A country with two names, both seemingly correct, but it all depends on who you are talking to. The same applies to the largest city, which also goes by two names, Rangoon/Yangon. The name Burma has been used in some variety since the 18th century colonial period, and both Burma and Myanmar are an ethnonym
Well, after weeks of republican infighting in the House and only hours to spare before what seemed like a certainty, cooler heads prevailed and both chambers and the President signed off on a 45 day continuing resolution, kicking the can to mid-November and avoiding a government shutdown. Whenever the government shuts down because congress cannot
Well, I have a little bit of egg on my face. Nearly 2 months after I was assigned to Peshawar, Pakistan, my career development officer called and gave me an option to serve in a different Special Incentive Post, and I am happy to announce I will now be moving to Rangoon, Burma (Yangon, Myanmar)
With my recent announcement that I will be doing a one year unaccompanied tour, I have been getting quite a few questions on the nature of the assignment, and why exactly someone would choose to do this. A Special Incentive Post or SIP for short, is any post around the world that due to extraordinary
Some of the most common questions I seem to get from prospective hires, is in regards to salary, financial prep before joining, and what true take home pay actually looks like. After I was hired, but before I started, I did a little dive into the way salary is calculated in the Foreign Service (FS),
Since I will be moving to Peshawar next summer, I thought it would be nice to highlight the assignment a bit, and give a brief history on the city and our role there. Peshawar is a city of 2.3 million people and the capital city of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is found in
How difficult is it to get time away from the job if you are the only provider at the embassy? If you are new, is accruing paid leave difficult? A few people have asked me this, and this was something I also asked folks before I onboarded. Simply stated: It is not difficult to get
Several folks have asked me recently what my “day to day” work life is like, and I realized that even before I arrived to post, but had completed orientation, this was a huge black hole of knowledge for me too. I think most folks coming from the private sector are focused on patient volumes and
I learned this past month where I will be headed, and am so excited to announce I will be taking a solo assignment to Peshawar, Pakistan. Choosing to do a solo post might seem like a strange decision, and a few months ago I would have never entertained it, but ultimately my wife and I
This past week was an exciting one. Exactly one year to the day I learned I would be heading to Mauritania, I received my official bid list for my next assignment in Summer 2024. This marks a pretty big change from how the cycle went down last time when I was in orientation. Back then,
