Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

Many of you may know, or have heard, about my living conditions when I was in the Peace Corps in Niger. See below my house and...ahem...bathroom facilities.

 

Now that I am a big, bad State Department employee, however, my housing will be much swankier. And--as an added bonus--I had a hand in building it myself! Check it out.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

After using PCs for years, I recently purchased a MacBook. Apple is not paying me anything to say this:

Go out and get one immediately!

It is wonderful, and I'm already organizing all my old docs/pics/videos that have been sitting inert on my hard drive for years.

The above picture was taken Summer '08. I was studying Arabic in Morocco, and the program I was with took us to a workshop that trained people in traditional Moroccan crafts. These items are the work product of some of the jewelers/metalworkers-in-training. The hand is the Hand of Fatima (also known as the hamsa), which is a protective symbol in some Muslim cultures, similar to the superstition of "knocking on wood" in the West. It is used to ward off the Evil Eye. Interestingly (I think), most cultures seem to have something in this vein. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, the women would lightly spank each other's children at random (never at all roughly) to indicate something along the lines of "this child is ugly and no good" in order to fool the Evil Eye into thinking that it shouldn't "take" (read: kill) that particular child. Anyway, I thought this depiction was a particularly beautiful piece of work, and so I've included it in today's post, whose theme is Protection. A few things:

1. I just found out that--due to an increase in al-Qaeda activity in parts of Niger (nowhere near where I was)--several volunteers have been removed from their villages by the Peace Corps out of safety concerns and the volunteers either reassigned in-country or given the option to leave. The newest training group--which arrived only a few weeks ago and had not been posted--was sent to Madagascar. This is unfortunate for a lot of reasons, not least of which because the Peace Corps has had 45 years of uninterrupted service in Niger.

2. I'll be driving to DC in two weeks to start my new job. During the winter. Probably in the middle of an ice storm. And most of my baggage is arriving separately. Lots of opportunity for disaster, although I will be taking out some personal property insurance. Fingers crossed (another cultural protection superstition!).

3. Small rant: I am really getting tired of people acting horrified when I mention that I'm joining the Foreign Service and likely to be posted overseas. Or saying: "Your poor parents! They'll be so worried," or asking me if I'm not concerned. Not everyone reacts this way, of course, but for those who do: CUT IT OUT! I think this is an amazing opportunity, one I've worked hard to achieve for years. And despite the myriad scenarios you've conjured up in your head concerning terrorists or exotic diseases, I will remind you that statistically you (and I mean you, and not just "people") are much more likely to die in a car accident (although God forbid) driving home from work on a rainy day than I am to be involved in the things that you are imagining. So chill, and contemplate the Helen Keller quote, which is today's post's subject heading. Rant over.

Thank you for your time. I'll be here all week...and then some.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move

I'm Class III.

Nothing too exciting to report, but a couple of minor developments, which I thought I would document here as it's been almost a month since my last post.

1) I signed a lease on an apartment in Arlington, Virginia for the duration of my training in D.C. Sight unseen, but other Foreign Service employees have previously lived here and gave major kudos to the landlord, so I feel like it's a fairly safe bet. Right across the Key Bridge from Georgetown, half a block from the metro, fully furnished, and--best of all--fully paid for by our great government! At least as long as I'm in training.

2) I finished all the paperwork that State sent me. This may not sound very exciting, but it took easily twice as long as finding the apartment did, and so warrants a stand-alone bullet point, in my opinion.

In non-job-related news, as 'tis the season and all that, and some of you might be brimming with holiday goodwill, here's a great resource for determining where to let some of that goodwill spill (rhymes!). I always check it out before I donate any money to a new charity.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

It rates charities by a whole range of complicated criteria, but the bottom line is that it assures that a high percentage of the money received goes to the purpose of the charity, rather than administrative costs or fund-raising. And you can search for charities by themes (eg children, veterans, environment) or geographical location.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

Diplomat - a person having failed to secure an office domestically who is given one by the government on condition that (s)he leave the country

My apologies to Ambrose Bierce for having tweaked his words to make them fit my situation.

It's official. I received my start date from the State Department on Monday. My training starts in Washington, DC on January 4, 2010. I'll be doing general training for 5 weeks, at the end of which I'll find out my posting. Then 3-8 months of additional post-specific training (language, culture, technical, etc.) before I'm shipped overseas.

Very excited this 15 month-long process has finally come to an end. Even more excited to be heading back to DC (as most of you know, I lived there during my undergraduate years).

I'll be posting more as I know more, and, if I'm very motivated, maybe even a picture or two.

To succeed in other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do

Unlike me!!!!!!!

New York: the first bar I've passed in my life.

Sailing Away from Safe Harbors

Well, hopefully. Many of you know that I applied to the U.S. Foreign Service over a year ago and I think I finally see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing is ever certain, and I hate to hatch my baskets before the chickens can count the eggs (especially with any institution as nebulous as the federal government), but it looks like I will be heading off to training in Washington, DC in early '10. No word on eventual posting until after that.