Day 365 - Final Reflections on Mom's Assignments

fifteen cents

The topic of Mom's fourth assignment was the role of money in her life. I had never thought of Grandpa, her dad, as being wealthy, but a few years out of college when I volunteered as a translator and driver for a man from Bolivia who was brought to the Red River Valley to minister to the migrant workers in sugar beet country, the people on the farm where the Bolivian lived referred to Grandpa as the man who owned half the county. An exaggeration, I'm sure, but Grandpa provided valuable lessons to his children on how to live frugally.

Mom and Dad taught me the value of money and how to use it when they first gave me a weekly allowance of 15 cents. A dime went into my piggy bank, a penny went into my church envelope, and I could spend the remaining 4 cents any way I wanted. In order to buy a candy bar, I had to save at least a penny from one week into the next week. Others might have concluded my allowance was only 4 cents, but no one could have convinced me of that. When I got my first paycheck with money deducted for taxes and social security, I was already used to the concept of withholding.

Camp Fire buddies Sherry, Sandy, and Mary

Camp Fire Girls provided an opportunity to learn to budget -- even if it was really just recording how I spent money. I learned the difference between fixed and flexible expenses, a valuable lesson when I returned to graduate school and had to survive on an income that just barely exceeded my monthly rent.

The values of those early lessons weren't always obvious until much later, of course. A sharp contrast makes an image appear clear. Neither Don nor John had ever learned to manage money. Don was used to taking money from his Mom's wallet when he wanted it, so that's what he did with my wallet -- always without telling me. One Friday, the only day of the week that I needed more than 15 cents to buy lunch (a dime for a day-old ham and cheese sandwich and a nickel for a snack-sized bag of Cheetos), I was ready to leave with Kris, the woman I worked with, when I found my wallet was empty.

John was used to handing over his entire pay check to his father -- with great resentment -- and then getting from his father whatever he asked for, no matter the cost. The misalignment of earnings to costs was never clear to him, much to the detriment of our relationship. I thought it would work for the two of us to agree we should live on an allowance, so we each took a specific amount from our checks to spend however we wanted. When I used mine on a blender, John accused me of making the decision to use "our" money without consulting with him. He spent all his allowance on lunches. He couldn't comprehend that I would put money from my allowance aside to spend on something tangible. Eventually we settled on using different checking accounts. He had his, I had mine, and we had ours. The allowances went into our personal accounts. When John's checks bounced, he always declared it was the bank's fault.

And I also have felt through all of my life that I needn't worry about money -- when I need it -- if I truly need it -- it will be there. The fact that I won just over $2,000 two months before I planned to quit my job and return to school, with no savings to fall back on, was probably the most dramatic example. I am sure I would have managed somehow without that source, but it made the transition from full-time work to full-time student less intimidating. And then, the fall after the summer I volunteered to drive the Bolivian around Cass and Clay counties, I was diagnosed with mononucleosis and couldn't work so I didn't even have that meager income to cover my rent. Just when I didn't know what I was going to do,  the church group that sponsored the Bolivian sent me a check for $100 to thank me for my volunteer work - just enough to pay the rent.

The fifth assignment topic was the meaning of life, aspirations and goals

by  readerwalker  I don't know if I'll know what the meaning of life is until I have finished living it. But I believe there must be meaning in the living. And I believe that I have the power to choose to live so that the effect on myself or others is positive. I try to learn good lessons from every person I meet and from every situation I am in. I sometimes get distracted, and then too often disappointed, by the aspirations others have instilled in me -- promotions or assignments others recommend, for example. But after reflection, it is always clear that these external goals are not important. Knowing that I have caused no harm or maybe even contributed some good is what is important.

Alex recently told me that one of my previous bosses in the Foreign Service told him I would never get promoted into the senior levels because I cared too much about my staff. Given those options - promotion into the Senior Foreign Service or caring about my staff - I think I made the right choice.

I didn't always want to go to church every Sunday. There were plenty of Sundays when I felt that having to get up early was punishment for having had fun by staying up late on Saturday -- not the best motivation. We older kids felt the twins were getting off too easy by being able to play in the nursery instead of having to sit still and be quiet for a whole hour with us. I didn't think about the fact that handling two toddlers in the pew would have taken away the quiet Mom needed.  The end result was worth it. I have amazing siblings who all have amazing kids.

Day 364 - My Assignment 2: Family

Dudrey Court beauties

I loved growing up in a neighborhood full of kids about my age. And I loved having so many cousins. There seemed to be so many relatives that I had a hard time reconciling that some people we used to drop in on didn't fit into the relative category. They were called friends, like Ruby and Stanley in Fargo. But even they seemed to be connected to the concept of family and relatives because they were from Hawley or Hitterdal.

I loved all the family reunions we seemed to go to several times each summer. Even if the range of relatives extended beyond those we saw often, there was comfort in knowing we were all related. Remembering this has probably helped me when I moved to places in the Middle East where clan and tribe are still strong ties among the community.

At the same time as I had all these positive feelings based on being part of a family, I didn't want my world limited to the scope of my extended family. I wanted to see more and get to know people whose lives followed unfamiliar paths. So my moves to California and then Iran and Romania came with efforts to recreate a family from the friends I met in those locations. My lack of success in marriage to both Don and John may have been in part because I wasn't able to reconcile being part of a couple with my desire to be surrounded by a larger family at the same time. Both Don and John were trying to separate themselves from their families while I was trying to extend mine. Don once told me I had to choose between him and my family. John used me as the excuse for his withdrawal from his family. Neither offered a very auspicious beginning for forming a new family unit.

Part of my Tehran family

The "family" that I acquired in Tehran was both most unusual and most intense. Of the 25 of us in the University of Southern California English teaching program, about half became close enough to celebrate all holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries together -- all the things that I had associated with family events. And because doing anything in Iran was just a little bit more complicated than anywhere else, we also had the bonding experience of having overcome obstacles together. We didn't just have to stuff and cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, for example. We also had to finish plucking the feathers from it the night before. So Thanksgiving became a 3-day holiday: Wednesday we got together with bottles of wine and conversation as we surrounded the bird and plucked or burned the last of the feathers off. Thursday we prepared and ate the meal. This meant mashing potatoes for 15 with just a fork and making squash pies in place of pumpkin pies. And Friday we got together again to finish off the leftovers.

My birthday dinner

Even going out to a restaurant wasn't a simple matter. We celebrated my birthday one year by going to the Polynesian restaurant in one of the city's big hotel. They had a special show that week so in addition to good food -- and wine again -- we also were entertained by musicians from Hawaii who dragged several of us onto the stage to learn the hula. At the end of the meal, the bill came. We knew the bill would be higher than usual, but it was really high: so high that one of our group took a close look at the details and he found there were significant discrepancies in the amounts for the same items: a few extra zeros had been added here and there. But even more surprising was the fact that the grand total at the bottom didn't match the result of adding up the individual amounts -- and the bill was done on an electronic cash register, not by hand. We pointed out the discrepancies and asked for a corrected bill. Instead of a new bill, we got a condescending lecture from the restaurant manager who pointed out that the cash register they were using was an American brand, so how could we possibly question its accuracy. The director of our program offered to leave his American Express card with the restaurant as our assurance that we would pay the bill, but only after we had received a corrected version. The manager refused that option but said he would straighten out the bill and contact us later. For the next year, the couple who had made our reservations received a monthly phone call from the hotel to ask us to pay the bill. But the restaurant never produced a corrected bill. The last phone call came when the couple was out of the country on leave and I was staying in their house. I answered the call and told the hotel that Neal and Shirley were out of the country, but they would be back in a week. The hotel never called again. So the 15 of us had a very handsome time, probably paid for by all the other patrons at other tables who were likely similarly scammed by the operator of the American cash register.

With challenges like that facing us every week, the bonds we developed were very strong. Thirty years after our Iranian adventures, I went to California to celebrate the summer solstice (a tradition that one couple introduced to all of us during our days in Tehran) with several of that group and we all agreed that none of us had ever found a similar work environment again.

Gayle

Life in Romania was much the same. One of the elementary school teachers in Bucharest, Gayle, became the central character in the lives of many of us there. Whenever I made my way from Iasi to Bucharest, I stayed at Gayle's. And every Sunday evening I was there, Gayle and Roger (now her husband) and I would cook dinner for anywhere from 8 to 16 people -- as close to the tradition of family reunions as I had come since moving from Minnesota nearly 10 years before. Is it all that surprising that I misread the signs of John's attitude toward family in that environment?

After marriage to John, I think I had expected that we would continue to have the kinds of frequent gatherings of family members and friends but this time in the U.S. with my family or in Canada with his. Slowly I began to realize, however, that my role in the relationship had shifted. Before the wedding, I was outside his family which put me in the position of being his ear as he complained about how overbearing his aunt was, how domineering both his father and grandfather were, how backward his mother was. He had very little respect for any of the women in his family: his grandmother let his grandfather walk all over her, his sister allowed his parents to arrange her marriage. He resented the fact that his aunt had attended parent/teacher conferences in place of his parents because they didn't speak much English. And suddenly, after the wedding, I was also just another female relative. With no positive models of how to relate to a female relative, he fell into the patterns he was familiar with -- and I therefore deserved no respect.

When I finally realized how many internal conflicts he had with the many members of his family, I decided the only way I could hope to maintain our relationship was to make a commitment to myself that I not have children. As much as John loved other people's kids, I could not risk putting a child in the position of having to deal with his anger, especially if the child were a daughter. But as much as I was convinced this decision was necessary for our marriage to work, it was also probably the decision that led John to realize he no longer wanted to be married.

The years between the end of my marriage to John and my meeting Alex were often filled with thoughts of guilt about my selfish life choices. I often wondered if my choices were evidence that I was running away from or avoiding something. I hope that I will eventually accept that my choices have been moving toward, not away from, something. Those choices eventually led me to Qatar and therefore to Alex and Simon. And finally my life-partner choice fits with my image of, and my need for, family. So, even if selfishness was a factor, even if I might have been just a bit looking to escape from something, Alex has brought me back to a place I want to be -- inside a family every day, not ever feeling like I'm on the outside, always able to look in.

Day 363 - More Reflections - On Family and Careers

The subject of Mom's second assignment was her family. As I read that piece, I was surprised at how much about her family - my family - that I didn't know.

Great-Grandma Tangen and six of us oldest ones

I still don't know when or where our grandparents were born, but Mom knew details about hers. I didn't even know where my parents were born, whether on the farm or in a hospital. I just remember that Grandpa and Grandma Wenner lived in the big house at the edge of Hitterdal, at the top of a long drive up a hill that leads away from Hitterdal Lake, which used to be a potato field. And Grandpa and Grandma Dauner lived in Hawley, in a house with a screened-in porch that became the bedroom for Lois, Diane, and me when we all got to stay at Grandma's house in the summer.

The Dauners

I remember Great-Grandma Tangen when she lived in Hawley with Grandpa and Grandma. And I remember trying to figure out a way that she wouldn't have to go to live in Eventide when it became too difficult for Grandpa and Grandma Dauner to continue to take care of her at home. I couldn't understand why she couldn't come to live with us if she had to move from Hawley to Moorhead. Great-Grandma had tried to teach me how to crochet, but I didn't catch on until years later when Maryann from the other end of Dudrey Court taught me. All I was able to learn from Great-Grandma was how to do the chain stitch. But I wanted to learn how to crochet because she made so many beautiful things -- lace for pillow edges, bookmarks in the shape of a cross, doilies, and even ladies' high-heeled shoes that were starched to stand up by themselves.

So many cousins

I knew we were lucky to have so many cousins. And since so many of them lived near one another, I never knew whose house we were going to stop at when we went visiting on Sundays until we drove into the driveway. I knew that Mom and Dad didn't spend as much time with their cousins as we kids got to spend with ours, and I was always a little sad to think that as we grew up, we would probably stop seeing the cousins so often. But so long as Lois didn't have a sister, and Joan was so much younger than we were, I felt as though Lois was more like a sister than a cousin, so I was sure we would always remain close and visit one another often.

I remember the Lysne Christmas pageant as part of our family's Christmas tradition, even though I don't think we ever went to it. It is just that Christmas Eve was always spent at Grandpa and Grandma Dauner's house -- until they moved to Arizona -- and the cousins who attended Lysne always had to recite their "pieces" on Christmas Eve for all of us.

The Wenners

Christmas always meant peanuts and other nuts to me as a child, too. I don't know for sure where Dad got them, but it seems like it was somewhere near the river, and we only got nuts -- almonds, hazel nuts, peanuts, Brazil nuts, and walnuts -- at Christmas time. That's when we got to use the silver nut cracker and those other implements with the tiny, pointed scoops at the end which we used to coax out the bits of nuts that inevitably got smashed as we crushed, not cracked, the shells.

I remember Mom telling us that Grandpa always joked about getting married on the longest night of the year, but Grandpa to me was someone else -- Mom's Dad -- and I knew my Grandpa and Grandma got married on the day before Grandma's 18th birthday, which was in June, not December. For years I tried to figure out how a wedding in June could have been on the longest night of the year. It should have been the shortest night. But after reading Mom's assignment, after nearly 50 years, the mystery was solved.

One paragraph in this piece confused me for awhile:

The last two years [of high school] my sister, Madelyn, and I stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Tangen who had moved from the farm. It was during this time that I met Arthur. He and his uncle Bill came by to say goodbye when they were on the way to California to enter the Merchant Marines.

That paragraph tells when Mom and Dad met, although for some reason I thought it meant they met when Uncle Bill and Dad went to say goodbye to someone else in that house, but not how or where. I thought everyone could tell the story of when and where he or she met that special someone.  So I asked Dad, but he said he couldn't remember. He said he always knew who Mom was. If he did, he must have kept it to himself. But then, he was always the introvert; Mom was a bit further out on the introvert-to-extrovert scale.

The topic of Mom's third assignment was careers. Not surprisingly, she wrote of being a mother and later working for Trinity church. But I was surprised to learn she had wanted to be a singer or an actress. How little I knew of Mom's early thoughts.

I don't know if I ever really thought about careers. I grew up assuming that I would get married and have kids. When in high school, I wrote out my life's plan. When I found it many years later, it included steps such as:

• Finish college
• Have a career for two or three years
• Get married and have kids

Silk kimono

And when I finally did get a job after finishing college, it wasn't what I had expected. I expected to teach English in high school. But, having swapped the order of the first half of my third step with my second step, I had gotten married and we moved to California where I expected to start my career for a few years while Don finished his Masters degree. But California didn't need any more high school English teachers. It was difficult to reconcile having spent four years in college to get the magic piece of paper that was proof that I was qualified to teach, and instead spending my time at a desk in an office typing and answering the telephone.

But, as Mom said in her assignment, each step is really training for the next one. Because I wasn't hired as a teacher, I volunteered to teach English in Oakland's Chinatown, and that led to a return to school to get certified to teach English as a Second Language -- first in California, then Iran, Romania, and Illinois. And when there were no options for teaching in Minnesota, I had to switch again. The plan that has since evolved was a most unlikely one -- certainly not one I would have written in advance: secretary to teacher to software engineer to diplomat may look like an entirely serendipitous path, but the connection throughout was the fascination with people and places unlike me, a fascination that started very early in my life, with glimpses of kimonos and silk skirts in a wooden trunk in the basement of 307 Dudrey Court.

Day 362 - My Assignment 1: Major Branching Points in My Life

First, there was one

 As the oldest child, I am lucky to have memories of being the most important person in Mom and Dad's life. And those memories are likely the basis for the most fundamental branching points in my life: the addition of each successive child changed my life, four times, and I still learn more each year about the impact of each of those changes.

My earliest memories of Wayne don't include baby pictures. I remember that he had to go into the hospital for a few nights when he got pneumonia. I remember playing with an elaborate set of plastic farm pieces -- fences, cows, horses -- on the living room floor. I remember a Captain Hook puppet that we used to tell each other stories.  And I remember having to share my time with Dad at basketball games, baseball games, and fishing with Wayne. So, with the arrival of Wayne, I learned, perhaps not gracefully, that I had to share.

Then there were two

Joan's arrival is much more memorable for me. I even remember Mom being pregnant, and that I had to help her wash the kitchen floor when Joan's birth was near. I wanted a sister so that I could say I had a brother and a sister, so I was very pleased when Mom brought Joan home. I remember Joan's blonde blonde hair which contrasted strongly with the brown blonde that Wayne and I had. And I remember how cute everyone thought she was (I even thought she was). In fact, only recently I realized that Joan's arrival probably sparked my need for competition because Wayne and I didn't spend so much time with Dad once Joan arrived. I may not have realized then that I was jealous, but I realized since Joan was the cute one, I had to find some other way to excel -- and thus was born my need to win and be the smart one.

And then three

By the time Roger arrived, I began to think more of my being part of a family. I remember Mom telling us that we were going to have a new brother or sister. And I know I wanted another brother -- to keep the genders even I said, but perhaps I didn't want even more competition from another sister. Roger's arrival brought opportunities. I got to "help" Mom give Roger his daily bath. I don't recall doing much more than watching, but being in the room during the ritual made me feel part of it. And I even got to babysit on Saturday evenings when Mom and Dad went out, however infrequently. I felt that I had passed some magic point of growing up with Roger's arrival.

And then came the twins, the biggest impact of all up to then. While my role in taking care of them was really quite small, the impressions on me were enormous. Where taking care of Roger was an opportunity, helping Mom feed, change, and clothe the twins became more of a chore. Thank goodness they were both so cute!

And four

But their arrival also meant I couldn't babysit for all the kids alone. Mom always arranged for neighbors, not always that much older than I, to babysit and for me to help. From this I learned that all responsibilities are not equal and growing up was going to take a lot longer.

Those lessons -- the need to share, the desire to compete, the opportunity to accept responsibilities, and to recognize that I might need help now and then -- probably explain my decisions throughout high school and college.

The additional goal -- I wanted to find something special in myself -- was motivation that made me seek out the opportunity to go to New Jersey for the summer of 1968. That experience within a Cuban immigrant community so close to New York City brought me many life-changing decisions. First, I realized I already knew a foreign language that I could teach, so I changed my major from German to English. Second, I knew I wanted to spend my life in big cities so I shrank away from anything that I thought would keep me in Fargo and Moorhead, including the wonderful man I had promised to marry before those life-changing events.

And more

And that led me to meet Don, a symbol of anywhere else. Don became my means to get to the big city when we headed west to California. And for all the pain that relationship brought, Don ended up the most important influence for me when I needed to find confidence to stay in California. He told me I could stand on my own (not necessarily in a tone of voice I welcomed), so I dared to try. Joan's arrival later that summer was just what I needed to conclude that I really could continue my California life instead of returning to an old life.

Remaining in California made it possible for me to get the opportunity to go to Iran to live and work. And the evenings I spent while in San Francisco at folk dancing halls turned on my interest in Eastern Europe which led me to Romania. While these two events started out as adventures to spice up my life, they transformed into the goal for a new life. And I thought I had found a partner who shared that goal in John. I think the slow realization that his goals were actually so different from mine -- and from what he had told me when we met -- was the unraveling of that relationship. When he asked me why I couldn't just love him for himself, I could only respond that I had no idea who he was -- he changed his story in every situation.

With my entry into the State Department's Foreign Service, I had reached the most significant branching point. I realized when I got the phone call asking me if I wanted to be part of the January class or the March class that having the choice was more difficult than having no choice. Until that point, getting into the Foreign Service had been a goal that consumed an enormous amount of my effort. Once the call came, the dilemma was that I realized it didn't matter whether I joined or not -- I needed a new goal. And I spent the first four years questioning whether I had made the right choice.

And then I met Alex, who helped me realize that my personal life is more important than work. Of course, that has been a lesson long in the learning. We have had many discussions about why I have had to work so late -- or why I have chosen to work so late. But eventually we have both come to realize we each work in order to live, not live in order to work.

Day 361 - Reflections on Mom's Autobiography

Mom at about 27

Since most of these pieces have been more autobiographical than literary, I thought I would end this project with some in that vein that I wrote before, but that needed editing.

While I was in Yemen, Mom completed an autobiography course through church. She shared the five assignments with us kids with the hope that we would also complete the same assignments. While I always intended to, I didn't complete them before it was too late for Mom to read mine. Instead, I chose to respond to Mom's assignments.

The first assignment was to describe life's most significant branching points. Mom began that assignment with these two paragraphs:

I like to think of my life as a tree. I love trees. I am sure my children got bored with my pointing out, as we traveled, that great oak, all by itself, standing so proud. Or that line of trees that were bent permanently from the wind.

Sometimes our lives show us to be straight and proud or at other times we are bowed down by trials, and tears.

I am an integrator. I don't always remember the details, but I know that I have integrated important impressions in such a way that they are now part of me, not a series of isolated memories or even in my conscious memory at all.

I don't remember Mom pointing out trees when I was a child. But I do know that I love trees, too. When I drove down the highways of Romania, I was struck by the arrangement of trees along both sides of all the roads. The bottoms of the trunks were always painted white. John used to insist that the prisoners had responsibility for painting the trees, to keep the rabbits from eating the bark.

I remember being in the park at the shore of Big Detroit Lake when I discovered how complex the patterns of the bark on the trees can be. I stared at the bark so long that my eyes started playing tricks -- it almost seemed that the bark was melting down the tree, like candle wax.

I love to look at the outline of the bare tree branches at dusk in the winter along Interstate 94 between Moorhead and Minneapolis. Those scenes always remind me of Charles Beck paintings. The landscape may be unimaginably boring in its flatness to Alex and others who did not grow up in our area, but the view of the finely woven netting of the tree limbs springing from trunks, evenly spaced and regimented in rows along the edges of fields, is enough to break up the monotony for me.

Mom's assignment continued:

The incident that affected my life dramatically happened when I was 27 years old. I was a mother of two children, Sandra age 5 and Wayne age 2. One evening, the children were in bed and their Dad was at work at the Power Plant, I was doing a correspondence Bible Study Lesson from Lutheran Bible Institute. You got each lesson, filled it out, sent it back, and it would be returned with comments and usually a word of encouragement.

The lesson was on Acts 9, the story of Saul on the road to Damascus. When I studied this story, I too, felt as if a "light bulb" went on in my head. I knew, then, that Jesus died "for me!" I felt like singing, I felt free! My life has never been the same since then. I did not instantly become a perfect person. I am still a sinner, I still found myself "grumpy" with the children when I was tired. Gradually I saw where my actions had to change, in order to be a loving wife and parent, a friend to my neighbors, as Jesus would be.

Since I was five when Mom completed the Lutheran Bible Institute lesson based on Acts 9, I may have some early memories of the Mom before Acts 9 as well as the Mom after Acts 9. But I don't have any memories of a time when I didn't think Mom had more self-confidence than the mothers of most of my friends. And I think it rubbed off. I don't think I ever thought there was something I couldn't do. I always got encouragement from both Mom and Dad to try whatever I wanted to do, whether it was to play the violin or go to camp. I never saw Mom or Dad try something that they couldn't do, or that they seemed unable to complete. As a result, it never occurred to me that I couldn't do something that an adult told me to do -- whether it was an assignment from a teacher or a task from a supervisor at work. I always figured the adult knew better than I.

Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad.

Day 258 - Secrets and Lies

by  val.pearl 

I don't like secrets. I firmly believe that a secret is only a secret when only one person knows it. As soon as a second person knows, it isn't a secret. But that doesn't absolve me of the responsibility to keep secrets when they are shared with me.

In the work I did for the State Department, I needed to know some secrets, even when I didn't want to know them. I think I do a good job of compartmentalizing what I know so I can keep secrets, but I don't like to have the responsibility. If I can't remember what is a secret, I consider everything about it secret. 

Government secrets are only shared on a need-to-know basis. Fortunately, most of the work I did for State could be better described as need-to-share. And now I work for an office at State that promotes knowledge management, knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer. It is a good fit for me.

People whose work, perhaps even their lives, depend on keeping secrets seem to think others, even those who have no need to, are keeping secrets from them. I have met many people while working at State who thought I wasn't telling them everything. Perhaps I wasn't. As I mentioned before, I choose not to say some of what I think if I think the result will be hurtful to someone else. But if only they would ask me about their thoughts and conclusions. If I knew what they were thinking, what they were telling others about what they believed I was planning to do, I would have told them the truth.

The truth. That seems like such a simple concept. Either a statement is true or it is not true, right? And what is not true is a lie, right? And when a statement that hasn't been verified is shared with someone else, that is a rumor, right? And spreading rumors is wrong, right?

If only it were so simple.

Let me tell you a story about someone I knew at one of my overseas posts, someone who tried to keep his private and professional life separate, to keep some things secret from everyone else, but I kept being dragged into the middle.

This someone, Jack*, had a position of responsibility at the embassy with many people reporting to him. Some liked him. Some did not. I liked him, so I had a hard time understanding why anyone didn't. But I couldn't change the facts. A fact is like truth; it just is.

As Jack's assignment was coming to and end, we expected him and his family to begin planning to leave. It was summer, the usual transfer season. But instead of making plane reservations and requesting their things to be packed up, Jack did nothing. 

Summer brings with it the embassy's annual July 4th event. When I asked Jack if he would be in the country for that event, he answered that he didn't know. He said he had some personal things to take care of and he would let me know later what his plans were.

Then I heard from someone else that Jack's wife had said she wasn't leaving that summer. The next question, of course, was had I heard anything about problems between Jack and his wife. I hadn't and I was not about to continue speculating without asking Jack. So I did.

Jack's answer was that since his wife had only started working for her employer within the past year, she did not want it known in the office that she would be leaving soon. It was for that reason that she had not answered the question someone asked her while she was at work with the truth. She had replied with an answer that she wanted her employer to believe. It was also in some way a statement that asserted her independence from the State Department assignment system that assumes all family members will move as a unit from place to place, that spouses (most of them wives) will settle for whatever employment options are available in each place, regardless of the spouse's education, skills, knowledge, and abilities. I could understand those thought, but I wanted to be sure that Jack understood that people would come up with their own explanations for his reluctance to share his departure plans. I predicted that the explanations others would come up with would be much less complimentary than whatever the truth was. Once again, Jack told me it was his business, not mine, so I dropped the subject.

The next time I heard anything about Jack's departure plans, it was from a local employee in another country where Jack had previously served. Alex and I made a quick weekend trip to that country where I also had served. The local employee told me Jack and his wife were adopting a baby from a neighboring country. I corrected him and told him that Jack and his wife had already adopted a baby from that country, a little boy. But the local employee then told us he already knew about the boy. Now Jack and his wife were planning to adopt a little girl, too. They hoped all the arrangements could be completed before they had to return to the U.S. because it would be far more costly if they had to return from Washington.

The curtain rose on Jack's private matter. Now I understood. When I next met with Jack, I told him what I had heard. I congratulated him, and asked him why he was keeping the plans a secret. Again, he said it was a private matter that was no one else's business, especially since it wasn't certain the adoption would go through. He asked me to say nothing to anyone else, and I agreed.

But the next day, one of those people who didn't like Jack told me that she, too, had heard about their plans to adopt a baby girl. I told her that Jack and his wife didn't want people to know and I asked her not to tell anyone else. Her response surprised me. She told me that Jack's maid is the person who told her about the adoption when they ran into one another at the grocery store. Her conclusion was that if Jack's maid was telling people, then there was no reason for her not to do the same.

Jack despised rumors. Now that one of the people who wasn't one of his fans knew about their adoption hopes, I knew there would be rumors. And although I was convinced that no one would think any unkind thoughts about the news, I knew Jack needed to know that others would be talking about his private business. So I told him. I also told him I had told no one, but I don't know that he believed me. 

I really hate secrets.

*not his real name

Day 355 - Nasser's Plans

Highly motivated and experienced secondary level teacher seeks opportunity to obtain PhD in curriculum development for visually impaired students in inclusion programs with goal of establishing a computer training center for the blind in Eritrea to improve educational, vocational, and professional opportunities in the increasingly technically advanced world.

Nasser

That is the lead paragraph in Nasser's resume - to introduce himself to those he hoped would help make his dream come true. He had succeeded in getting his Masters Degree in Curriculum Development for Special Needs, a necessary step in his long-term dream of establishing a program that would provide Eritrean children who were deaf, blind, and disabled in other ways with a solid education. He was dedicated to the idea of providing an education to all children in the same classroom, not segregating children based on their physical challenges. As a teacher, his classes were all inclusive, his term for mainstreamed. As a student, he had experienced both and he preferred inclusion.

Before I left Asmara, he asked if he could contact me for help in the future. I agreed. He had already impressed me with his determination. He had impressed the boys who agreed that I should communicate with them through Nasser. And he had impressed several people at the U.S. embassy who tried to help him as they could.

Nasser was able to meet with Melissa, the Community Liaison Office Coordinator at the embassy, to discuss possible ways to ensure support would continue for the boys. Nasser reported that the boys were able to get their team registered with the Denden Secondary School program. So long as Melissa was still in Asmara, she was my liaison with Nasser and the boys as I sent them books on soccer as well as simple English. That may not have been the best choice on my part, however, given the tension between the Eritrean government and ours. At one point not long after I left, Habtom, the team's coach, complained to the organizers of the Denden program that Nasser was keeping for himself what I had sent to help the team. Before they left, one of the team of inspectors who had been in Asmara for three weeks gave me an envelope with his spare nakfa and asked that I give it to the boys. I had a few other small items that I didn't think I could bring back to the U.S., such as a bracelet made from zebu horn, and Melissa gave those things for me to Nasser. In addition, I sent Nasser money through Western Union for his family. In order to clarify Habtom's complaint, Nasser had to provide a list of everything he received from Melissa - the nakfa, the bracelet, the books, and some DVDs on soccer - to the organizers. The result was that anything Melissa had for Nasser had to be turned over to this organizing group instead of being handed directly to Nasser. Not surprisingly, the team decided they needed a different coach.

I had expected to be in Nigeria for the three years after I left Eritrea and that offered the promise of my being able to get back to Eritrea now and then. But when the assignment to Nigeria was canceled, it was clear I would not get back to Eritrea. My attention then turned more toward providing support to Nasser and his family. One reason I was willing to provide him with support was that I learned so much from him. The other is that his requests were never for handouts. When he requested help, it was for a specific plan that he hoped would get his family into a better situation financially.

Tekelu and Nasser's children

The most important lesson I learned from Nasser is that sometimes it is better to ask for help than to continue trying to get something done on my own. Nasser had - and still has - big dreams. He knows that his dreams are more likely to come true if he is not the only person working on them. And I have learned through him that sometimes I could have gotten more done more quickly and better if I had just taken the time to ask for help.

An equally important lesson was the one he lived by never letting disappointments define him. When one approach failed to produce the result he hoped for, he took another approach. This was a lesson that I should have considered more when my plans to travel to Nigeria ended. I didn't bounce back quite the way I always saw Nasser do. I had to go through a short woe-is-me phase as I tried to figure out how to recover from the loss of what had been such a promising opportunity. But I hadn't known Nasser long enough to have seen that side of him then.

The first time Nasser asked for help, it was so he could buy goats for Tekelu and the other children to take care of. The family would get the milk to make cheese from the goats and eventually they would have the meat to eat. They bought the goats, but instead of having the children take care of them, Nasser and the children brought the goats to Nasser's family who lived outside of Asmara for them to take care of the animals. Months later, Nasser reported that the animals were doing what animals do - reproducing - so his family was able to bring one back now and then to get fresh milk and meat for holidays.

Next Nasser asked if I could send money so that Tekelu could buy items to resell to earn money for school supplies. I'm not sure how well that idea worked, but it was a plan, not just a request for money.

For the next three years, I continued to hear from Nasser by e-mail. He continued looking for ways to implement his dream and I did what I could to try to find an appropriate university program in the United States for him to explore possibilities. I even attended an open day at Catholic University in Washington, DC, on his behalf to learn more about their program. It was a struggle to get people to understand that a blind man wanted to obtain a degree specializing in teaching others with special needs. Programs seemed geared towards providing assistance to students with special needs to compete in other programs or for students without special needs to compete in programs designed to address special needs. But I continued to do research for him and to contact people to explain his goals. Perhaps Nasser put too much faith in me. But no matter what I did or couldn't do on his behalf, he never gave up on me, on himself, or on the future.

So maybe my calling to Africa was really for Nasser.

Day 354 - A Quick Trip to Yemen

Samira and Sumayya, two women at the Sanaa embassy

Since Eritrea is so close to Yemen, I took the opportunity to fly to Yemen for a long weekend before I left Africa. I was looking forward to seeing the places I had enjoyed so much and especially to see the people.

One of my Arabic teachers at the Foreign Service Institute is married to Tim, an American who had joined the Foreign Service the year after I returned from Yemen. They had met when Nisreen was his teacher with the military before she joined State. Since they were both Arabic speakers, there was no doubt that they would be going to the middle east for Tim's first assignment. Since Nisreen is originally from Iraq and still has family there, that was the only middle eastern country Tim knew he wouldn't be sent to. In the end, he was assigned to Yemen. Tim and Nisreen offered me a place to stay while I re-explored Yemen.

One of the people I was hoping to see was Sumayya, my assistant for most of the time I was in Sanaa. Sumayya's parents were determined that she should marry. They had arranged her engagement before I arrived in Yemen, but by the time I arrived, she had broken it off, insisting to her parents that she was not yet ready to get married.  Then toward the end of my year in Sanaa, they pressured her again, saying that they wanted her to stop working as they felt her involvement with the embassy was distracting her from focusing on getting married. We had a party for her on her last day in the office, but as she was leaving she told me not to worry because she had no plans to get married and she was certain she would make her parents regret that they had forced her to quit her job. She planned to be back at the embassy in a short time.

Sandra and Sumayya at Sumayya's farewell party

Sumayya was just one of many Yemeni women who countered the stereotypical image of women in the middle east. While she, Samira the Human Resources Assistant, and the other strong Yemeni women I met wore the traditional clothing and behaved modestly, as society expected from them, they were not weak-willed and did not do what others wanted just because they were told to. Sumayya wanted a future for herself, a future where she knew she could support herself. This may have been even more important in her case than for the other women I met because she was the youngest of the children in her family. Even in the west her parents would have been considered elderly.

After she stopped working at the embassy, I continued to see Sumayya as she and others invited me to join them in their homes where they could relax and not have to be constrained by abayas and hijab coverings. One of the most interesting women I met through Sumayya was originally from Aden. I didn't get to know her well, but I was struck by the fact that when her mother called her, the two of them spoke together in English, not Arabic. From 1937 until 1963, Aden and the immediate surroundings were a British Crown Colony. Even before 1937, Aden was under British rule, but administered as part of British India. The British presence ended in 1967 when the Federation of South Arabia became the People's Republic of South Yemen. In spite of the fact that 35 years had passed since the British left Aden, its influence was still evident.

Sumayya got in touch with me as soon as I arrived in Sanaa. Since it was very rare for Yemeni women to drive, Sumayya had arranged for a car and driver to take us out of Sanaa, to the village of Thula, where the young children seem to speak all the languages spoken by tourists who arrive there. I had been there several times during my year in Sanaa. What was on offer at the Thula souq was no more interesting than what was on offer in Sanaa, but just watching the children as they interacted with visitors was worth a return trip. In many cases, the shops themselves seemed to be totally in the care of the children. The boys in particular learned quickly how to strike a good bargain.

At the time of my quick trip to Yemen, Thula was out-of-bounds for embassy staff, but Sumayya was certain she and I would have no problem getting around, especially since we had a male driver with us. And I knew I had my guardian angel, so we headed out for the adventure. I couldn't just look without succumbing to at least one purchase.  After negotiating and then rejecting the best price on several items, I ended buying a bundled string of extremely small beads the seller said were coral. He also assured me I would not see anything like it in any of the shops in Sanaa. He was right. The coral beads were actually clay, worth much less than that best price I settled on.

Typical wall of jewelry in the Sanaa souq

I also made a trip into the Sanaa souq where one of the dealers I spent much time talking with during my year in Yemen, Mohammed, asked me if I was still dancing with my car. He insisted that I come home with him for lunch so that I could meet his wife. I did meet her, but only through the crack in the door leading to the kitchen because Mohammed had invited a few other of his friends, all men, for lunch as well.  Lunch was delicious. The conversation was all in Arabic, so I spent my time listening, trying to figure out something of the topic. And afterwards, Mohammed and I returned to the souq where I made the rounds to all the shops I had frequented before, picking up a few trinkets here and there, to be polite, not because I needed anything.

Nisreen invited many of the staff of the embassy for a party after work on the Friday. I still feel guilty for all the work she put into that evening, with nowhere near the help she should have gotten from her guest. Many of the people who came were interested to meet me since they couldn't imagine that there was a person on earth who would choose to come back to Yemen after having gotten out. Life in Sanaa was much more constrained than it had been when I was there.

And since then, life has become even more constrained. All the staff now live in a hotel near the embassy compound. They are driven to and from work in embassy vehicles. There is no more exploring the streets, varying the route on whim or caprice or dancing with cars on the roads.

I am so very glad I had the opportunity to spend a year in Yemen in what were clearly the good old days.

Day 353 - Train Ride

Train ride from Asmara

Stepping back to the beginning of my stay in Asmara for a moment, I had one adventure that was more significant than I understood in the beginning. I rode from Asmara to the furthest point on the way to the coastal city of Massawa that was possible at that time on the Eritrean Railway. The railway had been damaged during World War II and then partially dismantled after the civil war. The original engines were all steam locomotives, complete with the smell and soot of the burning coal that provided the energy to create the steam.  The engine on our trip looked far more modern and may have been one of the more recently acquired diesel locomotives. The trip was to celebrate that the tracks had been relaid to an intermediate point between Asmara and Massawa.

Boys on the train

That train trip was a history lesson and an introduction into the sociology of the country.

Its newest equipment is more than 50 years old, with most of the equipment dating back before World War II and many of the engines built in the 1930s. The seats were wooden benches, not built for comfort. The tracks took us around the side of mountains and through tunnels. Most of the passengers were along just for the celebration. I recall that we had a short stop at the end point, but I don't recall there being anything to see. Along the way, a few brave men dared to jump onto the platform at the back of the slowly moving train to shorten the time they otherwise would have had to spend walking beside the track. Whether there was sufficient demand to put the train into regular service between Asmara and the intermediate point seemed unlikely to me. The real goal was to complete the tracks to Massawa so that goods could once again be brought into the country through the Red Sea.

View from the train

The railway was built in the 1930s by the Italians to connect Asmara and Massawa, the two major cities of what was then Italian Eritrea, a colony of Italy since 1882. The train is narrow gauge, the standard in Italy at the time. Italian Eritrea was roughly within the same boundaries as the current country of Eritrea, although the Italians enlarged it by granting a portion of northern Ethiopia to Eritrea in response to the assistance of Eritrean Ascari, the colonial Eritrean military, against the Ethiopians as Italy sought to expand its colonial reach. Italian Eritrea was ruled from 1882 by the Kingdom of Italy and then later by the Italian Fascists who in 1936 consolidated Italian Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, and the recently defeated Ethiopia into Africa Orientale Italiana or Italian East Africa. The Italians made Asmara the industrial center of Italian East Africa which increased the flow of Italians into Eritrea that began at the beginning of the 20th century. The Italians came to Eritrea to set up businesses and factories. The impact of the Italians in Eritrea can still be seen everywhere in Asmara in the architecture of the buildings lining the broad boulevards in the center of the city as well as the many Italian restaurants and pizzerias in the city. The best pizza I have ever had was in one of the many pizzerias in Asmara.

When the Fascists under Mussolini came to power in 1922, the colonies were ruled harshly with stress on the political ideology of colonialism. The Italians used Eritrea as a base for attacks on Ethiopia in the 1930s and on Sudan during World War II. Serving in the Eritrean Ascari was one of the few paid employment opportunities for Eritrean men.

Fiat Tagliero garage and service station in Asmara

At one time, there were more Italians living in Asmara than there were native Eritreans. The city was essentially one of the first planned cities, designed and built for the Italians, not for the Eritreans. It still has a large collection of Italian art deco era buildings including a Fiat garage and service station that was built to resemble an airplane.

At the end of World War II, the Italians were forced to cede their claim on Italian East Africa and the British took over administration of Eritrea, continuing to maintain it as a separate administrative entity from Ethiopia. But as opposition to British colonial rule grew, so did the Ethiopian determination to absorb Eritrea. In 1952, they did.

More Italian architecture

Understanding the relationships among the Italians, the Eritreans, and the Ethiopians may have made some of what I saw in Eritrea less surprising. In spite of the fact that the Italians ruled Eritrea for more than 60 years, that same time period was one of separation from Ethiopia, of having access to the sea, of being the industrial center of the larger Italian colony, of being selected by the Italians to base their military. It is easy to understand that the Eritreans did not want to be part of Ethiopia. It is also easy to understand how the Ethiopians would resent Eritreans having those advantages. It is even easy to understand the border disputes that still continue since areas that had been part of Ethiopia were given to Eritrea by the Italians, making the border claims muddy, not clean lines. Without Eritrea, Ethiopia is landlocked. But its population of nearly 87 million is more than 100 times as large as Eritrea's (649,000) which was brought up as an explanation for the Eritrean perception that the U.S. would always favor Ethiopia because of its larger population.

Asmara post office

I arrived in Eritrea naively believing that independence equals freedom. I knew Eritrea had gained its independence so I expected the people to have freedom. But I left Eritrea knowing that the people in Eritrea were far from free, although perhaps the sixty years of Italian colonial rule, including twenty years of harsh Fascist rule where service in the colonial military was one of the only sources of paid employment, followed by an additional forty years of being ruled by Ethiopia has led the people to think there aren't any other options. In the ten years since I left, I haven't heard much to make me think life in Eritrea is getting easier. I have heard from Nasser that Eritreans who have family members in the west are subject to extortion by the government as they expect family members in the west will provide whatever cash is demanded.  And I think again about what the lives of the 16 boys I left behind are like now. Then I say a prayer for them all.

Day 352 - Final Game

Habtom Tekea, the coach

The boys knew I would be leaving soon, so they made one last request. They wanted new uniforms again. They really wanted uniforms that matched those of Manchester United, the favorite team of boys of all ages outside of England. But we had to settle for a more generic style. This time I went with the boys to buy the uniforms.

For the last game, I invited people from the embassy to come to watch the game and then to join me afterwards for refreshments at my house. Paula, the foreign service nurse practioner, agreed to make a cake for the boys in the shape of, and decorated as, a soccer ball. I wasn't sure just who would come. On the earlier occasion that I invited the Americans to join me for brunch, only Jewel and Paula came. But I tried again, hoping the purpose would be more appealing this time. I also invited Jane and Lisa.

Daniel Ghirmay

When the boys and I arrived at the Expo center for their game against Team Germany, several of the embassy staff
were there, including Melissa, the Community Liaison Office
Coordinator. Melissa had included an article about my adventures with the boys in the embassy newsletter. She had also asked me to speak to the American Women's Club. She hoped these efforts would encourage someone to step forward to continue supporting the boys or better yet supporting more teams.

While we watched the boys, one of the men who walked through the area that Sunday saw Jane and stopped. They worked together for the UN program. As they talked, an idea formed. They looked around the field and realized they could bring in equipment to level the field. They continued chatting away as the boys played.

Dawit Ababe, the translator

When we returned to my house, Jewel and Paula had everything arranged. The cake was there along with cupcakes that were easier for the boys to pick up and eat. There were sandwiches, chips, soft drinks, everything for a successful children's party. Daniel, the Human Relations Specialist, was also there, serving as translator, relieving Dawit of the responsibility. The ambassador and his wife as well as the deputy chief of mission and his wife also came by for a few minutes. I think the boys had been told to be on their best behavior by someone. I didn't emphasize the importance of the visitors, but someone must have. The boys were very subdued, although the sheer numbers of other visitors might have had something to do with their reactions, too.

Dawit Eyob

I took one last photo of each of the boys in their new uniforms and asked them all to write down their full names for me. I also asked them to include their mailing addresses, but Dawit told me I should just send anything I had for the boys to Nasser. It was clear that Nasser was a leader among the parents.

I have kept in touch with Nasser since I left Eritrea. He told me the boys decided they needed to change the name of the team from Team USA to Team Eritro-America, to acknowledge their Eritrean connection. I wasn't able to do much to continue supporting the boys, although I did send some English language books to Nasser for them - all children's books, many of them picture books that introduced words that start with the same letter as in A is for Apple, B is for Ball.

Ermias Habte

Through that correspondence, I know that Tekelu was unable to join Nasser and his family when they were settled in Syracuse, NY, as refugees because he had to spend his final year of school at the military training camp that precedes the period of national service all Eritreans must complete. Nasser asked me to write a letter on behalf of his claim to be Tekelu's adoptive father, but I don't know if that would have done the trick, especially since Tekelu's father's status was essentially that of a traitor. All of the boys have reached the age of national service by now, if they continued with their education and weren't forced to quit. Without Nasser in Eritrea, I have no way of knowing anything more about the boys. I imagine how tall they have all grown.

Henok Estifanos

Of the boys, Yohanna was the most talented on the soccer field. When he was in possession of the ball, I knew it would only go where he wanted it to go.  I hoped he would find the opportunity to play with others as talented as he, perhaps on the national team.

I wonder now and then how much good the four months I spent with the boys did for them. There were at just the right age to be able to ask for help without appearing to be demanding or cynical. Had all the boys been Habtom's age, I may not have felt so comfortable holding that first conversation.  I discovered in Yemen that what seems appropriate and even cute in pre-teen boys provokes a negative reaction in me from boys just a few years old. Maybe it is the innocence the younger boys conveyed. I was lucky the boys weren't older. But I wonder if they considered themselves lucky after I left.

Isaias Afewerki, goalkeeper

Medhane Gebera

Philemon Brehane

Philemon Habte

Roble Habtoom

Roble Sium

Samsom Habte

Samuel Kidane

Tekelu Moges, goalkeeper

Yohanna Gebra, the star