Vacations: 3 Different Trips

In March, I took a road trip to Burkina Faso with six friends and it was a wonderful, relaxing, interesting couple of days. When I returned to Bamako and downloaded the pictures, there were many other photos from my R&R as well. So, now you get to see pictures from my Nov/Dec trip AND from Burkina Faso! And, from my April R&R in Italy!

First, USA R&R. I spent a few weeks at my parents' house in Durham, NC. My Minnesota grandmother flew down and we got to spend a lovely week together, catching up and enjoying chilly Durham. My brother and his wife came for Thanksgiving so I had time with them as well. And most importantly, I got time with my fantastic mom and dad, who are my biggest fans and my favorite people in the world. And so I present to you, R&R 2016 pictures:

My grandma Nancy watching the birds in my parents' back yard. 

The neighborhood bamboo grove that my father's "Bambusero" group has made visitor-friendly.

Pretty house with a pretty tree in Parkwood.

Dad and Joe. 

Proud dad at the red hydrant grove. 

Bamboo groves are so pretty.

Off to visit the goat farm!

Hungry goats.

This guy loved my grandma... and her cane! He stuck by her like a faithful pet, begging to be patted and head-scratching on her cane. 

Silly kids!

By goats!

Smiley mom on the hill!

Thanksgiving with my awesome family.

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Next up is my recent trip to Burkina Faso! A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I'd like to join a group planning a road trip across the Mali-Burkina Faso border, and after dithering and procrastinating, I finally decided to do it. To give you an idea, this isn't a trip that is taken lightly: the security situation in Mali is such that travel farther than 50 kilometers out of town, or any trip overnight, has to be approved by our regional security office. For our trip, we had to provide details: what route would we take, what communication devices would we have, where would sleep, what tourist sites would we visit. We were also given locator devices to take with us. 

Luckily, this meant a very well-planned trip, and off we went directly after work on Friday! We took two cars and motored to the border. There were five stops to make, though I couldn't tell you what was done at each. We showed our passports a couple of times, the vehicle owners presented their "carte grise" or registration cards, and paid the various "peage" or tools. We chatted with the border police, who were various shades of stern, jovial, or disinterested. 

On the way to Burkina, we stopped for a quick road-side picnic.

Banfora Hotel

Asha at Domes de Fabedougou 

Domes de Fabedougou

Cascades de Karfiguéla

Cascades de Karfiguéla

Water pipes

Yes, we went to McDonald... no golden arches but the burger was delish!

Lake Tangrela, where it is sometimes possible to see hippos. Not the evening we went, however.

Ladies selling baskets.

Ready to take a hike!

Our little adventure group.

Size.

Artistic photography in cool landscapes.

Our guide managed to take us places just before the hordes of school-kids... we were
on our way out of the hiking area, thank goodness.

Giant baobob. We went inside and learned its history. 

Cashew tree fruit!

Start of our walk through the historic area of Bobo Dioulasso.

Narrow alleyways.

Fish stew, anyone?

Water collection.

A little musical interlude. 

The Bobo Dioulasso mosque. 

Inside the mosque.

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And last but not least, here are a few pictures from my Italian R&R. Friends of my parents decided to spend a year in Italy, renting apartments in different parts of the country to explore different regions.

View from uphill on Todi.

Assisi view.

Mom & pop, the Italian travelers!

Mom enjoying the view. 

Dad being a humble beggar... with a view!

Orvieto's fabulous church.

Views from Orvieto.

Taking a break.

The hilltop town of Civita di Bagnoregio.

Pretty archway in Perugia. 

Lovely courtyard of a B&B. 

Sardinia: hiking to get a peek of a gorge.

Sardinia beach from above.

A nuraghe, ruin of a people who inhabited Sardinia in the tenth century or so.

Pops of red.

Penant on a hilltop with a grand view.

2017 Update

It's happened again - two months went by without my posting a thing. And there's much to tell! So from the beginning...

November 2016 saw me return to the U.S. for my first ever "R&R". This a type of leave that the Foreign Service grants where I use my regularly earned annual leave but the State Department pays for my airline ticket. Every post is different in terms of whether you earn an R&R or not. In Mali, we earn three for a two-year tour. I took three weeks of leave and used my ticket to fly to Durham, NC, where I visited my parents. During that time, I also zipped up to DC to get some doctor's appointments out of the way and to visit friends there; and down to Miami to visit my grandmother, aunt and cousin. The trip was exactly what I wanted it to be: relaxing, somewhat social, but not terribly busy. During my stay we celebrated my mom's birthday as well as Thanksgiving, for which my brother and sister-in-law drove in. Getting to see everyone was really fulfilling and reassuring for me, somehow.

After my R&R, I headed to Johannesburg, South Africa, for a leadership workshop, which was very useful and also gave me the opportunity to see familiar faces from training. It also eased me back into the work mindset. My class organized a trip to a nearby safari park and I got to see giraffes (those goofy, oddly graceful, lovable animals!) and hungry lions, as well as a wildebeest!

And finally, it was time to return to Bamako. Aside from one of my suitcases getting mysteriously separated from the other and going to Ethiopia, the trip home was pretty smooth (and the suitcase arrived three days later, intact). Just as I got back, many others went on holiday leave, so my last few weeks have been curiously calm. Still busy, of course, and still filled with a variety of tasks and challenges that keep things interesting, but minus the manic feeling I've gotten used to. A not-too-small part of me hopes that I can hold onto this calm!

In other news, I found out about my next assignment. In 2018, after going back to DC for consular training, I will be heading out to experience the thrills and chills and joys and challenges of...

Paris, France!

I'm incredibly excited, obviously! Paris will be 180 degrees from Bamako in just about every sense. About half the people I tell warn me about how difficult it will be, how unhappy most are there, how crazy the work schedule gets, etc. And I believe them to some extent: it's a large embassy and will probably not have much of the cohesion that I love so much here in Bamako. My section alone will have fourteen people in it and we will live in different places in the city. Consular work can be difficult and Paris is Paris, so there are tons of high-profile visits, which for a junior officer means lots of 'volunteering' to do things like babysit luggage. Also, Parisians are notoriously difficult to befriend.

However. If I cannot enjoy two years in Paris, it seems to me I'm doomed. My hope is that in the time up to summer 2018, I can do enough research and reaching out to find groups, hobbies, adventures, etc, to keep me occupied and meeting people. It seems to me that if I get lonely/bored, I can invite friends from all over to come see me. I will take a day trip to Marseilles, or Brussels, or Prague, or anywhere I want.

So that's my news! 

En Route

It's been an exciting week so far, and it's only Tuesday night. And it's gonna get more exciting!

Bidding

Over the weekend, I researched various cities and countries so that I could try to put in my best "bid list" for my second Foreign Service posting. The first time I bid, it was a very different process, where I just designated each post on the list (~100 jobs/posts) as "high," "medium," or "low," and provided a short comment on the side to explain particular reasons for my designations. 

To clarify - bidding is the term used for when we try to figure out our onward assignments in the Foreign Service. It can happen anywhere from a few years out to a few months out. In my case, I'm bidding in November 2016 for an assignment in 2018. 

This bidding experience started out with (not surprisingly) confusion. I thought I wasn't supposed to bid until spring 2017, then realized at the last minute that I needed to do it now. My bidding options are limited by job type, since it's required that I do a consular tour next. This is because every Foreign Service Officer is required to do some time in the consular field within their first two assignments, and I've been doing management work in my first tour. 

Anyway, once it was clear that my bidding research had to go, go, go, I dove in! The listed started out with almost 150 options, which quickly got reduced as I scratched off non-consular tours. The locations on the list varied widely across all regions and most continents, including large metropolitan cities and tiny hilly-side towns or far-flung places I had to enter into Google maps to reveal their actual locations. 

The next step was figuring out "timing." This involves figuring out what month I can leave my current post (for me, March 2016) and determining how much leave and training I'd be required to take versus how much I'm allowed to take. Each post on the list includes a month and year that they want someone to show up, so my list was vastly reduced as I crossed off places marked as 2019 or 2016 (too late, too early). There's a limit on how much training one should take within their first couple years, so that knocked a few others off the list. 

At the end of it all, I had 19 choices and they covered many languages (including French and English, as well as Mandarin, Spanish, Lao, Thai, Portguese, etc), regions and timings. I submitted my bid list to my Career Development Officer and now... I wait. 

I'm not good at waiting, at least not patiently!

Voting

More important that bidding, I finally voted! I did my overseas vote in the presidential elections and am proud of myself for getting it in on time. Not much to say on this point, but it felt very good and it's incredibly sad that I'll miss the election results 'in the moment', because...

R&R

I'm at the airport awaiting my flight! That's right, it's finally time. I'm on my way home, at last, and I'm very excited. FAR more excited than I could have predicted six months ago. My R&R plans include resting and relaxing and catching up with my parents in Durham; visiting friends in DC; and visiting family in Miami. Also eating tons of good food (mostly from my dad's fantastic kitchen!) and trying my best not to think about work. :)

Never a dull moment... so long for now, Bamako! I'll be back!

--Z