Tag Archives: Venezuela

I’m Choosing My Own Adventure

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Life in the Foreign Service is a bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. There is a basic plotline that the story is going to follow (A-100, 2 directed 2-year tours, promotions, mid-level tours, etc.) but that main narrative can take more twists and turns than the Road to Hana, depending on the choices you make:

  •  Unhappy with your housing assignment? To appeal, go to page 5. To stick it out and find cool things about what you have, go to page 11.
  • Struggling to find EFM employment? To publicly complain/blame others, go to page 14. To update your resume/interview skills and keep plugging away, go to page 21.
  • Don’t know where to go on your next R&R? To spin the globe and pick a spot based on where your finger lands, go to page 23. To just go to Singapore and people watch at the Merlion yet again, go to page 31.
  • Getting kicked out of your host country with less than 48 hours to prepare? To pack calmly and methodically and with thoughtful intent- Not an option. To pack after not sleeping for more than 24 hours and after working a 17-hour day- This is your only option. Turn the page. Keep reading.

With all its ups and downs, I know I live a charmed life and have no room to complain. I checked this book out from the library and refuse to return it, regardless of what lies on the next page or the one after that. Fines be damned.

Thad’s job with the Foreign Service allows us to travel the world, living in and visiting far-flung corners of the globe that seemed unattainable to my 8th grade self, sitting in second period World Geography with Mr. Shake, grumbling about having to memorize countries and capitals. (If only at the age of 14 I knew that I would visit Borneo multiple times and stand on the geographical center of the Asian continent and take a death-defying flight over Angel Falls and plummet down a hillside in a giant hamster ball in New Zealand. Maybe I would have focused more on the location names and less on the how to best color-code my map to get the right mixture of ROYGBIV before stashing it away in my knock-off Trapper-Keeper.)

The Foreign Service lifestyle has given me the chance to choose my own adventures that led to bathing with elephants, holding a koala, petting a panda (illegally, but I saw my chance and took it), cuddling a wombat, sharing my water bottle with a quokka, and swimming with dolphins and sea turtles.

But it has also taken some crazy turns that make me think it would have been nice to hold my place with a finger while I took a sneak peek at the outcomes of the options provided.

This last tour in Caracas took would definitely have been nice to cheat and see my full range of options before picking. (Not that I would pick differently, but maybe I’d change a few decisions along the way.) Getting pulled out (or kicked out, depending on your point of view) of the country with a mere moment’s notice meant leaving behind all of our personal belongings. As of right now, nearly everything in the apartment I have been living in for the last five months is not mine. I own two dish towels (thank you Shannon!) a vintage typewriter (long story about how it ended up here, but thanks Melys and Matt!) and what came out of Venezuela in my luggage a few months ago, including way too many scarfs and not enough sundresses. It was January and I had no plans to be here until June!

I do not have my photos from our time in Peace Corps China. I do not have the thoughtful Christmas gifts sent by friends and family over the holiday season. (My new Caboodle!) I do not have the ugly circa-1970 orange and yellow casserole dish that is perfect for a two-person family and that I love so much. I do not have the wall hanging my best friend quilted for me a few years ago. I do not have my hilarious #2 pencil costume for Halloween or my awesome beach hat that got to go to the beach one last time the weekend before we evacuated. I do not have the fertility gourd that was our going away gift from our danwei (Communist work group) leader in Chengxian. I do not have my books or my patio chairs or my super comfortable memory foam mattress topper.

This things are all still in my apartment in Caracas. The bed is made. The towels are hung. I could walk in tomorrow and take up my life without missing a beat. (I know this because our amazing housing team from Embassy Caracas sends me pictures each week, letting me know that all is well.)

 

There are so many things that I do not have, but all is not lost.

Today, I added one more thing to the collection of “items I own while on Ordered Departure.”

Today, a daring escape was made!

Today, I was reunited with an old friend who has been to sleepovers and family vacations and college and study abroad and Peace Corps and a million other places with me.

Zugly, my dear buddy that I wrote about in “Moments” successfully made his way out of Venezuela (I wonder if the immigration team photographed his visa on their personal cell phones, much like they did mine on my last trip out) and to Washington DC. It took the help of a wonderful member of our local staff in Caracas to get him on a plane (carry-on—no luggage hold for Zugly!) and bring him “home” so he’s ready to embark on whatever adventure story we pick up next.

zugly

We are still awaiting a final say on where our next book will be set- it could be Asia or South America or Africa or here in Washington DC. It is still up in the air, but wherever the globe stops spinning, I’m ready to choose. Ready to choose to be excited for the new adventure. Ready to rejoin the hunt for employment. (Hopefully it is a short one!) Ready to uncover a new neighborhood, meet new colleagues, and make new friends.

It is time. I am ready to choose my next adventure with Zugly in the suitcase and a promise to always add him to the top of the evacuation pile.

 

Moments

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Moments. This last week has been filled with them.

All days are composed of moments, but most of them are mundane and just keep time moving forward. There is the moment while I am standing in line at the cafeteria with my grilled cheese sandwich. There is the moment when I ask the Dunkin’ Donuts guy if I can put $.28 on my credit card. (Answer: yes.) There is the moment when I am sitting with my nails under the dryer at manicure shop. There is the moment that I wake up at 1AM and pull my e-reader out from under my pillow, my body feeling as if it has had a nice nap, even though it is the middle of the night. And there is that moment when I am laughing out loud, alone in my apartment, to another rerun of Impractical Jokers.

These are the moments that come and go and we don’t think twice about them.

This last week though, has been filled with Moments- earning the respect of a proper noun.

There was the moment when I learned, via 11:50PM Tweet that our embassy in Caracas was going to suspend all operations and the last of our American colleagues were coming home. There was the moment when I saw pictures of the flag that flew so boldly over our hilltop embassy come down and fold into a tight triangle. There were the moments that same morning when I walked to work looking like a crazy lady with silent tears (and supposedly water proof mascara) spilling down my face as my WhatsApp was filled with photos of the final stages of our embassy closing. There was the moment when I met our returning colleagues at Dulles and was able to give them each a hug and thank them for sticking out the last seven challenging weeks. And there was the moment when I watched as our chargé d’affaires handed over the embassy flag to the Secretary of State, telling him he fully expected it back very soon.

Those are Moments with a capital M.

I knew the week had been rough, but I didn’t start thinking about it through this lens of moments until tonight. As I was cocooned out on the couch under my weighted blanket, watching some quality TV on  Hulu (The Voice – don’t judge- I’m secretly in love with Adam Levine, although I do wish he hadn’t gone with the stupid knuckle tattoos) my mind was wandering and it suddenly came to a halt, as if my brain slammed into a glass door. (This is an apt simile since there was a period in my childhood that I seemed to have made full-face contact with sliding glass doors on a semi-regular basis.)

Zugly.

I know. That word means nothing to most people, but to understand the sheer devastation that this seemingly not-a-word-word brought on, we need to go back more than three decades.

Pinpointing the exact Christmas that Zugly showed up in my life is not easy, as is seems he has been a part of it forever. (Google tells me 1986 would have been the year, so that puts me at the ripe old age of seven.) Zugly is an adorably hideous monster that has been by my side for years. He has a plum-purple head with an enormous zucchini-like nose that flops around his face. (Flaccid would be a great term for it, but the connotations conjured by that single adjective take minds to a place that are not fitting for the childhood pal that he was!) For the first week or so of his life, he had these zombie-esque eyes that were ringed in green and yellow circles, but after a few nights in my grandma’s basement, getting smashed against the concrete wall, his psychedelic paint quickly wore off and he spent the next 30-plus years with the white orbs of a blind monster. Sporting a handful of pink-yarn hairs and a single pirate-like gold earring, he is a fashion statement like none other.

He might not be pretty, but he has been at my side through thick and thin. He was my go-to as a kid when I was afraid of the dark (I’d take myself to “Zugly-land,” an imaginary land inhabited by his fellow kind-hearted ogres to help ward off the monsters that might be lurking in the closet or under my bed. Ironic, I know, but irony as a literary device was lost on my elementary self.) He was a listening ear when middle school wasn’t always kind. (Put those weird cauliflower ears to work!) He was a pillow when I had my wisdom teeth out. He’s been to college in Utah, study abroad in the Dominican Republic, on vacations around the world and on four Foreign Service tours. (I think he has spent time on every continent except Africa and Antarctica. I guess I should have taking him to CLO training in Johannesburg a few years ago.) He was evacuated from Peace Corps China when our tour came to an abrupt end a few months early due to the massive 2008 Sichuan earthquake.  And he has frightened more than one hotel housekeeper around the world. (I always love the ones who give him a bit of extra loving care, propping him up in the middle of a fancy king-sized bed as it he owned the room.)

But back to moments. I had another one tonight. Not a mundane cafeteria-time moment. And not a gut-wrenchingly emotional moment.

This was a quiet and personal Moment.

As our ordered departure from Caracas continues and its length and uncertainty are compounded, there is a part of me that fears I will never again see the things I left behind in the city. I’ve had this thought multiple times over the last seven weeks, but until recently, I discarded it as just unnecessary anxiety.

But the “what-ifs” are starting to creep in.

What if we don’t ever go back? (Fairly likely.)

What if we can’t get our stuff out? (I have a lot of faith in our team and the system, but this is a pretty unprecedented situation.)

What if all my clothes and shoes and books and typewriters and photos never make it back to the United States? (It is seemingly just stuff, but it is also so much more than that.)

And then, following that line of thought, as my brain made a mental walk through our apartment, my mind’s eye landed on Zugly.

What if Zugly never comes home?

I know how dramatic that sounds. The intensity could be pulled right out of one of the early afternoon soap operas that used to keep me entertained during my summer babysitting gigs. Drama to make a llama cringe.

But don’t discount the force of that moment- realizing that a possession, although it has zero monetary value but endless sentimental value, could be gone forever. There is no replacement. Clements might give me some money to cover the cost of a new Zugly (and all my other household items), but no eBay Zugly can replace the one with the irremovable bandage goo-stain on his nose from when I tried to cure his wart issue. No eBay Zugly will have his stuffing smashed out of his belly, making a perfect pillow, and into his feet so they balloon out like he is in the early stages of elephantiasis. And no eBay Zugly will have the rubber band of unknown age that holds together his fashionable bubble gum pink braid.

How Zugly got left behind is a much longer story, but one that boils down to optimism that we would return to our home and jobs in Caracas within a short time span. It is the same reason I didn’t pack up my desk and my wonderful colleague had to do it for me, emptying my drawers and shelves and files the last day the embassy was open for business. (My apologies for whatever weird things you found, Gerard!) I honestly believed that we were walking away for a few weeks or a few months at the most. I thought Zugly (and everything else) would be there waiting for me to return after a bit of grumpy time spent in the cold of a Washington D.C. winter.

It now appears that my DC moments are going to add up to more than I ever anticipated.

Moments are how we live our lives. They are hard to measure and easy to discount. But whether the moment is mundane or monumental, they are the building blocks of our lives. And, dramatic as it sounds, I’d love to have Zugly along for the next three decades of my moments. In a world that has gone Marie Kondo-crazy, this delightfully hideous monster sparks my joy.

Geographic Bachelorette

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Ordered departure from U. S. Embassy Caracas has brought with it a variety of challenges and more learning experiences than anyone really needs in such a short period of time. I have memorized the end date of every thirty-day increment between now and July 22. I can tell you daily amounts for lodging, M&IE, transportation, etc. for the Washington DC area for January through July. I can sort SEA payments vs. TDY payments, send GSO contacts, liaise with WHA, collaborate with CEFAR, and submit reports for FLO. Basically, if it is a series of capitalized letters that mean nothing to anyone outside of the State Department, I’ve got it covered.  Also, on the more personal and awkward side of the learning curve (because who doesn’t love a bit of semi-public embarrassment?), I now know that when stress-induced stomach problems arise (these were lovingly given a politically insensitive name that I’ll not divulge here), one chewable Pepto tablet (cherry flavor, please!) every forty-five minutes keeps me professional and functional. Two qualities not to be underrated.

Exile status has also created another wrinkle in my day-to-day life. Thanks to our expulsion, I am now geographically single and have been for the last five weeks, with an end date yet-to-be determined, but maybe late March.

Hold the presses.

I just heard that the TBD date on the TDY is potentially getting pushed back even further.

Hey look! More acronyms! If this EFM thing ever doesn’t work out, maybe I can get a gig on Sesame Street doing letter games with toddlers and Grover. Or Cookie Monster. I was always a huge fan of Cookie Monster, although slightly horrified as a child by how much chocolate chip cookie he wasted in his cookie-eating frenzies. My letter-joining prowess would also be a good foil to the Count and his many numbers and my pasty skin would pair well with his purple hue. So, when life as a Foreign Service spouse gets tiring, I’m moving to Sesame Street to spend my days with Cookie Monster and the Count. Imagine those blog posts…

But back to the main event.

After arriving back in Washington DC, Thad was summoned to Managua to help fill in for their deputy consul position, a good fit for him professionally and a chance to spend time in another consular section. From there he has continued to do his Caracas work as well, so he is really working two full time jobs while living out of a suitcase and a hotel room. But he has volcanoes to hike, beaches to visit, and rum factories to tour, so don’t cry too many crocodile tears for him. And while he is hiking and snorkeling and drinking, I’m in DC and possibly going a bit feral.

Granted, I am good Monday-Friday from 7-5. Every weekday morning I’m up and showered and dressed, and I enjoy a bowl of cereal with real milk as I sit on my living room floor, scrolling through my blog stats (it’s a quick scroll!) and catching up on “must read” lists for the month. Soon enough I’m out the door, donning dusty mauve Chuck with my Calvin Klein dress in a style that can only be called DC-professional commuter. (I’ve rocked a similar look in Chengdu, Kuala Lumpur, and Caracas, but there is something that is just so “DC” about a woman in a dress and kicks of any kind. It’s not good, really, but it beats the heck out of hiking in heels.) Work keeps me busy. Answering emails. Making calls. Setting up events. Coordinating with the management team. Filming evacuation videos. (Two so far!) And just generally touching base with the officers and family members that are in DC, in Miami, around the country, and back home in Caracas. Days are demanding.

But, evenings and weekends are another story. As a bit of a homebody to begin with (don’t try to reconcile that statement with the fact that my preference would be to travel all the time), I am happy to walk in the apartment each evening, peel off the tights that are squeezing my guts but creating a smooth silhouette (shouldn’t we band together as women to banish Spanx-anything from our lives?) and hop into a pair of leggings, a t-shirt, and an oversized knit sweater. I’ll shuffle around the apartment in slippers like an old lady every night of the week if I don’t have something penciled in on the calendar. (Yes, penciled in. I love a pretty calendar to keep track of days and weeks. If it’s not scrawled in the agenda, it isn’t happening!) Home is where my books are piled on the nightstand, my computer is queued up to Project Runway All-Stars, and I’ve got makeshift writing space set up in the “dining room.” (Note to self: find a cute writing desk while in DC that will fit within the UAB parameters for your return to post.)

As content as I am changing from night pajamas into day pajamas on the weekends, it’s probably not the best option in the long term. But, I’m with people all day long. I definitely get my words for the day in. (If I had a Fitbit-type contraption that counted my words each day, I’d have all the badges. Maybe I should invent this. Instead of having to go out in the cold and walk to get “steps,” the wearer could work on their social game by upping their daily word count. If they don’t talk enough in an hour, the device would buzz on their wrist, reminding them to go chat with someone and get some human contact. At a preset number of words for the day, the wearer would get a nice little congratulatory message with some fireworks and more buzzing. When my ChatBit becomes a real thing, I’m going to be rich!)

I seem to have digressed a bit. (Shark Tank, watch out!)

The point is, my days are filled with people and planning and purpose and now that I come home to an empty apartment, I’m embracing the solitude- maybe too much. Yesterday, in one of my shuffles to the kitchen for Pop-Tarts (seriously, it has come to that), I realized I was talking to myself. Not in the “ask the wall the temperature because you are too used to Alexa” kind of way, but in a “hey, you’re cool, I’ll chat with you” kind of way. I can’t even remember what it was about- probably something having to do with thinking through plans for the week (what are the chances I am able to get that White House tour booked?) or what I need to get at the grocery store (Uncrustables!) or whether I remembered to book a manicure appointment for next Sunday afternoon (no, but they seem to be fine with walk-ins and manicures have become my ordered departure guilty pleasure), but I distinctly remember stopping mid-shuffle with the epiphany that I am possibly going a wee-bit batty.

I can’t blame it on lack of sleep and excessive stress like I did my fantastical packing skills. I can’t blame it on an upset stomach. (Those were nine miserable days. Really. The internet pretty much had me convinced that I had some kind of terrible intestinal cancer. Thank you, WebMD. It’s probably a good thing that I don’t know how to navigate the health care system in the US, or I’d now have a bill for a visit to a doctor to tell me I was stressed out and it made me poop. A lot. That’s a bit of ordered departure allowance saved!)

I blame it solely on my geographical singledom.

The irony of this all is, while writing about how living alone has turned me slightly less domesticated, I’ve added two new social events to the calendar. Seriously. Just in the last forty-five minutes. And of course, I said yes to both. (I want to do both, but I feel like I would have been obligated to say yes even if it was an invitation to a gall bladder surgery.) First, I am meeting a friend for dinner and a lecture about female animators at the Smithsonian. (It is cooler than it sounds, I promise. And even if it weren’t, I’d go because this is my first chance to meet said friend’s boyfriend. She and I became close in Kuala Lumpur and I’ve not met her new beau. She could have invited me to a hanging in Victorian England and I would have said yes, just to meet the guy she is spending her free time with these days. I’ve already promised not to tell any embarrassing Malaysia stories, although if he asks the right questions, I’m likely to spill all the beans.) And then I’m booked with a shopping and dinner date with a different friend and her son. (Wow. I just realized that my social life as a geographical bachelorette is entirely made up of being a third-wheel! I feel like there is some dissecting to be done on that topic…at a later date.)

Ordered departure has been many things in the month and a half I’ve been out of Venezuela. It has been walking away from colleagues and friends and a life in Caracas- at least temporarily. It has been way too many hours of unmentionable stomach issues. But it has also been reuniting with my colleagues and friends at Main State in Washington DC- at least temporarily. And it has been weekends of changing out of llama pajama pants and into turtle sweatpants. But, until the weather gets better and Thad gets back from the sunny days in Managua, I’ll make the best of my solitary hibernation and my slow slide into the nuthouse.

 

The Lighter Side of Heavy Bags

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Being unceremoniously kicked out of a country is not a lot of fun. (Okay, there was some ceremony. Mr. Maduro made our expulsion very public and was seemingly thrilled with sending the Yankees packing.) There is a lot of heartache and tears in the process. Simultaneously it feels like you are abandoning your colleagues and their fight but also some (guilt-filled) relief that the next time you go to the grocery store there will be food to purchase and your queue wait-time will be minimal. This whole crazy situation is compounded by the fact that we have no idea what is going to happen or where we will be a few weeks from now, a couple of months from now, or by mid-summer. Back in Caracas? (Hopefully!) In D.C., still assigned to Caracas, continuing to work with the embassy and Venezuelan people? (Possibly.) Reassigned and looking for a new job/building a new community in Wuhan? Singapore? Lagos? Copenhagen? Panama City? (Not impossible.)

Going on ordered departure, saying goodbye, wrestling with conflicting feelings, and living with a daily dose of uncertainty are not easy, but that doesn’t mean this whole experience hasn’t been without its moments of levity.

When a dictator gives you 72 hours to leave a country and then your leadership and security teams decide that safety requires a more expeditious departure, preparing to go becomes a bit of a circus. For clarity’s sake, here was our “out of Caracas” timeline:

-Wednesday (mid-afternoon)- Mr. Maduro PNGs entire embassy

-Thursday (6AM-8PM)- Working at the embassy, getting officers and families ready to depart

-Friday (morning)- On a plane out of Venezuela

There’s not a lot of wiggle room there. And I’m not really a wiggly person, but I am a planner and it doesn’t matter how many times I talked to people about being prepared, there is no way to be fully ready to turn your world upside down in a matter of hours. For me, this  (along with the literal zero hours of sleep Wednesday night to Thursday morning) played out in some very strange packing choices.

After a day of controlled chaos at the office, I came home to find my suitcases laid out on the bed and ready to be packed. (For some reason, Thad, who had worked overnight the night before, so was home earlier than me, didn’t want to do my actual packing. Sometimes when I look at what I did/did not bring, I think he may have made better choices. At least then I may have had a winter-weather appropriate number of socks.) I started with work clothes, knowing that I’d be coming into the office in Washington. Dresses, skirts, blouses, camisoles, cardigans, blazers, ankle pants. I’ve got a pretty extensive and random selection of things to wear into Main State each day. (Thank you packing cubes! It is amazing how much more I can get in a bag with the Tetris-like assistance of these miracle-working plastic bags.)

Great. Office-wear is covered.

Next, casual/weekend clothes. This is a bit trickier as with the amazing weather in Caracas, jeans and a light shirt or a cute dress were my go-to options outside of work. Getting kicked out of amazing weather in January left me short on options that were DC-in-winter-appropriate. I grabbed what I could that would layer- mostly the couple long-sleeved cotton shirts that I kept for airplane travel, since I am always freezing as I rocket through the sky at 30,000 feet.

So far, this is all fairly standard. But this is where it all started to fall apart.

You see, late in the day we found out that American Airlines was going to give each of us a third checked suitcase for free, knowing that we were in a difficult situation. I feel like it is this bonus-bag that was my undoing. With two good-sized REI duffel bags cradling the load, I stared at an older paisley-patterned suitcase that has seen many overseas trips. What would I do with that extra space suddenly available?

Shoe-tcase!

That’s right. With packing seemingly under control, and pushing 10PM, I decided it was absolutely necessary that I load an entire suitcase with shoes. Black pumps, black dress sandals, gray heels, nude pumps, nude dress sandals, dusty rose Chucks, sky blue Chucks, bright aqua Chucks, black flats, brown flats, riding boots, tennis shoes. All of them strategically layered into the bag to ensure maximum space usage.

Did I not know I was coming to the land of DSW? I can get on the metro just a block from my apartment and be at two different DSWs on opposite sides of town in less than 20 minutes. Why did I need to empty my shoe closet?

But that’s not all.

You see, my shoe-tcase also had a huge pocket on the inside of the opening flap. Not big enough for shoes, it still seemed a waste to not fill it, so in when the scarves. Yes, scarves. Not winter scarves that would ward off the below freezing cold that I would walk to work in each morning for the next month (and counting), but fun and colorful “fashion” scarves, meant to pull an outfit together, but not necessarily to provide warmth of any measurable amount.

Which scarves made the cut? Let’s see. Blue and white with red crabs, gray with forest critters, magenta with tassel-y fringe, white pleated, coral and pink stripes, purple Count of Monte Cristo, blue chevron, Old Navy floral, Johannesburg teal with white elephants, and pink variegated. Yes. I brought ten non-functional (other than cute!) scarves with me on evacuation.

Don’t judge.

It isn’t over.

So, three suitcases (and one backpack) are packed with clothes and accessories, but my handy-dandy luggage scale says I still have some weight allowance and I know, especially in those expansive duffels, I have pockets of space left.

If you are packing up your life, what, other than clothes do you take?

The answer was easy: books.

I had a couple of piles of unread books on my nightstand, which I dreaded leaving behind. (Again, it did not seem to register with me in the fog-of-PNG that I was headed to the land of Amazon 2-day shipping, Barnes and Noble, and airport bookstores.) In went the books.

I evacuated twelve books from Caracas.

Yes, twelve.

A dozen.

When push came to shove, it was books that I was pushing and shoving into the crannies of my bag, smashing everything together so that the zippers would close.

But wait!

Before those zippers made their final onomatopoetic slides, there was still time for crazy to find a few more ways to wriggle into my luggage. Because, as I am figuratively watching the world burn, of course I need to shove my favorite throw blanket and a super weird and random stuffed sheep into the bag. To be fair, the throw blanket is the one that rests on the back of the couch and I sit under every day regardless of how warm it is outside because I love the coziness of a blanket anytime of the year.

The sheep though.

Why?

I have no idea.

The sheep was always on the bed in the spare room- a room that was largely used as storage space for our immense OTC medicine stash we brought to Caracas, as well as home to the suitcases and linens. Why I even wandered into that room on Thursday night is a bit of a mystery and then, as I scanned the space, why the sheep is what stood out as a “must go” item, I will never know! Whatever the reason, the sheep now sits on the dresser in my temporary apartment, judging me with his weird little smiling face on a daily basis.

At the end of the day, stuff is just stuff and I have very little in Caracas or here that cannot be replaced. (My wedding jewelry is already squirreled away with my sister-in-law, having never made the trip south to begin with.) It’s not a matter of what is here or what is there in terms of value, but more just a reminder of how ridiculous the combination of no sleep and lots of work stress can be. My evacuation pack-out brain was obviously not firing on all cylinders (evidenced also by the fact that I used a full ½ of my carry-on space to bring a Costco box of Rice Crispy treats to the airport to share because I was convinced officers and families were going to be starving. I did give out about half of the foil-wrapped treats, but still have probably twenty more still in the box, awaiting, I guess, our return flights to Caracas).

But, for the foreseeable future, if you’re in DC and you’re looking for some size 9 women’s shoes, a cute scarf, of just a sense of humor about this whole departure, I’ve got you covered.

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Searching for the GOOD in Goodbye

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The last two weeks have been interesting, to say the least. (That sentence is a strong competitor for “understatement of the year 2019.”) I almost typed that I’ve started this post multiple times in the last fourteen days, but that isn’t actually true. I’ve thought about starting this post, but have never gotten beyond pondering it in the shower that has endless hot water, or on my newly re-instituted walks past the White House on my way to work, or as I wander the aisles of CVS, fully aware that they are more groceries available in a single corner drug store in downtown Washington D.C. than there were in the supermarkets I frequented in Caracas.

So yes, the last two weeks have been full of changes- normally something that gets top billing at In Search of the End of the Sidewalk. And yet, my faithful readers (all 7.5 of you!) have heard nary a peep out of me- even the book reviews have been sporadic and off-schedule. Why? Because processing takes time. Because heartache is hard to put onto paper (or a screen). And because there is no way to explain what it feels like to be given 72 hours to pack up your life and to say goodbye to friends and colleagues and not be sure if you will ever see them again.

For me, that meant working a really long day, being so busy I didn’t even realize I hadn’t taken a trip to the little diplomats’ room in over ten hours- thank you middle school teacher bladder! I was holding it together well as long as I was fielding questions, sorting plans, and thinking about what needed to be done to get everyone on those planes. That all fell apart for me at about 4:50PM. I looked down at the clock on my computer and realized that the goodbye was coming soon- very soon. Updating spreadsheets made blurry by watering eyes, I staved off the inevitable for as long as possible. But denial can only last so long. Five o’clock is usually a great time of day, but not that Thursday afternoon. When Gerard, my CLO administrative assistant got up to go, I fell apart. I’m not sure we even actually said goodbye. A long and tight hug, followed by a second hug said it all for us. Tears flowed. He hid his behind sunglasses and I did the awkward hand-flap thing, neither of us able to pretend this was anything less than goodbye.

All of these things take a toll and while writing is therapeutic, blank space is as well. (I was going to make a clever Taylor Swift reference here, as I do enjoy some terrible pop music in my life, but then I realized that the chorus lyrics of “So it’s gonna be forever/Or it’s gonna go down in flames/You can tell me when it’s over/If the high was worth the pain” are really more fitting with the political side of Venezuela, a topic I’m going to steer away from as much as possible in this forum. I’m not going to talk about what may or may not be forever in Venezuela, what may or may not go down in flames in Caracas and whether or not it is worth the pain. I’ll have that conversation all day long in person, but not here. Not now. So, Taylor, my dear, no cheeky 1989 album references for me tonight.)

With a fortnight plus-plus behind me and most of the craziness starting to get under control, it seems like now is a good time to talk about our ordered departure. But how do I do that without getting into the politics? That’s a tough line to walk, but the best answer is to do it through an equally powerful “p” word- people.

People are what made it hard to leave Caracas and people are what made leaving possible.

The folks on the ground in Venezuela were amazing. Our GSO team (these are the officers and local staff who deal with our housing, our cars, our travel, etc.) was more prepared that I could have imagined with seats booked on American Airlines for the entire crew of departing personnel and families in a matter of hours. At the same time, they negotiated with American Airlines to allow us all extra bags (AA said three per person, but when we got to the airport, there was no counting or weighing- if you brought it to the counter, it got tagged and put on the plane- amazing customer service!) and to make sure the airline was prepared for the large number of pets that would be evacuating with the community. The actual arrangements to get everyone out of Venezuela in a safe and secure and expeditious manner was a massive amount of work and the GSO team at post was professional, but also deeply caring as they helped sort a variety of individual arrangements.

While GSO was on the phone with the airlines, the HR shop was cutting orders, not just to DC, but a variety of safe-haven locations both inside and outside the United States. This is a daunting task, one that requires hours of manpower and yet I never saw the team waiver- staying as late as necessary to make sure that people were ready to fly in a matter of hours.

And I can’t say enough fantastic things about our security team either. Quiet leadership and professionalism were the names of the game for the office on that Thursday of controlled chaos. While some of them had their own families to help prepare for the evacuation, they continued to make arrangements for our secure departure from the country we collectively called home. As they were in and out of my office that last morning and afternoon, it was a constant discussion about how to lessen the trauma of the next few days. One of the most amazing things that came out of the departure from Caracas was the help that our team in Caracas was able to secure with their colleagues in Miami. When we reached Miami with the first set of evacuees ( ½ came out on Friday and the other ½ on Saturday) we were met at the doors of the plane by a couple of field agents who told us to gather at the top of the ramp with the other agents. When we had the entire embassy crew together, these men carried babies, pushed strollers, opened passport control lines for our officers and diplomatic families, pushed us through security screening, and provided escorts to our onward gates. Amazing isn’t strong enough of a word for this group of agents. Astonishing. Astounding. Remarkable. All of these are fair adjectives. It wasn’t that we couldn’t have gone through passport control like we normally do. We definitely could have helped one another with babies and strollers and luggage. We could have stood in line to redo security checks and we definitely could have wandered the airport to find our gates. We had time. But, to have someone standing there, welcoming us home with smiles was special. We were emotionally spent. The goodbyes that morning in Caracas were tough- they were heartbreaking and many of us felt as if we were abandoning our coworkers and employees in a time of crisis. To have someone, just for a few minutes, take over and say “we’ve got you” meant the world. They were strangers to us, but we are all part of a bigger USG team looking out for the best interests of this nation. We didn’t need to know them beyond that for them to take us under their wings and provide much needed support. We are one team. And they had our backs in a really special way.

To top it off, when we arrived in Washington DC at the end of a day that felt endless, we were greeted once again by smiling faces. The previous CLO and a few former-Caracas State Department workers were in the terminal with signs and smiles and cheers and hugs and a few tears as well. (Also, not to be discounted, they had water and homemade cookies!) The people who were there were part of the crew that went on ordered departure back in 2017, so they got it in a way no one else could. They knew what our last 48 hours had been like- no need to rehash it or explain why tears and smiles went hand in hand.

This whole thing started with politics- politics that I feel deeply connected to and have strong personal opinions about. But in my two weeks of processing, I realize it is the people who have stepped up to make a difficult situation a bit easier, a bit smoother, a bit more humane. I can’t begin to compare my hardships with those of the average Venezuelan, but difficult times aren’t about comparing one set of pain with another- they are about being resilient in your own place at your own time and it has been the people around me who have helped to create a soft landing after what felt a bit like jumping without a parachute. It is those people who made me feel like I am ready to hop back on that plane and jump again. And again. And again, if necessary.

Living in Caracas was not always easy and at times it was frustrating beyond belief, but these people (and many others) make me want to be on the next flight back there. They make me want to be back at work alongside strong and compassionate colleagues and friends. And they make me believe that the political fight for democracy is worth all of this and more.

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U.S. Embassy Caracas (photo credit: P. Branco)