miss anne smedinghoff

i ignored kaitlin's call. i was enjoying a saturday morning brunch with lilly. it would have been silly to take the call. it would have been rude to take the call.

i ignored kaitlin's second call. weird, i thought.

jeremy, she texted. call me immediately, the second message read. the third explained the urgency. anne is dead.

anne and i joined the Foreign Service three years ago to live a dream. and while each of the 90 of in the 151st A-100 class knew full well that our dream involved sacrifice, it's hard to really imagine a dream ending in the final sacrifice. i was stupid enough to brag about the rather reckless approach we took to our adventurism and our invincibility: I join the foreign service not to die, but to live; it's just that sometimes in the pursuit of the former, the latter sadly happens too soon, i willed.

i haven't had to learn how to eulogize well in life. but i found that the typewriter helped when i finally turned to write to Anne's parents. in short, in retrospect, she was one of the greatest souls i knew. the youngest in our class. the most daring in our class. Anne was killed while delivering books to a school for Afghan girls. she was 25. i have a new hero always.

one through ten

brussels pd
ankara pd
athens pd
budapest con
helsinki con
london con
ottawa con
nicosia pd/pol-econ
calgary con
abu dhabi pd

Controlling Off

Sometime in the grind of a visa mill, it's pretty easy to imagine myself as just a bureaucrat and forget that i've got a pretty sweet job. Not so wednesday, my first chance to be a control officer, coordinating a big-shot's visit.

I have a small note card, written many years ago during a bout of career planning angst in either Green Bay or Madison, that says: "DREAM JOB: right-hand man to the ambassador to India." it's debatable whether that imagine best matches with a staff assistant role or the far more important Deputy Chief of Mission, but what's not up for debate is that India's current Deputy Chief of Mission -- the number two guy at one of the most important embassies in the world -- is an outstanding diplomat and a fantastic leader. And a wonderfully easy-going guy to work with.

Duties du jour? Coordinating the schedule on short notice, wearing a suit, looking good in a suit, expediting airport arrival, balancing conversation and blackberry time during drive-time, explaining fish-shaped buildings next to the airport flyover, facilitating meetings, touring manufacturing plants...and answering visa questions.

The coolest part? First time i've ever seen everything go according to plan for an entire day in India. And it was my plan.

The Two Percent Club

I don't write a lot about my job here, as this is a personal blog. And the job du jour is just one of many pretty fantastic adventures that 1. I enjoy rereading 2. feel obligated to share with my parents in lieu of consistent emailing 3. hope others can find the stories fun, funny, useful, meaningful or some combination of any adjectives pleasant. So i'd rather share stories than mindless babble about being a bureaucrat.

And there's another reason: A personal blog doesn't mesh well with a very public job. In much of what i do and say abroad, i'm representing the United States of America. These words, this forum certainly isn't that, though. This is my space to share with friends and family. And It's fine if others stumble onto it, that's half the fun, of course. But this living journal is for me, the curly-haired kid from Wisconsin, not the guy who got the Telugu-version of his business card scanned into the second-largest Telugu-language newspaper this week.

And sometimes when i'm sitting at the visa window, often rushed and cranky, plowing through a hundred interviews a day, i forgot that i am in an important, noteworthy position. It's easy to forget, counting to one hundred, how important each number is. Especially to the human on the other side of the number. But the business card itself is kind of a big deal.

Any misstep can put you in The Two Percent Club...

I started training in February 2010 with a hundred amazing classmates. After 5 weeks, we spread out across the world, complete with some darn good-lookin' belt buckles. Since then, we've got on to hundreds of thousands of visa adjudications in dozens of languages, success in the drug war in Columbia and Tajikistan and even a 151st marriage somewhere in steamy South America.

Of the one hundred of us, though, two of us have already been jettisoned from post, send packing to a new exotic adventure a few years ahead of originally schedule. In little over a year, two percent made a minor misstep -- an unapproved travel or an offhand comment -- that became an international incident of enough note for prudence to dictate that a fresh start was in the best interest of diplomatic decorum and American interests.

Luckily I am the most sensitive and discreet individual that many of my friends know...

Mother's Day Special

I've been a largely uninspired blogger. Of late and in general. I'll take this Sunday morning to make amends, which will be appreciated the most by my most avid reader/reminder-that-i-don't-update-enough: my Mom! Happy Mother's Day!

Sometimes it's not easy to feel like a diplomat when you're sitting in Hyderabad working the visa line. We're a visa mill. A factory. A manufacturing plant. A conveyor belt. It seems like our only real goal is to get through as many visa interviews as possible. When you a slog through 100 a day, coupled with the ensuing paperwork, that gets tough. The hardest part every day is simply the disconnect between how much each interview means to the applicant...and how little it means to the interviewer personally. It's grueling to take that on our shoulder, if you're the type of person who cares about people. And it doesn't make help to have a growing stack of paperwork as the number of applicants continues to grow, even as we're not ready for it. The result is i come home tired, swim, play on the internet and go to bed.

Sometimes as I'm stirring a six-foot metal pole in a red-hot burn barrel, watching sensitive-but-unclassified information melt into toxic white smoke (HYD is, after all, too new/small/insignificant a post to warrant a heavy-duty paper shredder), i bemoan the here and now and wonder why exactly the United States has sent me on diplomatic assignment...to man a burning barrel...

But the past two weeks have felt far more interesting. Almost, gasp, like I've found myself in an exciting, dangerous, fanciful profession:

- planning and strategizing with the regional educational advising coordinator over dinner. battling through eggplant to get to the much tastier dal.

- giving a long-planned tourist visa presentation for 80 travel agents and travel industry professionals at one of the nicest hotels in town. battling through 2 hours of questions with helpful but calculated answers that come pretty easily after four months here. seeing self in newspaper.

- invitation to join in drinks and dinner and conversation at the Secunderabad Club, a ritzy country club i'd have no business visiting in the United States, but it feels right here.

- helping two first-time public speakers get prepared for -- and nail! -- a presentation in Medak, a town a few hours west of Hyderabad. Mission accomplished, except i learned that my training plan needs to expand a bit in at least one area. the local staffers fielded the ole "does the united states discriminate against muslims?" question and could only muster a "no comment." Of course we can comment, because there's an important (especially in these parts) answer to the question: No.

- the braised lamb at Ruchi and Idoni.

- an assassination attempt on a local politician in the Old City. possibility of violence, tempered many think because it was Mulsim on Muslim violence, not sectarian. he's transported to a hospital 150m down the road, which has been periodically blocked the past week now by marching mourners.

- a close 7-6 loss in tennis doubles.

- after ten years, the USG finds and eliminates the world's most dangerous terrorist. he'd been hiding in pakistan all along, closer to India than the Afghanistan. americans feel good about america and our president. indians feel justified in hating pakistan, discuss starting their own raids into pakistan territory to hunt terrorists. consulate security seriously strengthened.

- checking out a potential permanent apartment...and turning down the chance to request it because it doesn't meet the same standards as the rest of the housing pool. not feeling too bad about being picky.

- playing tourguide and friend to visiting DC-wallahs. patio dinner at Our Place, a nice new restaurant.

- meeting the foreign commercial service. flowcharts, but no chipotle. yet.

- tailgating with Miller Genuine Drafts in the middle of the dusty Deccan Plateau. first live cricket match, even if the Deccan Chargers went down in a blaze of glory.

- dinner with the Indian Foreign Service classes of 1983, 1984, 1985 at the Indian School of Business. hobnobbing amongst mid and senior-level diplomats at Hyderabad's ten-year-old business school, which already ranks #13 among all business schools in the world, partnering with peers like Wharton and Kellogg.

TIME on their hands

In the bookstore earlier today, i started flipping through the magazines. they'll sell you a variety of american and british magazines for a dollar or two, amongst the many Indian options, too.

i picked up time, even if i usually get the Newsweek because it's a bit cheaper, because the cover was so provocative.


i flipped through, debating the purchase, when i was drawn to a nice little map in the middle. all the world, in a variety of color categories, relaying socio-economic prosperity levels. North America, Northern Europe and Down Under all proud in red. Japan and Europe next in orange. The southern and eastern parts of europe yellow, inviting Uruguay, Korea and Taiwan into the ranks. Further east, further south --and Chile -- green. My current India is deep purple...


I first noticed an ink splotch on the opposite page, wondered about the purple ink for a moment before i looked at the map. sure enough, a big purple stamp, right over the top of the map. "The External Boundaries Of India As Depicted in The Maps are Neither correct nor Authentic." Awesome...

five forks

Emily Post has got nothing on us now!

Gloria and I decided with Kaitlin and Barrett, many moons ago, that we needed some sort of coitillion to hone our skills in the fine art of statesmanship. So we signed up for the department's day-long protocol and etiquette class.

We didn't know ahead of time, of course, that our selected saturday would be the ONE sunny day in an entire two-week period of time... Nor did we know that we'd be starting class regularly at 7:30 on monday through friday... Nor did we know that at least two of us were headed to a land of finger food...

The morning focused on the finer points of offering or accepting a business card in foreign cultures and the nitty-picky nature of introducing someone to an ambassador, rather than the other way around. The afternoon, though, is when the real refining began.

We sat through an awesome two-hour presentation on formal dining. No man sits until every woman is seated. Seats alternate male and female. Napkins folded, from a center point, and placed on the edge of the seat if you have to excuse yourself. Soup scooped away from your body. American style versus continental. The toastee does not drink. Etc.

These, folks, are important life lessons. Although I might not get much of a chance to practice for at least two years. The only other consulate in town is Iran...

Hyderabad!!

In the days leading up to flag day, I thought it was likely that I was headed to Bogota, Caracas or Guadalajara. Any would have been a chance to learn Spanish in a cool setting.

But as cities and classmates' names were called off in a long list, my heart skipped a beat as our mentor raised the Indian flag. I've been fascinated with India since senior year of high school. A land of extremes. A land alive. More official languages than I have fingers. Gandhi and Mother Teresa. Call centers and nuclear tests.

"Hyderabad."

"Jeremy."

Game on. I'm headed to Hyderabad...a life-long dream fulfilled, working for the State Dept in India. Awesome. For 8 months I'll learn Telugu, which seems even more daunting at the moment than India did many years ago. So, so jazzed.

The early verdict?

Hyderabad's about the 5th largest city in India. It's home to 4.5 million people and a burgeoning hi-tech sector. The consulate is new, it opened last year as the fifth in India. The city is peacefully split between Hindus and Muslims high atop the Deccan Plateau. Temperatures are expected to be hot. Way hot. Visits are recommended between October and February.

Hyderabad's in the state of Andra Pradesh. The state's a hotbed of Telugu speakers. The 50-odd million speakers make it the 17th most widely spoken language in the world. H-Bad's known as the "City of Pearls," thanks to a famous pearl industry. Part of the reason for the proclivity toward pearls is that Hyderabad was the traditional capital city of the Nizam, always one of the richest people on the planet through independence and Partition.

And the cherry on the top? Two friends are headed to Hyderabad to man the visa windows alongside me. Egeszsegedre! Big Al tells the tale better, check out his blog. Keen eyes will even catch a shoutout.

Jai ho!

In Training

Best adventure of late? Ghost-touring old town Alexandria with 40 Wisconsin 8th graders. A cloaked tour guide with a lisp, though, made it slightly more difficult to believe the tales of haunting. Needless to say, 10K's any time Katie's in town.

Highlight of the "Diplomatic Culture and Representation" curriculum? Learning to eat and drink like a diplomat. The morals? 1. You've gotta eat whatever's in front of you. Villages, it seems, sometimes think it flattering to offer visiting officials yak brains, snake blood, usw. Perfect... 2. "America will not make you drink for your country."

Highlight of "Compure under Fire?" I roleplayed a US official in Columbia during a particular intense question and answer session with Columbian and American demonstrators. Classmates fired questions at me, I did my best to defend the American position or deflect the question. A classmate accused U.S. military forces of participating in violence alongside Columbian troops, He tried pinning me into a corder by claiming that he saw a "blond haired soldier" alongside Columbian soldiers. I thought for a moment. "Well, Shakira has blond hair. Next question, please?"

selection fundays

next friday's kind of a big day, the day we learn where we're headed for out first two-year assignment! "worldwide availability" was narrowed down for us to a list of 95 postings in 80-odd cities across 5 continents and a handful of islands. we ranked our interest in each city/job as high, medium or low. Lome and Manama required more background research than Moscow or Buenos Aires. Some of the highs on my list? Abidjan, Bogota, Caracas, Hyderabad, Manila and Ulaanbaatar. Awesome.

i recently, though, had my very first flag day nightmare. i woke up in a sweat at 6:03 am, my mind racing. in my dream, we had all been handed a sheet of paper informing us of our assignment. my eyes darted over the sheet, but i couldn't find the check mark indicating my first post. finally, i saw a note on the bottom of the page: "please see reverse for new assignments that were not on your bid list."

so I flipped the sheet over, and find my little check mark, right next to a sort of purgatory. instead of heading off to a land exotic, i would be manning a 16-month assignment here in Washington DC...in the Division of the Library. Someone, you see, donated 450 books to the government. the books were pretty crappy, but the donor was a big whig, so they couldn't just be tossed out. so my job, for more than a year, was to plan out what to do with those 450 books...

i balled up in the hallway, the sheet in my hands, in tears. one of our training coordinators, a very nice lady, walked past. Jeremy, she snapped, be professional!