I'mmmmm Back

I survived. I survived my first week of training as a Foreign Service Health Practitioner. Holy Smokes - 1 1/2 years after applying all the stars were aligned and it happened I actually started work. The week was completely overwhelming. Monday morning we were to report to "Main State" which is the block long building in downtown DC for in-processing. This means at the end of 8 hours you get a badge. I somehow navigated my sweaty-self to the right place and the day began.

To back up a bit...we arrived in Virginia at our new house on Saturday afternoon and had a remarkably easy check in. Eric unloaded the car in EIGHT trips and I put O down for a nap and started unpacking. We are staying in a condo in a suburb of DC called Falls Church. Its a pretty nice set up. The place is fully furnished and the complex has a pool. Its not bad at all. We have sorted out where to grocery shop and where the closest subway stop is, so things are OK.

Our old friends - Kelli and Michael - who we met in Guyana and are with the FS - are here for the next two weeks until they leave for their first post in Costa Rica. It is really nice to hang out with folks who know where things are and can give us a little insight into life out here.

My orientation with the FS is at a place called the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center also known as the Foreign Service Institute. Its quite a nice campus about 15 minutes from our place. It has the air of a community college crossed with a community center. It has a cafeteria, gym, classrooms and all the other assorted offices that make a school function. There are paths all around the buildings where the smokers hang out and the only really big difference is the security that you have to pass through to access the campus.

Most of my days are spent in a classroom learning everything there is to know about the FS or at least hearing all this new information and hoping that I will remember it when I need it. The FS is divided into Generalists and Specialists. The G's are what you think about when you think about the FS. The S's are the rest of us - they are people who are already trained in a certain area of expertise. S's include human resources, administration, medical, security and others I am forgetting. My class includes all S's. When looking at the initial schedule for this three weeks of orientation; I thought three weeks was way too long to spend on orientation. After surviving my first week, I am so glad we have a long orientation. I have learned so much about the government, about what it means to be a diplomat, about how these HUGE systems work. Our class was asked "what branch of the government do you work for?". YIKES, didn't I learn that in 8th grade civics class and promptly forget it after the quiz. Turns out, I work for the executive branch and at the very top of the DOS chain of command is Hillary Clinton.

During this last week, I have also met with the medical staff. These are the same folks I had my oral assessments with and they are all so nice. Once I finish my general FS orientation, I will complete three weeks with medical and I am really excited about this. I get to take a two day parasitology class and learn a bunch of other things about how to med-evac someone and hopefully, how not to have a nervous breakdown.

The biggest news of the last week was the distribution of my "bid list". This is a list of posts that are open for my position - that I can "bid" on. I took one look at my list and thought "Africa here we come". Honestly, world geography is not my strongest suit and the bid list only lists the post locations. HELP! But when I looked at the list I thought the names all looked vaguely African (what does an African word look like?) and turns out they were all African: Niger, Nigeria and Rwanda or Neamay, Lagos and Kigali. We knew there was a good chance we were going to be in Africa as most FSHP (Foreign Service Health Practitioners) serve in more rural areas but still it was a shock to get the bid list. The FS is an amazing resource for everything you ever wanted to know about a potential place you might live so Eric and I went to work doing our research on each country. We both came to the same conclusion - Rwanda.