Like other parts of the Sahel, Mauritania is a society where larger women are considered more beautiful. Part of this is rooted in the belief that it is a status symbol of wealth to have a spouse that is larger as it means you can afford to feed them well. A man with multiple wives
I just wrapped up a nearly 3 week visit to the U.S., with part of it involving some training for work. When the powers that be offered a class for us to understand our procurement system better, and how to maintain our complex medical inventories, I pounced at the opportunity. With the embassy trying to
How has educating your children in the Foreign Service been thus far, are the schools decent, and do you have to pay for their education abroad? This is a pretty complex question to answer just because there are so many variables that go into education, even domestically, so it can be particularly amplified abroad. Just
As I have noted in the previous weeks, my assignment to Pakistan was changed to Burma for summer of 2024. Although I was looking forward to moving to Peshawar, I am elated to be moving to Rangoon next summer. The food, the pagodas, the colonial architecture, the people. Rangoon is probably one of the last
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
