DiploJournal
Celebration
2 Comments
Mea culpa. It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything. I could say I’ve been busy, but that hasn’t really delayed prior posts. Fact is, I’ve just been kinda lazy about the blog. I will endeavor to get back on the horse. Until I get lazy again.
One of the nice perks of life in the foreign service is a few extra holidays. We continue to celebrate U.S. holidays, but we also observe local holidays. Thus, I have back-to-back 4-day weeks: last Monday was Victoria Day while this Monday is Memorial Day. It happens again with Canada Day and Independence Day both coming in early July.
Last week-end, I was able to take advantage of the Queen’s birthday to catch up with family and friends in Washington for a double celebration. E and I marked 25 years together (I find myself staring at that after typing it) with a nice hotel, a great bottle of champagne, and a couple of excellent meals. We had a really fun evening catching up with some A-100 friends over a few pitchers of margaritas at Lauriol Plaza, one of our favs.
We were in town principally, however, to attend M’s graduation from the University of Maryland. He chose to forgo the pomp and circumstance (and long boring speeches) at the Comcast Center in favor of a much smaller, more casual Lavender Graduation ceremony. While I was initially disappointed not to get to see him in robes walking down the aisle in a big ceremony, this was undoubtedly a better experience for all of us. The speeches and awards were moving, and M will remember graduation as a celebration with some of his closest friends.
I got a little choked up watching Dr. Cordell Black react with a huge smile and a bigger hug when M walked up to receive his diploma. As an activist leader on campus over the last three years, M has taken a lot of fire from the administration, some of his fellow students, and even a state senator. As a result, the formality of a big ceremony would not have fit. This was a much more appropriate send-off. Needless to say, I couldn’t be prouder of his accomplishments there (not to mention two degrees, both with honors, completed in three years).
At the end of the week-end, M came up to Ottawa with me for a few days to decompress and to catch up. It was great having him here, although for not nearly enough time. While I worked, he explored Ottawa, read a couple of books, and got back on the writing horse himself. We met up for lunch and dinner each day and mostly just hung out. It was a good week.
Work-wise, it has been incredibly busy. In addition to the regular consular duties, I am coordinating a huge Embassy-wide project, putting together an outreach presentation for prospective H1B temporary workers, and preparing for a role as a site officer for the upcoming G8 summit. Things should calm down by the next double 4-day week.
Springtime means tulips
5 Comments
When I think of tulips, which I confess is not very often, I think of the Netherlands. Starting in the 17th century, Holland became the world’s tulip center. Still discussed in business schools, the Tulipmania that engulfed Amsterdam between late 1637 and early 1638 created a free market exuberance that makes the recent housing boom and bust look like a minor blip. Despite its destruction of many family fortunes four centuries ago, tulips are still big business in the Netherlands and the farms bring tourists from around the world.
I had no idea that tulips also play a prominent role in the Ottawa calendar. Every May, the City is covered. Literally 1,000,000 tulip bulbs bloom along the Rideau Canal. The official festival runs from May 7th through the 24th, but with a strangely warm February, everything is in bloom early. The large beds, holding around 300,000 tulips, live in Commissioner’s Park, about 5 miles away and I have yet to get down for any length of time. I did, however, walk my neighborhood and make some photos of the small sets I came across.
This year’s theme is Liberation, kicking off 65 years to the minute after the spontaneous street party that erupted on Spark Street after the announcement of the allies’ victory in Europe. It’s a fitting theme on a few levels. The sea of tulips in modern Ottawa, in fact, finds its roots in the dark days of World War II.
As the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Dutch Royal Family fled to England. It was only a matter of months, however, before the Blitzkrieg found its way across the channel and the Battle of Britain began. Queen Wilhelmina arranged to have the heir to the throne, Princess Juliana, and her two young children, secreted to Wales where they boarded a ship to Canada. While her husband fought in the war, Princess Juliana and her children settled in to life in Ottawa. She volunteered for the Canadian war effort and represented her mother at official events, while the two girls attended public school.
In 1943, the Royal Family faced a sensitive quandary. The Princess was pregnant but it was not yet safe to return home. If the Princess were to give birth on foreign soil, however, the child would not be a true heir to the throne. Ever the respectful host, the Canadians officially ceded the hospital room to the Dutch government. Thus, when Princess Margriet took her first breath of Canadian air, she took her place as the fourth heir to the Dutch crown. The new Princess’s baptism became an international event with President Roosevelt and England’s Queen Mary stepping in as godparents.
Canadian troops led the liberation of Holland beginning in 1944 and, on May 5, 1945, Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charles Foulkes accepted the German surrender. After the war, the Dutch government sent Canada 100,000 tulip bulbs as a token of their appreciation. Princess Juliana gave another 20,000 bulbs and donated another 10,000 bulbs every year, throughout her 33-year reign as Queen, and thereafter until her death in 2004.
Ottawa held its first tulip festival in 1951 featuring the bulbs presented by the Dutch people and Princess Juliana. The festival has grown each year. Commissioner’s Park serves as an epicenter for the tulips and the celebration. It now includes a tribute to Queen Juliana and a dedicated flowerbed to her honor. Liberation, indeed.
The full set of tulip photos can be found here: www.backstopimages.com. I’ll supplement them in a couple weeks with whatever comes of my trip to Commissioner’s Park.
From the Other Side of the Glass
Leave a Comment
I am the first to admit that I’ve had a privileged existence. As a teen-ager in the late 70s and early 80s, my first jobs always involved a keyboard in a cubicle or an office. I learned to type in a junior high school classroom filled with manual typewriters, a skill that ultimately spared me from the fast-food and other typical service-oriented, part-time jobs available to teens of my era. I’ve never had a name tag, a paper hat, or a uniform.
I became fascinated with the emerging personal computer industry, learned programming as a precocious 13-year-old, and found a series of relatively well-paying temporary jobs. When programming jobs were unavailable, there were always clerical opportunities for people who could type 100 words per minute and use Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Pro on a PC, or a dedicated Wang word processor. These days, first graders can text faster than I type but, back in the day, it was unique skill.
Thus, now in my mid-40s, I find myself for the first time at a window serving the public one at a time. A few weeks ago, as I waited for my number to be called at the Ottawa City Hall to register my car and to obtain my Ontario driver’s license, I found myself watching the clerks behind the window. Although I’ve certainly been in similar situations many times before, it was the first time since I started working the other side of the glass.
The crew processing motor vehicle issues appeared to be under-staffed, with a large waiting room of anxious clients. Whether typical or not, I waited for the better part of an hour for my number to appear on the overhead monitors. It was a great opportunity to watch and learn.
All three clerks spoke French and English interchangeably. They dealt efficiently with a wide spectrum of clients: nervous young adults sitting for their driver’s tests with even more nervous onlooking parents, angry people who waited a long time in the wrong office, and confused elderly patrons who did not understand the particular process they were in line to complete. Through all the chaos, the clerks remained composed, patient, and helpful. Most importantly, they each kept their sense of humor and smiled.
I’ve tried to embody these traits in my daily work from the other side of the window. My clients have been in the Embassy — submitting forms, paying fees, and giving fingerprints — for an hour or more before I see them. They are typically nervous about being judged during the interview. Sometimes my brand of humor, sprinkled heavily with sarcasm, doesn’t always translate, particularly for the very nervous applicant. For those clients, I have to work a little harder to reach beyond the memorized speech describing their work history and why they want to visit the United States.
My goal, which I think I achieve in most cases, is to ensure that the client feels they received a fair hearing. The vast majority of my applicants will laugh, or at least give me a polite smile. For those that receive a refusal, I try to spend a little time explaining the basis for the decision. In many cases, I try to describe what they could do to improve their chances the next time. I can be blunt, but that’s reserved for the relatively rare case in which the applicant has several prior refusals, when they are clearly lying in an obvious manner, or when they appear completely unprepared despite numerous instructions to bring key documents.
After the interview, I have little patience for those who continue to argue after I’ve rendered a decision and returned the passport. This is as much for my own sanity as for the other applicants that deserve to reach the window. I’ve quickly developed a good sense for discerning those that believe they can succeed by not taking no for an answer from those that have legitimate questions. For some cultures, a civil servant’s no is simply the first volley in a protracted negotiation. Without yelling, I definitely raise the volume a bit, cut them off quickly, and make my decision’s finality abundantly clear. The applicant then typically makes an extremely slow effort to gather papers, apparently hoping that the longer they remain in front of me, the more likely I will change my mind.
After a sip of tea from my thermos to wipe the slate clean, I greet the next applicant with a smile. “Welcome the United States Embassy.”
