Passport Task Force

I spent the month of August working on the Passport Task Force. Passport applications from far and wide are sent in to any of the several passport adjudication centers around the country and are reviewed, in most cases, by professional civil servants who have been thoroughly trained to detect and differentiate between legitimate and fraudulent requests. However, due to the tremendous backlog in applications, there are times when the applications are reviewed by someone with less training and skill someone, for instance, like me.

A legitimate US passport is a highly sought after document. It is proof of American citizenship and is forged and counterfeited almost as often as our money. The documentation required to acquire a legitimate passport is forged and counterfeited in far greater numbers than the passports themselves. Passport adjudication requires that someone check each piece of submitted documentation and determine its legitimacy and then to approve or disapprove the application. We call approving a passport application based on forged documentation "making an American". Once a person holds a legitimate US passport, they are an American. Those of us from the Foreign Service who were press-ganged into adjudication probably "made" a lot more Americans than the Civil Servants who were hired to adjudicate as their vocation, but we also knocked the numbers in the backlog down quite a bit too and I personally think of "making Americans" as "expanding the tax base".

We also check for "Holds" or reasons why a US citizen cannot be issued a passport. The most common Hold and the one that gives us the greatest pleasure for denial, is 'non-payment of child support'. If you are a deadbeat parent, mother or father, you cannot have a passport until the money you owe in child support is paid in full. The national media have carried several stories about the huge amount of money that's been collected from deadbeat parents who have just learned that they can't even go to Canada or Mexico with their new husband/wife until their debt is paid. It was the little pleasures, like catching deadbeats, that kept us all from going insane.

Mostly Passport Task Force was Passport Purgatory; a place where we had a meeting at nine o'clock every morning to be told that day's new rules. The rules on stapling and unstapling the packets of documents changed every day, as did the rules regarding the second photo and so did the rules on when we were supposed to work and when we weren't. Initially, we were required to put in at least 48 hours a week. This included a Saturday, but we could work longer hours on weekdays to cut down on the time we had to spend in the office on Saturday. Then the rule changed and we could only work eight hours a day on weekdays and had to put in eight full hours on Saturday. Then the rules changed again and we were told that we could no longer work through lunch, but had to put in eight and one half hours per weekday with a half hour lunch. Saturdays would be paid as overtime and a four page memo was sent to us describing the forms we had to fill out to actually receive the overtime pay for the mandatory hours worked. However, if you were a GS10-10 level or higher you wouldn't receive time and one-half but straight time. That was later clarified (during a subsequent 9:00am meeting) to assure everyone that no one would take an actual cut in pay for working the mandatory Saturday overtime. When it was pointed out that most of us are not on the GS payscales, we had to have another 9:00am meeting to address that bit of news. Periodically, one manager or another would wander through, apparently, to boost morale and our shackles would be loosened slightly so we could applaud. On the plus side, one very senior member of the State Department sat at a desk and worked alongside us for the better part of two weeks. That really did have a tremendous effect on morale and the example he set was extremely positive. Also, the on-site supervisors were excellent and offered support, knowledge and great attitudes.

So, in spite of senior management's best efforts, we managed to significantly reduce the amount of the backlog with a lot of good-natured kidding around and a little bit of hard work. I personally viewed it as an interesting experience, but I'm glad that I've completed my assignment and am now in Urdu full time.

I've had four months of Early Morning Urdu lessons. My routine was simple, I would report to Urdu, have a one hour lesson (usually with Malik Sahib) then go on to another course or, through August, rush downtown to do passports. However, for the next nine weeks I won't have anything other than Urdu to occupy my time and thoughts. It began today with a full day of orientation and tomorrow we get right into reviewing what I've learned during the past four months. After two weeks of review and evaluation, the Urdu language staff will begin to help me move up to the next level. In my case, I have to go up to reach a Zero/Zero, but I'm determined to put in the required time and effort. I'll have about four hours of classroom time a day with a different teacher each hour and then mandatory language lab time followed by at least three hours of homework (self-study) each night. The schedule is pretty intense and leaves precious little time for Fantasy Baseball.

There are six of us in the Urdu group. A fellow about my age took the seat next to me and we introduced ourselves. His name is David and I asked him if he's being sent to Pakistan. "I'm hoping to get there, if they change the rules," he said. I wondered what rules had to change and he explained that he's an EFM (Eligible Family Member) and, currently, EFMs aren't allowed to accompany their FSO spouses to Islamabad. "So," I said, "is your wife already working in Islamabad?" David said that she was already there and he was hoping to join her after completing the Urdu course. "That's nice," I said, "what does she do there?" "She's the Ambassador," he said.

I believe I've heard of that job.



Passport adjudication requires a keen eye, a dogged perseverance, an attention to detail not found in the common man and the two stamps I'm holding in my hands.

Poker Stud

For several years I have been playing online poker. Before any loved ones rush out to plan an intervention, I only gamble with 'play' money. Most of the online poker sites will credit you with $1,000 'play' money, you take your game to the table and best of luck to you. I noticed that, in the fullness of time, my $1,000 had grown to a robust 'play' fortune of several hundred thousand dollars. I halfheartedly looked into opening a real money account to try my luck but the thought of providing an online poker site with any financial information was most unappealing so I kept on piling up the 'play' dollars.

I went to Las Vegas over New Years, played real poker and won. I went to a casino in Connecticut, played more real poker and won. Obviously I'm good at this, and I will have to retire some day, so I decided to plan for that retirement by playing online poker for real. I went to a site called Full Tilt Poker and opened a Play Money account. My $1,000 grew and grew (because I'm good at this) and, therefore, I knew it was time to get into some real games.

There are many convenient ways to fund your real money online poker account, unfortunately, none of them actually work. You can't use your credit cards because the credit card companies won't process the transaction. You can't use a bank transfer because the banks won't process the transaction. You can't use Netteller, ePassport or PayPal because, again, they won't process the transaction. No, in the end, if you want to open a real money online poker account you have to go to a MoneyGram (Western Union will not process the transaction) outlet, slide real money through a small slot in a bullet-proof window and send it to one Senior Edgardo Mendez-Hurtado in Managua, Nicaragua and, bless his heart, he'll process the transaction.

To encourage you to open a new account with them, Full Tilt Poker offers to match your initial deposit up to a limit of $600. The minimum amount you can deposit using Senior Mendez-Hurtado's services is $250. So I slid $250 plus $10.00 commission through the little slot in the bullet-proof glass and raced home to begin building my $500 seed money into an early retirement treasure chest. Although, to be honest, in the back of my mind it occurred to me that Senior Mendez-Hurtado might be funding his own early retirement account with my money.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my Full Tilt Poker account actually showed the $250 I had deposited. I was momentarily ashamed of ever having doubted the upright and honest Senior Mendez-Hurtado. My matching funds weren't in the account yet so I sent an email asking when I could expect them to be deposited. "Ah, perhaps you neglected to read the fine print", was the reply. Although the wording on the offer very clearly implies that Full Tilt Poker will match your initial deposit up to a limit of $600, what they actually mean is that they will give you the opportunity to 'earn' those matching funds. You earn the matching funds by playing poker. You receive some sort of credit for every hand you're dealt. The credit, it turns out, is in the order of approximately six cents per hand. You can't access this 'credit' until it reaches a total of $20. So, you have to see approximately 335 hands before you can claim your first $20 in matching funds and you must be in approximately 4,167 hands to see your entire $250 in matching funds.

This was a bit disappointing, but not a deal-breaker. After all, I'd played many thousands of hands of online poker and was confident that I could build up my $250 and, over time, claim the matching funds. I got into a game that called for an initial buy-in of $50, lit my cigar (a decided advantage over playing in a non-smoking casino poker room) and began to assess my opponents. They were an unremarkable group and, as I was mentally spending their money, I lost my first $50. I had two or three goods hands that I backed with strategic calls and raises only to be beaten when my opponent drew a winning card with the last card dealt (called the river card). It happens. I ponied up another $50 and built it up to the massive sum of $65 before the poker gods again frowned and I suffered another run of bad luck on good hands. Because it was three o'clock in the morning and I had an Urdu class in four hours, I decided to save my revenge for another day and get some sleep.

I waited until Saturday to play again and lost again, but less quickly than before. Okay, obviously there were some differences between playing for real money and playing for play money. I decided to abandon my usual 'shock & awe' style of play in favor of something more conservative. I was now down $150, but I wasn't worried because the cards tend to even out in the long run and I was certainly due for some winning hands. It took about three hours to lose my fourth $50 buy-in and I called it a day. I checked my 'matching funds' account and discovered that I'd only been credited about $12. Why? It was explained to me that I only get the .06 credit for hands in which I bet. When I fold before the first bet, I don't earn the credit. Oh.

On Sunday I played for almost four hours before losing my final $50. My 'matching funds' stood unclaimable at $18.75 and my hopes for an early retirement were again back on the performance of the stock market. There are a couple of things you might bear in mind should you decide to send Senior Mendez-Hurtado any real money. First, forget about Full Tilt Poker actually matching your funds, they won't. You might earn the matching funds but it will be very difficult to do so. Second, be prepared for the strangest run of cards you'll ever see. You may experience odds-defying defeats at the hands of opponents who always seem to pull a winning card on the river. Third, don't slam your hand on your table and cause your coffee to spill onto the new carpeting in your apartment when your four queens are beaten by a straight flush. It happens. Finally, if you're at a table and a new player arrives using the poker-name IrinaS, leave the table. IrinaS has an uncanny ability to draw those much-coveted river cards and she'll take your money without even saying, "Thanks".

By the way, I've been assigned to serve on the Passport Task Force beginning on Monday, July 23rd in Washington, DC. I'll undergo a week of training and then, on the following Monday, begin adjudicating applications. All participants on the Task Force will work six-day weeks, but my schedule has been arranged so I can continue taking Urdu in the morning at FSI Monday through Friday, so Saturday will still seem like a day of rest. Many of my colleagues will be working on passports for several months but I'm only assigned until September 1st. Then I'll begin Urdu lessons full time for nine weeks, followed by the mandatory Crash & Bang course and my flight to Islamabad.

Washington DC has a tradition of showing movies outdoors on the Mall during the summer and on the schedule for my birthday it seems that Casablanca will be playing! I'll be downtown anyway, so that's where I'll be that night. If you're in town, join me.

This morning I played online poker for play money at PartyPoker.net and I won...big time. That's because I'm good at this.





These photos were taken during the GSO firefighting day at Quantico. It was in the high 90's that day so it made perfect sense to dress up in full protective gear and play with fire.

Just Call Me Junior

New Foreign Service Officers are called Entry Level Officers. This is the politically correct update of the old term "junior" officers. On Tuesday, July 3rd, all the ELOs at the FSI were called to a mandatory meeting and advised that any untenured FSO was subject to re-direct. By definition, all ELOs are untenured and "re-direct" simply reminds us that we can be reassigned at any time "for the good of the service".

It seems that there is a bit of a backlog in processing passport applications for US citizens and the State Department has sent out a call for volunteers to help reduce that backlog. Although passport applications are normally the responsibility of the Civil Service, the backlog is so overwhelming that all State employees, including FSOs, are being asked to volunteer their assistance. Anticipating that they won't get anywhere near enough volunteers, State has seen fit to remind all untenured FSOs that we serve at the pleasure of the Department and can be re-directed without notice. Clearing the application backlog is a top priority for State this summer and all personnel are expected to pitch in and help. However, volunteering means completely rescheduling your program training, your required language training, your travel tickets and itinerary, your pack out and shipping arrangements, your arrival at post, and the start of your new job. As Foreign Service Officers we have an expectation that we'll work in Islamabad, Nairobi, Madrid or Chennai. As volunteers for the PPTF (passport task force) we'll be assigned to work in New Orleans, Washington DC, Seattle or Portsmouth, NH.

So, on the one hand, they were calling for volunteers at the meeting on the 3rd (and many of my colleagues stepped up and offered to help right away) but on the other hand, they were simply advising us that if we were needed we would be re-directed and that was that. I left the meeting feeling fairly certain that I wouldn't be called. Islamabad is a one year post and is already two GSOs (my job title) short of its requirement. Surely they would take that into consideration. I have been taking Urdu for over eight weeks and being assigned to the decidedly non-Urdu speaking PPTF would set my Urdu clock back to zero. Surely they would take that into consideration. I haven't taken the ConGen course, which is a prerequisite for adjudicating passports. Surely they would take that into consideration. I just signed a lease and moved into a new apartment in Arlington. Surely they would take that into consideration. In the meantime, I planned to hide as low as possible and not do anything to draw attention to myself. If I could just make it to November, I'd be out of the country before anyone missed me.

I opened an email this morning that read, "Thank you for volunteering to serve on the PPTF." Apparently, they didn't take any of that into consideration.

It seems that I've volunteered to adjudicate passport applications from July 30th until September 1st and will be given ConGen 'light' to learn how to do so. There are several passport offices around the country and my colleagues are being sent everywhere from Seattle to New Orleans. The office in Honolulu seems to be fully staffed and is the only one not requesting assistance. I'm hoping to be assigned to the DC office so I can continue to take my Urdu lessons and not lose the little I've learned. If that isn't possible, I'll ask for the Portsmouth, NH office and go live back up at the beach.

The only impact this will have on me is that my departure to Islamabad will be delayed by between two weeks to a month...or so. I will have all the courses I was scheduled to take during August rescheduled and will pick my program back up in September. If they take out the two gap weeks in my original schedule and drop one or two marginal courses, I could be departing almost on time. Several of my colleagues have been volunteered for much longer periods of time, so my one month seems like light duty indeed.

And now for the good news. During the meeting, it was explained to us that, "as volunteers on the PPTF you will all be assigned to six day work weeks. However, as Junior Officers (all of a sudden we were Junior Officers again, what happened to ELOs?) you will also all be entitled to overtime pay." For the first time in over thirty years I qualify for overtime pay. Allow me to express a heartfelt, YIPPEE!!

I was looking forward to getting to Islamabad and beginning my new job, but I don't really mind doing this. Only a very few people managed to get away before being volunteered, so almost everyone I know will be pitching in and helping. The 135th A100 class started today and their bid list consists of only the US cities with passport offices. They have been volunteered as a group to staff the PPTF immediately after they complete the seven week orientation course. Hey, unless they get sent to New Orleans, they won't have to worry about learning a foreign language.

So that's it. My fantasy baseball team (the OverPaidPrimaDonnas) is solidly in first place (I trounced my cousin Bill's team this week), I'm in my new apartment and I'll be here until I leave unless State decides otherwise, I'm making slow progress but progress nonetheless at Urdu, I'm still going to Islamabad even if it's a few weeks later than I had planned and I qualify for overtime pay because I'm a "Junior Officer"! Washington DC is entering the hot, humid and hazy summer and I'll be staying cool adjudicating passport applications...or, I will as soon as someone explains to me exactly what "adjudicating" means.




These two photos were taken on a recent camping/river tubing/hiking trip I took with some friends in the Shenandoah Valley.

Management Officers (GSOs)

See, I really am in DC!!


The first thing you're required to do when you begin the process of joining the Foreign Service is to select your 'cone'. There are five career tracks and you have to pick yours prior to taking the written test which is the first step in the road. The different career tracks, known as 'cones', are Political, Economic, Consular, Public Diplomacy and Management. I chose Management.

Management folks are the people who take care of the running of our embassies so the other cones can go about their business and not worry about procuring supplies, running the motor pool, acquiring housing, managing the local staff, etc. In short, Management Officers provide a support function at our embassies and go through extensive training to ensure that they have the skills necessary to keep the infrastructure operating smoothly.

At each of our embassies, we hire most of our staff locally. These FSNs (Foreign Service Nationals) are supervised, primarily, by the Management branch and they become, over time, the experts in most of the admin jobs. While Management Officers rotate in and out every one, two or three years, the FSNs remain in place and possess the institutional memory that is so essential in running any organization. So, wherever you go as a GSO or Management Officer, you have a cadre of local hires reporting to you who know the job and the routines much better than you do. That doesn't present an insurmountable problem because your job is to manage and supervise, not to get down and turn the wrenches.

The GSO's areas of responsibility include housing, supplies, purchasing, motorpool, warehousing, maintenance, human resources, and travel. A lot of work to be sure, with a wide range of required skills. Islamabad has a staff of GSOs and I'm still trying to find out which responsibilities they have in mind for me. I'm looking forward to being part of the team there even if it is still five months away. It will be nice to get back to work again.

From the sound of it, we Management Officers seem to have pretty interesting jobs. We get a variety of work, we are essential to the smooth operation of our embassies, we work hand in hand with host country nationals who have the expertise to make us look good and we generally bask in the warm glow of goodwill emanating from our colleagues in the other cones. Or, perhaps not...

I've spent the last week learning all about handling 'housing' complaints. From the sound of it, our diplomats abroad do nothing but complain about their housing and all of those complaints are directed at the poor GSO. I've come to the conclusion that it must be mandatory for everyone to complain about their housing as soon as they arrive at post. "Look here, John, you've been at post for nearly a week now and you haven't lodged your housing complaints. Are you having personal problems at home that might prevent you from whining? If not, get to it, Man, we have high standards of griping here in Kafiristan and we can't have you lowering the bar." From the way it's been presented to us, pretty much all we do is deal with complaints about housing that is a) too small b) too far away c) too close in or d) not as nice as... (fill in someone else's name here; who, by the way, is also complaining about his/her house). It's nice to see that no one ever complains about the housing being too expensive and that, of course, is because it is all provided to them for FREE. There are many other things that people complain about when living abroad, but housing seems to top the list. Of course, no diplomat in his/her right mind would ever bring a housing appeal forward based on the "their house is nicer than mine" argument, so they have security issues, or insoluble pest infestations, or 'official' duties that require larger quarters than their entitlement. Management Officers get management training, Consular Officers get consular training and I believe the diplomats (Econs, Politicos and Pub Dips) get a course on how to assess their status at post based on their housing.

This will surprise those of you who know me, but my plan is to try to make people happy with their housing in Islamabad if I end up with the housing responsibility. Just as long as my house is the nicest on the block and better than everyone else's under the rank of Ambassador, I'll work day and night to ensure that almost everyone has very little to complain about. Of course, some complaining will always be inevitable but people will come to see that malcontents end up in houses that barnyard animals refuse to enter.

Actually, there are very strict rules and regulations governing the assignment of housing to try to make it as equitable as possible given the variety of housing that exists at our posts worldwide. In Islamabad, for example, the housing reputation is terrific and the houses are, apparently, very nice.

I'm going camping and tubing this weekend on a river in Virginia. It'll be nice to get out of the DC area for a short break so I've signed up for this trip with about fifteen of my colleagues. The last time I went off into the wilds, I ended up climbing a mountain in Bulgaria! I'm hoping to float around in my tube with a beer in one hand and cigar in the other while telling rude jokes to my compadres. I'm leaving the Urdu books home and intend to do nothing more strenuous than walk all the way down to the river with my tube on my shoulder. There is talk of a hike on Sunday, but I'll need much more specific information on the definition of 'hike' before I strap on my boots. Some of my colleagues seem fit enough to stroll over to Kentucky and foolish enough to try!


This is the 133rd's Team Lunch Table in the cafeteria.


Would you let this man assign your housing? I intend to begin whining about my own house in the taxi on the way in from the airport!

Time Goes By

This is the VIP Entrance to the Foreign Service Institute.


This coming week will be the last week for the Acquisitions course and the final exam will be on Thursday. It turns out that along with that $5.5 million dollar credit card, I've been given a book of regulations governing its use. There are 1,983 pages of regulations so I, apparently, will not be purchasing the Ferrari right away. My own personal credit cards still have many tens of dollars in unused credit line available and the book of regulations governing their use simply says, "If you can afford it, buy it!" Still, I think I would have looked pretty good in a government financed Ferrari.

We must score at least an 80% on the final exam or face the very unpleasant prospect of repeating Acquisitions. With that in mind, I spent this weekend reviewing the material and wishing I'd paid more attention during class. The concepts involved in making purchases at post are fairly straightforward; ensure that funding has been approved, check three sources for competitive bids and go with the lowest price from a qualified supplier. Unfortunately, it appears that a few details were thrown our way during the past three weeks to elaborate on those three directives and many of those details will, undoubtedly, be on the exam. It would all be right in my notes, had I bothered to take notes. Not to worry, I have the reference material, a passing familiarity with the handouts and three days to 'refresh' my memory.

I received my "Welcome to Post" email on Friday! This is actually pretty cool because it lets me know that they are now aware that I'm coming. Over the next couple of months I can begin to get information on living conditions, which job I'll be doing and the specific date they want me to start. I finish all my scheduled training courses on the 26th of October, so anytime after that weekend will be great. A couple of my friends will be leaving for Pakistan over the next few months and I'll have plenty of firsthand information to help me plan my own departure. Several people who have returned from Islamabad have suggested that I ship my car over because having a car is a necessity there and the available used cars are pretty expensive. I asked if it made any difference that my car is lefthand drive (Pakistan goes with righthand drive) and was told, "no, no one pays much attention to any rules of the road there anyway". I'll ship the Volvo and keep the Mustang in storage.

If you plan to live in Pakistan for any extended period of time, there are a few things you need to get in advance. The recommended immunization list is as follows:

Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Yellow Fever
Japanese Encephalitis (Why Japanese and not Pakistani?)
Rabies (Yes, I can now bite people without infecting them with rabies!)
Typhoid
Malaria
Tetanus

In addition to these precautionary immunizations, be aware that there is a high risk of contracting severe diarrhea and that tuberculosis is endemic in the area. There is a lesser probability of contracting dengue fever or leishmaniasis (both subcutaneous and visceral)...which as you may already know is transmitted by sand flies. And don't get me started on influenza! Pakistan appears to be an equal opportunity infector! So, roll up your sleeves and get your visa, I'm accepting reservations for the guest room now.

I'm putting a few pictures of the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) here. By the time I complete my training and leave for Islamabad, I'll have been here for eight months and, as you can see, it isn't a completely terrible place to work.

Outside the cafeteria.

Language Building

Lounge

Old Building

Picnic Grounds



Finally, please remember that Aliph with the double diacritic zuber above it is pronounced as Noon when it comes at the end of a word. Oh, and the words for 'go straight' and 'turn right' seem to be exactly the same, 'sadhee', which apparently doesn't lead to as much confusion as you might expect, although I don't have a clue why not but it may have something to do with that 'ignoring the rules of the road' business!

How am I doing in Urdu, you ask....fair to middlin', fair to middlin'.

I Saw Salman Ahmad!!

My colleague Lisa is in the ConGen course right now, learning the duties and responsibilities associated with her upcoming position as Vice-Consul in Islamabad. The fellow sitting next to her in that class was invited to the Pakistani Embassy last Friday night to attend a diplomatic reception followed by a concert. At the last minute, he discovered that he was unable to go and asked Lisa if she'd like to go in his place. She didn't want to go alone and asked if I could go with her since we are both headed for Islamabad. So, in this very round-a-bout way I was more or less invited, by the Pakistani Ambassador, to a reception and concert at the Embassy. At any rate I'm fairly positive that the first assistant to his personal secretary was probably somewhat aware that I was coming along with someone who was replacing the original invitee.

So...having been invited to my first official diplomatic event, how would I dress? Well, the invitation was quite specific on this point and dress was to be 'informal'. Lisa suggested that I might want to interpret that as 'business informal' and I changed out of my jeans and Def Leppard t-shirt and into khakis, a button down shirt and a tie. I hoped I wouldn't stand out as the 'over-dressed' bozo at the party.

Nature, in all its glory, would be hard pressed to equal the splendor of a room full of Pakistani women dressed for an 'informal' event. They came into the reception hall in small groups like schools of brightly colored reef fish and moved around the room like flocks of tropical birds. They were all wearing the traditional Khalwar Shameeses and flashed and sparkled with gold and silver jewelry. If there was a woman in that room who had spent less than two hours on her hair and make-up, I didn't see her. The Pakistani men were all, without exception, wearing dark business suits. Fortunately, I wasn't the only man in the room not wearing a dark suit. Most of the 'foreign' guests were dressed less formally than the Pakistanis, including a couple of Neanderthals wearing jeans and polo shirts. The very nerve! Apparently, in diplo-speak 'informal' means don't bother to wear your tux.

Because Pakistan is an Islamic country, the bar served soft drinks and fruit drinks but no alcohol. Nonetheless, conversation was lively and people seemed to be enjoying themselves in the reception hall. I met a Consular Officer and his wife who were from Lahore and they told me quite a bit about their city in particular and Pakistan in general. After speaking with them for quite a while, I've moved Lahore to the top of my 'must visit' list.

The food was excellent and plentiful so Lisa and I filled our plates, diplomatically, and snuck back for seconds. Then we went upstairs to the concert. Salman Ahmad is known as the John Lennon of Pakistan. He's quite a famous guy in that part of the world and had been invited here by the Ambassador to sing just for this event. He accompanied himself on the electric guitar and had a tamboori player sitting alongside him. That was very special for this event because the tamboori player was an Indian man and, given the historical state of tension between Pakistan and India, it was somewhat unprecedented that an Indian musician would be allowed to play at an official event in the Pakistani Embassy. Salman Ahmad is a Sufi Muslim which is a less well-known branch of the religion than Sunni or Shiite. They are the pacifists of Islam and seek to promote understanding and tolerance everywhere. Salman Ahmad also spends much of his time, talent and money helping to develop HIV/Aids awareness throughout the underdeveloped nations of the world. I suppose that's why he's known as Pakistan's John Lennon, that and the pony-tail. His music was good, in fact, it was very good. It's sort of driving rock & roll with a distinct Urdu flavor and the tamboori drums really had the place rocking.

I bought one of his cd's after the concert and have just spent an hour trying to put a song on this blog, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it. If anyone knows how to attach an mp3 file to a blog, I'd be grateful for the information.

The parking lots at the FSI are set in a circle around the perimeter of the campus. There are unmanned security gates at each of the outer lots and you gain access by putting your security id into a sensor and punching in your individual code number. Often this will cause the gate to unlatch and you can proceed through it to the campus. Sometimes, however, the gate does not unlatch right away and you need to reinsert your card and try again. If you are in a hurry or the weather is bad the gate never works and people behind you in line begin offering helpful suggestions. I like to use the lot behind the Language Building because it is the closest lot with the shortest walk and I'm basically lazy. It was pouring rain and cold one morning a week or so ago and by the time I got to the gate there was a line of frustrated language instructors trying to get through. The language instructors are mostly women in their late forties to early sixties and the 'helpful' suggestions they were giving each other in all the languages in the known world would have shamed a carnival barker. I'm quite certain I recognized the Bulgarian word for 'donkey' used several times.

I'm currently in my second module of GSO training. Last week in Module One we were given Tools of Management. These turned out to be things like Group Dynamics, Conducting Effective Meetings, Time Management etc. One earnest presenter even took the time to explain the clip art he'd put on his PowerPoint presentation while he read it to us. They all seemed to be required to read their presentations to us and to give us hard copies of the slides for posterity. Tools for management indeed, I'm sure that in some way I'm a better man for it.

This week is better. Module Two is Acquisitions and we'll be learning how to buy things on behalf of the government. Believe it or not, I'll be getting a credit card with a $5,500,000 limit on it. I have run a Mapquest on the closest Ferrari dealership and am now accepting applications for 'trophy wives' (Note the plural). I suspect that some form of regulation will come along with the card, but for now I intend to engage in massive acquisition planning. Learning to spend the government's money is hard work and I fully intend to become good at it.

Finally, I went into DC this past weekend and spent an afternoon at the Museum of the American Indian. It's well worth your time if you come to visit. The building itself is quite beautiful and I'll stick a couple of photos of it here.

So, until next time 'Haam kaal malingay' or 'see you again'.

ليرى گغعمعل

As close as I can come to it, that's my name in Urdu. You have to read it from right to left and please don't forget that 'chotti yey' and 'bari yey' are only one letter even though they have two different shapes and two different pronounciations. The Urdu alphabet has thirty-eight letters with three long vowels, including the aforementioned two forms of the 'yey' vowel that somehow only count as one, and three short vowels that seem to dance around the letters without ever becoming a connected part of a word. Most of these thirty-eight letters have four written forms or shapes, three of these are the initial, medial and final shapes. They also have an independent shape, but that is never used except for the letters that are known to one and all as 'non-connectors'. There is also, apparently, one letter that is never used at all...but I may have misunderstood that last bit. Confused?...Read on!

We learn the letters in their independent shapes which are never actually used in writing because that would be akin to the printed form of the letters and Urdu is only written in script. It is a visually attractive language, but much more difficult to learn than Cyrillic. The letters and the sounds associated with them are unlike anything I've ever seen or heard. Many of the letters have sounds that are nearly indistinguishable from each other to me. Reciting the letters 'te' and 'Te', 'dal' and 'Dal', 'hay' and 'hey', and 'noon' and 'Noon' still earn me scowls of frustration from Mr. Qasim and an exasperated, "Once again, Mr. Larry, once again!", and don't get me started on the four 'S' letters which are totally unique, individual and distinct from each other yet are all pronounced exactly the same way! There are also at least two of the famous, "I'm not clearing my throat, I'm talking to you!" letters which are much more difficult to pronounce correctly than you'd ever guess. I've never felt as much sympathy for Eliza Doolittle as I do now.

An additional problem is that Urdu is a very rich language, a language of poets, and each letter and word must be pronounced correctly or the meaning of the sentence can be subtly changed. I'm about as subtle as a jackhammer and Urdu poets everywhere roll over in their graves each time I open my mouth. There are only three of us taking the Early Morning Urdu class and we have all been assigned to Islamabad. Lisa and I were in A-100 together, while John is heading there as his third or fourth tour. We'll have eighteen weeks of daily one hour classes then they'll both leave for Pakistan. I'll stay here for the summer, go through a whole smorgasbord of training, and finish up in September and October with six weeks of 'eight hours a day' Urdu. Asallamo alaikum!

Between the end of Early Morning Urdu in July and beginning FAST Urdu in September I can use the language labs and library at FSI to maintain the finely developed skills I'm honing right now. When I get to post, I should have an opportunity to improve further because I'll be working primarily with our Pakistani employees. Of course, my plan in Bulgaria was to speak only Bulgarian with my colleagues every day and that only lasted until we'd exchanged greetings in the morning and then we barrelled along in English the rest of the day. I'm pretty sure that our employees in the embassy also speak English so I've got to be more determined this time. My plan is to only speak Urdu and if they insist on switching to English, I'll answer them in Bulgarian!


This is a picture of me after studying Urdu for fifteen minutes without a break.

Status in Peace Corps was often determined by how rough your living conditions were and the size of the parasites that you acquired in your country. At the Foreign Service Institute, status is at least partially determined by the language you're studying and Urdu ranks right up there with Arabic and Chinese for top of the heap honors. But it isn't the only thing I'm doing by a long shot.

Next week I have a Gap Week. That's a planned break in my training schedule to allow me to take care of the myriad administrative tasks that have to be completed prior to my departure. I need to check in with the Medical people to set up my shots and vaccinations, touch base with the Travel Desk to make tentative flight reservations, begin the paperwork to acquire my Diplomatic Passport and Pakistani visa, meet with my Human Resources officer to ensure that my orders are cut in a timely fashion and talk to the Shipping folks to help make a decision about whether or not to bring the Volvo to Pakistan. I'll also be able to spend a lot of time at the Main State building in Washington researching Pakistan, our embassy in Islamabad and the job I'll be doing there. Of course, Early Morning Urdu will press right along during the Gap Week. From Urdu there is no respite. The truth is that I am really excited about having the opportunity to learn this language. One hundred and fifty million Pakistanis and nearly one billion Indians speak one or another form of the language and I'm determined to understand it when they say to each other, "Let's see if we can get this guy to eat these bugs by telling him they're clumps of fried rice!"