Bid List 2013!!

The bid list is out!! Woo hoo!! That’s how excited I felt before I saw it. My favorite quote regarding bidding comes from Digger over at Life After Jerusalem. She once said…

For those of you still here, bidding is awful. I know when you think about it from outside the Foreign Service, it probably sounds cool. Wow, you get a list of all of these cool places to choose from. The world is your oyster. It is true that you get a list. It is also true there are *some* cool places on there. There are far more “oh hell no” places on there.

Although I still love bidding, I completely agreed with her this time around. This is our second time bidding as an entry-level specialist and our last time being “directed.” Our first list that landed us in Belize had 19 posts, 14 of which we were willing to go to. Our current list has 46…only 20 of them are remotely appealing. So the odds have not improved. And a surprising amount of them have been repeated, so the fresh-new list I was hoping for wasn’t quite there.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some AMAZING posts on this list, and I would cry tears of joy if we were to get anything that we ranked “high.” But considering how we fared last time priority-wise, I no longer have any illusions. I know technically we still got one of our “medium” posts…it just happened to be the one that we moved from low to medium to create a more evenly-balanced list. And this time we should have a bit of bidding “equity” since Belize has a decent hardship differential. Hopefully we won’t actually end up in Beirut or Haiti…or one of the half dozen places that are also on the Forbes list of dirtiest cities in the world. Granted the article is from 2008, but the photos are highly illustrative.

And, of course, if you’ve been reading this blog up to this point, you’re probably wondering what I’m complaining about?! We’ve made great friends, had fun visitors and jaguar encounters at the zoo; we have cool Mayan ruins; we’ve been doing lots of scuba diving; there’re palm trees and pina coladas and ceviche galore. And I’m sure I will look back fondly on all of those things after we’ve moved on (and do enjoy them at the time). Maybe I would feel differently if we actually lived near the water and were not so far inland. All the cool stuff either requires a two-hour drive with a hyper toddler (unless we have a sitter) or a plane ride. But I will never be a fan of jungles and excessive heat and humidity.

So I’m keeping my fingers crossed for all those cold posts at the top of our list and will let you know where we’re going next summer (2013)…when they tell us in mid-July!

Boy Meets World

One of the obvious perks of being in the Foreign Service is being able to raise your child overseas. I love the U.S., don’t get me wrong, but I like to think that our son will have so many more opportunities to see living history and to learn things firsthand in their natural or original environment. And it’s pretty cool to be able to say that you learned to ski in the Alps or scuba dive in the Caribbean. I can’t wait to see what he’s going to be able to do and which things he’ll be interested in.

Another positive is language skills. Since we’re currently in a third-world country and can actually afford a full-time nanny, our son is exposed to a little bit of Spanish on a daily basis. (The official language of Belize is English, but there’re lots of Spanish-speakers around.) He has a few months left to go till his second birthday, but he’s recently started saying “adios” and “si” in addition to his rapidly expanding English vocabulary. Our baby boy is already bilingual!! Woo hoo!

Whale Shark Diving

My hubby and I just celebrated our four-year anniversary, woo hoo! I love you, baby! I can’t believe it’s been four years already. The time is flying! Anyway, we didn’t do much on the actual day as we had taken most of the following week off to go to Placencia and go whale shark diving. So we turned it into a romantic vacation for two (not including the other six people from the embassy)…with a little adventure thrown in. Thank you, Grandma K.C. for flying all the way to Belize and hanging out with the baby! We so needed the break and couldn’t have done it without you.

The trip was the perfect combination of socializing and alone time. We drove down on our own on Tuesday, and the rest of the group filtered down at their own pace. Most of them stayed in a small hotel right in Placencia; we opted for something a little more luxurious in honor of our special day, Robert’s Grove. One of the fun parts about living in a location rather than just visiting is that you get to try different hotels each time you go back to the same town. This was the third hotel we’d stayed at in Placencia and my favorite so far.

It was close to town but not right in it, so we had a sense of privacy. The rooms were brightly colored and had lots of character; there were three pools and plenty of sun, sand and palm trees. And the customer service in the restaurant was 10 times better than what we had at the Placencia Hotel. The food was pretty tasty too. We ate dinner there the first night and had Steak Tartare, Mushrooms Bourguignonne, Shrimp Caesar Salad and something involving snapper. Over the next few days we also popped in for breakfast and had Eggs Benedict and French toast, and tried the complimentary continental breakfast.

The food options in general were fantastic this time. On previous trips we hadn’t tried many of the local restaurants and always seemed to catch things at the wrong time. One place wasn’t open on the weekends, another didn’t open till 2pm, another not till 4:00. So being there for an extended period during the week introduced us to La Dolce Vita (the best Italian restaurant in Belize), Danube (the ONLY Austrian restaurant in the country), Rumfish y Vino (a tasty Mediterranean spot), the Cozy Corner (a lovely source of pina coladas right on the beach with a great breeze from the sea), and Tutti Frutti (the best ice cream and only gelato in Belize). So the trip was a culinary success as well!

And then there was the diving. I have never been whale shark diving, nor have I been diving in the open ocean with no point of reference…no visible bottom, no boat with a convenient anchor line pulling at the sand. On the trip out I asked our guide with almost morbid curiosity how deep the water was, and he said, “A thousand feet, maybe 2,000. Who knows?” A quick Google search suggests depths of up to 6,000 feet within six miles of the reef. We were just outside the reef though, so I can’t imagine that there was a mile of empty sea beneath us.

On the day of the dive, we all congregated at the dive shop at 8am, picked up our gear, and 10 of us boarded the smallest boat I’ve ever seen on the open ocean…I would hardly call it a sea-going vessel. It proved to be a very long hour and 20 minutes to the dive location with only the middle third of the boat covered with a tarp on poles to protect us from the Belizean sun. Needless to say, half of our group got sea sick when we hit six foot seas outside the reef, and I came back extremely sunburned…but that might’ve been the part where I went snorkeling during our surface interval sans wet suit or sunscreen. Who says you get wiser with age? But I knew better.

The first dive didn’t bode well. We didn’t see anything in the water, and we had quite a few equipment problems. We had one leaky BCD, my hubby’s depth gauge wasn’t reading, another person’s fin broke before we got off the boat, and the guide tied it together with fishing line, one person’s tank wasn’t secured and started to fall off at about 60 feet, the only underwater camera wasn’t working, and another guy was so seasick he actually threw up underwater. Happily, he was in a different group…and didn’t drown.

But the second dive went much better. When a guide is trying to get your attention underwater, he will tap something metal against the side of his tank so the sound carries. At one point, we were swimming along admiring the wall of divers off to the right of us (I counted 10 boats during our surface interval back inside the reef), when my ears began to ring with the sound of half a dozen guides hidden in the cloudy blue all hurriedly tapping their tanks in excitement.

We sped forward and hovered over a massive school of snapper, the whale shark’s main attraction. And slowly, very slowly, a massive spotted whale shark about the size of school bus slid into view about 30 feet below us. The water beyond it was so dark, it would’ve been invisible but was outlined in stark contrast to the school of silver fish below it. I held my breath to minimize my noisy air bubbles and only began to breathe again when my view of the sea was once more empty and quiet.

A swarm of divers in the water (photo courtesy of TravelingCanucks.com).

Divers linking arms to simulate a school of fish (photo courtesy of http://trans-americas.com/blog).

A whale shark from above (photo courtesy of http://trans-americas.com/blog).

Online Sharing

I love the internet. I wish it’d been around when I was younger. I would’ve done a lot more research on colleges and early career choices. I love the fact that information is literally at your fingertips. Yes, you have to always consider the reliability of the source. And you have to respect people’s attempts at copyright.

When I borrow an image or anything else, I always try to cite the original work. As a matter of fact, I plan on using three images in one of my next blog posts that I found through other bloggers and am more than happy to pass on their site information. I love having people, especially other Foreign Service bloggers, link to my page.

As a relatively new blogger, I’m still excited to see evidence that other people are actually reading my posts. So I like to peruse my site stats on occasion and check out my referrers. I also acknowledge that lots of people aren’t as conscientious in their information sharing as others. Many countries probably don’t even have copyright laws; they have bigger issues to worry about.

But today I came across something that surprised even me. One of my recent referrers was the website for Belize News. I dug a little deeper and discovered a forum of sorts where the site manager posts articles and blogs from all over the place that have anything to do with Belize. All interesting, good touristy, responsible stuff.

Among the collection, I found a reprint of my last post about going to the zoo with my friend C.L., complete with all the text and photos. And it cited me at the bottom as the original source. Totally acceptable.

The one thing that caught my attention was another photo, not mine, inserted into the middle of my story. It was a completely relevant photo and fit right into the material. If you were to see it, you might think it was a photo of my friend, since there is a photo of me in the “About” page of my blog, and it’s obviously not me.

So I did a little more digging, found the home page of the individual that reposted the article, found HIS “About” page, took a good look at the one photo of his family and realized that the woman inserted into my blog looked a good deal like his wife.

That is definitely a first for me. I’ve heard of borrowing other people’s work and inserting it into your material. But I’ve never seen anyone insert their media into someone else’s story…and then cite it…so that you can go to the original and confirm that it wasn’t there to start with.

But, hey, it’s not exactly libelous defamation of character, so I’m not that worried about it. I just find the fact that the manager of a site linked to the Belize News reposted one of my stories, and inserted a photo of his wife into it, to be a little…odd.

And if you’re just dying to see it in person, click here.

Kentucky Derby Party

Today is the Kentucky Derby!! Actually, it was two weeks ago, but I’m cheating and using the WordPress backdating option. At any rate, our awesome neighbors threw a Kentucky Derby Party and invited pretty much the entire American community. Luckily, this is a small post, so only about 30 people showed up with all their children, otherwise it could’ve really gotten out of hand.

But I was super excited. This was my first time watching the Kentucky Derby, which is apparently only about two minutes long. And, even more exciting, it was my first Kentucky Derby Party! And I took it very seriously. The invitation said dresses and big hats, so I consulted with the hostess, immediately got online and started hat shopping. I had a new green dress that would work perfectly for the occasion that I hadn’t worn yet.

Belmopan is so tiny and rural that there’re very few occasions to dress up, so I went all out. Not only did I wear the green dress, but I found a nice green “fascinator” to match. And it was even shipping from the U.K., which made it feel even more fancy and authentic. My only concern was that it wouldn’t arrive in time.

But it made it, and we cruised over in our Sunday best for some socializing and mint juleps while we waited for the race to start. Our hostess had also gone all out. She had made hobby horses for the kids out of socks and fantastic food labels on the table in the shape of floppy hats. The attention to detail really was impressive and totally enhanced the atmosphere.

My first fascinator!!

Such great detail!!

There is no gambling allowed on U.S. government property, which I guess our housing compound qualifies as…even though we’re just leasing it. I’m not much of a gambler…but I do enjoy a good bet since I do it so seldom. My standard wager is rarely more than $10. I did recently bet that Tiger Woods would tank in the Masters, and he did. “Woods finished with his worst score in relation to par in 16 Masters as a pro,” if I may quote The Washington Post. Which was almost as thrilling as my $5 BZD winnings (about $2.50 USD).

So in lieu of betting, our hosts had worked out an elaborate scoreboard and guests randomly picked names out of a hat. I chose Bodemeister to place. If it was up to me, I would’ve picked Sabercat simply because I liked the name. But Fate was wiser! Bodemeister was in the lead for half the race, so I kept yelling at him to fall back!! And apparently he heard me, since he came in second, and I walked away with a fabulous gift certificate to a local restaurant.

Spring Visitors!

It’s been a great week! My friend C.L. from California came to visit last Thursday and stayed for five days. She’s the first friend that’s come to stay for any length of time that wasn’t on a half-day excursion off of a cruise ship. She actually bought a plane ticket just to see us and our new life “overseas.” So she gets our First Foreign Service Visitor (Friend) Award. Friend is a subcategory, since my mom was the first to officially visit us. And N’s mom flew in on Wednesday.

We had a great time. I’m starting to come up with a good visitor itinerary. A co-worker said that you become an excellent tour guide while in the FS, and I can see how that would happen. C.L. arrived on Thursday afternoon, so we just chilled for the rest of the day, and she got to see the housing compound and meet the baby. I was still pregnant during our last visit.

Friday we puttered around town, went to the farmer’s market, had lunch under a palapa, went swimming and laid out by the pool. Saturday we went to lunch again at a little resort in San Ignacio with a great view over the valley, and then out to the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich.

The next day we went to the Belize Zoo and tried out their Jaguar Encounter. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it. It’s $50 USD per cage, and a cage can hold 1-5 people. C.L. and I were the only ones in our cage plus a jaguar handler. And the whole experience probably lasted about 10 minutes.

The Belize Zoo has around 14 jaguars…most of them they’ve saved from farmers that had targeted them after losing livestock. Only three of them are “on display.” And you can only get up close and personal with one…his name is Junior Buddy. He was raised in the zoo and is somewhat tame from a wild animal perspective. But they’re still not crazy enough to let you loose in a jaguar enclosure. So they have a nice little cage inside his spacious pen that you get to sit in, and he gets to come check YOU out.

The handler brought in a little container of raw chicken feet. They were audibly crunchy when Junior Buddy ate them, which encouraged us to keep our fingers inside the cage. But we got to see him do a couple somersaults, rub up against the cage, then jump on top of it where he paced around above us, licked our foreheads and let us play with his paws. It was pretty amazing! And he was just beautiful.

The people cage inside the jaguar enclosure.

Monday we drove to Belize City and went diving out on the barrier reef. It was just me, my hubby , C.L. and the dive guide, so it felt like a personal tour of the underwater world. C.L. was excited as this was the first time she’d been diving since we were certified together way back when. And my hubby was looking forward to doing his part in ridding the reef of the invasive lionfish. Unfortunately, C.L. is a vegetarian and was just this side of horrified each time my hubby proudly speared a lionfish. Happily, he was gracious enough to forgo the hunting expedition on the second dive, so we didn’t ruin it for her completely.

It was turning out to be a rough day for the animals though. On our way into Belize City that morning, we were all thrilled to see our first Belizean coatimundi in the wild as it gracefully loped across the road…and was promptly run over by the car in front of us.

Blogging: One Year and My 100th Post

Today is the one-year anniversary of my Foreign Service blog, and this is my 100th post! And what a year this has been.

When I started my blog in April last year, I was living in Colorado, had just passed my Oral Assessment/Interview for a position as an Office Management Specialist and was waiting on my medical and background clearances to determine a training date in DC.

That all followed in June, and we then said good-bye to friends in Colorado, packed up and moved our family to Washington DC to live in corporate housing for two months while I attended the Foreign Service Institute.

We got to experience Flag Day at FSI, where we found out that we would first be posted in Belize for two years. I was sworn into State Department service along with my Specialist classmates by Thomas Nides, the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. And we got to meet all kinds of new people that would become contacts, colleagues and friends. We also got to spend some quality time with family in Virginia, which was a total bonus.

Since arriving in Central America, the transition to Foreign Service life has been pretty smooth. We had our natural period of adjustment being in a new culture. But travel and change come (relatively) easily to our family. And our daily life isn’t too different.

My hubby found a job at the embassy and was sworn in by our Consular Chief, so we’re both working again. The baby is home with the nanny instead of being in daycare. We spend most of our free time visiting with neighbors, playing in the pool, or relaxing at home with a video game or a movie and just enjoying each other’s company. We try to get out and about it if’s a baby-friendly event or we can find someone to babysit.

A lot of people seem to have a bucket list for the countries that they’re in. And I’m sure we will too if we end up in a larger one. Other than scuba diving, there’s not a whole lot that we’re really interested in locally that we haven’t already done, so our list is pretty short.

But I’d say that we’re still happy with the choice we made to join the Foreign Service. We’re looking forward to our bid list when it comes out in July or August. By then we will have been at post for a year, and will only have one more left until our next big move.

I plan to continue blogging and hopefully continue to have new adventures, learn new things, and find new resources worth sharing. So thanks for stopping by, and stay tuned!