hundreds of camels! I exited the highway at the first opportunity and tried to find our way back to these camels. After one set of military-looking guards waved us off, we managed to sneak around on another road and in mere minutes, we were eye-to-eyes with CAMELS! As we got out of the car and walked toward the enclosure, we held up our cameras and got a nod of approval. In just a few minutes a man in uniform came over and introduced himself and asked if we wanted to go inside the enclosure. A big yes! As we were snapping pictures, a second Omani in uniform came over and we were then asked if we wanted to have a ride on one of the camels. You would have thought Sally and I became 9 year olds! We were so excited. Sally went first and then it was my turn. I climbed on the back, behind his hump and before I could grab hold of fur, he started to get up and I did a back flip, landing on some very nice soft sand on my butt! No harm done...I got up and climbed back on and leaned forward, into the hydraulic-like movement a camel makes to get up from a laying down position. What fun...

So, life in the Middle East is not all sun and sand. Sometimes you get lucky and it includes a ride on a cute faced camel! Stay tuned...I have 18 more months here and am determined to seek out more thrills and excitement!

Merry Christmas, Omani Style

2010-12-21T21:03:00.001+04:00

It's December 21st here in Muscat, Oman and Christmas is just around the corner. But it just doesn't feel like it. I'm not hearing Christmas songs on the radio, I haven't seen It's A Wonderful Life even one time and (can't believe I'm saying this) I actually miss hearing that bell being rung in front of stores. Yes, it is Christmas in a non-Christian country and if you're headed to one, prepare yourself. Go overboard in bringing lots of decorations and CDs to hear the music you always yearn to hear during December. Since there are many British residents here, Christmas decorations are available in most store, but in short supply and not cheap! Stock up on gift type things, including wrapping paper, and don't forget to factor in shipping fees. It is a big part of your budget!

I do miss my kids and my grandkids. One of my friends is coming tomorrow night from Sarajevo for 9 days and we'll experience Christmas in Oman together. One good thing...all the stores will be open! However, I'm not sure we'll find many bargains. We will go snorkeling, see some 15th century forts, shop in the souk, or marketplace, explore the surrounding towns and just have a good old time. My tree is decorated, what ornaments and decorations that made it from Honduras are on display and my one Christmas CD is playing. I could use some more. Maybe there will still be some Christmas music in stores when I get back to the states in July. Maybe.

For me, 2010 has been a terrific year. The years just keep getting better and better. Oman is a wonderful place with great people and amazing sights to see. I've already served 1/4 of my 2 years and will soon (this summer) begin the process of finding where I go next. No more being assigned...after your second assignment, you are responsible for looking at the list of available embassy jobs around the world and the process of selling yourself and receiving an offer of a job begins. For those of you in the FS, I highly recommend bidding on/requesting Oman. Feel free to ask me about this post any time you want.

I'm looking forward to 2011 and my travel opportunities. Egypt, Bangkok, Italy, Washington DC and my home, Fort Worth, Texas are all in my sights for next year. I hope that whatever you have in your sights is within reach for you too.

Merry Christmas to all...and have the very best New Year!

Live and Learn and Learn and Learn

2010-10-04T18:04:00.005+04:00

Living overseas has its challenges. But the rewards far outnumber the inconveniences and regional difficulties. For the most part, you enjoy the new and different things you encounter and hope that what you can't get where you're posted will just be small potatoes. I happen to love this lifestyle, but occasionally that little hiccup or hurdle presents itself and you have to deal with it. Right now, I am DEALING with it! If you are one of my followers who are with the State Department and are living overseas, learn from my experience.

Roll back the calendar to mid August. My Toshiba laptop arrived with my household effects and wouldn't you know it...the darned thing refused to boot up. No matter what I did, nothing. Nada. Zilch. I took it to the embassy and had the IT people look at it and they shook their heads and crossed themselves. Big sigh.

I went online and searched for a replacement. I searched everywhere, read reviews, analyzed what my computer needs were and made my choice...a Sony VAIO. When you order things while overseas, you have 2 choices of where it is shipped. (Well, most people have 2 choices.) If your embassy has an APO, you can order things to be shipped there. Lots of stores won't ship to an APO so you have to go to Plan B, which is your personal pouch. The pouch goes to a US address in Dulles, Virginia and takes a bit more time to arrive. As it turned out, Sony insisted on a signature upon delivery so I had to use the pouch.

OK, we're back to today. Two weeks ago, I went to the Sony site and could see where someone in Virginia had signed for the FedEx delivery of my laptop, which was shipped there from California. Good..that was progress! They accepted delivery on September 20th. Usually, in a week to 10 days after it gets to Dulles, it arrives at the embassy. I started getting a funny feeling about my laptop a few days ago. You know the one...the feeling that something is wrong, not right or just screwed up. It was just taking too long. So, today I asked my IT person if he could contact Dulles and see what the delay was.

Now comes the bad news...and the lesson you can all learn. Mike, my IT guy, was told my laptop was in the prohibited items area. Yep...prohibited. And just what part of my laptop was prohibited, you ask? The lithium battery. As a matter of fact, State (of someone at State) is drafting an ALDAC (much like a formal memo) prohibiting shipping lithium batteries in the pouch. I said...But Mike, my laptop was ordered before all this came about. He said it didn't matter...it was going to be returned to Sony. NOOOOOOOOOOOoo.....

I thought about my options:

Have the laptop returned to Sony, which could have meant waiting for a refund and then re-ordering it and having it shipped to my father in Fort Worth and then have him ship it to my APO address (which doesn't have that restriction...yet). Double shipping costs. Ugh.
Have the laptop returned to Sony and then try to contact them and see if they could re-ship it to my dad without having to re-order it.
Ask the guy in Dulles if he would personally take possession of it and ship it to my dad in Fort Worth. (not a chance of that happening.)
Stand on my desk and scream and holler at this new ruling. Naww....
Find someone in the DC area who was willing to go and take delivery of my laptop and send it to my APO address. YES!

As it turns out, someone who was recently posted here in Oman is now in DC. Eric, the ARSO in my office sent him an email, telling me he felt sure Khamp wouldn't mind getting the laptop and sending it on to me. Hopefully, problem solved. Mike told me he felt sure that they would release the laptop with some authorization from me.

Now, let's talk about what you should take away from all this. If you're with State and living overseas, make sure you know what you can and can't ship in the pouch. Every time I shop online now and the site doesn't offer the option to ship to my APO, I send them an email and ask them to look in to making that an option. It probably won't do any good, but it makes me feel better. Make sure you review what items are not allowed in the pouch. Things you might not think about, like pop-top cans of fruits and vegetables. The tops can burst off, damaging other items in the pouch. I'm sure there are more so tomorrow, I'm going to pull up the regs and find out what can't go through the pouch.

Be thankful if you're at a post that has an APO. I can now understand the frustration of my friends who are at a post with only pouch delivery options. I'm sooo sorry!

Compromising...A Part of Life

2010-09-17T14:22:00.004+04:00

I'm adjusting very well to life in Oman. I really love it here, especially now that the weather is beginning to cool down. Very soon Oman will have perfect weather for the next 5 months or so. Last week I went to the Oman Dive Center with some friends from the Embassy. We rented bungalows (sp?) and had a great time. We went on a dive boat with divers and as snorkelers who just float around on the top of the water, we had a great time. It's only about 30 minutes from where we live, which makes it a great little weekend getaway.

I'm discovering that although I don't have all the things I'm accustomed to here, I have made some compromises. Living in a Muslim country, you realize that you won't have an easy time getting some of the things you readily enjoyed in the states or other countries. Knowing I can't have (or am not willing to pay the price) for pork makes me desire it even more! I could get a whole pork loin for about $90US but I just don't think I'm ready to shell out that kind of money. Yet. Today, as I was looking for a can of tuna (nothing like good old Starkist Tuna!) in my cupboard, I saw the Dak canned ham that I brought back from Honduras. You know the kind...in a metal can with a key or pull tab? Probably just one step above Spam? My mom used to buy canned hams all the time when I was a kid. I loved them...the ham just fell apart in my mouth. Then, as I grew older and appreciated the finer things in life, I shunned anything but Honey Glazed Ham, Virginia Baked Ham or any other ham that hadn't been chopped, formed and had mystery ingredients added to it. Let me tell you...the times, they are a'changin'. I decided to give that old canned ham a try. Hell, the expiration date on it was clear in to 2015, so you know it HAD to be good! I struggled to get the pull tab pulled back but when I did, I smelled that good old canned ham smell. It had that familiar pattern of having been chopped and reformed to resemble a whole ham.

I grabbed my fresh baked cibata roll (baked fresh daily at the market), cut it in half, slathered it with some Hellman's mayo (I'm almost out...someone please send me some) and a bit of French's Honey Mustard and put some lettuce on top. I added a few slices of the succulent ham, some potato chips, grabbed a coke and went to the table. It smelled just like I remember. I took a bite and...and...darn, it was actually delicious! If I just didn't let my mind linger on the fact that it looked like head cheese, I was fine. If you don't know what head cheese is it definitely is not cheese. Anyway, it was a very tasty lunch. I can see me using the rest of it for a sandwich tomorrow and maybe frying a slice to have with eggs.

When you can't get the real thing, you just have to compromise. Isn't that what life is all about?

Me and My Possessions Reunited!

2010-08-22T08:36:00.016+04:00

I have been in Muscat for about a month now. I'm thrilled to report that I have internet at home. Yeahhhh! Today sometime the men from the cable company will be here to install my cable, which means my evenings in front of the television will improve.

I received my HHE (Household Effects) Wednesday night. That's the big shipment that came by boat from Honduras. My UAB (Unaccompanied Air Baggage) is still a no-show, but they do know where it is. When it will get here is anyone's guess. I'm hoping this week. I've taken the past 2 days off as Administrative Days (you are all entitled to 3 days when your HHE arrives so you can set up your house) and could really use one more. But 2 days is enough and I really need to get back to work so I can get some rest! (j/k)

If you are a member of the Foreign Service, please heed this advice. Before you even leave your home for training in Washington, get your camera (video or still) and start making a photographic inventory of all your belongings. Don't forget to photograph jewelry and electronics and don't forget the things you will put in permanent storage. Open cupboards and closets and document everything because I'm here to tell you that during your move from post to post, you will probably lose something. When I left Texas for Washington, I wasn't aware that the movers should have taken the boxes from my house and put them in large wooden containers on the truck and then put a metal strap around them so they were secure with me watching. The movers just kept wheeling boxes out and putting them in a big truck. BIG mistake! Before the movers arrive at your home to do your pack out, you should make sure they will be securing your belongings in the large wooden crates on site. When I got to Honduras, I was missing a ton of things. My claim to Clements Insurance was almost $4000. And that's only the things I realized I was missing. Months later I would think of something else. During your training in DC you will probably be told to take responsibility for this sort of thing. Take their advice to heart. If you can have help at your house during pack out, try to make sure the boxes are marked which room they came from, not just "linens" or "misc. items" like mine were. It will make it easier for you to direct the workers to the appropriate room once they arrive. I pre-packed some things (we are told not to but I had them look in the boxes to make sure I wasn't transporting anything illegal) in clear plastic containers and taped them shut. If possible, be at the curb when the truck arrives at your new home so you can watch then cut the metal strap from the containers. I didn't even know they were at my house until they rang my doorbell. There were about 9 or 10 men, all with a box in their hand. I'm missing a box of kitchen items...sauce pans, frying pans, my good knives, dish drainer, my 2 favorite pasta bowls...and who knows what else. I'm also missing a ceramic casserole that was in my dining room hutch. I know the crates were sealed in Honduras so how does someone just take a box and put it in their car without others seeing it? I had 117 boxes brought in and they are all accounted for and opened by me. All the empty boxes are outside so I guess I will wait for some cooler time (oh sure...in Oman?) and make sure I didn't take an unopened box out, thinking it was trash. Highly unlikely, but I will do it before I turn in a claim. You can understand why I think this is the best advice I can give anyone new to this career.

Speaking of claims, without a doubt, you need to take out insurance on your personal effects. I have mine with Clements International and they didn't quibble one bit when I turned in my claim. They didn't demand receipts or anything. I also have my car insured by them (while in a foreign country only), which means I get a discount on the personal policy. Bottom line...if something happens to your things in transit, State is not responsible. Get the insurance! One small reminder...when you come back to the states for R&R make sure you have some kind of insurance. Pay for a rental car with your credit card only after you make sure you have basic coverage on the car.

I love my career. Moving every 2 years has many benefits. You may acquire lots of things as you travel the world but you get to purge yourself of many unnecessary items every 2-3 years when you go to your next assignment. Find a charitable organization near where you live and give them what you can. You will never again be possessed by your possessions!

At the beginning of this post is a picture of my very large kitchen, empty, before any of my stuff arrived. Below is a picture of what the kitchen looked like during the unpacking. Check back with me in a couple of weeks when all my other things arrive from Texas and hopefully, you will see a very nicely decorated kitchen...look for lots of red!

Muscat, Oman...A Real Gem!

2010-08-08T11:14:00.006+04:00

I've now been in Muscat, Oman for almost 3 weeks. Muscat is a beautiful city. The scenery is spectacular, with the white buildings with gorgeous architecture and the dark mountains in the background. You turn around and you see the Gulf of Oman. The other day we went walking on the beach and there are so many shells, you have to watch where you walk! I already have a huge collection of Omani shells. I love walking on the beach looking for shells, so I guess for the next 2 years, I'll have to try to control myself when it comes to which shells I want to take home with me.

Right now it's the hottest time of the year, so I'm told. When you walk out of a building, your skin goes through condensation! It takes about 5 minutes for your body to adjust to the heat but during that 5 minutes, all your exposed skin becomes moist from condensation...sort of like the outside of your glass of ice water but not like sweat. Very strange! In a little over a month it will begin to cool off and for about 5 months, the weather will be perfect. Until then, I am learning to love cool, sheer fabrics and good air conditioning!

I still don't have internet at home and I am anxiously awaiting the shipment of all my worldly possessions from Honduras. I am living in a beautiful home but it's so sterile, so plain and so not me. I need color. I need my 'stuph' surrounding me to feel at home. Bare walls are not pretty. When I arrived in Honduras, both the front and back yards were just grass. I transformed them into a tropical paradise. Fortunately, the same thing exists here. There are plants around the house but the back yard is a fairly large patch of grass. There are also flower beds surrounding the patio that are just about empty (or will be soon). Another gardening project!! It's too hot now, but in a month or so when it cools off, I will begin to cut down on grass and add flower beds for plants that will attract birds and give me some color. A birdbath will look good too. As soon as I get internet at home, I'll add some 'before' pictures to this post. I can't wait to get started!

The State Department tries to be fair in where the Foreign Service people are assigned. If you get assigned to a great place, like Paris or Madrid, you can pretty much figure you're going to get a hardship assignment next. They try to alternate cool place/not so cool place. I think I've been fortunate to have gotten 2 great assignments in a row!

More later...stay tuned for pictures!!

Counting Down The Hours

2010-07-19T03:06:00.003+04:00

In less than 24 hours, I'll be on the first leg of my flight to Muscat, Oman. Tomorrow I have a flight from Washington to Zurich, about 8 hours. I will spend the night in Zurich and then fly on to Dubai, another 8 hours, where I have a layover of about 90 minutes. Then it's back on a plane for about an hour for the final leg, arriving at Muscat around 10:35 PM on July 21st. It's lots of travel in 3 days and hopefully I won't be too wiped out by jet lag when I get to Zurich. I'd like some time there to wander around and take some pictures. If I can get some sleep from DC to Zurich, I should be able to handle being awake for the rest of the day. I hope taking 2 Benedryl before the flight will make me drowsy enough to fall asleep for at least some of the flight. I really wish I had gotten an Ambien from someone!

For my one night in Zurich, I made a reservation at the Swissotel Zurich. It looks great online so I hope it turns out to be in a good location...sorta close to the airport but far enough away to be quaint and have lots of photo ops.

While I've been in the states, I think I've managed to eat at all my favorite places, shop at all my favorite places and have seen all my favorite people. It will be at least a year before any scheduled return here because the flight is pretty pricey. I plan on traveling to regional areas from Oman...Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt...so many opportunities. And I'm told the flights are very reasonable. I hope I've been told right!

My next entry will be after I get internet in Oman and I'm told it takes a couple of weeks. Believe me, it will be at the top of my To Do list!

Home Leave, Phase 3 - Washington DC

2010-07-05T18:17:00.007+04:00

Home Leave morphed in to Training/Consultations with my arrival in Washington DC on June 28th. With 2 suitcases that weight right at 48 pounds, I really need to keep a safe distance from places where I can buy anything! The fee charged by the airlines for overweight bags is not something I am reimbursed for by my boss! I've already mailed several boxes ahead to Oman, anticipating that I would exceed the 50 lb limit so my shopping days are over. Well....Maybe. Next week my training begins and on July 19th I fly off to Oman. I think I'm at the point where I wish it were tomorrow! I'm ready to get back to work...before I forget all my passwords!!

Yesterday was the 4th of July and what a great day it was! I went to the Washington Nationals vs. the NY Mets baseball game (Nationals lost...booo) and then watched the fireworks over the National Mall from the grassy area in front of the memorial for those who fought at Iwo

Jima. What a gorgeous memorial...the largest bronze statue in the world.

The fireworks were magnificent and everyone loved them. I couldn't help thinking about those who fought for our freedoms many many years ago, as well as those who continue trying to preserve those same freedoms for us today. If you have never been to Washington DC and seen the many memorials, I recommend you make a huge effort to come here. It really makes you stop and think about how strong the desire to be free was/is and what huge efforts were made when this country was in its infancy.

July 4th is not just another paid holiday off work. It should be a day when we all think about what a great country the United States of America is and will be for many years to come. In my mind, the important thing is to be involved. Get to know who you are voting for, even in your local elections. Remember, it's those people who go on to be President. Once you live outside this great country, you really come to realize how good it is. Sure there are things I would like to see changed but, in spite of everything, it's still the best place in the world to live.

Home Leave In Pictures

2010-06-26T22:30:00.026+04:00

Sometimes you just can't adequately express how things are in words. It takes pictures. So, here are some pictures of my Home Leave so far. Hawaii...Grandchildren, gorgeous flowers and beautiful scenery. Fort Worth...my 95 year old father.

Micah is in his swimming pool, showing me his form on a boogie board and Makana is just looking all innocent. He's so cute...

Below is me with the beautiful NaPali coast of Kauai in the background. More pictures of our

day long catamaran trip, cruising up and down the coast of Kauai. It was wonderful...I highly recommend Capt. Jack's NaPali cruises. Great drinks, great food and a very entertaining crew. And of course, some breathtaking scenery.

We saw dolphins making an attempt to play around the front of the boat,

never quite figuring out which was the front and back of it. We saw gorgeous light shining on the cathedral-like peaks of the coastline. It was just a wonderful 6 hours on the water.

My son Bobby and his son Gavin enjoying the cruise.

And lastly, my wonderful Dad in Fort Worth, Texas. Last night he was all smiles as TCU won their game against UCLA. As I write this, UCLA is way ahead of TCU but we'll see how it ends. I sure hope TCU wins.

Home Leave, Phase 2, Texas Style

2010-06-25T01:41:00.006+04:00

It's been a little over 2 weeks since I left Hawaii and arrived in Fort Worth. It's been great seeing my Dad again, as well as many other friends. Some of my friends include Mr. Macy, Mr. Hobby Lobby, Ms. Coldwater Creek and others, who had no trouble communicating with my credit card! Today the movers packed up all my purchases and they are on the way to Oman. Now the hard part will be to not buy anything else since my suitcases are already at about 47 pounds each and can't go over 50 or else it will cost me! I guess there's always the postal service. Monday my car will be picked up and sent onward also. In about 2 months, I might see everything again!

Since I've been here in Fort Worth, I've made a point of hitting all my favorite foodie places (BBQ, burger, steak, ice cream) and should be OK for another year. There's an artichoke in the fridge waiting for me to cook it, which I think I will do for lunch tomorrow. Yummm....I wonder if there are artichokes in Oman?

Monday, June 28th I fly to Washington DC. I will be attending some training there as well as meeting up with some new friends, a very old friend and having a face to face meeting with some of the people in DS who, for the past 2 years, I've been in contact with from Honduras. I also plan on meeting the corresponding desk officer for Oman. And I'll do my best to not wander in to anyplace where I can spend money!

Tomorrow is my birthday and it's nice to be home with my Dad to celebrate it. It won't happen again for a while. Dad is 95 and I swear, he hasn't aged a day since I left for Honduras in March of 2008....he's ageless! While I was in Honduras, I was able to make a few flights home to Texas at a reasonable cost. However, the same won't be true when I'm in Oman. A flight home will be way out of my budget so the next time I'll be here will be in a year or so.

I really miss everyone in Honduras. I knew I would and many of them are on Facebook so staying in touch will be easy. I still miss them. It was a really good first post and I learned so much from so many. I can't wait to get to Oman and start learning much more.

Looking Back...Looking Forward

2010-06-02T20:59:00.009+04:00

My time in Honduras is now a thing of the past. It'sa good past, full of wonderful memories, lessons learned and so many people I'm glad to call my friends. I wouldn't trade my 2 years in Tegucigalpa for anything. As a 'first post' I couldn't have asked for anything more. Under the guidance of my great boss, Ted, I learned so much about security in an embassy. Whether he knows it or not, I learned much more from him, things you just don't learn in a book or from a class at FSI. I will miss his leadership and can only hope he is an example of what most RSOs are like. The difficulties we faced in Honduras were many but in dealing with each one, Ted went about it with confidence, calm and the knowledge that he was doing the right thing. I'll miss you Ted, and feel so fortunate to have worked with you.

Right now, I'm in Phase 1 of my Home Leave. As I sit here, I can hear the ocean and smell the salty breezes. The island of Kauai is indeed a bit of Paradise. My son lives here and visiting with him, Nicole, his wife, and my amazing 3 grandsons, Gavin and the twins, Micah and Makana, makes for the perfect Rest and Relaxation. Yesterday was Gavin's first day of preschool. He loved it and was looking forward to returning today. I stayed with Micah and Makana yesterday while my son and Nicole worked and we had a great time. I now know who Thomas, Percy and Emily are but can't figure out why the boys fight over who gets Percy. For those of you with no exposure to Thomas the Train, this will mean nothing to you, as it did to me before coming here. My son bought a huge box of miscellaneous cars, engines and tracks on Ebay and the boys sit and build tracks for hours on end. At just 2 years old, this is huge! I wonder what they did before to occupy their time? For more pictures of my stay on Kauai, go to my Facebook page.

Phase 2 begins Monday when I fly to Fort Worth, Texas for 3 weeks. My father lives there and I will spend lots of time with him. I'll also see many of my friends and catch up on what's been going on with them for the past 2 years. I'll also spend some times with other good friends, like Mr. Macy, Mr. Dillard's and Mr. Williams Sonoma! I'll be buying another car to ship to Oman and clothes for some very hot weather. And I already have a list of the places I want to eat...I can't wait for a good Mexican meal!

Phase 3 starts with my flight to Washington DC on June 28th. While there, I will take some classes in SharePoint and Excel. I'll meet with some of the people in Diplomatic Security that I may speak with while I'm in Oman, as well as some of the Directors for Western Hemisphere who I have dealt with over the past 2 years. Just putting a face on the name will be a good thing. I'll also be in DC for the July 4th celebration, which should be lots of fun.

Finally, on July 18th, I fly out of JFK headed for Muscat, Oman. The first stop is in Zurich, Switzerland where I will spend the night and most of the next day. I hope I have time to wander around and see something pretty enough to photograph. Then I fly into Dubai, which should be a sight to see with all the unusual buildings and man-made islands. After a 2 hour layover, I fly to Oman, landing at 10:45 PM, when it will most likely be 100 degrees. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I can only hope that over the next 2 years, I will be able to sweat off a few pounds!

So, farewell to a wonderful stay in Honduras and looking forward to an amazing 2 years in Oman. What a life!

A Return To Paradise...The Island of Utila!

2010-04-23T07:47:00.017+04:00

Last weekend I made what is sure to be my last weekend trip in Honduras since I'm wheels up May 20th. I returned to Utila, where I had such a great time last year. There was plenty of snorkeling along the coral reefs, wonderful food, lots of great people watching, fun excursions in the golf cart on dirt roads and the best massage I've ever had! What more could you want in a weekend vacation? If you've never been, put Utila on your list of must see places! There was beauty below the water as well as above. The snorkeling was fantastic, as it was before. I think my next investment will be a new camera with a waterproof case. The underwater pictures here were taken with a disposable camera but I know the pictures would be much better with a nice camera. I went out on the boat with the divers and after observing the preperation to dive and all the equipment, I think I've decided I'm very content to float and bob on top of the water! That said, I won't say I won't go out on the dive boat again since the scenery was just as nice on the boat as it was below the boat!

On a small island like Utila, you rent golf carts to get around, which is what we did. We had more fun finding roads and following them to wherever they led. We came across ant hills, trees with funny roots and animals...egrets, cows, cattle (is there a difference?) and some really pretty scenery.

You just never know what you'll come across when you just follow a dirt road. The ant mounds were really neat. We watched the ants crossing the road with large chunks of green leaves in their mouths and then disappear into the mound. If you like this sort of thing...the driving around and exploring, be sure to use lots of bug spray!

But all fun things must come to an end and our trip was no exception. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:00am to get to the little airport by 6:00 to catch our flight back to Tegucigalpa. The plane was one of the smaller planes I've flown in. It had 4 bench seats (for 2) in it and there were 6 of us. I sat right behind the pilot and had a great view of the take off and landing. And he had a GPS mounted on the dash (is that what it is in a plane?) and fortunately for us, he located La Ceiba and locked in the coordinates! I wish I could say I'll be back but I don't see that happening. I'll have to be content with my memories and my photographs.

Chem/Bio Responder Debi!

2010-04-10T09:02:00.008+04:00

I must once again describe something that was only made possible for me because I am in the Foreign Service. In 2008 when letters containing a white powder were sent to embassies around the world, the call came out for people to volunteer to be Chem/Bio Emergency Responders. Those are the people in the funny suits and gas masks that risk their lives to go in and test white powders and/or rescue people inside an embassy who have been made ill by contact with a chemical or biological agent (hence the name Chem/Bio). I immediately signed up to be a responder. The training was tough. Think about being in an airtight suit with gas mask, gloves, rubber boots and all seams taped up with duct tape...practicing saving people in 80 degree weather. That's what we went through in 2008 for this 2 day training. I was one of the 4 people chosen to 'rescue' someone who had opened an envelope containing anthrax. The 4 of us raced off with the stretcher. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the instructors, who weighed about 200 lbs! We had to get him on the stretcher (he was dead weight), lift him and navigate through doorways and down stairs to get him out of the building. But...we did it! Then he began the scrub down. As Chem/Bio responders, we have the privilege of saying...STRIP! And they better obey us! Soap, bleach, water, more soap...soon he was decontaminated. It was only a drill but it was intense. We were in those suits for over 2 hours. When we finally took them off, we were soaking wet!

That was in 2008. Recently, more letters have been sent out to several embassies in Africa with a Grand Prairie, Texas return address. Embassies worldwide are on alert. You never know when the idiot will use the real thing so you have to be prepared. So, this week, we had a refresher course. As you can see, it's hard to tell who is who but we did have our names written on duct tape on our chest and back. Here I am with Mireya and Janie...I'm the one in the middle!! I'm sure you recognize those eyes!!

The next picture is of some of the responders getting suited up. There is an order to this...first you put on your gloves. I don't understand that too much because the gloves are XXXL and once on, you can't do anything with your hands! It makes pulling and cutting the duct tape to cover all seams such fun!!

Once you get the gloves on, you struggle to put your suit on, which is also an XXXL so that one size will fit all...with the help of a little duct tape! Pulling that zipper up is a bear! We suit up with the help of a buddy so it helps a little. But once you have your stuff all on, you get to help your buddy. Remember those XXXL gloves?

At the end of the class, we were all sweaty but felt good that we had a chance to have a quick run-through of what we do in case one of those envelopes comes to our embassy. And at the end of the class, I had to sit down,trying to breathe through that mask with sweat dripping down my nose, and thinking that one day, it might save my life and/or the life of someone else.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes...sniff sniff.

2010-03-31T04:53:00.007+04:00

It happens every year here. Those who farm for a living know only one way to clear the land and that's to burn out the old growth and then plant. Under better conditions, that might work. I'm sure there's some benefits in the ash that remains, perhaps enriching the soil. BUT...it doesn't work when there is a drought going on and there isn't a Plan B to keep the burn under control. Last Friday, there were 3 such burns close together and all 3 quickly because uncontrollable. I looked out my window and thought the entire north side of town was burning! To give you an idea of what it looked like, I have before and after shots.

Here's a picture I took some time ago on a clear day...really picturesque with the houses (such as they are) covering the sides of the hill. We really have the best view of the entire building! On nice clear days you can see forever.

But when a fire occus, it's not as nice and clear as this. During the burning season, there is usually some smoke in the air but never as bad as the photo on the below. There's a bonus in the second picture. About an hour before we noticed the smoke in the air, the yellow bus in the picture was driving down the street and his brakes failed. He saw the baracade by the building below and decided it would be better to hit that than to crash into the car in front of him. I'm not sure just how fast he was going because the traffic on La Paz is pretty steady. I doubt he was going more than 20-25 miles an hour. Good for the passengers on the bus and good for the small baracade! Fortunately, there were no in injuries. Unfortunately, it wasn't that way where one of the fires was burning. It was on the top of one of the many peaks that surround the city and there is a ginormous statue of Christ. In the nearby vicinity is a small zoo or animal reserve of some kind. Some of the animals died in the fire. I doubt it will send the message that it should...stop burning the fields...on a windy day...with no Plan B!

The air cleared up fairly well by the next day but there were still bits of charred 'stuff' raining down, probably corn stalks. It better rain soon...we're running out of water! Fortunately, my cistern (the water storage for water used in my home) is huge and I haven't run out of water but others are. The trucks that the embassy sends out can only service 4 houses a day, since they have to go and fill up and then go to the house and wait as it fills the cistern. That takes time...lots of time. The advice being handed out...check your cistern every day and call when it gets low, not when it's empty!!

How Time Flies...

2010-03-20T03:54:00.006+04:00

Almost 2 years ago, I arrived in Washington DC to begin my training as a Foreign Service Diplomat. I can't believe it's nearly time for me to depart my first post, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. During my time here, I think I've done more'living' than in the past 20 years! I know I've experienced so much and learned things I would have never had the opportunity to learn and experience if I had stayed in Fort Worth, Texas, making a decent living in healthcare administration. I had a nice house, a really nice car, had some great friends (still do!) and enjoyed living near my elderly father and his wife. But when my daughter suggested I apply to the Foreign Service, the thought of traveling the world, beginning a new career and meeting extrordinary people...I had to give it a shot. It was nearly a year from the time I applied until I received my Congratulations letter. And if I could do it all over again, I would applied years earlier!

So, here I am, 60 days from flying out of one of the most difficult international airports in the world (thank God...no more landings into Toncontin Airport!), reflecting on my 22 months here. Here are some of the thoughts going through my mind:

How many people can say they were in the thick of things during the ouster of a President and the 7 months of political crisis that followed? Working at the US Embassy in the Diplomatic Security section, I looked out my window at the numerous demonstrations by the "Reds," (pro-Zelaya supporters), the "Whites," (pro-Micheletti supporters) and the other various groups who gathered outside the embassy to shout their approval and or disapproval of our policy or involvement. I watched for months as Roberto Micheletti, who was the President of Congress and took over as President of Honduras until the elections, did his best to hold things together. He led from his heart and stood his ground when so many around him (outside of the country) tried to force him to allow Zelaya back to power. I'm not here to judge, but right or wrong, he did what he thought was best to preserve what Democracy was left in the government. Outside another window on my floor, I watched as the throngs of supporters cheered the arrival of Zelaya, who took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy after sneaking back in the country, to the surprise of many. There he stayed for 4 months, turning that embassy into his own home base, directing his supporters, La Resistencia, in their demonstrations and destructive ways. The general election in January took place successfully, in spite of threats of death from the Resistencia, and Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo was Democratically elected the new President. He came to the embassy one day to visit the Ambassador. I happened to be working up there and he walked over to me and shook my hand. I was able to wish him luck in his new position. The Ambassador suggested that they walk through the embassy to the cafeteria and get some coffee. Imagine the looks of surprise from those walking down the hall to see the new President approaching them, reaching out to greet them with a handshake. He took the time to say hello to everyone, from section heads all the way to those ladies who were cleaning the floors and those working in the cafeteria. He has a difficult job ahead of him. Honduras is a country on the brink of bankruptcy. The poverty is horrific, crime is unstoppable and narcotrafficking is out of control. Fortunately, the new government is now being recognized and the worldwide help is resuming.

I have loved learning about life in an embassy, lessons I will continue to build on when I arrive in Muscat, Oman. Working in the security section has been wonderful. The men I work with are terrific and as a team, we have come to realize that none of us will let the other down. It's teamwork like I've never known before.

You would not believe how fast plants grow here! I'm really close to the equator and it's just amazing how soon a seedling will bloom. Until the drought hit a couple of months ago, my garden was a paradise. Well, it's still beautiful but the grass is now greenish-brown and I water my plants sparingly. They are still blooming...so tropical! There are ficus trees all over the place here. The thing about ficus trees...the Hondurans are compelled to prune them into some shape...round, oblong, basket shaped and even the shape of a birdhouse. One of my posts here is on the ficus tree shapes. My favorite was the birdhouse that was just down the street from me. Every day, as I passed it, it made me smile. Then, one day I drove home and realized when I walked in my house that I didn't see it. It bothered me all night and the next morning, I drove slowly by where it was. I was shocked when all I saw was a sawed off stump! I would have noticed if it had died, so of course, the first thing that came to mind...someone stole the birdhouse ficus!!

On a trip to Utila, one of the Bay Islands, I had my first experience with a mask, a snorkel and swim fins. Oh my God...the beauty that is just below the surface of the ocean is something you have to see to believe! The fish, the coral, the plants, the activity...just beautiful! I've also been to Roatan, where I did a little snorkeling, but nothing like Utila. A friend of mine and I are going to take the course to get our PADI certification...I'm gonna be a scuba diver! We are going back to Utila next month and we'll be able to take the open water test...something I would have never thought of doing if I hadn't come here. I've been told that the coast of Oman is excellent for snorkeling and diving and I would love to arrive there in July ready to dive!

I will miss Gloria, my Home Manager. I call her that because she's so much more than a maid. She's extremely smart and if she lived somewhere else where there were more opportunities for her, she would certainly be holding down a job with much more responsibility and status that what she does now. She has a daughter who is 12 and we've talked for hours about how the teachers strike here and about her concern about her daughter getting a good education. She wants her daughter to be more than she is, as do most moms. I have an older Dell desktop computer and monitor and I decided to give it to her for her daughter. Gloria comes to my house every Wednesday and Saturday, so now, for the first hour every Saturday morning, we have computer class. Last Saturday was the first session and I had her working with the mouse. The double-click is not easy for an adult who has never held a mouse. She'll get it. Tomorrow I'll show her how to write something in Word. She needs to get to know the keyboard. I'm glad I decided to give her that computer. It's a good feeling.

While here, I've learned to be a survivalist driver. That's right...you must survive these streets! Between dodging the motorcyclists who drive anywhere they want, including the sidewalk, the cars that come at you in your lane, and the potholes large enough to house a family of 4....you take your life in your hands every time you go out! Oh..and the taxi drivers...the worst! The last time I was in the states, I was driving a rent car with my son and daughter and my grandson and both my kids said I was driving like a maniac! Of course, I told them I wasn't but I'm sure they were right! If you can drive in Honduras, you can drive anywhere...but you better debrief your brain before you drive anywhere else or suffer the consequences. I've given it a lot of thought and come to the conclusion that driving is just another way that the Hondurans are taking care of #1. It's their culture to do what they can, no matter who is in their way, to survive. I'm not being critical, but how far do you think I'd get if I leaned out the window and said "Sir, you do NOT have the right of way!" There are no police to enforce traffic laws. You just have to believe that 90% of the people on the road, behind the wheel, probably have been behind the wheel for 10 minutes, with no prior driving instruction. If you do get pulled over by 2 police on a mini-bike (don't laugh), you probably broke no law other than smoking or talking on your cell phone while driving and for 600 lempiras (about $35) they will forgive your indescretion. They are not supposed to shake down diplomats but they do, especially the wives. It's sad...corruption is everywhere.

Believe it or not, there is so much more, but I'm stopping here. I think I'll save the rest for another post...my first Zip line, Copan ruins, quaint villages. I hope to write one more time from Honduras before I'm wheels up May 20. From here, I fly to Kauai to visit my son, his wife and my 3 grandsons. After that, I head to Fort Worth to see Dad and my friends...and to shop for stuff to ship to Oman. Then it's off to Washington DC for some training. And on July 18, I'm off to Oman, with stops in Zurich, Switzerland and Dubai. Imagine the landing in those 2 places! I'll share some photos of that the first chance I get! I can't wait to begin the next chapter of my blog...my adventures in Oman!

Post Election/Inauguration Observations

2010-02-07T22:58:00.003+04:00

The inauguration of Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa took place on January 27, 2010. Although by Honduran standards it was a grand affair, I have my own observations.

As President Lobo stood giving his speech, the people behind him sitting in chairs drove me crazy. They fidgeted, the talked, they passed bottles of water back and forth. They talked on their cell phones. One man in particular sat there, with his legs spread wide and any minute, I expected him to have an itch that required a scratch. Just waiting for him to do it was extremely distracting. It just seemed like they were watching a parade pass by instead of the newly elected president. Just lacked respect.
The delegation sent from Washington to attend the inauguration had no place to sit. They arrived and, gee whiz, where do they sit? Very quickly folding chairs were found and voila...they had seats. Who planned this anyway? There should have been seats!
I was bothered by all the people President Lobo thanked in his speech. The majority of them received resounding Booooos. I was at work during the telecast so I didn't catch all those who were booed but it also included many Hondurans. By the time Lobo finished his speech, 50% of the people had gotten up and walked out of the stadium. They too, didn't appreciate the people he thanked. I don't know if he ever thanked the citizens for electing him.
When it came time for Lobo to sign the document granting amnesty to Zelaya, they booed. Personally, I think the government will regret not forcing Zelaya to take political amnesty. As Zelaya boarded the plane, all he said was "Regresare" or "I will return." His resistence movement is continuing to mobilize and work toward the constitutional change (no term limits) and don't plan on disbanding just because Mel Zelaya is out of the country.

After the inauguration was over, the new President proceeded to the Brazilian embassy to fetch Mel Zelaya to take him to the airport. At the embassy, we all anticipated the departure of Mel. We had all been here when the whole thing started and this was kind of like closing the book on him. We looked out our windows to watch the motorcade drive off. As they all drove out of the street where the Brazilian embassy is and turned down Avenida La Paz, we all gave a sigh of relief. I bet the sigh of relief from the neighbors of the Brazilian embassy could have been heard for miles! What a horrible 5 months it's been for them!

Mel is currently staying in a mansion in the ritzy section of the Dominican Republic where celebrities have luxury homes. I've read that the citizens of the DR aren't very happy that they are footing the bill for Mel. You'd think with all the money he has stashed away that he could at least offer to pay the rent. It's reported that he won't be there long as Mexico is his next destination. Who knows if the Mexican government will house him for free.

According to local papers and the rumor mills, Mel is already forming his own 'cabinet' and one day has plans of returning to overthrow the Honduran government. I pray nothing like that happens. What this country needs to do now is move forward and heal...heal from the wounds caused by a megalomaniac who was only concerned about himself. He stole, mishandled government funds and couldn't have cared less about the state of the country he was elected to serve and protect. I've already read comments attributed to him that reflect how he really feels about 'his' Honduras..."Don't go to Honduras," "Countries of the world...do NOT recognize the government of Honduras," "Do NOT give humanitarian aid to Honduras." Doesn't sound like he cares about Honduras now that he's safe outside of the country.

Move on, Honduras. Work hard at repairing your country. Get your teachers to teach school instead of demonstrating in the streets (and getting paid whether they are in class or not). Do something about the corruption. Do something about the rampant crime (14 homicides a day), and that means when you arrest someone, don't let them out the next day.

And last but not least, thank you to Roberto Micheletti. In your short term as President, you did a great job of holding your own. You held fast to your beliefs and convictions and didn't buckle under to the those who said you should restore Zelaya to power. And what a shame that Pepe couldn't have thanked you for what you did for the people of Honduras in his speech.

I wish Pepe Lobo luck. He is going to need it to get this country moving in the right direction.

2010 - So Far, So good

2010-01-10T18:34:00.006+04:00

2010, or Twenty Ten as I have decided to say it, came in with a bang. Lots and lots of bangs...from guns, firecrackers, fireworks and anything else that would make noise. I was at a friend's house for New Years and she has a magnificent hillside view of Tegucigalpa. In every direction you could see fireworks displays. The celebration began at about 11:55 and didn't stop for about 3 hours. It sounded like a war zone. Holy Sonic Boom, Batman! Several times I felt like I should take cover...the bangs, booms and crackles were so close! At times it even sounded like small bombs going off. The same thing happened on Christmas Eve...hours of noisemaking with anything that would go boom. Definately a huge change from the serene type of celebration on Christmas Eve that I'm used to.

Politically, things are, on the surface, calm. Craig Kelly paid a visit to Tegucigalpa last week and had meetings with Micheletti and Zelaya. The newspapers are reporting all kinds of things, most of which are probably not true. The most bizarre is that the US is offering money to Micheletti to resign and give Zelaya full amnesty. My maid told me she read that in one of the newspapers here in Tegucigalpa and there's also been discussions of it on local online discussion groups. I just don't see that happening. The only thing I can think of that might have been discussed would be economic assistance as an incentive for the resignation and amnesty. But I don't believe Micheletti will agree to anything that gives Zelaya full amnesty (political, that is). Even if he were to be given political amnesty, Zelaya would still have to answer to the other charges against him.

We'll see. I doubt 2010 is shaping up to be a good year for Tegucigalpa's own version of Punxsutawney Phil. When will Mel stick his head out and see if he has 6 more weeks of living in the Brazilian embassy? Ooops..since it's been reported that he has been told he must be out by Jan. 27th, inauguration day, he only has a week and a half left there. What Mel will do is anyone's guess right now.

What I do know for sure is that I have just a little over 4 months left of my tour here. On May 20, I leave for my home leave. I'll fly to Kauai to visit my son, his wife and my 3 grandsons for about 2 weeks. Then on to Fort Worth for a couple of weeks to spend time with my Dad and my friends. Then to Washington DC for some training and on July 18th I fly off to Muscat, Oman. It's a long flight with an overnight stay in Frankfurt, Germany. My 2010 sounds a whole lot better than Citizen Zelaya's!

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth...and Honduras

2009-12-25T00:16:00.003+04:00

It's Christmas Eve, 2009. Last year at this time, I was on the beautiful island of Kauai with my son and his wife and my 3 beautiful grandsons. Seems like yesterday. On Christmas Day this year, I'll have to be satisfied with seeing them all via Skype. Coordinating the time difference might be tricky but we'll manage.

Things are quiet here in Honduras. The last word I heard about Citizen Zelaya was that he had resolved to spend his Christmas in the Brazilian embassy. It's anyone's guess just how much longer he'll be there. I must say it's been really nice the last couple of weeks...no demonstrations, no announcements from Citizen Zelaya...the quiet is wonderful. I'm sure we'll hear more from him, most likely before the inauguration on January 27th. Surely he will have something to say that he wants the news to spread around. I'm just enjoying the peace and quiet here in Tegucigalpa.

Sadly, the crime in Tegucigalpa and for Embassy employees is on the rise. In 2 different instances, 3 embassy employees were victims of armed robberies, all for a cell phone. One of the victims, a petite female, actually fought for her life. She refused their demands for her to get in her car, knowing that could mean certain death. Seriously. We don't advocate fighting back...give them what they want. But she felt her life was in danger and she did what she could. I hugged her today and told her how sorry I was that she had such an awful experience.

For all those who visit my blog, I wish you a Merry Christmas to those that that greeting applies and a wonderful holiday season to those who celebrate their own religious holidays. I hope that 2010 is a year full of terrific surprises for everyone. I know I'm looking forward to it!

A special Merry Christmas to all my family, living so far from me...I miss you and love you all so much.

This Little Country Could...And Did!

2009-12-08T05:08:00.005+04:00

They were right. People kept saying that what Honduras needed to help the country was for the elections to take place. They did and it seems to have worked. The resistence movement has abandoned Citizen Zelaya, as have all but about 15 of those who had become squatters in the Brazilian embassy with him. Every time one of them left the embassy, dragging their suitcase on wheels behind them, I think we could all imagine Citizen Zelaya crying into his hands, wondering how they could leave him in his hour...er day..I mean month of need.

I believe, as do so many others, that he was too focused on himself (among other things). They finally saw him for what he really was...everything for himself, not for his country. He just didn't get it. The money and power went to his head. Well, the money is well hidden but that's another story.

Honduras learned a very important lesson, and future politicians should understand this. They saw that corruption is something that is unacceptable. They stood strong against many who tried to change their course, unsuccessfully. They can credit the interim president, Roberto Micheletti, for not giving in to the many threats and actions taken against Honduras.

On Dec. 2, Congress voted on whether or not to reinstate Citizen Zelaya as president. For the first time, the voting was televised and each of the Congresistas had their turn at the microphone. Some merely said they were in favor of the decision made on June 28th or they said they were against it. Others realized that what was happening in that room was really a historical event and they wanted their 15 minutes of fame....some thought they deserved 50 minutes of fame! Several times, the president of Congress had to interrupt them, respectfully reminding them there were others who were waiting to vote. They would thank him and proceed with their rant. The importance of this televised vote was that for the first time, the citizens of Honduras could actually see what the people they voted for were doing. I spoke with my maid, Gloria and tried to impress on her just how very important this was. I told her that in the US, we could always check the voting records of the people we voted into office. She was amazed. And by the way, they overwhelmingly voted to accept what took place back in June. Sorry Citizen Zelaya.

Back to Citizen Zelaya and his future. He really has only 2 choices...he can request political asylum and leave the country or he can walk out of that embassy into the arms of the police and be held accountable for what he has done. I hope he leaves. Honduras needs to recover from the crisis it has endured for the past 7 months. Healing can't begin if Zelaya is put in jail and begins the process of answering the charges against him. That would only stand to invigorate his supporters and we'd be back to where we were a couple of months ago, with the streets filled with demonstrators. He should just leave and let this country move on. Let the people here look to the future with a renewed sense of pride and encouraged by their newly elected president, Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo. Last week, he came to visit the Ambassador. I happened to be working in his office and when Pepe walked in, he came right over to me and shook my hand. I congratulated him and wished him the best of luck in his new role. He smiled and graciously thanked me. Then he and the Ambassador left and walked throughout the embassy. He greeted everyone he saw, from the cafeteria ladies on up. He seems to be comfortable in his new role as President and thanking the people for their votes sure didn't hurt his popularity any!

As I prepare to leave Honduras next May, I will leave knowing that I was here when the people of Honduras found out what it was like to stand up for what they believed in. They saw a leader who, at all costs, did his best to preserve the rule of law and keep their constitution intact. This really is the little country that could.

Democracy Lives On In Honduras

2009-12-03T05:19:00.008+04:00

The people of Honduras have spoken. More than 60% of the voters turned out to put their ballots in those 3 boxes, one for President and Vice President, one for Congress and one for local elected officials. The majority of the votes went to Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo. It's not so much who won the election since they both had pretty much the same platform...improve the quality of life, create more jobs, repair the streets. It's more about the fact that people really really wanted to vote in this election. That 60% is a huge number...and it doesn't even take into account the Hondurans who live in the United States and who voted in any of the many cities who had voting polls set up. People were heard to say they flew HERE from the states to cast their vote in their home town. How many times have you heard that about a US election? This is a big deal for this wonderful country.

There were stories about citizens in their 70s and 80s who had never, in their lives, voted for a president. They were coming to the polls in their wheelchairs. One lady who had lost both legs below the knee came in a taxi and the poll workers brought her ballot out to the taxi. One scene on TV showed children in the polling place, excited to see their parents cast their votes. It was, for most Hondurans, a day to remember and a real lesson for the young.

Tonight, as I sit writing, Congress is voting on whether or not to reinstate Mel Zelaya. The vote that was just cast was the deciding vote as it resulted in a majority. There will not be a Mel Zelaya back in the Casa Presidencial! Someone send him the rest of his belongings! Chances are, they won't all fit in the Brazilian embassy, where he is still camped out, probably with head in hands right now, wondering what his next move should be. Mel, may I make a suggestion? Just as you snuck back into the country, figure out a way to sneak back out. I don't think this country wants to deal with you any more, even if it's you defending yourself in a court of law against the numerous allegations for which there is a warrant for your arrest. Sure, many would like him to pay for his injustices, but just as many want their lives to begin to heal and that means no more violence. No more demonstrations. No more anger. No more Zelaya.

This country wants to move on. They need to have a light at the end of the tunnel that's not another train coming at them in the form of more violence if Mel should be brought to trial. I can't imagine the scenes in the streets if that should happen. Let's hope that someone comes up with a really good final chapter to this story.

Shortly after Zelaya was whisked off to Costa Rica on June 28th, I said that Hollywood should jump on this story and make a movie. Sean Penn as Zelaya, Gene Hackman as Roberto Micheletti...and of course, Sally Fields would have to play me. What a historical time to be serving at the American Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I wouldn't have traded this for anything!

A Day For Democracy

2009-11-29T20:54:00.004+04:00

November 29, 2009 has finally arrived for the citizens of Honduras. Today they go to the polls to democratically elect their new president. I've had the television on since a little before 7:00 a.m. this morning when the polls were to open. So far, very little in the way of problems for the voters. The only thing I've heard is that at one polling place, a small group of 'resistencia' members tried to block the way to the school where voting was to take place. They were calmly removed by the police with no violence or excessive force used.

Observers and 'reporters' (those who are in attendence to report if there appears to be any questionable activity) are present at all polling places, as are journalists from around the world. Local TV has been interviewing people who are in line to vote and all are excited about the chance to choose their new leader. The polls close at 4:00 p.m. and preliminary results should begin coming in within 2 hours after the polls close.

Ballots began arriving in the very early hours today in cardboard boxes, with military personnel guarding them. Each voter will cast a ballot in each of 3 boxes, or 'urna' as they are called. The ballots all have color photographs of each candidate for President, as well as the members of Congress and other local elections. To my knowledge, there is no computerized way of counting the votes, so it will all be done by hand. Observers will be there to make sure it's all on the up and up. I'm optomistic that things will go well and a new president will be announced later tonight or tomorrow.

As for Citizen Zelaya, I've heard that Spain has turned down his request for political asylum and he has applied to Nicaragua. I would rather see him across the ocean than right next door. Being so close could be problematic for Honduras.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed and trying to be positive about today's election. Good for Honduras. Even better for the people of Honduras. Show the world that you came through this crisis with your head held high and your constitution intact!

(Thanks to Mitch Cummins of Roatan for the picture.)

Let There Be Peace

2009-11-24T05:01:00.011+04:00

Election day here in Honduras is almost upon us. The country will finally elect their next president. Roberto Micheletti has voluntarily stepped down, moved aside or otherwise removed himself from the picture in an effort to further legitimize the election in the eyes of the world, stating that if there were problems he would return immediately. With Congress left in charge, the country is once again under the rule of appropriately elected officials. The country has been functioning much better since the sudden involuntary departure of Manuel Zelaya in June but, nevertheless, the urgings from the US that Micheletti 'take a vacation' seems to have made sense to him.

The ballot boxes destined for cities some distance from the capitol have left the building where they have been stored and are in trucks on their way to the schools where they will be ready for Sunday's election. The schools have been closed for some time since they are the polling places for elections. As sad as it is, they've been empty pretty much all year due to the teacher's participation in many of the violent demonstrations by the pro Zelaya supporters. You see, the teachers have a very strong union. They don't pay taxes. They get paid whether they are in the classrooms or not. They get paid to demonstrate. And to think they are responsible for the future generations of Honduras...what a shame.

The only 2 candidates I've heard anything about are Pepe Lobo and Elvin Santos. They've been doing their best to convince the masses that they deserve their vote. I have no idea which one would be better for this country but odds are either one will be better than the previous president. I really hope, for the sake of the people of Honduras, that there have been some lessons learned as a result of this political crisis. There have been plenty of examples of what not to do, that's for sure. But with a history of years of corruption to overcome, whoever does win will have quite a battle to reinvent Democracy in the Honduran government. So much should be learned from what has happened during the past 5 months...and even before that.

The next few days will be interesting. Zelaya has torn apart the recently signed accord, paragraph by paragraph, by not abiding by its content. He has called for a boycott of the elections and in return, it was announced that anyone found promoting this action is subject to 6 years in prison. There are rumors flying about a 'toque de queda,' or curfew, beginning Friday afternoon. It's my guess that it will happen, if for no other reason than to make sure things are calm before the election on Sunday. And I would guess that if they do it for Friday, it will extend through Saturday also. With bomb threats and grenades appearing more and more often, it seems logical to call for a curfew to keep people off the streets.

I pray that things do remain calm and peaceful and that the elections take place without any questions of legitimacy or violence. There are observers coming from all over and even possibly a delegation from Washington. With the world watching, let's hope that no one does anything stupid.

Friday the 13th, Honduran Style

2009-11-14T07:09:00.005+04:00

I'm not at all superstitious. I walk under ladders. I love black cats. I step on cracks without a second thought. However, this particular Friday the 13th wasn't a very good one for the people of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The day began with a report of an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) explosion but with very little details. As information began to come in, it was determined that it was most likely shot from a small plane and the target was the building here in Tegucigalpa where the election materials ('ballots' comes to mind) are stored, awaiting distribution to the polling places. It failed to hit its target, instead most likely hit an electrical line, resulting in an explosion in the air but very close to the ground near the building. In today's El Heraldo online newspaper reports (http://www.elheraldo.hn/), officials stated the RPG was from Nicaragua.

As the day progressed, 2 bomb threats were reported, one at a building several blocks from the American Embassy, the other allegedly at Toncontin International Airport. After bomb squads searched both areas, no bombs were found. However, it is apparent that those who would make these threats have one motive...disrupt the lives of the Hondurans. Cause fear and intimidation. Make people think twice about voting.

Elections are just a little over 2 weeks away and Mr. Zelaya's supporters are ramping up their efforts to cause whatever problems they can to stop/disrupt/discredit the elections. The vast majority want this election to take place. They want to choose their next president but if Zelaya has his way, it won't happen. From inside his 'headquarters' in the Brazilian embassy, he is calling the shots. He is giving instructions to boycott the election, cause chaos and confusion, intimidation and fear. He claims that the world cannot recognize any new government unless he is reinstated as president. This week, President Micheletti offered to resign on the condition that Zelaya cease his efforts to be reinstated, request political amnesty from Brazil and retreat to some other country. Spain has been mentioned. So far, no response from Zelaya.

Today's papers had photographs of 3-pointed spikes that were seized by authorities, intended to be put in the streets so that trucks could not deliver the ballots to the polling places. I guess that was Plan B since Plan A's RPG missed its target.

Let's go back to Mr. Zelaya for a minute. He is a spoiled child who, when he realized that he wasn't going to get his way after the signing of the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord, threw a tantrum and refused to play with anyone. He is totally unpredictable and cannot be trusted to abide by any agreement he enters into. He has a history of this as President. The thought of having him back in the presidential palace calling the shots is pretty scary. I do understand that the goal of the United States is to have a democratically elected president in place when the elections take place. I must add here that there is tape of Zelaya in a news conference admitting that he won that election (by the narrowest margin) by fraud. So many Hondurans fear that if he is in power for even a day or two, let alone 2 months, the damage he could do is mind boggling. El Heraldo had a quote from Mr. Zelaya today:

"El ex presidente Manuel Zelaya dijo que el gobierno de Estados Unidos lo ha dejado 'en medio del rio diciendo que ahora la prioridad son las elecciones' en Honduras.

Translated:

The ex-president Manuel Zelaya said that the government of the United States has left him 'in the middle of a river, saying that now the priority is the elections' in Honduras"

Wait a minute...isn't that exactly what we want...fair elections? You mean Zelaya isn't the main object of our attention?? How dare we do that...

My tour here ends in May and I will be on my way to Muscat, Oman. There are certain events which must occur before the State Department will begin evacuation procedures of Americans in an embassy. There's a list outlining these events. I'm told we aren't close to taking that action but there have been meetings so everyone is prepared should it come to that. I think Zelaya's thugs have more tricks up their sleeves. I really don't want to leave until May. I want to see this crisis resolved, a fair and decisive election and the inauguration of a new president for these Honduran people. They all so deserve some good in their lives.

Update on the Honduras Political Crisis

2009-11-02T03:38:00.001+04:00

Last Friday, representatives of both Manuel "Mel" Zelaya (or Citizen Mel as I call him) and President Roberto Micheletti signed what is referred to as the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. Basically, it states that Congress will decide if Mel is to be allowed back in power, along with several other bullet points (pun intended). However, for everything to happen, the stars must align with Mars and Pluto and you have to hold your tongue just right...in other words, it's far from a done deal. Pay no attention to the jubilous celebrating that occurred Friday night by the Zelaya supporters. So much could go wrong and things could be worse than before. I believe the problems are far from being solved for Honduras.

From Honduras To....

2009-10-16T08:25:00.003+04:00

The wait is over. I finally know where I'm headed. It was #5 on my list of 20 and July 2010 I will call Muscat, Oman my new home. I've talked to so many people who have been there and/or lived there. They tell me the biggest hurdle to clear is the heat. For 5-6 months of the year, it's 110-130 during the day. Sometimes with 100% humidity. Oh heck, I can do anything for 2 years! I'm told the homes there are more like villas...big! And the coast has wonderful snorkeling and did I mention camel races???

Yes, it is just below Iran and Yemen but I have no plans of going there. I do hope to make it to several other places in that part of the world...like Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Bosnia and hopefully Paris. My job will be in the same section of the Embassy...the Regional Security Office. I'm so happy to not have to learn something totally new. My job here in Honduras has been extremely busy and I'm not expecting the same level of action in Muscat. I'm sure I'll stay busy!

So now I get down to the business of planning my home leave, a week or so to Kauai to see my son and his family and then to Washington DC for some training and perhaps some consultation days. It's too soon to really plan things. I'll find out just what courses are being offered in DC the first 2 weeks of July and hopefully get the blessing of my CDO to register for them. These last 7 months here will fly by and I'm a planner. Before I know it, I'll be on my way to Muscat, Oman...the Jewel of Arabia!

Another List of 5ive

2009-10-04T07:10:00.002+04:00

I haven't done a List of 5ive in many months. I'm sitting here on Saturday night and decided I'd try to come up with a new list. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's hard to limit it to 5ive. Once there were 5ive things I wanted to teach my grandsons. I can't remember the others. But there have been others. You can search my blog for them.

As I sit here, I can't think of any yet. But I'm working on it. I mean...you all should be able to make a List of 5ive. Maybe 5ive things you want to do tomorrow. Or 5ive things (different) that you want to taste tomorrow. Or 5ive things you've misplaced and you're determined to find. 5ive goals. Goals are really good things. Or 5ive ways to save money. My List of 5ive could be a new beginning for some....5ive places to look for a job. 5ive people to network with. 5ive people you want to avoid because they have a negative attitude.

Maybe the best part of this post is to get you thinking about your own List of 5ive. I've gotten emails with 25 Things You Might Not Know About Me. I like to keep my lists small. It's like dieting. Start out wanting to lose 5ive pounds. Rejoice when you attain that goal and then work on the next 5ive pounds. When you want to lose, say 30 pounds, it's daunting. Start with small steps.

OK, back to my list. I think I have 5ive.

Start my annual Christmas letter. Boy,will it be a good one this year!
Plan my Thanksgiving dinner and decide who I want to invite since I can't have family.
Say a little prayer that the email informing me of my next assignment comes this week.
Update my other list...the List of Things to Accomplish Before I Die.
Write another chapter of my book this week.

There you go. A pretty random list, but obviously my mind is kinda random tonight. I guess that comes from getting older. And after my last birthday, I better move #4 up to #1!

Day 2 of Curfew and Mel Zelaya's Occupation of the Brazilian Embassy

2009-09-23T17:02:00.008+04:00

Another dawn breaks with the sound of helicopters overhead. I don’t know what’s going on outside the 9’ walls that surround my house. I looked on TV and there are no news reports of violence…yet. It’s my guess it’s more of a deterrent for people thinking about going out, like a reminder that today is yet another day of staying home. It brings back memories of being woken up at 7:00AM on June 28th by the sound of a very low flying military jet. Did I mention it was really LOW flying? And loud?

I turned on the television after hearing the helicopter this morning, looking for news. I did see some footage and reports from yesterday. Thousands of demonstrators gathered at the Brazilian embassy in support of Mr. Zelaya. They became unruly (not to mention that a curfew was in place and they should have been home watching TV!) and the police used tear gas to disperse them. The news reporter conveniently found a young woman carrying a child with a red shirt on (the color the pro-Zelaya people wear) and she was lamenting that her poor child was exposed to the horrible tear gas and violence. Did the reporter mention that cars were being burned by members of her gang? Did the reporter mention that rocks are covering the streets, used against the police? Why is it that all reporting is done to make the police and armed forces look bad? To my knowledge, there has been no aggressive behavior by them…it has all been defensive moves and attempts to break up the violent crowds and maintain peace. It is infuriating to watch the news and see how they (the media) are trying to portray the violent demonstrators as the victims. My message to that lady and others who have brought their small children to these demonstrations, leave the baby home next time. Sympathy is just after Stupid in the dictionary!

One of the TV stations here does polls every night. Usually 2,000-3,000 people respond. Last night the question asked was this: Do you think the presence of ex-President Zelaya helps to solve the political crisis? The results were 3,496 (15%) saying yes it would and 19,187 (85%) responding NO.

I’m not sure what to expect in the days to come. I don’t think this situation will end soon. If the violence by the Zelaya supporters continues, the curfew will continue. Of course, the media will spin that, saying it proves it was a coup d’etat! They should ask why the curfew is in place. But wait...the answer just might indicate that Michiletti is doing the right thing and we sure wouldn't want to report anything positive about this crisis, would we?

President Micheletti, as usual, is showing restraint and patience and issued a message to the nation. You can read it here. http://www.tortugadigital.com/blog/Press_Release_Sept_21.pdf He is quite a man and in my opinion is handling all the negative criticism with a great respect for those who are critical of the actions here. He has my blessings and I pray for him to have the strength to continue to defend his constitution and thereby, ensure a better country for the people of Honduras.

On a lighter note…I have no idea what I will do today, being confined to my home. Yesterday was pretty much spent sitting at my computers (yes, I had them both going, resisting the temptation of getting out my third, the little Red Dell, to join in the fun). I have to figure out something to do to make the day go by faster. I might bake some chocolate chip cookies for the Marines at the Embassy. The problem with that is if the curfew goes on, I am home alone with 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies. A very dangerous situation! Maybe the military guards across the street would like some. Apparently, one of President Micheletti's ministers is my neighbor. Gotta love the extra protection!

He's Baaaaaack....

2009-09-22T05:48:00.005+04:00

We knew it would happen. It was inevitable. Mel Zelaya snuck back into Honduras and mysteriously appeared at the Brazilian Embassy here in Tegucigalpa. The crowd grew from 50 people to a reported 8,000 in less than 30 minutes. Of course rumors were flying as fast as chips on a craps table in Vegas with a hot roller. Initially, no one knew if it was true of just a rumor. He was supposed to be in the States...wait, no, he's in Nicaragua. No...he's in Tegucigalpa. Along with the crowds at the Brazilian Embassy, there were huge crowds at the United Nations building here so, you guessed it...they thought he was there too. Oddly enough, there was no police presence at either location for a long time. Then, on TV, you see the military vehicles and the big water truck come rolling in. On a hot day, the very zealous pro Zelaya supporters got a shower.

I kept saying...there should be a curfew announced any time. What's wrong with this? You know something else is in the works. Then, at 3:30 it was announced on TV that there was a curfew...starting at 4:00! An announcement was made throughout my Embassy for all non-essential employees (usually heads of sections) were to leave immediately. Well, it was a mass exodus to get out of the area. But once I got to my car, I realized that I wasn't going anywhere soon. It was massive gridlock. My drive from home to work is usually 5 minutes. Today it took me over 2 hours. No one let anyone cut in, no lights were working, motorcyclists were weaving between cars and using the invisible middle lane, laughing inside at all of us in cars going nowhere fast. To make matters worse, my gas tank was on 1/4 full, or 3/4 empty...either way, I thought, "What a time to run out of gas." A few times, people got out of their cars to try to direct traffic, pleading with drivers to wait and let some others go, making room to actually move. It was horrible. I did make it home, but not before having a very close encounter with another car. I tried to move around a car and I misjudged it and scraped around him instead. I got out as he did and after he looked at his car and mine, he said "No problem with my bumper...but your doors will need work!" (all in Spanish,) I didn't even look at my doors until I finally got home. Yep, body shop, here I come. Nothing major but I think I have my car sold to the person who will have my job in May so it will get fixed!

I am now trying to second guess what will happen tomorrow over a very nice glass of cabernet. Will Zelaya be arrested? Will he camp out in the Brazilian Embssy for who knows how long? Will he disappear as quickly as he appeared? My crystal ball is in the shop or I'd venture a guess. One thing is for sure. As soon as I click on "Publish Post," I'm headed to the internet to see what I can find out! For weeks, everyone has been saying they wished "it would just happen...what it is." And it did. Now we live with the results.

Bulletin! I just got a call from my boss. ONLY essential personnel are to report to the embassy tomorrow as the government has extended the curfew. Instead of ending tomorrorw morning at 7:00AM, it now goes all the way to 6:00PM. If I am needed, they will send a car (with a driver who is armed, I hope) to fetch me. Ahhh...the life in a 3rd world country!

Where In The World Will I Be Next May?

2009-08-31T08:11:00.006+04:00

About a week ago, I completed and submitted my “bid list” for my next post. The first 2 tours are directed by your Career Development Officer (CDO) in Washington DC. After that, you pretty much find your next post by making contacts and through emails and recommendations.

About a month ago, I received the email with 41 posts listed and I was to select 20 and then rank them, favorite to oh, dear God, please don’t send me there. Fortunately, there were some pretty nice places on my list…which is not always the case. For my first post, I am here in Tegucigalpa and work in the Diplomatic Security office, also known as the Regional Security Office. It’s probably one of the best sections to work in as there is always something going on. There is never a dull moment and time flies! It’s been made even better by the guys I have worked with…the DS Agents and my Regional Security Officer. They have set the bar high and I can only hope that my next post has the same caliber of people to work with.

Anyway, the list below is what I selected and ranked as my Top 20. So it boils down to this…in May of next year, I’ll be back in the states for a month or so and then off to one of these places for the next 2 years. Here’s the list:

1. Munich, Germany RSO
2. Frankfurt, Germany RSO
3. Dubai, UAE RSO
4. Muscat, Oman RSO
5. Nairobi, Kenya RSO
6. Paris, France
7. Hanoi, N. Viet Nam
8. Vienna, Austria
9. Wellington, New Zealand RSO
10. Brussels, Belgium
11. Beijing, China
12. Berlin, Germany
13. Tel Aviv, Israel
14. London, England
15. New Delhi, India
16. Tokyo, Japan
17. Jakarta, Indonesia
18. Buenos Aires, Argentina
19. San Jose, Costa Rica
20.Seoul, Korea

I marked the ones that are RSO and the rest are in other sections of the Embassy. My CDO has pretty much assured me that I can go to another RSO section so it’s pretty much down to the 6 marked as RSO. That is...if she keeps her word! Remember…no guarantees.

I should know sometime in October. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Munich because it’s right there in the middle of the best parts of Europe and I hope to do lots of traveling while I’m there. If I’m sent to Wellington or Beijing or one of the other far reaching places, the cost to travel will pretty much hinder my ability to see that part of the world like I want to.
Time will tell. I need to just try to not think about it until October. Yeah, right….

Hugo Chavez, Butt Out!

2009-08-12T05:38:00.003+04:00

I wish I could say those words to that good for nothing low life. But I can't so I have to settle for writing it on my blog. Today the demonstrators showed their true colors and began destroying people's property. A bus was burned, restaurants were destroyed, windows were broken in their path. Why? Because that's what protesters do when led by people sent from Venezuela to get them all pumped up. What do they care? It isn't their country. It's not their fellow countrymen who lose their jobs because buildings are burned to the ground. A 15 year old who was vandalizing a car or business was shot by the police because he would not stop. Windows are broken out, people injured...and for what??? It has been reported that $3 million dollars was brought into the country and exchanged for Lempiras on the black market. This money is being used to pay the demonstrators. They came from all over the country to participate in this and for what? Probably around $150 each. They could care less whether Mel Zelaya ever returns to Honduras! They came for the payment. That's what happens in a country where 80% of the people live on about $1500 a YEAR. The will do just about anything for money.

On my way out of the embassy today, I was commenting to one of the Hondurans who work at the embassy. They are, by the way, the best people to work with. I told her I just couldn't wrap my brain around the reason for the property destruction. Her answer was...they want to create chaos. That's so true. Create chaos and nothing else. Their actions aren't helping Mel's return to power. Their destruction of property is only serving to cause more economic hardship on people here, who are already the poorest of the poor in South and Central America.

I just wonder when Hugo Chavez will arrive on his white stallion promising to raise everyone from the depths of despair...caused by who? I'm praying that this little country can find a way to survive this storm and fight off the attempts being made by Chavez.

Another Calm Before Another Storm?

2009-08-09T00:18:00.005+04:00

Speaking of storms, before I comment on how calm it is here in Tegucigalpa this beautiful Saturday, I need to reach out to my son, his wife and my 3 adorable grandsons in Hawaii. I hope the hurricane is down to a mere tropical storm by the time it reaches you and produces nothing more than some great waves for surfing! I love you!

OK, as I said, it's nice and calm here today. My gardner came today so everything is just beautiful in the front and back yards. Another couple of birds have decided that the inside center of my miniature palm tree is the perfect place for a nest and I've been watching them bring twigs and bits of string as they construct their new home. They are smart little things...once again, the opening to their oval shaped nest is to the wall so seeing into it is tricky. It looks like a ball of twigs but somewhere in there, there is an entrance. I see them coming and going. Can't wait to hear little chirps.

Now, back to the calm before the storm. (I get distracted so easily!) News sources here in Tegucigalpa have reported that the Red team (pro Zelaya people) are going to have a huge demonstration here on Tuesday. Currently, there are marches across the country, numbers of participants probably depend on how many are willing to accept the $20 plus meal to participate in the march. The number of people involved doesn't equate to the number of supporters. You have some supporters and you have many participants. Don't confuse the two. Gloria, my maid, told me this morning that some schools have made the classrooms available for the participants to sleep, with pillows and refreshments, thus pretty much causing any classes to be cancelled. Well, that and the fact that the teachers are being paid to participate in the demonstrations too, so the poor kids have had classes cancelled. Tuesday should be interesting. I may take my toothbrush and jammies with me to work. There has been a mix of violent and non-violent demonstrations and you just never know which will happen.

I've had leave approved for Sept. 4-14th since the middle of last month. I keep thinking I'll buy my plane ticket but have been playing Airline Ticket Price Roulette. The price started out at $559 for my round trip from here to Dallas/Fort Worth. Then it went to $589....then $609. My problem is this. If it gets bad here, some of us will be evacuated to WashDC to work at some desk until things normalize. If I buy the ticket, I may be out the price of a ticket...or be issued a voucher. Well, the price went down again Wednesday...to $529! If I buy it here at the Continental ticket office, I can avoid some of the taxes so I decided to go today and buy my ticket. I woke up this morning and went online to print out my preferred flights and wouldn't you know it...back to $609. Dayum. I understand that there are so many seats set aside for one price, and when those are sold, the price goes up to the next tier of pricing and when those are gone, it goes up again. So...who knows when the best day is to buy a ticket? Is there a set day when prices are set and more cheap seats are released? There has to be a trick to this. If you know The Trick...please let me know. I really need a break and 10 days at home with family and friends (you know...Macy's, Nordstroms, Kohl's) is just the thing to reset my tolerance meter!!

HONDURAS...The Little Country That Could

2009-08-05T07:29:00.003+04:00

This is one of the best articles I've found on what's been happening in Honduras. Please take the time to read it. Knowing the whole story may make it harder to ignore the crisis here...and how it really could become a bigger deal than just who ends up running Honduras.

HONDURAS: WHEN IS A COUP NOT A COUP?
Coup versus Coup D’Etat
by Janine Goben

A few weeks ago there was a constitutional change of power in Honduras; not usually an event which would cause the world to get involved in the internal government of a country, especially a country enjoying the freedom of an effective democracy.

IT WILL BECOME A DEFINING MOMENT IN THE DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY

During the early morning of June 28th, 2009, an event occurred in the small Central American country of Honduras which will become a defining time in Honduras’ history; indeed, it will become a defining moment in the definition of democracy. And because of the immediate reaction of the United States of America, it will become a defining point in time for the world to judge how the United States becomes involved in the government of other countries.

As the sun started to rise on Sunday, June 28th, 2009, a military corps, acting under direction of the Supreme Court of Honduras and the entire Congress of Honduras, entered the Presidential Palace in the capital city of Tegucigalpa and removed the President of Honduras, taking him by plane to Costa Rica, where he was discharged.

The news media and the U.S. state department immediately jumped on the following equation:
Head of state + Central America + military removal from power = coup d’état.

Armed with only these facts, most people would make the same leap to judgment….. Unless they had the rest of the information and some understanding of the Honduran constitution, or unless they came to Honduras today and see that life is continuing the same as it was prior to these events; there are no tanks rolling down the streets, no curtailed rights or liberties.

The international press would have you believe that Honduras is in disarray. Nothing could be further from the truth. A constitutional change of government occurred, without violence; and this constitutional change has brought the people of Honduras together in defense of their constitution and their freedoms. Hondurans and foreigners, both sides of the political spectrum, stand solidly together to support HONDURAS. Tens of thousands of people have staged rallies throughout the country in support of the actions taken against the ex-president. The only violence that has occurred is when Zelaya tried to return to the country, creating a media frenzy as he asked his very few supporters to disrupt the country.

I will give you the rest of the story from the viewpoint of an American citizen living happily and peacefully in Honduras for a dozen years, and also with a chronology from a Honduran businessman, who can speak to the actions first hand.

Let’s start three years ago; Mel Zelaya, candidate for one of the two main political parties, was elected President by a small majority. A rich rancher, Zelaya courted the poorer people of the country, making grand appearances by riding in on his horse, Café, wearing his trademark cowboy hat. His political objectives started to drift to the left fairly quickly and he publicly and frequently created photo shoots with political allies Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers.

ZELAYA APPEARED IN FRONT OF THE CROWD, ENCOURAGING THEM TO CREATE CIVIL UNREST. THIS EVENT WAS A SIGNIFICANT TURNING POINT IN THE SUPPORT ZELAYA ENJOYED AS A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT.

Zelaya started making decisions which appeared to be detrimental to the stability of the country, such as overruling local law enforcement by demanding the release of people arrested for destroying government offices and burning records.

On one occasion earlier this year, he flew into the island of Roatan, on a whim, to encourage a group of protestors who were objecting to the electric company and who had managed to block the only main road on the island, effectively shutting down the island and creating havoc with the tourism industry for a week. Cruise ships detoured to other destinations and international flights were affected; people couldn’t work. Zelaya appeared in front of the crowd, encouraging them to create civil unrest. Several of the leaders had been arrested and Zelaya commanded the police and District Attorney to release them.

This was the first time most of us on the island were exposed to the courage of the Honduran people – the local officials, who are mostly members of Zelaya’s political party, resisted the order and managed to hold most of the detainees for several days. This event was probably a significant turning point in the support Zelaya enjoyed as a democratically elected President.

There is a long time relationship between Honduras and the United States; over 100 U.S. businesses operate within the country, providing thousands of jobs for Hondurans. Tourism is also a major source of employment and economic stability. There is a large military base, Soto Cano, in the center of Honduras close to the town of Comayagua, with a comfortable blend of Honduran and American troops whose mission is primarily humanitarian and to exert some control of drug trafficking throughout Central America.

Honduras is also a highly desirable country for foreigners to live in and own property; there are thousands of us living throughout the country, especially in the Bay Islands, a stunningly beautiful destination in the Western Caribbean. Life is relaxed and relatively inexpensive; the Honduran people are peaceful, friendly and welcoming. They are also fiercely proud of their country and their CONSTITUTION.

For the past twenty-plus years, Honduras has enjoyed the freedoms associated with a stable democracy and the comfort of friendship and aid from the U.S and many other countries worldwide. The second poorest country in the region, international aid is crucial for the people of Honduras. In the last decade, huge improvements in infrastructure and quality of life are evident. Humanitarian groups come in droves to provide medical, dental, spiritual and physical care. Homes are built by volunteers, trades are taught, education is boosted and children are cared for. No-one wants to lose any of this, so when Zelaya started toward a carefully chartered path to align himself with leftist leaders, people started to take notice. Rumors about missing money and illegal activities at the highest level were reported.

The democratic republic of Honduras has a similar governmental structure to the United States, with three executive branches. The following is an accurate chronology of the events which led up to the removal of Mel Zelaya from the Presidential palace, written by a Honduran businessman who lives in Tegucigalpa, and is re-printed with his permission:

The Chain of Events in the Honduras Crisis March 23, 2009: President Zelaya passes an Executive Decree ordering a National Survey asking citizens if they would approve a Constitutional Assembly that would write and approve a new constitution. The Decree stated that the National Institute of Statistics (INE) would carry the survey out. However, he did not publish the decree in Honduras’ official newspaper called La Gaceta as required by law. This decree violated the following articles in the Constitution:

• Article 255 for not having published the decree in the Gaceta.
• Article 5 which states that only Congress (with a majority vote of 2/3) can define a National Survey and NOT the Executive branch.
• Article 5 which states that only the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) can conduct/execute a National Survey and NOT the National Statistics Institute (INE).
• His actions implied intent to violate Article 374, a “Petreos” Article, which states that only five articles in the entire constitution (with a total of 378 articles) cannot be amended or reformed. Two of those five articles refer to the duration of the presidential period (Art. 237) and the prohibition of presidential reelection (Art. 4).
By May 27, 2009: The National Prosecutor, the Attorney General and the Supreme Court had unanimously ruled the National Survey decree as illegal and it was ANULLED.

June 5, 2009: President Zelaya’s lawyer appeals the ruling.

June 16, 2009: The Appeal Court unanimously confirms that the National Survey decree is indeed illegal and therefore ANULLED. The State Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Publico) informs the Armed Forces that the National Survey is illegal and therefore, the Armed Forces must not carry out its constitutionally-assigned responsibility to act as guardians of the Public Survey ballots. The Armed Forces apply Article 323 that states that no public official, whether civil or military, can be forced to comply with an illegal order and thus refuse to carry out President Zelaya’s order to safeguard the ballots and election/survey. That same day, the State Prosecutor’s Office also advises President Zelaya and his entire cabinet of the Appeals Court ruling against the decree.

June 19, 2009: The State Prosecutor’s Office formally advises President Zelaya, a second time, that the National Survey is illegal.

June 25th, 2009: Only three days before his announced and illegal survey, President Zelaya issues a second presidential decree again calling for a National Survey. But this time, he goes all the way and publishes it in the Gaceta. However, he makes changes to the wording in the decree. Instead of ordering “a Public Opinion Survey,” as he had worded the previous decree, he now changes the words to read, “Public Opinion Survey Convening a Constitutional Assembly.” This changes the legal interpretation of this decree entirely, and would’ve allowed for an immediate Constitutional Assembly to convene and disintegrate the three powers defined in the Constitution, effectively interrupting Constitutional Order.

AS SOON AS THE DECREE WAS PUBLISHED, PRESIDENT ZELAYA AUTOMATICALLY STOPPED BEING PRESIDENT AND BECAME A REGULAR CITIZEN.

With the publishing of this decree in the Gaceta, President Zelaya himself kicks into motion Article 239 which states that “whomever changes or attempts to change” Article 4 (an unchangeable “petreos” article protected by Article 374) relating to the alterability of the presidential position, “will be immediately removed from public office” and lose his/her constitutional powers.

NOTE: This is very important! As soon as the decree was published, President Zelaya automatically stopped being president and became a regular citizen.

June 26, 2009: The Courts, along with the Attorney General and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, order the Armed Forces to confiscate all National Survey ballots and voting material that had just arrived by plane.

That same day, in blatant disregard to all court rulings, Citizen Manuel Zelaya gathers a group of protesters and proceeds to the Air Force warehouse where the ballots had been impounded. He threatens with force, and uses human shields, risking other citizens’ lives.

Calling on Article 59, which states that the protection of “human life is the Constitution and the state’s supreme responsibility/obligation,” the Armed Forces yield to the mob and allow Citizen Zelaya and his human shields to take the ballots by force.

Immediately, the Supreme Court issues an arrest warrant for Citizen Manuel Zelaya for the crimes of (a) Attempts against the form of government, (b) Treason to the country, (c) Abuse of authority, and (d) Usurpation of functions belonging to other branches of government.

The Supreme Court orders the Armed Forces to serve this arrest warrant because according to Article 272, the Armed Forces has the constitutionally-assigned responsibility to maintain and protect the alterability of the presidential office.

June 27, 2009: Country leaders meet intermittently throughout the day in an effort to find an alternate means of resolving the situation without recurring to an arrest that would incite unrest and possible violence within certain segments of the population. In the meantime, the Armed Forces study Citizen Zelaya’s agenda in order to determine the best moment to execute the arrest with the least risk to the lives of Citizen Zelaya and the Presidential Guards surrounding him.

June 28, 2009: Having found no better time for the arrest, at 5:45AM, the Armed Forces capture Citizen Zelaya in his home. The arrest is successful without any injuries or deaths on both sides. Citizen Zelaya is instructed to get dressed, but wanting to be victimized, he refuses, only grabbing his passport and wallet (with the presidential palace’s credit card, by the way).

The Armed Forces decide to put Citizen Zelaya on the presidential plane and take him to Costa Rica where he is left behind. The Armed Forces and whoever else decided to expatriate Citizen Zelaya violated Article 102 which states that “no Honduran can be expatriated or surrendered to a foreign government.”

The Armed Forces is defending its decision by arguing that they again relied on Article 59 (protection of human life as supreme obligation of the state). They said that, in this case, breaking the law (art. 102) actually saved lives since they felt that placing Citizen Zelaya in a Honduran prison would’ve incited violence, unrest, and possible harm to Citizen Zelaya himself. Nonetheless, the State Prosecutor’s Office has started an investigation into this crime.

Per Article 242, when the President is absent and when the Vice President is absent (or resigned in Honduras’ case), the third instance is the President of Congress. Thus, the President of Congress, Roberto Micheletti, became President of Honduras.

I have but one question that I would like to ask the international community that is so adamant about not recognizing our existing government and is so vociferous at demanding that Honduras reinstate our criminal ex-President Zelaya:

What part of our Constitution would you force us to change, amend or erase so that we can reinstate Manuel Zelaya as President of Honduras without breaking the law?

Ian Merriam Honduras Webster’s dictionary defines a coup d’état as “The sudden, forcible overthrow of a government.” A military coup d’état would be that forcible overthrow by the military with the military taking over the running the country. Clearly, neither of these definitions apply here – at no point were the military running the government because the order was issued by the Supreme Court and the next in line to the Presidency, Roberto Micheletti, was sworn in as President. Only one man lost his job….and the same political party is still in power.

Webster’s also defines the single word coup as “A sudden, brilliantly successful move”……much closer to accurate!

So, here is Honduras, a country with a strong, still in action democracy, and with the vast majority of its people supportive of the rule of law which demanded the removal of a leader who believed he was above the law; we are being condemned by international sentiment. When, in fact, Honduras has become the voice for democracy – almost unanimously, citizens are standing up to overwhelming odds to support their constitution – is there no better definition for democracy?

The Honduran people would rather give up the critical aid they receive in order to keep their democracy! Business is as usual here; transportation into and around the country is normal, regular seasonal discounts are available to tourists, cruise ships still visit and scuba divers enjoy some of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world.

PEOPLE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ARE SLOWLY REALIZING THAT THE IMMEDIATE REACTION WAS ERRONEOUS, BASED ON MEDIA REPORTS FROM NETWORKS WITHOUT CORRESPONDENTS IN HONDURAS

One man has disrupted the continuation of government, and continues to do so with his reckless (thank you, Hillary for recognizing it this time) actions on the Nicaraguan border.

And yet the country goes on with the business of living with almost no change, except that thousands of people have lost their means of making a living for their families because his continued showmanship. Thankfully, people throughout the world are slowly realizing that the immediate reaction was erroneous, based on media reports from networks without correspondents in Honduras?

Honduras should be held up as “The Little Country That Could” and its citizens praised for their willingness to protect what they hold most dear – their freedoms and their constitution. Who else has been willing to defend their country against the progress of communism in the face of overwhelming odds? We should be applauding their sacrifice and doing whatever we can to help instead of denouncing the country and cutting off its lifelines.

The U.S. State Department cautions against traveling to Honduras…do you have the same courage as the poor Honduran people? We’re here; living normal, happy lives…come and visit us…that is how you can help. Tourism and investment in Honduras is one way to give people back their livelihood, their self respect. Foreign governments interfering with the constitution of Honduras outrageous, and overblown, inaccurate reporting of the situation by an unknowledgeable media is deplorable.

I’ve never been so proud of the people of my adopted homeland; the courage and restraint shown throughout the country is admirable. To defend one’s constitution in a non-violent manner and to be successful in that endeavor is rare. Help support Honduran democracy – come and visit us, you won’t believe your eyes!

I hope I wasn't supposed to obtain permission to put this on my blog. Is there a lawyer out there????

Another Failed Attempt

2009-07-26T01:08:00.004+04:00

Mel Zelaya tried to come home again yesterday. In my opinion, yet another move on his part that further shows the mentality of this man. I think the only 2 people he is listening to is Hugo Chavez and the little voice in his head that has given him such bad advice all along. Chavez (again, my opinion) would love for Zelaya to become a martyr. Why else would he send him to the border for a showdown with the police? And yes, I do believe Chavez is pulling his strings...such a Pinocchio. Nearly the entire time he spent standing on the brink of the Honduran border, he was on cell phones that people kept handing him. I wonder who he was talking to? Maybe the girlfriend of the guy who handed him the phone? Hugo, his best bud? Perhaps Insulza, who was screaming at him..."What the hell are you thinking??" I can't think of a single person who would have advised him to do what he did. And I'm curious as to who it was that convinced him to turn around and go back to Nicaragua. I think he was a bit miffed that he didn't have the expected welcoming committee of around 500,000 supporters, better known as the Red team, and instead saw 3-400. Could it have been the strategic roadblocks (dump trucks dumped dirt on the highway, effectively blocking the roads) set up to keep the number of supporters to a minimum? The pro-Zelaya demonstrations have been slowly fizzling out, probably due to the fact that they aren't being paid to attend these fun functions. When you get 3 tortillas and a ziplock bag of water in return for being bused to a get together (and you have no idea why), my guess is you stop attending. And then you have to figure out how to get back home.

Secretary Clinton called this visit "reckless." I call it an opportunity to get worldwide attention. CNN ("Chavez News Network") just now did a 20 second report on it and mentioned he had several hundred supporters there. Several hundred???? Most were reporters. And some of those supporters got a bit rowdy and started throwing rocks at the police. CNN reported that 2 people were injured when shots were fired to quell the crowd. Every gathering of those against the return of Zelaya (known as the White team) have been peaceful and MASSIVE. No one is reporting on the numbers because *gasp* that might show just what the people of Honduras really want. They don't want this man back in power. He stole from this country, he is guilty of misuse of power among other things and this country deserves better. They deserve support in their quest of a decent life. And they are not going to give in to pressures from outside of their country. My heart goes out to those who are standing up for their rights to a president who will be FOR the people, not for what he can get out of the office.

Mel Zelaya, go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect any more of this country's money.

Honduras Coup Analysis - What's Really Happening in Honduras?

2009-07-19T20:02:00.001+04:00

As most of you know, I have lived in Tegucigalpa for the past 14 months or so, working at the American Embassy here. This is a wonderful country...the people are terrific, the climate is fabulous and if you can overlook the crime and corruption, it's a great place to live.

That being said, there is some pretty serious political unrest going on here. I've been spending most of my time posting links to articles on my facebook about the current situation here. The links below are excellent sources and covers all the angles. Please take a minute and read them. From what my friends in the U.S. say, there is very little press on this subject in the states. But the crisis here and its issues are so important and will have a direct impact on things in the states (as in the flow of drugs into the U.S. and the protection of Democracy in this small country) and it's important to know what's going on. This is not a time to stick your head in the sand and ignore it. Just be informed is all I ask.

Other great sites that are covering this crisis are http://www.ap.com/ , Christian Science Monitor (google it...not sure of the addy) and the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/) . You may have to create a log on for some of these, but they are great sources of information and worth the trouble, especially if your hometown news isn't covering whats going on here.

Honduras Coup Analysis - What's Really Happening in Honduras? - Esquire

Time is Running Out

2009-07-04T04:53:00.003+04:00

Interesting read...

July 2nd, 2009,

"Within the next 48 hours, the situation in Honduras will reach its most critical point yet. Deposed Marxist dictator Manuel Zelaya has set the stage to try to retake power in direct defiance of that nation's Supreme Court, its legislature, and the vast majority of the Honduran people.

And if Honduras falls, the rest of Latin America -- already at risk -- will not be far behind.
That's why it is more important than ever for us as Liberty Leaders to get out the facts to all we know -- as quickly as possible. The attached commentary from a leading Honduran attorney, Octavio Sánchez, sets the record straight: Manuel Zelaya was seeking a third term through attempting to amend a portion of the Honduran Constitution which is illegal to amend. His removal was legal and constitutional. For more background, also refer to the following legal memorandum further explaining the timeline of events as they occurred and legal complexities.

A 'Coup' in Honduras? Nonsense.
By Octavio Sánchez

Tegucigalpa, Honduras – Sometimes, the whole world prefers a lie to the truth. The White House, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and much of the media have condemned the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya this past weekend as a coup d'état.
That is nonsense.

In fact, what happened here is nothing short of the triumph of the rule of law.
To understand recent events, you have to know a bit about Honduras's constitutional history. In 1982, my country adopted a new Constitution that enabled our orderly return to democracy after years of military rule. After more than a dozen previous constitutions, the current Constitution, at 27 years old, has endured the longest.

It has endured because it responds and adapts to changing political conditions: Of its original 379 articles, seven have been completely or partially repealed, 18 have been interpreted, and 121 have been reformed.

It also includes seven articles that cannot be repealed or amended because they address issues that are critical for us. Those unchangeable articles include the form of government; the extent of our borders; the number of years of the presidential term; two prohibitions – one with respect to reelection of presidents, the other concerning eligibility for the presidency; and one article that penalizes the abrogation of the Constitution.

During these 27 years, Honduras has dealt with its problems within the rule of law. Every successful democratic country has lived through similar periods of trial and error until they were able to forge legal frameworks that adapt to their reality. France crafted more than a dozen constitutions between 1789 and the adoption of the current one in 1958. The US Constitution has been amended 27 times since 1789. And the British – pragmatic as they are – in 900 years have made so many changes that they have never bothered to compile their Constitution into a single body of law.

Under our Constitution, what happened in Honduras this past Sunday? Soldiers arrested and sent out of the country a Honduran citizen who, the day before, through his own actions had stripped himself of the presidency.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.

Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."

Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America's authoritarian tradition. The Constitution's provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.

The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya's arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day.

Don't believe the coup myth. The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution. The military gained nothing but the respect of the nation by its actions.
I am extremely proud of my compatriots. Finally, we have decided to stand up and become a country of laws, not men. From now on, here in Honduras, no one will be above the law."

Octavio Sánchez, a lawyer, is a former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras.

In The Midst of Chaos

2009-06-29T02:45:00.006+04:00

My first overseas assignment and my first coup. I'm way too old for this.

Of course, I know it's no laughing matter. It's sad when a government is so terribly corrupt. It's sadder when it looks like he will get away with holding a 'poll' of the people to see if he should run for an additional term when the country's constitution forbids it. It's a shame when his best friend is Hugo Chavez. So, the military did what it felt it needed to do to preserve Democracy. They gave him an early wake up this morning, arrested him and whisked him away to Costa Rica. Then they proceeded to name the president of the Congress as the new President and he will serve out the remaining 6 months of Zelaya's term. They state they have a signed resignation from Zelaya...Zelaya denies it...the plot thickens by the minute.

This morning, there were tanks in the streets, jets flying low, soldiers with menacing looking guns and of course, supporters of Mel Zelaya in the streets. I haven't heard of any violence. Wait..I did hear that the Ambassadors of Cuba and Nicaragua somehow managed to find themselves in the street somewhere, one of them with a few bruises. But that has yet to be confirmed. Sad.

Messages have been sent out over the emergency radios that all embassy people were to stay home. I've done that all day. I've had a few calls from my bosses, filling me in on what's happening, which is very little. The last call came a few minutes ago informing me of the good news that I was Essential Personnel and (the bad news) I would have to report to work tomorrow. Apparently, the embassy will function on a limited staff for the safety of all Americans and locally employed staff (LES). And a word about our LES...they are the best in the world!!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. In my mind, Zelaya's supporters are gathering around the campfire and planning their strategy. Chavez has vowed to defend Zelaya's right to be president...and he has placed his troops on standby. This has all the makings of a Movie of the Week.

P.S. All information here has been taken from different news sites. You can go to http://www.cnn.com/, http://www.elheraldo.hn/ or any other news source and probably read even juicier and/or more up to date stuff than what I've written here.

Father's Day Suggestion

2009-06-14T01:02:00.006+04:00

Father's Day is just around the corner. My father is 94 and for years I would try and come up with something special for him. A new sweater. A massager thingy. It was always hard to find something he would enjoy, knowing he already had everything. I then hit on the idea of giving him words from my heart. The first Father's Day Letter was thanking him for things that he did for me when I was young but never knew that a thank you would have been nice. It brought tears to his eyes. The next year, I wrote him about special memories as a child, times he made possible. Times that might not have been special at the time, but now are very special. Last year my annual letter to Dad was about the future. At 93, sometimes it's good to talk about what is still ahead. Like teaching his new grandson to play golf. Or to tell stories about how he ran bootleg when he was a teen. Well, maybe not that. My father has so many stories in his head...I wish he would be better about using the cassette recorder that was given to him to just talk into, recounting the adventures of his life. Years from now, his great grandsons would love to hear their great grandfather's voice. I know I will.

So, if you just don't want to give Dad another tie or bottle of aftershave, sit down at your computer and decide what you want to say to him. It's amazing...once you get started, it's hard to stop. I'm about to write my Father's Day message to my dad, tuck it in a card and mail it to him. He's in Texas, I'm in Honduras. A virtual hug will have to do until I get there later this year.

Love you Dad...Happy Father's Day.

Debi

A Necklace of What????

2009-05-17T06:36:00.004+04:00

I love jewelry. I have some very very nice pieces. Most of it is safely stashed away in a safe deposit box in a bank in Fort Worth, Texas. There's way too much crime where I live to wear diamonds and 14 carat gold.

Today I went to Valle de Angeles, a small village just outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras where I live. I took a new member of the embassy staff to show her what a fun place it was and to hit some of the many little shops there. They sell everything, all handmade. We bought some artwork, wooden bowls, fresh mangos, painted pottery. And I bought a necklace. This is a most unusual necklace. When my friend Sally and I would go to Valle, we made sure we visited all our favorite shops. In one of these shops, they had a rack with lots of necklaces. I would admire this particular style of necklace. It was made with many small somethings (I had no idea what) that were practically weightless. The only problem was that they were always in colors that just didn't appeal to me. I was more intrigued with what they were made of than anything else.

Well, today, in one shop we visited that I had never been to, I saw the necklace with the same material. It was in many shades of brown and came with matching earrings. The owners of this shop were most helpful and immediately, without me asking, told me what the composition of this jewelry was.

I'm here to tell you that I am now the proud owner of a necklace made of FISH SCALES....multiple strands of lovely brownish taupe fishscales tied together in a lovely delicate brown thread with occasional brown glass beads. Who would have ever thought I would be wearing fish scales around me neck and on my ears???? Click on the picture for a larger version.

In Honduras, nothing goes to waste. And I think I'm going to have fun with this necklace! I'm thinking...Christmas presents!

Mother's Day 2009

2009-05-11T07:27:00.005+04:00

My mother died in January 1976. I would give anything if she were alive today so that I could tell her how much I loved her and how I appreciated everything she did for me...the sacrifices she made for me. And watch her face as she read the sappy card I always bought for her. Mother's Day is not just another Hallmark card day. It's a special day that hopefully makes you think about your mom and the love that exists between you both.

Mom, if things are as I hope they are, you've most likely heard me the many times I looked up and told you home much I love you and miss you today.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you...

Mother's Day 2009

2009-05-10T06:40:00.004+04:00

Today I thought about being a mother. As I look back on my role, I think I've done a pretty good job. Sure, there are a few things I would have done differently but overall, I'm very proud of my 2 children...very very proud.

In May of 1973, my daughter entered the world, causing me considerable pain! She was ready to make her grand entrance but my body wouldn't cooperate. After way too many hours in labor, my doctor decided to do an emergency C-section. I have to tell you...babies born in this manner are just gorgeous babies! There no distortion of the head, no trauma of that push push push action..just slice and deliver! She was born on Saturday night, at 11:50 PM. Ten minutes later, at midnight, I experienced my very first Mother's Day. The nurse in recovery will probably never forget it becuase as she was checking my IV, I turned my head to her and promptly vomited this lovely purple stuff. Ahhh yes..a day to remember!

She always had her index fingers extended and as she grew, she would touch new things delicately and with just one finger. I would go shopping with her in the stoller and people would stop me and comment on what a beautiful baby I had! She grew more beautifu as time went on, both inside and out. Today, at almost 36, she is one of my 2 most favorite people in the world.

The other most favorite person in the world to me is my son. He was due on Valentine's Day, 1975 but decided he was in just the right position to come a week early. My doctor scheduled my repeat C-section for noon on February 7th. I went to the hospital, was prepped and at about 11:45 was wheeled into the delivery room. My doctor came over to me and told me there was a group of med students who had not observed a C-section and did I mind an audience. At that point, you really don't care who sees you and I said sure. In walks about 17 students, all dressed in their surgical greens. My doctors start doing whatever they do on the other side of that green curtain and I after a bit, I turned my head to look at some of the students. One in particular had a funny look on his face. About that time, my doctor said "It's a boy!" This medical student kept looking more and more shocked and I kept asking..what's wrong? As it turned out, nothing was wrong...my son was just a big baby! Today, at 34, he is the father of 3 sons...Gavin will be 3 next month and Micah and Makana turned 1 last March.

Everyone should be as fortunate as I am to have such wonderful kids. And this Mother's Day I will look back on the good times as well as the trying times. I'm in Honduras, far from my children who are in Washington DC and Hawaii. Distance has not and never will diminish my love for them.

April in Paris..er I Mean Tegucigalpa

2009-04-16T05:45:00.009+04:00

Well, it's April where I live...Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It's that time of year when all the farmers (and whoever else) want to clear their fields to get ready to plant this years crop. I'm thinking maybe someone should let them know about plowing under the leftover dead plants or even cutting them down to feed the many skin and bone horses and cows I see all the time. Below are 2 pictures. One was taken last year around September while looking out my window at work. The other was taken today from the same window. That smoke will linger until the rainy season, which starts sometime in July. Then the torrential downpours will wash all the smoke away and commence to flood the streets and wreck havoc. I love the word havoc. And knucklehead. I digress....back to the smoke issues.

This is the 'before' shot. Note the clear view of the mountains, the clear picture of the houses. Well, make that shacks. Over 80% of ths country live below the poverty level, with an average annual income of around $1500US. Annual.

And then we have today's shot below, with lots of smoke and a really big polution factor. The news says it's a combination of the smoke from burning fields here and from neighboring Central American countries and just plain old pollution. I'm supposed to fly to Utila Friday but when the visibility gets bad, some planes just won't start their engines here. Wish me luck...I can't wait to get snorkeling in the ocean.

In the meantime, does anyone have about 100 huge fans we can place stratigically here and there to help blow the smoke away??

A Visit/Reunion Home

2009-04-11T23:36:00.003+04:00

In Honduras, Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is a time when the entire place celebrates by leaving town for the week. Since the Embassy closed Wednesday-Friday, I decided a trip home was in order. It's a good thing to go home every opportunity that comes up because my next post may be somewhere far away and I won't be able to afford the quick trips home to Texas.

The day before I left Tegucigalpa (April 3) my son surprised me with the news that he and one of my grandsons, Gavin, would be flying to Texas too. And then, a few minutes later, he told me my daughter was also flying in. What a treat! So, for the past week, I've been enjoying my daughter, son and grandson and my father. I love it!

Today is the last day here, with a very early flight back to Teguc in the morning. I decided that getting up at 4AM to return rent car and get through security and be ready for a 6:30AM flight was a pain. So, I booked a room for all of us at the Hyatt Regency at the airport. We will return cars (both mine and my daughter's) tonight and have a nice dinner and a good night's sleep. My son's flight isn't until 9:30 so he gets to sleep in! By tomorrow afternoon, we'll all be back in our respective homes.

My next scheduled trip home is next summer. I may have enough miles to make the Teguc-Kauai-Fort Worth loop early next year, but if I don't, I'll have a great 3 week home leave to look forward to next summer. I can't believe I'm halfway through with my tour in Honduras.

Being with family is the greatest...

A Ficus is a Ficus is a Ficus....

2009-03-26T04:34:00.013+04:00

I've lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for about 10 months now and there's something that I've noticed that I want to share with you. When I lived in Texas, I used to look at a shrubs that were pruned into shapes and just wonder what possesses someone to turn a perfectly beautiful plant into a triangle, a ball or even (the worst) a group of balls. Well, I'm here to tell you that they absolutely LOVE to prune the Ficus trees and/or shrubs here!!! The sky is the limit when it comes to just what these lovely plants are shaped to resemble.

Here we have a lovely example of a...well, an exclamation mark? Maybe an egg? Perhaps it's a round ball that got out of hand.

On we go down the street and we come across this lovely row of oddly shaped boxy specimens. I can't wait to see what they do with them if they get too big for their spaces! Here's an example of artistic freedom and have yet to figure out just what the pruner had in mind when he connected the 2 trees. Is it 2 ducks kissing?? I really have no clue.

And then we have this really cool example of pruning a lovely tree into a basket, with a handle even! However, note that the garage door is directly behind the opening of the handle. It's my guess that the owner of this house got tired of not being able to see if a car was coming as he pulled out of his property and decided to kill 2 birds with one stone...make the tree a basket and then look through the handle!!

These next 2 trees (and I use that term loosely) are down the street from my house and I pass them every day. About every other day there is a man on a ladder pruning pruning pruning! Not one stray leaf is left by the time he's done. Anyone want to guess what this shape is called? These are about 15 feet tall....massive!

OK....I've saved the best for last. Well, at least the last of what I have photos of. I'm sure there are so many more works of art out there for me to photograph. I took this picture through the window of my car as I was driving. A guard sits outside the house directly across the street...with a very long 'gun' with a long barrel and a short handle. If I can stop someday and take a better picture, I will. Anyway, here it is...my current #1 pick for Honduran Creativity in Ficus Sculpture!!! It's a tree...shaped like a HOUSE!!

Next time....Houses built in the shape of trees!!!

Twenty Five Things About Me

2009-01-31T23:39:00.003+04:00

25 Things About Me You Probably Don't Know

For 7 years I held a license to carry a concealed handgun in Texas.
I’m allergic to Penicillin and Cipro. Good thing I’m healthy.
I once hit a fantastic golf shot onto the green to within 4 feet of the cup from 190 yards out in front of Ben Hogan.
I got Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon’’s autographs when they were filming Some Like It Hot. Wish I still had them.
When I got my divorce after 25 years of marriage, I took my maiden name back.
My first job while in high school was gift wrapping Christmas presents at the local department store, spending every dime of my pay on my Mom's presents.
I was caught shoplifting Barbie clothes when I was 8. Never did it again.
As a child, I had a blast trying to catch grunion on the beach in Coronado.
I have over 257 different Nolan Ryan baseball cards. I went to Cooperstown when he was inducted in to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I don’t have a favorite food.
On my first trip to Kauai, I did the helicopter tour. Best $135 I ever spent.
Toughest interview in my life was the one for my State Dept job.
I have too many "Best Day of My Life" to list.
The day I hated being a grown up most was the day I had to put my cat, Brandy, to sleep.
I have experienced love at first sight and it’s magnificent.
No one believes me when they find out how old I am.
One day, I WILL live near my grandchildren.
I’m bilingual and love to keep it a secret sometimes and listen to what they are saying about me.
The thing(s) I’m the most proud of is what great adults my children are.
I will never try oysters or escargot.
When I was 6 years old, I entered a contest to name the San Diego Zoo’s new moose. I sent in “Foghorn” and won a Shirley Temple doll.
I have climbed up to the flame in the Statue of Liberty.
I’m writing a book…the outline is nearly done.
I would love to earn a living at photography.
I do want to be married again…who wants to grow old alone?

Change...Some Good, Some Not So Good

2009-01-31T22:34:00.003+04:00

I’ve now been in Honduras for a couple of days over 8 months and I’ve noticed some changes in myself. Some are subtle changes. Some are quite striking. Some are good and some quite possibly could get me in trouble when I return to the states!

For example, I am now a maniac on the road. I’ve come to realize that in order to survive while in the confines of your vehicle you need to take charge. You need to be assertive. You need to have nerves of steel. In short, you need to be a little crazy. If you show any weakness whatsoever, they (all the other crazy drivers on the road) will take advantage of you and crush you. I’ve lost all of the courtesy that I once showed when driving in Texas. If you are nice and let one car cut in front of you, you will incur the wrath of all of the cars behind you. You’ll also quickly realize that you weren’t just allowing that one car to cut in front of you or cross the street, but now there are 10 or 15 others, forming an unbreakable chain. It looks like their bumpers are glued together! Safety in numbers! CHARGE! So, there you sit, a line of cars crossing in front of you, the 40 or so cars behind you leaning on their horns (yea, that will sure make me plow through the car in front of me!), and everyone at a standstill because no one will yield to anyone else. And let’s not forget about the 12 motorcycles that have now seen a weak spot in the line of traffic and are virtually wiggling their way between cars to move forward. As a result, I’ve learned to only wave a car in front of me when I can clearly see there are no more behind him and there are not too many cars behind me. It is definitely survival of the most aggressive here in Tegucigalpa.

Something else that has changed about me is that I find I’m no longer a late night snacker. I used to love to snack after dinner was over. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t sleeping as well as when I first got here. I mentioned it to someone and they asked me if I ate late at night. I confessed my habit of getting a “little something” in the evenings. They told me that at this altitude, sometimes your digestion doesn’t happen as fast as you’d like so consequently, you lay in bed with a full stomach for hours. Your brain is overseeing your digestion and won’t rest until it’s done! Once I stopped heading for the kitchen late at night, I started sleeping better. I should have realized that long ago since many years ago, I lived in Mexico City and we always ate our big meal at 2:00 PM and at night had a small meal. Same reason…

I’ve also found that I have become a true volunteer. At the Embassy, I volunteer for whatever function or committee that comes along. Of course, it’s great for your EER (annual evaluation) but just getting out from behind my desk to go to meetings or realizing that I might have fun with a certain committee has made life better. I think this is the year of volunteering, or so I’ve heard on TV. You should consider it. What’s one afternoon or evening out of your life spent helping someone? Habitat for Humanity could really use some help. The local soup kitchen or even school might have some work that a good volunteer could do. Think of the good feeling you’d have during that one day a week that you helped someone else. I heard on CNN the other night that there’s a website set up and you can enter your zip code and it shows all the people/organizations who could use a hand in your area. If you’re smart in something…math, English, a foreign language…contact a high school and see if you can tutor some student. Imagine the welcoming smile from them (and their parents) when they find out you won’t charge $50 an hour!

Seriously…volunteering is a good thing. Give it a shot!

My, How My Garden Does Grow!

2008-11-16T18:09:00.027+04:00

I thought it was time to post an update on how my garden was doing. When I moved in, there was very little in either the front or back garden areas. That just wasn't going to work for me because I'm a real visual kind of person and I like looking at pretty things. So I would buy plants, mostly small, and have Jesus, my gardener, plant them for me. As much as I love working in the garden, the economy is such that employing gardeners and maids is such a help to the economy and...who am I to buck the system?? When he would go with me to the nursery, I would pick out some plants and he would say, "No quieres mas grande?" (don't you want it larger?) I would shake my head and tell him he would make sure they grew to be large in no time at all! Well, this whole process started in mid August and I'm here to tell you that living on the equator is wonderful for gardens!!

Here are some pictures of the back yard, before and after shots.

This is the before shot. There was really only a large Bougainvillea and a Bird of Paradise and an ugly shrub on the left. Note that there were no flower beds at all. I'm not sure why, but it seems that everyone has a drain in the middle of their yards (the square black thing in the lawn).

And now here is the after shot! This doesn't really show how really pretty it is. With photography, unless you're a real professional, it's hard to capture the real beauty of the subject, whether it's plants, a sunset or a child. But I'm trying! All the 'little' plants that I bought are growing like weeds and the garden is filling in beautifully. There are roses, Mexican sage, dusty miller, Bird of Paradise (4 cuz I love them), vincas in a gorgeous orange, hibiscus, ginger, tropical orange flowers, begonias, gerber daisies, candle flowers, rosemary and basil, and some beautiful red and pink flowers. There's more but that's all I can remember! And since I'm working on my photography skills, my garden is my best subject. I would love to drive around shooting local people and sights, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get back home with my camera.

This is a view from my dining room, looking out into the back garden in August. I was getting ready for my first dinner party and thought it was a pretty picture...Sally's Guatemalan place mats, the Ginger flowers I bought for about $2.00 and my 'lovely' back yard.

Here's the same shot, taken yesterday (11/15/08). As you can see, I really like flowers on my dining room table! What can I say...my grandmother had a wonderful garden and I remember, as a child, getting lost in it, exploring for flowers and critters. Thanks Gram, for instilling in me to appreciate the natural beauty around us!

This is a view taken from the back of the yard toward the house. Again, it doesn't really capture how pretty it is.

I love close up shots, so here are a few of the flowers in my garden. This blue flower, I am told, is Mexican Sage. The flower, stems and leaves feel like velvet. It's beautiful!

I'm not sure just what this little flower is, but I love them! I have them in a bright orange and yellow, planted around the garden. The hummingbirds love them!

I love this shot taken from the table on the veranda. I've never been a big fan of orange but for some reason, it works here. These vincas are growing like crazy. I had to cut them back about 2 weeks ago because they were beginning to cover the red hibiscus behind them.

And the lovely gerber daisy. Not sure how I got white...maybe the plant looked so healthy that I didn't care what color it was!
So, that's the back yard. The front is not bad either, as you can see here. It too, began as pretty much the climbing plants in the right hand corner and 2 overgrown bougainvilleas that were moved. Roses, vincas, bird of paradise and other flowering plants are now on the way to making this a lovely spot to see when you enter my front gate!! Here are the before and after shots of the front.

Before....and after.
Better, huh?

I realize that if you have no interest in gardening, this post will probably rank pretty low on your list of favorites. But when you live in a third world country and your home is, literally, your castle, an important thing is to surround yourself with things that make you happy. Flowers make me happy and sitting at the table on my back patio in the morning, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the hummingbirds make their rounds...that's my little escape. Fortunately, plants grow very fast here. The time span of the before and after pictures is from mid-August to mid November...3 months. It will be hard to leave this garden in 16 months or so!

By the way, I post lots of my photographs on a site called JPGMAG. To see them, go to www.jpgmag.com/people/DebiD.

New England Beauty

2008-10-20T17:42:00.011+04:00

New England in the Fall is a beautiful thing. I was in Washington DC October 11-16 for a reunion of my high school friends. Unfortunately, most of the spectacular color was gone…except for 2 trees at the home of my teacher, who was so gracious and let me stay with her and her husband. One tree was glorious in yellow and the other was absolutely beautiful in all its red. If you’ve never been to New England in late September-early October, you really are missing out on one of the most beautiful areas of our country. I’ve made the trip during ‘leaf peeping’ season several times and am still in awe of the beauty. My eyes are treated to such beauty at every turn.

The tree with the red leaves is included in the registry in Chevy Chase, Maryland so you know it’s special! Sherry, my teacher, told me that people often stop to take photographs of it and school children stop to collect leaves for their classrooms.

By the time I left, the vivid red had turned to a dark rust and the leaves began falling…and falling and falling. The front lawn was a carpet of color, a mixture of greens, reds, browns, yellows, pinks, beiges….it was beautiful!

The only way I could have gotten a picture of the entire tree was to cross Connecticut Avenue and I didn't want to do that. You'll just have to take my word for it that these 2 trees were a magnificent sight!

Maybe one day I'll be able to visit this area every year and enjoy the beauty. One thing is for sure...this was definitely not my last visit there!

The Rain In My Living Room

2008-10-02T17:08:00.004+04:00

Last weekend was definitely not one of the better weekends since I arrived in Tegucigalpa the end of May.

Saturday, the sky opened up and a deluge of rain pounded the city. At about 7:30 PM, I was sitting at my dining room table, listening to a DVD of Jeff Foxworthy, a truly funny guy. If you ever need a good laugh, buy one of his CDs…worth the few dollars. Anyway, back to my evening. I could hear the rain coming down in buckets outside. I got up to go in the kitchen and was washing something at the sink and when I turned the water off, oddly enough, I could still hear water running. I walked into the living room and apparently the roof had a weak spot because it was literally pouring in my living room! In just 5 minutes, my living room went from nice and dry to Niagara Falls of Tegucigalpa!! It was coming down the walls, over the edge of the upstairs loft, was already running down the stairs from upstairs…it was coming in from so many different places, I didn’t know what to do first! I quickly moved the furniture away from the waterfall (and I do mean waterfall…it was coming down from upstairs in a sheet of water 10 feet wide!). I then ran upstairs and nearly slipped and fell on my butt. Never try to run on wet ceramic tile! The stairs were already flooded, the water was running down each step to the step below. Water was running down the walls in about 6 places and dripping from the stair-stepped corners at the tops of the walls. My stereo…it was soaked! I grabbed it and threw it in my bedroom, moved my gorgeous picture of the ocean off the wall since it was about 6 inches from a waterfall, and grabbed 3 pictures I bought in Hawaii that I JUST had framed…one is ruined, the other 2 seem OK. I then called Bryan, one of the security officers I work with, and told him I was in trouble. He called the embassy GSO person on call and told him to get here quick. Bryan came over with towels and by that time, the rain and indoor waterfall had slowed down. But not before the carpet in the living room was soaked in one corner and one of my tall plants collapsed from the sheer force of the water coming down on it from upstairs. It just snapped. GSO finally got here and of course, told us there was nothing that could be done tonight. He also told me that another American had 12” of water in his house from this storm. It looked like the rain was letting up, but you never know. I sent Bryan back home and I rung out the towels as best I could, rolling them up and placing them on the floor, just in case it started up again during the night. Before I went to bed, I went in to my office to make sure I had turned off my desk computer and was pleasantly surprised to see my desk covered in water! UGH! I quickly unplugged everything and moved it to…jeez, where was it safe??? I went back downstairs and got some large trash bags. I put the CPU and monitor in a bag and put them in the bathroom. Don’t ask me why…I just figured it was safe there. I had to take the glass off my desktop because the water had gotten underneath and was just sitting on the wood. The carpet was all wet underneath the desk. I finally got things squared away in this room and decided to do a sweep of the house once more. I half expected to see a puddle on my bed but no…it was dry. I found no more water and fell into bed.

On Monday, the owner of the house came by and had his man go up on the roof. They found all the drains stopped up and cleaned them out. He said that would fix the problem. However, I have no idea how clogged drains would cause leaks in the roof at the tallest point. Oh well, we’ll see. The next time it rains really hard will tell if he really did fix the problem. Something tells me it wasn’t the drains but I’m not the expert.

One thing’s for sure…when I leave for El Salvador and Washington DC next week for 10 days, I’ll have big sheets of plastic covering my furniture and my computers will be in plastic bags!!

A Weekend Away From Tegus

2008-09-14T18:45:00.013+04:00

Two weekends ago, I took my first weekend trip since arriving in Tegucigalpa about 4 months ago. The language instructor at the Embassy sponsored the trip and about 12 of us signed up to head north to the coast, to a little town called Tela. It's a great little place with a beautiful beach and islands off the coast.

On the way down, I made quite a few observations. We were in a chartered bus and I decided to NOT read as did so many, but instead, to just look out the window at the life that was flying by as we drove along.

I saw lots of crosses by the side of the road. This didn't surprise me since this is a pretty dangerous road. Honduras is very mountainous and this 2 lane road winds in and out of the mountains and the people who live here have no concept of the dangers of passing on blind curves. It's no surprise that there are so many deaths on the highways. Even old hand-me-down orange school buses from the U.S., filled with people, pass on curves. They just expect any oncoming traffic to move over. But it's not always the case. On our way back, we came upon an accident that must have just happened. A bus was across both lanes, crashed into the side of the mountain. On the other side of it was a small white car with a man laying in the road...obviously dead. That's another thing...they never cover the victims. It's all about sensationalism here. On the television news, as well as all the newspapers, it's like a contest to see who can show the most dead bodies.

There is an upcoming election here. Nailed to the trees for miles and miles were the sidewall parts of tires with the candidates names painted around the black smooth part. I guess the budget for campaign signs on the highway is next to nothing. I even saw some signs that read "Jesus por Presidente." Wishful thinking, I'm sure, as the choices of candidates aren't good. So much corruption here...

It's amazing how many buildings there are that are in varying stages of completion. Some are just shells with the concrete blocks going up one or 2 stories, with the steel rebar sticking up from the tops of the blocks. And they seem to just stop. Even in Tegucigalpa, you see buildings that seem to be complete for the first few stories, but there are those steel rebar sticking up. It's like...OK, we've run out of money for now...go ahead and occupy the bottom floors and we'll see you again when we get more money!!
Cornfields are EVERYWHERE. Some are in perfect rows and seem to be cared for very well. Others are just random, with no plan at all. Since drugs are such a huge part of the economy here, I had to wonder if the cornfields hid other kinds of crops under their large leaves and tassles.

Lots of people sell their fruits or vegetables on the side of the road. And when I say the 'side' of the road, I mean it! For examples, there were several selling what appeared to be oranges. They would stack them up in bags and they were so close to the side of the road, you could run them over if you weren't careful! And there would be 3 or 4 different places with these stacks yet I would rarely see anyone. They must have been safely behind a rock or tree and if you stopped, they would appear out of nowhere! The idea of placing these stacks of oranges or watermelons or whatever they were selling at short entervals was probably for a good reason. If you passed one and said to yourself "Darn, I'd love to buy some of those!" there would be another stack in about 100 yards!

OK, so much for my observations on the way to Tela. Once there, we had a great time. The rooms were very nice even though we didn't get in the newer section by the 2 swimming pools. We arrived at about 4:00 PM and after checking in, we were back on the bus to head for the Botanical Park of "Lancetilla." This was a gorgeous area with lots of lush greenery. I was a tiny bit disappointed that there weren't more tropical flowers but it was beautiful anyway. Here are a few pictures of Lancetilla:

Huge bamboo...sure makes me look small!!

At the beginning our our walking tour...me in the white pants.

These red palms were gorgeous...bright red trunks! I want some!

After our tour of this garden, we returned to the hotel and had dinner. Some went swimming in the pool. I had noticed the thatched roof bar down at the beach and headed for it! I watched the sunset and drank Margaritas! It doesn't get much better.

The Dolphin Bar The Sunset...ahhhhh!

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and headed for a boat trip. We were on our way to Punta Sal, the islands off the coast. It was a trip of about 45 minutes in open water...not quite the "Three Hour Tour" that Gilligan took, but as land became smaller and smaller, I began to wonder...at least we all had life preservers on! We hiked the island, saw beautiful trees and even talked to the monkeys that live on the island. We were supposed to do some snorkeling but the water was choppy and it wouldn't have been clear enough to see anything.

On our Way! Hiking

Back at the hotel, we had another great dinner and, yes, I was back at the little thatched hut bar called the Dolphin. There's nothing quite like an open air bar, a good margarita and a sunset. This was an all inclusive resort and the first margarita was really good...if you ordered it without tequila! The next one I ordered, I slipped the waitress 50.00 Lempiras and asked her to please have the bartender put some liquor in it this time. He did. :o)

Everyone had a great time and on the way back, I asked the bus driver to please stop at a pottery place I had seen on the way to Tela. I have this huge indoor planter in my house and some very very large terra cotta pots would look great. He did, I ran across the street, with our tour guide and one of the drivers and spent about $50 US and left with 4 gorgeous pots/urns/containers (whatever you call them). They look gorgeous in my house and will travel with me to my next post. Even if I don't have an indoor garden, they will look great in a garden and will remind me of my fun trip to Tela, Honduras!

Aren't they beautiful? The tallest is about 3 feet tall. The 4th is in the background with the plant in it. I love them!

Construction, Honduran Style

2008-08-17T20:59:00.013+04:00

Look closely at the picture to the left. You can click on it for a larger version. This construction site is across the street from Paiz, one of the grocery stores where I shop on a weekly basis. The progress has been slow and yesterday when I went with Sally, we both had to laugh...once again. But this time I had my camera!! The building is constructed of cement blocks and just look at how they are transporting the blocks to the upper floor. At the top of the building is a worker who has constructed a pulley and the guy at the bottom (still laughing about this) ties 1 brick at a time to the rope and the guy at the top pulls it up.

And people wonder why things happen so slowly here! To my friend Barry...you're an engineer....do something!!! Maybe it's job security or something but I'm sure that building will still be under construction when I leave here in May of 2010!

A Day In The Life

2008-08-05T07:03:00.009+04:00

The images of desperate poverty notwithstanding, the initial impression of Tegucigalpa is one of…Have I really left the United States? After a terrifying landing, (which can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=sw_pMvZxDDc ) you enter a very modern airport, all marble and chrome. The very unpopular president Manuel Zelaya (affectionately called Mel) probably wanted a good first impression. Well, it stopped at the door on the way to the street. As you drive into the city, you pass modern shopping centers, gas stations with familiar names like Shell, Texaco and Esso, all with convenience stores, and every fast food joint you remember from home (McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Applebees, TGI Fridays). If you are TDY (Temporary Duty), you are staying at either the Marriott or the Intercontinental. I stayed at the later and it was wonderful.

First you start noticing the guns. After a day or 2, you realize that each gas station, restaurant, grocery store and retail outlet has at least one private security guard (32,000 registered private guards to 8,000 police on the street) armed not with a six-shooter but with a shotgun or assault rifle or AK-47. From the way most guards carry and handle these weapons, as they lean it against a building while smoking a cigarette, it is doubtful most guards have had any proper training in either handling the gun or in resolving issues without opening fire. And on a side note, cigarettes are about $5.50 a CARTON. If you smoke, you can consider this a perk. I don’t so it only means that many more poor people can afford to smoke themselves into an early death. Anyway, back to the armed guards…you begin to wonder, though you never ask aloud, does he have rules of engagement? And if he does, what the heck are they?

Driving in the city and the country as a whole has been described variously as a free-for-all, bumper-cars or a geometry problem of how many vehicles can fit in a given space at the same time. Normal behavior includes right turns from left lanes or the oncoming lane, creating a new lane so far to the left that you are obstructing oncoming traffic and turning right across 2 lanes. Passing on the right and using the sidewalk for your vehicle is considered accepted practice. As far as traffic lights go, a red light is just a suggestion that you might stop and take a look before proceeding. Many pickup trucks serve as passenger vehicles, their beds packed with people standing who hold on for dear life as the vehicle swerves back and forth. Motorcycles pass on the right, on the left or wherever space permits. Passing uphill, on a blind curve, 3 cars abreast is not unheard of. Almost any behavior seems to be acceptable behind the wheel…with the exception of talking on your cell phone. You will get a ticket for that.

On your next visit to the grocery store, you notice the usual pictograms for no smoking, no outside food and no drink. But there is another one you haven’t seen before: a revolver with the international red circle and slash. No guns are allowed inside, though if you have one, the store is willing to check it for you if you admit you are carrying one. And oh, by the way, there are no metal detectors.

You also notice that all the cars in the parking lot have heavily tinted windows, not as protection from the sun but to obscure view of the passengers from outside, making it less obvious when potentially vulnerable people are traveling. To afford the passenger even more protection, the front window is often blacked out also. This makes for very interesting night driving. When your car arrives from the States, RSO (Regional Security Office, where I work) recommends you tint your windows as well. The tinting on the back seat is darker because you’ve heard it’s useful to make people think that you might be traveling with an armed bodyguard in the back seat. The most wealthy (and also most scared) families do this, when actually it’s only the one-year old who occupies your back seat. You never, ever lower your windows and always run the AC. The air quality is really bad here.

With all this security, you feel safer. But never safe. One afternoon you go to the barber across the narrow side street from the Embassy and within sight of the Embassy guards, and get a haircut with no problems. Twenty-four hours later, two armed “customers” rob it, threatening clients so that the owner will turn over the cash. They then rob all the clients at gunpoint. You go out to lunch; later that day, the restaurant you visited (which had armed guards out front) is invaded and robbed by six armed assailants. One Saturday morning, you and visiting family members visit the most sacred place in the country, the basilica of Our Lady of Suyapa. As you enter the church, a gun is poked into your side and your purse disappears into the crowd. Even this sacred place is proven unsafe and is then put off limits to the Embassy community.

The next morning, you take your child to school at the American School, which is located in the center of our housing area. As you turn up the drive, you notice the police tape marking off the site of yesterday’s shoot-out between private bodyguards and home invaders, which resulted in one person dead and another hospitalized. Three weeks before that, in the same block, a local attorney was ambushed and shot 7 times but lived. This occurred in front of the apartment where I was living and when I returned home from work, I had to cross under the yellow police tape and show my embassy ID before they would let me go into my apartment building. Parents must pass by armed guards, identify themselves to the guards at the barbed wire topped gate and go into the compound of the school when dropping off their kids. You walk your kids to their classrooms. As you turn to leave, her classmate arrives, escorted not by mommy or daddy but by 2 large men in suits, with sunglasses and wires in their ears and odd bulges under their suit coats. Honduran parents are worried; the daughter of a prominent retail family was snatched from inside her day-care the week before.

Back at home, if you are lucky, you live in one of the 1/3 of the Embassy housing that actually provides you with the extra space this Class 3 post is supposed to have. If no, you may have as much space as you would have in London or Paris, which isn’t much. Embassy families are housed in a limited area due to requirements for local guard response time; this limited market gives post few options. You escape for a moment by turning the TV to local stations from Denver. Honduras is very clever and pirates the signal from whomever they can and for now, Denver must have easy codes to crack! During a commercial, your eyes wander to your window. Through your security bars, you see not a vista of the Rockies, but a solid anti-climb wall at least 9 feet tall, topped with from 1-3 rows of razor wire. Just then, you hear the unmistakable bleep as the Embassy mobile patrol logs in his visit to check that your outside doors are locked and you are safely imprisoned.

A bit later, you request a car from motor pool. You have an appointment for tests at the best available hospital, but it is in a NO-GO zone so the driver must take you. You are having tests due to respiratory problems. You are trying to discover whether they are caused by the seasonal burning of the fields and the forest and brush fires that occur annually for 2 or 3 months each Spring, regularly closing the airport or just a result of the poor air quality. (The average concentration of breathable suspended particulates [PM-10] at the two monitoring stations in Tegucigalpa in 2003, the last year for which data is available, was about 120 micrograms per cubic meter of air. This is five times the comparable figure for Washington, D.C., more than twice the highest level recorded on any single day that year in D.C. and 140% above the U.S. EPA maximum permissible limit. Take a deep breath and enjoy those stats!) However, the tests may not tell you much. M/Med has once again lowered the quality rating of medical care now down to Class One, on par with the poorest and least developed nations in Africa. Your friend was one of 2 women recently who through self-exams discovered a lump. Each of them had mammograms done locally to take along on their MedEvac to the states. But, alas, they were of such poor quality, they were unreadable and had to be repeated by a stateside facility. You wonder if the clean bill of health you received when you had your mammogram here a month ago was truly accurate.

You finish at the hospital and you and the driver start back. Just as you are beginning to notice that the traffic is unusually heavy, the radio crackles with a message from the RSO. The main road (note the use of the singular road) through our housing area is blockaded by taxi drivers in front of the Public Ministry protesting again, a monthly occurrence. The driver is able to use back roads to reach your home, but you hope it ends soon because until it is resolved, you cannot pick up your child from school. The only road into the campus crosses the blocked main road.

There is additional danger at intersections, when beggars of all ages, from preschoolers to seniors, the disabled, vendors and entertainers, fire eaters and jugglers move among the stopped cars. As much as you may want to help by giving them a bit of money or food, you cannot risk lowering your window as it could invite an armed robbery or carjacking.

When you are finally able to pick your child up, you notice that she is scratching a bite, hopefully not from an infected mosquito. Dengue fever has become endemic in Honduras. Last year, at least one official American child was hospitalized with hemorrhagic dengue, which is potentially fatal. (As of today, there are 2 confirmed cases of dengue at the embassy…and there is no vaccine.) You make a mental note to have your spouse take the Reduviid bug you found in your garden to the Embassy to have it tested for Chagas disease.

You start dinner. If you didn’t do it when you got home from shopping, you begin bleaching all the fresh vegetables and rinsing them in bottled water. The fertilizer here is, shall I say, different. Just as you turn on the oven, the house goes dark with yet another power failure. You fumble through the drawers looking for a candle and matches or a flashlight, go out to the back to flip the switch and then travel through the blackened house and out to the garage to fire up the generator. After dinner, you turn on the local news to see what new crisis is facing you and the nation. The public school teachers are out on strike again and will be marching to the President’s Palace in the morning, so the Spouse’s Coffee at the Marriott is cancelled. The body in the street your spouse passed driving home turns out to be the victim of a botched carjacking; the driver was attacked a quarter-mile from the Embassy and was shot while driving off. He drove toward the Embassy, knowing there were SWAT police protecting it and he would be safer. But he collapsed and died as he got out of his car on the boulevard in front of the Embassy. You turn off the TV and flip through the newspaper. Not a bad news day…only 2 pages of morgue photos, with body bags unzipped and corpses turned to the camera so you can best see the entry and exit wounds, not to mention the blood and mangled tissue. You hide the newspapers from the kids so they will not see these things and ask questions. You decide to go to bed but before that, to have a relaxing hot bath. Two minutes into filling the tub, the water stops…the cistern is dry and no water until morning with the motor pool can send the tanker. You sigh, close the windows, set the alarm and turn on the AC, not only to cool you but also to drown out the music from the neighborhood bar and the random gunfire that rings out through the night.

Just another day in Tegucigalpa, Honduras draws to a close.

Sound like a plot for a movie? Not hardly. Recently here at the American Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, we were faced with the task of supplying information and hard data to our State Department as to why we should retain our now coveted 15% differential. That means that because of the conditions in this country, we receive an additional 15% of our pay as a “differential” or reward for agreeing to serve at this post. The above is a factual based commentary on life here in Tegucigalpa. The people who contributed to this used very recent personal experiences as their examples. If it sounds like it was made up, believe me, it wasn’t.

Cause for Celebration!

2008-08-03T04:15:00.006+04:00

I went to the store today with Sally to get some of my favorite hearts of Romaine lettuce. You know, the ones packagd 3 to a bag all sealed and nice...and that come from the U.S. so I don't have to do the clorox bleach soak thing. We were cruising the aisles of one of the stores that usually carries American products (for a pretty price, I must add) and what do I see, and am totally blown away by seeing??? It's only my favorite non carbonated drink...the one I was introduced to by my son on one of my visits to Kauai...it was Arizona Tea's Arnold Palmer Lite Half Lemonade/Half Iced Tea!!!!! I stopped in my tracks and my jaw dropped!! The only place I've EVER found this was on Kauai. Not in Foat Wuuth. Not in Washington DC. I had to come all the way to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in my little store, Mas Por Menos, to find my favorite drink!! When you see something in the stores here that you like, you darned well better buy it cuz it may never return! I bought all 6 cans! I will covet those cans and drink them only on special occasions. And since I found them today, that constitutes a very Special Occasion!

OK...a final word. No, I've not gone nuts living here. You just have to understand that sometimes when you see something that you love and you just can't find any more...and when you finally see it...that's a real reason to celebrate! Now...where can I find Jujubes!!!!

Slideshow Of My House

2008-08-02T18:14:00.005+04:00

Here's a little tour of my house here in Tegucigalpa. I love it! (**Correction to the reference to the flag. That flag is NOT the Texas flag, as I originally thought. It is the Chilean flag and that's the Chilean Embassy across the street from my house. They look sooo similar!)

Plumbing in Honduras

2008-07-27T19:34:00.007+04:00

Yesterday, the landlord came to my house to supervise some repairs/corrections to the house I am living in. He’s a very nice man and coincidentally, he is the owner of the frame store where I have taken some things to be framed. I just love it when you find out there’s a ‘connection’ and he was very happy that I was already doing business with him.

As we walked around the house discussing the things that needed attention, one of the places was the maid’s quarters. This is a small bedroom and bathroom out beyond the courtyard. There was no dispenser mounted on the wall for the toilet paper. As I was pointing that out to him, I noticed something that made me go “huh?” As you can see by the photograph, it probably made you go “huh?” too. When I asked him what that electrical outlet right next to the shower head was for (“¿Que es eso?”) he gave me this explanation. In Honduras, it is not customary to plumb the maid’s quarters with hot water. So, to compensate for this, they put an electrical outlet so they can plug in a small heater. I was in too much shock to ask if this heater stood outside the tub enclosure or was wall mounted. He must have noticed the look on my face because he quickly said he would be happy to plumb it for hot water if I wanted. I told him I only had Gloria 2 days a week but if I ever found the need to have a live-in maid, I would definitely want her to have hot water.

For anyone out there who has ever had a maid or nanny or any other kind of live-in domestic help, I’m sure you would agree that the service they provide is wonderful. The respect I have for Gloria and how she makes my life so much easier wouldn’t allow me to make her bathe with cold water. Here in Honduras, the pay for maids is so inexpensive that there is no way you can’t have someone in your home. Besides keeping your home clean, they are there for scheduled repairs, as well as accepting the bottled water delivery. So now, everything is done on Tuesdays. Gloria is at my house all day on Tuesdays and on Saturdays she stays until she is finished what she thinks needs to be done. She goes shopping with me and she cooks. My refrigerator is always full of food and it’s wonderful. She has, in a short span of 2 weeks, spoiled me! The least I could do for her is to make sure she has hot water if she needed it. I value her services too much.

In my bathroom, I also have an electrical cord running along the top of the tile in my shower. I looked at it and it appears to be the line for my security system, which runs from outside the window, along the top of the tile and into my walk in closet, where the alarm box is. I doubt this would pass code inspection in Fort Worth where I’m from. But…as the old saying goes, when in Honduras, you just do whatever you need to do to get the job done!! It's like the project around the corner from the embassy. They started to dig a small hole in the road to make a repair. The small hole became larger and larger and any day now we expect the street to be closed. Ahhh...life in a Third World Developing country! Ya gotta love it!

Just A Few Observations

2008-07-21T00:59:00.008+04:00

I’ve made some subtle observations about my new life here in Tegucigalpa. Some are really subtle and others are, well, not so subtle. Here are a few.

I live in a beautiful house. It’s a 2 story home, 4 bedrooms/baths, formal areas and a huge kitchen. However, there is no heat or air conditioning. That tells me that the climate is very mild here and I like that. Homes here are constructed of concrete…no drywall. All have tile floors. They tend to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

There are these little clumps of growth that seem to cling to power lines and branches of the tree. They remind me of mistletoe. Back in Texas, I had 2 maple trees in my front yard and every year, I had to cut out the mistletoe or it could kill the tree. No one seems to be bothered about the growths here. They look like a mess of sticks forming a ball. I’m told that birds who sit on the wires and branches deposit the seeds of these little plants there and they just cling and grow…something in the air plant family, I guess. Sometimes the wires are just covered with these little things. It’s quite a sight.

When I lived in Texas, I could go to the store and easily spend $150. Here, for some reason, I have to really look hard for things to buy. Then I get home and wonder why I don't have anything to eat.

Tomorrow repairmen will descend on my house to make numerous repairs. Nothing major, just lots of little things. I wish they could bring some concrete nails so I could hang some pictures. Not sure if I could swing the hammer hard enough to penetrate the concrete wall but I’d give it my best shot. I like things on my walls and these walls are definitely way too bland for my liking. See how boring my office looks??

Not too much money is spent on road repairs here in Honduras. You never know when you’ll come up to a huge hole in the street. And people steal man hold covers so if you hit one, you really know it! I haven’t found out why they are stolen so much.

Street vendors and beggars are all over the place. Guys wander between the cars stopped at red lights with a flame stick and a bottle. You guessed it, he takes a swig of whatever flammable solution is in the bottle and spews flames! His partner wanders with him with a bucket, looking for tips from people who think that’s amazing and a good show to watch while waiting for the light to turn green. There are also people who push a person in a wheel chairs who has no legs, also begging. The toughest is the kids, many who can’t be more than 5 years old, walking between the cars in the street banging on your window, looking in to see what you might have. They don’t stop when you say NO…you have to wave your finger back and forth and I guess that’s the universal signal for “Get the hell away from my car!” Some run up and immediately start cleaning your windoes with their little window washer/squeegee thing and then get mad when you don’t pay them. I’ve told the trick is that when you see them approach, turn on your windshield wipers and wash your own windows. Such is the entertainment at the red light. At night, you do not…repeat, do NOT stop for red lights. We have been told to slow down, look both ways and then just go. We’re told not to be out after dark so sitting at a red light at 10:00 PM isn’t something you want to do. However, in most intersections, people pay little attention to the lights anyway. Every man for himself! I must add that most of the time the lights aren’t working so, you watch the car next to you and go when he does. Safety in numbers!

That’s about it for now. In spite of everything, I really like it here. And once I really can get to the stores by myself without getting lost, I’ll like it much better!

2008-07-05T06:33:00.005+04:00

July 4th. The 4th of July. Independence Day. For me, no matter how you say it, it brings up feelings of pride. It also brings back memories of growing up in Coronado, California. There would always be a great parade and fantastic fireworks that night in the bay. Well, as a child, they were fantastic to me.

Today was my first Independence Day as a member of the Foreign Service. Living in Honduras, I didn’t know what to expect. I did know it would be a grand event. I’m with the embassy here in Tegucigalpa and this celebration was to be held at the Ambassador’s residence. Employees of the embassy were asked to help out and I was more than happy to volunteer. My friend Sally and I were asked to greet every guest and give them an official program and a lapel pin. There were over 1000 guests, including the President of Honduras, representatives of other embassies in the city and reporters and photographers from all TV stations and print publications. Ambassador Ford gave a wonderful speech and received a wonderful appreciative applause.

The band played the National Anthem and one our own sang the song to perfection. Throughout the afternoon, they played American songs and my friend and I played “Name That Tune.” There was only one song that stumped us! We had a great time.

There were ribs, beans, BBQ chicken, hamburgers, a salad bar and a beautiful cake. It was truly an event I’ll remember for a long time to come.

The picture above (I'm the one on the right) was taken by the pool and we all wanted a picture of the floating bouquet. The only thing missing from this celebration was fireworks. I guess I'll have to wait another year to see my first fireworks in a foreign country celebrating my country's independence. I think it will be worth the wait!

Thoughts Of My Dad

2008-06-28T17:33:00.007+04:00

Over the next 2 years, I’ll be writing quite a bit about my life here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. You’ll be able to read about my adventures, surprises, disappointments and travels (among other things) here in Honduras and the surrounding countries. But this morning, when I opened my eyes, there was one person on my mind. I must have been dreaming about him because his image and the sound of his voice was as though he was in the room with me. It was my Dad.

Most likely the reason for this is that I miss him. I’m no expert on dreams or the interpretation of them so I can’t be sure. I do know that I think about him every day…wondering what he’s making in his workshop, what TV show he’s enjoying and how he is tolerating the hot Texas weather in Fort Worth. My Dad is only 93 but you’d never know it if you saw him! When he has a task to do, don’t even get in his way! And don’t ever ask him to do something for you during dinner because he just might get up from the table and head to his workshop to do it right then and there!

As you might expect, he’s not as active as he used to be, but at 93, he gets around and does things people much younger wouldn’t even attempt. That’s my Dad! He’s always been a man who needed to be busy. I can remember him doing so many things when I was a little girl growing up in Coronado, California. He always provided for us and was a hard worker in so many ways. I can remember when he added on a family room and beautiful multi-level patio to our house. I remember the thrill my brother and I had when he made stilts out of 2x4s for us and we walked all over the neighborhood. I remember the shiny new bikes my brother and I got for Christmas. All of my memories my Dad created for me when I was growing up are wonderful ones. Even the strict discipline…I always knew Dad loved me. And I still know it today.

Who knows…maybe he woke up this morning thinking of me too. I’m so glad he was on my mind when I opened my eyes. Sometimes the best times are remembering…the best times.

Finding Something Special

2008-06-28T03:14:00.003+04:00

Tegucigalpa has a certain charm to it. Sometimes you have to look hard for it, but you can usually find something here that will make you smile. Sure, there’s the air pollution that makes it hard to breathe sometimes and forces you to dust and mop the floor much more often than you otherwise would. And the drivers here, good grief, you’ve seen nothing like them!! It’s survival of the bravest! You have to constantly be on the lookout for a car coming at you in your lane! And the motorcycles…no rules for them!

Last night about 15 of us departed from the embassy in 2 motorpool vans to head for a little ray of sunshine in this city of poverty and struggle. We all climbed into the vans and soon found ourselves on very narrow streets, made even narrower by parked cars on one side. At times, I expected to hear scraping as we inched by the cars and sometimes even driving up on the curb. We saw shops that we knew we’d never ever want to go in as well as people standing on the street that we’d never want to meet in a dark alley. We were grateful for the very dark tinting on the windows of our van.

We continued to make our way through these narrow streets for about 20 minutes. Fortunately for me, Sam, one of the marines, was in my van. I asked him if he was prepared to be in this part of the city. He nodded yes. I felt safer.

Finally we arrived at our destination and we were directed to 2 parking spots. Waiting for us were armed guards…and when I say armed, I mean the AK47 variety. We got out of the vans and approached the door of the old building. Once inside, we found seats, noticing that the guards were now posted at the front door and, along with another person taking tickets, scrutinized everyone who entered.

It was a beautiful old building, built in the late 19th century. The ceiling was gorgeous, painted red and gold in an intricate pattern. Three crystal (?) chandeliers hung from the ceiling, providing most of the light in the room. Along both sides were box seats, slightly elevated and above them, another tier of seating. With the lights in the box seats, you almost felt like you were outside on a beautiful evening…lots of white stucco and wooden doorways.

We had arrived for a performance of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Honduras at the Teatro Nacional Manuel Bonilla. Yes, we were at the Symphony! It was a special program with selections by Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Henry Mancini, Stephen Sondheim, John Williams (Star Wars!) and George Gershwin. For 2 hours we enjoyed wonderful music by a small, yet very talented young group of musicians. Billed as “Un Concierto de Independencia II,” it was a celebration of our Independence Day. How special was that??? A few times during the performance, you could hear car mufflers and smell exhaust from the street outside. Just a subtle reminder that I was at the symphony in Tegucugalpa, not Fort Worth.

So you see, even in a place like Tegucigalpa, Honduras to find something special, all you have to do is look hard. And at about $4.75, I knew I had found something special.

The World Through My Lenses

2008-06-22T20:27:00.002+04:00

I've always loved photography. I can remember my grandmother getting us to stand still while she looked down at her little black box camera, moving it left to right, making sure all her grandchildren were in the picture. I always wanted to look in that glass window with her.

As I progressed through life, recording it with a camera became more and more important to me. I was always the one who arrived at an even with a camera in hand, ready to snap pictures. Then came children and an even more urgent need to record their lives with my camera. It worked...I have wonderful pictures of my children. Lots of pictures. I'm in the process now of scanning all those many pictures into my computer and/or on to CDs. Amazing how we progress from loving to look at pictures to wanting them on the computer!

I've had about 6 different digital cameras. My first one was a Fuji, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It took pretty good pictures for 2.0 megapixels! Now that I'm in the Foreign Service and will do quite a bit of traveling, I've decided to move up from a point and shoot to a 'real' SLR digital camera. So, I ordered a Sony Alpha DSLR A300. I can't wait to get it and start learning all about F stops and exposure and all the other things that I never gave a thought about when taking pictures. Hopefully, you'll see some examples of the results of my new camera!

I hope to have some images seen through the lens of my camera, but first seen through the lenses of my eyes!

Lifestyle Changes...Whether I Like It Or Not

2008-06-22T20:06:00.005+04:00

As we stroll through life, we sometimes make lifestyle changes, whether we realize we're doing it or not. You may find a different route to work which is shorter to conserve gas. Or you may, without really realizing it, change your morning routine, leaving you an extra few minutes to goof around. With my move to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, I have found many changes that were required just because I am now living in a third world country.

For example, due to the poor air condition, caused in part because auto exhaust and industrial pollution trapped because we're surrounded by mountains, things get dirty faster here. Taking 2 showers a day is almost a must. And mopping the ceramic tile floors throughout the house is, without a doubt, a daily routine. If you walk barefooted, as I do, you will notice that the bottoms of your feet become black with what I affectionately call "mysterious appearing black stuff" within moments of removing your shoes. And you don't dare walk around in white sox!

Another change is my loss of freedom to go where I want, when I want. Due to the crime rate here, I just can't run around like I did back in Texas. Of course, it's due in small part to the fact that I don't have a car yet, but that should change soon. I now know my way to and from work and to the store and back. But God help me if I make a wrong turn! On this same subject, I suppose I should add my loss of confidence to the list of lifestyle changes. But, as I venture out (whenever I get my car) and feel my way around, my confidence will return. Everyone tells me it will and I believe them.

Getting my mail on a daily basis has changed. Since the plane crash at Toncontin International Airport, incoming mail has been sporadic due to rerouting all large aircraft to another airport. All my mail comes to the embassy and I think it came in 2 times last week. Or else no one loves me!! Hopefully it will improve once the airport reopens to large aircraft.

There are many more changes, subtle ones to be sure, that I have made since arriving here. But I think I'm incorporating them into my new lifestyle in this third world country. I never disliked coming here but I'm finding more and more reasons why I like it here. Some of these changes will stay with me forever once I move on to my next post in less than 2 years and some, hopefully, will go away.

Change is good.

Father and Son

2008-06-14T22:43:00.000+04:00

Meet my son, Bobby and his son, Gavin. What a pair they are! Gavin will be 2 years old on June 21 and I wish I could be there for the celebration! His birthday is 4 days before mine and one of these days we'll celebrate them together! Until then, he's in my heart all the time. Hopefully, I'll be there with him and his little twin brothers and his mommy at Christmas!

I love you guys!!!

Life In A Third World Country

2008-06-08T00:32:00.006+04:00

I've now been Tegucigalpa a little over 2 weeks. Seems much longer than that with all I've experienced. Learning my job is getting better. There's just so much to learn and the person I'm replacing is leaving Friday, June 13th. Yes, for me, that will be an unlucky day!! Next week, it's learn it all or learn how to fake it realllllly well! I'm sure I'll be fine.

I still don't have a car. I'd love to say I don't intend to get one because you honestly take your life in your hands when you drive here. There are few traffic lights in the area I live so it's every man for himself. It's a must that I buy a car but for now, I have a driver, take a taxi or find someone going where I want to go and then plead with them to come take me too! So far, so good.

Yesterday around 3:00 in the afternoon, there was an attemped assassination on a female attorney. She had stopped near her residence and suddenly, 4 men came out of nowhere and opened fire on her. There were 14 shots fired, 6 hitting her. This morning's paper said she was still alive, but barely. I was at work at 3:00, fortunately. The shooting took place in front of the door to my apartment. When my driver brought me home, he had to stop about half a block away because of the yellow crime scene tape. Another embassy employee kindly offered to walk with me to my building and of course, we were stopped. I told the policeman that I lived there and he allowed me to pass. Today, the street looks normal. Such is life (once again) in a third world country. I know things like this happen in the US all the time...but I've never lived this close to the action before. I try to keep things in the proper perspective and tell myself that I AM careful, that I DO watch where I'm going and take all precautions I can. And fortunately, I'm not an attorney.

On a lighter note, I'm headed to Honduras' version of Sam's Club again tomorrow, PriceSmart. It's nice that so many American items are available. As you can see, on my last trip there I found many goodies. Note the Hellman's mayonaise...they love things in squeeze bags!!! Stuff like tomato paste, ketchup, mustard and so many other things come in the squeeze bags with the screw on cap. Of course when you realize that the packaging cost more than the contents, you think twice about buying it! I thought it was cute! The parmesan cheese that I use on so much set me back $7.00 and the chocolates...$9.00. But when you want something, who cares what it costs. It's all offset by the lower cost of other things in life. My haircut, color, blow dry and style was only $25 today and I'm now back to looking 10 years younger than I am!! The best $25 I've spent lately and I now vow to NEVER get assigned to a country where there aren't good hair stylists and manicurists!! God bless them!

That's about it for now. I'm taking my camera with me everywhere in the weekends now so I hope to have more pictures to post here. Maybe I'll find something interesting to shoot at PriceSmart tomorrow!!

2008-05-25T18:50:00.003+04:00

Everyday Observations in Teguc

Tegucigalpa has some very creative lines all along the streets. Here's a picture of power/cabling/telephone/electric lines or who knows what at an intersection in downtown Teguc. In some places, there are lines down and just laying on the ground. Crazy...

Tegucigalpa, I've Arrived!!

2008-05-25T07:25:00.008+04:00

Tegucigalpa, Honduras….The First 3 Days

I went to bed last Wednesday night looking forward to the beginning of the next chapter in my life in the Foreign Service. It’s taken forever for this day to arrive and now it was just hours away. I set my alarm for 4:30 AM (UGH) so I could be downstairs in time to meet my shuttle to the airport at 5:25 AM. I even set my cell phone as a backup! Well, I must have slept like a baby because I slept through both alarms! I rolled over, opened my eyes and looked at the clock. 5:07 AM!!!!!! I flew out of bed and somehow managed to be downstairs at 5:22, beating the driver by about 5 minutes.

My flight was nice. The plane was half empty so there was no one next to me in either of the 2 seats. About 30 minutes into the flight, the pilot came over the intercom and began to explain about the landing in Tegucigalpa. To paraphrase him, he said…DO NOT PANIC. I will not hit the houses that seem to be inches from the bottom of the plane. Just don’t look out the window! I swear I will never fly again!!! Well…not too soon anyway. What a landing! I know I gasped many times, as did a few other people. Some just laughed at our pain!

I was met by 3 embassy people and we left the airport in a really nice big black suburban with diplomatic plates. For the first night I was to stay at the Intercontinental Hotel. Very nice place. However, the guard outside the door caused me a bit of worry as he had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder as he stood guard very near the front door of the hotel. I was told later that there must have been a dignitary staying there. I felt so safe. NOT!

The next day I was picked up and taken to the embassy. After lunch, my sponsor and I went back to the hotel to check out and head to my temporary housing since the house I will live in won’t be ready until sometime in August. However, I can only stay here until June 8th or 9th and at that time, I’ll go to yet another temporary house until my official house is ready. Such is life as an employee of the government! The pictures below are of the kitchen and living room and dining room of where I am now. This is an odd set up. My bedroom is upstairs and is about 10’x10’. My sponsor felt this was not a good setup so someone at the embassy agreed to the rental of this ‘Living Area’ to be part of my room. So, I can spend time in my room or downstairs. Both lock and are for my use only. Kind of like a bed and breakfast setup. Both are clean and comfortable but a bit of an inconvenient setup.

Here's the view from one of the windows in the living area.

As you can see, houses are built just everywhere

Today I went with 2 of my co-workers to Valle, about 45 minutes south of Tegucigalpa. Or north. Actually, I have no idea which direction! It’s a quaint place with lots of tourist shops selling all the local things. I bought some wonderful baskets, a pottery wine glass and a wooden trivet. Ahhh…my first purchases! I’ve been warned to be careful about buying a bunch of things from every country I visit. It’s easy to accumulate lots and lots of ‘stuff’ from around the world as you travel from post to post. Here’s what I bought!!

With just 2 ½ days under my belt riding around this city as a passenger, I don’t know how in the world I’ll be able to do it behind the wheel. I guess somehow I’ll manage. I’ve been told that in about 6 months I’ll reach the point where I can venture out and not be scared to death. Wish me well!!

Mother's Day 2008

2008-05-11T18:32:00.004+04:00

It's Mother's Day 2008 and I sit here, in my little temporary apartment in Washington DC, thinking of my 2 grown children. My children are my life, whether they know it or not. Many of my important decisions are only made after thinking about them. Many of the things I do preparing for my future are definitely decided after thinking about them.

My son is 33 and my daughter will be 35 tomorrow. (Jeez...that makes me...er...umm...old!) I love them so much. Those words are spoken often but the depth of the message may be missed because I say it so often to them. All the time, you hear people say that their children are their lives. I feel the same about mine. They have encouraged me in whatever I've chosen to do and have become my personal support system.

One time my son sent me a dozen red roses on HIS birthday. The card read, "Mom, thanks for the best 25 years of my life." I've always wanted to send them both flowers on Mother's Day, thanking them for making me a mother.

Ann and Bobby...consider this my bouquet to you both. It is sent with an abundance of love and an appreciation for all you have done for me. You make me proud to be your Mother.

Love always,

Mom

Getting Ready for Tegucigalpa

2008-04-26T01:59:00.008+04:00

It is now a little less than a month away from boarding the plane to leave for Tegucigalpa, Honduras, my new home for the next 2 years. I'm sitting here with a very sore left shoulder. This morning I got the last of my shots, a tetanus booster and one to protect me from typhoid. I'm told the worst should hit me Sunday. Jeez...I can barely lift my arm now so I can't imagine how great it will feel by Sunday.

Tomorrow I will do some major shopping. I'm told many of my favorite everyday things are available in Teguc, but are a bit more expensive. I'm trying not to go crazy spending money on my favorite toothpaste or my nice soft kleenex tissues. But I have the opportunity to shop here, getting some great prices, and add the items to what I'm having shipped when I leave. Seems more logical to just buy some extra and be done with it. That way I won't have to worry about it shortly after I get there. Of course, it will probably take 4-6 weeks for my belongings to get to my new home. Until then, I'll just muddle through! I've also decided to wait until I arrive at post to buy a car. There are lots of people leaving for other countries so there should be a few cars available for purchase.

The more I read about Tegucigalpa, the more I look forward to my move. There is an abundance of wonderful fresh fruit and vegetables but you have to soak whatever you can't peel in these pills to get rid of the bacteria that is in the water and thus, still on the outside of the fruit or veggie. I can deal with that. The arts and crafts look wonderful and they don't have to be soaked! Have I mentioned the Mayan ruins??? Or the wonderful scuba diving? I plan on seeing it all, experiencing as much as I can and documenting it all here. I can't wait!

I'm grateful that my training coincided with the gorgeous blooms of the cherry blossom trees here in Washington DC. I took quite a few pictures and one of them is shown here. Everyone should come to DC this time of year...it's just amazing!

An E Ticket Ride

2008-03-31T02:40:00.004+04:00

Yesterday, as my plane was approaching Reagan National Airport and I gazed out the window looking at the cherry blossoms, I thought...finally. I'm finally experiencing what I've been waiting months to experience. I'm about to land in DC to begin the next chapter in my life. I found my shuttle and rode to Virginia. After checking into the corporate housing supplied by my new best friend, the Department of State, I was very pleasantly surprised by what will be my home for the next 6-8 weeks. I made contact with another lady here for the same reason and we went to dinner. This morning, there was an informal breakfast/meet and greet and I met several more new government employees. There were 4 that are going to be Diplomatic Security guys...ex marines, ex cop and an ex border patrol officer. The discussion came around to the marine and inevitably, he started talking about how the press never reported the good that was being done in Iraq...the schools that were built, the women who were no longer dressing in burkas, the 7 year old girls who were learning to read for the first time. Confirmation of what I've thought for months. Oh well...I'm getting off the subject.

We discovered we all had so many similar unanswered questions...questions about how long training would be, where we would be sent, just what we would be doing. Hopefully at the end of the day tomorrow, the first day of orientation, some of the questions will be answered. We all knew there will be a ton more unanswered questions to replace them too. Remember, we're dealing with the government here! We all agreed that what we were about to experience was going to be a roller coaster ride...an E Ticket ride at Disneyland. (Who of you know what I'm talking about???) And we all want to enjoy it to the max. After all, not everyone gets an opportunity to live out a dream like this. We all want to succeed so badly, to not disappoint ourselves. At the end of this journey we all want to say What a ride!!!

Life Is About To Get Very Intersting

2008-03-17T23:51:00.002+04:00

That's my new motto...and yes, it really is about to get MUCH more interesting! As though suddenly being the grandmother of twins, making it 3 grandchildren, weren't enough, I'm now counting down the days before I leave for Washington DC. I will begin a whole new chapter of my life with a new job, new friends, new challenges and very new home addresses! I only have 3 more days here on Kauai with family and friends and then I head home to Fort Worth. Nine days later, I'm on a plane to DC. It's an odd feeling...I'm living out of 2 suitcases, I no longer have a keychain (think about that one!), no longer own a car and my home of 15 years is up for sale! I feel like I've entered a gypsy phase of my life! But it is sure to be short lived once I get to Washington. I have my apartment arranged and within a couple of weeks of the start of training, I should know where I will be headed for the next 2 years. My biggest hope is that there are no foot long flying bugs!!!

Spending the time with my son, his wife and my 3 grandchildren is just the 'send off' I needed. I will have a home leave every year and plan on coming here, as well as Fort Worth. I have taken hundreds of pictures of the grandkids, knowing that in about a month, they will be obsolete! My son is very good about sending current pictures as well as an occasional DVD with movies. I'll continue to send pictures of me so that the kids will recognize me when I see them again in a year. Time flies so fast and in no time, I'll be making my flight arrangements to return to Kauai!

When I get to Washington, my daughter will be there to greet me. She lives in Maryland and is also in the Foreign Service. How great is it to see both your kids and grandchildren in the same month when they live so far from you. It's wonderful! My daughter was my driving force to apply for the position in the Foreign Service and I will forever be grateful for her input. It was the best advice I've ever gotten!

Both of my kids are my inspiration...I couldn't ask for better kids. Well, maybe my daughter could email me more often but hey...I know she loves me!! My son calls me often and my daughter-in-law has even called me just so I could hear my grandson babble in the back seat of the car as she drove. It doesn't take much to make a grandma happy!

So, as I prepare to leave Kauai in 3 days, I count my blessings...my children, my grandchildren, my new career, my health, my extended family here on Kauai and the new adventure awaiting me in DC. I'm someone who is never bored and I'm sure that whatever is in store for me in the next 6 years will allow me to be able to continue say the same.

Welcome to the World Micah and Makana!

2008-03-07T00:32:00.004+04:00

March 5, 2008 9:58 am and 9:59 am

Micah and Makana entered their new world in Kauai, Hawaii! One was quiet and sedate, the other one very vocal! For twins, they are big...7 lb 3 oz and 7 lb 4 oz.

OK, there are the stats...now, can you see the huge smile on my face??? What beautiful little boys I now call my 2nd and 3rd Grandsons. I will be leaving Texas on 3/10/08 to go to Hawaii and spend 10 days with my son and his beautiful wife Nicole, Grandson #1 Gavin and The Boys. I'm still trying to adjust to having twins in the family since there is no record of twins in either family. My son has begun a dynasty!! However, we are assured that the family has grown all it will so the hard part for Nicole is over. Hmmm...or is it? My son has his golf foresome so I see golf clubs and surfboards in these boy's future!!

Strange Feelings

2008-03-04T07:51:00.003+04:00

I'm preparing to begin a new chapter in my life. Movers arrived last week to take away all the possessions I wanted to keep. The rest were dusted off, priced and readied for my very own Estate Sale. Or, as I referred to it, my Leaving The Country Sale. I had some very difficult decisions to make when deciding what to keep and what I could part with. Some of my mother's things, some of my grandmother's things...some things that I've saved since my adult children were babies. But, since I'll be traveling all over the world, I just couldn't allow my possessions to possess me. And honestly, that's what happens to some of us. We just can't bear to part with something because we feel some kind of responsibility to keep it in our lives. I retained so many things that belonged to my mom and grandmother but I just couldn't keep them all. At my sale yesterday, someone set my daughter's stuffed Eyore and Thumper from approximately 1975on the table to pay for them. I looked at them, picked them up and planted a big kiss on each one. I had to look at the person who was buying them and explain that I wasn't a professional estate sale person, but rather the owner of the house and just what Eyore and Thumper meant to me. They totally understood and promised that they were going to a good home.

I also will deliver my wonderful car, a 2002 Toyota Camry, to the new owner this Saturday. And today I signed all the papers the realtor shoved at me to list my house. It was a strange feeling...no more excess belongings, soon no more car or house. I'll be a vagabond!! I guess it's all part of working overseas for the government. Most living accomodations are totally furnished and for the next 6 years I won't have to worry about such things. But it's still a strange feeling to know that soon, I'll be without most of the things I've always had. I'm sure I'll make the transistion just fine...especially if my first assignment is someplace really cool!!

But before I embark on that adventure, I have to fly to Kauai on March 10th to see my newly arrived grandsons #2 and #3...twins!! The Boys will be born Wednesday, March 5th...day after tomorrow!! I can't wait to hold them both in my arms! Leaving them 10 days later will be hard but as long as I keep my eyes to the future, I'll be fine. Six years from now I will retire to Kauai and live near them so they will know who I am for the rest of their lives. I just can't wait!!

Washington DC and Beyond...Here I Come!

2008-02-16T05:54:00.003+04:00

FINALLY!! My new career with the US Department of State begins with the first day of training on March 31, 2008. Where I go from there is still unknown but I'm so up for the excitement of the unknown. Right now I'm up to my eyeballs with trying to organize my belongings for an estate sale, while I decide what to throw away and what to keep and take with me and what to sell. Lots of hard decisions to make. But every day brings me closer to the last day of March, which is good. I leave March 10th for 10 days in Hawaii to spend time with my new twin grandsons (to be born any day now!). Movers will be at my house on the morning of February 27th so I won't have to worry about that while I'm in Hawaii. Hopefully, when I return on the 20th, all I will have to do is tie up loose ends. Oh...and I'm trying to sell my house and my 2002 Camry too!!

Do you think I have enough going on right now???? I do have moments of great stress...like yesterday when my 8 month old Toshiba laptop crashed. It's at the Laptop Hospital now and hopefully, it will be a hardware problem, which is covered under warranty. If it's a software issue, does anyone out there want to float me a loan?????

Goodbye, My Friend

2007-12-27T06:33:00.001+04:00

I said Goodbye to a wonderful furry friend today. Brandy, who is about 16 years old, had health problems (chronic pancreatitis and thyroid disease) and was recently found to have a malignant tumor in her mouth. Even with pain medication every 12 hours, I could tell she was in pain at about the 9th hour. I wasn't going to let her suffer. So I did what has to be one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. We made the final trip to the vet's office and I said goodbye to my sweet Brandy. I can only hope that she's in a better place, free from pain and me sticking gooey medicine in her ear twice a day. I will miss her waking me up in the morning by head-butting me. I'll miss her little routine of sitting in front of her food, staring at it and then turning her back on it, only to return in about 3 minutes and eating it. I'll miss seeing her sitting in the front window when I return from work and then running to be at the door as I open it, meowing her greeting. I'll miss her curling up in my bathroom sink watching me get ready for work, making it impossible to use the water! I'll miss her presense, her sounds and the look of love in her eyes. Having to say goodbye to such a wonderful pet that you absolutely adore makes one think they never want another pet...

I miss her so much....

Merry Christmas

2007-12-03T04:05:00.000+04:00

The following link is a short ditty about all the merchant catalogs with covers that scream Holiday Decorations, Holiday Gifts, Holiday Clothing, etc. It says it all for me.

http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000005834.cfm

Merry Christmas!

Winding Down 2007 & Still In Limbo

2007-11-29T05:34:00.000+04:00

It's the end of November and so much is still up in the air. I'm still waiting on that offer from the State Department. After a slight glitch, which caused the State Dept. to withdraw their offer, I have been reinstated as a potential candidate. Amazing how previous employers can screw up your future long after you no longer answer to them. Accusations are difficult to defend, especially when it's your word against theirs. Apparently, my heartfelt letter along with letters of recommendations from another previous employer convinced them that my version was closer to what happened than that of my previous employer. The bums!

I'm making plans to be with my son and his wife when their twin boys are born in early March, 2008. Seems like just yesterday that I got the news that just blew me away...Mom, do twins run in our family?? They don't, but they do now!! It's 2 more boys for my son and his wife and my son now has his golf foursome! Gavin, their first child and my first grandson, will be about 21 months when The Boys are born. I am now faced with the old Birth Date Roulette...how do I manage to be there when they are born? With my first grandson, I got there a couple of days after he was born. However, this time, the twins will be scheduled sometime in early March and they do elective C-sections on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Wish me luck with American Airlines!

My daughter is settled in Washington DC with her job with the Foreign Service. She's thrilled to be back in the states and doing what she's doing. It's so nice to see your grown kids so happy! I love it...

Well, back to listing things on Ebay (one of the fun things I do). Life is good, even though it seems to be on hold right now. I'm convinced that the best thing for me will occur. If it doesn't include joining the Foreign Service, it will mean other better things are ahead for me...

Closer To My Goal

2007-09-12T17:30:00.001+04:00

Time flies. My FBI man has completed my background check and has filed his report to Washington. He said I was A-OK and, as he said, a slam dunk for the job. Getting through the complete medical exam was just a barrel of fun. Yeah, right. But after all the tests, I'm pronounced in great health. So, more waiting. I could get an offer of employment in a week or in 6 months. There's just no way of knowing when it will come.

I'm a day late, but....God Bless the families of all those who lost their lives to a bunch of cowards on 9-11-01. And God be with our troops who are fighting so that terrorism won't be able to reach our children, grandchildren or any other American ever again.

Life in August

2007-08-19T18:55:00.000+04:00

Life is good....very good. I found out last month that not only am I going to have another grandchild in March, I'm going to have 2 more grandchildren in March! Twins are on the way! There's no history of twins so I guess my son has started something good. We're all so excited and now that makes 2 more reasons to fly to Kauai...to see my 2 new grandchildren when they arrive in early March!

My quest to join the Foreign Service is progressing. The ex-FBI agent has been conducting the background check on me, talking to all ex-employers and co-workers, friends, business references and neighbors. In the meantime, I've been undergoing a bunch of medical tests to make sure I'm a healthy candidate for the job. One more test tomorrow and I'm done and will (hopefully) have a clean bill of health! The deadline for the agent to submit his report is September 2. I guess I just sit tight and wait. Some more. It's just a long process to get a job with Uncle Sam, but well worth it.

Hopefully I'll be saying how good Life in September is soon.