One year down...one to go

Well, it's actually been just over a month since my one year anniversary in Caracas (Aug 17), but it's kind of just hitting me. All the friends I arrived with are getting their onward assignments, as I did a couple months ago. In a lot of ways, it's sad to think about moving on. Since I didn't have a lot of time to bond with my classmates in Washington, this is the first group of colleagues that I really feel I've bonded with. I'm already starting to make tentative plans to visit a couple of my best friends at their next posts.

I haven't received my official schedule for training, home leave, and departure date for Suva yet, but I arrived here in August, so I could technically leave anytime between July first and September 30. It's more likely to be a bit later in the range, since I had a little extra time between when I'd finish training and when I need to arrive in Suva. I'm supposed to get about 4 weeks of home leave, where I have to be somewhere in the US, and not working. Then I have about 32 weeks of language training. I don't yet know the order of events.

I had an interesting experience covering for a few days at the consulate in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. The US Consulate there only has 3 American officers and about 9 locally employed staff. Two of the three officers were gone, and the Consul General was the only other officer still there. She was not very involved with consular operations, so I learned quite a bit about being the only officer at a small post (ie. there's no one around to ask your questions to). Though Fiji's staff is probably more than 4 times the size of Curacao, it's about one sixth the size of Caracas, so it will be a culture change.

Before Curacao, I had a really nice trip with a group of 7 other friends to Los Roques, which is one of the two most well-known tourist attractions in Venezuela. It is a picturesque archipelago of islands in crystal turquoise water and white sand. There was a lot of fun snorkeling and relaxing times laying on the different beaches. In a couple of weeks I'm heading to another state and part of the country, which is mountainous, chillier, and has a smaller town feel. I'm hoping to look into paragliding, and there is an observatory, a lake, trails to hike, etc.

Yesterday I had some friends over to debut my new little grill that I shipped down in my supplemental HHE shipment, which I received a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time using it, and was fun to grill out on my balcony. I also made Mom's potato salad recipe for the first time since coming back down. I sent some pickles in that same shipment, since I haven't found them for sale anywhere here. It turned out pretty well and was a nice taste of home :)

Suva, Fiji

Well, I found out a couple weeks ago that my next post will be Suva, Fiji! I'm pretty happy about it; it was the number 3 post on my list. I like it for obvious reasons, like the tropical location. I also liked the opportunity to take on a bigger responsibility job-wise at a smaller post. The weird thing is knowing where I'll be going 22 months from now! I have a year to finish up in Caracas, before heading back to the US for a month of home leave, and about 9 months of training in Washington (I have to learn Hindi!).

In other news, I received my HHE supplemental shipment this week, which included an electric piano I bought when I was home in May. It wasn't too hard to set up (it's slightly smaller than a regular upright piano, though it has a full keyboard). It's been so nice to be able to play again! I brought a lot of my and mom's music back with me.

Finally, I learned I was selected to do a TDY (which means a short tour of duty) in Curacao in a couple weeks. There is a small consulate there, and both the consular officer and her back-up will be out of the country, so I'll get to put my newly acquired experience to use covering the office while they're gone, while enjoying the island for a few days :)

We recently had a very hectic week, when my two bosses and my top locally employed prison-portfolio coworker were out of town for a week when we had two new citizens arrested and a change in local laws that left us unable to carry out our prison visits as usual. On top of that, we had 2 delusional citizens walk in to our waiting room unannounced with interesting stories and requests. So my coworkers and I had to figure out how to do a lot of things we're used to turning to others to tell us how to do. It was a challenging but rewarding week.