On the Outside Looking In

San Jose, COSTA RICA -- For nearly 15 years I've been a stranger -- to a culture, to a language, to a place.  On February 6, 1994, my husband and I moved overseas for the first time, and we've hardly been back to the U.S. since.  My husband's job has taken us to Germany, Israel, Indonesia, Croatia, and now Costa Rica.  I know how to argue with rude people in German, buy cottage cheese in Hebrew, catch a cab in Indonesian, and shop at the farmers' market in Croatian.  And I'm learning I can do almost anything in Spanish. (Did I mention I don't speak Spanish?  This certainly adds an interesting touch to daily life.)

"Wow!  You're at home anywhere!"  I hear this a lot.  "You must feel so comfortable living overseas."  I hear this too.

Yes, but here's the catch:  I'll never be German or Israeli or anything else but American.  Wherever I live, I'll always be on the outside looking in.  No matter how well I speak German or how much Spanish or Hebrew or anything else I learn, I'll always be a foreigner wherever I live.

Even in the U.S.

Overseas, I live life as an observer, trying to figure out how to fit in and function by watching those around me.  Especially at the grocery store:  what American would ever guess you needed to buy sour cream in a plastic bag?!

On my trips home, I find I spend almost as much time observing and studying and trying to fit in:  the signs are strange, the advertisements are strange, and the news on television is really, really strange: It's all about America!  

And of course, I seem just as strange to others.  I mean, what normal person talks about prices in Kunas or stocks a gas mask and atropine injector in her bomb shelter?!

My kids seem to be very, very in tune with this.  They are very aware of who in their school is American, who is Japanese, who is Costa Rican, and who is Canadian.  They know perfectly well that huge, vast cultural differences exist among their friends.  And knowing that, they get past it and get down to the business of having fun.

And I've learned to do the same thing; to laugh at myself a lot; to laugh at others quietly; and to spend a lot of time shopping at Target.  Shopping therapy, I've learned, is the great equalizer.  Because in a place like Target (a thing I've not found anywhere else the world), everyone is on the inside all together:  one, big happy family of consumers.

So, take me to Target and let me give you my credit card!  I'm in therapy.

Maybe I'm not such a stranger in the U.S. after all!

Can't-Help-It Patriot

Last Saturday, we went to the Marine Ball sponsored by the Marines here at the U.S. Embassy.  I love a chance to honor the US Marines who serve at our Embassies and Consulates around the world.  24/7 young men and women stand duty in our Embassies protecting the facilities and the people who work there.  It's a strange marriage -- between the diplomats and the warriors -- but it's one I'm profoundly thankful for every time I go into the Embassy.

The Ball, which is to celebrate the creation of the Marines on November 10, 1775, is the highlight of the Embassy social calendar, and I love getting to wear a ball gown, glide elegantly among diplomats in tuxedos, and enjoy the kind of evening I'd have to be rich and famous to be able to experience in the U.S.

But you know what I like best?  The patriotic stuff.  I find I am an absolute sucker for patriotism.  Every year, there's a message from the Commandant of the Marine Corps to Marines serving around the world.  This year, the message (a video presentation) was a retrospective of the conflicts and attacks in which Marines have died since the first bombings in Lebanon in the 1980s.  And as part of the ceremony this year, there was an empty table, covered in black, and set for one -- to symbolize all the Marines who were no longer with us because they had paid the ultimate price.  I'll admit:  I cried.  For I know one of those Marines, he died in Iraq about three years ago.

But then, the Marines brought in the Stars and Stripes, and everyone in the room rose to honor the flag, and the Americans among us sang the national anthem.

I love the flag; I love the national anthem.  Some days, I see more Chinese flags or German flags (if I happen to drive past their Embassies) than I do U.S. flags; and every day I see more Costa Rican flags.  So whenever I do catch sight of the Stars & Stripes, I'm aware of it and it makes me happy in a way it never would in the States.  And it reminds me that I'm an American, and, frankly, I like that.

So, to all you Marines out there -- Happy Birthday to your Corps!  And thank you very much for all you do to make it possible for me to keep being an American, no matter where I live.

Hitting the Wall

It's an open secret of anyone who's ever lived overseas for any length of time:  you can just expect to be plunged into some variety of depression shortly after arriving at your new home.  Every expat book you will ever read will tell you this.  I will tell you this:  after every single one of our six international moves (or is it seven?), it's happened.  Life will trot along beautifully for a while (6 hours, 6 days, 6 weeks, there's really no telling how long it will take) until, all of a sudden, WHAMMO!!!  You're in a grocery store (or department store or car or lost.... take your pick) and all of a sudden it hits you:  I HAVE ACTUALLY LEFT EARTH AND AM ON ANOTHER PLANET AND THERE IS NO CHEDDAR CHEESE HERE!!!  HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE???

Sometimes these little episodes end in tears and weeks of depression.  Sometimes they end in screaming rants and weeks of depression.  And sometimes they end in silently creeping back out to your car, leaving a full basket of groceries sitting in the middle of the aisle of toilet paper.  And weeks of depression.

The good thing is, I always know it's coming.  And I always know it will end.

The bad thing is, it always surprises me.  Every single time it surprises me.  And every single time I can't figure out why I'm sitting in an armchair in a darkened room, staring at the wall for hours and feeling gloomy, for weeks on end.  And every single time I can't figure out why my kids are grumpy and screaming and hate everything and just want to go back to the place they just left.

The first indication I had here that we had all hit the wall was a call from my oldest's teacher every week for the first several weeks of school.  He's not paying attention; he's reading in class (oh, horrors!); he doesn't want to participate; he doesn't play with any other kids.....  And at home we weren't much better:  withdrawn, grumpy, nothing sounds fun....  Depression is miserable!

But it's starting to pass off now.  A bit.  I sometimes hear about cheerful things that happened at school; I haven't had a phone call in almost 2 weeks; and the sound of laughter tends to float down from the kids' rooms more often than screaming and fighting.  Pretty soon, I know, something will happen and I'll realize "We are on planet Earth after all; this is home!" and the kids will be 'at home' too and there will be playdates and friends and we'll be so sad to leave some day.

So, if you've just moved -- internationally or not, I don't think it really matters -- my heart goes out to you!  Hang in there -- Earth is on its way back to you!

Am I My Refrigerator's Keeper??

My house has become a breeding ground for rabid Costa Rican insects.  My pantry is filled with fluttering gray moths which lay eggs that hatch into worms in the flour, oatmeal, pasta, beans, popcorn..... you name it.  Then the worms spin themselves into little webby coccoons and hatch into More Moths.  Remember the spider cave in Lord of the Rings?  That's what parts of my pantry look like.  Frodo had it easy.

Then, to add insult to injury, the ants have moved in -- I think they've discovered the tasty little webbed up worms -- and are swarming (there's no other word for it) on the ceiling.  It's Just Plain Gross.  We pick worms and moths out of our pasta and cereal, and I have to fight my way through a mass of webs just to find the oatmeal.  Shudder.  Yuck.

As I've mentioned before, I've been doing battle, so there are little gray (indelible) streaks on the ceilings and walls where the moths have met a just fate.

Did I mention it's GROSS???

And why do I have this menagerie in my house?  The little beasties are feeding on the spelt flour and pasta which I have to keep stocked to feed my kids.  Talk about a Catch-22.

But, I'm brighter than I look.  I finally realized that for "medical reasons" the Embassy might just supply us with a second refrigerator for storing flour.  

So I called the refrigerator guy, and I asked, and was met with a flat refusal:  "Embassy policy is only one refrigerator per household."  Sigh.  So I hung up and moped.  And 30 minutes the phone rang, it was the refrigerator guy at the embassy (my new best friend), who -- On His Own! -- had called the Embassy nurse and gotten a special permit for us to have a second refrigerator for "medical reasons."  And then he said it would be delivered in just two days!

I was dancing with joy for those two days, telling everyone I met -- including complete strangers -- that I was going to get a new refrigerator!!  Yippee!!  Wahoo!  And then I'd do a little jig as they backed slowly away from me, eyes wide with something like terror.

And then my refrigerator came, and I was still dancing and smiling as I wiped it down and repositioned it so it was in Exactly The Right Spot.

And then I stopped smiling when it exploded.  Smoke, brief flames, scorch mark on the floor, I had it all.  But what I did NOT have, was a refrigerator.  It stopped running (and so did everything else in that part of the house).  I stared at it aghast.  I shook it.  I burst into tears.  Some part of the refrigerator's frame had, when I so lovingly repositioned it, cut into the power cord, causing it to short out and DIE.  What was I going to do?  How was I going to get it fixed?  I envisioned a burned out motor and thousands of dollars worth of repairs.  How was I going to break the news to my new best friend that I had blown up his refrigerator five minutes after it was delivered??

I called my husband and asked him to break the bad news, and then I left the house so no one could call me back.

But my husband is smarter than I am.  He put in a work order -- an anonymous process which requires no lengthy explanations and assigns no blame -- and the next day an electrician came to fix the fridge.  I arranged to be out of the house at the time and left the whole matter in my housekeeper's capable hands.

The electrician may have had a good laugh at my expense, but I don't know about it.  And neither does my new best friend (unless he reads this blog!).

And now my new refrigerator is running marvelously, freezing to death thousands of unhatched wormlings and moths.  And I'm dancing with joy again.

The lights inside it don't work, and I really do need my emergency lantern to see my way around inside it, but I'm so happy it doesn't even matter.

Battle Against the Insects:  EW - 1, Beasties - 0.

New Lightbulbs!

OK, I'm really not sure how a post about light bulbs in my bedroom closet generated 25 comments, Chippendale dancers and a movie contract :-), but with all that, I thought you might like a quick update.

I, apparently, contrary to my earlier comments, can NOT do anything I set my mind to.  I could not, for example, change those fluorescent light bulbs.  Not with a stool, not with a chair, not with a tool, not with some flair.

My lovely husband had to take them out of the sockets for me.  He assures me he does this at work "all the time," and was even able to do it in the dark.  I couldn't even do it with my emergency lantern on HIGH and a four-year-old whacking me on the legs with a plastic hangar while singing some mindless song about "Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack mom".

I did, however, find the right store to buy the light bulbs and I'm moderately confident I even got the right kind.  However, after teetering on the brink of a near-fatal fall onto a hangar-wielding four-year-old while trying to install them, I decided I'd wait for my husband.  It took him so little time and effort, it's not even worth mentioning.  He must have some sort of innate electro-mechanical aura that I'm lacking.

And he was just in time; I need the emergency lantern for my new refrigerator.  More later as soon as I dispose of the four-year-old.

Who is Supposed to Change My Light Bulbs??

The fluorescent light in my bedroom closet is going out; most of the time when I turn on the light, a distant gray glimmer flickers uncertainly in the air around me.  I've started using my emergency-in-case-the-electricity-goes-out lantern.  But that's not entirely satisfactory either.   Really, the light bulbs just need to be replaced.

But here's the deal:  I don't know who is responsible for changing fluorescent light bulbs in this house in this country.

In Germany, we were responsible for all light bulbs EXCEPT the fluorescent ones:  the Consulate desperately wanted the privilege of changing those.  I have a feeling it had something to do with German labor laws.  Or maybe disposal of the fluorescent bulbs.  Or maybe because the Consulate owned the houses.  I don't know.

So who changes my light bulbs here?

OK, so it's not such a big deal to go to the hardware store, find the fluorescent bulbs, buy two, bring them home, haul the ladder upstairs, realize I have the wrong bulbs, take them back to the store, try to figure out how to return them, get new bulbs.....  But if the Embassy is going to save me all that trouble, I'll let them.

Instead, I just have to call the Embassy, find the right person to ask this question of, make an appointment for the workers to come over, wait two hours for them to show up only to have them cancel the appointment, reschedule.....  Hmmm.  Maybe it's not as simple as I thought.

So, I guess I'll just keep using my emergency lantern and wearing mismatched clothes until either I remember to make the call or I make it to the hardware store.

Hey, buddy, can you spare a light bulb?

Another Average Day

I had this conversation with my six-year-old in the emergency room tonight:

“Let’s see, Timothy, you’ve had a busy day!  You slept all morning; had a 103 fever all afternoon; slept some more; the electricity went out; you threw up all over Jeffrey (my babysitter’s son) in the car; went to the hospital; threw up all over the nurse; saw the doctor; almost threw up on him; got some medicine; and now we’re going home!”

Despite the prevalence of projectile vomiting during the day (for once, not on me!!!! Hallelujah!), his problem is actually a SEVERE ear and throat infection.  Caused, we’re pretty sure, by snorting pool water on Saturday.  We’ve noticed that every time we go swimming in the pool in our condominio, our two youngest kids get sick.  Last time, it was 24 hours of 103 fever for each.  This time, Benjamin was mildly sick for two days, and Timothy has had been seriously sick since yesterdy.  Gag!  We will NOT be swimming in that pool again until I can get the Embassy nurse to mediate a change of water and filtration systems!  Maybe not even then!

Did I mention we’re supposed to get on a plane on Thursday?  And Timothy’s supposed to be the opening act in the school play tomorrow?

This is normal:  If we’re going to take a trip anywhere (the longer and more time zones involved, the better) SOMEbody is sure to come down with something horrible necessitating an emergency visit to the doctor.  I can’t even count the number of trans-Atlantic flights I’ve made in a mild panic over whether or not the antibiotic liquid was staying cool enough.  Timothy is the worst offender; I've been in emergency rooms with him in at least three separate countries (on three continents).  Oh, and last year, three days before we moved from Zagreb, Benjamin knocked out his front tooth (emergency dentist visit) AND came down with a fever the day before we got on the plane (emergency pediatrician visit).

The upside to all this?  Well, believe it or not, it is actually easier to go to the doctor here than it would be in the States; even in my parents’ hometown where we actually have a pediatrician.  Length of emergency room wait in CIMA private hospital here:  Five minutes.   Cost of emergency room visit:  $58.   Level of care received:  World class.

The Afterlife

My Israeli friend Anita has a theory about death which I have often found useful:  She says that she imagines death rather like... just...leaving.  Leaving the dishes unwashed in the sink; leaving the laundry unwashed and unfolded; leaving the living room untidied.  Going into death, for Anita, means that "it" (whatever "it" may be) is not her problem anymore.  I like this.

In my own life, I feel this way about going on a long trip (which I am about to do on Thursday):  there are still moving boxes in my house to unpack.  Not my problem.  There are nooks and crannies and drawers and baskets and shelves which desperately need uncluttering and tidying.  Not my problem.  There is dirty laundry that needs to be washed.  Not my problem:  there's a washer in Texas.

Anita's view of death doesn't really encompass the idea of an active afterlife.  But me, I have a well developed view of paradise, both in my cosmology and for this particular trip:  I will be going to a land of eternal sunshine, to be reunited with loved ones I haven't seen in far too long.  The problems which plagued me here in Costa Rica will be no more, and I will live a bug- and rooster-free existence.  At least until August.  And what is more, I will shop at grocery stores which are guaranteed to have hamburger meat.  Every week!  And there will be gluten-free cookies and milk-free sorbet, and all manner of wonderful things to drink.  And English will be spoken.  And there will be joy.

Don't mistake me; Costa Rica is great, and I'm sure I'll be ready to come back when the end of the summer rolls around (really, I'm sure I will!).  But at the moment, my friends are boarding planes in droves; my social circles will be completely devoid of life forms for the next six weeks; my living room is starting to mold again; and my boys are ready to run in the pasture.  I think it's time to get outta Dodge.

My plan is to keep posting over the summer, but my parents' internet connection is not much better than ours has been the past two weeks (note how frequently I've been on PNN lately??  NOT VERY!), and two of those weeks we'll be traveling the wilds of Colorado.  Maybe I'll post from a KOA, if they have wireless.  (I love the modern wilds, don't you?)

In the meantime, I'll be at the Texas Writers' League conference in Austin from 26-28 June; if you're going to be there, let me know and we'll hook up!

Piglet Flu

It's definitely not the swine flu; don't panic.  But at least three members of my family are down with what I can only describe as Piglet Flu.  We have no fever.  We have no particular aches and pains.  We are not, in even the broadest sense of the word, sick.

We are blah:  I spent the first half of the day in bed and the second half sitting around and staring at the wall because anything else required too much energy. 

We are tired:  Benjamin fell asleep this evening at 6:20 p.m. while watching a thrilling episode of Animal Planet and hasn't stirred since I put him in his bed.  

We are not hungry:  my growing nine year old who often eats his own weight and that of his two brothers in food, was content with ten noodles tonight.

We (read:  Timothy) complain constantly that we're going to throw up.  But never do (thank goodness).  

So, I pronounce this the Piglet Flu.  It is pandemic in our home, and I'm thinking of applying to the CDC for funding to develop a vaccine.

But, on second thought, that sounds like too much work.  Maybe I could just go to bed early instead.

Snore.

Confession: The Dark Side, Part II

PayPal was apparently only the beginning.  There were three additional incidents which sent me around the bend today.  

Today wasn't an especially bad day, it was rather normal, actually.  And these things weren't so unusual or even, on a good day, particularly annoying.  Under normal circumstances, in fact, I would, under no condition ever be tempted to roll down my car window and scream "You idiot!!" at the top of my lungs in public to a complete stranger.

And that's the point:  the dark side of expat life is that, at times, what passes for "everyday life" in a strange new place wears away at you like sandpaper until all of the normal masks and manners and social graces that one wears in public are worn away and all that is left is, well, it's not pretty.  And that's when your true self comes out.  My true self is, apparently, not someone you'd want to bring home to show the parents.

Unless you are super-expat, this sort of thing happens to everyone at some point.  I've met some people who hit this point about the time they reach customs upon arrival at the airport.  Some people don't lose it until, for the sixth week in a row, there are no potatoes in the grocery store.  Usually, this doesn't happen to me until we're just a few months away from leaving.  I seem to be on the fast track this time around.

Episode I:  The plumber came to my house today to put sealant around the faucet on our kitchen sink.  He brought everything with him -- except the sealant.  He had to call someone to bring it.  While we were waiting, he followed me around my house, trying to carry on a conversation with me in Spanish.  Except he is to speaking Spanish what Mario Andretti is to driving a car.  After several blank stares from me, intervention from my housekeeper (who also couldn't understand him), and five or six frustrated-and-near-tears "I don't understand what you're saying's" from me, he would just change subjects and plow at light speed into some other topic.  I finally just had to leave the house or risk passing too near the knife drawer, in my futile efforts to evade him, for his health.  When I returned, it was to find he'd done the job incorrectly and apparently put sealant everywhere except where it was needed.  I may be peeling silicone sealant off my sink for the next two years.

Episode II:  I went to a friend's house today to have lunch and bid her farewell before she returns to the States on Friday.  Part of our luncheon ritual is that I pick up Happy Meals for the kids and she orders pizza (forbidden fruit at our house) for the moms.  So, I went to McDonald's.  At lunchtime.  To a place of business where, frequently, it is necessary to make change for the customer.  I paid in cash.  And after rattling around futilely in the cash drawer for several minutes, the employee finally handed me six pounds of coins for the $8 in change I needed.  "I'm sorry, senora, we don't have any bills."  And it's indicative of my state of mind that I found myself, much to my surprise, waving my arms and shouting at the windshield after I had driven off, "Well, why the heck don't you have any bills?  What, you couldn't walk across the street to the bank???!"

Episode III:  We have no milk, no eggs, no shampoo.  Benjamin and I tried to go to the grocery store today.  I was approaching the entrance to the parking lot (eager to get my parking thingy!), and had slowed down, put on my blinker, checked for oncoming traffic, and had already begun to turn left, when the guy behind me decided I was going too slowly and zoomed around to pass me on my left!  And then -- when it became obvious that we were going to collide -- rather than slow down, he HONKED at me!

It was at that point that I started screaming, "You idiot!!  What are you doing??"  And then realizing he couldn't hear me, I rolled down my window, and screamed -- literally screamed, I am still hoarse -- "You idiot!!!  What are you doing???!!"  As if he would understand me.  He just chuckled at me as he continued to pull around me and drove off.  We still have no milk, no eggs, no shampoo.  I just couldn't face the grocery store after that.  We went back home, with Benjamin in the back seat singing "You idiot!" all the way.  What a lovely example I am to my children.

I am not proud of myself today.  Today, I was the Ugly American.  Tomorrow, I'm planning an intervention for myself in the morning:  no kids at home, no housekeeper, no plumbers, no one trying to make change.  I'm unplugging the phone, not answering the doorbell, and, for good measure, I may also hide in the closet.

So don't call tomorrow; the Ugly American is out.  But, I am hoping that the socially acceptable me will make an appearance in the afternoon.

Confession: The Dark Side of Expat Life

I will confess that I had an absolute meltdown this morning, complete with tears and uncontrollable sobbing.

Want to guess what set me off?  What horrible thing drove me around the bend one block closer to a nervous breakdown?  Was it news of another early-morning shooting nearby?  My kids having still more problems at school?  Yet another incomprehensible conversation in Spanish?

Answer D:  None of the above.  I was trying to update my PayPal account.

My account has been "limited" since 2002 when we moved to Indonesia and I had to change my address with PayPal.  Somehow, PayPal learned that the APO address I gave them was in Indonesia; they flipped, certain that the money in the account was being hijacked for nefarious purposes, and -- for my safety, I'm sure -- placed the limitations on my account.  

And now they won't lift the limitations until I can provide all the information they need.  Simple things:  photo ID with name and address; cell phone bill with name and address; bank statement with name and address; credit card statement with name and address.

I have all of these documents; they all have my name and address on them.

The catch?  The address on every single on is different.  Photo ID has my parents' address in Texas; cell phone bill has my local Costa Rican address (which reads something like 100 m norte y 150 m del sur del centro); bank statement has our APO address; credit card statement has our pouch address (which is a street address in Virginia).  PayPal thinks I live at the pouch address, so the only useful thing for them is the credit card bill.

I feel like I'm caught in a "Fun House" with no exit.

In frustration, and in an attempt to commit a defiant act, I even tried to close the account.  I'm informed I cannot do so until all the "limitations" are removed (i.e. I send in copies of the requested documents with my name and address).  I tried to call PayPal about this once, and customer service got snippy with me.  And I got snippy back.  I don't think we're on speaking terms any more.

And so there it hangs, in the background of my life, doomed to irresolution until I can figure out how to get them what they want, and I feel like bursting into tears every time I think about it.  And every time I visit the website, huge headlines and helpful text boxes reassure me how wonderful, simple, and easy PayPal is to set up, maintain, and use.  This makes me want to shoot the computer.

Such a small thing.  Such a silly thing, and all for the want of a home address.

Five Weeks, Four Days, Two Hours and Ten Minutes

But who's counting??

That's how long it is until I get on a plane to go home to the States for the summer.

Usually, I am not like this.  Usually, I love living wherever we are, accepting little bumps in the road (like:  no electricity on Wednesday.  Cheddar cheese at $16 per pound.) with a chuckle and an eager glance to see what other adventures might be coming my way.

This year, I'm facing each day with gritted teeth and often-closed eyes:  lately, I just don't care to see what's coming around the corner.  I spend a large part of each day fantasizing about moving back to the States and being able to buy rubber bands.  I also find myself jotting down plans for a garden and looking at paint samples:  just in case I ever need to paint my OWN house (chocolate purple, it will NOT be!).  And some days it's all I can do to muster the energy to get dressed AND cook supper (and it's those days that blogging goes out the window!  You'll notice there have been a lot of "those days" lately!).

My husband has also been sending me real estate listings for the place we hope to move, which I look at with wide-eyed passion.  At least I know I'm not the only one in this boat!  But he says he "only" thinks about moving back approximately twice an hour.  Ha.  He's an amateur at that compared to me.

In 15 years of living overseas, I've never experienced anything quite like this before.  I love Costa Rica:  the people are lovely (well, until they get behind the wheel of a car); they pretend to enjoy hearing me speak Spanish; the scenery is unparalleled; and in just a two hour drive we have our choice of either beach or volcano.  This is absolutely THE most perfect place for us to do a final overseas tour (well, final for a while, anyway!).  We have a great house, fabulous neighborhood, unparalleled friends, and Cheetos.  What more could we want?  Why am I so depressed all the time?  Why am I even counting the weeks until I get on the plane, much less the days, hours, and minutes???

I'm not really sure myself.  I think it may have something to do with that "15 years" figure.  Fifteen years is a long time to be out of your comfort zone, fighting on the front lines of day-to-day survival, every day.  A Very Long Time.  So that's certainly part of it.  

I think I had a sort of epiphany today about the rest of it:  I haven't really had any time off (read: Relaxing Time at Home) since Summer 2007.  We went to the States then and had a relaxing summer spending time with family and watching the kids run barefoot through the pasture.  

We also went home Summer 2008, to the tune of:  all-day medical appointments during the first part of the summer followed by unbelievably fun travel across the entire North American continent with three small children to spend time with family in Washington State during a 100-degree heat wave with no A/C (I love my family there.  Why do they always have a heat wave when we arrive??) followed by knee surgery and convalescence followed by moving to a foreign country.  While still convalescing from knee surgery.  With no car.  In a country where I don't speak the language and am STILL not sure what to do with most of the stuff in the vegetable section of the grocery store.

I was listening to some well-adjusted-to-Costa Rica friends talk this evening; both mentioned recent, lengthy, relaxing trips home.  And it hit me:  that's what I'm missing.  Relaxing time at home.  I really DO need to get on that plane!  And I think I'll be a different person in September.

Five weeks, four days, one hour, and fifty-five minutes.  I think I'll make it.

Hi, I'm Johann, Part II

For some reason, this post keeps getting truncated!!  You can read the first part of this here.

.....And for a long time we stood on the front walk, our mouths hanging open in rank amazement.  A cheerful Johann was carting boxes out to the curb.  In response to our dropped jaws, he jerked his head up towards the attic window – from which billowed a cloud of dust and several small objects deemed ‘trash’ – and chuckled.  “She thinks I have too much stuff,” he said.  “She’s cleaning house!”   And he trotted off to deposit his load and return for another.

In speechless wonder Gary and I climbed the stairs.  At the top we found a sturdy and very-competent 30-something woman somehow simultaneously stripping beds, washing curtains, unpacking a large suitcase of English-language books, and flirting with Johann.

“Hi, we’re friends of Johann.”  We managed, our eyeballs bugging slightly out of our heads.

“Hello!  I’m Svetlana, and I’m helping Johann clean house.  Ha ha!”

Johann grinned like a schoolboy.  “She thinks I have too much stuff!”  He chuckled, picked up another load, and trotted down three flights of stairs.

Gary and I weren’t too communicative, being in absolute shock, but Svetlana didn’t mind.  She chatted cheerfully and energetically to us about working as a professor of English literature somewhere near St. Petersburg, and how much she was looking forward to living in Germany – never pausing in her work except to smile at Johann and tell him what needed to be taken out next.

Johann just beamed.  “She thinks I have too much stuff!”  Floated up behind him as he galumphed down the stairs.

“Ha ha!”  Chuckled Svetlana, and then she told us about wedding plans and plans for getting a work visa and for making Johann’s apartment a home.

By this time, Gary and I were drooling on the carpet because our mouths had been continually open in astonishment since we arrived.

Johann returned and stood beaming beside Svetlana.  “She thinks I have too much stuff.  She’s cleaning house!”  He announced proudly.  He was usually much more talkative than this.  Apparently, he was in as much shock as we were.

“Ha ha!” Said Svetlana, and put her arm around Johann’s shoulders and looked at him with something that resembled genuine affection.

“Ha ha!” Said Johann, and smiled.

Gary and I smiled back; somehow made polite conversation for a bit; and felt our way slowly down the stairs and back in to our car where we sat, still in wide-eyed, slack-jawed amazement as Johann carted yet another load of “too much stuff” out to the curb.  We never saw Johann again; we moved out of Germany just a week or two later.  We heard once that they were expecting a child, but we never checked up in person.  I think we didn’t want to take the chance of spoiling that last image we’d had of Johann: deliriously happy and, for once, not lonely.

Hi, I'm Johann....

On the Living channel last week (or was it the week before??), in response to the "5 Questions...." section, comments about "Hi, I'm Johann and I'm still potent," came up.  Some of you have expressed an interest in hearing about Johann and the episode of the mail order bride from Chernobyl, so here goes!!

It started in church.

Johann went to our small Baptist church in Frankfurt.   He was completely harmless, but newcomers often didn't realize this.  He was in his 70s; a former German submariner who had spent time in a Russian POW camp; slightly brain damaged from injuries received in a chemical plant explosion; and, when upset, worried, or angry about something, had a tendency to goose-step around the church with his right hand up in the classic “Heil” gesture, shouting thankfully-incomprehensible things in Russian, Polish, German, and occasionally English.  When he was really upset, he’d grab the nearest person by the lapel and gesture violently while shouting into the middle distance.

This frightened some people.

He was also very lonely, and not quite crazy enough to escape this knowledge.  He had been married at one time, but his wife had left him after the accident at the plant, claiming he was no longer potent.  This had wounded him deeply.  Whenever he’d meet a pretty young thing (apparently I qualified too), he’d introduce himself:  “I’m Johann, and I’m still potent.”  I’ve seen young ladies reduced to tears in the face of this approach.

Johann lived by himself in a small attic apartment, colored his hair and eyebrows by the simple expedient of rubbing them with carbon paper (which smeared), and kept the radiators on full blast, even in the middle of summer, so as not to catch a chill.  For his age, he was quite spry:  once he painted the wooden steps off his landing with something akin to turpentine.  I could tell he’d been meticulously thorough, because the paint was bubbling up and peeling off absolutely uniformly on all the steps.  He was, as you can imagine, not popular with the landlady.  Or the neighbors, whom, he was sure, were French Huguenot spies out to torment him.  He said he was working with the police to get their phones tapped.

All in all, though, I liked Johann.  In truth, he was a perfect gentleman, even when he was at his most crazy.  His greatest problem was simple loneliness and the pain of his wife’s desertion which constantly rankled his soul.

But, in typical Johann fashion, he had a plan to deal with that as well:  he’d get a mail-order bride.  And, as he explained to my husband and me one afternoon in his apartment, to make sure he hooked a good one, he was going to send her a really nice picture of himself.  And he did:  dated about 1939 when he’d enlisted in the German navy.  I could almost recognize the Johann I knew in the black and white passport-sized photo of an 18-year-old submariner.  And boy, had he ever been good looking!  I was afraid the girls would be lining up in droves.

Not droves, exactly, but one did come.  At Christmas.  From Chernobyl.

We knew she was coming, and we were worried, so we called that day to see how things were going.  Johann was in a towering rage, shouting Nazi slogans and Russian swear words and completely unintelligible things in English.  Every so often he’d put the phone down and we could hear him marching up and down the room, still shouting at us on the phone.  This was even worse than we’d feared.

My parents and brother were visiting.  Had just arrived an hour before, as a matter of fact.  Gary and I got off the phone, hurriedly explained to my bewildered and slightly miffed family that there was an emergency, and rushed off to Johann’s house in our little red VW Golf.  When we got there, the girl was crying, Johann was still shouting, and the phone was still off the hook.  My husband did his best to calm Johann, and I and my German-Russian dictionary did our best to calm the girl, who was probably about 20, and we pieced together the inevitable.  She had expected the Johann in the photo.  He had expected her to be delighted to see him.  He wasn’t and she wasn’t.

Between my dictionary and three semesters of college Russian (she only spoke Russian), I learned that she just wanted to go home.  She’d only wanted a vacation someplace nice.  Someplace that wasn’t Chernobyl.  And she’d gotten Johann.  We didn’t know what to do.  All the beds in our small apartment were taken, and we were leaving on a trip the next day with my family.  So we drove to the train station and checked her return trains:  she could either go in one hour (she’d just spent three days on a train) or in one week.  What a rotten choice.

Gary took a miserable, weeping Johann back home.  I fed the girl lunch and gave her all the money I had on me, about $35, and made sure she got on the right train.  Almost the last thing she said was, “I didn’t even get to take a shower.”

But Johann didn’t stop trying.  By the late spring, he informed us that yet another woman had answered his advertisements and was coming to see him in early summer.  We made note of the date, and dropped by, just to check.

And for a long time we stood on the front walk, our mouths hanging open in rank amazement.  A cheerful Johann was carting boxes out to the curb.  In response to our dropped jaws, he jerked his head up towards the attic window – from which billowed a cloud of dust and several small objects deemed ‘trash’ – and chuckled.  “She thinks I have too much stuff,” he said.  (This blog continued in a later

My Mug Arrived!!

It's here!  It's here!  She finally arrived!  My mug is here!  She's even prettier than I thought she would be.

It took a bit longer than anticipated, because apparently she did some sightseeing through the Costa Rican countryside before she came to my house.  But it's so beautiful here, who can blame her?

She hiked through the jungle and climbed a few trees.

It looks like she even got a bit flirtatious, and met up with some new friends at a bar.

There seem to be young fellows from (roughly left to right) Germany, Hungary, Israel, Poland, and the Czech Republic, as well as two burly Americans:  one from the Embassy in Cairo, and one from the Secret Service, toasting her in this picture.

I'm sorry to say she drank a bit more horchata than was good for her, but a nice matronly Costa Rican pitcher made sure she got home safely and fixed her up with a really respectable bag of coffee.  And we've been inseparable ever since.

Here's to you, PNN!  Cheers!

Chocolate Purple

In comments to a recent post suzannehailey and writing both commented on how many times they've moved in their lives:  30 and counting for suzannehailey; 8 times since 2000 for writing.

Ladies, you are my soulmates!  Since 2001, I've moved seven times myself, plus another half-dozen international moves before that.  Suzannehailey, I don't even want to be in your league!!

People used to ask me incredulously how I managed moving internationally so much, and I'd just stare at them blankly:  "How do I do it?  I... just.... do it."  I mean really, it's only an international move!

I've had an epiphany in the last year or so, and now, when people ask me incredulously how I manage, I look at them with madness brimming in my eyes, clutch my hair, and run, screaming into the distance:  "Aaaaaagggghhhhh!!!"

So, that's how things are going this year.

Like Suzannehailey, I'm always buying stuff with an eye to either 1) how well it will hold up for the next 15 moves or 2) how easy will it be to toss when we're at the limit of our weight allowance.

And, like Writing, I have long dreamed of painting the walls in my home something besides either hospital white or butter yellow (the current selection and not nearly so nice as one might imagine).

With this move, I realized I just could not take muddy handprints on butter yellow walls for the next three years.  I've always hesitated to paint before now because the State Department rules are you have to return everything to its original color before you leave.  Like I want to do that while packing out, selling a car, getting my children's school records and wondering if the movers have packed up our passports the last few weeks that we're in country.

But now, here we are in Costa Rica, home of $2 per hour labor.  Maybe, just maybe, I could afford to get at least a few walls painted.  And then unpainted in a few years.

I even got my friend who's an artist to help me pick out a wonderful summery green for the living room (to coordinate with the State-Department-provided furniture) and a distant gentle blue for the kitchen (to coordinate both with the living room next door and the tiles on the wall in the kitchen).  

It was going to be beautiful.  We went to the highest-end paint shop in town, showed them exactly what we wanted (a stock color from their list), and happily took home the cans of paint they mixed for us.

I didn't think to check the color ahead of time; it was a stock color.  What could go wrong?  Well, only one minor detail, really:  they forgot to mix in the black.

This doesn't sound like much; how much black can there be in a summer green or distant blue?  Plenty, that's how much.  Try leaving the salt out next time you cook and you'll have an idea.

My house looked like an Easter egg explosion:  penetrating fluorescent spring green in the living room (which did NOT coordinate with the furniture) and flaming in-your-face baby blue in the kitchen.  Which coordinated with even less than the green.  And they both look awful with the butter yellow that’s everywhere else.  A preschool would not have put up with this color scheme.  

But I did, have, do.  Sigh.  My Spanish was bad enough I couldn't even tell the painters to stop or go to the store and fix it.  Yet another incentive to learn Spanish.

After about a week, I couldn't take it any more and decided to pick out my own color of paint at HiperMas, the local version of Wal-Mart.  I reasoned that it couldn’t possibly be any worse.

Ha.  The only problem is that color is to me what music is to a person who’s tone-deaf.  Somehow, I thought that chocolate purple would blend well with the fluorescent spring green which was afflicting my living room (and which, due to time constraints, was there to stay). 

That’s right, chocolate purple.  Not chocolate brown, or eggplant purple; a marriage of the two.  Not a happy marriage either.  I’m just waiting to see which one gets custody of the green.

And this color covers acres and acres and acres of my home:  front entry hall; guest bathroom; the vast, uncharted regions of the walls in my kitchen (which are large enough to make many movie houses salivate); and the stairway.  It’s everywhere.  In a generous light, it reminds me a bit of painted New Mexican adobe.  A bit.   OK, not really.  And by the time I got everything painted twice, my household effects had arrived and there was no way I was going to repaint and unpack at the same time.  So spring green and chocolate purple are here to stay.

I guess it’s good I tried this little experiment here, where paint and labor are cheap, and I’ll only be living for two more years (and 2 months, but who’s counting?).  I’ve learned some valuable lessons about painting from this:  never, never, never buy anything but shiny latex if your children are under the age of 35; and always, always, always use the Ralph Lauren color schemes.  Don’t get creative.

In the meantime, the chocolate purple hides handprints admirably (bike tire prints still show up.  Don’t ask), and I’m working frantically to cover the walls of the kitchen with my kids’ artwork.  In another couple of years, I shouldn’t even be able to see the color.

Of course by then it’ll be time to repaint.  Butter yellow, here I come! 

My Children in Encounters with World Leaders

Actually, there have been only two encounters, and for the safety of the free world, I think we’re all glad.  I read an account once of a homeschooled child who’d intrigued former-President Clinton enough with his questions that Clinton had spent fifteen minutes discussing world affairs with him.  You know it wasn’t like that for us.

Our first encounter was last spring in Zagreb when President Bush passed through.  He and Secretary of State Rice graciously agreed to host a “meet-and-greet” for Embassy employees and family members:  they would come out, President Bush would make a few remarks, take some pictures with the Embassy children, and then shake hands and visit briefly (across a security line, of course!) with the rest of us.

Well, to start with, my middle one came down with an ear infection the day before.  When this one gets sick, well, you sort of wish it were the end of the world:  lying on the ground, screaming uncontrollably, wailing, whining……  See how happy he is in the picture? This was before we learned not to feed him wheat and milk too, so it was really bad.  And I, wise mother that I am, decided to take him along anyway.  Really, I wasn’t missing this for the world and I didn’t have a babysitter.  I did feel very sorry for him, but honestly thought we could make it through the morning.  Ha and double ha.

So, I crammed him full of antibiotics, we all got up around 4:30 a.m. so we could get to the hotel by 6:00 for an 8 a.m. meet-and-greet.  You can already imagine how much fun we’re having.  My husband was working, and had been all night, so I was on my own with a toddler, a sick Kindergartener, and a 7-year-old.

Of course we were running late, so I ended up sprinting about a half mile down Zagreb’s cobblestoned streets, in heels, pushing a one-child stroller containing two children so we could catch the shuttle bus.  I later found out that that’s when I tore the cartilage in my right knee.  That was the best part of the day.

I will draw a veil over that two hour wait, except to say that an hour before Bush was scheduled to come out, all the children were lined up on the bleachers behind the security cordon where the picture with Bush would be taken.  Did you get that?  AN HOUR!  Sixty wiggly kids, aged 10 to 1 year.  My middle one, of course, was lying on the floor next to the bleachers, wailing, and my youngest was wandering around at will behind the security line.  I couldn’t get to them, of course, and the Secret Service guys looked alternately annoyed and like they were going to arrest my kids.

I don’t THINK it was my littlest who was rolling on the floor in front of the podium during the President’s speech, but I wasn’t close enough to know for sure.  I do know it was my middle one who was crying the whole time.  In the end, only the oldest made it in the picture, and as soon as the kids were released from the bleachers and Bush started shaking hands, the middle one started crying at a level designed to split living rock.  I, of course, ignored him completely because I was getting such great pictures of the President.

Bush, apparently has either more compassion or less tolerance for screaming than I do.  In the picture is the President looking for the source of that unholy noise -- my son.  He took my middle one by the hand, said, “Oh, poor thing.  Where’s your mama?”  Mama is still ignoring him, but pulls herself together enough to push up to the front of the security cordon to retrieve her small child – who by this time has, she suspects, wiped his nose on the President’s sleeve.  Bush handed him up to me, patted him on the back and tried to comfort him, and I tried really hard to look clever and intelligent while I shook his hand, balanced a screaming child on my hip, surreptitiously looked for snot stains on his suit, and wondered if the President were going to catch whatever it was Timothy had.

Later, I got a lovely picture of Secretary Rice talking to my friend Trish.  But the most interesting part of this picture is the background.  See that yellow-headed kid pelting along and being body blocked by three different Secret Service agents?  Yup, that’s my boy!  And I didn’t take any more pictures of the littlest one because he’d taken off most of his clothes and was running around in his underwear.

Definitely a day to remember.

Fast forward to Vice President Biden’s visit yesterday.  In comparison to last year, this was very heaven.  I still, insanely enough, wore heels – maybe I was hoping for a matched set of torn cartilage?

Again, I was on my own with three kids because my husband was working.  But this time, we only had to wait an hour and a half.  We were also at the Very Front, as in, my kids kept knocking over the supports for the security cordon.  Yes, this made the Secret Service Very Happy.  During most of Biden’s speech, the middle one, once again, lay down on the ground – not sick, just ran out of Wheaties and I ran out of snacks.  Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence for him.  At least there was no screaming this time.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t do much about him because the littlest one was either sitting on the ground trying to pull my pants off (and almost succeeding because I only had an elastic waistband!) or insisting, loudly, that he be held.

When Biden came around to shake hands, my oldest was so polite, remembered to hold out the correct hand, and I think even remembered to look Biden in the eye.  The middle one had managed to sit up, but wasn’t even giving out name, rank, and serial number.  When Biden politely asked his name, he just looked at the ground.  I’m still powerless because I’m holding a three-year-old, and we haven’t yet worked up to the level of obeying voice commands.  So Biden cheerfully said, “Well, if you won’t look up here, I’ll just come down here,” and then crouched down and carried on a pleasant conversation with Timothy.

Wheels Up Party!!

 The Embassy's been busy lately -- for a month or so -- getting ready for Vice-President Biden's visit.  He arrived yesterday and left today.  I don't even know how to estimate the number of overtime hours put in at the Embassy (and at his hotel) preparing for his visit: the Embassy is not only the primary liaison between his staff and the host government, it's also the primary back-up plan for everything from communications to medical needs to, well, everything.  

Some Embassy Wives haven't seen their spouses basically since the visit was announced about a month ago.

But the nice thing about his visit was that he and Dr. Biden offered to do a "meet-and-greet" with Embassy employees and family members at the Embassy this morning.  His schedule only allowed for 30 minutes, but he and his wife spent close to an hour with us, shaking hands, taking pictures, signing baseballs, and making sure that every kid who wanted one got an autograph.

He also gave a lovely speech that made every one of us in the crowd feel not just proud to be in government service (ask any military wife:  it ain't just the working spouses that are in government service!); he made us feel warmly appreciated for our talents and dedication, and he singled out the military folks and peace corps volunteers among us for special recognition.  And, I think he won my vote forever more when he thanked us Embassy Wives -- from the Ambassador's wife on down -- for what we do.  He spoke about how, as difficult as the diplomat's job can be, the wives and stay-at-home spouses sometimes have an even more difficult job in making a home in often difficult situations overseas.

I don't know what your political leanings are, but you can know this about Vice President Biden:  he is a really, genuinely nice guy.  Much nicer than even an expert politician needs to be.  I saw it for myself, and my husband reports that everyone who worked with Biden here (whether they came from Washington or were working here) says the same thing:  Vice President and Dr. Biden are just nice.

All that said, I just have to also add that, given the amount of work that went in to preparing for this visit, I have strong reason to believe there are wheels-up parties going on all over San Jose tonight.

I'd be throwing one myself if I weren't so tired.

An Open Letter to Vice-President Biden

Dear Vice-President Biden,

We’re glad you’re coming to Costa Rica.  We really are.  And quite honored, too, that our little Embassy will play such a big role in hosting you during your stay here.

I’m sure I’ll see my husband again soon; he disappeared into the office a few days ago, and I think your advance team is holding him hostage.  He calls occasionally and says he is being treated well; he speaks highly of your people.  They feed him.

I show his picture to the children every night so they won’t forget him.   They’re very proud that their dad can help out with your visit, even though the youngest still has problems grasping the whole idea of “American Government.” 

They’ve just asked me to ask you if their dad can please come home again when your people are through with him?

Thank you very much, sir.

Signed,

A Temporary Embassy Widow  

[I wrote this earlier in the week, but thought it best to wait to post it until after Biden left.]

So, what's an ordered departure REALLY like?

What's an ordered departure (also known as an evacuation)?  I'm so glad you asked!

You may have seen in the news that Tuesday all non-essential U.S. Embassy personnel and all Embassy family members were ordered to depart Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.

Let me just mention up front that the State Department does not lightly order an evacuation.  These are grave matters, but always always always the safety of the family members and employees is the paramount consideration when deciding to issue this order, and I just want to say that I'm very glad the State Department has taken this step.  (As if they care what I think! :-)  ) .

Both NPR and AP had a bland little news article that focused, naturally, more on the political situation in the country in the wake of the ousting of the country's president.

But let me tell you what's going on behind the scenes, with all those non-essential personnel and family members who've been ordered (important little word!) to depart post.

First, they've got 24-48 hours to leave the country.  Obviously, they're leaving the country.  But think about what this means:  Embassy wives and a few Embassy dads are rushing around frantically trying to make sure everyone's passports, shot records, medical files, and school records are in hand and ready to be packed in a carry-on suitcase.  

Meanwhile, the working spouses are probably working overtime, if not 24/7, depending on the level of instability.  Lingering farewells and traditional supports go out the window:  the State Department has defined this as an emergency, and everyone has their part to play.

Kids are being pulled out of school; plans, playdates, parties, tests, book reports, and projects are being cancelled.  Likely, everyone will come back and will eventually be able to pick up the thread of their lives again.  But there's no guarantee.

Pets must be left behind.  Hopefully, someone in the family is considered "essential personnel" and will remain at post and can take care of the pet.  Or a neighbor or other Embassy family can.  Or, in a pinch, a housekeeper or gardener.  But what if there's no one?  The people have got to get on that plane regardless -- these are like military orders.  They just can't be defied.  Probably there'll be someone to take care of the dog.  Let's hope.  But in any event, all those arrangements have to be made as well, and the clock is ticking.

Food in the fridge?  Well, if everyone's leaving it's got to be tossed or given away -- when an ordered departure is called, it's my understanding that it always lasts a minimum of four weeks.  Then the order is re-evaluated every four weeks:  return?  Or remain?

And packing; of course everyone is packing.  All you can take is what you can carry in your suitcase(s).  Your entire life has to be suddenly boiled down to what can fit into two 50-lb (do they still let you bring suitcases that heavy?) suitcases.  And it has to be done NOW.

And then, everyone will get on a plane and fly away, mostly to the U.S., to... where?  Move in with your parents?  For how long did you say???  Fortunately, there are funds which cover meals and lodging, so they won't be sleeping under a bridge, but where will they go for moral support?  They've just had their entire lives, schedules, plans, family ripped to shreds and are going to have to quickly reform those shreds into something that looks like order:  new address, new schools, new friends (??? we hope), new hairdresser, new dentist, new city, new country.  For some of the kids particularly, the U.S. will likely be just as foreign to them as Madagascar would be to you or me.

And then what if they have to go back in 4 weeks, or 8, or 12 and start their lives in Antananarivo over again?  Or, what if it's 5 months?  Or 6 months?  Or never?  Imagine what it's like to have no idea where you'll be in four weeks; every four weeks, sometimes for a long, long time.

I know all about this first-hand.  I've been evacuated a couple of times -- always with small children, always leaving my husband behind.  Fortunately, I've always been in the States (already separated from my husband) when our ordered departures/evacuations were called.  The first evac only lasted a couple of months.  The second one never ended for me:  I never went back to Indonesia; I never saw my friends again.  I never said good-bye or helped my servants get a job, or walked through my house one last time remembering all the good memories of playing on the carpet with my son.  Worst of all:  my husband packed out our house, and it took my closets five years to recover.  But seriously, those loose threads of my life have been streaming out behind me for years now (our evac was 2002-2003), and I'm only just now starting to be able to weave them back in to my life.

So, just so you know, when you read about an innocuous sounding "ordered departure," you have some idea what's really going on.  The political stuff makes the headlines, but it's the families who have to live it.

A Week in Paradise

Did I spend the week on a perfect beach?  Or maybe at the perfect resort in the mountains?

What, exactly, makes a week in paradise for an expat?

A library and a bookstore.

This week, my kids and I went not only to an ENGLISH LANGUAGE LIBRARY!! (can you believe it -- we checked out 20 books!  In English!), we ALSO went to an ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKSTORE!!

Pardon me while I hyperventilate.  I tend to get overexcited when I think about this.

Actually, in Zagreb there was an English-language library.  We went there once.  It was run by the Croatian-American friendship society, and seemed to be a repository for economic treatises written in US universities that no one else wanted to read.  Not a big kids' section either, unless you counted 30-year-old National Geographic magazines.  I've never been to another English-language library anywhere overseas (except at our kids' elementary schools.  Not sure those count.)

But the Lexicon Library, is, actually, paradise.  It's full of real books; books that people want to read by authors like Bill Bryson, Agatha Christie, Maeve Binchey, and a lot of other popular people I can't remember because it's been so long since I had a bookstore to prowl through.  Sandra someone or other.  I think she writes romance.  Or maybe thrillers.  I'll check one out and let you know.  My tastes run to 1930s detective novels because that's the last time I had access to a library.

But I digress.

While we were at the library, we had a little earthquake (the 3rd one for the day) -- still a novel experience for me (ha ha, get it?  Novel?).  And I was sitting on the floor in front of a huge bookcase with two of my boys, watching in fascination as it swayed a bit and the books shifted slightly.  Afterwards, it struck me (a thought, not the bookcase) that perhaps that wasn't the safest place to be, but I just wasn't focusing very well.  All those books were making me giddy.  In fact, re-reading this paragraph, I think I'm still a bit giddy.

And the very next day we went to an English-language bookstore WITH a COFFEE SHOP!  Whew.  I've got chills just thinking about it.  You can guess the last time I was in a place like that.

So, for paradise you can have your beaches and resorts, cruises and trips to Disneyland.

I'll take books any time!  (And now I can!  Tee hee!)

Social Butterfly

An amazing thing happened to me this week:  I ran in to someone I know at a coffee shop.

No big deal?  Well, when you consider the miniscule number of people I know in this country, it's really an amazing thing.  I even bought her coffee on the strength of my joy:  I have friends here!  Enough friends that I find them in random and unpremeditated encounters!

And then it happened again -- I was getting my hair cut and not one but TWO women I know came in!

Woo hoo.  I positively feel like a local!

Normal... For an Expat

This evening I got a frantic call (in Spanish) from my neighbor (and good friend)'s babysitter.  Caroline's sister (and sister's friend) had just arrived from the airport, and were in a taxi nearby, but the driver didn't know how to get to our condominio.  Caroline was at an appointment with one of her children and couldn't be contacted.  So I was contacted.

Fanny (the babysitter) speaks no English, and Caroline's sister speaks no Spanish, and there are NO STREET ADDRESSES in Costa Rica, so the whole group was at an impasse.  Fanny gave me the driver's cell number, hoping I could call him and somehow spirit the women to our condominio.

My Spanish is minimal, on a good day, and even on a good day was not up to the taxi driver's accent.  So, I told him to please go to [a local, well-known landmark very close to my house] and wait.  I'd be there in 5 minutes.

So, my husband put all the kids to bed, and I hopped in the car.  It was only as I arrived and parked next to a taxi in an empty parking lot on a darkened street that I realized there could, potentially, be "issues."

But there weren't.  The ladies were a bit bewildered to see me -- they thought they were getting Caroline -- but after brief introductions they grabbed their luggage and hopped into the car with me, a complete stranger, and, after paying the taxi driver, we drove off together into the darkness.

I dropped them off and got home just in time to get a phone call from a friend of mine; her son had had to go to the emergency room to get nine stitches this evening, and she was going to have to stay home with him tomorrow instead of going to a special school event.  So, we made arrangements for me to pick up her other two kids (after I drop my son off at preschool), take them to the school, and bring them back afterwards.  And then I have to dash to Spanish class at the Embassy.

I should get home just in time to make dinner for a friend who's just had a C-section; a group of us are taking turns feeding her family for a couple of weeks since her parents could only stay for a few days after the baby was born.

This is one of the nicest parts about being an expat:  I belong to a community of very nice people who take care of each other.

Like I said, normal -- for an expat!

Milestone?? Or just a rock in the road?

I passed a Spanish-learning milestone last week.  I think.  I was at CIMA hospital with a friend, and when it came time to leave, I needed to go by taxi.  So, I went to the information desk and asked the lady there -- in very nice Spanish, I might add -- to call a taxi for me.  Not even a hint of panic on my part!

While she was on the phone, another American woman came up (CIMA is a very popular place for Americans to come have inexpensive plastic surgery) and asked, in English, if the lady at the desk would call a taxi for her as well.

The information lady looked flummoxed at the stream of English, so I translated the request into Spanish!  Big deal, you're saying.  OK, it was just asking for a taxi.  But three months ago I had had to do the same thing at the same place and my blood pressure zoomed into stroke danger level just thinking about approaching someone in a language I'm not familiar with and asking for something I'm not entirely sure how to phrase correctly.  And now I was able to translate for someone else!  Woo hoo!!  

What's more, when I got in the taxi, I rattled off directions to my house in Spanish(!!) without even thinking about it.  I felt like I was really making progress, and what a huge morale boost!

For those of you who have never had to spend a considerable part of your day using a language in which you sound like a retarded three year old with a speech impediment, let me tell you what it's like:  terrifying.  You get so used to being able to express exactly what you want whenever you want to whomever you want, that when that capability is suddenly taken away, it's like becoming handicapped.  I feel mute (and stupid); cut off, isolated.  And that's before I even open my mouth.  

Imagine trying to formulate every sentence like this before it leaves your mouth (if you've ever done time in a college-level language course, you know exactly what I mean):  Subject is son, with male possessive.  Singular.  Wants to go:  need to conjugate 'querer' in the 3rd person singular, but 'ir' remains in the infinitive.  To his friend's house:  house of his friend.  Casa de, preceded by feminine definite article; masculine singular of 'friend' preceded by masculine singular pronoun.  Don't forget the preposition 'a' with a verb of motion:  Mi hijo quiere ir a la casa de su amigo.

Tiring, ain't it?

And even though I'm capable of managing my life on a daily basis in Spanish (grocery shopping, getting my car washed, asking my son's preschool teacher to please not feed him anything with wheat or milk in it); that's not really speaking a language.  It's just using a few words to transfer basic ideas from one brain to another.  Speaking a language well, properly, involves your whole mind and being, being able to play with sounds and nuance (if you so choose!), to discuss ideas (Did you like that restaurant?  Why?).  Without that ability, I feel like my head is constantly full of muddy cotton balls.

So, I'll take any morale boost I can get!

But, then, the very next day, I asked my housekeeper, in Spanish, if any of her boyfriends had suffered damage in the recent wind storm.  

I meant neighbors.  

She gave me a very strange look and declined to answer, and it took me several minutes to realize that I had, in some inexplicable way, confused "novio" and "vecino".  Don't ask.  No, they're not a bit alike.

I guess it's back to Spanish class for me!

The Embassy Election Party

Here's the strange thing about going to an Embassy election party:  the non-Americans are the honored guests.  I wanted to blog this from the election party, but we (the Embassy volunteers) were encouraged to leave the Internet terminals for the guests.

As with most things Embassy related, this was an excellent advertising-for-American opportunity, and one in which I was honored to participate. This was not a "Democratic" or "Republican" election party.  This was an AMERICAN election party, and everyone was very polite and non-partisan.  I loved it.

I was there as a volunteer to help man the table passing out education materials on the American election system.  I'd entice the unsuspecting customers (mostly Costa Rican) in with the offer of a free flag, and then, while their face was still lighting up, I'd hand them a sheet of info on McCain and Palin, a McCain sticker, a booklet on the electoral college (all in Spanish, by the way) and point them to the other end of the table if they were interested in Obama.  I had McCain because that's the end of the table I happened to sit at.

Oodles of people were invited to this party -- and this was by invitation only, by the way, even if you were American.  There was enough security outside to make a WWII offensive look tame, and inside was free food, free wine (Californian, of course) and CNN (English and Spanish) everywhere you looked.  The Ambassador spoke, an unknown (to me, my Spanish isn't that good) Costa Rican official spoke, and a group of American election supporters in Limon, on the coast, spoke via Internet/satellite link.

And then everyone watched the numbers tick up on CNN and I passed out flags.

But here's the really cool thing:  there was a large group of American twenty-somethings in attendance who were vocally pro-Obama.  When the CNN projection of Obama's victory was announced, they erupted into shouting and cheers.  And this right next to political appointees whose jobs and livelihoods were quickly evaporating before their eyes.  And everyone was still polite, the "losers" even chuckling good-naturedly at the "winners'" exuberance.

I was worried that living overseas I had missed out on a lot of the election "stuff" and I really regretted not being able to take a more active part in the election process.  But I think what I saw tonight was better than passing out flyers or signing up voters.  I saw what it means at the grassroots level that we have a "peaceful transfer of power" in the U.S.  

Politics has the potential to touch some very raw nerves in people, more so than most other topics.  And when you can have a raw nerve touched and still respond in good humor; or, conversely, when you are the one touching the raw nerve and know how to do it so as not to give offense, I think there's a lot of latent hope there for a better tomorrow.

Long live America!

My Little Immigrants Hate School

My children hate school.  Not just "I don't wanna go because I want to stay home and watch TV," although there's certainly an element of that.  More of "I hate school because I'm miserable there all day long."

I can understand that.  After spending all of their short little lives in Europe, and thinking they're Texans on top of that, they're not sure who they are, but are pretty sure they're not Latins.

It's been rather a trial by fire for them here, moving from a primarily English-language/American culture/American school environment to one that’s predominantly Spanish-language/Costa Rican culture/Costa Rican school.  They’ve had trouble making friends; their grades have suffered; and one of them (I name no names) is always in trouble now – nothing worthy of expulsion, just a lot of ‘retreating into his own world’ that looks to the teacher a lot like he’s ignoring her.  Well, he is ignoring her!  He’s coping!

For one thing, this has particular move with my kids has given me a lot more insight into the lives of and sympathy for the immigrants who come to the U.S. – both legal and illegal.  Even though we’ve lived overseas for so long, this is the first time my kids have really and truly been thrown into a culture that is completely foreign to them, sink or swim, literally.

And it’s made me think:  what is it like for my kids to be surrounded all day by strangeness?  Strange food in the cafeteria; strange kids in the classroom; strange language on the playground; strange customs; and a really, really strange school bus full of people who don’t understand them & whom they don’t understand.  And I think it is very, very stressful for them.  I know it has been for me, and I have the option of burying my head under the pillows on my bed whenever life gets too overwhelming.  They don’t; at least not while they’re at school.

We are, in a sense, immigrants here, if very temporary ones.  And it’s made me so much more aware of how HARD it is to be an immigrant, feeling slightly bewildered and out of balance all the time.

I wonder if that feeling ever ends?  I wonder if my kids will adapt and how quickly and to what extent?  I just hope the Costa Ricans take pity on us immigrants in the meantime:  we’re really very nice people, if only they could get to know us.

Culture Shock!

Last night I got the biggest dose of culture shock I've had in years:  I watched American television.

Living overseas for the past 15 years, I haven't had many chances to watch American TV; usually, only when I'm in America and am basking in the glow of a trip to Target and a trip to the grocery store in which someone else bagged my groceries and I could read all the labels.  So, there's usually enough excitement in my life that I don't really notice commercials.

But last night I did.  And last night, far from any Targets or English-language package labels, I could really see them as an outsider would.  But I'm an insider, I'm an American.  And what I saw was quite shocking.

It wasn't that the election campaigning was so in-your-face and obnoxious, although it was.  And it wasn't just the strange things that were being advertised (men in trucks "competing" in carefully choreographed stunt "races" in the best reality TV style), although that was pretty strange.  And it wasn't just that the commercials were so psychologically clever and enticing, which they were.

But what was really most shocking to me was the idea that American advertisers think we're really interested in these things.  Are we?  Are guys in trucks so fascinating that the truck company (don't remember which one, so maybe it wasn't such a successful ad) is willing to spend millions of dollars to craft an ad to tell me about it?  Admittedly, I was intrigued -- "Do these guys die doing these stunts, and if not, why not?"  But not intrigued enough to put the date in my calendar (and not intrigued enough to remember the company's name)!

And, are car companies (and their ad writers!) really so naive as to think that we as consumers will buy the idea that 24 mpg is really really really good gas mileage & we'll feel virtuous buying that SUV?

More likely, I think advertisers have convinced themselves that they can tell us consumers anything, and if they spend enough money saying it, we'll listen and be happy and buy their cars (and vote for their candidates!) and generally spend money any place they tell us to.  Ha!

Well, here's my thought for the day:  Don't be happy!  We're smarter than that!  Or, if you've got to be happy, get your kicks from laughing at the insane contortions advertisers go through to get us to buy something, and then turn the channel.  And laugh at the advertisers there too.

Come to think of it, maybe American commercials do make me cheerful after all!

New Business Serving Expats

Here's a shameless plug for a much-needed service in the expat community.  I know Julie personally, and can tell you she's definitely a force to have on your side!!

Kelly

New Career Coach Targets Foreign Service Family Members

Julie Mendez of JSM Career Coaching "Opens Her Doors" and Offers a Discount to Foreign Service Family Members

Julie Mendez entered the Foreign Service the way many do – through marrying the man of her dreams.  But following him in his career meant the end of her own as a recruiter.  Luckily (for both herself and her clients), she has been able to parlay her employment background into her new calling as a Career Coach. 

Mendez's intimate knowledge of the Foreign Service lifestyle is only half of what makes her unique in her field; her recruiting background provides her clients an insider’s perspective on what a potential recruiter or employer looks for in a successful candidate. 

"We also operate differently than traditional resume writers," commented Julie Mendez. "We do not write the resume for our client, but coach them through the process themselves.  We use this as a learning tool, so that when our client walks into his or her interview, he or she will able to talk with confidence about their resume and work experience.  We feel that you will achieve better results if you have worked on your resume yourself, versus having someone else doing it all for you."

JSM Career Coaching's other current services include interview and job search coaching.  These sessions are designed to assist the Foreign Service family member with various issues such as cover letters, job search tips and assistance, interviewing skills, and practice through role play and other exercises.  All services have one caveat in mind – that a client walk away with a “tangible,” measurable outcome at the end of his or her sessions, and are practical and useful.

Sessions are conveniently done via the internet, email, and phone, so that the client has immediate access no matter where they may be located.  A discount is also offered to all Foreign Service and military family members.

"I understand it's not just about finding just A job but THE job;" stated Julie Mendez. "It is my personal mission to empower Foreign Service family members by giving them the skills they need to land the particular job they want and deserve."

A graduate of New York University, Julie Mendez of JSM Career Coaching has over five years in the executive search and recruitment industries, the most recent as a Branch Manager for a temporary placement agency in Washington, DC. Because of her "gypsy lifestyle" following her husband's Foreign Service career around the world, Mendez has also had the opportunity to serve as the Community Liaison Officer at the US Embassy in Rome, Italy; where she developed programs and initiatives to maintain high morale and enhance the quality of life for the US diplomatic community.

For more information, contact Julie Mendez via email at JulieMendez@jsmcareercoaching.com, or through her website at www.jsmcareercoaching.com.