Our first week in Dakar

We've been in Dakar for over a week now and things are finally starting to settle down.  My apologies for not posting sooner, between the jet lag and the lack of a working cell phone, I didn't take many pictures.  In my head, I didn't want to post until I had some pictures and I was stuck in an unending loop of no pictures=no blogging.  In the first few days, I got out of the habit of carrying my cell phone everywhere because I couldn't use it without a new SIM card and that wasn't as high on the priority list as sleeping.  Even after I got the new SIM card, I didn't want to use my prepaid time on the Dakar network and so I had my phone for phone calls and rarely if ever pulled it out for anything else.  Kind of novel and a little freeing.  However, again, I haven't taken as many pictures as I wold like.  I will remedy that this week and flog myself with a fresh pastry as a demonstration of my remorse.

Our arrival in Dakar was uneventful.  We arrived around 11am and the Embassy had sent over a lovely woman that expedited us right through the airport and customs.  Which was a good thing as the 3 hours of sleep I got on the plane made me incapable of forming a coherent sentence in English, much less French and since I seem to have the most French of the group *cough, cough Keegan cough cough  2 years of French cough cough*, it was nice to have someone there to help us.

David's new boss was waiting outside in a large van.  He had seen my pictures of our luggage and had envisioned Imelda Marcos and her shoe collection, no doubt, but the reality is that our bags aren't terribly big, just numerous.

Only 12, sheesh!

They drove us to our new house where our fabulous sponsors were waiting to welcome us with a fridge full of groceries and some CFAs (the local currency).  I can't even begin to describe the relief at knowing we didn't have to try grocery shopping or ordering food or even leaving the house.  Our sponsor and David's boss happen to be neighbors and great friends, so we all went to dinner together at a fantastic restaurant on the beach. 

We came home exhausted and discovered that we also didn't have hot water in the bathrooms.  While the water is never "cold" per se, it certainly wasn't warm.  So brisk showers were taken and we had the beginnings of our list of things to call housing about the next day :)

Our other water issue is that we can't drink out of the faucets.  All the drinking water has to be distilled.  We have a distiller and water bottles in the fridge, but old habits die hard.  Sure enough on our 3rd night here, I lined up 2 glasses of water and 2 cups of herbal tea for us to take our anti-malarial meds.  After the girls and I had each taken our meds and I handed David his cup, Keegan said, "Is this water from the distiller?"  Of course it wasn't, I had filled up all the cups at the faucet.  I had a moment of panic, actually several moments, where I envisioned the rest of our weekend spent in the bathroom or at the as-yet-to-be discovered hospital. There wasn't much we could do at that point.  We would either get sick or we wouldn't.  The girls assured me that it was ok and they knew I hadn't done it on purpose.  So they grabbed some bowls from the cupboard to sleep with and we said the only family prayer I've ever heard with the phrase, "Dear Heavenly Father, Please help us not get the trots." and went to bed.  We were indeed blessed and nobody got sick, but I haven't touched the faucet since.  Lesson learned!

Our house is beautiful and spacious enough for all our things and more.  I would post pictures, but I'm waiting for our Household goods (HHE) to arrive.  The pictures that housing sent to us left something to be desired.  (As much as I'm sure you're dying to see what it looks like, I'm sure you'd rather wait for my pics than to see the picture of the dining room table being moved by a gentleman with his pants coming down.)

The bugs.  Well, fortunately bugs don't bother me much, but that doesn't mean I want to share living space with them.  So far ants have been our major pest, but there have been a couple of tiny roaches and mostly little beetles.  Hardly an infestation, except the ants.  We had been hypervigilant about not leaving food out until we discovered that our ants aren't attracted to human food, they are cannibals of the highest order.  David killed a couple of bugs right before bed and rather than clean up the carcasses, he left them.  The next morning the hallway was swarming with the little barbarians, hauling away bug bits through my closet, to hole in the wall behind our bed. 

Yes that is a snail and yes it could eat her toes in one bite.

We did have a very fun trip to N'Gor (EN-gore) Island with a group from the Embassy.  Quite the adventure on a very full motor boat of about 50 of my new best friends and our life jackets that were mostly just for show and off we went for a short 2 minute ride to the island.  We got a couple of great pictures of Dakar and the ocean from the island, as well as a delicious Italian meal on the beach.  It even has a little walled in area of the ocean that forms a little pool where the kids can play after they eat.

We are having a great time settling in.  More pictures and stories next week!  

Making the most of it

When we arrived in Washington DC (technically Arlington, VA) back in February, we knew we had a limited amount of time to enjoy all that the area had to offer.  And we barely scratched the surface.

On our way! Look at those fresh faces, if they only knew...

Trying to balance the new job events like meeting new co-workers/graduation/classes with seeing old (and new) friends and family, as well as exploring this amazing area kept us jumping.  It's full to the brim with historical, cultural and natural opportunities. Not to mention the food! Good thing I've been wearing skirts and dresses more often, my pants may never fit again 😋

Colin Powell came to FSI to visit!

Flag Day!

Snow day on St. Paddy's Day, love the green fountain!

Riding the metro

David's parents visited and our friend helped us set up a White House tour.  

Our second White House tour in a week! So lucky ☺️

National cathedral, absolutely stunning!

The Cherry Blossom Festival was magical. Words cannot describe what this looked like at sunrise. We needed the  pictures to help remember, since we were stumbling around half asleep.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is a stunning tribute to this remarkable man.

Keegan showing her Team Tesla pride next to Edison's display at the American History museum.

Our fabulous friend Sheila did a couple of photo shoots for our family pictures.  She's a remarkable photographer.  This is at the National Botanical Gardens.

We went to the US Capitol and the Library of Congress with our new friends the Oliver's!

Some new friends at graduation, looking very GQ.

Being silly with my new friend Brenda

Bbqs with old college friends

And with old military friends

Plus a whirlwind trip to Vegas 

One of our highlights was our Memorial weekend trip to New York City to visit my cousin.  We rode the train up from DC and I even hailed my first taxi with an ear splitting whistle.  It felt very New York-ish until my goofy grin showed everyone what a tourist I was 😉

View from the Empire State Building

 

Goofing off around the city and Brooklyn with my cousin Tom

Central Park.  David said he could almost live in NYC if he could live here...almost 😄

From the Staten Island Ferry

The 9/11 Memorial is just powerful.

And life happened.  David, Keegan and Rowen all celebrated birthdays here.  David and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. 

Keegan graduated from middle school and Rowen graduated from elementary school. 

Choir concert with fun friends.

 Keegan's first dance!  

The time just flew. And now we are sitting in a hotel in Colorado, 18 days and counting until Dakar.  I can't wait to see what trouble we can get into before we leave!

 

Parlez-vous Francais?

Bonjour!
Comment allez-vous?  Je vais tres bien, merci! Comment vouz appelez- vous?  Je m'appelle Christie. 

Well, if you hadn't guessed it yet, I have been busy learning French.  At the beginning of May, the State Dept let me know that I would be able to take their 8-week FAST French program.  The catch is that since it is the same training that full time employees take, then the training + lab time is 40 hours a week.  I have kicked myself for years for not learning a language back when I was younger and my brain was in much better shape to learn to speak anything except English.  So, I am super excited at this awesome opportunity, but am juggling trying to make sure everything continues to get done. My apologies for not keeping up with our goings-on, but I have been immersed in French, moving, end of school year activities and just regular life.  2 more weeks of French!  When I am finished, I promise to post pictures of our soon to be new house in Dakar and some of the more interesting stuff we've been up to this past month!
Bonne weekend! A tout a l'heure!

To go along with my French theme and a hint about one of our state-side adventures :)

Where are YOU from?

Where are you from?

This should be a relatively easy question to answer.  For most people, I imagine it is.  For me it is an endless source of confusion.  I grew up in Arizona, lived in Texas for 8 years, Virginia for 1.5 and Colorado for 5.  So when people ask me where I'm from, I typically say Arizona, but since I haven't lived there for nearly 15 years, I feel like a tourist every time I visit.  Colorado is more recent and so it feels more home-ish, especially as we still tend to feel like we're living in a hotel here in Virginia.

This question has become even more relevant as we are preparing to move overseas.  We don't have a "home base" anywhere, so most of our decisions are based on the people we want to see on home leave and where we might possibly want to eventually retire to.  David's parents are in Southern Utah and mine are in Northern Arizona.  Las Vegas has interested us for a long time as a possible retirement spot, due to the large airport, military base, VA hospital, proximity to family and financial benefits (read: NO STATE TAXES!!)  

So with all this in mind we decided to make Nevada our "home".  My mom said this makes us Las Vegans or Vegans for short.  It was a crazy adventure in which we learned a couple of things.

1.  Never fly Spirit Airlines, at least not for long trips.  I don't care how cheap the ticket is, if I have to sit upright for 5 solid hours because the airline is too cheap to have reclining seats then I'll gladly spring for the more expensive ticket.

2.  Getting a drivers license in Las Vegas was bar-none the most pleasant experience I've ever had in a government office.  We arrived at 7:45am (15 min before opening) on a Saturday and were horrified to see a line of 300 people waiting to go inside.  The DMV was so efficient (yes, I used the word "efficient") that when they opened the doors at 7:50 (10 minutes early!), we had our ticket and a seat within 5 minutes and were sitting in front of one of their 37 windows by 8:10am, taking an eye test and getting our pictures taken.  We were out of there in under an hour.  It was unbelievable :-D

This was only one half of the building. Crazy!

3.  We stayed in the coolest hotel on the strip.  The Vdara was gorgeous and had the most amazing staff.  There isn't a casino inside, so no smoking or weird smells, no noise in the lobby and yet it was just steps from the Cosmopolitan that had all those things and more.  All the best things and none of the gross things, plus we even got a pretty decent view of the Bellagio fountains.

Home Sweet Home!

Pokes, Prods and Passports

Our journey to Africa is still a couple of months away, but there are so many things that have to be done before we can leave. But never fear, I have an unbeatable weapon.  It is not the first one, and it will certainly not be the last. They have never let me down and always serve me well.

 I have my....LIST!

I have made lists for as long as I can remember, for every situation, but this list has them all beat.  It even has sublists.  I've been so worried about forgetting something and so I have it all written down.  The only problem is that nothing was getting crossed off, just more STUFF getting added.  Now a list without checkmarks is a sad list indeed, so you can imagine my joy when finally last week, I was able to start checking things off my list! YAY!!  (It's kind of sad how happy this makes me.  It's the little things)

The first thing was our spiffy, new passports photos.  It is somewhat disheartening to note that this photo is one of the best ID photos I've ever taken, which isn't saying much.  I couldn't show any teeth, but if I smile too widely with my mouth closed, my eyes squint shut and I  look like I'm going blind.  So I barely smiled and now I have a photo that says, "So what if I get to travel the world with this thing...meh...I'm bored." At least I was having a good hair day.

Enthusiasm successfully tempered 

Naturally, the next big thing was putting those awesome little pics in a brand, spanking new passport!  Did you know that passports come in different COLORS?  I did not know this, so imagine my surprise when I find out that not only do we get to keep our standard blue passports for regular travel, but we get nifty, black Diplomatic passports for just such an occasion as entering a foreign country on a diplomatic mission.  (That sounds really clandestine and important, and it isn't, but I still think it's pretty cool :D )

The most recent thing to be checked off is all the dreaded vaccines that we have to get.  It is remarkable how many little bugs, viruses and bacteria want to kill us in Africa.  My arms feel like I played a particularly vicious round of "dead arm" with my brother Aaron.  (He and I used to trade punches in our arms when we got bored...siblings!) and the fun keeps going with round 2 next week.  Oral typhus anyone?!?  Plus another rabies shot.  We know how to party in the Peterson house :D

Getting my edu-ma-cation

Keegan in front of the French Embassy.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the SD offers many classes to help with the transition into the Foreign Service.  Everything from communication to protocol, as well as family issues and security concerns.  I signed up for any classes I thought sounded relevant and helpful. Most classes are only a day or two and are spread out throughout our time here in DC.  Well, last week I finally got to start taking a couple.  I took Realities of Foreign Service Life and Communicating across Cultures.  I learned so much and thought it would be great to write about some of the highlights of what I learned. 


Communicating Across Cultures

What a fun class!  To really understand another culture, I have to understand my own.  Now this class was applied to national cultural differences, but every person is part of different cultures and I think these lessons can be applied to everyone.  Religious and community cultures define us, as well. As a Mormon, I know we have our own culture, separate from our beliefs.  Just ask anyone that lives in Utah! :D

Our teacher started off by asking us to think about what defines our American culture.  To be honest I never really thought about what "American Culture" is, especially in terms of how I think about other cultures.  What defines us as truly American?  He said most Americans don't travel outside of their culture and therefore it can be difficult for them examine it.  According to the statistics, only 18% of Americans own a passport and of that 18% a disproportionate amount are over 65 or are young children that travel with foreign born parents.  He said that I will learn the most about my own culture when I'm not living in it.  Living in a new place forces people to examine what identifies them, because they are constantly comparing it to the new culture. 

My favorite:  Don't put a value judgment on differences. 

The values and beliefs of any culture are the one's that are historically rewarded.  If I want to learn about another culture, I need to start with their history.

Here's just a couple of things he had us think about:

American Culture
I didn't realize what an optimistic society we are, especially in comparison to other parts of the world.  Most of us believe that if we are good, we will be rewarded, whether by God, Karma or some other force.  Culturally, we believe in extreme individualism and a distrust of strong centralized government.  While being individual, we are also very patriotic and have a strong civic culture and that is one of the reasons that during emergencies our communities come together and when the emergency has passed we go back to our lives again.  We are a nation of doers and put a strong emphasis on action.  Therefore, poets, artists and thinkers rarely hold as much value in American culture.

Here's a link to a great paper discussing the communication challenges between Dept of Defense and the Dept of State



Realities of Foreign Life

My favorite part was discovering the "Cycle of Adapatation"  Mostly it describes the adjustment a person makes when they move to a new country, but I saw parallels with any move or huge life change (job change, divorce, death, retirement, etc)

1.  Honeymoon Period:  Everything is fascinating and new.  Usually starts before the move and can last for the first couple of months. 

2. Culture Shock: You are swamped with loads of new problems.  It can be mentally exhausting dealing with transportation, housing, food, new friends and all in a new language.

3. Initial Adjustment and Mental Isolation: As you start to overcome some of the bigger issues and the language begins to become easier, depression may set in.  Feelings of loneliness and missing your old life may take over and, for some, they never leave this stage.  This is the lowest point of the cycle as you learn to adjust and communicate.

4. Acceptance and Integration: You have established a routine and have accepted the new culture.  You are comfortable with your social group and the language. 


Most surprisingly was learning about Return Anxiety.  Return anxiety, or Re-entry Shock, is what happens when you go home, especially the first time.  It can often be more painful and difficult than Culture Shock, simply because you aren't expecting it.  I mean who would think that coming back to family and old friends might be hard?  I remember experiencing it when I left for college and later on when we moved out of state.  The first time I came home, part of me felt like a stranger in my little town.  They had changed and so had I.  I think time makes those changes more pronounced, because you just don't see each other every day like you used to.  With every move, I keep expecting that shock to lessen, but it doesn't.  The time spent in the different stages varies, but I still see it.

I think my biggest surprise in this class was realizing how applicable some of these lessons were to everyone, not just Foreign Service families.  Especially to my military spouse friends.  I wish I had this information 12 years ago as we entered the military, but especially through all our moves.  I can look back and see this cycle in every one of our 19 moves.  I remember feeling depressed for a short time with every move and then getting mad for "feeling sorry for myself".  It was especially profound when we left Active Duty and moved to Boulder.  Making friends and creating new routines isn't always as easy as it sounds, even for us extroverts.  It just takes time.



In celebration of a couple of our favorite  cultures, we attended a huge party at the French Embassy as well as a rowdy day at Shamrock fest, enjoying our roots of Irish punk and all things green :D

Enjoy!

Rowen dancing