DiploJournal
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
Congratulations, Team Canada
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What a game to close the Olympics. Although Team USA hung in with the superstar-heavy Canadian hockey team, things looked bleak in the third period. Trailing 2-1 with 90 seconds left, the American squad pulled their goalie to add another attacker. In a desperate melee with 10 seconds left, the puck found the back of the net and we were miraculously heading to overtime. Several bars and restaurants downtown blasted the game from outdoor speakers here in Ottawa and just about everyone on the street wore team jerseys and/or sported red and white face paint. At the end of regulation, you could here a pin drop. Team USA had just shot Canada’s dog.
The drama continued into the overtime with both teams pressing in a 4-on-4, 20-minute, sudden death contest for everything. When Sidney Crosby knocked in the golden goal, the place went nuts. I don’t mean just the “barn” in Vancouver where the match was played before a rabid Canadian crowd. I mean everywhere north of the border. Here in Ottawa, thousands of miles away, people swarmed the streets screaming and shouting. An impromptu “Oh Canada” sing-along broke out in the ByWard Market.
As I write this, the game ended over 1/2 hour ago and the medals have been presented to each player. The car horns, screams, and shouts in the street, however, show no signs of letting up. Just as Team USA took a collective knee on the ice and watched the celebration, I watched the celebration from my chilly balcony. Canada is Hockey. They were the better team, they stepped up when it counted, and they deserved the gold. What a perfect end to the Vancouver games for the home team.
Hockey and Canadians
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I planned all day yesterday to head to a local pub around 7:30pm to watch Team USA take on the Canadians in Olympic hockey. Although there was no medal on the line, the hype has been building for two weeks as the top seed Canadian squad demolished its first opponent, Norway, 8-0. Yeah, that’s a hockey score. You could feel tension begin to rise in the streets, however, after several much-hyped Canadian athletes, from alpine skiers to figure skaters, failed to medal. I’ve been cheering, and cringing, with home team fans since arriving. Setting aside the “own the podium” program aimed at securing the overall medal competition for the host country, Canada still has hockey. Even with a tough overtime win over Switzerland, everyone here remained confident that Canada would close the games holding gold in its national sport. Commercials like this have been running 24/7.
The combination of Canadian athletes under-performing, and a surprisingly strong showing from the Americans, increased the importance of the hockey game. The winner would move on to the quarter-finals and the loser would have to meet Germany for a chance at the quarters. As the 3-hour pregame started winding down, it was pretty clear that this hockey game carried a lot of pressure for both the players and the spectators. I’ve never been very good at being a quiet sports fan and I figured the only scenario in which I was going to make friends was if Team Canada jumped out to an early lead, the game never developed much tension, and I could buy a round for the happy locals. That didn’t sound like much fun so I made some dinner and stayed home.
What a game. I covered the San Jose Sharks as a photographer last year and at one point, there were five Sharks on the ice. Most of them sported a maple leaf, and shot at will. Incredibly, the Canadians outshot Team USA 45-23 but never held a lead. As much as I enjoy Ottawa and the people here, this was not a night for camaraderie with America’s closest international partner. I’ll be rooting for Canada to run the table through Germany, Russia, and maybe the Czechs. Right up to the finals. I can only imagine what a rematch would look like with the gold medal on the line. Go team.
First Impressions of Ottawa
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I’m now officially settled in Ottawa after my first full week. Having never been here before, I did not have a whole lot of expectations, positive or negative. The post reports I’d read focused on the negatives. Summed up simply, the reports described Ottawa as cold, expensive, and boring. So far, it hasn’t been nearly as cold as expected, it is expensive but not crazy, and I’m far from bored.
Ottawa is not a typical foreign service post in that security is not an overwhelming issue. The trend over the last decade has been to move our embassies out of downtown areas to more secure locations in the suburbs — even in Western European capitals like London. Embassy Ottawa, however, is relatively new and located right downtown on the banks of the Ottawa river. I thus chose to live a short walk away, in new building overlooking the vibrant ByWard Market neighborhood. From my balcony, I can see scores of restaurants, bars, and shops. Everything is a short walk, from the food shops in the market to the modern Rideau Centre mall. I might feel different if I were living in the suburbs, but there is a lot to do and explore downtown.
Yesterday, I walked down to Bank Street, a different downtown area across the Rideau Canal, to find an old-fashioned barber shop (complete with straight-razor shave). On the way back, I walked about a mile down the canal. In the winter, after the Canal freezes 20″ down, they open it up for skating — all 4-1/2 miles of it. It is quite common to see whole families with skates over their shoulders walking through the mall or in the Market, having skated downtown from the suburbs. I was thinking about renting some skates and giving it a try, but the line was daunting. Instead, I just walked the ice. It was packed with people of every age.
Rideau Canal Skaters
After heading back to town, I stopped in to Confederation Park to catch the last week-end of Winterlude, a winter festival highlighted by an amazing collection of ice sculptures: beautiful works of art that will eventually melt into the grass. The cold temperatures clearly don’t prevent Ottawans from getting out and about. The talk around the embassy, particularly among the local staff, is how warm this winter has been. Daily temperatures are getting up to 25-30 degrees. For a Californian, I still find that plenty cold, particularly with the regular stiff wind, but it can easily be 20-30 degrees colder this time of year. We’ll see if the warmth continues — it’s supposed to snow most of this coming week.
Before heading home, I stopped to do some food shopping. There’s a supermarket about three blocks away where I stocked up on staples last week-end, but I want to get into the habit of buying most of my food from the local market shops and carts. I visited the butcher, a couple of vegetable stands, and the patisserie for a baguette. It was so much more fun than loading up a big basket at Safeway.
I think I’ll have to add my own, more positive, post report extolling the virtues of Ottawa in the coming months.
