Back in the USA!

So we said our final goodbye to Chile and were carried off into the night on American Airlines flight 940.

Meal service. Ahh, that Bloody Mary mix :)


Mount Rainier fly-by in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Puddle jumper for the last leg of our flight home, and the beginning of a month of congressionally-mandated home leave to soak up some of the American experience, and hopefully some good American food too.

Like cottage cheese and hot dogs, and real mustard out of a bottle, not a bag!

Saturday was our nation's Independence day, and it really felt good to be back in America for this. About 50 former South Asia hands and their families got together for fun and reminiscing in Fort Walla Walla park. There was lots of good, authentic Indian food. I ate too much, but enjoyed it. In the evening we watched fireworks under the cool, clear skies.

We got our dental appointments done, and my wife went to the hair salon to get her hair done, and send her donated mane to Locks of Love.

I don't have much hair on my head, but I wondered out loud if they need people to donate chest hair to help those who are less fortunate?

We were authorized another pack out to get all of my wife's furniture and things put into the State Department storage facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. Two guys made swift work of her stuff, while my mother-in-law plied them with cookies and drinks.

We ventured over to the nearby Whitman mission for a bit of Oregon Trail history. Memories came back of my other trip here as part of a high school history trip in 1994. Little did I realize that my future wife lived in this town.

My wife set out to mow her parent's lawn and the lawn of the old lady next door. Fortunately, we discovered this rabbit warren before the riding mower turned the 4 baby rabbits into fertilizer.

Does my mother-in-law's garden looked a little like an opium field?

Miss Chile?

10 Things I’ll miss about Chile

1. Mote con huesillo and empanadas de queso
2. Beautiful view of the Andes from our living room window
3. Penguins and llamas in the wild
4. Hiking with my wife on weekends in Reserva Nacional Yerba Loca.
5. Abundance of fruits, berries, and avocados.
6. La Vega Market
7. The efficient, comfortable interurban bus system
8. Minimum 93 Octane gasoline
9. Our Chilean friends
10. A job that I really enjoyed and good people to work with, which made such a big difference.


In the interests of painting a balanced picture of Chile, here are

10 things I’ll NOT miss about Chile:

1. Dangerous air pollution
2. Nit-picky, insecure bureaucracy
3. angry, menacing drivers
4. vengeful visa applicants
5. SENAME
6. expensive prices
7. the physical, social, and emotional, isolation
8. Crime
9. short-tempers

10. heavy-handed Customs regulations



I'm sure there are more things I could add to either list, but these are what came to mind at the moment. If you have anything else you would add, please let me know.

Last Days in Chile

Our assignment in Chile seemed to go by quickly, and soon it was over. After our office outing for lunch, we took our 'annual class portrait'.

Our boss hosted a dinner at his home for those of us who are leaving, and somehow they managed to get 20 people around one big table. Lots of good food and laughter.

Here are some pictures of our last few days.

We went hiking up in the mountains at one of our favorite nature reserves. This time there was a lot more snow. We enjoyed the clean, fresh air one last time.




On Monday morning the Remssa moving company came, and in two days the team of 5 had all of our stuff packaged up into 90 neat boxes and packages. They were so efficient we had to make sure they didn't pack the trash!

On the morning of the third day the moving truck came and placed all of our boxes into lift vans, which will be loaded into a 20-foot cargo container.

The rest of the work-week we spent completing the pages of check-out procedures and finishing up projects. In the end I printed up the 11C report and found that I have done 21,101 visa interviews during the 12 months I was on the visa line full-time.

On Saturday afternoon we hiked up Cerro San Cristobal one last time. We enjoyed the solitude at the top, but the haze reminded us that we shouldn't inhale too deeply.

Sunday was rainy and cold, so we relaxed at home, and took a walk through the cool streets in the evening during a break in the showers.

Monday was a Chilean holiday--St. Peter & St. Paul day, so we hiked up Santa Lucia hill one more time, and enjoyed the view of the snowy Andes.

The pathway to the top.
Another perspective of the city.

The sun rises over the mountains on our last day in Chile.

Our friends, who are also our neighbors, hosted a kind farewell dinner at their home. We had a lot of fun with everyone there, and ate way too much.

Our last sunset in Chile.

A driver from the Embassy came to pick us up and whisked us off to the airport. And then it was over.

Stay tuned for the top-ten list of things I will miss about Chile.

Consular Haiku

Along a similar vein from the previous Foreign Service Haiku's, these are some Consular Haiku's:

A common label
Conoffs stamp visas only
What else could there be?

They try to uphold
"Open Doors, Secure borders"
and smile at the jerks


The angry AmCit
We do our best to help him.
And yet he fusses.


Applicants all know
when the Vice Consul goes "Hmmm"
She's going to say "no".

The high priest of "No"
Sits behind bullet proof glass
“Visa? Sorry, no”.




You spot a bad case
the girl's planning to marry
a man from on-line



Pounding on the glass
"Hurry up! Where's the people?"
That colleague has gone

60-second Book Reviews

In the past couple of months, I have been able to do some personal reading.

Prophets and Kings (576 pages, available at Amazon.com) is the second in a series of five books that pulls back the curtain on the sacred history of the world and reveals God's hand in historical events. This book covers the period from around 1,000 BC at the beginning of king Solomon's reign until about 30 BC as the the Roman Empire's prophesied dominion spreads over the then-known world, which is waiting for a divine sign of deliverance. The author shows how events of the past have become relevant again for the 21st century and have a timeless significance. This series is appealing for any reader who wants to make sense of our earth's history and to see how the puzzle pieces of our past fit together to reveal the future.


Can I say the 'A' word on this website?

Okay, lets try and see what happens. The No Asshole Rule (224 pages) is a book that stemmed from an article a couple years ago in the Harvard Business Review about the negative effect of jerks, creeps, and assholes in the work environment. The book is full of examples of the negative behavior of colleagues and supervisors in the office, and its chilling effect on morale, productivity, health, and the list goes on. The author encourages companies to have a "No Asshole" rule, and then be sure to enforce it. For me, the most interesting part of the book was the last few chapters, which explains how to deal with assholes, and even how to survive and thrive in an environment that is suffering from asshole poisoning. I'm fortunate that I don't have to deal with that problem right now, but it has provided good tools for my management tool-kit for the future.

Happiness Digest (134 pages) is a light and easy read that shows how to experience more happiness in life. It covers topics such as managing stress, health, family, and the importance of getting out in nature. In a way, it's like a lifestyle book. The book has a spiritual focus, and explains how to have better communication with God through effective prayer. One chapter that I found especially interesting was about stewardship, which includes our time, health, finances, and the environment. As responsible citizens of the world, it is important to manage our health, wealth, and the environment thoughtfully, and for God's glory.

Three Cups of Tea (349 pages, available from ThreeCupsofTea.com) is probably the best book I have read in several years. A kind friend at work loaned it to me after a conversation about Pakistan. The book traces Greg Mortenson's journey from being a member of a climbing expedition to K2/Anapurna in Pakistan, to discovering an impoverished village in northern Pakistan, and his quest to help build schools for the boys and girls, especially the girls, of this region. We read how he tenaciously raises funds from donors around the world, and focuses on helping the locals of the often-forgotten villages of the Karakoram region build schools for their children, to improve their quality of life. I learned something that should have been obvious before. The return on investment of all the diplomats in costly embassies doing outreach with contacts in the cities and towns and the congressional delegations taking expensive tax-payer funded 'fact-finding' trips each year is dwarfed by the good that one American can accomplish who's willing to get his hands dirty in a remote locality, with a little funding and a lot of passion. Though not a thriller, it was very difficult to put this book down, and I found myself choked up reading about the pride of the children who had learned to read and were carrying the hopes and dreams of their villages on their shoulders. I think this book should be required reading for all Foreign Service Officers. If I had to recommend one book this year, it would be: Three Cups of Tea.

Foreign Service Haiku

The Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. Here is an adaption of the haiku, written in the context of the Foreign Service.

The Foreign Service
Is a pretty good lifestyle
All things considered.

Perks like free housing
And a fancy job title
We wouldn't complain....

Say good-bye to friends
The foreign service downside
Its a sad feeling

Descend like locusts
packers take our stuff away
Where's that welcome kit?

New diplomacy
Ambassadors are nothing
the Envoy cometh

Final Flings in Chile

Dawn comes late in the winter. We have turned on the heat now. It heats the floor, which feels good on the feet.

We enjoy food and fellowship with friends over lunch at home.The section closes for a couple hours while kind colleagues treat us and another departing officer to a delicious lunch at Tiramisu.


Beware the ice-cream snatcher.

My wife is perpetually 26, and I tried my hand at baking a cake from scratch for her birthday. She seemed to like it--at least she ate it! :-)

We went with church friends for a the annual retreat to Algarrobo, and stayed in the Banco de Chile cabins.

We enjoyed lots of good meals and fun with our Chilean friends.


The Bolshoi Ballet came to Chile, and we snagged some tickets to the show. We spotted several colleagues elsewhere in the audience.

It was a stunning two-hour performance.

On Sunday morning we go to La Vega market one more time for fresh fruits and veggies.