The True Costs Involved With a Foreign Service Move: One Family's Experience

Disclaimer:  This is a description of the costs my family incurred with our most recent move for the Foreign Service.  I am not claiming that the costs are the same for everyone.  This was our experience.

     We're still in the process of our fourth international move.  I won't say it's over yet because we are still waiting on our car, our clothes and possessions (called Unaccompanied Air Baggage, or UAB) that we brought with us to Virginia for our year of training there, and all of our Household Effects (HHE) from our old house in Tirana to arrive before we can finally say the move is over.  Our Tirana HHE has been sitting in a warehouse in Antwerp, Belgium, for twelve months.  I'm sure you can imagine how anxious we are to get the bulk of our belongings in one place after such a long time.

     I'm extremely anxious to begin decorating our new home.  While our new place is extremely spacious and decorated in good quality furniture and fabrics, its monochromatic feel just isn't representative of who we are.  Now, I don't want that to sound snobby.  It's not that I think my personal belongings are better than what the USG provides for us; it's that I want my home to look like MY home.  I think anyone in our situation would feel the same.  For instance, the color palette is in beige and gold, where my palette runs to bright blues and the like.  You can't blame me for wanting to "spice" things up a bit.  I feel like beige and gold during the winter months will make the place feel drab and depressing.  I'm really looking forward to my new project; so I'll make sure to post before and after photos when I'm done.

     While any move--much less an international move--is always an eye-opening event, I think the biggest surprise we've had with this move is how much it's cost us.  To be clear, I wouldn't change my life or our decision to join for FS; however, I don't feel like it's clear to the average Entry Level Officer (ELO) when they're joining the State Department  how much money having this job will cost them over the life of their career.  The hiring package sounds like it's full of perks, and on many levels it absolutely is: free travel to and from post, USG-provided housing (usually it's furnished), great TSP and pension, health insurance, great international schools for your children, possible employment for your spouse (it was a great program) language training, etc.  These are all wonderful parts of this job.  There is even a Post Transfer Allowance of around $1300 that you get to help offset the costs of the move whenever you PCS.  That helps a lot, but I am very sorry to say that it doesn't come close to covering the actual expenses we accrue when doing what we do.

     Let's take this particular move, for example; and I will attempt to break it down for you.  That might help you to understand this whole process a bit better.

      1. Obviously, the actual packing and mover costs are completely covered by the State                 Department.  We are on the hook for the gratuity and whether or not we offer the movers lunch. Depending on the length of the move (the time it takes the movers to pack everything), that can set us back anywhere from $30-$100.  It could even be more; it is possible, especially depending on where you live.  Combining our packout in Tirana, UAB arrival in Virginia, packout in Virginia, and soon to be HHE and UAB arrival here; I'll estimate that it will end up costing us $150.

     2. The plane tickets to and from Post are always covered.  When traveling on government orders, we are authorized two 50-lb. bags, rather than the standard one 50-lb. bag.  Each additional bag costs between $100-$200.  We do eventually get that money back once the officer does their PCS reconciliation; but that $400-$800 we have to fork over for a family of four every time we PCS is a huge chunk of money either on our credit card or out of our savings account.  We also pay interest on that money if it's on our card. It can take weeks and weeks to get that money back.  My husband and I put everything like that on our card so that we can collect double credit card travel points.  It's just something to take into consideration.  

     3. The most expensive moving cost so far has been our pets.  It cost us over $1700 to get two cats and one dog from Tirana, Albania, to our home leave address in New Orleans.  That does not include the vet costs associated with the vaccines, microchips,  and travel documents we had to obtain to import our animals into the U.S.  It does not include the "new patient fees" we had to pay to the vet in Virginia when we needed pet care there.  Now, let's talk pet fees just to get one cat (our second cat died this year) and one dog from Virginia to Budapest.  Between well-animal visits, vaccines, pet travel certifications ($800), travel to Richmond, Virginia to get the USDA vet to sign off on the pets' health certificates (we drove up and stayed overnight, so around $300), the cost of the USDA signatures ($35 each); we spent approximately $1135 just to get the animals to the airport and certified.  Next, we had to pay $300 to get them on the plane.  In case you're keeping track, those numbers total up to $3135 in pet fees alone.

     I know you're probably thinking that we didn't have to stay overnight in Richmond, and you're right.  We didn't.  I'll tell you why we did, though.  When an FSO is in language training, he or she is not allowed to take one single day of personal leave for that entire time.  In other words, my husband didn't have a vacation day or a mental health day for 11 months straight.  We spent that $300 on one night alone.  It was a good investment.  As for how much we may or may not get back, we expect to get the $300 we spent on plane fees from Virginia to Budapest to be the extend of what we recoup.  We will not receive anything for the travel from Tirana to our home leave address because that is not considered a Permanent Change of Station; rather, it's a TDY because we chose that over a move to DC during that year.  Oh, and because we were in TDY housing, we had to pay $300 per pet for pet deposits.  So add $600 to that $3135. We also had to make sure that our animals could be fed and go to the bathroom immediately upon our arrival to Budapest; so I made sure to order cat food ($12.78), dog food ($12.29), litter ($8.49), and a litter box ($19.99) ahead of time.  That added up equals to $53.55 So $3735 + $53.55 - $300 (Richmond Overnight) - $300 plane fees = $3188.55 in pet expenses in one year because of my husband's job.  Let that sink in for a moment.  I'm not even adding in the money we spent on the pet food, litter box, and litter we had to leave behind due to weight restrictions.

      4. Let's move on to food costs.  The one way that I was able to save us a little money on our move to Virginia was to box and mail the contents of my spice cabinet to my in-laws' house.  That alone saved us several hundred dollars.  But I want you to do me a favor and open your refrigerator.  Do you see all those condiments, sauces, salad dressings, vegetables, tupperware containers, and meat products?  Imagine all of that disappearing overnight.  How much would that cost you to replace?  Now I want you to multiply that--no doubt, probably very conservative estimate--by two.  How much would that cost you?  I'd be willing to bet that, very conservatively, your number is around $500.  When we know we're leaving a place, sure we try our best to eat from the fridge and the freezer and the pantry only so that we can get rid of everything instead of wasting it.  Yeah, that never goes as planned.  I am not going to serve my kids popsicles and tuna fish for dinner for two weeks straight.  And I don't think I know anyone who would.  No, we end up eating out rather than shopping for more groceries to supplement the missing/used up ingredients we're trying to get rid of anyway.  And it all costs money.

      When we left Tirana, I gave away at least $300 worth of food to my helper.  I'd be willing to bet my life it was actually worth more than that after I added cleaning supplies, forgotten pots or pans that didn't get packed up, etc.  When we got to Virginia, we had to start all over again.  Our initial grocery shopping trip was $600 and we spent $500 more a few days later.  That sounds extreme, right?  Well, when you're buying everything from cooking oil to ketchup to body soap to laundry detergent and softener and stain remover...it adds up very quickly.  Go back to that $500 estimate on filling the fridge alone that I mentioned earlier, and you can start to imagine the kind of expense we're talking about.  So you live in Virginia for eleven months and finally have a well-stocked freezer, fridge, and pantry.  What do you do next?  Well, if you're in the FS, you move!!  I stopped really buying groceries a few weeks before we left, and left somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 in groceries in that apartment.  No doubt, there were some very happy employees at our complex!  But we were out that money.  Now, what's next?

     Well, now that we're in Budapest, we have a new pantry, freezer, and fridge to stock!!! $300 (food to helper) + $600 (initial shopping trip in VA) + $500 (second shopping trip VA) + $500 (groceries left in apartment) + $300 (initial trip in Budapest) = $2200 in groceries start up and loss this year.  *cha ching*

     5. We do get reimbursed for the second suitcase for each person, but what if you don't own a second suitcase for each person?  Well, you obviously want to be able to max out your 100 lb. per person weight limit; so you have to find a way to buy suitcases and/or duffels.  When we started out in the FS, our parents donated a suitcase to us here and there because we honestly couldn't afford the expense of buying them at the time.   We bought a couple of suitcases at a FS garage sale in Ecuador for $10/each; and we felt like we'd won the lottery.  Obviously, money got a little better over time; so our suitcases have evolved as our standard of living has.  A few years ago, we realized that two-pound duffel bags can fit 48 pounds of possessions; so we bought several of those.  Wal-Mart had rolling duffels for $12/each, but they lasted an average of two trans-Atlantic flights before ripping beyond what duct tape could repair (no shame in our game).  Two of our eight big suitcases bit the dust this year; so we had to invest in two new ones.  BJs had a great deal on massive suitcases that only weighed 8 lbs. each.  We considered the $80 we paid for each one to be well worth the money.  It just so happened the our children's rolling carry-on bags both needed to be replaced; so we got them new ones for the bargain price of $37 each. ($80 x 2) + ($37 x2) = $234 for luggage for this move.

     6. When you move overseas to a place like Hungary, which is surrounded on each side by a different country, you want to be able to jump in the car at the drop of a hat and go anywhere you can. Well, you can't do that if your passport is expired.  It takes several weeks to get your passport renewed; so we opted to forfeit the year of validity we still had on our tourist passports and get that done while we were still in the States, rather than having to wait weeks and weeks without going anywhere. That cost hurt.  There are no government discounts.  Price of 4 tourist passports: $110 x 4 = $440.

     7.  Packing up for a FS move is an incredible test of logistics.  We couldn't do it without our digital luggage scale and a whole lot of forethought.  In the FS, your belongings are put into four groups: Permanent Storage, Household Effects (HHE), Unaccompanied Air Baggage (UAB), and the personal belongings you put in your suitcases.  If you are "overweight" in any of those groups, you have to pay the overage fees.  Since no one wants to owe the government money, we have to get pretty inventive at packing and sorting strategies before the movers ever show up.  Because our lives revolve around our total allotted weight,  we cannot get too attached to possessions, as much of that "sorting" involves donating and selling items that would otherwise make us go over our weight allowances.

     Now, my numbers may not be up-to-date; but when my husband joined the FS,we were allowed something like 14,000 TOTAL pounds when you add up UAB, HHE, and the items in our permanent storage.  When we move to a furnished post, we are only allowed to take around 7,200 pounds with us.  (Now, obviously, those who will be at unaccompanied posts and/or in war zones will get nothing near that amount.)  My husband and I have to take into account the cost to keep items (and risk going overweight) vs. the cost we spent on it in the first place.  For instance, we are not going to pay an overage fee of $50-$100 or more on a two-pound pair of jeans we bought for $15 at Target.  We'll just take the $15 loss on the jeans so we can save $35-$85 in fees.  We have even mailed items ahead of time, as that often offsets the costs of overage fees vs. donating brand new items.  For this particular move, we were lucky that we  decided to do a supplemental HHE shipment (we had weight we hadn't used up) and didn't have to leave anything important behind other than a two-pound jar of peanut butter and two TV switches that let us go back and forth from cable to the Amazon fire TV.  Trust me, that's really good.  Cost of two-pound jar of peanut butter: $5 + two TV switches: $24 = $29.

     8. When you PCS and go into either temporary or permanent housing, there are already some household items waiting for you.  Now, these are not items that you're allowed to keep; rather the "Welcome Kit," as it's called, is a very basic kit that will let you get through your first days and weeks (even at times, months) at Post.  For a family of four, it has like one of everything you need but not really much more than that.  It feels paltry but is more than adequate when you really look at it objectively.  Here's what we got.  You can see for yourself that it's perfectly adequate.  Now, I will say that they always give you the dullest knives in creation.  We got lucky on the bedding this time; that's for sure.  I won't say where it was, but the blankets in one of our welcome kits were made out of some synthetic material that made us all get rashes and itch like crazy.

     Notice that we got things like: a mop/bucket, broom/dustpan, a trash can, a coffee maker, a vacuum, and a toaster.  We will have to return all of those items in a few weeks, and I do not have replacements coming in our UAB and HHE shipments.  We were lucky in that our last post provided the majority of those things to us because our house came with a "permanent welcome kit."  We really appreciated that and made sure those items stayed with the house.  I personally don't believe in packing dirty items like trash cans and mops and buckets and moving them  to and fro and am not in favor of that; so we always have to buy those items when we arrive.  I went ahead and looked online at what appliances cost here, and it looks like prices run similar to the U.S.:  coffee maker $37, basic vacuum $50, toaster basic $19, and somewhere around $20 for mop/bucket and broom/dustpan.  ($37+$50+$19+$20 = $126)  Hey, at least the microwave came with the house!

     9.  Let's move on to additional vehicle costs.  Yes, the State Department pays to move our vehicle one time per PCS.  For those of us who decide to call our training time a "TDY," we have to make a choice about our vehicle.  We have a few options: move our car from post to post, meaning we will not have it while in D.C.; sell our car before leaving Post and buy another one while we are in the States on TD; move our car from Post to TDY and sell it before leaving the States, then buy once we arrive at our new Post; long-term lease or purchasing something while on TDY.  My family decided to sell our car in Albania and then buy something when we got to the States.  It all depends on what works best for your family.  Because of that decision, we will be here in Budapest until September or so without a car.  It could even be October depending on how long it takes to get through Customs and then registered in Hungary.  (Thank God for Tesco online grocery shopping.)

      Now, what do you think comes after customs and registering the car?  If you guessed "insurance," you're right.  When we live in the States, we always use USAA for our car insurance; however, they don't cover Hungary.  Because of that, we have to use an international company.  Unlike insurance in the States where you can pay monthly, international insurance companies--at least all the ones we know of--require you to pay for the entire year up front.  Entire year of car insurance = $1300.  USAA also has their "touring policy" for those of us not living in the States.  It costs $50 per year and covers us in rental cars, acquaintances' cars, and also things like emergency roadside assistance.  We don't plan on being in the U.S. for the next three years, but it's worth the cost in case we ever do go back and end up behind the wheel.  I'm sure you're guessing that there can't possibly be more fees (my apologies if I'm starting to sound a little bitter in this particular blog entry) associated with this move, but you're wrong.  We just moved to Budapest.  It often snows in Budapest during the winter; so we have to buy snow tires for our vehicle.  I just looked up the cost of snow tires, and it looks like it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 for a set of four.  Costs of driving a car in Hungary: $1300 for insurance + $800 for snow tires + $50 USAA touring insurance policy = $2150.

     I realize that people reading this are probably either in shock or in total disbelief that it cost my husband $8517.55 to do his job this year.  But it did.  Actually, it cost much more than that when you factor in things like buying fall clothes in advance because the kids are growing so fast but it takes weeks and weeks for purchases to arrive and a new suit because my husband lost weight since he last needed to wear them.  This move has actually cost us in the neighborhood of $10,000 this year; but I can't give you concrete verification of all those costs.  The things I can verify, I put in this blog entry.

     I'm sure most of you know that mid-level USG workers don't make much money at all, especially those whose spouses are unable to work as well.  $8500 is a hell of a lot of money for people who rarely have much to spare, and we are lucky we were able to put so much away during our last tour, when I was still allowed to work.

     But what if I hadn't been able to work?  What if we hadn't had any savings to speak of and had maxed out our credit cards just getting to Post so that my husband could get to work.  It's not a crazy question; it's actually happened to us before.  We went broke getting to our last post.  We maxed out our one credit card getting our animals and luggage on the plane and had only a couple of hundred dollars left in the bank.  What saved us was that the commissary would let you charge up to $1000 in groceries and pay it off the next month.  Obviously, I didn't buy that much; but we did live on peanut butter sandwiches and mac and cheese for a couple of weeks.

     Suffice it to say that what we do isn't always full of glamorous travel and posh living.  Sometimes, it's down right scary.  Right now, in this moment, we are frightened about our future.  And as far as exactly what it's costing us, well...we don't see an end in sight.  Please make sure to thank a Foreign Service Officer for their service to our nation if you ever get the chance.  It costs them more than you think to serve you.

Mulling About the Metro

     It's funny the things you notice when you're learning a new transportation system.  It's not something one really thinks about until...well, until they think about it.  For instance, I've never actually used mass transport on a daily basis until now.  I've always been one of those "daily pass" people in a foreign city or maintaining a semi-low balance on a SMART metro card while living in DC.   Budapest's transportation system requires one pass for the metro, buses, trams, and their ferry boats (not all boats on the Danube, just some).  You can buy a pack of ten tickets for like $11 or an all-in-one monthly pass for about $30.  There is a value added tax (VAT) of about 27% on all goods and services from what I understand.  Diplomats, thank goodness, can get that money back if we get the proper receipts.  That's, of course, really good news.  That said, we keep forgetting to give them our VAT card; so that will take some getting used to.

     When you get your pack of ten tickets or your monthly pass, you're ready to use the bus.  Most of them are not air conditioned; and if they are, they're not air conditioned enough for this southern girl.  The bus is really modern, complete with screens that tell you the upcoming stop and the next two after that.  We've learned where to get on and off, depending on whether we want to punish ourselves by climbing the 257 steps up to the side of our house or climbing the hill via the roadway that runs in front of it.  We've also learned the hard way how to signal that we want to get off the bus.  Get this; there's a "stop" button!

     When you get off the bus and enter the metro system, you feed your ticket into this little machine and get it validated.  There is almost always a very scary looking man checking if people actually have tickets or monthly passes because there are no turnstiles.  People just walk in.  Nobody really checks on the buses.  The drivers just assume most people have the monthly pass, I guess.  Or maybe it's an honor system.

     The next thing you're faced with in the metro is this:

Apparently, Budapest has the steepest escalators in Europe.  As a person who suffers from a severe case of fear of heights (with vertigo!), this is the most terrifying part of my day.  The fact that these escalators are three times as fast as an other escalator I've ever been on does not help matters much.  You practically have to get a running start to get on or off.  The funniest thing about the stand-to-the-right, walk-to-the-left, multi-storey descent into the guts of the city is the way the handrails and steps move at different speeds.  I didn't notice at first why everyone seemed to be slanted when going up or down the escalators.  Literally everyone is positioned at what looks like a 45-degree angle as they ride along.  That's when I figured out about the handrails.  As you're going up, the handrail is faster than the stairs; so you're always leaning forward, trying to keep up while sliding your hand back down to your side.  Since I'm not getting on that thing without holding on for dear life, it's kind of a never-ending cycle.  It's the opposite as you're going down; so you're always leaning forward and then sliding your arm back to the front while trying not to fall down.  Since I'm completely neurotic about my fear of falling down, I usually over-compensate and spastically grasp around for the rail while trying not to appear as panicked as I feel.  I'm sure I fail miserably at it, haha; but it can only get better.  Right??

     All in all, the M2 metro train is clean and prompt; so as long as I don't fall down the speedy Gonzales, ill-timed handrail escalator, getting around the city can only get easier!

New Country, New Rules

   
     Moving to a new country is always a gumbo pot full of emotions.  You're equal parts excited and scared when the wheels of the plane finally go up (those in the FS call it "wheels up").  When you arrive, you're usually horrifically jet-lagged, irritable, nervous, intimidated, and just completely overwhelmed--especially if you've never been to that particular city before.  In our case, wheels down was the first time we'd ever set foot in Budapest; so we've had a lot to take in.

     When you live a life like ours, you know a year and a half to two years in advance where you will be going; so you have a ton of time to research what your city will be like.  You learn what the tourist sites are, where the locals hang out, what great things you can do with kids, etc.  Naturally, all of that research is forgotten once you arrive; so I'm spending a lot of time planning what we're going to do once we finally learn how to get around.  And, I must say that learning how to get around has been an interesting challenge.

     When you're a few weeks out from wheels up, your new post usually sends you your housing assignment.  I've discussed in previous blog entries that they send out a housing questionnaire/survey where you list what is most important to you: house/apartment, garage/no car, city center/suburbs, yard/no yard, etc.  Sometimes you get exactly what you ask for, and sometimes you don't.  For us, it was somewhere in between.  Now, don't get me wrong; our place is very nice and has the most beautiful view of the city you can imagine.  In fact, here's the view from my house!

   
     Can you believe we get to live somewhere so beautiful???  That said, we had hoped (in a perfect world) to be in a standalone house with a garage.  There were two reasons for this: we've been living side by side with our FS colleagues for five years straight, and my husband wanted the garage space to continue his woodworking hobby.  Post housing committees try very hard to give officers and their families exactly what they want; however, you get what is available.  We got an apartment in a beautiful building with a parking spot under an overhang.  For us, I feel like we got very lucky in many ways, even though we were a bit disappointed at first.   For starters, our apartment is extremely spacious for being in Europe.  The only really small room is the kitchen, but we don't have to live in there.  All the bedrooms are spacious, and there is ample Drexel Heritage furniture in every room!  The grounds surrounding our building are beautiful and massive.  Our boys have a playground, and our dog has a giant yard to play in.  The best part?  My husband won't have to cut the grass like he would have in a house.  That is wonderful news, because who likes to cut grass?

     So when you arrive at your new post, you don't have a car for weeks or months.  You don't have a phone immediately.  You have no cash.  You have enough groceries for a day or two.  You have no internet, no cable, etc.  You have no idea where you are, where you want to go, or how on earth to get there.  So you have to rely solely on those at the embassy helping you get appointments to set up all of those things before your arrival (if possible) and on the good graces of your social sponsor.  Your social sponsor is the person/family who meets you at the airport, takes you to your home or temporary housing, buys you basic groceries, and who shows you how to get around.  We were lucky in that right when we arrived from the airport, the home phone/internet person showed up.  That was absolute luck on our part.  Our sponsor was kind enough to direct us how to get to a nearby market, "just down the stairs and to the left at the end of the street."  After our sponsor left and the internet guy left, we were all on our own!  We hung out in the house for a while so I could start unpacking us.

     We were already exhausted and famished when we realized we needed a few groceries for dinner.  So, taking our sponsor's advice, we began walking down the stairs.  Let me just say, the stairs are really beautiful.  But the problem here isn't the aesthetics of the staircase cemented into the side of the massive hill we live on.  The problem is that there are 257 of them between our house and the road where the store is.  Now, 257 steps  up and down is a lot on a regular day; but when you're jet-lagged, it's absolute hell.  By the time the four of us got back home with our four bags of groceries, our tongues were hanging out like a dog's after a long run and our legs were quivering like baby giraffes.  And let's not forget the fact that it was 90 degrees.  I'm speaking for all of us when I say we absolutely cannot wait for our car to get here.  The sad part?  Our car is still sitting in Falls Church, Virginia.  Here's are pictures of a few of the stairs.

     The really good thing about arriving at your new post on a Thursday is that the entire family goes to the Consulate or Embassy on Friday to check in.  That leaves the weekend for exploration and gives you all a chance to fight the jet-lag.  Our entire family followed our sponsor into the city on Friday morning.  We had to tackle the steps again and learn how to buy transportation tickets for the bus and the metro.  Our house is about a 40 minute commute from the Embassy, but we were glad to learn how to get there.  It's not too difficult to navigate the metro.  It's very similar to the DC metro, in fact; so that helped a lot.  Neither my husband nor I have ever had to learn about a city bus system and how it works; so that's been slightly more challenging.  Baby steps, though!  The worst thing that can happen is you get on the right bus going the wrong direction, and we've already done that.

     On Friday after checking in at the Embassy, my husband had to go to a function with his section at work; so my boys and I decided to walk around a little bit in the city.  Since I'd never been here before, had no map on me, and had no phone or internet in case we got lost, we decided to stay close to the Embassy and Parliament.  We're lucky that our metro station to get home is near both; so I didn't have to get too stressed.  We ate lunch at a typical Hungarian restaurant, and I bought a glass of the house rose, which cost me $1 or 290 HUF (Hungarian Forint).  It's the little things in life that you have to stop and appreciate, am I right?

     The boys and I dined on Hungarian fish soup, pickled cucumber salad (which turned out to be a plate of sweet pickles), egg noodles with cheese, and spaghetti bolognese.  We walked over to Parliament and people watched before returning on the metro.  We got off at the wrong bus stop and had to walk down a big hill and then back up the 257 steps to our house, only to find the outer door to the building locked up tight and me without the code!  Luckily, after around 15 frantic, sweating moments later, I was able to find a gardener to let us in.  Our first Hungarian adventure was finally over, and we were all in one piece.  I have to say that traveling around a foreign city with two kids in tow, no phone, not a soul knowing where you are was terrifying for me.  It was one of those completely foreign service moments I know I'll never forget, and I'm actually kind of thankful I had it.  I was able to sort of navigate through a city with my kids where I don't speak the language.  Most people whom I know in the FS will scoff at this story.  It's not like I'm in a dangerous place after all.  But it was a big deal for me nonetheless.  The FS is like that: it will make or break you when you least expect it.

     During the weekend, we visited both the Hard Rock Cafe and our nearest McDonald's.  We hate to be "those Americans," but our boys absolutely love both.  Visiting the Hard Rock in every new city we go to that has one has been a tradition in our family for four years now.  It's something our boys can rely on and look forward to, both of which are good things when you're taking them away from everything they know.  On both Saturday and Sunday, we took long walks around our part of town.  It's amazing how beautiful and fun the parks all are.  And the sweets!  Thank God for those 257 steps, because the sweets are cheap, and the gym is really far away!

     All in all, this has been a crazy week; but it's one I think we're all glad to have experienced.  We can't wait to see what happens next.

   


   

Those Who Keep Us Safe

Recent events in Afghanistan have inspired this blog entry.  

     While the most of the world is, no doubt, aware that there was a massive suicide bombing in Kabul a few days ago; the majority of you don't know that, amongst the 90 dead and 400 injured, the American Embassy in Kabul lost nine of their Local Guard Force (LGF) in the explosion.  Another 11 American citizen contractors were injured.  The explosion took place in the diplomatic quarter, near the German Embassy. It appears, though I could be mistaken, that the LGF who were killed were outside the Embassy walls.

     My former boss shared this small blurb that he read on the news:

."deadly attack in Kabul that killed 90 people and wounded over 400 individuals. The State Department told CBS news that nine Afghan guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were killed and 11 American contractors wounded in the massive suicide truck bomb attack that rocked the diplomatic quarter. This might be the largest casualty of local guards in recent memory."

     Many of those unfamiliar with the FS probably have no idea what the LGF is or what they do for American citizens overseas.  Let me explain.

     During my last two years in Tirana, Albania, (our last tour of duty overseas), I worked as the administrative assistant/office manager for the Diplomatic Security (DS) office.

"The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the federal law enforcement arm of the Department of State, is responsible for security at all U.S. embassies and consulates around the world; domestically, they protect the Secretary of State, as well as foreign non-heads of state dignitaries visiting the United States. They also conduct criminal and counterterrorist investigations related to passport and visa fraud. Overseas, the special agent in charge of security at an embassy, known in the vernacular as an RSO (Regional Security Officer), and one or two deputy agents, can be responsible for as many as 100 different programs and tasks, ranging from counterintelligence to supervising the Marine Security Guards... The RSO is also responsible for supervising the hiring, performance, and training of the local guard force — the foreign nationals employed by the embassy who stand guard at the outermost edge of an embassy’s defenses."--source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-m-katz/ankara-embassy-attack_b_2670338.html

     My particular section was the biggest in the Embassy, with over 100 members on staff.  The majority of those people were members of the Local Guard Force (LGF).  (Note:  Not all LGF around the world are members of Embassy or Consulate staff.  Many are hired through a contract with a security company. Either way, they put themselves between us and danger.)  As you can imagine, I came to know many of the LGF on a professional--and at times on a personal--level while I worked for Diplomatic Security.  The LGF in Tirana hold a special place in my heart; and for that reason, I feel like the world should know what they do for people like my husband and my family on a daily basis when we're overseas.

     The LGF at every U.S. Embassy and Consulate around the world is comprised of men and women who serve as our first line of defense in any security situation.  Now, what does that entail exactly?  Let me break it down for you.

    The first thing one notices when even looking at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate is the amount of security.  There will be guards, walls, drop arms, radios, guns, etc. visible from pretty far away.  These guards are usually LGF.  When you go to enter a U.S. Embassy office or housing compound, the first person you meet with upon arrival will undoubtedly be a member of the LGF.  They will make sure you're actually supposed to be allowed in (meaning you have a visa appointment or a meeting with an employee) before they check your person and such for contraband.  They will check your ID and open the doors for you.  They will be polite and courteous and welcome you to the Embassy.  At times, they will escort you around the compound and take you to the office/home you'll be visiting.  That's what they do for the visitors, more or less; however, what do they do for the diplomats and locally engaged staff?

     Well, for starters, the LGF work around the clock.  They do shift work and are at post 24 hours per day--on holidays, on weekends, in rain, in snow, in peace times, in war zones, on Christmas, on their personal religious holidays, when we're asleep--without fail and often at their own personal risk depending what country they live in.  They check our cars at 0300 in the blowing rain, and they usually do it with a kind smile.   They stand in front of the gates and walk the wall perimeter to make sure no one can harm us.  They watch the cameras 24 hours per day for anything suspicious.  I suppose you get the idea.  But that is not all they do.

     Who do you think tries to stop the truck trying to ram the Embassy gates or shows up in a military vehicle and demands to see the Ambassador but is actually a terrorist with an AK-47?  The LGF officer working the gates does.

     And, why, you might ask, do they do it?  Why do they work long hours year round to serve a government that isn't even theirs?  Well, obviously, some do it for a pay check.  Others do it out of loyalty either to their job or to individual diplomats or ambassadors they work for.  Some do it with the hope that their service will be so long and great that they might one day be rewarded for their service with what's known as an "SIV" or Special Immigrant Visa.  See, in the past the United States has rewarded its most loyal and long-serving Locally Engaged Staff with an SIV.  To be clear, working for the United States Government for twenty or so years as a foreign national does not guarantee you an SIV.  Not by a long shot.  But if you do something outstanding, the odds are that you might get it one day. Now, obviousy, "outstanding" can be a relative term, but I know a former LGF turned bodyguard or two that received their SIVs for some pretty phenomenally cool reasons.

     The story that I heard is that in 2005, a U.S. military C-130 plane crashed in the Albanian mountains during a training mission.    It was night time, and there was a lot of snow in the mountains. They couldn't communicate with the plane; so they didn't know if there were survivors or casualties or both. So what happened?  Well, a couple of the former LGF-turned bodyguards and some American officers got in  an armored vehicle and started driving up a snow-covered mountain in the dark.  Did I mentioned there were unpaved roads and no snow tires?  At some point, the vehicle just couldn't go any further; so they set out on foot to find the wreckage.  They had no food with them and carried on at great risk to themselves.  Well, they found the wreckage; however, all on the plane were lost.

     The men received no recognition in the news articles I read about  the crash (https://www.stripes.com/news/report-cites-loss-of-situational-awareness-in-deadly-albania-crash-1.35010#.WTH3yBgrK00 ); however, ten years later, the driver of that vehicle receied his SIV.  I got to edit the letter that went to the committee recommending that he receive the SIV.  I had a really cool job.

     And what is an SIV?  What does it mean for that employee?  Well, it means that he/she and his/her entire immediate family (spouse and/or kids) will be given an immigrant visa to the United States.  In other words, they get to move here forever and begin a new life.  Does it guarantee the issuee happiness and riches?  Absolutely not!  In fact, those who work for the USG might leave a really well-paying life in their home country in order to move to the United States and be a nighttime security guard.  A well-off LGF, bodyguard, or translator might get their SIV and leave a reasonably comfortable existence so they can come here to the U.S. and struggle financially for the rest of their lives.  And why would they do that?  Well, to me, I believe the answer is that they do it for their children and their children's children.

     By and large, the LGF deserve our absolute respect.  They risk their lives for our protection.  Some of them even end up paying the ultimate price.

     Please see the attached links to learn more about LGF officers who have given their lives in service to the United States Government.

                   Here's a link about an LGF officer who kept the Embassy in Sana'a, Yemen from falling.  https://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/the-benghazi-that-wasnt-how-one-man-saved-the-american-embas?utm_term=.piZW2bDaGr#.vlwxLpDqjy

Here's a link about a Turkish LGF who was killed while on duty in Ankara.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-m-katz/ankara-embassy-attack_b_2670338.html

     For those wanting to learn more information about DS and LGF heroes who have lost their lives in service to our diplomats overseas, please see :  https://www.state.gov/m/ds/memorial/ .  I will admit that the memorial page is not as current as it should be, but it's still a good learning tool.

7 More Things Most People Don't Know About Foreign Service Families

It's been a while since I've written a blog entry, and I thought expounding upon my last entry would be just the way to get started.  I was astounded that "15 Things Most People Don't Know About Foreign Service Families" http://globalbayougirl.blogspot.com/2015/06/15-things-most-people-dont-know-about.html was viewed by over 10,000 people.   It was wonderful that I was able to teach so many people about the FS lifestyle who wouldn't normally be familiar with it; so here are 7 more!

1.  We spend hundreds and even thousands of our own dollars to make each government-provided house overseas our own, only to have to do it all over again two or three years later.

My custom made couch covers and drapes

Yes, absolutely, having a free home to live in is one of the biggest perks of the Foreign Service.  We don't get to choose the house in most instances (there are specific residences for those positions which require representational events like Ambassadors and Deputy Chiefs of Mission); however, we usually get some say-so about whether we want an apartment or house and what section of the city we'd prefer to live in. That said, we get zero input on what the house looks like or how it is (or isn't) decorated.  Depending where in the world your FS house is located, you might have marble floors and 12-foot ceilings; or you might have particle board cabinets and roach infestations.  One thing is certain, though:  Your house will most likely be absolutely filled to the brim with Drexel Heritage furniture.

Now, when I say it'll be "full," I mean that you will have every single piece of furniture they make in that model somewhere in your home.  There will be little to no free space in your home for your own furniture, lamps, rugs, etc.  And, more and more frequently, government warehouses at postings around the world are either refusing--or are just completely unable--to take items away.  So that means that FS families have to get VERY creative; and, as most of you probably know already: creativity can get very expensive.

Now, I don't believe for a second that many families begrudge paying for accent pillows or even new curtains in their government owned/leased home or apartments.  I know I don't.   The problem, though, is that there is absolutely zero uniformity to the furniture used around the world or the size and number or windows; so these purchases are not just one-time purchases.  Confused? Allow me to explain.

I told you before that the State Department furnishes almost all of its government-owned and leased properties with Drexel Heritage furniture.  From what I understand, something like a sofa set will have a life span of around 12 years, give or take a year or two.  Okay, fine.  But not all posts are at the same point in the lifespan of their furniture.  Styles, finishes, fabrics, etc. all change with the times, just like a designer releases a new fall line or spring line every year.  Drexel Heritage will release a new line (probably yearly or so I would think) and the post who's on the end of their furniture's life cycle will just order "x" number of the entire new line to furnish the houses with.  Those FSOs around the same rank will get new furniture that is all the same, just in a different house.  Your rank decides if you get the middle of the road line or the higher end furniture.  For instance, the Deputy Chief of Mission will have a more expensive line of furniture than an entry level officer.  (Note to GSOs who might read this:  I realize I may not be entirely accurate about the way it's done, but I'm trying to speak generally so those with zero FS knowlege will be able to to follow along.)

Here's the kicker, though.  While it's happened that the new line looked exactly like the previous one but was just a different upholstery, it's also happened that it's an entirely different size, shape, and upholstery than the previous kind.  This can be a huge disappointment for some of us.  See, when everyone you associate with socially has the exact same furniture as you do, families try to decorate in a way that makes their identical life stand out from the rest.  It can be difficult to move into a new place that you didn't choose--or decorate--feel like a real home.  This involves purchasing things like custom made sofa covers that will fit that line of Drexel Heritage sofas and chairs.

Some of us pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to turn that hideous mustard yellow sofa into something that represents our family's personal style.  That is a huge investment for families who don't make a lot to start with.  Sometimes, you can get really lucky and PCS to a post that has the exact same sofa, and that sofa is at the very beginning of its lifespan; however, the reverse is also true. At our last post, we were finally at a point financially where we could have our own covers made, and we chose a color and style that wholly represented us; however, most posts are now using a totally different sofa line.  Not only will I probably get to my next post and have to start all over again, but I'm also going to be stuck trying to find a place to store the beautiful sofa covers and curtains I can't even use.  Why would I send those things to permanent storage when there is a minute chance I'll be able to use them again at some point?  There's just no way of knowing what line your particular post will have when you get there; so we have to be like Cub Scouts and just always be prepared.  We also have to be prepared to open our wallets for things like: slipcovers, paint, drawer handles, and removable wallpaper.

The incessant need to decorate our temporary houses so they feel like permanent homes is a big thing in the FS.  We've all got our Drexel Heritage stories and have recently started Facebook sites on how to "hack" the Drexel!  In the FS, the Drexel is like a box of chocolates:  You never know what line you're gonna get!

The upside to all this decorating and redecorating?  We rarely get bored with our decor!


2.  It's possible that we might have to buy all new wardrobes when we PCS (Permanent Change of Station) from one post to another.

While it's not entirely common, some FSOs go from an extremely hot post to an extremely cold post.  I'm pretty sure it goes without saying that it can wreak havoc on one's wardrobe budget, especially if your family is young and the FSO isn't making much money yet.  My family was "lucky" enough to experience it between our first and second tours in Ecuador and Canada, and it nearly broke the bank.  We went from 90+degree weather 365 days per year for two years to anywhere from 90+degrees to -40 degrees (a difference of 130 degrees) between the four seasons for two years.

Canada literally has every type of weather that Mother Nature can throw at you, and our closets had to reflect that.  Since we were from Louisiana, a notoriously hot state in the U.S., before joining the Foreign Service, we barely owned any cold weather clothing.  That meant  I had to get very creative in order to dress the four of us with almost no money.

The one thing we had going for us was that we actually qualified for a clothing allowance, which is actually very difficult to qualify for.  Each country around the world is rated from 1-3 based on their climate.  One only qualifies for the clothing allowance when PCSing from a Level 1 country to a Level 3 country or vice versa.  Since Ecuador was a Level 3 (one of the hottest), and Canada was a Level 1 post (one of the coldest), we each received something like $150 to purchase new clothing.  When purchasing clothing in Canada, I guess it goes without saying that the money doesn't go very far.  I was able to buy us each a coat and a pair of snow boots on sale, and we augmented sweaters and other various layers at places like Goodwill and other secondhand stores.  It wasn't easy, and it wasn't fun, but we made it work as best we could. When you're in the FS, you just have to find a way to make do with what you have.  You might be dressed a little funny (and very out of style), but at least you'll be warm!

3.  We usually own like 42 spatulas and somewhere in the neighborhood of three Christmas trees. 

When you move around a lot, you tend to accumulate a ridiculous amount of everyday items like spatulas and cutting boards.  Your favorites always seem to be in transit to your new or next post or even in storage; so you buy cheap versions in order to get through your in-between times, like long-term language training in DC.

I think the worst and most stressful example of owning multiples of everything (and having to buy them all over again and again) is when it comes to Christmas trees and all the decorations and accoutrements that go along with the holiday season.  Being in temporary housing is always a difficult challenge--especially when you have young children--but being in temp housing during the holidays can be a bear.  We've bought--ballpark--five or so real and artificial trees, tree skirts, twinkle light sets, and coordinating, albeit cheap, ornament sets so that we can keep the Christmas spirit and tradition alive for our "third culture kids."  I mean, you've already taken them away from the home, school, and friends they've known for three years; so you want to make the Christmas season really something special, right?

 Considering the State Department will only pay to ship about 700 pounds of personal belongings from post to temp housing and back to post, we always find ourselves donating and even throwing out all of our Christmas decorations.   See, I told you decorating gets expensive!

The kicker with the spatulas (you could also insert things like "wooden spoons," "Lego sets," "plastic hangers," or even "coffee makers" here and still remain true to the vein of this story) is that we literally have no idea how many we own or even how many we've bought over the last decade in the FS.  We have old spatulas that went into storage when we first joined.  We have those that never made it from Ecuador to Canada. We have those kitchen appliances that my Canadian movers told me  I couldn't use in Albania.  Then we have those that snuck into permanent storage, those that came with us to temp housing, and those that are in Antwerp awaiting our travel orders to Budapest.  We have, I'd guess, either five or fifty.  There's probably no in between.

That said, every time I go to IKEA, I usually buy a new spatula.



4.  People don't realize that our Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) are some of the biggest patriots you're ever going to find.  

The Washington Monument

I think it would be safe to say that the majority of our FSOs could be making a LOT more money in the private sector.  I've known people who left jobs on Wall Street, lobbying jobs, jobs in law, jobs in medicine, and so forth to begin a career in government service.  The government tries to match salaries up to a certain point; but most, if not all, these people took a massive pay cut in order to serve.  They joined the FS because they love their country, and they truly believe we live in the most wonderful country in the world.  They want to keep it that way and help to make it ever better.

While there are certain perks to being an FSO, (the biggest being free housing) our diplomats do not uproot their entire lives and the lives of their families every two to three years in order to get rich; they do it out of a sense of patriotism and duty.

FSOs are some of the most loyal, honest, hardworking, and open-minded people you will ever meet.  During the hiring process they're weeded out to be calm, diplomatic, and quick on their feet.    Someone once told me that if our diplomats are worried, you should be too.  I think that is a very true statement.


5.  Having hobbies in the FS is extremely difficult.  

Are you a crafter, a scrapbooker, or even a woodworker?  If you are, please note that trying to continue your hobbies overseas in the FS can be very difficult.  If you're like me, you go "all in" when you find something you really love to do and spend all of your extra money on your hobby.  I was like that with bookbinding.  I had at least fifty pounds of supplies that I took with me to Albania, and there was zero chance that I would find anything there related to my particular craft.  In the end, I gave up my hobby.  It's not that I couldn't send craft items through the DPO or even the diplomatic pouch; it's that, for me, part of my love for the paper and binding materials was visiting the store and touching the materials before I bought them.

One of my first handmade books

My husband, on the other hand, began novice woodworking when we were at our second post.  It was easier there because we were in Canada.  Since Canada uses 110v, we didn't have to worry about things like voltage converters and burnt motors for his tools.  It also helped that in Canada we had a large garage that my husband could use as a workshop.  He was able to continue his woodworking in Albania, because the Embassy provided us with professional grade voltage converters; and we were lucky that our house had a garage again.  My husband built lots of pieces, including a beautiful wooden kayak that he had to leave behind.  (FYI--the State Department will allow you to put a motor cycle in your "household goods" shipment but not a boat.  My husband knew that going into it.)

My husband's handmade kayak

Our next post is going to be tricky.  As I explained earlier, we get little to no say-so when it comes to our housing.  They send us a questionnaire, we send it back, and they give us whatever comes available  in our rank/square footage range before we arrive.  For instance, we requested a house with a garage and explained that my husband was taking a lot of power tools to post.  Well, we're getting an apartment with no garage.  At the end of the day, it's a free house.  We're going to make it work, and we're going to love our new post.  But, as I explained, it's very difficult to have and maintain hobbies in the FS.


6.  Owning pets in the FS can cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars and more than one migraine.

My dog Emmeline costs us thousands of dollars every move!

We presently have two pets, one little dog and one very fat cat.  The last time we PCS'd, though, we had three pets.  Do you know how may pets airlines will let into an airplane cabin at one time?  If you guessed "three," you'd be absolutely WRONG!  No, the airlines only allow two animals into the cabin at one time.  That means that at least one pet has to fly as cargo, and that means the costs of shipping your pets will skyrocket.

It took us weeks to find a flight that could accommodate all three pets on the airplane in the middle of Summer. Just the cost of the flight for the pets was in the hundreds of dollars. But, before we could take the pets out of Albania, we had to spend a ton of money in veterinarian fees.  All pets required shots, microchips, and health certifications in order to be able to fly. And that was only for the first leg of our journey.  For the second leg, we weren't able to find a single plane that would be able to accommodate three pets; so we had to hire a pet shipper.

Now, let me tell you what:  Pet shipping is where the money is at--just in case you're ever looking for a career change.  Our pet shipper was waiting at baggage pick up for our two cats.  It was a lightning quick transaction during a very short layover in DC.  The shipper picked up the cats and kept them at his house overnight.  The following day, he drove them a few miles to the Baltimore airport and put them on a plane to New Orleans.  The cost of the whole thing? $1200!  Will we get any of the money back?  We honestly have no idea.

If you're anything like me, you're absolutely cringing as you read this.  And the crazy part?  We have to do this all over again in less than sixty days.  The only thing that is in our favor this time is that we only have two remaining pets (we lost Tennyson the Cat to kidney disease a couple of months ago).

But, the truth is, we got off relatively easy.  Some families pay thousands of dollars to transfer and import their pets to their new posts.  If you have a 100+ pound dog and you're PCSing to west Africa, you could potentially be out $5000 or more.  Then there are posts in countries which have strict quarantine laws.  Some pets must remain in quarantine for up to six months.  Who pays for that, you ask?  Well, the FS family of course.


7.  You can be rich at one post and barely make it check to check at the next.

Hardship posts can be great, well, hardships for families.  But the one good thing they always have in common is the beloved Hardship Differential Pay.  This can be anywhere from a 5%-35% pay increase depending on the level of hardship.  Albania, during the time we lived there, was a 20% hardship post.  I won't go into details about why it was such a hardship, but suffice it to say that the State Department has its reasons, and those reasons are all valid.

One of the great things about Tirana was that household help was absolutely affordable.  That, coupled with the hardship differential and the fact that I was able to work, meant that we had a full-time helper in our home.  I didn't have to clean toilets, wash clothes, iron, or cook; and we were doing so well that we were able to save a lot of money for a "rainy day."  Well, living anywhere near DC can make for a "rainy" year.

That brings me to the topic of this bullet point.  You can be almost rich at one post (usually a high differential post) and not even make it check to check at another post.  That's where we find ourselves now.  I'm not working while we live in Virginia--and I won't be able to get a well-paying job at the Embassy when we get to our next post due to the federal hiring freeze--so things are extremely tight at the moment.  And, since our next post is a zero hardship post, things are not likely to get much better while the hiring freeze is in effect.


Life as a Foreign Service family has a lot of quirks.  It can be the adventure of a lifetime at one post and a nightmare at the next.  It can be rewarding, and it can be life-sucking.  It is good and bad, yin and yang, happy and very sad.  We love serving our country.  We love the travel and the experiences.  But I will not sugarcoat it.  It can be very, very difficult.  It is not for the faint of heart.  All that said, (and I have said this many times before), it's always been worth it.

  

When The Days Are Winding Down

I have to say that my children--so far--are coping very well with yet another move to the far reaches of the Earth.  In fact, they're excited.  As it stands, we have less than sixty days until wheels up, and my boys are absolutely stoked about it.  They knew our time here in Virginia was going to be short; so I think they've all but foregone making many long-lasting friendships (with a few exceptions of course) out of a sense of self-preservation.  While I do realize that sounds a bit brutal, it is a natural reaction to a short-term situation such as ours.

A family hike at Harper's Ferry

As parents, my husband and I deal with a lot of guilt when it comes to our children.  We uproot them from their entire lives every two to three years.  We leave behind friends, schools, homes, and jobs to serve our country.  We left our families behind a decade ago; so I guess that, at least, has gotten a bit less difficult.  And while it's easy, as adults, to reinvent ourselves every so often, it takes a toll on our sons.  Well, actually, technically, it SHOULD take a toll on our children.  But, honestly, so far, it has not been that bad for them.  Our oldest son is like me in the sense that he doesn't truly connect with other people easily; however, when he finally does, he's loyal to the end.  My youngest son is so enamored with his brother that his need for outside friendships is, at times, non-existent.  That said, he recently told us that he's resisted making friends while living here in Virginia because he knew we were moving so soon. He's decided that he's going to put heart and soul into the search for his tribe once we arrive in Budapest in July.  And, oh, how soon that's going to be!!!

Yes, we feel a lot of guilt when it comes to our children.  We're not only taking them away from their (temporary) home, school, and friends.  We're taking them away from our great nation.  To be such a patriotic family, we haven't really lived in the United States much since we joined the Foreign Service.  Now, don't get me wrong, that is the point of being in the FOREIGN Service.  We aren't supposed to live here all the time.

Yoga poses on the National Mall

You know, it's strange teaching our children about America and how great a nation we are, because they don't grow up in the same way normal American children do.  For instance, they do not say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at their international school.  That said, they also don't say their host nation's pledge either.  And they don't hear the National Anthem before every game their school team plays.  My boys don't get to experience yummy fast food, Target's weekly sales, and two-day Amazon Prime packages when they're overseas.  Rather, we eat locally-sourced food, we shop in stores that don't even carry our sizes, and we wait months for our packages to finally arrive overseas.  We have to order our Christmas gifts in October, our Halloween costumes when school starts, and our Easter candy in February if we have any hope of getting it in time for the actual holiday.  And my boys have embraced all of that like the champions they are.

No, they don't have it easy.  But they have so much more than so many people:  they have life experiences that people five times their age haven't even dreamt of.  So while we feel interminable guilt about the things our boys miss by not living in the United States, we feel immense pride at all we've been able to expose them to at such young ages.

Duck gazing at the Reflecting Pool

The days we have left in the United States are winding down, and the guilt is gearing up.  We've been trying to give our children "American kid" experiences on the regular.  We eat at greasy restaurants, we go on hikes in the local parks, and we play in the grass on the National Mall.  We talk politics and all that entails.  We talk about the freedoms we have that some other countries don't and what that can mean for the citizens of those countries (for instance, the right to protest).  We go to museums.  We go to the movies.  We talk about the ease of Internet shopping and same-day delivery.  But those are only band-aids.

Contemplating Lichtenstein at the National Gallery

The move will be a major upheaval for all
of us.  And that's OK.  That is what we do.  We do this so we can serve our great nation and all of you.  And we hope, every day, that it will be worth it.  So far, it is.

The Washington Monument at sunset

15 Things Most People Don't Know About Foreign Service Families

Foreign Service families are different than your everyday, run-of-the-mill American family.  While there are lot of perks, like learning languages and traveling to exotic places, there are a lot of downsides too.  Like what, you ask?  Well, we never get to see the Super Bowl in real time.  And we never get to have crawfish boils on Good Friday.  We rarely get to go home for Christmas, and we almost never make weddings and funerals of loved ones.  In fact, there are a lot of things most people don't know about Foreign Service families.  I've made a short list below.

1.  We have culture shock when we go back to America.

When you haven't set foot on American soil for a year or two (or sometimes longer); and you don't have cable TV and American radio and news stations blaring at you on a daily basis, you begin to lose track of what daily American life is like.  Every time one of us goes "home,"  the sheer amount of choices--choices in restaurants, condiments, television shows, types of socks one can buy, etc.--can be shocking.

I am always amazed most when entering a grocery store, for instance.  I'll use beans as an example.  Here in Albania, I'm always thrilled when the grocery store has red kidney beans (black beans don't exist here).  Take that pure joy I feel at buying a can of beans and then imagine going into a store that has red beans, black beans, white beans, baked beans, etc.  Then think about the fact that there are probably five different brands of each kind and they're all prepared different ways!  It's like Christmas!  So take that and multiply it by an entire store filled with five different options for foods we never, ever see while we're overseas.  It can be totally overwhelming to someone.  Even going to the small grocery store in my hometown can be mentally taxing because I just can't decide which beans I want.  And let's not even talk about fresh jalapenos and herbs available year-round.

Seeing how the fashion has changed in a year's time can also be mind-blowing.  Here in Albania, there are two kinds of clothes:  off-the-rack clothes that are horrible quality and shrink with every single wash (usually covered in phrases written in English that don't actually make any sense) and clothes that we'll never be able to afford.  There is nothing in between; so we don't do any kind of clothes shopping here.  So going home and going to somewhere like Target is also a culture shock.  What do you mean there are 10 different options for any particular color of garment??  What do you mean everything I packed is completely out of style now?  Why are you staring at me when I buy $1000 worth of clothes in one shopping trip (and in multiple sizes for my growing boys)?

The radio is always a source of wonder at home.  I mean, sure we have the internet where we live.  And I sometimes listen to Pandora.  But that doesn't mean that I know any of the songs on the Top 40 programs.  If you're not Taylor Swift or someone really famous like that, we've probably never heard of you.  That said, if I've heard of the singer, the chances of me having actually heard their music is slim.

One thing that always catches me off guard is that EVERYONE speaks English back home.  I know, I know (DUH!).  But when you live a life where you're always thinking ahead about how to say something or ask for something in another language; and, suddenly, you don't have to do that, it can be a strange encounter for you.  Add that to how absolutely polite and welcoming everyone is in the South, and you have the perfect recipe for culture shock.

Another shock for those of us who have done (or are in the middle of) tours in third-world countries would be the driving.  I mean, people actually stay in their traffic lane.  They use their blinkers.  Their cars have four wheels.  No one is driving horse-drawn carts.  There are no herds of sheep running down highways.  There are no men in three-piece suits walking cows down the road to be milked.  It's all so civilized (not that Albania isn't) and...boring sometimes.  It all just works like it's supposed to.

Something that's hard to get used to is that we fit in when we're in the States.  We speak the same language and know how the rules work.  The absolute kicker is getting used to people NOT staring at us when we go places.  Our first tour was in Ecuador and now our third one is in Albania (with Canada in between), and it's amazing how often we're just blatantly stared at.  We stick out.  No doubt about it.  We dress different, talk different, even laugh differently than the locals.  So one gets used to walking in a room or restaurant and attracting at least a modicum of attention.  That's absolutely not so when we go home, and it always takes getting used to.

Finally, everything is so easy and convenient in the United States.  There is always something open, no matter the time.  Goods are always readily-available and at every store you go to.  The produce isn't seasonal, and squash actually exists!  If you have a recipe that calls for okra and it's Winter, you can still have okra!  It's almost a novelty sometimes.  Everything comes in single-serving sizes and resealable bags as well.  I love that.  I miss that.  But I sure don't miss the prices that come along with it!


2.  For those of us who have been living abroad for a while, we get traveler's diarrhea when we go home.

Yes, I know it's gross; but it's a fact of life.  The truth is, going home does a complete 180 on our bodies.  Of course, there's airplane food, jet lag, and then an immediate binge session on all our American favorites.  The result?  Ewww!  There's also the water.  While America has super clean water (lucky us), years of living off of bottled and/or distilled water can wreak havoc on our tummies when we switch to tap water.

I know my husband and I get sick every time we go home.  It's not just the water, it's the richness of Louisiana cuisine that does it.  When you've lived on grilled fish and salad for a year and then immediately switch to fried shrimp po-boys and jambalaya over night, there are going to be some effects.  That said, it's still totally worth it.


3.  We plan our lives two to five years in advance.

Bid lists (the list of available jobs around the world) come out about a year before a tour ends.  People research the jobs and the locations of the jobs for several weeks and then "bid" on the a few they want.  The process is tedious and very stressful for both the officers and their spouses, and it's like a vacation when it's finally done.

See, some jobs require that the officer learn a language fluently before they go to that post.  For instance, a job that requires the officer to become fluent in a super hard language like Arabic or Japanese is a job that requires TWO YEARS of language training before the officer is ever sent to post.  Then the length of the posting will be around three years.  Obviously, there are other jobs out there that don't require a language or else require a language like Spanish, which one can become fluent in, in only six months. Those jobs have the quickest turnaround time, so to speak; and it allows officers to move from country to country a little more frequently.

That said, imagine having to plan your entire life two to five years at a time.  You not only have to worry about learning the language and passing the test, whether you'll like post, the job you'll be filling, getting your family settled when you get there, finding employment for your spouse, etc.  Rather, many people also have to worry about planning posts around good high schools (actually being in the same place long enough for their kid to be able to stay in one high school), time spent in training (often living in a small apartment in Virginia for a year at a time), around a spouse leaving a career to join the officer later.

For instance, we leave a year from now.  If my husband requires a year of language, our six- and eight-year-olds will be eight and ten when we get to our next post but be ten and twelve or eleven and thirteen (depending on whether our next post lasts two or three years) when we leave our next post.  We'll have to plan the post after that very carefully to make sure we plan the high school years properly.  Do you realize how crazy it is to have to think about the high school years when my children are only six and eight?  I know it's crazy, but it's a fact of FS life (or maybe it's just me being neurotic).


4.  Our kids have no idea what kids in the States are doing as far as pop culture, fashion, TV, music, etc. They find it really hard to relate to other kids when they go back home.

Foreign Service kids are both amazing and resilient.  They can have a conversation with anyone from a president to a regular Joe and never have an issue.  They don't fear change, because change is a constant.  They don't fear making new friends, going new places, not speaking the language, or moving away from a house and a place they will probably never see again.  All of these things are a part of a Foreign Service kid's life.

Watching an FS kid meet another FS kid is so awesome to see.  It doesn't matter where they meet or under what circumstances.  Some of the first questions they ask are, "Where do you live?", "Where have you lived?", and "What languages do you speak?"  That said, Foreign Service kids are a minority; and, sadly, they can seem off-putting or "weird" to other kids when they go back to the States.

Watching my boys play with their cousins is always fun, but I'm thankful that the fact that they are family, supersedes the "weird" factor.


5.  Home leave and R&Rs are orgies of gluttony and shopping.

Oh, American and Louisiana food, how I miss you.  Southern-style vegetables, I miss you and worship your very existence.  Honestly, fast food, how I miss you too.  I live in one of the last remaining countries in the world that does not have a McDonald's or a Burger King or anything of the sort.  Yes, that means the first thing I do with my kids when we go to any other country in the world is to look for a McDonald's.  And we eat at the Hard Rock Cafe in every country we go to, too.  And, no, it's not good food.  Why do we absolutely run to them when on vacation or when we get to the States?  Because they taste the exact same every time and place we try them.  Sometimes (for some of you, all the time), you just crave a certain taste like McDonald's french fries.  Well, we crave it for months at a time.  Can you even imagine how bad that sucks?  I live in a place where you can only get cilantro like three months out of the year and then only find it about twice in the store during those three months.  It sucks.  I put cilantro in everything.  So I've learned to grow my own.

Yes, when Foreign Service families go on R&R or on home leave in between posts, we eat like animals.  It really is an orgy of food.  We eat out every single meal if we can.  We do not count calories or carbs or fat grams.  We have a short, set amount of time when we have to fulfill every craving (or "envie" as I grew up calling it) that we've had since the last time we were home.  For some of us, that means that we eat shrimp po-boys and boiled crawfish for six weeks straight.  We drink Abita beer and eat blocks of cheddar cheese because we simply cannot get it at home.  We (and I mean "I") gain 5-15 pounds and we simply don't care.  We know it's going to happen every single time.  You can always tell when someone's just come back from R&R because they show up after a few weeks looking fat, oily, and completely unhealthy.  And they make everyone else jealous!

I mentioned earlier that we go home and spend $1000 at Target and people stare at us.  Well, the truth is that we might do that twice or so during each R&R.  See, when you go a year or more without going to your favorite store (or any store you like that actually carries your size at an affordable price), you might go a little loco with the charge card.  It happens to all of us.  But add that to the fact that you haven't been in a year and you won't be back for at least a year, and you get binge shopping.  I use Target as my example, because that is one place where my entire family can find something appropriate and affordable to wear.  But when you plan your life years ahead of time, very often you have to shop years ahead of time too.  Granted, I know that there is online shopping; but I absolutely detest it.  You can't see the real colors (and see if they match those shoes you love) or feel the read fabrics or--God forbid!--try them on.  So I go to Target and I buy boys' jeans in three sizes, socks, underwear, swimsuits, T-shirts, etc. all for the following year.  I buy a size or two up on the clearance racks for next year's seasons.  (See why we're never quite "in style" yet?)

We don't just buy tons of clothes when we go home.  We buy things like snacks, canned food, seasonings, kids' friends' birthday party gifts, wrapping paper, you name it.  We buy anything one would refrain from buying online because they want to see it in person first; we just happen to buy a year or two's worth at a time.


6.  We always miss home but really have no desire to go back for any lengthy period of time.

I absolutely do not speak for all FS families; however, I do know for certain that many of them agree with me on this.  We join this life because of an unquenchable thirst for experiencing new things and a love of travel.  We love experiences over having "things."  We love the rush that comes with learning a new language or learning about a new culture.  This is not something that will ever change.  We'll never be happy living in the States and working a regular 9-5 job and down the street from where we grew up.

So, while we love to go "home" (back to the U.S.), it will probably never feel quite like "home" again.  In fact, we're nomads.  We pick up our entire lives every few years and never look back.  We make incredible friendships that are temporary.  We have no desire to go back and live forever (at least not until retirement).

Personally, we've thought about what it would be like to go back to the States and live and work and give our children "roots."  We've considered it at times.  But there is one thing I know to be absolutely true: we'd still be itching to move around every two or three years.  We'd never stay in one place, not even in our beloved New Orleans.  It's just not who we are.  I think most FS couples are the same way.


7.  We're always scared we're screwing up our kids.

I mentioned earlier that our kids (FS kids) are often considered weird to normal kids who grow up in the States.  By the time they graduate high school, most have lived in six to eight different countries, and most can converse in three or four different languages.  They have seen true poverty and true riches.  They understand the cultural norms in each of the countries in which they're raised.  They understand how the U.S. Department of State and other agencies operate.  They are not scared of anything.  They are very well-rounded and intelligent and, for the most part, most of the them are very articulate.  These kids do not get intimidated.  But see, the thing is, these kids do intimidate others.  Hell, some of them intimidate me!  They're amazing!

And these children, for the most part, have absolutely no roots.  If you ask these kids--even my kids--where they're from, you'll most likely hear the state where they take their home leave.  My kids say different states, the states in which they were born, though neither of them has ever lived in either of those states.  They fight over where "home" is.

It's during conversations such as these that my husband and I wonder if we're screwing our kids up by not giving them those roots.  They absolutely thrive when we go to Louisiana or Alabama and they see their cousins, grandparents, and aunts and uncles; and they absolutely thrive.  And they ask a hundred questions about how they're related to these people because they don't know them.  They don't realize which one is my sibling and which one is the in-law or what the makeup of the family is.  They don't know which kids belong to which adults.  My children know they love these people and that they are loved by these people, but they do not "know" these people.  And that's difficult.

My husband and I often wonder if we're giving our kids truly amazing opportunities to thrive in this world or every reason to end up hiding from it.  That said, we truly believe it's the former rather than the latter.  But we still wonder.  And we've sworn an oath to one another that if this lifestyle ever starts to impact our children's well-being in a negative way, we're out.  We quit.


8.  We are some of the most patriotic people you'll ever meet, even though we don't actually live in our own country for years and/or decades at a time.

We bleed red, white, and blue.  We never get a break other than home leave or R&R; rather, we're always "on duty."  This does not mean that we work 24 hours per day.  What it means is that even when we're grocery shopping, we are representatives of the United States of America.  It comes with the job.  Sometimes, it's really easy to be an American overseas.  I live in the most pro-American country in the world.  Our friends and colleagues who serve in other countries aren't always as lucky, but they still serve with pride.  We all do.


9.  We change cars a lot.

We tend to change cars every tour or so.  It's true.  Sometimes, it's because one's next post requires a right-hand drive.  Other times, it's because countries won't allow a car over a certain age to be imported.  Other times, it's because we're offered over market value just because that particular car isn't available for sale in *blank country.*  Why not?


10.  We are usually VERY tight-knit communities.

I'm not going to tell a bold-faced lie and say that every person in every post likes each other.  I'll be honest enough to say that some of us down right hate each other.  That's what happens when you work together, live on top of each other, socialize together, etc.  But if it hits the fan, we're all we've got.  We may not agree; we may not associate; but we've all got each other's backs.  No one knows what it's like to be in this life like a fellow colleague does.  Sometimes, you're going to get into trouble;  and you might need to call someone you really don't like to help get you out of it.  It's part of the life we've chosen.


11.  Even small children in the FS know what jet lag is and what to prepare themselves for.

Kids, even kids four and six, do not forget their first case of jet lag.  I find it really cool that I can talk to my boys about things like that, and they know exactly what I'm talking about.  We've got rock star kids when it comes to traveling.  Each time we leave Albania for a trip back to the States, we have to wake our kids up at 1:00 AM for a trip to the airport.  They know that they have to stay up until the 10:00 AM flight leaves for the States so that they will sleep deeply and their jet lag won't be as bad.  They do it every time, and they never complain or act ugly at the airport.  FS kids are some of the best travelers I have ever seen.


12.  We hoard food.

It's true.  We absolutely hoard food, and we're shameless about it.  When you haven't seen black beans in a year and then find them, you will absolutely buy all 25 cans you find.  I am not above dropping $100 on black beans or even Oatmeal Creme Pies if necessary.  I personally hoard food from Amazon, the grocery store, wherever I can find it.  You might as well go big or go home.  What's the point of ordering two boxes of oatmeal per month when you can order 12 boxes and be done with it for six months?  I'd rather buy it all at once and have it than always be waiting on it to come in.

Food is not the only thing we hoard.  Every FS family has those things they can't do without.  Whether it's lotion or makeup or toilet paper, we have stockpiles of it.  Why, you ask?  It can take over a month to get something in the mail.  We'd rather not have to do without.  Razors are a huge deal for me; so I always pack tons of those.  It just depends on the family, where they're going, etc.

When we were preparing for our first tour, I bought two years worth of toilet paper because our sponsors told us the quality at post was bad.  Could I have gotten toilet paper at post? Yes!  Did I want to have to deal with trying 10 kinds to find the right one?  No!  So we made an epic trip to Target and filled up an SUV with toilet paper.  People stared and probably thought we were going to TP someone's house.  We didn't care.  We ended up buying enough to get us through 22 months of a 24-month tour.  Pretty good math, if I do say so myself.


13.  Our lives revolve around weight.

Even if a FS family member had hoarding urges, they could never be allowed to really act on them.  Why?  Well, we are only allowed a certain number of pounds to be shipped from place to place (without us having to pay out of pocket), and that number is not the same for every posting.  A furnished post will have a maximum shipment that is half of an unfurnished post, and that's as it should be.

So for those of us (and I mean me) who arrive at post every single time with the maximum allowable shipment weight, we have our hands full when moving time comes around.  Take into account the sheer amount of crap you accumulate in three years.  Then imagine wanting to keep it all but having to get rid of enough old stuff to compensate for that extra weight.  By the end of a packout, no one is surprised to hear of people giving away nice, expensive, and/or barely-used items to friends and neighbors.  Our household help always makes out like a bandit.  You start begging people to take things and leaving things (like goldfish) on doorsteps before taking a car to the airport.  Yes, even I have done things like this.  It's not so bad when you're in the States and can innundate the Goodwill with crap no one else wants.  It's an entirely different thing to start throwing perfectly good items away because you simply can't add any more weight to your shipment.  Books, you say?  Ha! I haven't bought an actual book in years.  I've given most of my paperbacks away over the years, just to help make weight.

And just like saying goodbye to people in the FS life isn't that hard, neither is saying goodbye to stuff.  We just don't get attached to things like people who will live in the same place for the next 30 years.  There's no point.


14.  Goodbyes are a way of life and aren't that hard for us after a while.

Goodbyes are not that big of a deal to us.  It doesn't mean we don't miss our friends and family.  It doesn't mean we're emotionally stunted or anything like that.  It just means we're used to it.  We say goodbye to our entire friend and social network every two to three years.  It's like changing clothes at this point. There are people you will miss desperately, and there are those you hope you never see again as long as you live.

Sure, saying goodbye to someone you really care about can be difficult; but it's not like it was the first time we had to do it.  I have to give credit to blogs and Facebook for that.  I cannot imagine what FS families went through twenty years ago when one had to rely on letters and intermittent mail.

FS kids don't get that upset when their friends move, either.  Chances are that we'll all see each other again, either during training or at a future post.  We're a relatively small community, and the kids know that.  They're so resilient.


15.  Lots of us have domestic employees/servants like gardeners, nannies, housekeepers, and nannies.  We can afford it, but we know it's not the norm everywhere.

There are a lot of countries out there where household help is cheap.  I'm talking a few dollars per day!  If you lived in one of these countires, wouldn't you try to hire someone to clean your toilets?
I thought so.  Our first post, we had three "domestic servants."  It was so cheap for full-time help that we hired a gardener, a housekeeper, and a full-time nanny.

A lot of people who hear about FS families having armies of servants assume that we're stuck up.  While I'm sure some people are, that's not usually the case.  We do without a lot of luxuries and niceties to be able to afford that help.  We also do a lot of good for local communities by employing people who might not otherwise find jobs.  Actually, in some places, it's insulting not to hire at least one helper.

I know in our family, we have absolutely always loved the people that work for us.  We always treat them fairly, pay them above-market salaries, and give them lots of time off. Do we know how lucky we are?  You betcha!!!