DiploJournal
Special Relationship on Hold for Two Hours
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On March 5, 1946, during his Sinews of Peace address, Winston Churchill referred to the special relationship between the British Commonwealth and the United States. Through triumph and challenge, the relationship has continued to be close ever since, underscored by diplomatic and military cooperation. Today, replaying a hiccup in 1950, we took a time out.
That was the last time the United States and England played each other in a World Cup finals match. As the dominant favorite (or as they’d say, favourite), our British counterparts graciously invited the U.S. diplomatic corps in Ottawa to raise a few pints and watch the match at the High Commission. Shared language and geopolitical goals, for 90 minutes, gave way to revisiting a 60-year-old bitter rivalry. At least, it was bitter from their point of view.
The United States and England have played in World Cup group play only once before. In what has since been dubbed the Miracle on Grass, a plucky group of American amateurs upset the dominant team in the world, 1-0, after having lost its prior 7 international matches by a combined score of 45-2. So sure were the English newspapers that the wire report contained a typo, they published the score as a 10-1 England victory. Apparently, nobody in the United States knows about it because it happened over 20 years ago and because Disney never made a movie about it. Most everyone in England, however, remembers it like it was yesterday.
Once again, the United States found itself as a dominant underdog to a powerhouse English team. After exchanging pleasantries, thanking our hosts, and finishing my first pint of Speckled Hen, the match began. From the start, England dictated the pace and it seemed as if we were always on defense. After four minutes, the Three Lions’ captain, Steven Girrard, found the back of the net and our hosts went wild. The American section fell silent, imagining a long afternoon of polite smiles and embarrassed congratulations.
Although the Englishmen continued to attack, American goalkeeper Tim Howard made a series of miraculous saves. In the 40th minute, what looked to be an easy save slipped past Robert Green’s grasp and trickled into the English goal. It wasn’t pretty, but it gave the Americans an excuse to stand up and cheer. Our hosts couldn’t believe it.
The rest of the match, although a tense exercise of repelling repeated English attacks, reminded us why soccer will never become as popular in America. Lots of tension, but no scoring. It ended in a tie.
Although we could hold our heads high and claim the moral victory with a draw, it still felt unsatisfying. Just like the players in South Africa, we all shook hands and headed for the exit. At least the special relationship remains intact.
Doors Open
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I’ve had this huge project hanging over my head for over a month and today was the first post-completion day. I thought I’d finally be able to sleep late, but I was still up at 5:30 running through my mental check-list of what needed to get finished. Today, at least, it was just some mop up items.
The project sounds pretty straight-forward: coordinate the Embassy’s participation in Doors Open Ottawa. Public and private buildings all over town open up to the public over one week-end for tours. Sounds like fun.
I received the assignment in late April, right after returning from the High Arctic trip. The Deputy Chief of Mission (aka the DCM) called out of the blue and asked if I’d be willing to jump in and run the effort. Sure. No problem. Happy to help. I’m sure it won’t be too much to add on top of my regular day job in the consular section.
It wasn’t until the next day that I realized what had just fallen on my head. First, there were over a dozen moving parts to the project. Second, the Embassy had never participated in such a program and we haven’t actually confirmed that any United States Embassy has opened its doors for public tours. Third, the project was a very high priority for both the DCM and the Ambassador. Oh, and we needed to produce an introductory video that would kick-off the tours. In a month.
Although there was a lot of stress involved in putting all the pieces together, it was actually a great project. It forced me to learn very quickly who does what within the Embassy. At times it felt a lot like an elongated version of the foreign service oral examination. Here’s a problem. Options 1 through 3 are now off the table. Figure out a solution. Now. And don’t spend much money. But it still better work.
Thankfully, there are a lot of free resources out there if you are willing to figure out how to use them. I was also very happy to learn that I am surrounded by a lot of very smart, dedicated folks, willing to lend a hand even though it isn’t their regular job. There was already a team in place but lots still left to figure out and, of course, to execute.
The video was my biggest headache up front. I just didn’t think it was realistic to put it together in a month given that we had a limited budget and no source material. My initial effort to push back on the one item met with clear marching orders. There will be a video. It will look professional and will cover the history of the United States mission in Canada, the building of the current Embassy, and the importance of the United States-Canadian relationship.
We put together a sub-committee, found some source material from the Canadian archives and connections through our public diplomacy group, slashed the outside production company’s proposed budget, and pressed on. We saw the rough cut last week and, surprise surprise, they did an amazing job.
Looking at the schedule from 10:00am to 4:00pm, we initially were aiming to get 480 people through the building. Security always has to be one of the key concerns for such a project so we needed to keep the tours small enough to be manageable. With 480 people over six hours, that’s 80 people per hour, or 10 tours of 8. Each tour would thus have to get started every six minutes. No problem. With enough volunteers, we could do that.
OK, so now how do we decide who get’s to go on the tours? Opening the doors and letting everyone and anyone wander in — like just about every other participant — was not going to work. We thus put together an online pre-registration system. If people wanted to take a tour, they would need to sign up online, providing name, nationality, birthdate, and email address. We would then send email invitations to the first 480. The proposal for creating such a system came in at over $5,000. Our budget? $0. Uh oh.
Google to the rescue. Our folks put together a free alternative system that collected the data just as we’d designed, using GoogleDocs. When the City of Ottawa announced the lineup, the United States Embassy was the big story. Television news covered it the night before the Ottawa Citizen reported it. By the time the newspapers hit everyone’s breakfast table, we had over 3,000 registrations and the system was crashing. I guess I need not have worried about people being interested enough to fill out a form to get in.
Once I had the master list of interested people, it was a surprisingly complex task of identifying groups, organizing them into desired time slots, and sending out customized email invitations. I won’t bore you (more) with the details, but it was several late nights working with Outlook, Word, Excel, and Gmail. Suffice to say, I got the email invitations out, as well as a couple thousand regret emails to those we could not accommodate. Given the overwhelming response, we decided to include another 120 guests. I was getting good at saying, “Sure, No Problem.” And then panicking later.
Although putting together the tour itself was not trivial, the building really is beautiful. As the Ambassador noted in one of the interviews, it looks a bit like a fortress on the outside, but the interior is all light wood, glass, and lots of exterior light. We put together a four-stop tour through two floors of the building, including the Ambassador’s office. We ended up recruiting 50 volunteers willing to dedicate all or part of their Saturday to work the event.
Yesterday, despite scattered thunderstorms all day, the event went off just about exactly as planned. Everyone needed to be screened through security like at the airport, but our security staff was very friendly and efficient. The line started early, but we quickly caught up such that nobody with an invitation remained outside for more than five minutes. The video worked. The tours departed on time all morning and all afternoon (granted, I spent the entire six hours making sure everything moved on time). The tour guides were well-prepared and performed extremely well. The Ambassador surprised the first dozen tours by welcoming them in person and showing them around the executive office.
Most importantly, just about everyone left impressed by the Embassy and the openness of the staff. I put together a quick online survey and sent it to everyone who attended the event to gauge their candid impressions and to get some ideas on what we could have done better. The survey received a huge response within hours. Over 90% found the tour to be very good or excellent. 98% would recommend it to friends or family if we do it again next year.
After a quick clean up, I headed off to the bar for a scotch. Tomorrow, I get to do visa adjudications without constantly following up on a million details while the applicant walks to my window. Tuesday night I have a presentation to give. Wednesday, I’ll start focusing on what my role will be for the G8 and POTUS visit coming in two weeks.
Springtime means tulips
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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
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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.”
Back from the Moon
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It’s been a long week. On a trek to explore six universities in five days, my daughter and I enjoyed some long overdue one-on-one time. Starting and ending in Ottawa, I drove over 1,000 miles. We ate some good food, caught up with a one of our best friends in Boston and family in New York, stayed in some good hotels, and had our fill of campus tours and information sessions. We had an amazing time and made some good progress on the college search. After dropping her at JFK, I drove 8 hours back to Ottawa, unpacked and slept well.
On Sunday, I did some laundry, ran some errands, packed some heavier winter gear, and headed toward the North Pole. Really.
OK, so I didn’t make it all the way to the North Pole, but I did get within 500 miles. I still don’t know why I got so lucky, but a few weeks ago I received a very cryptic message that the Ambassador wanted to know if I could accompany him on a trip. Sure, no problem. I didn’t know where or why, but the dates fit in well right after the long-standing date with my daughter so I quickly agreed. I learned later that I’d be joining a small group on a trip to Alert, Nunavuk, the northernmost permanently inhabited place on the planet.
Here’s a map that shows roughly where we went (clicking on the image will blow it up big enough to actually see).
I’m not sure why, but it seems that most military flights leave at ridiculous times. I arrived at the Embassy at 2:30 am on Monday. In my distinctly non-military life, that counts as Sunday night, particularly since I never slept. We drove to a private terminal at the airport where the traveling party met. After some prep time, we walked the tarmac to a Canadian Air Force C-17. The flight plan was pretty simple. 6 hours non-stop to Alert, Nunavuk. Due North.
I’m told by those in the know that this flight made a little bit of history. This was the first ever direct flight from Ottawa to CFS Alert and most likely the first flight ever from a national capital direct to any point of landing above 82° latitude. Kinda cool.
Unlike passenger jets, there are not a lot of windows in the C-17. This thing is made to carry tanks, not passengers. We were afforded a lot more freedom to walk around, however, so I caught the sun rising.
The sun didn’t set again until we returned to Ottawa.
The C-17 is not the typical aircraft used for Arctic flights. In fact, this was the second time ever the C-17 had landed on the gravel and ice runway at Alert. The first time was last week just to make sure it would work. Aside from me, the passengers on board were VIPs and it would be bad form to make a completely experimental run with such an important passenger list. Here’s a shot of the plane just after we landed.
The landscape was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It’s not just the snow and ice. It’s the vastness of the land and the complete absence of any visible plants or trees. The closest I’ve come to anything like this is Death Valley, but that doesn’t really compare. It felt like what I’d imagine it’d be like to walk on the moon. It was a challenging environment for photography because everything is just so white. I had to underexpose significantly and struggle with the sun which was at a constant 45-degree angle. Instead of going up and down, it just rotated around the horizon.
The station has an incredible staff and they kept us moving, virtually non-stop, until about midnight. We visited the memorial for the 9 crew members of the RCAF Lancaster that crashed in 1950, and then headed to the base for a series of briefings.
After a quick lunch, we jumped in a Swedish SnowCat contraption — picture a minivan with tank treads instead of wheels — and rumbled into the Arctic for about a half an hour. We came upon two temporary campsites. One built by Canadian Rangers and one built by a Danish military sled dog team. The Rangers were mostly locals who participate as a sub-group of Canadian Forces Reserve. They do periodic Arctic surveillance missions and exchange survival techniques with members of the CSB Alert forces. The Rangers showed us how to build an igloo and a 20-minute survival shelter with nothing more than an ice knife and saw. They also treated us to an Arctic Char Stew — a whole new meaning to fresh, frozen.
As fascinated as I was with the Rangers and their techniques for living in such a harsh environment, my eyes get coming back to the dogs. I love dogs and, other than movies (my kids will gladly tell the tale of my crying my way through Eight Below), I’ve never seen a dog team up close. When we arrived, the team was having a good-natured argument.
The Danes travel over 5,000km each year with the team throughout Greenland and the High Arctic, often 10 hours a day. The dogs work hard and, apparently, play hard. The Danes described how they regularly have to stitch up the dogs when they get a little too rambunctious with each other. Although a little intimidated by the growling, howling, and snapping, I asked if I could get close.
It turns out that they absolutely love people. As I held out my hand, they each pulled at their chains to jump and play with me. Working my way up the line, I ended up wrestling with each dog in turn. They immediately transitioned from snarling wolves to wagging, flopping on their backs, domesticated puppies.
Time seems to have a lot less meaning when the sun doesn’t change elevation. I think we were out there (at 20 below) for about an hour and half or so. We headed back to the base, ate a quick dinner, and then headed back out in a different direction.
This time, we visited a tent pitched over the Arctic Ocean. Outside were huge triangles of ice. Inside, was a triangular hole in the ice with each side approx 10-15 feet long. They were not fishing. Instead, a team of divers were taking turns doing 150-ft. dives into the Arctic. For fun. The process of creating a diving hole was a modern engineering marvel involving a water saw (picture a copper tube drilled into the ice, connected to a pump, connected to a heater that boils the water, connected to another narrow copper pipe that turns the boiled water into a thin stream that “cuts” through the ice). It took over two hours to make the cuts, and a forklift to pull the tons of ice out.
The water was crystal clear like the Caribbean. Except with 5-1/2 feet of ice on top. The divers went in two at a time and could last about 15 minutes or so before the cold really started to penetrate their suits. A relatively small hole and thousands of miles of ice? Not in my lifetime, but it was fascinating talking to the divers while they worked.
We left the dive site around 9:15 or so and that was supposed to be it for the night. We were tired, but the 24-hour sun made it tough to call it a day. A couple of us were anxious to get a chance to explore on the ski-doo snowmobiles so this was the perfect time. We had to wait awhile for others to return to the base during which I realized that I was heading out with two very experienced fighter pilots for a little speedy fun in a wide open playground.
The fact that none of us had ever driven a snowmobile and the fact that the ground was filled with lots of moguls kept me in the game. One of the snowmobiles ended up rolling over, but I won’t identify the culprit. I will say that it wasn’t me, no blood hit the ice, and there were no casualties. Except for the rear view mirror that formerly adorned the left side of the ski-doo. The crew presented the mirror on an ornate polar bear-shaped plaque to the unnamed driver in a quiet ceremony.
We rode about a half-hour out to a glacier, parked the ski-doos, and made the short climb to the top for some photos.
We returned to the base unscathed, albeit a little chilly. I finally got to sleep at midnight, about 40 hours since I’d last slept. Because we had so little time in Alert, we didn’t waste much with sleep. My alarm went off at 5:30 and I was packed up, dressed in winter gear, and in line for breakfast at 6:30.
Although we were scheduled to head home, we had a morning of activity still on the Alert schedule. After breakfast, we immediately headed toward the airfield. No plane to board just yet, however. Instead, we climbed into a Sikorsky helicopter and took off for tiny Ward Hunt Island — further north into the Arctic Ocean. The scenery during that flight was simply breathtaking.
After landing on Ward Hunt, we did a whirlwind tour of a temporary Canadian Forces camp, attended a briefing by the team, and took in the vistas.
Ward Hunt serves as the final stop for adventurers trekking to the North Pole so there are a few monuments to those missions. We ended up giving a ride back to Ottawa to an Australian who came within a few hours of giving his life to his attempt.
It was an amazing story. Had it not been for a lucky coincidence, he would surely have perished on the ice. While heading toward the Pole on a solo cross-country skiing attempt, Mr. Smitheringale fell through the ice, spending 10 minutes up to his neck in the Arctic. Although he managed to pull himself onto the ice, his timely rescue occurred only because the Canadian Forces and Rangers happen to be doing their annual military exercise in the region at the same time.
Despite his severe frostbite, he insisted that this would not be his last attempt. Although I think they are all a little nuts, he makes the ice divers and dog sledders seem like pikers.
We piled back on to the helicopter and walked over to the C-17. It was certainly the most unique flight connection I’ve ever experienced. On the way home, we stopped at the US Air Force base in Thule, Greenland. While they refueled the C-17, we drove to the base and received a tour of the facility and a briefing on their mission. Sorry, no pictures from Thule.
We landed back in Ottawa around 7:00 pm and, despite our extraordinary mode of transport, the crew handed out customs declaration cards as we prepared to land. Nope, I didn’t bring back over $10,000 in cash and I didn’t visit any farms.
Intregrated Bilingualism
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The other night, I had the pleasure of attending the Governor General’s Awards in visual and Media Arts at the National Gallery on behalf of the U.S. Embassy. The prizes were essentially lifetime achievement awards for a diverse group of Canadian visual artists. The National Gallery’s great hall on a beautiful early evening was the perfect spot for the cocktail party and presentation.
The crowd included members of the younger art scene, local luminaries, as well as the friends and families of the honorees. I did the rounds, having previously mastered the art of holding a glass of wine with a napkin of cheese and crackers in one hand, so as to leave the other free for spontaneous new acquaintance hand-shaking. As I made the rounds around the circular hall, I met several artists and one woman who works for the Canadian government funding international development programs.
We all took our seats for the award presentation and short speeches by the recipients. The first speaker described the history of the awards and process by which the Canada Council for the Arts received nominations and selected the ultimate winners. I have become used to a certain level of Canadian bilingualism, just in my interactions on the street, in shops, and in restaurants. I was at first surprised to hear so much French in what I expected to be an English-dominated province. What really struck me during the hour-long presentation, however, was how every speaker incorporated both French and English.
I’ve been to many presentations that included two or more languages. Typically, these become very tedious in that the speaker repeats the same paragraph verbatim in each language. Every flight from the U.S. to Europe, for example, will have the most language-gifted flight attendant demonstrate his or her proficiency by repeating the standard buckle-your-seatbelt-don’t-smoke-save-the-kids-first diatribe in multiple tongues. Similarly, the law here requires all public signage to reflect both languages, repeating the warning or instruction in both languages.
This was different. Each speaker at the event, presenters and recipients alike, switched mid-speech between French and English. Instead of repeating the prior part of the speech, however, each simply continued in the alternate language. It was pretty clear for each speaker which language was most comfortable. The part of the speech, whether at the beginning or the end, that had the most jokes reflected the individual’s dominant language.
Although my three years of high school French failed me years ago, I’m slowly improving. My French language comprehension has improved in the last month from panic-inducing non-existence to simple incompetence. Thankfully, my seat-mate was kind enough to translate the jokes for me every time I frowned in concentration (“OK, I know that one was about a talking fish, right?”).
On the street, just about every shop, cart, and restaurant staffer will make an instantaneous guess as to whether you speak English or French and address you in that language. For whatever reason, I have a Gallic look as more often than not the greeting comes in rapid-fire French. My tortured accent, however, always undermines my attempt to blend and the conversation typically reverts quickly to English. I’m working on it.
For most foreign service posts, I will have to pass a certain level of fluency in the local language. In Ottawa, one of our consular officers is fluent in French while another is fluent in Spanish. Me, I guess I’m fluent in sarcasm (which doesn’t always translate here in Canada). For those with an interest, even if the current job is not language-designated, the Foreign Service provides access to an online version of Rosetta Stone.
I was skeptical. How can anything sold primarily through infomercials and mall carts actually be worthwhile? It turns out to be pretty good. I’m working at glacial speed, mostly because I’m lazy, but I do find it useful. My goals are modest, but still well beyond my current grasp. To be seated in a restaurant and receive the French language menu from the hostess. And, of course, to understand the jokes without translation.
Tags: arts, bilingual, bilingualism, Canada, Foreign Service, French, Ottawa, representation events
S Visit
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One of the great benefits of consular line work is the regular hours. We start early, but the day is typically over by 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon. No late nights. No week-ends. That is, when the G8 Foreign Ministers’ meeting isn’t taking place in your backyard.
The last week was a definite change of pace. I had my regular duties in the morning, interviewing 30 or so non-immigrant visa applicants. In the afternoon, I was a minor cog in a large team preparing for the U.S. delegation’s 2-day visit to Ottawa and Gatineau for the G8.
The boss has a lot of titles. To most of the world, she’s the Secretary of State, America’s Chief Diplomat, former Presidential Candidate, or former First Lady. To those of us inside the State Department bubble, she is simply S.
Getting to work with the advance team preparing for an S visit can be a lot of fun. It can also get a little scary. As a site officer, I had the responsibility for ironing out all the details for one particular site. It’s the kind of job that you get noticed only if you screw up.
When I received the assignment, one of the senior folks remarked that I must be setting the record for the shortest time between completing A-100 and serving as a site officer for an S visit. Great. Honestly, I’m in no hurry. What I thought was a pretty simple, straight-forward itinerary (motorcade arrives, reception, working dinner, motorcade departs) had a million minor moving parts, all of which remained fluid up to and after the event began.
Leading up to game day, I had a bunch of meetings with the people on site, with others on the team, and with other delegations. I thought I had everything buttoned down. Well, things change. No press inside the building turned into press opportunities upstairs and downstairs including a short bilateral meeting with the Japanese delegation. I learned a lot, very quickly, concerning protocol for such meetings — who sits where, what flags get positioned where, etc.
Although not always smooth behind the scenes, everything was ready when all the Foreign Ministers arrived. The movements from each event went smoothly, and everything went off pretty much as planned. Although S passed me in the tight hallway a couple of times, I think I did my job well enough that she doesn’t know my name.
Once our blackberries chirped that S was airborne, the marines opened the doors to the “wheels up” party and another visit was in the books. Back to the regular hours for awhile until POTUS arrives in June.
Official Confirmation
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There is a lot going on (hence the new blackberry on belt), but I’ll hold off writing until the smoke clears. In the meantime, I actually managed to read a whole novel. I have no explanation for why my adult-onset ADD allows me to read non-fiction but won’t let me get all the way through a novel. I plowed through Updike’s Rabbit series last year and have since started several other recent and not-so-recent works. They are all sitting in strategic places around my apartment with prominent bookmarks calling out for resumption. I still have great aspirations to finish Infinite Jest, but at almost 1100 pages it doubles as a work-out just lugging it around. Some day.
In the meantime, I found Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Pakistani Bride a quick read. I know so little about Pakistani history and the various cultures at play there, that I don’t feel the least bit qualified to opine on the substance of the book. That said, it gives one (not so flattering) view of the tribal Pakistanis in the 1950s from the vantage of Lahore Punjabis and an American woman. I’m back to non-fiction for awhile, but I’m hoping my soon-to-arrive iPad will make it easier to carry a few books around so I can make more progress on Infinite Jest.
I used to claim that I spent so much time reading at work (which I did), that reading for pleasure at the end of the day was difficult. I do a lot less reading at work now so I guess it was all just an excuse to justify my TV addiction. Oh well.
I do spend a chunk of time every day reviewing cables, some of which are relevant to what I’m doing now. Others are relevant to what I’ll be doing in a year. Still others are just interesting. As I was doing my regular reading the other day, up popped this one (don’t worry, it’s unclassified and public knowledge):
SUBJECT: SENATE CONFIRMATION AND PRESIDENTIAL
ATTESTATION OF FOREIGN SERVICE GENERALIST LIST 2009 #11
1. Following are the names of 99 individuals included on
Foreign Service Generalist List 2009 #11. This list was
nominated by the President on December 11, 2009,
confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2010 and attested
by the President on March 15, 2010. Posts are requested
to share this information with their officers.
….
4. For appointment as Consular Officers and Secretaries
in the Diplomatic Service of the United States of
America:
…
Daniel Ross Harris, of California
I guess in between passing landmark health care reform, completing a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, and overhauling the federal student loan program, the powers that be found time to confirm my class of foreign service officers. Kind of a kick to see it in print.
Tags: A-100, Bapsi Sidhwa, fiction, Foreign Service, Pakistan, reading
The Constant Transition
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I’ve always liked transition. When I was a programmer, it was starting a new project or learning a new language. When I was a lawyer, it was starting a new case or, four different times, taking a new job with a different law firm. When I was a photographer, it was the change in seasons with, for example, basketball transitioning to baseball. The foreign service is transition to the Nth degree.
Everything we touch is in a constant state of change. Our supervisors, our support staff, our duties, our substantive focus, our living arrangements, and, of course, the city and country in which we live. I arrived in Ottawa just over a month ago. The week before I left Washington, in between packing and trudging through snow to run last-minute errands, I submitted a narrative requesting assignment to a very short list of hardship posts. It was an odd request because Ottawa, by and large, is deemed to be very desirable post. I was certainly not looking to curtail my two-year assignment to Canada because I didn’t want to live in a safe, clean, extremely comfortable Western city.
I did not, however, want to leave the tough posts for others to do and, for personal reasons, the timing works much better for me and my family if I do an unaccompanied tour sooner rather than later. That said, the off-season bidding presented very few options for which I qualified. I don’t speak Arabic, Urdu, Pashtu, or Dari and I don’t have the experience of several tours under my belt. There were only a handful of jobs that I could even suggest, but they were still a long-shot given the general directive that first tour officers should not be assigned to such places. I wrote a one-page narrative on why I thought it was a good idea, organized a very short bid list, and forgot about it.
I was thus a little bit shocked (and thrilled) to get the email. My time in Ottawa will be cut short by a year. I’ll spend some time back in Washington for additional training, and then I’ll be off to Lahore, Pakistan. Although I had applied for a couple of consular jobs as part of that bidding process, my one-year tour in Lahore will not involve visas.
So, as I settle in to this new routine in Ottawa, I am reading about Lahore. The capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, Lahore is 17 miles from the Indian border. There are a myriad of critical political issues at play in the region and, although it is not Ottawa, Lahore has a reputation as being one of Pakistan’s most beautiful and safe urban areas, as well as being the country’s cultural center.
Ah, but the transitions keep coming. I woke up a few days ago to CBC Radio doing the morning news. “45 dead after coordinated bombings in Lahore, Pakistan.” I wasn’t sure if this was a dream or real until I was fully awake and heard the whole story. No doubt things will continue to change over the next year. In the meantime, I’ll continue reading (currently one fiction, The Pakistani Bride, by Bapsi Sidhwa and one non-fiction, Dissent into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid) and trying to focus first and foremost on my current transition here in Canada.
Tags: Foreign Service, FSO, Lahore, Ottawa, Pakistan, transition
A few weeks on the job
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As I expected, it’s been hard to maintain a steady stream of blog entries given the sensitivity of the job I’m doing. In consular training, the constant refrain is that consular officers (or ConOffs in State-speak) have the best stories. They are not wrong. I have the pleasure of interviewing about 30 people a day who are seeking to come to the United States for just about every reason you can imagine. Students coming to study. Specialized workers coming for a dream job. International corporate executives being transferred to a US office. Seamen needing to dock at US ports. Caregivers looking to travel with families on vacation. Circus acrobats getting the call to join the big show. And Disneyland. Lots of people who want to visit Disneyland.
Unfortunately, I can’t describe the specifics in such an open forum. Everyone, whether issued a visa or not, is entitled to their privacy. I can say, however, that I find the work interesting and, dare I say it, fun.
While my specialization (or designated cone) is political affairs, we all do one assignment in consular affairs. In Ottawa, that means adjudicating non-immigrant visa applications. It is no secret that many officers dread doing their requisite consular tour. Some posts can get very monotonous due to the number of applicants and the ubiquity of a common scenario. Some posts in Mexico, the Philippines, and India will see hundreds of applicants — all with the same story — seeking a visa. Plowing through 120 applicants per officer per day in these posts can no doubt be difficult.
Ottawa has been anything but routine, thankfully. Because Canadian citizens, except for very few exceptions, do not require a visa to enter the United States, we see only citizens of other countries. Thus, in a typical day, I will interview people from India, Nigeria, Cuba, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, etc. In a typical month, we’ll get over 100 countries’ citizens come through the Embassy. While there are some scenarios we hear more than once, typically each applicant has a unique situation. This means we spend more time per applicant than a lot of posts. It can be challenging and fascinating. For me, it is sort of like doing 30 depositions a day, albeit very compressed.
Many are routine interviews with very obvious outcomes, either positive or negative for the applicant. Other interviews, however, can result in shock, laughter, confusion, crying, and anger. That was all just last week. I’ve certainly had periods of time in which I’ve worked many more hours than I do here. By the end of the week, however, I find myself just wrung out. It’s tiring, but often gratifying, work. While I’m looking forward to the political assignments coming up in the future, I’m in no hurry to finish my consular assignment.
