Notes From A Sunny Island

Diplomacy at the Tufi Dive Resort is a serious business!

An advantage of working in a small embassy is that the entire team can pick up and get away together for a teambuilding long weekend. Team Port Moresby flew across the island to the Tufi Dive Resort for a three day weekend of reef diving and diplomacy around the pool. Good cigars and single malt whiskeys sharpened our focus and much was accomplished. Although we never actually sang "Kum ba ya", we did come perilously close to having a group hug at one point. Lit cigars and a certain degree of whiskey induced unsteadiness, however, rendered such a manuver inadvisable, so we settled for a group fist bump instead. We sent the above photo to the Cigar Aficianado magazine and have been told it will appear in their publication in approximately 18 months. In my opinion, that makes the Tufi weekend an unqualified success!

As post's Management Officer, I have seven different areas of responsibility: Finance (FMO), Facilities (FM), Human Resources (HR), Information Technology (IT), the Health Unit (HU), the Community Liaison Office (CLO) and the General Services Office (GSO). The GSO in turn covers six areas: housing, procurement, shipping, travel, warehouse and motor pool. In short, everything that has to do with the functional operation of the embassy comes under the Management section. The Consular section adjudicates visas and provides American citizens' services. The Public Diplomacy, Econ and Political sections each interact with the local government, NGOs, communities and populace then feed the results of those interactions back to their counterparts in the Harry S. Truman Department of State headquarters in Washington, D.C. They write cables, give grants to worthy causes and advocate for our foreign policy. The Management section does everything else. Oh, and we're all for our foreign policy too, team players that's what we are.

When my two year tour in Rome ended, I took an eight week Financial Management Overseas training course at FSI and, armed with that newly minted certificate of achievement and a year's experience as a GSO, flew to Port Moresby and assumed the seat of power as the alpha dog in the Management section. As far as the other five areas were concerned, I knew that FM basically kept the building running, HR dealt with various 'people' issues, IT did the same but with computers instead of people, the HU shop was a "turn your head and cough" dispenser of band-aids and aspirin and the CLO more or less looked after post's small lending library. I was pretty sure I could wing it until I got settled in and, besides, the locally employed staff would help me find my way.

Larger posts have a trained American officer in each of the seven areas of responsibility reporting to the Management Officer. Port Moresby has a first tour GSO and, thankfully, a very experienced Information Management Officer. That made me the American officer in charge of finance, facilities, human resources, health and the community liaison's office. I'd just had the financial management course and how tough could the other areas be, really? I considered myself armed and ready. Overconfidence in one's abilities in the stone cold face of the reality that there is a complete lack of the existence of those abilities is the mark of a weak or failing mind. My locally employed staff quickly made me aware of that reality.

HR/OE is responsible for determining the policies that govern our locally employed staff in our embassies around the world. Our local staff in PNG have been hit particularly hard by the wage freeze that's been in effect for the past two years. As has been noted, this is a ridiculously expensive country in which to live. As diplomats, we enjoy pay differentials and cost of living adjustments to help augment our salaries and ease the financial pain caused by local economic conditions. Our local staff receive no such assistance.

Their salaries and benefits are determined by surveying a set of 'local comparators' and ensuring that our total compensation package falls into some vague and undefined acceptable range. Our local comparators are selected and chosen by HR/OE and, interestingly enough, they do not include Exxon in our comparators group. Exxon, of course, is the 800 lb gorilla in the employment market in PNG. Who you include in and who you exclude from your comparators group is hugely important because your comparators group determines every aspect of the salary and benefits package that your local staff can be offered.

Our very best local staff will leave us for an extra 100 Kina a month, which at today's exchange rate is about $12.50 a week! I've spent my first year at post trying to improve the compensation package we offer our local staff so that we might have a fighting chance to retain the best of them. If you have ever dealt with HR/OE, you won't be surprised to hear that my efforts have been completely unsuccessful. We have two problems here, 1) unemployment runs about 60% in Port Moresby and we receive hundreds of applications for every job vacancy, many of them from people who are actually qualified and 2) our total compensation package is roughly equivalent to most of our comparators. Therefore, as an employer there is, on the surface, no real incentive for us to raise either wages or benefits. The reality is, of course, that people we hire can use the fact that they are employed by the American embassy on their resumes after a year or so to command that extra 100 Kina a month elsewhere. We are the most prestigious farm team in town!

Locally employed staff who have worked at an American embassy for twenty years or more and have good service records are eligible for Special Immigrant Visas or SIVs. In many countries these are highly prized and people will endure all manner of hardships to put in their time to qualify for an SIV. It's an incentive to stay on the job that none of our local comparators in any country can offer and gives us a distinct advantage. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of Papua New Guineans who are interested in acquiring an SIV and most of our local staff don't perceive it as a reason to remain if they can get more money elsewhere.

Recently, I was back in DC to take the Human Resource Officer's training course, one day of which included a field trip to the hallowed halls of HR/OE. "Aha," I thought, "Here's my chance to convince them face to face of our need to improve our benefits package in PNG!" Reasonable people would surely find a way to achieve a mutually beneficial goal.

During our question and answer session with a senior representative from HR/OE, I described my attempts to implement a salary advance plan for our local staff. Any plan of this nature requires their approval and I was pretty certain that I could convince them to give it in this meeting. In order to make ends meet, our staff currently borrow money with interest rates of 30% or higher. With very strict controls, we could allow them to take an advance on their salaries without interest and repay it through payroll deductions. There would be virtually no cost or any risk to the government to put this into effect. I modeled our proposed plan on those that already exist in posts as diverse as Astana and Canberra. It would be a small improvement to our compensation package that our local staff would recognize and appreciate. In my explanation during the class I was earnest, I was serious, in truth, I was pleading. I channeled my inner puppy dog hoping to sway her to the reasonableness of my proposal.

The HR/OE representative then looked at me quite sadly, as if I was depriving a village somewhere of its only idiot, and said slowly and distinctly so that I might understand, "If our comparators don't offer it, we won't consider offering it. We do not/not want to be a market leader."

Ahhh, that goes a long ways towards explaining how Exxon is able to skim the cream of the employment pool.

We then moved into a conversation about the rules and regulations governing hiring practices. Several members of the class seemed troubled by the rigidity of the qualifications and the way they could, inadvertently, rule out the best candidate. Questions were asked. Eyebrows were raised. Heads were shaken.

Several villages, now lacking idiots, were in serious peril, but I was glad for the company.

The HR/OE representative patiently, slowly and distinctly explained that, "We don't want to hire the 'best' candidate, we want to hire the best 'qualified' candidate." 

From the back of the room came the faint rumblings of rebellion. Those of us charged with keeping our embassies running smoothly held onto the somewhat seditious belief that we did, indeed, want to hire the best possible candidate every single time. That to intentionally hire less than the very best candidate was somehow a disservice to the position, the post and the government. Another of my colleagues blurted out, "That just doesn't make any sense!"

Her patience wearing manifestly thin, the good champion of HR/OE drew herself up to the full height of her authority and delivered what is surely HR/OE's mission statement, "Just because something makes sense, doesn't mean that we'll do it."

Since none of us had, until that time, ever heard anyone so defiantly claim mediocrity as their stated goal we made a poster of her statement and displayed it on our classroom wall for the duration of the course.

Unfortunately, for our staff in PNG, when we surveyed our comparators (excluding Exxon, of course, because, apparently, they don't matter), they stated that they did not offer a salary advance plan to their employees. In retrospect, it turns out that they do offer very similar plans but they don't call their plans salary advance plans so they responded negatively to our very specific question..."Do you offer a salary advance plan?" You can probably imagine the reception this explanation received in HR/OE when I renewed my attempt to have them reconsider their refusal to implement the benefit here. Therefore, I will be submitting a new proposal to implement an entirely different plan whereby staff can take a small advance on their salaries (under strictly controlled circumstances) and repay it through payroll deductions. This plan is offered by every single one of our comparators and is called a Salary Sacrifice plan. I have great hopes for it. Our head cashier and our facilities supervisor are the two most recent staff to resign. The parade continues. 

The Sogeri SingSing was held just outside of Port Moresby.

SingSings are gatherings of different tribal groups at celebrations throughout the country. The largest and most famous of these are the ones held in the Highlands, in Goroka and Mt. Hagen but virtually any community can and does sponsor a singsing. Recently, a school in the Sogeri District of Port Moresby held a singsing and attracted half a dozen or so groups to perform. It was scheduled to begin at 9:00am on a Sunday and a bunch of us from the embassy drove out to watch. Several of us had another commitment that afternoon and had to leave by 12:00 but that would give us three hours to see the show and take some photos. We had forgotten that the 9:00am start time was PNG time. We managed to take some pictures of the groups milling around, practicing and warming up and then, right at 12:00, as we were leaving, we saw the first group head down towards the stands to begin their performance. I understand from the reviews in the local press that it was an exceptionally moving singsing. 

Home internet here can cost up to $1,000 a month depending on your level of usage. Most of us keep it in the $200 to $300 range by doing little more than checking our email. In spite of the astronomical fees, it still tends to crash every weekend. When you call Hitron's number to see if they can get it back up and working, you get a recording that says, "Hitron's normal hours of business are from 8:00am until 5:00pm Monday through Friday. If you require assistance outside of our normal working hours, please contact us using our 'Nights and Weekends' number." And, thoughtfully, the recording goes on to give you the 'Nights and Weekends' number.

Well, sure enough, on the Saturday of a three-day weekend, the internet crashed at my place so I dialed the 'Nights and Weekends' number to see if they could manage to get me back online. I listened attentively to the recording that said, "Thank you for calling Hitron's 'Nights and Weekends' line for assistance. Please leave your account number, phone number and a brief description of your problem and we will return your call sometime after we open for business." Then it disconnected. Oh well, for approximately $1,000 a month, you can't really expect much more.

I am fascinated by the content of local television in the various countries in which I've lived. In Bulgaria I could watch sumo wrestling broadcast live from Japan almost any hour of the day. I slowly became a fan and I find myself sometimes wondering how Harumafuji and Jokoryu are faring in the ring. In Pakistan the local television broadcasts were packed full of shows and movies from Bollywood. Considering the longstanding animosity between India and Pakistan, I always found this quite interesting and personally enjoyed the wildly colorful entertainment. In Rome I watched the Italian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and used it to improve my language skills.

Our cable television in PNG comes from Australia and contains syndicated shows from the US and England as well as original productions from Down Under. HBO, CNN and the BBC are all staples of the daily fare. However, if you watch any of the Australian channels, it's the commercials that offer a different perspective from that with which you are familiar. In addition to the usual attempts to sell cars, laundry soap and fast food, we have been inundated lately with bull commercials.

It is a common belief that many commercials are, indeed, bull but what we're talking about here are commercials to sell bulls. Real, honest-to-goodness bulls. From the commercials I've seen, they are incredibly large actual bulls and are probably not suitable as household pets although many of them have endearing features, smooth multicolored coats and an undeniably bovine calmness. At any rate, the Edge (my apartment building) does not allow pets so it would be difficult for me to acquire one. However, I am now becoming quite a connoisseur of bulls, which will surely help me in some aspect of my career. 

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to accompany the ambassador on a trip to the Solomon Islands in August to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the marines landing at the Battle of Guadalcanal. I toured the battle grounds, saw Alligator Creek and the Bloody Ridge and stood on the spot where Douglas Munro, the only Coastguardsman to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, laid down his life in defense of marines trapped on Honiara's beach. I watched sunsets over Ironbottom Sound where approximately 26 U.S. Navy warships were sunk in sea battles with the Tokyo Express coming down the Slot. The Marine Band played at ceremonies honoring the fallen, at the inauguration of a memorial to the under appreciated Coastwatchers and at the memorial to Douglas Munro.

This plaque marks the spot where Douglas Munro was killed.

Their most moving concert, however, was the one they volunteered to give at a school on their only scheduled day off. Several hundred school children cheered and applauded each and every piece played by the marines. The band began the concert by playing the Solomon Islands national anthem and the student body stood and sang like a choir. Later, several of the marines told me that it had been one of the most rewarding experiences they'd ever had as musicians.

The gentleman seated in front of me, wearing an orange shirt, is the last remaining survivor of the Solomon Islanders who rescued John F. Kennedy when his boat, the PT109, was sunk during WWII.

As there were no direct flights back to PNG from the Solomons, we were forced to overnight in Brisbane. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that we'd packed our golf clubs in our luggage. A weekend of golf in Australia is now considered an integral part of any diplomatic mission! I played enthusiastically albeit not well. In PNG we play on the only golf course in town as frequently as possible. Our regular foursome consists of me, the Ambassador, the RSO and a local American businessman. Because the Ambassador is in the group, we have to have a security detail accompany us around the course. Because caddies are mandatory at this club, our entourage thus becomes the four of us, our four caddies, one or two fore caddies (to find the occasional stray shot) and a couple of local security guards. It is a great comfort to us all to see the security guards well armed with bows and arrows. The French ambassador was held up on the golf course not too long ago by two men armed with bush knives so bows and arrows are the local equivalent of an arms race. 

That's about it for now. I run around the embassy addressing issues and challenges like a man playing whack-a-mole. If we make it through a day without losing power, water or airconditioning I give myself a small gold star and a discreet pat on the back. We're expecting several new additions to our post community as new agencies and new State Dept. positions join us. The chancery isn't getting any larger so folks are being asked to shift their offices around to help accommodate the new arrivals. This, as you can imagine, isn't always met with sunshine and smiles, but one of the benefits of working in a very small post is that, eventually, everyone pitches in and does what's required. None of the challenges we face here are insurmountable and we're making progress on all fronts.

I firmly believe that we will even sway HR/OE around to our way of thinking sooner or later. Although I do poke some fun at them, they help us manage what is surely the world's most diverse and multi-national workforce and our local employment practices would be chaotic without them. They work hard at ensuring that our workplace practices are as uniform as possible across hugely varied cultures, legal systems and environments. Without this level of uniformity, no international organization could function effectively. My responsibility is to draft my proposals so that they meet all the requirements that govern our human resources policies and I'm working my way up that learning curve now. 

By the way, I just noticed that one of the more prominent bull sellers is willing to take a credit card payment on line. It's really just a question now of what to name the big lug and whether or not I can have it delivered in the pouch!

Wantoks

Papua New Guinea is a country with 800 indigenous languages. Languages that developed independently of each other in the inaccessible valleys of this mountainous island and were spoken only by individual tribes and clans. The 'official' language of PNG, the language used in government and commerce, is english but the lingua franca is Tok Pisin which is an amalgamation of every other language spoken here including english. It can be translated as Talk Pidgin and we'd call it pidgin english.

Wantoks are the people who speak as you do. They're your family, your clan, your friends, they're the people with whom you share 'one talk'. In short, they're the folks who understand you. We all have wantoks, some of just have fewer than others. PNG is a great place for developing new wantoks but it's a rough place to stay connected to your old wantoks. It's absurdly expensive to get here unless you fly for free. It's also a thirty hour journey from the U.S. no matter how you route yourself. My wantoks could come over to Rome for a long weekend but need at least ten to fifteen days to buzz down here.

I moved from the hotel into my apartment on February 3rd and welcomed my first visitor the following day. It's taken the rest of the month to get my residential internet hooked up but I'm finally settled in with all my boxes unpacked, my pictures hung and my computer back online. My balcony overlooks the Royal Papua Yacht Club and I have amazing views of the sunsets over the Coral Sea. I think I might just stay a while!

 These two beauties are guarding my balcony doors. They are both female figures (that's a skirt!) and I call them Betty and Veronica.

These are penis gourds and I got them in three different sizes because...well, just because!

The job at the embassy is really challenging but I'm enjoying it. As the Management Officer, I am responsible for all the support services and systems in the embassy and I report to the DCM. We are currently situated in the old Bank of Papua New Guinea building and our warehouse is the bank vault. Embassy furniture has never been safer! However, the building is in serious need of repair and identifying the things that don't need fixing is easier than listing those that do. The Management section is by and large considered to be incompetent and inept but I personally don't think we reach those lofty standards yet. The dyke here has more than ten holes and I've run out of fingers. Thank god for penis gourds!

It'll all get better and the entire section is working hard to improve. Inept and incompetent are fully within reach! We're working diligently to bring all our local supervisors' skills up first and then we'll begin helping the staff to understand the service standards we want them to provide. Every single day brings on a new and totally unanticipated challenge. For example, the Monday morning I arrived to find everyone standing on the sidewalk outside the front door because the generators had run out of fuel over the weekend and none of the magnetic locks could be activated to let us into the dark and powerless building. You haven't lived until you've experienced an ambassador who can't get into his embassy because your section forgot to check the fuel levels! On the positive side, the local staff are all extremely pleasant and I enjoy working with them. 

PNG is still very much a tribal society and people pay their bride price and their 'compensation' in pigs and kina. Kina is the local currency but pigs are preferred. Bride price is just what it appears to be, the price the groom's family pays the bride's for her hand. Compensation is the price paid, when someone is injured, killed, robbed or wronged, to avoid open bloodshed and/or tribal war. My facilities supervisor suggested sending three pigs to Ambassador Taylor's residence as compensation for the fuel tanks running dry but I convinced him that the ambassador would much prefer a good cigar and a glass of single malt whiskey and I'd see to it that they were presented. The compensation was offered and accepted and while the sun set over the Coral Sea I was forgiven and, thus, am still the Management Officer. There might be something to this compensation concept after all.

Embassy Port Moresby is a 'lock and leave' post. We open up around 07:00 each weekday and close up shop at 4:30 in the afternoon. All local staff must exit the building at 4:30 and the last cleared American officer still working is charged with turning out the lights and locking up. American officers have access to the building 24/7 and can come and go as they please. One officer went into the embassy on a Saturday to use his computer to check his email. He didn't realize that the internal locks on most of the doors, which normally work by swiping your id card, are de-activated during off hours. This officer decided to take a shortcut through the consular section which had locks on all the exit doors and found himself locked into the consular waiting room with no way to escape. None of the doors, including the one he'd used to come into the waiting room, could be opened from the inside. Fortunately, one of our local guard force saw me waving frantically and called the RSO to come down and let me out! Lesson learned. RSO compensation was the standard good cigar and single malt.

I've had an opportunity to do some traveling around the country. My first trip outside of Port Moresby was up to the highland town of Bulolo. I flew up on a Monday and arrived at the Pine Lodge in the afternoon. The lodge arranged for a group of local policemen to escort me out into the mountains the following day to see the mummies. The Agapena Tribe used to mummify their illustrious dead by smoking them and then they placed them on a wooden rack high on a cliff overlooking their village. Christian missionaries put an end to the practice almost fifty years ago but the few remaining mummies have been left on duty on the cliff. 

Phillip drove the vehicle and provided on-site security. 

The police came to the lodge at 04:30 in the dark and I climbed into the back of their open Toyota truck to take the six or seven hour ride along a dirt track into the mountains. The ride can be generously described as kidney shattering! We reached what seemed to me to be a random point on the track and stopped. A few minutes later a group of men materialized from the surrounding brush and we began a short negotiation over the compensation required to have them lead me up to the mummies. Once a mutually acceptable price was reached, we began to climb through the thick jungle growth on a mud-slick path behind two men hacking a trail with their machetes.

The trail went straight up and I spent much of my climb on my hands and knees. About 45 minutes into the climb I was ready to throw in the towel (I would have actually paid several pigs at that point for a wet towel) but I was urged to crawl up around one more bend and looked up to see that I was face to partial face with the mummies. They seemed to be looking at me with some disdain! I doubt that they had ever seen a muddier, sweatier, gasping and panting white guy in their lives. I was sorely tempted to just climb onto the bench and stay with them rather than slide back down the mountain.

There seemed to be room for me on the left end of the bench but I was discouraged from taking a seat by two guys with machetes.

But slide back down the mountain I did and then endured the six or seven hour journey back to Pine Lodge. I flew back to Port Moresby the next day and immediately caught a flight up to Tari.

Tari is the homeland of the Huli Wigmen. These are the iconic tribesmen who wear elaborate wigs and paint their faces in vivid yellows, reds and blacks. They are a fairly fierce and warlike people who are constantly fighting amongst themselves, clan versus clan. Compensation is a very serious business among the Huli. The lodge I was staying in arranged for me to visit an outlying village to see a sing-sing or dance in costume. The men performed a victory dance which consisted of hopping up and down while beating on kundu drums and chanting war-like phrases in Huli.

 Each man wears a hornbill beak on his back because otherwise, as one of them explained to me, "our backs would be naked!"

The man on the left is wearing his 'everyday' wig while the man on the right has on his 'ceremonial' black wig.

The guy in the center had to borrow a wig, but was inducted into the clan nonetheless!

Funny enough, the yellow paint washes right off. The red actually takes a day or two so I wore it proudly during my visit to two other clans. The first stop after the war-dance village was to see a Spirit Dance performed by a group about ten miles away.

This is a clan elder in his hut. No woman is ever allowed to enter his hut...and damn few would ever consider doing so. The black stuff coating the walls and ceiling is pig grease from his fires, collected over the years and never cleaned. Filthy doesn't begin to describe the interior.

These guys performed a Spirit Dance which is a solemn somber call for blessings from their ancestors. Afterwards, of course, they were just two guys who liked a good joke and an American with red paint on his face!

Finally, I was taken to a 'wig school' to see how the men grow out their wigs. Beginning in their late teens and early twenties, the men go into a remote location for about eighteen months to grow their hair out. They do this at least twice to make their everyday and ceremonially wigs. During this time, if a woman touches their hair, they have to cut it all off and begin again. Therefore, they live like monks and no women are allowed anywhere near them.

The second and third guys from the right are growing out their wigs. The man on the far left is the shaman who blesses their hair and sprays it with holy water every day to keep it healthy.

There are many many more places here that I want to see. I've been doing a lot of scuba diving and there are lots of islands in this part of the Pacific that I need to visit. There are quite a few historic sites from World War II and shipwrecks galore to explore. I think I'll probably stay busy for the next three years.

I'd like to eventually hike the Kokoda Track but that is a grueling nine day hike across the Owen Stanley Range that runs down the center of the country so I won't be doing it this weekend. All in good time. For now, my wantoks, I'm reaching for the stars at work and aspiring to achieve inept and incompetent!!

Silence

I've been in Papua New Guinea since last October without access to residential internet and I didn't want to use the embassy internet to update this journal. I finally moved into my apartment on February 1st and should have access to residential internet very soon. It's a pretty amazing place and I'm looking forward to sharing some impressions and photos.

Everybody Has One

These giant clamshells come from the Philippines but can also be found in the waters around PNG.

People said, "You're going to Pakistan!" "How exciting!" "How dangerous!" "What a fantastic experience it will be!" "You are so lucky!" And they were right. It was exciting, there was an element of danger and it was most definitely a fantastic experience!

People said, "You're going to Rome!" "How exciting!" "How wonderful!" "What a fantastic experience it will be!" "You are so lucky!" And, again, they were right. It was both exciting and wonderful. The two years I spent living and working in Rome were a truly fantastic experience!

People say, "You're going to Port Moresby, uh huh. Where is that exactly?" "Papua New Guinea!?" "Isn't that where one of the Rockefellers was eaten by cannibals?"

Let's be clear about one thing right away, while it's pretty certain that Michael Rockefeller was in fact eaten while in Papua New Guinea, the jury is still out on whether he was dined upon by his fellow man or consumed by a salt water crocodile. All the current research indicates that the cannibals down there haven't eaten anybody in ages. Headhunters are another story, but no one claims that Michael was a victim of those gentlemen and no evidence that he was has ever appeared in any of the souvenir markets hanging by its hair from a pole marked, "All Items Reduced For Fast Sale!!" However, a bit of headhunting does, apparently, still exist in the course of tribal warfare in the Highlands.

Papua New Guinea also has the distinction of being the last place that Amelia Earhart was seen alive, making it appear that flying off aimlessly into the uncharted South Pacific in a tiny two propeller aircraft was preferable to spending another minute on the island.

After people have googled Papua New Guinea, they come back to me and say, "Are you nuts?"

In fact, people now seek me out to give me what I have come to think of as 'The Bad News of the Day'. People outside the Foreign Service quickly become experts on the deplorable living conditions, the poverty and, more specifically, the high rate of violent crime on the island. "Do you know," they'll ask earnestly, "that Port Moresby is the worst capitol city in the world?" Again, in the interest of accuracy, Port Moresby was identified by the Economist magazine way back in 2005 as the 137th (with #1 being the very best) out of 140 capitol cities surveyed. It was clearly better than three other world capitols and, therefore, could hardly be considered the 'worst' as it didn't even qualify for the bronze medal. More current surveys rank Baku, Azerbaijan as the world's dirtiest capitol, Harare, Zimbabwe as the world's worst capitol to live in and on the 2011 list of the most dangerous capitol cities (with #1 being the most dangerous), Port Moresby ranks way down at 7th. There are neighborhoods in Washington DC that rank above 7th for crying out loud!!

People seem to feel it's their duty to seek me out to share their opinions with me. However, opinions are, indeed, very much like belly buttons; everybody has one and other peoples' are only of passing interest to me. I fully anticipate having a blast while I'm there.

My Foreign Service colleagues have the added benefit of being able to do 'research' (by which I mean that they listen to and/or create gossip, rumor and innuendo) regarding the embassy in Port Moresby. "Do you know," they'll ask earnestly, "that every single one of the Locally Employed Staff have quit to go work for Exxon?" (Our LEStaff are the backbone of our embassies and we could not function without them. To lose any of them is awful, to lose them all is an unthinkable disaster) Well, in fairness, not all of them have quit, we still have the ones that Exxon wouldn't hire! From the legions of people who have never been there, I have learned that the embassy staff are unmotivated, untrained and unwilling to work. Morale, they assure me with whispered sincerity, is low. "As you have never been there, how would you know that?" I ask. "I know a guy in Tokyo who has a buddy in Frankfurt who heard it from a friend in Jakarta and Jakarta is really close to Papua New Guinea." Ok then, as long as the information is that reliable I'll consider it. I have no idea what the situation is like at Embassy Port Moresby and I won't know until I get settled in down there. Part of me hopes that it isn't running with the efficiency of a Swiss watch because I'd much prefer to go into an embassy that needs some help and try to improve things than to go to one that is functioning perfectly and screw it up!

Whistling into this storm of negativity are the handful of folks who have actually served at our embassy in Port Moresby. To a man, or in several cases a woman, they are uniformly and enthusiastically positive about their time and experiences at the embassy and in the country. Some go so far as to call it the best tour of their careers.

Housing is somewhat of an issue in Port Moresby. About a year ago, right after I accepted a handshake for the job, I contacted post and asked them to reserve a specific house for me in our compound of six leased houses. I had the advantage of knowing someone who had just finished a two year tour there and she told me which house to request. "Make sure you get House #1," she said. We have six houses in the compound and three of them, including House #1, have balconies that face the sea. So I, dutifully, sent off my housing request to the Management Officer and GSO appealing to their sense of Management Brotherhood. I carefully mentioned that I have committed to three years at post and would really appreciate favorable housing. I must also confess to having a somewhat inflated sense of my own importance. After all, I would be the incoming Management Officer, a man of stature, a man of position and rank, and no longer a mere entry level officer. It felt pretty good to exercise my newfound power and I was already looking forward to that balcony with the sea view.

The utter audacity of my request apparently shocked the Management section into total silence because it wasn't until several months later, after the departure from post of the incumbent Management Officer, that I finally received a reply from the GSO. "Unfortunately," he said, "House #1 was going to be assigned to someone else. As were Houses numbered 2 through 6." Post, in fact, did not actually have a house for me, but they were looking. He felt certain that something would be found eventually and he would let me know as soon as that happened. In the meantime, I would just have to be patient. I can assure you that nothing brings your sense of self-importance back to reality quicker than having a guy who will report directly to you tell you that he'll find you a place to live when he has the time.

At post we have the six aforementioned houses, one apartment, a house for the DCM and, of course, the Ambassador's residence. We are adding several new American staff positions, a tandem (married officers who share a house) has left and been replaced by two single officers (who don't share a house) and we just don't have enough places leased to accommodate this influx of new officers. The housing market is ridiculously tight because Exxon has discovered an enormous bubble of natural gas in Papua New Guinea and is leasing up everything with four walls and a roof. In spite of that, the State Department reluctantly acknowledged that 'having a place to live' is required by the regulations and authorized the embassy to begin finding suitable housing for the additional officers.

This is a fairly straightforward procedure. Post locates suitable properties and after the Regional Security Officer (RSO) approves them for safety and security, post negotiates a lease. Finally, OBO (the overseer of all State property and leases overseas) must authorize the lease. The Housing section at the embassy found a building that is still under construction and reserved five apartments in it. As described to me, the apartments are two bedroom, two bath with balconies overlooking the Coral Sea. It's a new building right on the beach, with all the amenities, pool, gym, etc. and it'll be ready for occupancy in January or February.  The RSO gave the building a thumbs up for safety and security and the leases were then sent off to OBO for signature.

OBO looked at the bottom line on the leases, gasped, clutched dramatically at its small flinty heart and told post to "sober up and go find cheaper apartments." Post carefully explained to OBO that any acceptable properties in this dangerous city were going to rent for a king's ransom or more thanks to Exxon's entry into the housing market. After a bit of back and forth, which may or may not have included inviting OBO to "come on down and find a damn place yourselves", the apartments were leased. Ironically, several of those apartments are reserved for the OBO personnel going to Port Moresby to direct the construction of the new embassy compound scheduled to break ground early next year. Much more importantly, however, one of those ridiculously expensive apartments is mine! I'm fully prepared to be quite happy there.

A good friend of mine sat in on the internal negotiations for the apartments (which were conducted in Washington between OBO, post and the bureau) and sought me out to ask if I'd heard about my new place. "Sure," I said, "it sounds great! Ocean view, brand new building, brand new furniture and appliances package, indoor parking, secure and located right next to the new embassy site. What's not to like?"

He just shook his head and said, "Yeah, but they're small, very small."

"How small can they be?" I asked. "They have two bedrooms and two baths!"

"Yes," he said, "But they are very small bedrooms. Japanese small!"

So, apparently, I'll be living in a brand new 'cozy' two bedroom apartment with a view of the Coral Sea sunsets! Go ahead, try and make me unhappy about that. Of course, I'll be staying in a hotel for the five months just prior to occupying my new place, but I can live with that. Room service can be a wonderful thing!

Speaking of apartments, the woman who owns the one I rent while I'm at FSI has thoughtfully provided it with a treadmill. The treadmill, a state-of-the-art Reebok gym-quality machine, sits in the corner of the living room just by the tv. This apartment is a 'cozy' one bedroom, one bath and the living room holds the couch, the dining table, the tv and the treadmill. Lying on the couch to watch tv puts the treadmill directly into my line of sight. I am fairly adept at ignoring subtle offense, however, the treadmill goes too far. It questions my resolve, it assumes an air of silent disapproval and rolls its nonexistent eyes at my natural inclination towards laziness and sloth. I'll be resting on the couch minding my own business, happily watching reruns of Hillbilly Handfishin' while the treadmill assumes an air of mute superiority right next to the tv. A lesser man would undoubtedly succumb to this constant badgering and even I have been tempted to find my sneakers, put them on and begin exercising once again. But, I will not be bullied into submission by an inanimate machine. Instead, I realized that by turning the couch slightly and placing the pillow on the opposite end I can now watch tv without seeing the treadmill at all. Finding a non-aggressive solution is a key to good diplomacy!

I was told by several of the people who have served there that I would definitely need a vehicle in Port Moresby so I bought a Toyota 4-Runner online from a used car salesman in Japan. It's a 1996 but looks brand new in the photos and has fewer than 50,000 miles on it. The used car salesman's explanation for this suspiciously low mileage was that "Japanese people just don't drive that much." I suppose they prefer spending all their time in their tiny little apartments. Quite a few Foreign Service Officers have used this company when they've transferred to countries that require vehicles with righthand steering. The car, including shipping and insurance, cost a few thousand dollars but I can recover the shipping and insurance fees when I get to post because State will pay to ship a vehicle to post whether it comes from Maine or Tokyo. Generally, since we import the vehicles duty free as diplomats, we can sell them easily when we leave post. We're prohibited from making a profit but we can almost always recover 100% of the original cost of the vehicle. So I wired my several thousand dollars to Japan and have just received a notice from the company that my Toyota will arrive in Port Moresby on October 18th. That'll be perfect. As a rule, we tend to purchase vehicles that are low profile and won't attract any particular attention. Gray, white or black and no-frills are the norm.

This is my low profile Toyota 4-Runner in electric blue with fog lights, sun roof and bull bar!!

There will, no doubt, be things that I won't be able to easily acquire in Port Moresby. Odds and ends that might serve to soften the hardships at this critical needs post. Papua New Guinea is not one of our more sought after posts. It is, officially, a "hard to fill" post and anyone committing to spend an additional year there automatically earns a further 15% differential. The money is nice, make no mistake, but life must also be lived there during those three years so I just sent off my air freight shipment (UAB) packed to the gunnels with the necessities. Four boxes of cigars, a new iMac computer, a shower head to be installed in my bathroom that simulates an Amazon rain forest downpour, a full set of professional quality poker chips, a carton of sealed playing cards, three new bathing suits, a pair of flip flops and 20 pounds of Skippy creamy peanut butter. Bring on those hardships, I'm ready!

In the past month, Washington DC has experienced an earthquake that damaged the Washington Monument and rattled the desks at FSI, a hurricane that caused massive damage up and down the east coast and a flood of biblical proportions. I'm not referring to the flooding that accompanied the hurricane, that was unfortunate but manageable. I'm talking about the flooding that took place in my apartment when I inadvertently left the kitchen sink running while I sat on my balcony reading a good novel and smoking a cigar. The faucet in the sink has a lever that you push towards the water spout to turn off the flow. I was distracted and slapped at the lever but didn't realize that I hadn't completely turned the water off. It seems that the drain chose that exact afternoon to develop a block and, while I sat enjoying myself on the balcony, the sink filled and began to overflow. My conservative estimate is that it overflowed for approximately an hour or so before I wandered back in to get a drink. Water was everywhere! It took several bath towels to mop up the floor and every drawer in the counter by the sink was filled to the brim. The plastic garbage pail under the sink is a ten gallon model and it held the full ten gallons. Water had seeped under the exterior wall and soaked the carpeting in the hallway for twenty yards in both directions. The occupants of the apartment below me built an ark. It was not my finest moment but I coped with it by denying any knowledge of a problem when the building superintendent came down the hallway knocking on every door to find the source of the water. However, as the next natural disaster in line will certainly be a volcano, when one erupts in the middle of Arlington, I can assure you that it really won't be my fault.

I only have two weeks left in Washington and then I head out. I'll fly non-stop from here to Tokyo and lay over there for about six hours. Then I'll catch the non-stop flight on Air Niugini down to Port Moresby. State travel regulations give me the option of either using the Business Class lounge at the lay over point or breaking my journey and staying in a hotel. I prefer to just get there once I start going, so I'm opting for the lounge in Tokyo. Door to door, the trip will take about 30 hours and I'll arrive at approximately 4:30 am on a Sunday. Regulations also allow me to take the next workday off to recover but, unless I'm flat out of it, I'm pretty eager to see where I'll be working for the next three years so I plan to go in on that Monday.

I read in the news this morning that a French diplomat was partially eaten by a shark just off the beach in Port Moresby as he was sail boarding. The shark, for reasons that are not immediately clear, took a bite or two and then swam away. The Frenchman was flown to Australia for patching and repair and will recover. Two thoughts immediately came to mind when I read this piece of news. First,  sharks, apparently, do not respect diplomatic immunity and second, I wondered where he lived and if his spacious and roomy apartment might now be available!

With creative decorating and the strategic use of some mirrors, this apartment will look huge!!

Arrivederci Roma

Piazza San Marco - Venice

I ran the 5K Komen Race for the Cure on Sunday. The Race is an annual fund-raising event in Rome to benefit breast cancer research and it is a point of pride for the U.S. Embassy to field the biggest team of runners each year. There were almost 500 of us this year and several of us were very nearly competitive. In spite of that, all of us participated and enjoyed a great day. I have to admit that a lot of my motivation and desire to excel in the race took a hit when the first runner to cross the finish line (technically, I suppose, the 'winner') did so before I was able to cross the starting line. There were thousands of people in this race and as a fund raiser it was a huge success. For someone who had trained for the event by running tens of yards on a treadmill and visualizing himself, arms in the air, chest thrust forward, breaking the tape at the finish line, it was a bit frustrating like forcing a racehorse to pull a plow! However, after much shuffling forward with the masses, I managed to break free of the pack for ten or fifteen feet and sprinted up to the back of the group just ahead of me. Another small impediment to my competitiveness was my four year old running buddy, Claudio. Claudio is my friend Silvia's son and I ran with him today. I'm proud to say that I could easily have lapped him if I wasn't responsible for holding his hand! By the end of the day, of course, I was sitting on a curb weeping in pain and he was running in circles around me. My own modest estimate is that I finished in the top 100,000.

 Since the day I arrived in Italy, the departure clock has been ticking and the list of  'places to see' and 'things to do' doesn't seem to have gotten any shorter. On the Saturday night before Easter Sunday, a friend and I decided to fly up to Venice for Easter and return on Monday. It might actually have been a good idea or it might have been the bottle of Prosecco, we'll never know. At any rate, bright and very very early Easter Sunday morning we were in a limo headed for Fiumicino with EasyJet tickets to Venice clutched in our hands. Although we didn't have a hotel room, we weren't worried because every human being in Italy was in Rome to see Pope John Paul II beatified. Every human being in Italy that is except for the 400,000 extra visitors to Venice this year. The crowds were overwhelming, the sidewalks and bridges were jammed to capacity and the hotels were booked solid. With a bit of luck we managed to find a room in the very upscale Hotel Danieli on the Grand Canal just a bridge or two down from Piazza San Marco. The room wouldn't be available until later in the day so we went out to see Venice with the crowds.

I decided to buy a couple of the famous Venetian Carnival masks as souvenirs to take down to Port Moresby with me. I checked them out in various stores and stands but didn't see any that looked just right to me. Finally, as I was walking aimlessly down a wide street, I spotted two masks in the window of a small shop that seemed perfect. They were the classical theater masks, one with a smiling face and the other with a frowning face. They were painted in brilliant reds and golds and had fools brocades with bells all around them. I knew that they would be more costly than the 25 to 30 euro masks I'd been seeing but they were much nicer and I was prepared to spend a bit more. I wasn't really prepared for the 250 euro price tag, but a chair and a cool glass of water soon revived me and I got down to haggling. The shop owner explained that the masks I'd been seeing in the souvenir stands were made in China out of plastic but the masks I wanted were authentic Venetian masks made of paper mache, painted with gold leaf and crowned with real Italian brocade. "Go and look," she said, "you'll see the difference. Then come back and we'll talk." Damn if she wasn't right. I think the masks will look really good on a wall in Port Moresby and I'm perfectly willing to talk to you about that bridge you have for sale in Brooklyn!

The mask on the right reflects my expression upon learning how much the shop owner wanted for them!

We enjoyed a great dinner in a small osteria, a coffee at Cafe Florian and a stroll around town that night. We took a water taxi back to the airport in the early morning on Monday and flew back to Rome. All in all we were gone for 23 hours! When we added it all up, between us, counting all transportation, food, drinks, lodging and souvenirs, we spent approximately 3,000 euros. It was as nice a way to see Venice as I could imagine and, based on the availability of Prosecco, I plan to do it again some day.

A good friend of mine owns a really nice wine bar in Assisi. She is a certified sommelier and her place is stocked with an excellent selection of regional and national wines. It's cozy and comfortable and located right in the center of town. It's called Bibenda and it's a great place to sit and relax with a glass of wine while you're visiting Assisi. My own personal level of wine expertise allows me to confidently differentiate between red and white wine and I can tell if it has or does not have bubbles. Beyond that, I rely on my friend to educate me in the nuances of flavor, color and aroma. As part of my ongoing education in wine appreciation, I accompanied her to a gathering of wine folk at the Hilton Hotel in Rome. I believe I was the only person in the room who didn't a) own a winery b) own a vineyard or c) have a master sommelier's certification. We tasted 24 very special Italian wines and listened to an expert describe each one in great detail. Way too late in the process I learned that the plastic bucket alongside my wine glasses was so I could take a small sip of the wine and then pour out the remainder of the glass. I have a vague recollection of trying to make plans to go to Venice again, but that might just be my imagination.

As one of the guests of honor, my friend had places reserved for her and her guests right up in the front of the room. We were each given a small booklet that listed the 24 wines we'd be tasting that night. The others took copious notes based on the expert's opinions, then tasted the wines and modified their notes according to their own taste preferences. I put a little star next to the one I liked best and I was quite proud of the fact that I was still able to make a little star after tasting 24 wines!

These three were red wines!

When all is said and done my car will be shipped back to Maine, I will also have one air freight shipment to Maine, one surface shipment to storage and then on to Port Moresby when I move there in the Fall, one shipment to storage that will remain there until I finish up in Port Moresby and one air freight shipment from Washington DC to Port Moresby in the Fall. Now much of my time is spent trying to figure out what I'll need where and when I'll need it. The movers are coming on June 6th and 7th to pack me out and I'll need to be organized by then. It's a grueling experience that will require me to point at various belongings and state where I want them sent. Actually, upon reflection, it's not so much grueling as it is effortless and hassle-free. Over the years I've moved in every conceivable manner, from having a couple of friends help me put everything into a VW bus and then carry it all up four flights of a New York walk-up to sitting with a cool drink while others did the packing, hoisting and heaving and I can state without fear of contradiction that the later is by far the easier way to do it.

On June 6th a crew from the appointed moving company will arrive at my apartment and begin to wrap, cushion and pack my belongings. I'll be in the way most of the time in a purely supervisory capacity. It shouldn't take them too long to get me packed up and then on the 7th they'll return and load my stuff onto the truck and start it on its way. My sole responsibility will be to determine what goes where. You'd think I'd be right on top of that and, of course, you'd be wrong. I'm still wandering around my house pointing at stuff and not having a clue where it would best spend the next three years. Final decisions, in my case, are usually made by the packers as they randomly put stuff in pre-addressed boxes. Of course, this method of decision making results in increased levels of anticipation when I arrive in Port Moresby. It also absolves me of responsibility when things I desperately need, such as bedding and silverware, are in storage in ELSO and my five dollar custom-made wheelbarrow from Islamabad is first off the truck in Papua New Guinea. "What were those crazy packers thinking?" I can fume in righteous indignation.

When I packed out of Islamabad, most of my things went into ELSO until I arrived in Rome and then were sent to me here. Imagine my delight when I unwrapped my kitchen garbage pail complete with its Islamabad kitchen garbage! Fond, albeit mummified, reminders of meals past. In Rome, all my garbage containers will be emptied before the packers arrive. It's the least I can do.

So, on June 10th I'll leave Rome and head for Maine where I'll assume my customary position on the porch of the beach house. There I'll smoke the occasional cigar and begin to think about my upcoming job in Port Moresby. The beach in front of the house is absolutely perfect for walking. It's a three mile round trip from end to end at low tide and the sand is hard packed and gives the working class families from Boston a firm enough surface for their bocci games. So I'll walk the beach and think about the Financial Management course that I'll begin at FSI in July and the work ahead of me in Port Moresby as post goes onto the ICASS cost allocation system and also begins work on the New Embassy Compound. In addition to these two fairly complex and interesting projects, there will be all the usual day-to-day responsibilities of the Management section to oversee.

The Management section provides all the support functions for the Embassy. Housing, maintenance, logistics, human resources, finance, travel, transportation, shipping, IT, health services, language training and so on all fall under the auspices of the Management section. I find it to be, personally, the most satisfying place to work in an embassy, no two days are ever the same and the challenges test your abilities daily. While I'm sitting up at the beach in Maine, I'll be reading up on the State Department guidance for building a new embassy and the requirements for converting to ICASS. I'll be thinking about undertaking the financial responsibilities for post and all the million details that that will require. But mostly I'll be doing what we all do between posts, I'll be preparing to complain about my housing assignment.

There is a famous piece of sculpture in Rome known as the mouth of truth. It's supposed to bite your hand off if you tell a lie. I wasn't willing to risk it so I put my hand in the 'mouth of small fibs' instead!

One very important function that Management serves at post is to help new arrivals settle in and then to assist departing employees with their outbound move. Once we receive our TMFOUR (our orders), we can have our tickets issued. However, prior to actually taking possession of those tickets we have a check-out list of things to do and signatures to acquire. All of our ID cards, ration cards, CAC cards, MFA cards, parking permits and security badges must be accounted for and turned in to the proper offices. Our commissary account must be settled up and closed. All our telephone and two-way radio equipment must be returned and all bills paid in full. Our health unit folder must be picked up and hand carried to our next post. We must schedule and receive an outgoing briefing from the RSO. Our State Dept. computer account must be transferred to our onward assignment. Our apartments must be inventoried and inspected and any damages must be paid for in full. Our home internet and cable bills must be settled and our accounts terminated with those companies. Our local bank accounts must be closed. We have to appoint a sponsor who will assume responsibility for covering any unpaid bills after our departure. We must complete our final EER and ensure that any EERs that we are required to do for others are completed. The check-out list is extensive and only when it is completed and signed off by each of the various sections, can we be given our tickets.

The Management section in Rome has done an excellent job of organizing out briefing seminars to help guide us through the details of our departures. They have produced a guidebook and a series of checklists and sent individualized countdown spreadsheets to each of us that sit on our computer desktops and can  be accessed every day. The guidebook even has a detailed list of suggestions on what to pack in your air freight shipment, what you'll need on home leave, what might go to storage, etc. I really hope that the packers have a copy and that they've studied it!! While the lists and guidebooks are helpful, if the Management section here was really interested in helping me they would simply assign someone to do it all for me.

Someone said, "Give me five reasons why you enjoy working in the NIV section." Okay.

I've completed my language training and can now muddle through simple conversations in butchered Italian. I've discontinued my volunteer work at the animal shelter and taken my final trip up to Bibenda in Assisi for my wine lessons. I've seen as much of Italy as I'm going to see on this trip and am already making plans to come back. My ride to Fiumicino Airport is scheduled for the morning of June 10th and my tickets are sitting in the HR safe waiting for my signed check-out sheet to be released. I'll spend this weekend seeing some friends and next weekend getting ready for the packers. I'll miss Italy and all my friends here, but I'll be back. In the meantime, I have one heck of an adventure ahead of me in Papua New Guinea. I just hope they give me a really nice house!

I'm quite certain that white ties are not required after Labor Day even in Port Moresby.

Everything's Negotiable

After bidding and lobbying and hugs and handshakes and finally, at last, paneling, you would think that you'd be finished with the entire process and would be all set to move on to your next post. You would, of course, be wrong.

Now you have to negotiate your transfer details, aka your orders, from your present post, or losing post, to your future post, or gaining post. It begins with the actual timing of your move but it doesn't end there. Your itinerary, any required or desired training, the shipment of your UAB (Unaccompanied Air Baggage) and HHE (Household Effects), the shipment of your POV (Privately Owned Vehicle) and your Home Leave will all have to be determined.  You begin the process by filling out a TMTWO form online and hitting the 'submit' button.

The TMTWO is the form you use to carefully craft your plan to cover all the details of your move and it's surprisingly interactive, coherent and easy to complete. When you have completed the form to your satisfaction, you hit 'submit' and it's automatically routed to all the parties who need to approve it: your supervisors, the HR sections at both posts, the Bureau assignment officer in charge of your move and HR in Washington DC. Then the games begin.

The losing post doesn't want you to leave until your replacement is physically pushing you out of your chair, while the gaining post wants you to arrive ten minutes after you've been paneled. In addition to the losing and gaining posts, you must also receive the Bureau's blessing on your transfer plans. So getting everyone to agree to the timing of your move seems a logical place to start.

In Rome I worked out a departure plan with the NIV Section Chief and our boss, the CG. Based on my arrival here in August 2009 I would be, theoretically, expected to depart from Rome in August 2011. My rotational tour had me working in the Econ Section for one year and then transitioning into Consular for my second year. However, because the officer I was replacing in Consular left post early, I was pulled into the NIV section in June instead of August. I was quite happy with this arrangement because I enjoy Consular work and this would give me an extra couple of months working with a great group of people.

I'll be the Management Officer in Port Moresby and the DCM there recommended that I take a course in Financial Management (FMO) at FSI before I report to post. The course is nine weeks long. I also have to take mandatory Home Leave after Rome. This is leave time we are given in addition to our regular annual leave. It must be taken in the US and is designed to ensure that Foreign Service Officers spend time in America between tours. I have over thirty-five days of Home Leave on the books.

So, sitting down with a calendar, an abacus and a slide rule, I worked out my itinerary. My proposed itinerary, or TMTWO, had me leaving Rome in June, taking most of my Home Leave before the FMO course, taking the course, then taking a final week of Home Leave in September to attend my son's wedding and finally heading down to PNG immediately after the wedding in the beginning of October, hungover but happy. The officer who will replace me in the Consular Section is already in Rome, working in the Econ Section. Therefore, leaving early isn't as much of a problem as it would otherwise be and so, Rome agreed to release me in mid-June, approximately two months early, based solely on my enrollment in the FMO course.

Upon discovering that I would be leaving Rome in June, PNG promptly asked me to forgo the training course and report to post immediately after Home Leave to cover the early departure of the incumbent Management Officer. Rome coughed discreetly into its hand and withdrew its approval for my early departure because I would no longer be attending a training program... and, I was back to square one. Now I would have to stay in Rome until August, not receive the Financial Management training, take my thirty-five days of Home Leave and still arrive in PNG in early October. Rome, it seemed, was willing to accommodate PNG when it came to training schedules but mere staffing shortages warrant no sympathy between posts.

In fairness, PNG is a very small post with fewer than a dozen American officers so gaps in staffing can have an exaggerated effect there. The current Management Officer was scheduled to depart in September but is, I would imagine, being pressured by his onward assignment to report there early. Once Bureau realized that I would either arrive in PNG in October with Financial Management training or I would arrive in October without it, they weighed in and re-set my original itinerary so that I'll arrive in PNG in October after my FMO training. The timing of your transfer will require some give and take all around.

Next on the list was negotiating with HR in Washington DC for the shipment of my car. State shipped my car to Rome for me and on my TMTWO I asked them to ship it back to the U.S. when my tour ends. It's a left-hand drive vehicle (as so many American cars tend to be) and PNG follows the British habit of driving on the left (or as we commonly think of it, the 'wrong') side of the road so I don't want to ship my old Mustang down there. I explained this in my TMTWO and stated that the government wouldn't incur any storage expenses in the U.S. because I'd put the car back in my garage.

I received a brief message from HR advising me that they "would not ship my POV back to the States simply so I could use it for Home Leave".  Realizing that there had been a miscommunication somewhere along the line, I decided to call the HR tech and explain the situation a bit more clearly. Silver tongue'd devil that I am, I was certain that I could sort this out in a couple of minutes on the phone. After all, my car would require special permits in PNG, post recommends against shipping left-hand drive vehicles and I wouldn't feel comfortable driving a left-hand drive vehicle in a right-hand drive world anyway. Therefore, if it wasn't going to PNG, the only option left would be to send it back where it came from...to Maine.

I suppose that my biggest failing is that I lack imagination. HR correctly brought to my attention during our conversation that a third option does indeed exist as noted in 14FAM615, the rules and regulations that govern our moves. "If you don't want your POV to go to your next post, we will ship it to our storage facility in Brussels (ELSO) and hold it until your post after that and then, we'll ship it there". "But", I said, "PNG will be my last post because I have to retire at the end of that tour". "In that case", the HR tech replied, "we'll ship it from ELSO back to the States when you retire"!

Somehow, shipping my car to ELSO, storing it for three years and then shipping it to the States made more sense to HR than simply shipping it to the States when I leave Rome. Helpfully, my HR tech reminded me that I could, in fact, purchase a right-hand drive vehicle at my present post and a) ship my old car to ELSO, b) store it there for three years, then c) ship it home, and they would d) ship the new vehicle to PNG. Yep, it's all right there in 14FAM615! Fortunately for me, those same regulations allow me to ship my POV to "an alternate destination" using 'cost-contruct'. This means that I can choose to ship the car back to Maine and pay the difference between the cost of that routing and the cost of shipping it to PNG or shipping it to ELSO and storing it for three years. Under 'cost-construct', the least expensive option is to simply ship it home so, in the end, the car will go back to Maine and I won't have to pay anything out of pocket. I have to make these arrangements with our Transportation Dept. in Washington after my orders are cut. Why, you may well ask, can't that be put on my orders? Beats me.

I honestly believe that they still think that I'm trying to scam them into shipping my car home so I can use it for Home Leave and somewhere in the dark suspicious part of my psyche, I believe that if I weren't going to the U.S. between posts they would have shipped it home without batting an eye!

The remaining chips on the table are the pack-out and shipping of my personal stuff, some from Rome to the U.S. and then to PNG and some from Rome directly to PNG, an approved access to the storage facility in Hagerstown while I'm at FSI, my request to use one week of my Home Leave after the FMO course and the actual routing of my trip to PNG. This last point is important because, depending on the routing, the trip to PNG from the east coast of the U.S. can take up to 40 hours!! Why do I suspect that the only acceptable routing on my orders will require me to row in the economy section of a small boat from Hawaii to Guam?

In other good news, my Class One Medical clearance will need to be renewed prior to my departure for PNG. That means a full fluids, filters and working parts tune-up before I leave Rome. In anticipation of this medical examination, and in full recognition of the deleterious effects of nearly two years of Italian food and enough gelato to pave a hockey rink, I have re-loaded the C25K program on my iPod and begun to run again! I, of course, use 'run' in the figurative sense of the word. I actually amble, meander, saunter and stroll on a treadmill in the gym in my apartment building. Breaking into anything more than a trot makes it almost impossible to hold my cigar and turn the pages on my book.

I took a trip up to Siena a few weeks ago and managed to climb the bell tower! I was somewhat surprised and moderately disappointed when post refused to send a helicopter to bring me back down!

Here's the view going back down the 479 steps.

For Christmas my son, the soon-to-be chef, gave me a brownie pan and five boxes of brownie mix. The entire NIV section in Rome thanks him.

Thanks!!

I have four months left in Rome (assuming my orders will finally be approved) and reservations for the guest room are now difficult to obtain as family and friends all jostle for a last visit to the Eternal City. I will stop volunteering at the dog shelter next week and I plan to spend my remaining weekends seeing as much of Italy as I can before I leave. I'm pretty sure that once HR discovers that I intend to use my POV to travel around the country, they'll insist on shipping it to the States immediately. Anyway, it sure will be nice to have it back in the States so I can use it while I'm on Home Leave!

PNG'd

I knew I should have copyrighted my name!

During orientation in the Foreign Service, among the many things you learn are dictionaries worth of acronyms. PNG'd, for example, is a bad thing. It means that you've been declared "Persona Non Grata" by the country in which you serve and you must leave. Diplomats can be asked to leave a country for violating its laws or in retaliation when host country diplomats are expelled from the U.S. or simply upon the whim of a dictatorial head of state. In either of the latter two instances there is a certain cachet in being PNG'd but in the first case, it is never thought to be career enhancing.

In my orientation class, we looked amongst ourselves and tried to guess who would be the first to become an ambassador and we reached an almost unanimous consensus on one candidate. He has not disappointed us and is well along the right track. When I suggested that we might also take a shot at forecasting who would be the first to be PNG'd, the opinions were more varied. However, I say with pride that I won the vote, if only by a narrow margin!

As of Monday last, I have been officially PNG'd. Fortunately for me, however, PNG is also an acronym for Papua New Guinea and that's where I'll be going next. I was offered and have accepted a handshake to be the next Management Officer in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, just made her first trip to Port Moresby in what I can only imagine was a visit to prepare them for my arrival. It was thoughtful of her to do so.

The bidding process for my first mid-level job, which began on August 5th with the release of the summer bid-list, is over. My goal was to find a Management Officer's position at a smaller embassy or consulate and the position would have to be non-language designated because I didn't want to spend any more time at FSI learning another language. So, from the more than 2,000 positions available on the original bid-list, I had between twenty and twenty-five spots that met my criteria. These had to be narrowed down to fifteen because that's the maximum number of bids we are allowed to submit. I picked fifteen jobs, prioritized them according to my own personal preferences and began to lobby.

Between August 5th and the end of the bidding process I sent and received 276 bid related emails. In addition to these were the emails sent directly from posts and bureaus to my various references and the subsequent responses. I can't imagine that there were fewer than 30 reference related emails. In addition to the 300 or so emails sent and received, I made about twenty telephone calls and had four telephone interviews. Lobbying is a serious business.

Because the decision on who will be offered which job is a collaborative effort between the post and the respective bureau, a candidate has to lobby both ends of the pole. This is especially important for first time mid-level bidders because many, if not all, of the people who control the job won't know you yet. So you introduce yourself and attempt to convince a group of total strangers that you are a well qualified and serious candidate for their vacancy. It is a time consuming and frustrating process.

There is a date, in our case November 8th, before which no handshakes can be offered. This is to ensure that everyone has a fair and equal opportunity to present their strongest effort for the jobs they want. In reality, however, many posts/bureaus have already pre-selected the candidate of their choice and will let you know early on that you "haven't made our short list of candidates".  While it isn't pleasant to hear that, it is a reality and it allows you to focus your efforts on jobs that are still actually available.

Towards the end of the process I had a realistic shot at four positions. After doing some more research (which consisted of tracking down people from each of the posts and soliciting their frank opinions), I removed myself from consideration for two of the jobs and received offers of a handshake on the remaining two. Port Moresby was my top remaining choice and I accepted it. It was just a simple as that!

As the Management Officer, I'll have responsibility for the infrastructure, finances, human resources and all the other services the embassy provides to its employees. I'll have most of the embassy's locally hired staff and three or four American officers reporting to me. Oh, and I'll be responsible for the embassy yacht.

Embassy Port Moresby has a 42' motor yacht that serves as an Emergency & Evacuation vessel and can be used by Embassy staff on the weekends. The waters around the country are filled with tropical reefs and several World War II wreck sites. There are all the usual South Pacific pleasures to enjoy: scuba, fishing, sailing, drinking cleverly named beverages filled with fruit and little umbrellas, and watching spectacular sunsets. On the flip side, Papua New Guinea does get fairly negative reviews in the media due to a sky high rate of violent crime, astronomic unemployment figures, crushing poverty, cholera, cannibalism and a bit of headhunting. At least it won't be dull.

The native dress seems to consist of something called "a penis sheath made from a dried gourd" which, I assume, I will only be required to wear to formal State functions. I am uncertain as to how one goes about being fitted for his gourd. Does one size fit all or are they individually tailored? Is there a choice of linings or only whatever it is that is on the inside of a gourd? The only photo I could find online showed a gentleman wearing his with panache and a white tie. I have a white tie.

I have spoken to several colleagues who have served there and to a man, or in one case a woman, they have enjoyed the experience without reservation. The biggest drawback to being there is that it takes about 40 hours to get there from the U.S. However, there's a rumor making the rounds that Continental might begin a direct Port Moresby - Guam flight which will cut 10 hours off the journey. It just keeps getting better!

This is either the Coliseum or one of the better hotels in Papua New Guinea.

I am still working as a Consular Officer in Rome adjudicating non-immigrant visas. Things became slightly more interesting here this week when a young woman came to the security check point and put her bag on the x-ray belt. She was wearing red leather boots and a long black coat. Standard procedure in this case required her to open her coat for a quick visual inspection. When she did so, it was noted in the duty log that "she was wearing red leather boots and a bulky black coat, no other clothing .. at all". Madam, your visa is approved!

Taking the castle in Assisi by storm.

My friend Mary came down from Embassy London for a quick visit to Rome and we did all the usual tourist stuff; visited the Coliseum, drank Prosecco, toured the Vatican and ate chocolate. Much of what I've enjoyed about living in Rome is the willingness of my friends to come here to visit. We had a perfect day for a drive up to Assisi and found a great little osteria in which to have lunch. It was one of those places where you just ask the waiter to bring you whatever is good that day. The meal was incredible. After lunch I told Mary that the guest room in Port Moresby would be hers for the asking and she said, "40 hours, cholera, cannibals, and crime, are you crazy!"  Hey, I have a boat!

Mary tossing her coin in the fountain and wishing to come back to Rome. PNG... not so much!

Knowing myself as well as I do, I fear that I am already drifting into the "that's interesting, but what does it have to do with Port Moresby" mode. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence in our lifestyle because we usually find out where we're going next long before we've finished what we're doing now. I still have a lot of things to finish at work and there is still an awful lot of Italy that I haven't seen. I won't know for a while yet what my actual date of departure from Italy will be and it's dangerous to lose too much focus on the job I'm doing now because, although I have a handshake on the PNG job, I still have to be paneled for it. Paneling makes the offer final and official and it can take place any time up to two months after the handshakes are given. Situations can and do arise prior to paneling that cause handshakes to be broken so until you are paneled you don't pack your bags. After I'm paneled for the job, I can begin to work out my travel orders which will then determine when I'll leave Italy, where I'll go from here, how long I'll stay there, what training I will require and when I will finally arrive in PNG.

I'm not finished with Italy by any means, but I am beginning to imagine what life in the South Pacific will be like. I'll be there about this time next year and there's a lot of stuff that has to happen between now and then. I'll have to get ahold of a comfortable dried gourd for one thing. So, pack up your red leather boots and plan on coming down for a visit! Did I mention I'll have a yacht?