Day 240 - Mămăligă, Polenta, and Coucou

I never thought of cornmeal mush as a delicacy as a child. Mom didn't serve it; her cornmeal breakfast dish was Johnny cakes, more like cornbread than porridge. But we made cornmeal mush in Mrs. Farden's home economics in 7th grade where we smothered it in maple syrup to make it go down.

Image of mămăligă with sarmale or stuffed grape leaves
by **emmar**, via Flickr.com

So I was surprised when I landed in Romania and not only discovered the Romanian version of cornmeal mush, served nearly every day in Bucharest homes - mămăligă - but I also discovered that I liked it. There was no maple syrup served with mămăligă. Instead, the condiments that covered it were fried eggs, sour cream, and/or shredded goat cheese similar to feta cheese. I could do without the eggs, but what doesn't taste better smothered in sour cream?

Mămăligă is peasant food, not often served in restaurants in either Romania or Moldova. Perhaps that is just one more reason I like it; it usually meant I was being served it at someone's home, a rare event in Romania during my year there. Making mămăligă took hours, and strong arms, because of the time needed to stir the mixture in the pot to make sure no lumps form. The consistency of mămăligă varies from thin enough to require being served with a spoon to thick enough to be cut with a thread wrapped around the loaf-shaped batch and then pulled tight to slice off a section.

Image of polenta with wild boar stew
 by Rubber Slippers In Italy, via Flickr.com

Nearly every country in southern Europe has a similar cornmeal based dish. In Italy it is polenta, a dish that has a much higher-status reputation than mămăligă. One of the two French lecturers in Iaşi while I was there turned his nose up at mămăligă initially, until he decided to will his brain and stomach to consider it transformed into polenta. I happen to like polenta very much as well although I may never have tried it if I hadn't met the French lecturer in Iaşi.

But I was surprised to find a popular cornmeal dish in Barbados, too - coucou. When I heard the name, I thought it might be related to couscous, the north African dish made from very fine pieces of wheat. There might be some linguistic connection between couscous and coucou, and they are both the starch that holds everything else at the meal together, and I like both of them. But they are quite different and coucou is my favorite.

And that's amazing because in addition to cornmeal, coucou is made with okra, that slimy vegetable full of seeds. The okra slime is likely what keeps the meal together when cooked. If I hadn't known okra was an important ingredient, I would never have known it was in coucou. I don't know if that is evidence that okra doesn't have much flavor or if the hot sauce that is usually served with coucou overpowers the okra flavor.

Image of flying fish (bottom left) and coucou (top left)
with vegetables by berzowska, via Flickr.com

Coucou with flying fish is one of the most typical Bajan meals, served in many of the downtown restaurants, especially those catering to the local population. When my parents came down to visit us in Barbados, Dad was surprised to find flying fish on the menus since during his Merchant Marine days in the Caribbean, they used to just sweep those fish off the deck and back into the ocean. The fish were so small they didn't think they were worth cleaning to cook and eat.

I haven't found a restaurant in the United States yet where I can get either mămăligă or coucou. Thankfully, polenta can be found on the menu in Italian restaurants, giving me an occasional opportunity to remember Mrs. Farden's lesson on cornmeal mush for breakfast with pleasant memories.

Day 239 - Collective Guilt

Image of a lease by Jess and Colin, via Flickr.com

The flip side of community responsibility is collective guilt, something that most of us experienced long before we saw how important community responsibility was to Bajan culture. We saw it whenever we went looking at houses to rent. Because the number of landlords on the island is limited, most landlords had some prior experience with staff at the U.S. embassy from which they drew conclusions about all other staff at the U.S. embassy. Even those who were new landlords knew someone who had rented to someone from the embassy. Everyone had all heard the stories. It didn't seem fair to those of us who just arrived to be judged on the behavior of those who were no longer in country. What did we do to cause such negative reactions?

Well, remember that high level of curtailments? That meant landlords who expected to have the same tenant for at least two or three or sometimes four years ended up with no tenant - and often no rent - whenever an American left ahead of schedule. Even those who stayed what the Department considers a full tour - those first-tour staff members who were only assigned for two years - looked to landlords like they were slipping out of town early. When the Department assigns someone for two years, any partial month spent in the country counts as part of the time. An employee who arrives on the last day of August is considered to have completed 24 months in the country if he stays until at least the first of July. But even someone leaving earlier than that is excused if the departure is within 60 days of arrival, making a departure on June 1 to be acceptable. Then it takes up to two months for the new employee to find a place to rent. We always insisted that staff members have a diplomatic escape clause in the lease, so the landlord couldn't hold us individually responsible for being ordered to leave the country before the lease expired.

My situation is a good example. I arrived in Barbados after Thanksgiving in 1989. But I didn't move into my house until New Year's Eve. I didn't bring up my curtailing to get into the summer bidding cycle when I moved from the consular to budget office and my extending by a year when Alex got his job in St. Lucia with my landlord because it wouldn't affect him for at least another 18 months. But then when I was assigned to Moldova in response to a volunteer telegram, I ended up leaving in August of 1992. I considered that a full assignment since I was leaving within 60 days of October 1. My landlord, on the other hand, responded that he had expected me to stay for a full three years, not two years and 8 months.

Image of bars on a window
by Rob Young, via Flickr.com

Then there were the landlords who really felt burned by American embassy staff when they installed those bars on the windows that the regional security officer insisted be there. The bars became an obstacle when the landlords tried to rent their houses to others. One landlord in particular had made it well known around the island how unhappy he was because his house was on the east and north coast of the island, as far as it was possible to be away from the embassy. While the staff member who lived there liked the privacy, he only stayed a few months before he was pulled out of Barbados for some questionable behavior, possible because he was so far away from watching eyes.

There were also automobile dealers. Barbados follows the British road system with cars driven on the left side of the road. Because it costs much more in Barbados to insure a car equipped with the steering wheel on the left side (something I failed to learn until it was too late and our car was delivered), many people chose to buy a car in Barbados at duty-free prices. However, only vehicles that were still in bonded warehouses could be purchased duty free. Cars on the lots had already had their duty paid by the dealer. The dealers could get the duty returned, but the Bajan government operated at Caribbean speed which meant the delay could be up to a year. One kind-hearted dealer many years before had agreed to sell a car that had been released from the bonded warehouse to a member of the embassy staff, on the promise that the person would be in Barbados at least a year - the time required for a vehicle to be in the hands of a diplomat without duty being owed. You probably already know the rest of the story. The staff member left Barbados within a year, the Bajan government refused to return the duty paid by the dealer, and the dealer was out of luck.

Oh, did I forget to mention that duty on vehicles in Barbados was 100% of the value of the car?

When American staff members' tours were curtailed, we would have to send a diplomatic note to the Foreign Ministry to request that the unpaid duty be waived. Most people who left early didn't want to take a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car for where they were going next, but even those who brought in cars with steering wheels on the wrong side of the car for Barbados didn't want to take them with them because there was no unleaded gasoline in Barbados. Rarely did someone pay to have the catalytic converter removed from cars before leaving for overseas because of the bureaucratic headaches of getting paperwork the garages in the U.S. needed to remove them, and the Department wouldn't reimburse employees for the cost of removing them - they only reimbursed employees for the cost of reinstalling them if the car was brought back to the U.S.

Every time one of these diplomatic notes went to the Foreign Ministry, they would balk at waiving the unpaid duty, but there was usually some compassionate argument to get them to agree. Until one was requested for me.

I had brought in a car from the U.S. and I had been in the country long enough not to have to pay duty for it, but the summer before I left Barbados, the summer when I extended my tour for a fourth year, Tim*, the new employee who received the first pencil from the staff of the Budget and Fiscal office,  had brought in a nine-year-old Nissan Stanza hatchback. It had been his mother's car and he brought it with him to Pakistan, his previous assignment, where vehicles were only duty free if they had been in the country for three years. That meant he couldn't sell his car in Pakistan without someone, either buyer or seller, paying the duty. Tim had the car sent to Miami where it sat in a warehouse while he was in Washington, D.C., studying Spanish for that assignment that was broken so he could come to Barbados instead. The Nissan had been sitting in the sun, waiting to be shipped for nearly a year.

Image of a Nissan Stanza in much better shape than
ours by rscottjones, via Flickr.com

By the time it arrived, the paint was faded, there was rust developing, and Tim thought he might need a better looking vehicle for all those times he knew he would be driving to representational events around the country. When I saw the car, I agreed with him. He decided he would rather pay the duty for the car and then buy a new one as his one duty-free car. But I offered him something better - at least for him. As Alex and I were now married, I had the right to have two duty-free vehicles in the country. And I expected to be in Barbados for another two years. In addition, our son wanted to learn to drive. He didn't want to keep taking the bus to school when his friends all drove. I offered to buy the Nissan from Tim. It looked like a win-win. Tim wouldn't have to worry about paying the duty. Our son would have a car to drive to school and then down to the beach with his surfboard sticking out the back window after school. It wasn't a woody, but it was good enough.

But then, eight months later, I was assigned to Moldova. Because I had little time to get ready for the transfer, when the Foreign Ministry refused the request for a waiver of the duty free because this transfer did not look to them like there was any compassionate need, we sent diplomatic notes to both the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry to request information about how much the duty would be if the vehicle were sold in Barbados. We got a response from the Finance Ministry. I paid the duty, and then I sold the car to one of the local employees of the embassy.

Six months later, the general services officer at the embassy in Barbados contacted me to tell me that I needed to pay more for the duty on the car. The Foreign Ministry informed the embassy that the Finance Ministry did not calculate the full amount. The additional amount they requested I pay was almost to the penny what I had sold the car for.

Instead of paying the additional amount, I requested that the embassy ship that now nearly 11-year-old Nissan to Moldova. The story of what happened to the car there will have to wait for a later project.

*a name, not necessarily the right one

Day 238 - Work Permits

Image of men at work sign by Red~Cyan (Pro),
via Flickr.com

The Barbados government was very interested in having people come into the country to invest. There were many westerners, both North Americans and Europeans, interested in moving to Barbados to set up businesses. It sounded like synergy, but there was a disconnect between those two visions. The Barbados government's vision was foreigners depositing money into Barbados banks and then turning the business over to Bajans to do the work. The vision of the foreigners, however, involved hands-on management, or what the Barbados government considered work. And there is the catch. In order to work, foreigners need work permits. Employers are responsible for applying for the work permits. That makes it tough for a prospective self-employed foreigner.

The situation was probably more complicated with some other options, but these are my observations.

In Alex's case, it took 18 months for the government to issue a work permit, based on the application from the Barbados Telephone company. We will never know what the reasons were for the delay, but it seemed typical.

Image of a mini moke by kenjonbro, via Flickr.com

We met three couples whose experiences were different because they were their own bosses. The first were Canadians and owners of a rental car company specializing in renting mini mokes to tourists. Both husband and wife were present at their business all the hours they were open. But they were told they couldn't do anything. They couldn't answer the phone. They couldn't write up a lease. They couldn't sign the lease. They could only oversee.

The next couple, British, owned a pub and restaurant. Like the Canadian couple, they were warned not to do any work. They could not cook or serve food. They could not take orders or serve drinks at the bar. They could only oversee their employees.

One afternoon, when a delivery truck arrived, an immigration employee either saw or was told that the husband pushed a dolly with the supplies on it from the truck to the back door of the pub. That began their troubles with immigration which led eventually to their departure from Barbados.

The tea shop

The third couple were American and British, Martin* and Anna.* They had work permits from a small hotel they had managed before we met them. While they still had work permits, they opened a bakery and tea shop. They opened every morning by 8 and they stayed open until they sold everything they had baked that day. That ensured that everything they served was fresh and they never had to work too late in the day, making up for the early hours they kept to bake their goods. We used to have breakfast there Saturday mornings which is how we got to know them.

About a year later, Anna's mother fell ill and Anna had to travel to Florida to be with her. Martin kept the shop open, but a few months later it became clear that he would have to travel to Florida for awhile as well. He left the shop in the hands of their staff for a month. We continued to have breakfast there on Saturdays, but the quality of the baked goods was not the same at all. Instead of light gingerbread mini loaves, the loaves were heavy and stodgy,  and there was nothing flaky about the pastry of the Cornish pasties, making the convincing case for there being more to baking than just following a recipe.

While Martin and Anna were in Forida, their shop was robbed. Only their specialty kitchen equipment was stolen. When they returned to Barbados, their staff began to complain that they didn't understand why they shouldn't share in the profits of the shop since they worked there. Then when Martin and Anna applied for their work permits to be renewed, there were unexplained delays. They stuck around for a few more months until they decided to pack up and move to Florida.

Day 237 - Edith*

Image of living out of suitcases by Mandy_Jansen
via Flickr.com

Edith* arrived in Barbados shortly before Christmas. She had just completed a tour as a rover where she lived out suitcases as she traveled from post to post, filling in for secretaries at small posts while they were on leave or at posts where an unanticipated vacancy was causing a hardship for others. She hadn't seen her furniture or other possessions for at least two years. Everything was in storage while she roved.

Edith selected Barbados because it was a living quarters allowance post and the climate is warm all year long. She hoped to bring her father to Barbados to live with her. But a week after she arrived, her father died. When she requested her tour curtailed for compassionate reasons, the Department refused because the number of people who had been allowed or required to leave early was unacceptably large.

Edith wasn't going to take that response without a fight.

Sometimes I am a little slow catching on when someone is deliberately misbehaving. I always think there must be an explanation. But Edith really tried my patience.

The first clue I got was when her boss, the deputy chief of mission (DCM), hosted a welcome dinner for her. After the meal, Edith cornered me on the sofa and started telling me how jealous one of her previous bosses, a female ambassador, had been of her. Edith said the ambassador was jealous of how much better Edith played tennis and of how many more men were attracted to Edith than to the ambassador. She even made some very unflattering comments about that ambassador's ethical standards and behavior. I couldn't quite believe my ears. I had never met someone willing to speak so unflatteringly about a third person to another person she barely knew. I couldn't figure out why she would share these thoughts with me.

As she began her search for a house on the island, she contacted a real estate agent and then seemed to think I was going to be her new best friend as she kept coming to my office to chat about how unacceptable the whole process of locating a house to rent was. Her methods involved trying to get me to agree with her by statements like, "I know that you probably have never been at a post that is as screwed up as this one, so I am sure you'll agree with me that . . ."

One morning as I walked by the front office (Department-speak for where the ambassador's and DCM's offices are) Edith caught my attention and started in again on what a headache it was to have to find her own house and deal with the realtors. Then she said there was some small compensation, since the agent she was using had shared a lot of information about others at the embassy. She repeated something very unflattering her realtor had told her, or so she said, naming no names, but describing the person in enough detail that the ambassador's secretary, sitting at the desk facing Edith's recognized that she was it. If looks could kill. . .

Edith used that same strategy of stopping anyone who walked by the office in order to share her complaints. It reached the point that no one wanted to walk by her office. But the bathrooms were down the hall. The offices were along three sides of a square with the fourth side being the lobby. The front office was along the bottom of the U-shaped corridor. There was an entrance at both ends of the lobby. To avoid going by Edith's office, people whose offices were along the corridor opposite the bathrooms would walk out to the lobby and then enter at the opposite side of the lobby to reach the bathroom. They reversed their path to return, tripling the distance, all to avoid being trapped by Edith.

Commissary with Mary, the manager, and one of the
volunteer baggers

One by one, Edith zeroed in on each person, always saying things in a way that seemed designed to trap the person she was speaking with into admitting he or she agreed with her. We all tried to stay out of her way. One Saturday when I wasn't feeling well, I called Mary, the commissary manger, to ask if she minded if I sent Alex to pick up a couple of things for me. Since we weren't yet married, Alex wasn't officially my dependent. And the commissary was limited to employees and their dependents. I almost warned Alex that if Edith was there when he arrived, he should just walk away. Alex frequently volunteered to conduct inventories at the commissary under the previous manager, so he was no stranger to the place or its operations.

Edith was there when Alex arrived. But since I hadn't warned him, he picked up the few things I needed and wrote out the check I had signed and gave it to Mary. Later I learned that Edith was behind Alex and she commented throughout the transaction how kind it was of Mary to allow a non-embassy person to shop at the commissary.

A couple of months later, Mary traveled to Miami for a conference of commissary managers. When she returned, she came to see me to tell me that Alex could no longer shop at the commissary. The office that supports the commissaries in the Department had told Mary they had received nine anonymous telephone calls and letters complaining about Mary's allowing Alex to shop. They also said they had forwarded the messages to the embassy, but they understood no one had taken any action.

Now that is what worried me. Neither the management officer nor the ambassador had mentioned it to me. I called the management officer to ask if he had received messages from the Department. He admitted that he had, but he knew who the complaints were from, so he chose to ignore them. I next called the ambassador and asked him if he had received the messages. He also said he knew who the complaints were from, so he also decided to ignore them. I told Alex he shouldn't come with me to the commissary. He said that wasn't a problem for him. He wouldn't go into the commissary with me and he also would no longer help out with the monthly inventorying.

It didn't take much longer before the DCM concluded that she would rather have no secretary than to have to continue dealing with Edith. The Department curtailed her tour and the general services officer (GSO) had the task of getting Edith's household effects packed up for her departure. Even after getting what she wanted - a curtailment - she didn't let up.

Normally employees are allowed two days of administrative leave for their packout. But Edith had some conditions. First, she hadn't completely unpacked, but instead of just removing the boxes that were still packed and pack up only the rest, Edith insisted that she must be allowed to open all the boxes so she would know what was in them. She explained that she had deliberately mislabeled the boxes so that if someone stole a box, they would be disappointed when opening it. She also packed electronic items in one box, but the cords to them in a different box, again to disappoint any potential thieves. This was her justification for needing extra days - for the unpacking and then the repacking. Edith also insisted that an American employee be present for the entire packing process which now promised to be closer to six days than two. Another condition was that everyone must leave her house for two hours from noon until 2 p.m. so that Edith could get a refreshing swim in. Her house was near the beach, but not on the beach, the reason Edith needed two hours.

In the end, Edith left. No one shed a tear.

*a name, definitely not her real name, one I will never forget

Day 236 - Murder Mysteries

I love murder mysteries. I read part of one nearly every day. I love any mystery, even when there is no murder involved. Barbara Vine is my favorite non-murder mystery writer because of the psychological aspects of the stories she tells. I especially love murder mystery games, especially as a farewell party.  You know the type I mean - everything you  need for the game comes in a box with invitations, scripts, and clues, suitable for eight people to play. Each character gets a description of the role in advance to make dressing for the part possible. During the game, the characters are provided with additional clues so that the murderer can eventually be discovered.

Dinner and a murder players in costume

The first farewell party I attended that involved a murder mystery game was one my friends threw for me the day before I was leaving for Washington to begin my career in the Foreign Service. Initially I thought it wasn't a great idea - after all, I was LEAVING and they wanted to play some silly game instead of focusing all their attention on me. And besides, everything I owned had been packed up and put into storage so I didn't have costume clothing to conjure up my role as a 1920s English woman from the aristocracy. I just had casual clothing or go-to-work clothing.

Playing a game that kept our thoughts away from the drama (or non-drama) of my leaving turned out to be an excellent way to spend that evening. The game we played came with a recommended dinner menu which the hosts prepared for us to enjoy as we played successive rounds. There were 11 of us, not eight, but the three additional characters were given names and roles to play. We knew the murderer wouldn't be one of them, but otherwise they participated as fully as the rest of us. The evening felt like one where I was getting to know several new people all at once, a situation I knew I would soon be facing, another reason that it was an excellent event.

Dinner and a murder players in character (from left, the
stuffy teacher, the sultry miss, the cool playboy)

It worked so well that when I offered to host a farewell dinner for one of my colleagues in Stuttgart, I suggested a murder mystery event for that occasion. Since I had already played the game, this time I was just the host, bringing everyone together and serving the meal.

In Doha, during the summer when so many people left the country to escape the heat, I offered to host one of these events for the eight of us who were still in town.

I wasn't sure the public affairs officer, Martin, would enjoy this event. He and his family lived at some distance from the rest of us, so we didn't socialize with them much except for the obligatory representational events. And that wasn't socializing; that was work. But he really surprised me. Martin had drawn the role of Dr. Malcolm Practice, Mal for short. When he and his niece arrived, Martin was in character as he handed out business cards with his character name, Dr. Malcolm (Mal) Practice, M.D., as he introduced himself to everyone.

Martin, aka Dr. Practice, and Gloria, Dinner and a murder
 in Doha

As my tour in Barbados was coming to an end, the community liaison officer (CLO), a locally hired family member responsible for assisting employees and their families get adjusted to the new country, asked me what I would like to do for my farewell event. There was always an official event in the office, but separate events were also hosted with the departing employee deciding the guest list. I decided I would like to have another murder mystery event in my final week. This time, however, there were far more than six other people to invite, so I worked out a guest list with the CLO for 22 more people, allowing us to have three groups of eight play the game. I had found a location that would easily accommodate us which also had the look of an English stately home - the main dining room of the Edgewater Hotel near Bathsheeba on the east coast of the island. The CLO arranged for the kitchen to prepare the meal for us right out of the murder mystery script and on a Friday evening in July, we headed across the island for the event.

It was calypso king night during Crop Over, Barbados' big annual carnival celebration, when the best of the best calypso singers competed. We saw lots of traffic heading west as we made our way east. When we arrived at the hotel, we saw that we were the only guests that evening. That meant that the hotel and restaurant staff were on duty only because of our murder mystery and dinner event. There was a little grumbling among the staff. They would have preferred to be in Bridgetown.

Dinner and a murder in Doha with Martin (in background)
Steve, Gloria, and Jeff

The three sets of players sat at different tables as the games began. The ambassador and his wife were among the group. The ambassador also had the role of Dr. Practice for the evening. His wife had a role with just a hint of something shady in her past. Watching the two of them get into their roles was a great part of my entertainment.

After the first round, dinner was served, and that meant that the staff of the restaurant were drawn into our conversations, if only as eavesdroppers. As the second round continued, I saw the staff begin to whisper among themselves. Later I learned they were drawing their own conclusions regarding who the murderer was. They had the opportunity of seeing three different versions of the mystery while each table was absorbed in just one.

After the second round, we were served dessert. By this point, the restaurant staff were beginning to let us know who they thought the murderer was. At the end of the third round, when the murderer was revealed, the restaurant staff seemed as pleased as those of us playing the game. While they would always have an opportunity the next year to attend the calypso king competition, chances are they will never again host a murder mystery event.

Day 235 - Crime in Barbados

Image of Barbados policeman
by garda, via Flickr.com

Most of us had at least one experience with crime on Barbados. The most extreme case was the political officer's family's encounter with the escaped murderer. In fact most of our experiences didn't rise to the level of contacting the police. In our case, for example, we heard the squeak of the gate leading up to the second floor of our house while we were watching TV. Alex walked to the short set of stairs leading up to the landing where the stairs leading upstairs were right near the entrance from the carport. We had left the door to the carport open for the breeze. Alex arrived at the landing just in time to see an intruder run out. The next morning we discovered he had grabbed the book bag of one of our son's friends which had been on the kitchen counter. We found it outside the next morning, tossed into the plants that lined the wall of our house. Cash was missing, but everything else was there.

We also think we may have encountered one of the escaped murderers, though briefly and without any way to confirm it. We were driving downtown Bridgetown with the windows open. We saw police on horseback, a useful way for them to get around in the maze of one-way streets downtown, so we didn't think much about it until a man grabbed the post between the windows on the passenger side of our car and hung on after shouting that we should keep driving, fast. He put down his feet to slide as we drove. Once we got around the corner, he dropped off and ran between buildings where the gap was too narrow for the horses to follow.

Our son and his friend Jonathan had a closer encounter. They were at Jonathan's house when they heard something outside near a storage building in the corner of the property. They saw that the door had been opened and one of the family's bikes was on the ground outside the building. And they saw someone making his way over the hedge at the edge of the property. Jonathan's parents were away, so the boys called the police, and then they called us.

Image of bicycle by Hello, I Am Bruce, via Flickr.com

When the police arrived, they had lots of questions, but they were much more focused than I had expected. Instead of asking the boys for a description, they asked for confirmation of details, such as did the guy they saw hopping over the hedge have dreadlocks or short hair? Was he short and stocky or tall and thin? It was like they had a short list of suspects they were filtering to identify the likely suspect.

Headlines announcing a death by suspicious circumstances, while it may have been shocking, rarely developed into a mystery. The police almost always had a very good idea who had been involved. That was one of the reasons the series of strangulations of taxi drivers and their passengers, including the choreographer for the Miss Barbados pageant, in the late evening hours was so mysterious. There seemed to be a strangulation under similar circumstances every weekend for a few months. And then there were none. Neither was there an announcement of an arrest or trial.

We heard about thefts from tourists from their hotel rooms on the beach. And we heard about praedial larceny, the theft of crops from the fields.  Both types seemed to target groups of people - tourists and plantation owners - who were believed to be much better off financially than the majority of Bajans. But in a small country like Barbados, the pool of those likely to fall into the pattern of theft, or as the Bajans called it, tiefing, was small, giving the police an advantage when investigating the crimes.

Day 234 - Bajan Hospitality

Rosie and Joey

We spent a lot of our time entertaining in our home or being entertained at the homes of colleagues. But we didn't spend a lot of time in the homes of Bajans. This was yet another example of the cultural differences on the island.

There were two couples we thought of as Bajan who we spent time with in their homes, Rosie and Joey and Orrie and Nancy.

Rosie worked in the personnel office at the embassy and was always inviting members of the embassy - both American and Bajan - to their home at the northern end of the island. Their home was at the end of a long and narrow drive with trees lining both sides, draping the leaves and branches over the road like an arch. Every time we drove to their home, I could feel the tension flow out of my body as we got closer to the house.

Rosie and Joey had three cats, four turtles, and about six or seven dogs, in addition to chickens and cows. The cats ruled indoors. The turtles had their own enclosed area in the garden. And the dogs ruled outside. A couple of them were border collies who would try rounding up the chickens if they strayed too far from the coop. I loved watching Joey feed the dogs. He would put down one dish for each dog. The dogs would line up behind a bowl and wait for Joey to pour food into the dishes. There was no fighting or contention. The dogs waited for their turns.

Rosie and Joey's dogs

Orrie was Alex's colleague with the Barbados Telephone Company (Bartel). Alex's project involved inventorying all Bartel's properties in order to recommend properties that were no longer needed or that needed improvements.

We thought Rosie, Joey, Orrie, and Nancy were Bajans, but eventually we learned their experiences on the island were very much like ours. They rarely, if ever, were invited to the homes of Bajans. Rosie and Joey were from Saba, another Caribbean island, although they had lived in Barbados for many years. Orrie and Nancy were from Guyana.

We were invited to the home of one Bajan couple, our next door neighbors, Allen and Elaine. Allen and Elaine moved into their home shortly after we moved into ours. Both houses were the most recently built on the hill. Allen was a veterinarian so there were cars parked on our street every day as pet owners brought their dogs, cats, and other small animals to Allen's office. Most people didn't roll up the windows on their cars so our Sharifa would often end up going for short rides as she would jump into the cars and settle down in the back window until someone noticed her and would return to Allen's to let her out. So Allen got to know our cats before we met him and his wife.

Hospitality at Rosie and Joey's

Our first official visit with Sharifa to Allen's office was the day after Allen and Elaine had been our guests for dinner. There were many more dinners at either our house or theirs. Elaine was also one of my contacts at the embassy as she was a realtor who had been negotiating with the management officer who married the DCM to lease a new building for U.S. Information Agency. When the management officer and DCM left, that project ended up on my to do list.

Allen and Elaine had traveled to the U.S. frequently. Allen had attended university outside of Barbados. As a result, they were more comfortable around foreigners than most Bajans. One weekend, Allen and Elaine told us they were inviting some of their friends for a party. They wanted us to know because there would be some noise. But mostly they wanted to explain that they weren't including us because they knew that their friends hadn't been outside of Barbados and they were concerned that their friends would leave us out of the conversation. They didn't want us to feel uncomfortable.

Even one of the Bajan employees who worked in the Budget and Fiscal office, Angela, told me she didn't feel welcomed by Bajans. She and her husband had lived in England for several years. They married there and their parents remained in England when Angela and her husband decided they wanted to raise their children in Barbados. They had been in Barbados for two years by the time Angela began working at the embassy. In spite of her Bajan citizenship, she said she still felt like an outsider. When she learned that I would be leaving Barbados a year earlier than planned as a result of my volunteer response for Moldova being accepted, she asked if I could help her get a job with the U.S. embassy in London because she and her husband had decided by then that they would likely feel more comfortable in England than if they remained in Barbados. For the sake of their children, they decided they needed to be comfortable in order to be good parents. Shortly after we left Barbados, I heard from Angela that she had been hired by the Federal Aviation Agency at the embassy in London so she and her family were able to return to England.

Day 233 - Good Enough For A Pencil

Image of pencils by hownowdesign,
via Flickr.com

On her last day in the office, Beth, a secretary in the political section, handed out pencils with the embossed message "Don't forget me. Beth." It was a clever departure touch and I thought the idea of pencils with a message might be useful elsewhere.

I ordered a batch of pencils with the phrase "One of the B&F Favorites." B&F or Budget and Fiscal is what the financial management office was called in those days. I gave each of the members of the staff five pencils and told them to look for opportunities to give them away when one of their customers did or said something that pleased them. I had noticed that Bajan staff responded to those who came to them for help as if they were looking in a mirror. If Americans approached a Bajan staff member with a smile, they got a smile in return. If Americans approached with a frown, they got a frown in return. I thought I might be able to encourage a higher percentage of smiles by challenging the staff to look for good behavior. The only requirement was that they had to explain the reason they were giving the person a pencil.

The first pencil went to Tim*, an American who came for help because he just realized that he hadn't been paid for the previous three months. This was a very unusual situation, fitting his very unusual circumstances. He had originally been assigned to a country in South America after his previous assignment in Pakistan. He returned to Washington for six months of language training, during which time his previous post had responsibility for reporting his time and attendance. But somewhere during his language training, his assignment was changed to Barbados. When that happened, he had other training to complete and the hand off between his post in Pakistan and the office in Washington that should have handled the change in assignments was dropped. As a result, no office was reporting his hours and the checks stopped going into his bank account. There was nothing he did - or didn't do - that caused the problem. And until he learned from his bank that he was about to go into overdraft, he had no way of knowing a problem had occurred. He explained these details, smiling the whole time. Given the circumstances, laughing was about the only response for Tim. When he finished his story, there were three members of the B&F staff ready to hand him a pencil for his positive attitude.

Presentation of the framed pencils

The rest of the pencils eventually were given away, and then I began serving as the acting management officer (known then as Joint Administrative Officer or JAO). Now the general services office staff, the personnel office staff, the information office staff, and the community liaison office staff all reported to me, so I ordered up some more pencils with "One of the GSO Favorites," "One of the Personnel Favorites," "One of the IMO Favorites," "One of the JAO Favorites," and "One of the CLO Favorites" on them and gave the staff of those offices the same assignment. Pencils started being handed out all over the building.

We had learned as a result of the cultural orientation after the fight how important it was to the Bajan staff that we all greet everyone each day. But that lesson wasn't adopted by everyone. The embassy was located on the third and fourth floors of a bank building in downtown Bridgetown. The Bajan staff, as well as those Americans in the management function, worked on the third floor. The ambassador's and DCM's offices, the security, political, and economic offices were on the fourth floor.  The ambassador and DCM would come down often to the third floor and walk through the space to greet the staff. The chief of the political office never did. When he was named the acting DCM, the ambassador reminded him that he should also make regular walks through the third floor to talk with the Bajan staff. He did.

My farewell gift from the embassy

One day as I was walking with Brenda, one of the Bajan B&F staff, the acting DCM came through and after he passed us, Brenda commented on how much he had changed since being named acting DCM. But then she added, "but not enough for a pencil."

My farewell gift from the staff of the embassy was a framed page with signatures from most of the staff of the embassy. Also on that sheet were four pencils, from the B&F, GSO, JAO, and Personnel offices. Nothing could have pleased me more.

*a name, not necessarily the right one

Day 232 - Three Vernal Bear Days in Barbados

The Vernal Bear Day Bears in Barbados

The embassy in Barbados was much larger than the embassy in Qatar or the consulate general in Stuttgart, so I looked forward to observing Vernal Bear Day with a larger number of people. In addition, through our son we had met members of the British High Commission and somewhere along the way we also met Carol from the Canadian High Commission, enlarging the pool of people who might just be willing to act childlike for a Sunday afternoon.

The first year, I focused on inviting people who didn't have children, or at least didn't have children in Barbados, so that the reason for the holiday - to give adults who want to enjoy the discovery of spring time traditions - could be observed. But since I couldn't count myself among the childless any longer, we extended the invitation to those with children around our son's age as well.

Valerie and Margaret at Vernal Bear Day Brunch in Barbados

The first year the Vernal Bear Day brunch was a time of discovery for most of the participants. Each person or couple arrived with a basket prepared according to the rules I had distributed in a shopping bag, a garbage bag, a waste basket, or a box as the disguise. I told them they now should find a hiding place within the first floor of our house for their disguised basket.

After brunch we drew numbers from a hat to determine who would go first to find a hidden basket. The finder then uncovered the basket and investigated the contents to be sure nothing had to be confiscated (no bunnies allowed; chicks are optional). The rotation then followed with the person whose basket had just been found going next. And so it went until all the baskets had been found and opened. That was about all there was to the event, but I know everyone had a good time.

The next year, some of those who had attended the first year had moved on and there were a few newcomers, including the ambassador and his wife as well as the DCM, but now there were many more enthusiasts to share the instructions of what makes a suitable Vernal Bear Day basket. A couple of people had friends in town who also joined us for brunch and the discovery of the baskets. Again, the event took up about three hours for brunch followed by the basket hunt. And everyone enjoyed themselves.

The third year, my last spring in Barbados although I didn't yet know it, things were a little different. This was during the several months when I was serving as the acting management officer and the political section chief was serving as the acting deputy chief of mission. On that weekend, the ambassador was out of the country and out of his area of responsibility. That meant the acting DCM was in fact the acting ambassador or chargé d'affaires. The ambassador planned to return to Barbados Sunday morning, so he and his wife could attend Vernal Bear Day. The political section chief/acting deputy chief of mission/chargé d'affaires wasn't among my circle of friends, so I hadn't invited him and his wife to brunch.

Barbro brought her own bear to the party

The Saturday evening before Vernal Bear Day, about 10 p.m., John, the regional security officer (RSO), called me at home to let me know there had been an incident at the chargé's home. He wanted me to know about it before the ambassador returned and he thought it would be a good idea for me to accompany him to the airport when the ambassador's plane arrived.

The chargé's home was quite a distance from Bridgetown and also quite a distance from any neighbors. This was a deliberate choice on their part because his wife was an opera singer who wanted to practice every day.  They had learned from previous assignments that as much as people loved her voice in a concert, neighbors were not so thrilled to be within earshot for the many hours a day she practiced. So they lived quite an isolated life.

Their home was surrounded by sugar cane fields. Sugar cane doesn't have an annual growth cycle like most crops I am familiar with. There is cane at all stages of development at all times of the year. It appeared to me that it took about 18 months for the cane to grow to the point it was ready for harvesting, so fields were being harvested right next to fields that just been planted. Harvesting had just begun on a field close to the charge's home. What had been 15-foot tall stands of cane were being cut down to stubble.

Image of sugar cane fields ready to be harvested
by Enrico Rubboli, via Flickr.com

Those tall stands of sugar cane had been the hiding place for the previous year of one of four convicted murderers who had escaped from prison. Just how motivated the police were to recapture the four was a subject of many rumors since one of the men came from a prominent family. Most people assumed that all four of them had managed to stow away on one of the many banana boats that came into the harbor regularly. There wasn't a lot of effort going into finding them.

A few weeks earlier, the chargé had noticed that some of the cardboard packing boxes his family had put into their carport had disappeared. But he didn't think too much about it. He thought some kids might have picked up the cardboard to recycle or to play with. But on the Saturday evening, just as it was getting dark, his son mentioned that he thought someone was in the carport. The chargé went out to investigate. He found himself face-to-face with one of the four convicted murderers with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at him. The intruder insisted that the chargé get down on his knees behind his car with his hands behind his head and to keep quiet. The felon hit him on the back of his head with the butt of the shotgun to ensure the chargé complied.

The felon grabbed a few more things from the carport and took off, leaving the chargé and his family shaken, but not badly hurt. They called the RSO who called the Marine Security Guard Detachment Commander who rounded up the Marines who weren't on duty to travel with him out to the house. By the time they got there, the Barbados Police were also at the chargé's house, stamping around in the cane fields, looking for the felon. They found the makeshift shelter he had constructed from the cardboard packing boxes, but once again the felon managed to get away, but not before one of the policemen shot another of the policemen by accident.

That's why the RSO thought we should both be at the airport in the morning to meet the ambassador. John picked me up at home the next morning. He had a copy of the morning edition of the local newspaper with the headline, "Policeman shot at U.S. diplomat's home." John thought the ambassador should get the full story from us rather than seeing the headline in the airport.

The ambassador knew something was up when there were two of us to meet him.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked.

Vicki and the ambassador at Vernal Bear Day brunch
in Barbados

In contrast to the insistence on protocol by the ambassador in Qatar, the ambassador in Barbados had just the right balance of formality when it was necessary and being down-to-earth when it was appropriate. The ambassador knew his driver would be outside the airport waiting to take him home, but he didn't insist that the DCM or any other embassy official escort him to and from the airport.

After John finished explaining what had happened and the ambassador was satisfied that no one from the embassy was seriously hurt, I asked him if he thought I should postpone Vernal Bear Day.

"Whatever for?" he responded. "Do you need help with the preparations?"

I assured him everything would be ready.

"Then Vicki and I will be there on time," he replied.

That final Vernal Bear Day brunch went quite normally with only the discussion of the events the evening before marking it as somewhat unusual.

Day 231 - The Fan

Image of Bridgetown Careenage by Loozrboy,
via Flickr.com

A few months before we arrived in Barbados (or maybe it was a few years before; it was so hard to tell how long ago something happened in the Caribbean), there had been a fire in one of the buildings near the Bridgetown Careenage. A number of shops catering to tourists had been located in the building. Many were wiped out. The few that weren't had to relocate.

Alex stumbled upon one of them during his wanderings looking for props or set materials. It was a Bajan version of Pier One Imports, with items from all over the world. It was also just a bit like the Doha souq in that there were no prices on the items. Making a purchase involved bargaining and Alex loved to bargain.

The fan

The item that caught Alex's eye was a very large Chinese-style fan, at least six feet across. When Alex asked how much it was, the woman working in the shop said it wasn't for sale. Alex pointed to another fan the same size but completely different colors and patterns. Where the first fan had a dark background, dark wood, and a beautiful design with a slightly silver tinge overall, the second had a light beige background, light wood, and bright, almost gaudy colors in the design. The first looked rich; the second looked cheap.

Alex asked how much the second one was. She gave a price which Alex then offered for the first fan. The clerk explained again that the first was not for sale because it was the owner's. Alex asked her to find out from the owner how much he wanted for it. The clerk seemed reluctant even to raise the subject because only the owner could make the decision to sell it, and he had made it clear he didn't want to.

Carol of the Canadian High Commission 

at Vernal Bear Day Brunch with the fan 

in the background

Whenever Alex was downtown, he would drop in and ask the clerk if the owner had decided to sell it yet. The answer each time was that the fan was not for sale. Some might have given up or decided it wasn't worth the time talking with the clerk again and again. But Alex is an extrovert who loves to talk with anyone, stranger or friend. And since he didn't have an office to go to for his daily conversations, a friendly clerk in a tourist store was a good match for him.

On a Saturday morning, Alex took me to shop to show me the fan. As we entered, Alex greeted the clerk and asked if the owner had decided to sell the fan yet. The clerk told us that the owner was in the shop that day, so Alex could ask him himself. And he did.

The owner explained that he did not want to sell the fan because it was very special to him. It was the only item in his shop at the Careenage that wasn't destroyed in the fire. The fan was a symbol of his survival after the fire. But Alex would not be dissuaded. He pointed out that at the right price, the owner would be able to buy something really nice to replace the fan. Still, the owner hesitated. Alex didn't bother comparing the price of the other fan, but he continued to encourage the owner to name a price.

Kimonos in the background of a Vernal Bear Day Brunch

in Barbados  with Valerie and her husband Tom, the 

Consul General, Ross, the Management Officer and his 

wife Carol

In the course of the conversation, we mentioned that we had three Japanese kimonos that we bought as curtain replacements to cover the French doors leading to the balcony from the living room, but we eventually just put them on our walls as decorative touches. We explained that the kimonos came from Ragstock, a recycled clothing store in Minneapolis, so they didn't cost as much as curtains and they are much more interesting than plain old curtains.  But Alex kept bringing the conversation back to the fan and his desire that the owner name his price.

Finally, he did - 200 Barbados dollars. Alex didn't give him time to reconsider. He pulled out the cash and handed it to the owner. Slightly chagrined, the owner took the fan off the wall, turned it around to show us the smoke damage on the back of the fan, closed it up and reluctantly handed it over to Alex. We agreed to provide him with a kimono if we ended back in Minneapolis before the end of my tour.

Day 230 - Curtailments - The Rest of the Story

Mapps College, a private secondary school for boys

I hadn't noticed the high curtailment rate while I was in the consular section, but once Natalie volunteered for the African post, her assignment was curtailed, and I moved into her job, I saw things from a different viewpoint. The reasons for the curtailment requests were all different. The methods and strategies employees used to get their tours shortened were varied. The only common factor to most of them was that life in Barbados didn't turn out to be what people had thought it would be. The result was what we saw at that 40th birthday party in our first few weeks, at least one unhappy person in every couple.

Natalie's was the first curtailment I knew of. She left Barbados within two years of arriving. And within weeks, Ed, the personnel officer, was the second curtailment, following the same pattern - he responded to another volunteer telegram for another position in Africa. He also left within two years of arriving. Then Rich, the general services officer, left. His curtailment resulted from his wife's fight with his boss' secretary. He didn't want to leave, but the Department sent a compelling message that it would be better for his career if he and his wife left Barbados. They hadn't been in Barbados a year before they left.

Entrance to USAID in Bridgetown, Barbados

The regional medical officer (RMO) requested a curtailment within six months of his arrival when he decided to retire instead of serve his full tour. The regional security officer (RSO) requested a curtailment when he and his wife made the decision to separate. They had a young child so he wanted to return to Washington in order to be near his child.

Then the administrative officer for another agency at the post requested a curtailment after just five months in country. He and his wife didn't find Barbados to be what they had expected. Barbro, the deputy chief of mission (DCM), one of the few people who had previously served in Barbados, decided we needed to look more closely at what was leading to so many early departures. She formed a Task Force. I was a member.

Diplomatic parking lot, downtown Bridgetown

Because so many people seemed to expect their tour in Barbados to be a vacation on the beach, we concluded that we needed to remove all the tourist brochures that were being sent to those assigned to Barbados so that we didn't contribute to that impression. We also looked at the slides that were available in the Overseas Briefing Office and discovered that they also emphasized the tourist side of life. We pulled out all the slides of sail boats, surfing, and beaches. We removed the brochures from Plantations nightclub (the venue of the Miss Barbados pageant), Harrison's Cave, the Animal Flower Cave, the Jolly Roger Party Ship, and anything else that sounded like fun. And we set out to find replacements that would answer the questions about aspects of living on Barbados that most of us were unprepared for. We put together a video of life in Barbados to replace the tourist slide shows, including photos of the schools, the grocery stores, the commissary, the diplomatic parking lot, and other everyday sights that would be more common than beach scenes to give those preparing for a Barbados assignment more realistic expectations.

Embassy commissary

One of the political officers requested a curtailment because of an incident at his 13-year-old daughter's school that made him decide his daughter needed to return to the U.S. for school. It was mid-way through the school year which made it very difficult to find a boarding school alternative. Curtailment was the only practical solution in their case.

Another disappointment for many families was the limited number of opportunities for spouses to work. There were very few jobs within the embassy, and there was no bilateral agreement to make it easy for Americans to get jobs on the local economy. A bilateral agreement would eliminate the requirement for Americans to get work permits. It took Alex 18 months to get a work permit. Most spouses weren't willing to wait that long. So employees requested curtailments.

Every curtailment left us with a staffing gap. It was more than a year before the regional medical officer position was filled after the previous RMO left the island to retire. The new RMO, Stuart, decided he was going to make it his private project to figure out why so many people requested curtailments. But before he had time to come to a conclusion, his 22-year-old son in the United States was diagnosed with cancer so he and his wife left just six months after he had arrived. Another curtailment.

Barbados car wash

A new DCM secretary arrived just after Christmas after having spent several weeks in California getting her father settled in a retirement center. She chose Barbados because she had heard of State Department employees assigned to Ottawa or Paris, where living quarters allowances were used in place of leased housing, who had purchased a home. Up to 10% of the cost of a home could be covered through the living quarters allowance each year so she looked forward to her three years followed by an extension of a fourth year at the end of which she hoped she would have had the U.S. government pay 40% of the cost of a home where she could then retire and remain in the Caribbean. She also planned to bring her father down to Barbados to live with her.

What she didn't know was how much the real estate market in Barbados differed from those other countries. Sellers expected to get paid cash, and the banks didn't offer mortgages to foreigners. So her plans fizzled pretty quickly. On top of that, a week after she arrived, her father died and she had to return to California for his funeral.  When she requested a curtailment, however, the Department decided to hold the line. They wouldn't approve her request; they insisted she return to Barbados. But within six months, she had made life for everyone around her so miserable that her boss, the DCM, took the one step she had the power to take to shorten her secretary's tour - she sent in a loss of confidence telegram so the Department ordered the secretary's return to Washington.

Grocery store

Within a month of the arrival of Alex K, the successor to the management officer who approved my move from the consular section to the financial management office, he and the DCM became involved. The DCM and management officer positions are the two that ambassadors and the Department are eager to maintain some separation. Under normal circumstances, the management officer reports to the DCM who reports to the ambassador. That reporting structure makes it difficult for an ambassador to manage the rest of the mission if the DCM and management officer are married. So when the two of them married, the ambassador requested that their tours be curtailed so that he could have a new DCM and management officer assigned.

One of the information management officers traveled back to the U.S. on her Rest and Recuperation trip and while there she applied for a job with another federal agency. Within three months of her return to Barbados, she was offered a position with that agency, so she resigned and her tour was curtailed.

There was one person at post when I arrived there, Dave, the information programs officer, who had stayed through his entire three-year-tour and then extended for another year, definitely an exception. Before his fourth year ended, he requested a second extension, but the Department denied the request. So he left and was replaced by Tom*. Eighteen months later, half way through his tour, Tom requested a curtailment because his Brazilian wife wasn't comfortable in Barbados.

Antoinette, the successor to Margaret, the Deputy Consul, arrived in Barbados with her husband who worked for USAID. USAID didn't have a vacant position appropriate for her husband, but they did put him on a one-year contract. At the end of that year, when USAID couldn't extend the contract or come up with another assignment for him, Antoinette requested a curtailment.

Barbados didn't meet the expectations of those assigned there. And those who didn't stick around long enough to recognize what Barbados had to offer instead of what was expected missed a great opportunity. I will freely admit that we stayed in Barbados because it wouldn't have been fair to our son to pull him out of school again. He had already been in the secondary level in two other countries - England and Qatar. We stayed so that he could finish the secondary level. I'll always have that to thank our son for.

*a name, not necessarily the right one