Foreign Service Girl

I’ve been in Mali almost a year now and figured I should probably write something. Beyond the terrible internet speeds, I’m rather at a lost as to how to explain this place and life here.

Maybe the best place to start is just with some general comments on the Foreign Service. As much as I knew starting out I didn’t fully realize how much more of a lifestyle this is than a job. In many ways life is inherently more difficult. All of life feels a little like work.

A few months ago I came across this gem of a 1959 publication.

I found this passage an apt description. I shared it with the Diplomat and he agreed.

“What do you think of the Foreign Service now, Francine?”

“There’s no word for it,” she said slowly. “It’s a queer mixture – of loneliness and companionship, of touches of melodrama and stretches of everyday living, of strange sights and sounds and customs and people with different backgrounds from ours – and of an 8:30 to 5:00 job like any other – or about like any other.”

My only edit would be to those work hours, more like 7:30 – 6:30 (at the earliest). But that is the basic mix of life. The job is just a job. Granted one where I’ve sat and had tea with the President of Mali. But you fall into a pattern of normality because at the end of the day it is just life. Then there are days where every five minutes you are reminded that you are the foreign thing and nothing works the way you wish it would.

You have to ask for help in order to survive. Something I’m learning – painfully at times.

As my one-year mark approaches in a few weeks I’ve been trying to work out what I want to accomplish over the next year. Already thinking about departure and what it is that I want to be taking with me when I go – both in terms of experiences and things.

Because in case you haven’t heard – my next post is Paris.